A Genealogy Journey

Fleeing the Famine – Kielty Family History in Ancoat’s

By

F_Leigh

This blog post follows on from my previous narrative Tracing the Kielty’s of Roscommon: From Ireland to the borders of a Lancashire industrial town. Since that introduction I have continued to dig into my Kielty family history in England and was led to another family member living in Ancoat’s, Manchester.

That relative was Catherine Kielty, eldest known daughter of my 4x great grandparents John and Mary Kielty who left Ireland for England during the period known as the ‘Great Starvation’.

Catherine was born in 1817 in the township of Boyle and married John McDonough in the same place in 1838. They had six known children, two born in Ireland and four born in Manchester. Their youngest son was Peter McDonough, born in Ancoat’s in 1857. It was researching Peter’s origins that led me back to Catherine.

Catherine died a year after Peters birth. After the death of his mother, Peter went to live with his Grandmother Mary in Ashton-Under-Lyne and was referred to in records as an ‘orphan’. After the death of his grandmother in 1869, twelve-year old Peter lived with his Aunt Ann (Catherine’s sister).

Irish Family History Research

Discovering Catherine Kielty in Ancoat’s in 1851 provided a breakthrough in my Irish family research. I was particularly excited to see familiar surnames living with and next door to Catherine on the 1851 census. The census presented the possibility that the Kielty family had reconnected with friends and relations in Manchester that had made the move before them, or perhaps they had all left Ireland together. Whether it was a reunion in Manchester, or that the entire community had fled Ireland at the same time, the motivation for leaving Ireland was never far from my mind when researching into Catherine’s new life in Manchester.

A famine report from Boyle township in 1846 tells the suffering of the population. The report describes the people as living in great distress. The children were reported to be in a state of starvation, and many declared that they hadn’t eaten anything in over two days. Those that had food were living on cabbages and turnips only.* At the time the McDonough family left Ireland Catherine’s two sons were less than 10 years old.

“A vast influx of Irish families into the town, in a state of utter destitution.” – Manchester Board of Guardian’s meeting, 1847.

An example of a typical Irish labourers cottage

Ancoat’s

Ancoat’s – A district where workers’ homes mingled with industrial premises, large and small, it could claim to be the world’s ‘pioneer industrial suburb of the Industrial Revolution’. – Historic England

Catherine and her family left their small, thatched hut in Ireland and settled in industrial Manchester residing first around the canal dock yards before sharing a humble home in Back-Cotton Street with six other Irish families including lodgers. The house was a small up-and-down with a cellar dwelling below. At this time in Victorian industrial England whole families would live in just one or two rooms of the house, with nothing but a fireplace and straw beds to sleep on. The parish of St Jude’s in Ancoat’s where the family settled was densely populated and had no private sanitation at this time. There was a total of eight adults and eight children living at the property in 1851.

On the street outside an odious smell would have filled the air: a mix of waste of all sorts and the expulsion of smoke and gases from the surrounding towering factories. The polluted air caused respiratory diseases and increased mortality.

Interior of a Manchester Cellar. Illustration for The Pictorial Times, 4 November 1843 Credit: Look and Learn



Never intended for human occupation, cellar dwellings were rented out by unscrupulous landlords for profit and were notoriously grim and dangerously unhealthy.

Starting with Catherine’s occupation in 1851, I was able to build a picture of what life was like for her and her family in Ancoat’s in the mid-19th century. What I discovered revealed the tough conditions felt by those living in slum areas and more specifically the struggles experienced by our immigrant Irish relatives fleeing famine in their home country, only to face a different kind of hardship once they arrived in England.

From an educational perspective I enjoyed researching about Victorian women’s urban occupations not having this same opportunity with other female ancestors living in rural areas. Whilst exploring the different household occupations found on the 1851 census, I was reminded of the BBC show ‘Turn Back Time’ where a host of families experience different decades in different income households during the Victorian period. This series is worth watching for bringing to life the different ‘at home’ occupations of the lower urban working class.

Hawker

The census of 1851 reveals that my third great-grand aunt Catherine McDonough (nee. Kielty) earned an income as a ‘hawker’.

A hawker was someone who sold their wares in the street. Women street hawkers were often unskilled and unable to enter domestic service, so they took to peddling goods to avoid the workhouse. Some of the typical items for sale by hawkers would be:

  • fruit and vegetables
  • kindling
  • brushes
  • drapery
  • pots
  • matches
  • tape and needles
  • tripe and trotters

A female hawker’s work was often degrading and earned her a pittance for her efforts. The consistency of the wages was precarious, so hawkers like Catherine would often start work early in the morning and finish late in the day to get as much money as possible for their families.

A criminal statistics report for Manchester in 1852-1853 describes the second highest proportion of employed criminals as labourers, weavers and piercers, and hawkers. These statistics suggest that the income earned by street sellers wasn’t always enough to make ends meet. This is backed up by several small reports found in Manchester newspapers telling the stories of hawkers who had been caught stealing. The items stolen suggests that some street sellers were stealing the wares that they went on to sell. One word that springs to mind is – survival.

Whatever the women and children sold, the hawker’s life was a hard one, and the living it afforded them was frequently only a step away from destitution. – thesocialhistorian

I feel sympathy for my great aunt Catherine. She went from being a farming labourers wife looking after her children in rural Ireland, to working tirelessly on the busy cobbles of industrial Manchester as a saleswoman come beggar and she wasn’t the only one; the 1851 census also reveals that her ten-year-old son John McDonough was selling clay smoking pipes in the same manner as his hawker mother.

The hawker occupied an important part of a Victorian street scene with their calling out or ‘hawking’. A characteristic of street sellers was a hoarseness they developed in their voice. Young boys like John McDonough often accompanied adult hawkers as they could shout better and louder. Hawkers were recognisable on the roadside with their baskets, or barrows pulled by donkeys.

Hawkers License

At this time in Manchester, the hawkers experienced suppression and restrictions. Persons engaged in selling on the streets were required to do so in the marketplace and were to pay a toll or have a hawker’s license. Being caught trading illegally could mean a conviction if proceeded against.

Board of Guardian’s

Board of Guardian’s meetings are an excellent source of information for family history researchers as they offer a detailed insight into the goings on of a town in a particular period.

The following excerpt from the Manchester Courier on Saturday 25th of October 1851 narrates one of these Board of Guardian’s meetings and makes references to the local Irish poor.

In reference to the increase of Irish poor, there was one point to which no reference had been made, but which ought to be placed to the credit of the Irish. They heard a great deal against the Irish, and often, no doubt, with great truth, but it must be remembered that the Irish population here was created this being a manufacturing county. The Irish came here because they could find labour. We kept them here because they were useful, and when they grew old wanted to pass them back again.

(Mr. Rickards) however, thought that when men had spent all their lives here and the community had received the benefit of their labour, they ought not, under slight circumstances, to be passed to their own country. (Hear, hear.) There were one or two other points which would account for the increase of the Irish population here. It was well known that whenever a period of depression arrived a great number of persons were thrown on the parish who never afterwards resumed industrious occupation to keep themselves off the parish; and, no doubt, a great proportion of those cases in which Mr. Harrop had shown increases were thrown upon the parish in 1847 and 1848, when so great a depression in trade existed. Another fact should not be forgotten that many of the Irish residents in Manchester were employed in neighbouring townships. It was also a fact that the population of Manchester was undergoing great change – That older parts of the town were being deserted by the English who preferred the wider streets and purer atmosphere to be found outside the town, and their localities were being filled by the Irish.

Another circumstance which interfered with the arrangements of the board, was the absence of accommodation in the workhouse for the able-bodied poor. Mr. Harrop had given them valuable information, in showing what had been done with their present limited accommodation; but as steps were now being taken to afford additional accommodation for that class cases, he had no doubt, when the arrangements were completed, they would have a very beneficial effect in preventing imposture. There was no doubt that the Irish were permanently settled amongst us, and unless the parish authorities introduced amongst them good discipline, and treated them fairly and equitably, they would continue to grow upon us, to the great detriment of other classes of the community.

With respect to the education of the Irish children, at the Swinton Schools, he believed that when they went out into the world they would produce a beneficial effect upon their fellow beings. On one occasion, the governor, the Rev. Mr Losh, made an observation which he (Mr. Rickards) should never forget. He said, “When children grow up to be men and women, able to reason and think for themselves, they shall never have it to say that any of their prejudices have been interfered with here, or their religious feelings insulted, but that all have been put on a system of fairness and equality”.

Mr. Rickards then said that he considered it a great disadvantage that the poor of this union, applying for relief, were not heard at one board, as in many other unions. In Chorlton the relief was administered to the poor with great success, and this he attributed in a great measure to the fact of all applicants being heard at one board. This was not the case in the Manchester union, but he did not see a remedy for it. The only thing which they could do was to employ efficient officers, and carry out the law as efficiently as possible. Unless they would impress upon the minds of the pauper population that real distress only would be relieved, and imposture punished, they could do little in the way of improvement.— Mr. James Hodgson said that many of the Irish who came here asserted that they had been resident in the town five years, although many instances they had only just arrived. — The Chairman expressed some doubt as to this class of cases being numerous. In all instances of this kind the relieving officer brought the parties before the magistrates, and he (Mr. Walker) had been astonished at the very few who were brought.

Mr. Rickards said that when the fever and the cholera raged in Manchester in 1847 and 1848 they were confined almost entirely to the Irish. He also found that there were at that time 62 widows in Manchester—the result of cholera—and 243 widows and orphans, which cost no less than £2,056. Mr. Rickards also stated, that this morning there were no less than 70 notices of marriages, nearly the whole of which were from the Irish, from seventeen to twenty years of age. The Clerk corrected Mr. Rickards to the increase of the Irish paupers, and said that the increase was purely from recent arrivals in Manchester. In the surrounding unions, he believed, they removed their Irish, independent of five years’ residence.



‘Famine Fever’

Irish refugee’s fleeing the famine were at first met with compassion, but by late 1847 the tide of feeling had changed, and people started to believe that the Irish were no longer worth helping. Some believed that the Irish were lazy and immoral. The Cholera outbreak of 1847-1848 referred to in the above passage added fuel to this fire. The English in Manchester connected the increase in disease in Manchester with the arrival of the Irish immigrants, naming the outbreak “famine fever” leaving no doubt as to who they thought was to blame.

Board of Guardian’s Meeting, May 1847

“Fever appears to be still on the increase in the district. The causes of this appear to me to be chiefly the great deficiency of food and the over-crowded state of the lodging houses and cellars. As these two causes, but chiefly the first, increase or decrease, so will the amount of fever vary. I am the more confirmed in this opinion by the fact that, in all classes removed above immediate want, there is, and has been for some weeks, less than the usual average of sickness. Very many of the cases have all the characters of famine fever, and are chiefly found amongst the Irish.” Mr. Henry W. Ker, for Ancoat’s district, wrote. ” Within the last month I have had thirty-four cases of fever, besides other diseases, which have the same common origin, namely, want. I have, during the current quarter, seen more cases of disease caused by extreme destitution than has fallen to my lot during the course of my professional experience.”

Mr. Heywood said “In the case of the Irish in the town, they were very much afraid of being removed back to their own country, where there was an absolute famine raging, and many were starving or dying of fever and did not apply to the board of guardians, because they did not want to be sent back.”

Mr. Rickards said – “The number of new applications in one district were eleven English, and upwards of 200 Irish. There was no fear of the Irish not applying.”

Map of England shaded to show the prevalence of cholera in the several districts during the epidemic of 1849. The relative degree of mortality is expressed in the darkness of the shading. The dates indicate the time at which the epidemic broke out. – Credit, Wellcome Collection

The experience of the years 1845-51 had in many ways given new life to traditional anti-Irish sentiment and helps explain the geography of Irish settlement within the city. – The Irish in Manchester 1750-1921 By Mervyn Busteed

Catherine and the McDonough Family

The Guardians’ meetings are great for adding detail to the life story of poor ancestors at this time in history. The McDonough family would have been aware of, if not directly affected by the discontent towards Irish Catholics. This agitation felt by groups of the Irish population leads into the history of the ‘Fenian’ movement and the tale of the Manchester Martyrs. Ashton-under-Lyne  (the English home of Catherine’s parents and siblings) also shares in this history. In the future I hope to put together some information about how that may have impacted their lives in a separate blog post.

Manchester was on the frontline between Irish nationalists and the British state in the 1860s.  Fenianism walked onto fertile political ground in cities like Manchester.  Here, the Irish – many of whom were recent refugees from the Great Famine – had their various national grievances compounded by the biting alienation and poverty which characterised working class life in Victorian cities.  Fenian talk of solidarity and liberation spoke to a need in their bitterly exploited lives. – The tale of the Manchester Martyrs, People History Museum

Working on the Islington Branch Canal

Catherine and her family eventually left Back-Cotton Street and moved round the corner to Wharf Street. Wharf Street was a mix of residential homes, beer-houses and industrial yards. A number of these industrial premises were coal yards and is where Catherine’s husband John worked as a coal heaver.

Coal Heaver – An unskilled labourer fill or unloading sacks/carts.

Disease Strikes

“Consumption, the insidious destroyer of the young and beautiful.” – Glasgow Citizen, 1855

Whilst living by the wharf Catherine’s only daughter Mary died from tuberculous (consumption), aged just three years old. Catherine was at this time pregnant with her final child Peter, who was born in January of 1857 at number 10 Wharf Street. The following January Catherine died aged thirty-eight.

3 Coates Street
Catherine McDonogh, wife of John McDonogh aged 38 years
Cause of Death – Scirrhus (cancer) – John McDonogh in attendance.


Summary

All in all, my research into Catherine’s life in Ancoat’s revealed hard times and hard work for her and her children. The McDonough family were forced to leave their homeland in fear of starvation and eviction and travel thousands of miles away to an overcrowded industrial English town only to come up against further hardship once they arrived. Each day the family faced the threat of disease and destitution whilst grafting at laborious low paid jobs to put food on the table to avoid the workhouse.

Despite the doom and gloom of poor slum living, my research also showed that Catherine and her family weren’t alone in Ancoat’s, they were part of a close-knit Irish community and were surrounded by familial names suggesting they were among the lucky number that had friends and family in the area for support.

Descendants

James McDonough – Last recorded on Back-Cotton Street in 1851 working as a warehouse labourer.

John McDonough – Last recorded on Newton Street, Ancoat’s in 1871 working as a labourer in a waste warehouse.

Patrick McDonough – Last recorded on Newton Street, Ancoat’s in 1871 working as a brickseller.

Thomas McDonough – Baptised at St Annes, R.C Ancoats – 5th July 1852.

Mary McDonough – Died aged three from consumption (tuberculosis).

Tuberculous was the primary cause of death among the poor working class populations living in overcrowded industrial towns with poor sanitation.

Peter McDonough – Peter left England in the summer of 1874 for America, where he settled and raised his own family in Dover, New Hampshire.

If we are related, or if you believe that you can help with details of my Kielty family in Roscommon, please get in touch using the contact page.

Sources and Further Reading

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