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I think the general concept of any state support for released prisoners is a much more recent development. Probation Officers, social security, housing benefit, assistance with finding a job and the like are all very much 20th century innovations. I think that in 1856 you were expected to fend for yourself, save perhaps for your train fare home and a small grant. The only state support that you might see would be for the wife and children, and that would have come from the church. I had a relative who was imprisoned in Scotland in 1830. She was a single mother and in the Kirk Session minutes (parish records) I found some interesting entries relating to payments from church funds for her children, whilst she was in prison.

Elwyn

Can't give you any specific information about your McFarlane line, save that the current Northern Ireland phone book has 129 McFarlane entries, so it is a reasonably common surname in Co. Antrim and hereabouts to this day.

You ask whether he could be "a Scot born in Ireland." Co. Antrim is the closest county to Scotland (it's only about 15 miles across at the narrowest point) and folk having been coming and going between the two for hundreds of years, for commercial, political and religious reasons especially from 1600 onwards. Co. Antrim in particular does have a very high percentage of folk whose ancestors came from Scotland. (The most obvious clue being that they are mostly Presbyterians). So your ancestor could be one of those.

Greenock would be a common point of departure for emigrants from Ireland. There were regular overnight sailings from places like Londonderry, Belfast and Dublin to Glasgow, and so Greenock was easy to get to. So someone from Co. Antrim catching an emigrant ship from Greenock would not be at all unusual.

Elwyn

I live in Ireland. Where there was a mixed marriage (RC & Protestant), it was often the custom for the sons to be baptised into the father's religion and the daughters into the mother's. But of course if one of the couple wasn't a regular church attender, who wasn't too concerned about the children attending church, that could then lead to all of one gender being baptised but none of the other.

Elwyn

You can get a copy of the birth certificate from the NI General Register Office www.groni.gov.uk , or alternatively some of the pay to view sites may also be able to give you the info, for a fee (which may be less than the GRO fee).

Elwyn

If you get Samuel's marriage cert (he was apparently married between 1901 & 1911) that should give you his father, and that in turn could help identify his mother.

Elwyn