Topic: ‘This ancestor went to market…”

Henry Prendergast was my Great Great Grandfather. Born in Tuam, Galway in 1813, he emigrated to Adelaide, Australia with his wife and nine children in 1854. It is not known what he did in Tuam before emigrating but once in Australia he soon became the first shopkeeper in the little inland village of Maude on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River in the sparsely settled ‘outback’ of NSW. His would have been the only store for many, many miles around. Occasionally either he or his eldest son would have had to travel to the nearest large town to stock up on supplies, most likely by riverboat or horse dray.

The town history shows it was established in approximately 1861 on a reserve made up of portions of land from two extensive sheep and cattle properties, one of which was originally established by one Thomas Darchy. Some doubts were expressed about the viability of a township so close to the river, but it went ahead. A store was erected and the following year a post office which Henry Prendergast operated. A hotel followed and a monthly Court of Petty Sessions was introduced a few years later. The licence for the hotel was transferred to another of Henry’s sons Patrick in 1864, and by 1865 John was the postmaster. Henry died in 1867. Many of his descendants still live in the district.

The store is still there today and is still the only little shop in the town.

Not-so-incidentally to this story one of Henry’s daughters, Margaret married John Stoddart in Melbourne in 1866 and bore him two children, but John died in 1875 and four years later Margaret married Frank Darchy, son of local magistrate and wealthy land owner Thomas Darchy. The marriage was frowned up on by the Darchys – Margaret was not only ten years older than her new husband, but she was a widow with two children, and worse still was of the wrong religion (!). But the marriage endured, four children were produced and I am one of the descendants. The photo below shows Margaret with her eldest son Frank Downs Darchy, his wife Lydia and various female relatives.