| One interesting theme is that their mothers were all able to give the children a step-father's surname. Is this an indication that such liaisons were widely accepted and accommodated? Or is there a simpler explanation: were any of these men the biological fathers? It is unlikely any one instance of TLM-P's paternity can be definitely proven now, but it is generally accepted that he was unfaithful to Matilda in her last years. Additionally, Patricia Clarke notes gossip about that 'old sinner', TLM-P, and his extra-marital affairs.((Patrica Clarke, //Rosa! Rosa!// p.24.)) While it is easy to be judgemental, it should be remembered that Matilda was very ill and further pregnancies would likely to have been lethal - leaving abstinence or adultery as the only real alternatives. \\ | One interesting theme is that their mothers were all able to give the children a step-father's surname. Is this an indication that such liaisons were widely accepted and accommodated? Or is there a simpler explanation: were any of these men the biological fathers? It is unlikely any one instance of TLM-P's paternity can be definitely proven now, but it is generally accepted that he was unfaithful to Matilda in her last years. Additionally, Patricia Clarke notes gossip about that 'old sinner', TLM-P, and his extra-marital affairs.((Patrica Clarke, //Rosa! Rosa!// p.24.)) While it is easy to be judgemental, it should be remembered that Matilda was very ill and further pregnancies would likely to have been lethal - leaving abstinence or adultery as the only real alternatives. \\ |
| What is missing in these family accounts is any suggestion of children by an Indigenous mother.((For more on this topic, see Ann McGrath, //Illicit Love: Interracial Sex and Marriage in the United States and Australia//, University of Nebraska Press, 2015.)) Patricia Clarke has speculated that a girl called **Jenny** was TLM-P's daughter. Jenny, like so many Aboriginal people, had an English name with no recorded surname nor age though she appears to have been around the same age as his 5-year old elder daughter Rosa. Jenny's father was a white man; her mother Aboriginal who had been given the typical servant's name of Mary Anne. They lived on Bundooma station, on the Burnett River. In Clarke's telling, TLM-P 'took a fancy' to the child. It says much about the utter lack of power Aboriginal mothers had that a child could be taken so casually. The mother had to agree never to have anything to do with her daughter, though it is hard to see how she could have ever contacted her again anyway, nor that her consent was needed. The taking of this child took place in 1856 when TLM-P was travelling to Hawkwood Station with his wife Matilda and four young children. The story continues that Matilda was dismayed at the inclusion of the child and that it was TLM-P who, the next night, bathed her, shaved her head (typically done to get rid of lice) and dressed her in his Rosa's clothes. Further, at Hawkwood, Jenny slept in Matilda and TLM-P's bedroom. TLM-P's assertion of the right to take the child, along with his solicitude, suggests that he was possibly Jenny's father. If so, we can only wonder at Matilda's reaction to having the child sleep in her bedroom.((Patrica Clarke, //Rosa! Rosa!// pp.13-14, citing Murray-Prior papers, Box 3, folder 14, 12/25.)) \\ | What is missing in these family accounts is any suggestion of children by an Indigenous mother.((For more on this topic, see Ann McGrath, //Illicit Love: Interracial Sex and Marriage in the United States and Australia//, University of Nebraska Press, 2015.)) Patricia Clarke has speculated that a girl called **Jenny** was TLM-P's daughter. Jenny, like so many Aboriginal people, had an English name with no recorded surname nor age though she appears to have been around the same age as his 5-year old elder daughter Rosa. Jenny's father was a white man; her mother Aboriginal who had been given the typical servant's name of Mary Anne. They lived on Bundooma station, on the Burnett River. In Clarke's telling, TLM-P 'took a fancy' to the child. It says much about the utter lack of power Aboriginal mothers had that a child could be taken so casually and with utter impunity.((For more see, Shirleene Robinson, 'Queensland settlers and the creation of the first 'stolen generations': the unofficial removal of Aboriginal children in Queensland, 1842-1897', //Journal of Australian Colonial History//, vol. 4, No. 1, April 2002, pp. 1-16)) The mother had to agree never to have anything to do with her daughter, though it is hard to see how she could have ever contacted her again anyway, nor that her consent was needed. The taking of this child took place in 1856 when TLM-P was travelling to Hawkwood Station with his wife Matilda and four young children. The story continues that Matilda was dismayed at the inclusion of the child and that it was TLM-P who, the next night, bathed her, shaved her head (typically done to get rid of lice) and dressed her in his Rosa's clothes. Further, at Hawkwood, Jenny slept in Matilda and TLM-P's bedroom. TLM-P's assertion of the right to take the child, along with his solicitude, suggests that he was possibly Jenny's father. If so, we can only wonder at Matilda's reaction to having the child sleep in her bedroom.((Patrica Clarke, //Rosa! Rosa!// pp.13-14, citing Murray-Prior papers, Box 3, folder 14, 12/25.)) \\ |
| 1. The first of TLM-P's alleged illegitimate offspring to be recorded by his descendants is **Jane Anne Quinn**, born in 1848, two years after he and Matilda married. Jane's parents were registered as Emma and John Quinn.((BDM, registration number 735/1848 V1848735 66)) Robert M-P claims that the Quinns were periodically estranged and that Jane Quinn always knew her biological father was TLM-P and also that 'financial assistance from the Murray-priors was regularly given'. Jane accordingly sometimes gave her surname as Rathdowney, after the former M-P estate in Ireland. Jane married a Swedish sailor Johan (John) Alexander Berggren in 1864 ((BDM number 1067/1864)) and was thought to have had three children with him. After he died, (('while fleeing from Jane some years later, [he] was drowned when his boat sank.' Thomas Bertram M-P, p. 19)) she married in 1875 another sailor, the Dutch Jan (John) Van Kampen((BDM number 1196/1875)). He died in 1905((BDM, number 7579/1905)): they had seven children. Two of the van Kampen descendants had a particular interest in the M-P family and their supposedly royal antecedents.((John van Kampen (previously known as John Corr) and his sister Rita Young. She wrote //From Royalty to Us//, unpublished booklet, 1984.))\\ | 1. The first of TLM-P's alleged illegitimate offspring to be recorded by his descendants is **Jane Anne Quinn**, born in 1848, two years after he and Matilda married. Jane's parents were registered as Emma and John Quinn.((BDM, registration number 735/1848 V1848735 66)) Robert M-P claims that the Quinns were periodically estranged and that Jane Quinn always knew her biological father was TLM-P and also that 'financial assistance from the Murray-priors was regularly given'. Jane accordingly sometimes gave her surname as Rathdowney, after the former M-P estate in Ireland. Jane married a Swedish sailor Johan (John) Alexander Berggren in 1864 ((BDM number 1067/1864)) and was thought to have had three children with him. After he died, (('while fleeing from Jane some years later, [he] was drowned when his boat sank.' Thomas Bertram M-P, p. 19)) she married in 1875 another sailor, the Dutch Jan (John) Van Kampen((BDM number 1196/1875)). He died in 1905((BDM, number 7579/1905)): they had seven children. Two of the van Kampen descendants had a particular interest in the M-P family and their supposedly royal antecedents.((John van Kampen (previously known as John Corr) and his sister Rita Young. She wrote //From Royalty to Us//, unpublished booklet, 1984.))\\ |