People Australia

John Connelly (c.1810-1860) was born in Sydney, probably in 1810. He was the son of Charles Connelly, a ‘Fortune’ (1806) convict initially transported to Sydney. Charles was further transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) soon after the birth; he was in VDL for the 1811 Muster. The boy remained in Sydney with his mother, whose name is unknown. Later, when still a child, he was taken to VDL, probably in 1820. Once there, he was immediately acknowledged by Charles Connelly as his son, and was known as John Connelly. He joined joined a blended family. Charles had married Margaret Eddington in 1819, adopting her three children from earlier liaisons: John Eddington, Eliza Collins and Margaret Watts. Like his step siblings, John was taught to read, write and calculate before Charles apprenticed him to a cabinet maker.  

The blended family did not endure. Margaret Connelly died in 1822 and Charles Connelly in 1826. John received a generous inheritance under his father’s will (a building known as the Invalid Hospital, a cart and six bullocks) which was meant to provide income for his support. He sold the property while still an infant, in the law of the time, and married Catherine Fowlser, a widow, on 22 October 1829 at St John's, Launceston. They had three children, Charles, John and Thomas Brown. In 1830 Connelly was acquitted of stealing 30 pounds of hay on a technicality — the stolen hay had not been kept as evidence of his theft. Connelly became a hotelier but by 1835 was threatened with insolvency and the hotel, the Elephant and Castle in Launceston, was mortgaged.

In 1836 John and Catherine were charged with receiving stolen goods. Both were convicted and sentenced to seven years transportation. Catherine was pardoned and John was assigned to a road gang to serve his sentence working as a labourer in rural VDL. By March 1837 Connelly was apparently back living at Launceston, however, much to the indignation of some of the residents who protested to the new Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Franklin. A notation on his convict record read that he was not to be permitted out of the Oatlands district. He was assigned to David Solomon, a publican at Antill Ponds. When Solomon died Connelly was assigned to Waterloo Point where he remained until receiving his conditional pardon in 1841 and certificate of freedom in 1843.

Catherine Connelly continued to manage their hotel, now known as the Currency Lass, (though George Best held the licence) until 1839 when she and John sold the freehold; John later claimed that she did not pay him all the proceeds of the sale. Catherine left for South Australia at the end of May 1839 with her two youngest children and seems to have worked as a housekeeper until she returned to VDL in 1848.

After regaining his freedom in 1843, John resumed his familiar lifestyle and, by 1845, was the licensee of the Golden Fleece in Elizabeth Street, Hobart. He had an illegitimate daughter with Agnes Robertson in 1846, Emily Jane Connelly. In the same year, describing himself as a widower, he bigamously married Mary Ann Fox, an 18-year-old dress maker, in Hobart. They had three surviving children, Edward, Henry and Richard. He took over the management and license of the Good Woman in Green Ponds that same year.

John Connelly left for the California gold rush in 1848 leaving his bigamous partner Mary Ann to manage the hotel in his absence. In California he seems to have met with success on the goldfields. When he returned in 1850 he immediately prepared to join the Victorian gold rush. This time he was going to trade with gold seekers rather than work as a miner. He took over the Flemington Hotel, two miles out of Melbourne on the road to the diggings at Mt Alexander. He later bought shops, cottages and built another hotel in Flemington and was hugely indebted. Mary Ann, his bigamous partner and their children (including those from his previous marriage) joined him in Melbourne.

Catherine Connelly followed him to Melbourne and in 1852 secured a maintenance order against her husband for 30 shillings a week from the Victoria Police Court. John Connelly at first paid the maintenance but increasing debts, and various lawsuits, led to him ceasing payment in December 1853. Catherine took him to court. He argued that he could not afford to maintain two wives and that Catherine had not given him all the money from the sale of the Currency Lass in 1839. He lost his case and was ordered to pay her maintenance or face gaol. By September 1854 he was in arrears again and the court ordered him to be imprisoned until the outstanding debt was paid.

He then offered to pay Catherine a substantial cash settlement to settle the claim provided she return to Van Diemen's Land but in the end offered her only £2. Catherine again sought redress in the courts and John fled to the Victorian goldfields; he was also being pursued by creditors. He was arrested in Ballarat in early 1855 on a charge of failing to pay maintenance. He later failed to appear in court. In June, when he finally made an appearance to dispute her claim, Catherine won a comprehensive verdict in her favour.  He was threatened with gaol after asserting that he would sweat it out and suffer to be hanged before he would pay maintenance to Catherine who returned to VDL where she died in January 1856.

John Connelly’s financial situation continued to worsen as did his de facto marriage to Mary Ann. In an advertisement in the Argus in August 1859 he stated that he would no longer be responsible for her debts. He died at the Flemington Hotel on 30 May 1860 from a cerebral haemorrhage resulting from an episode of acute alcoholism. 

sources

• Bourchier Steve and Leader-Elliott, Ian, ‘John Eddington and John Connelly: stepbrothers of uncertain degree’, Papers and Proceedings: Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Vol 43, no 3, Dec 2025, pp 42-56
• Ian Leader-Elliott and Steve Bourchier, ‘Catherine Connelly: Convict, Innkeeper and Litigant’. This is a substantially revised version of a paper originally published in proceedings of the FCRC Autumn Seminar, 2015: ‘Succeeding in the regular economy: the aftermath of convict sentences’. The most significant revision is a correction of errors in the original paper relating to the parentage of John Connelly, Catherine’s husband. He was the son of Charles Connelly, a Fortune convict and an unknown mother, born in Sydney c1810
  https://femaleconvicts.org.au/docs/seminars/IanLeader-Elliott_session2_May2015_BourchierV2026.pdf