Halpin family of Wicklow - Part 1

[Shanachai]

2.
     As for your question about Oswald - I can tell you that he certainly was a direct descendant of George - as far as I can recall, Oswald studied medicine at Trinity, then volunteered to serve in WW1 soon after graduating.  I'm afraid he was killed in action before war's end, precisely where and when escapes me just now.  I'll find out and get the facts to you asap.  I think he was raised in a place called  ‘The Laurals’  in Foxrock, Co. Dublin.  His father was also an MD.  When I have more information I’ll post it here.
The connections I’m attempting to establish between George and the Halpin lineage outlined above, stem from discoveries I’ve managed to unearth in my research, some of which I lay here, meagre though they are.  I’m fairly confident that I’ve identified Robert Wellington Halpin’s father as one Robert Halpin, tide-surveyor, working for Dublin “Customs” prior to 1850.  In the “Return to House of Commons, List of all persons receiving salaries, pensions, allowances, emoluments, etc...”(1849 – see House of Commons website), he is listed as receiving “£120...diff. of salary as formerly dock-master, plus £142 15 8.  Total annual salary £262 15 8.”  Now, this doesn’t bear directly on George just yet, except insofar as both men are in the same vicinity at the same time – the Dublin docklands.  It was through men like Robert, the tide-surveyor, that James Halpin, Wicklow Innkeeper, ‘placed’ his son Robert Charles Halpin.  I believe James and Robert were brothers, but I have yet to confirm this.  Robert Charles Halpin became the Captain everyone is now familiar with, and he got my greatgrandfather, Edwin, a placement in telegraphy.  In the same House of Commons list a certain N.S. Halpin, Landing-Waiter, Dublin “Customs”, is recorded as receiving an annual salary of £250.  I include his name only because it may turn up again in subsequent research.
The Reverend Nicholas John Halpin’s eldest son, also named Nicholas John, worked in customs too.  Note:
Death Of Nicholas John Halpin – The death of Nicholas John Halpin, who was for many years connected with her Majesty’s Customs, Dublin, will be received with regret.  He was greatly esteemed as an able and courteous official by all with whom he was brought in contact.  He was the eldest son of the late Rev. N J Halpin, for many years editor of the Dublin Evening Mail, and brother of the late Charles Graham Halpin (Miles O’Reilly), whose life and works were lately reviewed in a leading Dublin paper [I think they refer here to the collected works, which were edited in the US by “Roosevelt” – yeah, I’m wondering too].  In his private life Mr Halpin made hosts of friends, all of whom will deeply regret his decease.  – The Belfast-Newsletter, Monday, November 30, 1891.  I have some other newspaper citations (in the Times, about 1846 I think) putting one of the Rev NJ Halpin’s sons at work in Custom House, a fact I refer to below, as well as a score of detailed reference material on George’s  working relationship with Custom House Dublin, all available through the House of Commons search engine, which I think you should be able to access through the NSW State Library.    
      
  

[Shanachai]

3.
As I said above, I move from lore to fact.  So far, I've made excellent progress with the link from myself through Wicklow to Cavan, Meath  and Portarlington, Co. Laois.  I'm making satisfactory progress from the stories I was told about Gen. William G Halpin to something more substantial - I'll throw all of that stuff onto this site as well in the coming months.  But what I'm struggling most with is the link from us, here in Dublin, to George snr, builder, architect (I recently came across references to one of his buildings, which I'll dig up and post. By the way, the retaining wall around Custom House began to subside at some point in the 1840s.  Only quick action by George prevented Customs from sliding into the Liffey – I’ll track down the newspaper story and get it to you) and Lighthouse engineer. 
     The lore is as follows - I grew up in North Dublin, in a working class estate not far from Dollymount (or Bull Island), which sits in Dublin bay just south of Howth Head and North of the mouth of the river Liffey.  Whenever we passed that low, sandy island my father would tell us that it had been created only recently, after the construction of the North Bull wall, which was "built by your great uncle George".  Further on, a little south of Bull Wall and adjacent to the strand wall near Castle Ave., sat what is now a disused public baths. Passing there our father would say "You're Opah used to swim in there.  He was a great swimmer.  We lost count of the people he said he saved from drowning.  Them baths were built by your Great uncle George as well.  They used to be called 'Halpin's pool"."...Now, as a kid I was happy to regard that kind of stuff as gospel.  When, at a much later date, I tried to have the stories confirmed, I met with mixed but tantalising results.  George did indeed supervise the positioning of the North Wall, which was designed to prevent shifting silt from making the Liffey difficult to navigate for vessels attempting to deliver cargo to the city (a task Captain Bligh had been charged with around the turn of the 1800s).  And I found out that there had indeed been something called "Halpin's Pool", but it certainly did not refer to the baths my father used to point out to us as children, but to the pool of relatively calm water created by the construction of the North Wall, in the midst of which sit the ruins of the public baths.  Now, while these are reasonably close confirmations of what were indeed historical facts, they are by no means proof of a family link.  They only prove that my predecessors were reasonably well-informed geographers who happened, in all honesty, to think there was a link.  The task of proving they were more than that, at least in regard to George, remains to be proven, and I will try to do that.
     Once again, Bill, I'm so very sorry I didn't say this first.  Had I done so, it would not have caused you undue concern, I'm certain of that.  The difference between fact and anecdote is absolute.  But I am forced to approach this subject firstly from anecdote, and then – through archival research – to fact.  As yet I haven’t quite reached a factual basis for some of the claims made by the anecdotes, but I have narrowed the gap a little.  What had been in no way connected has become, through the archival material, a tangle of crossed paths and overlapping careers.  The factual and the anecdotal have been brought closer together, which is one of the purposes of RootsChat.  This encourages me to think that the anecdotes I’m in possession of are in part based on actual connections, which in itself helps to maintain the morale needed to grind away inordinate amounts of time in the archives following every conceivable link, no matter how tenuous.  Fruitful lines of enquiry are hard to come by, but I believe I’ve found a few.  What can we say at this point? With modest assurance I believe we can say that a few members of both families were in close proximity – doing some of the same things at the same time in the same place for the same people.  Paths almost certainly crossed at Custom House, Dublin; George snr,  jnr  and Nicholas J Halpin no doubt met and spoke and were almost certainly asked by colleagues if they were related.  By virtue of these reasonably safe assumptions the families are closer now than they had been – in each other’s way, even in each other’s thoughts, though not quite eating off each other’s plates.  Do NJ Halpin and the George's snr and jnr form separate branches of the same family tree?  The anecdotes indicate that they do, but the facts can’t yet concur, although, like I’ve said, things are just that little bit clearer now.

     

[Shanachai]

4.
As for the link from George to John, that is speculative on my part (god forgive me), based on an inference I've drawn from what the lore had to say about how the Halpins split apart over the political upheavals in and around the years between the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.  I've placed George next to John as a son, because that was roundabout where the family story-tellers placed him, and because if the connection to the Halpin's I've named above does in fact exist, I can't figure out where else he could possibly emerge from, if not from John - for me, George exists as a bit of a blurr at the moment, amid the lore and a hazy plethora of possibly relevant historical facts that may, at this early stage, outline the kinds of ‘connections’ that families often utilised at that time to get ahead in the world, connections I will work hard to verify. 
     Does the picture seem a little clearer now?  Christ, I think I've even confused myself.  But Rootschat, while being a venue to pass on the facts, must surely be a place to exchange lore too, in the hope that something from someone might clarify a point and allow further research to establish a link beyond doubt.  Someone on rootschat - I've forgotten who - has said that they too heard tell of close family links between George snr and Capt. Robert Charles Halpin.  I had not heard of that connection myself, but I wonder if the story is the same one my great grandfather - Edwin –  passed down through the family  to me?  The story, as I've said above, simply starts the process of discovery and guides the research through the archives.
Incidently, before I sign off, let me tell everyone that after all the years sweating in the various archives, I just happened to be in the Dublin City University last month, assisting a disabled student with his research (it was how I used to make a living), when I stumbled across a two volume Burke's Peerage registry of the landed gentry of Ireland (1952, I think).  There, under "HALPIN OF FORD LODGE", was a beautifully detailed family tree stretching from John Ralph Halpin of Ford Lodge, Co Cavan, "admitted a solicitor 1922, Vice President of The Incorporated Law Soc. of Ireland 1953-54, served in World War 1 as 2nd Lieut. Royal Irish Fus.; b. 14 Aug. 1899, educ. Rugby, and Trin. Coll. Dublin (B.A., LL.B.)," all the way back to the relatives I had spent so much time trying to trace an exact lineage to - to Nicholas Halpin, Headmaster of Portarlington School...which only goes to prove how much easier this task would be if I had any talent as a plotter of family trees.
I will do four things over the next week or so – I’ll track down the exact dates of birth of Bridget, William, James and Cecil, and post them here.  I will show the links, by marriage, between Charles G Halpine (actual name Charles Boyton Halpin), Margaret Grace Milligan and her father, William Milligan esq, MD, and the foundation of a hospital in Perth(?); I will post all I’ve found of CG Halpine’s obituaries and some invaluable newspaper adverts listing the business transformations undergone by the distillers James Halpin, William Halpin and a chap called Hannen, including an extract from a spy’s letter damning one of them as a particularly rabid republican, all dated just prior to the Rising in the late 1790s.
 
For the time being, all the best.  And remember, I will do my best to post far more by way of specific reference material in future.
Regards,
Ray Halpin,(*)

PS I tried to post this to your email address last night, following the links you suggested, without luck - it was returned to me with an error message.

(*) Moderator Comment: e-mail removed in accordance with RootsChat policy,
to avoid spamming and other abuses.
Please use the Personal Message (PM) system for exchanging personal data.

New members must make at least three postings before being allowed to use the PM facility.
See Help-Page:  http://www.rootschat.com/help/pms.php
             

[BillW]

Quite an extraordinarily fine response, Raymond.  I see that the future of our Halpin research is in fine hands and, unfortunately, you may have even more time for it, but hopefully not for long.

I will briefly respond on about 3 matters.  I have been in contact with Turtle Bunbury on not only Halpin matters.  I have connections into Watters, Burgess and Malone families in Co Carlow, where Turtle's Bunbury family is historically based and these families are 3 times connected to my Halpins.  I support your pointing to Turtle's online account of the Halpins' involvement with Dublin's Docklands (above) and commend acquiring his new book on this.

Regarding Oswald, I believe that name may prove eventually to be a clue to either an earlier Halpin or to someone in George senior's wife Elizabeth's family.  We don't yet know Elizabeth's maiden surname.  Turtle kindly brought to my attention the following:  LT. OSWALD HALPIN (1810- - 1834). George junior may have had a brother, Oswald Halpin, registered as 'Pen (Mr Baillie), July 4, 1825' in the Alumni Dublinenses, 1846. Oswald was born in Dublin in 1810, the son 'of George, Generosus'. The Calcutta Christian Observer 1834 (p. 536) notes the death on August 14th of Lieutenant Oswald Halpin, 7th Regiment Bombay NI, aged 25 years.

Oswald thereafter became the middle name of George junior's eldest son (William Oswald Halpin (1840 - 1908)) who settled in a lovely house at Foxrock, and then of this William's second son, William Oswald Halpin (1886 - 1918).  It was this second William Oswald who, as part of the Royal Army Medical Corps attached to the 4th Hussars was killed at Caix, I believe, and is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves at Villers Brettoneux in the Somme.

While on this family, William Oswald Halpin (the father) had two sons, both of whom graduated from Trinity College as doctors.  Imagine how proud he and his wife (Anna Maria Burgess from Carlow) would have been in these boys' accomplishments.  Well, as we see above, their younger son's life was snuffed out early in WW1.  The elder of their two children, (of course) George Halpin set up private practice near Reading in England and had a son and a daughter.  His daughter is still alive aged about 95 but childless.  His son, of course George Halpin, again was set on a stellar career, a graduate of Cambridge University, but he was killed in WW2 while a Captain in the Royal Army Service Corps and is buried in a Commonwealth War Grave at Alexandria in Egypt.  That senior line of the George Halpin family will die out with his sister.

Finally for the moment, coming from where you do, Raymond, you may be able to shed some light on where George Halpin senior lived.  In Dublin directories of the last decade before George died in 1854, his address is given as North Wall Lighthouse.

From anything I have been able to discover, the North Wall Lighthouse was moved when the North Wall was extended.  Do you have any clues about this from personal knowledge or is it something that you may be able to discover.  This location puts him not far from your roots, if I am right.

His abode is confirmed by the records at Mount Jerome Cemetery where George senior was buried on 12th July 1854.  I quote:  1854.  Burial number 470/12328; George Halpin; abode North Wall; buried July 12; (cause of death blank); from what Parish removed St Thomas; mode of burial Vault; place 6/137; number of Grant of Perpetuity 1415P; attestation Johnstone, Henry Digges undertaker.

By the way, successive family visitors from Australia have never been able to locate his gravestone or, as the above states, vault.  It probably needed more time than they had to spare.

Raymond, we look further earnestly to your ongoing researches.

Thanks and regards

Bill Webster
Sydney

[BillW]

Raymond, Bill again.  I printed out your multi page response and it was easier to follow it that way than on-screen.  From this, I just wanted to further take up the references to 'North Bull wall, which was "built by your great uncle George"'.

In the reference to George senior's burial in my earlier post, when I was advised of the burial register entry, I recorded the following comment:  The caretaker, Mt Jerome Cemetery, notes:  'George Halpin was responsible for Bull Island, Liffey Brick Wall, Liffey bridges'.  (Whether this was actually noted in the burial register or this was just a comment to me by a long serving servant at Mount Jerome I can't say.)

It is not unexpected that George Halpin was involved with Bull Island; that was his profession.  But George died in 1854 aged 75 and it would be a long stretch for him to be your actual great uncle, presumably your father's uncle.  George Halpin junior would have made more sense but I get the impression that if junior was involved with Bull Island it would only have been to further his father's works.

However, I find it a powerful remark for your father to have made.  Perhaps he was right except in leaving out a 'great', as in great great uncle.  Is it possible that your grandfather or great grandfather Halpin could have been a brother of George?  What would their names have been?  It would be marvellous to have you as a cousin.

My new found Halpin cousin in Western Australia, Kim Mettam (found through these pages), has a memory passed down from a relative who was taken to Ireland as a child in the 1930s that they visited a Halpin who had a shoe factory in the docks area.  Does this mean anything to you?

50 years or so ago he remembers being told as a young child about his relative Captain Robert Halpin and other relatives who worked on the ship Great Eastern.   Could that refer to your great grandfather Edwin working with telegraphy?  As you rightly say today, it is now a question of working from lore to fact.

Many of the Halpin names that you have been entertaining do not resonate in George's family.  We do not have Nicholas or John or Edwin or Charles or Ralph.  There are William and George, of course, George junior's 3rd son was Robert and then Alfred, and with others, George and Alfred keep recurring.

But then again, as you say, George reportedly wanted to differentiate himself from the rest of his family, and perhaps these different names were deliberate (and patriotic, for British advancement?).

Also, in passing, you refer to the upheavals in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars and in a slight way this brings me to George junior's wife, JULIA VILLIERS.  George and Julia seem to have had an unconventional partnership, shall we say.  Together they had nine children, at least two of whom died in infancy.  I was at first confused that in their burial plot at Mount Jerome are recorded two infants named Villiers.  But it now seems that George and Julia were not married and that all their children were baptised Villiers.

George junior died in 1869 aged 65 and his civil death record states that he had suffered paralysis for 5 years and disease of the brain (strokes?) of long standing.  In his will drawn up 4 years before his death, in 1865, he refers to:  "my son Wm Oswald Villiers, George Villiers, Annie Caroline Villiers and Louisa Villiers".   And he goes on:  "It is my wish and desire that my said sons and unmarried daughters should severally take and use my Surname."   That was dated 21 October 1865.  In the will he states that he and Julia were married on or about the 18th October 1865 (remarried?).

We have so far not been able to find Julia Villiers' origins.  It has been suggested that she came from a Hugenot family.  By all accounts she was haughty and difficult.  The ancestor of my cousin Kim Mettam and myself, George Halpin (younger brother of the first William Oswald), emigrated to New South Wales after first trying America and South Africa.  It is reported in this family that his mother Julia never accepted George's wife, Annie Watters, a farmer's daughter.  Julia apparently felt that George had married beneath the family or that Annie was uncultured and she repeatedly criticised them, even across the oceans.  Even so, young George took his father's name Halpin and named his last daughter born in Ireland in 1882 Julia, my mother's mother.  Julia's brothers on either side of her were Alfred and George Sydney, born 1880 in Dublin and 1884 in Sydney.

But our question remains, where did Julia Villiers, my great grandmother come from?  Could she have been French?   She died at Foxrock in 1889 reported to be aged 74.

Raymond, good hunting,

Bill. 

[BillW]

The following is about Dr RICHARD F B HALPIN (1858 - 1903) of Arklow, Wicklow,  and is taken from the British Medical Journal, Nov 7, 1903, p.1246
(http://www.bmj.com/cgi/issue_pdf/admin_pdf/2/2236.pdf)

IT was with deep regret that the profession and the public
generally in County Wicklow heard of the death of Dr.
RICHARD F. B. HALPIN, which occurred at his residence,
Ferrybank, Arklow, on October 19th. Dr. Halpin got a
severe wetting while seeing a patient on the night of October
12th, pneumonia setting in two days afterwards. He progressed
favourably for some days, when symptoms of heart
failure supervened, and despite all that medical skill and
careful nursing could do he succumbed on the sixth day. Dr.
Halpin was in his 45th year. He pursued his medical studies
in London, becoming a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons
in I883, and afterwards obtaining the Licence of the
Royal College of Physicians, Ireland. He was for some time
house physician to the Hospital for Diseases of the Chest,
and afterwards surgeon in the service of the Eastern Telegraph Company, of which his uncle the late distinguished
Captain R. C. Halpin, was the marine superintendent in
London. In 1885 he settled down in his native town of Arklow,
succeeding to the very extensive practice of his father,
the late Dr. Stopford Halpin, in addition to holding many
public appointments, including that of physician to Arklow
Fever Hospital, of surgeon and agent to H.M. Coastguards, and
of medical attendant Royal Irish Constabulary. He was held in
high esteem by both rich and poor, and the large attendance
at his funeral on October 22nd was in itself sufficient evidence
of his popularity, the predominant feeling in the breasts of
all being "that a thorough gentleman and an ornament to
his profession " had passed from amongst them. Dr. Halpin
leaves behind him three children and a widowed mother,
with whom sincere sympathy is felt.

I came to search for this man because someone had sent me a photo of a gravestone at Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin, knowing that I was searching for a Halpin burial there.  It had initially been erected by him for his wife Bessie in 1896.  I will try to attach this photo but please let me know if you need a transcript.

Bill Webster
Sydney

[enfield]

For what its worth;
BYRNE, EDWARD. Rank: Temp 2Lt. Regiment or Service: Duke of Cornwalls Light Infantry. Unit; 6th Battalion. 23-August-1917. Killed in Action. Supplementary information from De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour; Eldest son of the late Henry Byrne, of Dunlavin, County Wicklow, by his wife, Mary daughter of Andrew Halpin and nephew of Patrick Byrne Ex-Superintendant of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, born in Dunlavin, County Wicklow, 8th Dec, 1886. Educated De La Salle College, Waterford; Leeds University and London University, was subsequently employed as Teacher under London City Council. Gazetted, 2nd Lieutenant, Duke of Cornwalls Light Infantry from the London University, O. T. C. 9th Oct 1915, trained at Weymouth and Wareham; served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders from 9th Sept, 1916, took part in the fighting on the Somme, the battle of Arras and the fighting around Ypres. Was killed in action at Inverness Copse 23rd August, 1917, while leading his platoon into action. His Colonel wrote “He was killed instantaneously by a rifle bullet through the head whilst leading his platoon very gallantly. His loss is mourned by all ranks, by whom he was universally liked and admired. Grave or Memorial Reference: He has no known grave but is listed on Panel 80 to 82 and 163A on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium.

[Shanachai]

1a.
     Thankyou kindly, Bill.  And thank you too, "enfield", for posting that death notice and details.  Such things help convey the true extent of the losses inflicted on families by the two world wars.  Bill, I'll try to answer your questions as quickly as I can.  I've been banging away at the issue of the Halpins for a while, and keep running into the same difficulties - all caused by the paucity of official records.  Whatever future searches reveal about our respective families, whether they prove connected by blood ties or not, the exchange of information helps to fill what can be exasperating blanks in a family's recollection of itself.  The obit you've posted is terrific stuff, not only for the way it helps to set the record straight, but for the sense it can give of a man's personal character and the opinion his community had of him.  Later obituaries are pretty poor stuff by comparison.  As for that fascinating line in George jnr's will - that strikes me as very peculiar.  It really does seem that the George's snr and jnr had real misgivings about the Halpin name, so much so that they believed, at least for a while, that by using it their children might in some way harm their prospects.  Very puzzling.  If you can find your way to the archives at The Times (they should be online), you will find a report about "The Sinking of the Custom House Quay" (Oct 19 1844), which describes how George 'saved the day'...
     I didn't have the time to send you all I wanted to, Bill - the internet cafe shut much earlier than I expected it to.  Anyhow, here it is now.  I'll leave it up for a few days, until you get a chance to copy it.  After that I'll take it down and clear the way for something a little more specific to the Wicklow clan.

[Shanachai]

2a.
 
     Bill, I’ve posted extracts of a few newsworthy items that should be included in your area of interest, since they touch on George senior’s private affairs, and may shed some light on what motivated the inner family tensions that appear to have affected Julia’s views of her in-laws.  Class was no doubt a factor in her judgement of others, but there may have been another factor at play too.  See what you think:
I’ve forgotten the source of this notification, so I’ll quote it briefly and post the exact reference another time –
LANDED ESTATES COURT, IRELAND.  GENERAL NOTICE TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, In re Elizabeth Hanratty and James Hanratty, Owners; Exparte John Frederick Knipe and Lucy Knipe, his Wife, Petitioners.  Take Notice, that on the 7th day of May, 1859, an order was made by the said Court for a sale of the...following...: The Houses and Premises numbered 1,2 and 3, Whitworth-row, in the City of Dublin, held under several leases, each bearing date the 3rd of April 1821, from George Halpin to John Read, for the several terms of 450 years; the Houses and Premises numbered 8, and 9 Coburgh-place, in the City of Dublin, each held under lease bearing date of 3rd day of April 1821, from the said George Halpin to the said John Reid, for the like term of 450 years; the House and Premises no. 78 Lower Macklenburgh-street, in the city of Dublin, held under lease dated the 11th day of May, 1818, from George Perrin [an alias?] to John Read, for lives renewable for ever.[...].the owners of any lands having any common boundary with the lands mentioned in this notice are recommended to cause an appearance to be entered for the purpose of being served with notice of any survey by which said common boundary is to be ascertained.[...].Dated this 27th day of May 1859.  James McDonnell, Examiner.
Didn’t George snr die in 1859? At any rate, there’s more, advertised some 20 years later:
From the Freeman’s Journal, Sat. July 9 1870 – IN CHANCERY.  VICE CHANCELLOR.  To all persons concerned: In the matter of the Act 19 and 20 Victoria chap. 120, intituled “An Act to Facilitate Leases and Sales of Settled Estates”; and of the Act 21 and 22 Victoria, chap. 77, intituled “An Act to Amend and Extend the Settled Estates Act of 1856”...[it goes on for a bit, employing this sort of legalese, so I’ll skip ahead]...and in the matter of the several lots and pieces of ground portions of the North-Strand, in the Parishes of Saint Thomas and Saint George, in the County of the City of Dublin, following (that is to say), portion of acre Lot Number 46, abutting on Seville-place, and another portion of the same lot abutting on a lane off Oriel-street.[...].being parts of the estates comprised in the settlement executed on the marriage of George Halpin [italics mine], now deceased, with Julia Halpin, otherwise Villiers, and dated the 18th day of October, 1865.