G'day Annie and Sinclairs all,
Recently I viewed an interesting episode of "Australian Story" on our
national broadcaster, the ABC. Generally, it is a series of stories of
Australian people and
their communities, told from their point of perspective.
Briefly, it was entitled "Bridge Over Myall Creek" and told the (true)
story of the
present day coming together and reconciliation of two ladies who are
descendants
of the participants in both sides of a massacre over 160 years ago.
Moving as the story was (and anyone interested can view a synopsis at:)
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/archives/AustoryArchivesIdx_Thursday26July2001
.htm
what really caught my eye was when it showed one of the ladies (Beulah)
looking at a microfiche of old records at her local genealogy centre. I
caught a quick glimpse
of the heading "Rosslyn Castle" and a fleeting mention of the same by the
gentleman helping her at the time. Sensing that I needed to know more, I
contacted Beulah about her connection with Rosslyn Castle, thinking perhaps
there may be a Sinclair link.
As she is not computer-equipped, her answer came back by "snail-mail" just
the other day and here is a pertinent extract:
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"We have almost no information on Rosslyn Castle except that it was the
ship that brought my convict ancestors John and Edward Foley to Australia
with six others convicted of "assaulting a building" in 1833.
We have enclosed two sheets from "The Convict Ships" by Charles Bateson
that mention the ship "Roslin Castle" (must be several spellings.)
Both John and Edward were tried and convicted in Queens County Ireland -
now County Leix.
If you are able to locate any information on the ship "Rosslyn Castle" we
would appreciate this."
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The sheets show various ships listed by year, and "Roslin Castle" appears
to have been a 450 ton bark, built in Bristol UK in 1819. It apparently
made trips to Australia in 1833 and 1834, although it seems there may have
been more. The master at the time of the 1833 trip (5 Feb) was a William
Richards, and the surgeon was George Imlay, and it departed from Cork.
Annie's SinclairAustralia site has links to "Ships and Passenger Indexes"
at:
http://www.standard.net.au/~jwilliams/shipsR.htm
and that merely shows:
"Roslyn Castle______Transport ship to Sydney______________1830"
with no further links.
If anyone could possibly shed any more light on this ship, that would be a
bonus, but otherwise I thought I would share this with Sinclair cousins in
case it is new information.
Cheers,
Ian Newman
Perth, Western Australia
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