Matching Francis Cavanagh to the right newspaper reports

 

                                         Hyde Park Barracks where Francis Cavanagh and other convicts were housed 

I've made progress in my hunt for Francis Cavanagh in Australia. From the MHNSW website, I learned that much of the information about New South Wales convicts is on Ancestry. I had a deeper look at what's available and found the New South Wales, Australia, Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930. A search for Francis Cav* turned up lots of entries including ones for the last name Cavey and also for Fras Cavanagh. They all seem to relate to the man I'm looking for especially as a convict's ID included the name of the ship he or she came in on.

The entry for the Description Book >Darlinghurst > 1841-1849 (Darlinghurst was a gaol or jail) had entries for John Cunningham, Francis Cavanagh and Darby Corr or Carr all following each other with the entry numbers of 605, 606 and 607. Those three men were named in newspaper accounts from 1845 as the accused in the robbery of a cash box at Government House. All three were from Hyde Park Barracks, a place for male convicts at that time. Subsequent reports stated that Cunningham and Carr were found guilty but there was no evidence against Cavanagh who was discharged.

I need to make a closer study of the rest of the newspaper accounts and compare them to the sketchy timeline I've made for Francis Cavanagh based on the New South Wales, Australia, Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930. I'm not sure what happened to Francis in 1854. On one hand there's his Ticket of Leave with the Remarks - District Yass; Tried Sydney 1854. Does that mean he obtained his Ticket of Leave that year? On the other hand one of the Entrance Books for Darlinghurst records that he was admitted for labour for 4 years to Cockatoo Island on 23 Aug 1854. Does admitted in that case mean sentenced? I need to figure out what it all means.

Sources:

Ancestry              New South Wales, Australia, Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930

MHNSW             website

Trove                        https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/

Images:

Image of Hyde Park Barracks from Wikimedia commons

By Unknown author - https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/digital/4NOW6xjk4kMO0, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=135791690