People Australia

John Devereaux, a Captain in a Yeoman Battalion, was charged with treason for aiding and assisting in the 1798 Irish rebellion at Vinegar Hill in Wexford, Ireland. Sentenced to life transportation at Cork, he arrived in Sydney in 1802 aboard the Atlas. It is thought he was involved in the Irish Uprising at Castle Hill in March 1804 and was sent to Norfolk Island on the Lady Nelson, arriving on 23 June.

It would have been about this time that he began a relationship with his future wife, Harriet McCarthy. Harriet was expecting their first child at her departure of the island for VDL on the Porpoise. On 15 May 1808, Devereux departed Norfolk Island on the Estramina arriving in Hobart on 5 June 1808. The couple married on 13 June 1808 at St Davids, Hobart.

Devereux was granted 60 acres of land at Herdsman’s Cove near Green Point, Bridgewater in the Derwent Valley. The grant was very close to his father-in-law John McCarthy. About 1832 the family moved to Black Brush, a few miles south of Green Ponds. On 19 June 1832 their house and land at Black Brush was sold for 600 pounds. Nothing is known regarding the death of John Devereux. Some sources say he died enroute to Ireland, while attempting to visit family.

Devereux’s wife Harriet remarried in September 1847 in Hobart. Under British law she had to have been out of communication for 6 years before being allowed to remarry. There is a shipping record of a John Devereux travelling with Ann and William Hartley Budd aboard the brig Frances to Port Phillip in Nov 1838 which maybe Devereux leaving VDL for good (or it could have been Ann's brother). No death record has been found in the colony.