Thursday, July 30, 2009
Mary Corvan's brush with the Law in July 1863
The above article from the 'Argus' does not give much more detail than the report that was published on the same day in rival newspaper 'Port Phillip Herald'. It does, however, refer to the fact that Mary Corvan was a lodger at the house of Susanna McDonald, and that she left the house with McDonald's servant Mary A Dowling.
The article doesn't refer to the age of Mary Corvan, so from this report alone we don't know if it is referring to Mary Corvan the mother or her daughter Mary.
The Port Phillip Herald, however, stated: "It appears that she had left the house in company with another girl named Mary Carvan."
This tells us that it was 15 year old Mary Corvan who had been arrested. The two papers both made mistakes in the first of their three reports about the case, stating that Mary Dowling was released while Mary Corvan was remanded to face the Court again. It was in fact Mary Dowling who was sent to gaol for one month, and Mary Corvan who was released due to there being no evidence against her.
So, there we have two members of the Corvan family for the month of July 1863...father Anthony was sleeping in stables and presumably homeless, and his middle daughter Mary Corvan was lodging with Susanna and Robert McDonald in Melbourne.Where mother Mary Torsa Corvan and her daughters Ellen and Rosa were is anyone's guess at the moment.
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