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Very good, all seems quite likely. I wonder if there is any relationship between Molloy and O’Shea, or just good friends.

ADDED - i think Michael O’Shea may have been an ex-convict.

Sad to say I have not made much progress with Ellen Bowles – here are some observations however ….

BOWLES in Bathurst: there are a few convicts / ex-convicts with the surname BOWLES in the Bathurst area in the mid-late 1850s. It is possible our Ellen was a child of one of them. Bathurst library or history centre might be able to help with baptisms that were not registered. Assuming Bathurst is correct or course, and not a lie.

The QLD state Archives has indexed an Ellen Bowles and John Bowles arriving Maryborough QLD onboard “ S S QUETTA” in 1886. When I look at the passenger list to find more information, I cannot find see them on it. Can anyone see / find what I cannot?

1903 QLD Electoral rolls has:
- William Radcliff BOWLER (selector) living on Adavale Road (Charleville electorate)
- John BOWLES (labourer) living at Spreadborough’s Selection (Charleville electorate)

It is a little bit hard to make it out BUT definitely the parents are listed as JOHN MOLLOY and ANN DALEY. 
 Now I'm not sure but it may say for ABODE Montifiores (hoping/guessing) as this is where John MOLLOY married Hannah/Johanna McKenna in 1851.  Now for Johns Quality of Profession, I'm lost cannot make head nor tail of it. 

Yes it surely says Montifiores. As for his profession it starts with M.  It is too small to read, and magnifying it just makes it blur. Are there more baptisms on the page you can compare letters with?

Both witnesses from State children's Dept, would indicate (to me at least) that Bertha was still in State care up to her marriage.
So mother Ellen/Helen/ Nellie/Sophia was gone - she had died or had married or was just not able to take care of Bertha.

It appears that Bertha was discharged to her mother, and Edith was discharged to her father.  Sisters separated.
I suspect Henry Murless then went off to NSW with Edith.  He probably put her into domestic service as soon as he could.
In 1908 Edith was married underage (17) to a man old enough to be her grandfather. I think she lied about her father being dead and being a “gentleman”. She needed permission to marry, so it was to her advantage to say her father was dead and mother was in QLD. She may not have known how to contact her father, as he was in Broken Hill,  and she was in Sydney. As Edith had not seen her mother since she was 6, she may not have remember her mother’s surname, although she knew the first names were Ellen Sophia – or perhaps she was under the impression that Bowles was her mother’s married name.

I think the newspaper search for Jean Murless in 1910 was to do with the divorce proceedings, and then reports of the divorce in the newspapers may have sparked Edith’s quest to contact her father.

When you search the NSW Archives index for the name “Henry Murless”, the Smethurst divorce comes up. That is why I suggested, there may be more useful information in that file about Henry, than we get from the newspapers.