Halpins of Co. Wicklow, Portarlington and Dublin City - Part 2

[Shanachai]

     Hi guys.  Looks like we'll have to start a new thread if we want to continue our investigations.

     Ken - I came across something I've had in my possession for some time, but clearly hadn't read closely enough until now.  The document comes from the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers and it's dated "1812 - The second part of the eleventh report of the commissioners appointed to enquire into fees, etc... .
     Under the subheading Arrears and Balances: Stamp Office Queen's County there's the line "4th July 1786.  Paget Halpin, Esq. Ballynamoney, Queen's County; Boys Smith, Surgeon, Maryborough." 

     It seems Smith and Halpin owed £23 14 9..."The Distributor and Boys Smith, one of his sureties, are both dead, without leaving property.  Mr. Paget Halpin, the other surety, is solvent."

     It wasn't the fact that Paget cropped up in Queen's County that caught my eye, but that he should be in Ballynamoney.  I know you'll find that interesting.

Moderator's Comment: here's a link to the 1st thread - Halpin of Co. Wicklow - Part 1

[kenneth cooke]

Ray, a brilliant start to the second round. We’ll all have to try to keep up with you. The link between the different lines is starting to look better.
I had another look at the two Sweny pedigrees I have, and one looks like ‘Ballynamano’ and the other ‘Ballynamond’ with the downstoke on the ‘d’ going well below the line, like a tail. Anyway, Ballynamoney (?Money Town) sounds convincing.
I had a quick google and found a place of that name in Co. Antrim. I’ve always thought that it wasn’t a town in QC, rather a property. It could be called after a place where they lived before.
So, 1786, that’s nine years after Eliz. married Eugene Sweny. It’s starting to look as if she and Paget were siblings. I wish we could verify Mark as their father. I doubt that her mother was Mary Paget. That name was in the family 100 years earlier. Anyway, thanks again, and keep up the good work.
Ken

[BillW]

This a response to Ronald’s post, Reply #297 and Reply # 298, to the now closed thread, Halpin Family of Wicklow.

1.   Oliver Halpin, regimental surgeon in the 44th East Sussex Foot at Waterloo – I don’t know who this is but it would be good to know.

2.   Marriage of Robert Crawford Halpin to Eleanor Wallace at Swords, Dublin, 18 November 1847 comes from an IGI entry but it is approximately confirmed by FamilySearch indexing of the Irish civil registrations from which you would be able to obtain the actual record.

3.   Robert Crawford Halpin’s age.  There are later census entries suggesting he was born about 1820.  Such sources are notoriously wrong or self-serving.  The Alumni Dublinenses record is much more contemporary.  Indeed conceivably he could not have gone up to Trinity in 1833 aged only 13.  (But, he was rather old to purchase a commission as an ensign aged over 20.)

4.   William Halpin, Paymaster of the 1st Light Dragoons, King’s German Legion.  This is very interesting stuff and well discovered.  I don’t want to write now about his career as such but the information you have provided only serves to confirm the possibility of my theory propounded in Reply #294.  You have provided information now about daughters born in Wicklow in 1808 and 1811 and a son William born about 1801.  These fill some of the missing gaps that I wrote of, making more plausible that this was the same William as had earlier sons sent up to Trinity.  Not evidence, just plausibility.  It would be helpful if you could discover a will.  If William became a Paymaster in1807, it is more than possible that he had an earlier career, either in the army or not.

5.   These sons have births calculated from their ages entering Trinity College of Richard (1799), William (1801) and John (1803) all born in Wicklow to a soldier, William Halpin.  There is your “son William (unmarried, b 1801, Limerick)”.  Birth places recorded 7 or 8 decades later are frequently questionable, as with born France rather than Antwerp – again the Trinity record was contemporary and more likely correct.  If this theory holds up, Richard 1799, William, John, Anna, Sophia and Robert Crawford 1816 are all siblings, the gaps between Anna and Sophia, and between Sophia and Robert Crawford explicable by William’s absences abroad on service.

6.   So, what happened to Richard and John Halpin?  Ray, any suggestions?  In any event, if any or all of this holds together, here we have another successful, large family of Church of Ireland Halpins deriving, at least around late 1700s and early 1800s, from Wicklow.

7.   It was almost universal that army officers had at least some family or inherited income.  A brother of my Webster regimental surgeon ancestor was also a regimental surgeon.  He died unmarried on service in Bombay and his estate consisted of a liability of £300 to his tailor in London, a huge amount of money.  An officer retiring on half pay meant he was kept in reserve for active service.  The pay of itself was far from enough to live on. 
   
8.   Finally for now, a coincidence.  The widow of my Regimental Surgeon Richard Webster was born in Co Mayo as Margaret Parker and she died in Paddington, London, very close to your Bayswater, and they died in the same month and year, December 1862 and both are buried in Kensal Green cemetery (she in Grave number 17520 square 75 IR).

9.   Oh, the possibilities of the connections to the Dukes of Cambridge, father and son – what better patronage could a family have possibly had?

Bill

[kenneth cooke]

Bill, your Point 9
Connections to the Dukes of Cambridge ? This was not a hereditary title, it was given to a member of the royal family, the cousin of Queen Victoria, who was C in C of the Army. What do you mean by 'connections' ?
Ken

[BillW]

As researched so well by Ronald, William Halpin over a lengthy and active period was Paymaster in the King's German Legion, 1st Light Dragoons whose colonel in chief was Field Marshall Adolphus Duke of Cambridge.  The field marshall would have seen more of a headquarters staff officer than most others in the regiment.  In those times, a colonel of a regiment was responsible for its raising and upkeep, with which a paymaster would have been intimately involved.  William's son, Rev Robert Crawford Halpin, became Chaplain to the Forces and to the Duke of Cambridge (Obit contributed by Ray).  Those are the connections to the Duke(s) of Cambridge I was alluding to.  Perhaps I cold have used a better word.
Bill.

Bill, your Point 9
Connections to the Dukes of Cambridge ? This was not a hereditary title, it was given to a member of the royal family, the cousin of Queen Victoria, who was C in C of the Army. What do you mean by 'connections' ?
Ken

[kenneth cooke]

Sorry Bill, I was a bit hasty. I didn't realize that there were two Dukes of
Cambridge (in modern times), as you say, father and son. The son of course, was C in C of the army.
Ken

[BillW]

I quite understand, Ken.

While writing, I would like to add to my postulations about this Wicklow family.  It has been noted that Robert Crawford Halpin had always been intended for the Church, the profession, as Ray noted.

If, as I feel, this is the one family and four sons were sent to Trinity College, it speaks of all or any of being from a prosperous, educated and thrusting family.  University education was far from universal.  Often a tradition in a family is the determining factor.  Another tradition among established families, protestant or catholic, would be to see the church as the vocation for a younger son but rarely an only son.  We now know that Robert Crawford's assumed father William Halpin had three other sons.  It seems the military was a senior family calling.  RCH, as the youngest (and possibly brightest) was prepared for the church. 

To have sent 4 sons up to Trinity and not by scholarship speaks of family resources and ambition.  Family resources could have come from enterprise but are nearly always backed by property.   Property records and wills are often the best continuous evidence of early family connections.

In Ray's terms, we are finding more and more connections with the various Halpin lines, to include even Ken's Halpens and the pendulum seems to keep swinging between Wicklow and Queen's Counties with Dublin as the fulcrum.

Bill

[BillW]

Ray has pointed out to me that children were indeed sent to university in those days frequently at young ages.  There is always the TCD source that RCH was 17 in 1833 but I suppose the family could have fudged that.  So I am prepared to concede that RCH could have been born a bit after 1816 - but would the family have still been in Antwerp, or France, much later than that?
Bill

3.   Robert Crawford Halpin’s age.  There are later census entries suggesting he was born about 1820.  Such sources are notoriously wrong or self-serving.  The Alumni Dublinenses record is much more contemporary.  Indeed conceivably he could not have gone up to Trinity in 1833 aged only 13.  (But, he was rather old to purchase a commission as an ensign aged over 20.)

[halpinr]

Ray,
I came across this in ancestry.uk

Michael halpin born 1736 likely emigrated to Co Clare from Co Wicklow by the late 1700s. He died near Newmarket on Fergus about 1830 and his wife Mary died there also 1848. A son William is believed to be the person who moved just a bit north to Tulla and started the Halpin line which continues there to this day. A son William Richard born 1825 married Bridget Clune and raised a family in Tulla. Upon their death in 1890 and 1893 respectively they were buried back in the home ground near Newmarket on Fergus.

Robert