Paris has been in the news! It is a city synonymous with romance and referred to as the city of light. However in my family it does not necessarily have such favourable connections because two of my ancestors, Mary Isabella Moffatt and Marmaduke Charles Alexander Bell (more about him in another blog), died in Paris many years apart and in very different circumstances.

Mary Isabella Bell was born in the town of Tullamore, King’s County, Ireland (now County Offaly, Republic of Ireland) on 14 October 1825.^[1]   Mary and her parents, Thomas and Sarah Bell, and three brothers and baby sister, Sarah Elizabeth (who died on the voyage), left Dublin for the colony of New South Wales (NSW) on 4 December 1831 and arrived in Sydney on 11 May 1832. 

Mary was seven when the Bells arrived in NSW.  It is not clear if, or where, Mary Isabella went to school although she would have moved with her parents wherever Thomas found employment. In 1836, Thomas and Sarah found positions as keeper and matron at the Parramatta Female Factory so Mary would have gone to live there with the whole family in the matron’s quarters.

At the age of 18, Mary Isabella married John Macdonald at St Johns Church, Parramatta and so began a very sad sequence of events for Mary. The couple only had two years together before John, who was ‘first clerk’ at the Ordnance Office (military stores), died at the end of 1845.^[2]  In January of the next year, a ‘marine view villa’ at Balmain belonging to John Macdonald was advertised to be sold or let which meant that Mary, now Mary Macdonald, may have returned to live with her parents at Parramatta.^[3] 

Two years later, Mary became engaged to Henry Dennis, who was managing a property her parents had leased on the Darling Downs. However, on 11 March 1847, Henry, who was en route to Sydney for their wedding, was one of the 44 people who died when the Sovereign sank off North Stradbroke Island.

Entry of Thomas de Lacy Moffatt’s and Mary Isabella Macdonald’s marriage in St John’s Parramatta marriage register.

Mary’s third step to the matrimonial stakes was three years later when she married Thomas de Lacy Moffatt in Parramatta on 17 April 1850. Thomas had arrived in Sydney in 1844 to join his uncle, Captain R G Moffatt who was living at Parramatta, to gain experience and two years later moved north to the Darling Downs. After the couple married, they lived in Drayton, near Toowoomba, and then in 1861 moved to Ipswich, near Brisbane, Queensland. Thomas was elected as the member for Eastern Downs in Queensland’s first Legislative Assembly in 1860. Suddenly on 2 October 1864, at the age of 38, he died of an aneurism at the family’s home at Waterstown, Ipswich leaving Mary widowed with four young children.^[4] The North Australian describes his last day.

On Sunday morning Mrs Moffatt, in accordance with her usual practice, expressed her intention of going to church, and invited Mr. Moffatt to accompany her. He declined the invitation (of course respectfully) and alleged as his reason that he did not feel disposed to go out at all on the occasion, at length he did consent to go, his wife having previously stated that she would not go unless he were pleased to accompany her … and after returning from church he partook very heartily of dinner … About 5 o’clock he went into his dressing room to make some preparation with regard to a walk with his family …Unfortunately, however, the deceased gentleman never lived to accomplish this graceful act of parental and official companionship. His wife and several of the children were in attendance, and rendered promptly and affectionately all the assistance they could possibly afford. When they saw him fall, Mrs. Moffatt instantly solicited the assistance of Mr. Kellett, a gentleman who happened to be in the vicinity …, however … the deceased died almost instantaneously.^[5]

This must have been a traumatic day for the whole family and may have influenced Mary’s decision, eighteen months later, to leave with her four young children (Thomas, Gerald, Isabella and Mary) and her brother Marmaduke Bell on the Legion of Honor. This ship had arrived from London on 27 February 1866, but its departure was delayed because eleven sailors jumped ship. These sailors,

… landed at Sandgate in one of the ship’s boats, at about dawn. Sergeant Brady, the person in charge of the police station there, heard the sound of footsteps passing the lock-up; and suspecting some thing was up, went down to the beach, where a boat was seen drifting about … They made up with the deserters within two miles of the German Station. The formal arrest of the lot was easily enough managed  …

When the sailors were arrested, some were half-drunk, and they all admitted they belonged to the Legion of Honor.^[6] The Brisbane Courier later reported that ten of the sailors had been fined £50 each so presumably they returned to the Legion of Honor which continued its voyage on 26 April 1866.^[7]

The Legion of Honor’s route, presumably to England, was across the Pacific Ocean to Callao, Peru. No word was heard of the ship’s progress for a number of months and many thought the ship had been lost. However in September,

… letters were received by the last Panama mail, both from Mrs. Moffatt and the Rev. Mr. Bell [Marmaduke, her brother], containing intelligence of their safe arrival at Callao after a rather protracted passage extending over two months.^[8]

In fact on 2 May 1866 the Spanish fleet had tried to reconquer an independent Peru in the Battle of Callao and although the attack was rebuffed by the Peruvians, it must have destabilised the area and probably accounted for the delay.

Letter from John Alexander from Paris to his brother Joshua Bell, UQFL 79 Bell Family Papers Series G, File 2, (Box 5 Folder 7).

Three months later records show that Mary died in Paris ‘of congestion of the brain, after three days illness’.^[9] Why she was there is a mystery. Was she accompanied by her four children? Was Marmaduke with her or, if not, was there time for him to arrive? She must have been buried in a temporary grave because in August 1875 her brother John Alexander wrote from Paris to his brother Joshua that, ‘the grave will be ready to receive the coffin next Saturday’ and that he or Joshua must be in attendance to, ‘witness the removal’.

It appears that Mary’s two brothers John Alexander and Joshua Bell took care of Mary Isabella’s four children after her death. After their father, Thomas Bell’s death in 1872, his sons added a memorial to him on the Moffatt/Bell grave in the Ipswich General Cemetery and below they also placed a memorial to their sister:

‘Also of their sister MARY ISABELLA wife of T. DELACY MOFFATT who died at Paris, December 31st 1866. Aged 40 years.

Mary had come with her family to a new country at seven years of age. She had a short and a very difficult life with the death of her fiancee in tragic circumstances and the early deaths of two husbands. She also lost two children, a daughter Elizabeth Frances who died when she was one month old in 1858 and a son James Robert who died when he was four years old, not long before his father Thomas died. Perhaps she felt a trip overseas with her brother would be a new start but instead she ended up dying in a foreign country and leaving her four children parentless.

^[1] Her place of their birth comes from the certificates of birth for her children in the Queensland, Births, Deaths and Marriages.
^[2] ‘Family Notices’, The Weekly Register of Politics, Facts and General Literature, 4 November 1843, p. 230. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page22336029   accessed 6 August 2024..
^[3] ‘Died’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 December 1845, p.3, col. 1 http://nla.gov.au/ nla.news-article12884383    ‘To be Let or Sold’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 January 1846, p.4, col. 1.accessed 8 August 2024.  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12884508
^[4] ‘Funeral of Mr Moffatt’. (1864, October 4). Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld. : 1861 – 1908), p. 2. Accessed 8  August, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article123604136
^[5] 1864 ‘THE LATE HON. THOMAS DELACEY MOFFATT.’, The North Australian (Brisbane, Qld. : 1863 – 1865), 4 October, p. 3. , accessed 10 Aug 2024, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article77437846  The Moffatt family had also lost two children Elizabeth Frances (who had died at one month in May 1858) and James Robert (at 18 months December 1863)
^[6] News of the Week. (1866, March 3). The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 – 1939), p. 5. accessed 8 August, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20306525
^[7] WEEKLY EPITOME. (1866, March 10). The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 – 1933), p. 5. accessed 8 August, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1263850
^[8] ‘IPSWICH.’, The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 – 1933), 12 September, 1866, p. 3. , accessed 8 Aug 2024, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1274115
^[9] Family Notices” Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser (Qld. : 1861 – 1908) 20 April 1867: accessed  4 Sep 2024   http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article123610138