The Six Wives of Captain Kearney

Introducing my 2× great-grandfather, Captain Richard Adderley Kearney, is no small task. He defies easy description. With a trail of wives scattered across Australia and England, and frequent appearances in newspapers and court records (notably for bigamy), he emerges from the historical record as a charming and persuasive rogue - unscrupulous and morally flexible.

Formerly in the British Navy, later an Irish Merchant Marine, and then finally a coastal navigator in Australia, his letters to the editors of various Australian newspapers show that he had an extremely high opinion of himself and his naval skills. 

But Richard is actually to be the subject of another post (or several). For this series, I want to focus on the six wives of Richard Adderley Kearney. 

It is easy to lose sight of Richard's wives because the man himself takes up so much space in the available records that he overshadows them. But it was for exactly that reason that I wanted to dedicate time and energy to finding out as much as I could about them. For the first installment in this series, I think it makes sense to focus on the first wife - Elizabeth Gilpin. 

An unexpected bride: Elizabeth Gilpin

Elizabeth (or Eliza - she appears as both in records) was Richard's first wife. A key question that motivated me in researching her was, was she his only legal wife? The only way to answer this question was to find out when she died. But the circumstances of her life with Richard made that very difficult. So, in talking about Elizabeth, I won't be following a strict chronology of her life but rather following my process of discovering her.

My first encounter with Elizabeth Gilpin was in the record of her marriage to Richard Adderley Kearney on May 13, 1871, in Sydney. I ordered a transcript from GeniCert as it is substantially cheaper than ordering the actual record from NSW BDM, although one day I will probably shell out for the real deal.

My original scan of the marriage certificate between Richard Adderley Kearney and Elizabeth Gilpin was a superficial one. I saw that she had called herself “a lady” but also that her father was a “coal master”.  

Transcription of marriage certificate Richard Adderley Kearney and Elizabeth Gilpin, May 13, 1871.

At first, I scoffed when I saw their wedding announcement in the Sydney Evening News (Monday 15 May 1871). F Gilpin Esq? A coal miner? It wouldn’t be the first (or last) time that Richard had embellished things to make himself sound more important.

Wedding announcement, Sydney Evening News, May 15, 1871

From there, I found Elizabeth's arrival into Australia. And this was the first piece of evidence that really made me question her. Elizabeth travelled to Australia on board the Windsor Castle from London to Sydney, arriving at Sydney on May 5, 1871. She appears as Miss Gilpin at the top right-hand side of the manifest. If you've been paying attention to the dates, you’ll realise she married Richard just eight days after arriving in Australia. It might be logical to think she met Richard on the Windsor Castle. He was after all a sailor. But a review of the ship's manifest shows that he wasn't on it, not as a sailor nor a passenger.

Manifest for Windsor Castle arriving Sydney from London May 8, 1871

This cemented my view of Elizabeth for a long time: a woman who landed in Australia and married the first man she saw on dry land. At the time I judged her harshly, casting her as a lonely spinster who fell for a charming scoundrel because he happened to cross her path. Only later did I realise that I had totally misunderstood Elizabeth.

The bigamy trial

The next appearance of Elizabeth is in the court reporting around Richard Adderley Kearney's bigamy trial in 1878. A bit of background here is probably needed. In late May 1878, Richard was arrested by the water police as he was reentering Sydney Harbour on the ship the White Cloud, of which he was master. The charge was bigamy, for being married and taking a second wife Mary Reeves Rainsford (my 2x great grandmother) whilst the other (Elizabeth Gilpin) was still alive. Spoiler - my 2x great grandmother was actually the third wife - but the court didn't know that, and Richard certainly didn't confess.

The Sydney Morning Herald - Water Police Court June 6 1878

 

A few things of note. The reporting states that Elizabeth "left the prisoner [Richard] about two years after marriage and did not wish her husband to know where she lived". Another article notes that she appears personally in court, but "of course was not permitted to testify". As Richard's wife, she was legally prevented from testifying against him in court. Eventually, Richard was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months hard labour in Darlinghurst Prison, of which he served 9 months, in recognition of time already served. You will hear more about that, and what became of Mary Reeves Rainsford in another post. 

For Eliza, the court reporting marks the last time I could locate her in Australian records. Since she appeared at the trial, she was clearly in Australia in 1878. But after that? Nothing. But I was still very curious about Eliza. I was beset by questions. Why did she choose to leave home on her own and come to Australia? Why did she marry a man she could have known at best, eight days? Given that I had run out of runway in the Australia records, I decided to trace Eliza backwards into Staffordshire. Thankfully her marriage certificate gave me pretty much everything I needed to find her.

Tracing Elizabeth backwards

Elizabeth was born on April 2, 1840, the second eldest daughter of Frederick Henry Gilpin and Isabella Swinton Todd in Cannock Staffordshire, with the birth registered in the Walsall Union. This means she was actually 31 at the time of her marriage, not 27 as she stated. As with her marriage certificate, her birth certificate notes that her father was a coal master. 

Elizabeth Gilpin birth certificate. GRO Reference: 1840  J Quarter in THE WALSALL UNION  Volume 17  Page 230

At this stage of my investigation, I was envisioning the family as poor miners scrabbling in the dirt. But as I traced the Gilpins through UK records, it became clear I’d gotten them entirely wrong. My first hint was the 1851 census. In it, Elizabeth was shown as living with her family at 65 Church Yard Cannock. She had an older sister Isabella (13), a younger brother Frederick (3) and a younger sister Edith (1). Her father was listed as a coal miner. But, there were clues that the family was pretty well off, as living with them was a housekeeper Esther Goodwin, and two general domestics Elizabeth Beech and Anne Savage (overleaf in the census page).

1851 England Census - Gilpin, Staffordshire, Cannock, All, 5b

By the 1861 census, Elizabeth's mother Isabella Swinton Todd had passed away and Eliza’s unmarried Aunt, Harriet Gilpin was living with her father Frederick, presumably to help with the younger children. Elizabeth was now 20 and her little siblings Edith (11) and George (8) also lived at home. Elizabeth had no profession – meaning her family were well enough off that she wasn’t required to work. The family also had two maids. But the really big hint here that I had Elizabeth and her family entirely wrong is what is says for Frederick Gilpin's work...."coal master employing about 60 men and 15 boys". 

1861 England Census - Gilpin, Staffordshire, Cannock, All, District 3b

An industrial legacy

I had completely misunderstood Frederick’s position—and his importance. Far from being a coal miner, Frederick Gilpin was in fact a very wealthy industrialist. As I learned, a coal master is not the same as a coal miner. From reading Staffordshire business almanacs and guides it became clear that Frederick owned and operated collieries across Staffordshire, and he was also a manufacturer — producing bricks, tiles, and draining pipes, likely using the clay or shale mined from his own land. And his will contained another massive surprise. 

Frederick Gilpin's will proved 26 January 1888

When he died in 1887, he left an estate worth £20,802 18s 2d — a considerable fortune at the time. But Frederick wasn’t just a prosperous businessman; he was part of a family of prosperous businessmen. The Gilpins had built themselves up over generations, rising from tradesmen to captains of industry at a time when Britain was being reshaped by the ambitions of its new moneyed class. And as is clear from the probate, he was eminently entitled to the Esq. I had begrudged him in Elizabeth's wedding announcement.

Frederick’s father William Gilpin’s (1755–1834) meteoric rise was the stuff of legends. His parents Thomas and Hannah ran the Red Cow Inn in Wolverhampton. As a boy, they apprenticed William out to a blacksmith. William eventually rose to become one of the great ironmasters of the Midlands. In 1806, he purchased the Wedges Mills site near Cannock, Staffordshire, and turned it into a thriving forge and tool manufacturing business that would become William Gilpin Snr. & Co. — a firm known worldwide for its high-quality edge tools, augers, mining and plantation equipment. He won prizes at various world fairs for the quality of his tools.

William Gilpin Snr & Co Advertising

But before his success, William was working from his parent's barn at the back of their inn. William fell in love with the daughter of an old acquaintance of his father's, Jane Bradney. Jane's father George was a customer at the Red Cow Inn and had worked his way from a lowly coal higgler to a wealthy gentleman farmer and cattle dealer. George Bradney thought his daughter decidedly too good for William, working out of a converted pigsty. He thought his daughter should marry a gentleman, who would receive from him a good dowry. According the family legend, Jane replied, "'Then in that case I shall never marry, and all my dowry may go with my sister." Jane carried the point, and she married William in May 1874. Her father must have got reasonably over it, because he left to his daughter and son-in-law land and property at Wedge Mills in his will. William and Jane Gilpin eventually built a grand house at Longford, where the family lived for many years. This is the house where Elizabeth Gilpin's father Frederick grew up.

Former Gilpin residence in Longford, Staffordshire

When William died in 1834, he left his business to his eldest son George Bradney Gilpin. But seven years later in 1841, George Bradney Gilpin died. He left the business to be run by his son Bernard and his brother Frederick. And now we are full circle. Frederick Henry Gilpin took over the running of his father's business and was, by the time Elizabeth was born, a very wealthy man. He was also highly trusted by his brother, and left as one of the trustees in charge of caring for the education and provision of George Bradney's children.  

What does this extended investigation of Elizabeth Gilpin's family tell us? How can it help us interpret her actions in travelling alone to Australia and marrying a man she had known for a maximum of eight days? 

She left a wealthy, well established and respected family in Staffordshire to travel to the opposite side of the globe. She may have felt stifled living at home as an unmarried 31-year-old daughter. Her older sister Isabella had married in 1857 and her older brother Bradney Todd Gilpin had joined the British Military at 15 and was travelling the world. Her younger brother Frederick Elphinstone Gilpin was clerk to a lawyer, and her much younger sister Edith was to marry in 1872, so may already have been courting. In the 1871 census, which was taken in April 1871 while Elizabeth was enroute to Australia, Frederick Gilpin is housing two of his unmarried sisters, Harriet (70) and Julia (72), as well as his unmarried niece Kate Gilpin (40). Elizabeth may just have felt like she was looking into her own future. 

It’s also likely that Elizabeth grew up hearing the story of her grandmother Jane Bradney, who defied her wealthy father to marry the up-and-coming William Gilpin. Maybe this legend embedded itself somewhere deep inside Elizabeth, waiting until she encountered a charismatic man with enough swagger to surge out of dormancy. Of course, this is all speculation. But her family history helps make sense of what at first glance seems incomprehensible. Sadly, Elizabeth’s story didn’t end like her grandmother’s. She ran away from Richard two years into the marriage, and tried to hide her location from him, only to have the shame of a bigamy trial force her out of hiding.

What became of Elizabeth?

What remained was the key question; what became of Elizabeth? Until yesterday, I didn't know. Having just completed my deep dive on Elizabeth's family, I decided to take another look and speculatively set her place of death to Staffordshire in Ancestry. Having read so much about her family, I was banking on the idea that she would run home to safety in the aftermath of the bigamy trial. This idea was reinforced by the fact that there was no trace of her in Australia after that 1878 court case.

The first Elizabeth Kearney that popped up wasn't her. She had been married to a William Kearney. But then, a second Elizabeth Kearney popped up. It was a probate record for a widow Elizabeth Kearney. Probate was in Lichfield. I knew from researching the Gilpins that this was where many of them handled their affairs.

England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995 for Elizabeth Kearney

 

I decided this was promising enough to spend the three pounds sterling on the death certificate from the GRO. And as the digital image slowly loaded, I realised I had hit pay dirt. This was in fact, the widow of Richard Kearney, Captain in Merchant Service. 

Elizabeth Gilpin deathcertificate. 1901  J Quarter in Aston Warwickshire  Volume 6d  Page 276

Elizabeth died just before the 1901 census, but I had an address and an informant name (M. R. Griffiths), so I set out to find this household in the 1901 Census. I very quickly found a family of three unmarried sisters living at 26 Wills Street Aston Manor: Mary R Griffiths (51), Maria Griffiths (50) and Louisa Griffiths (36). I decided to follow the sisters back to the 1891 Census and found an unexpected bonus - there in very faded writing living with Mary, Maria and what must be Louisa is "Eliza Keaney" widow, living by her own means, born - d.o. same as above. The Griffith sisters were all born in Staffordshire, as was Elizabeth Gilpin.

1891 England Census Staffordshire, Handsworth, ALL, District 15

I can't find Elizabeth Kearney in census records in the UK before this 1891 entry. So, her time between 1878 and 1891 is still a mystery. But I have ordered her father's will and her own, and that will likely contain some clues. But considering how little I used to know about her; I can accept the 13-year mystery window. What I do know for sure is that she went home and lived with the same sisters for a decade. I like to think she found friendship with them. She also clearly employed the respectable fiction of being a widow. The 1891 Census shows she was using the designation before Richard Adderley Kearney died (1898). I imagine that she didn't tell anyone about the bigamy trial - with it occurring in Australia there is a good chance she was able to keep it from her family and friends. 

And I now know for certain that none of Richard Adderley Kearney’s subsequent marriages were legal because Elizabeth was alive during the period that all of them occurred. It is interesting to realise that legally, I was never a Kearney. If anything, I should be a Reeves Rainsford after my 2x great grandmother. And my cousins from Richard's fifth wife (spoilers) should be Gardners instead of Kearneys. And yet, we are all bound together by the name of the man who looms so large in our family’s story. But at least now, Elizabeth is no longer just the footnote to his scandal. She gets the place she deserves in the story

Next time, we will dive into Richard's second wife. And it isn't the one who featured in the bigamy trial. It's a secret second wife that the law in Australia never knew about. Her name was Jane Maclean.

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