Margaret (Smyth) Plowright (1834-1897)

My husband’s great great grandmother was an Irish woman from County Cavan named Margaret Smyth, who emigrated to Victoria in 1854. On the passage from Southhampton to Melbourne, she gave birth to a boy. On her arrival she first stayed with John Hunter, one of her cousins.

In November 1855 at Magpie near Ballarat Margaret married John Plowright, a goldminer. The marriage certificate describes her as a 22-year-old dressmaker from County Cavan, whose parents were William Smyth, a farmer, and Mary Cox.

The Plowrights moved to Alma near Maryborough and then in 1860 to Homebush near Avoca.

Margaret and John had seven children, one of them adopted. I have found nothing further about the boy who was born on the passage out; he probably died as an infant.

Their children were:

William John born 1859 at Alma (four miles west of Maryborough)
James Henry born 1860 at Homebush (about 10 miles from Alma)
Ann Jane born 1862 at Four Mile Flat (Homebush)
Frederick Edward born 1865 at Avoca
Samuel Joseph Smyth born 1868 at Homebush
John Plowright born 1872 at Homebush and died the same year
Frederick Harold born 1881 was adopted; he was their grandson, the son of James Henry Plowright

Some of this information is cooroborated by a hospital record. On 5 March 1872 Margaret was admitted to the Maryborough Hospital. According to the index of the hospital admission record, she was 37 years old, married, from Homebush, a Wesleyan, and she had arrived in the colony on the Persian seventeen years previously.

In 1878 their son Frederick was killed while cutting down a tree. He died on 24 April and an inquest was held the day after. John and his daughter Ann Jane gave statements.

Frederick death was reported locally and as far distantly as Wagga Wagga in New South Wales and Launceston in Tasmania, as well as the Argus.

Margaret Plowright was well-known and busy in Homebush. In 1864 she provided one of the tea tables at a function to raise money for the Homebush Common school. In 1880 she presided over a tea table when funds were being raised for the Union Church at Lower Homebush. In 1883 she once more presided over a table when anniversary services for the Wesleyan Church were held at Homebush.

In 1897 at the age of 63 Margaret died at Homebush near Avoca. The death certificate gives the cause of death as Brights Disease [kidney failure], dropsy [fluid retention] and exhaustion. She was buried in Avoca cemetery.

Here is her memorial card: