Saturday, February 12, 2011

Elizabeth GORMAN


A notice that appeared in The Courier on the 9th of February in 1864

Lunacy. - Eliza Gorman was charged with being a dangerous lunatic. William Talford, warden at the South Brisbane depot, deposed that she was in the habit of behaving in a violent and unaccountable manner. Morey Seymour, a passenger by the Wansfell, deposed that Gorman came out in the same ship, and that from her exceedingly violent behaviour it had been found necessary to place her under restraint during the last part of the voyage. Drs. Hobbs and Gunn deposed that she was unfit to be at large, and she was sent to the lunatic asylum.

On the Wansfell was another passenger named Jane GORMAN aged 17. Elizabeth was listed as being 30 years old. Could this have been mother and daughter ?

The voyage of the Wansfell mentioned here was that which arrived at Port Denison on 30th of December in 1863. Morey SEYMOUR is Charles Morley SEYMOUR whose wife Hannah (nee JACKSON) had died on the 2nd of February 1864, five days before this notice appeared in the paper.