Married today, 10th July......

....In 1861 were my maternal great-great grandparents. Richard Aspinall and Mary Homer tied the knot at The Catholic Cathedral of St Michael & St John, Bathurst NSW.

Richard Aspinall, a convict from Wigan in Lancashire, arrived in Sydney from Sheerness on the Bengal Merchant in July 1838.  

Richard and Mary had two daughters.  Mary Jane, born in 1862 at Carrawa, was my great-grandmother, Margaret, her sister,  was born in 1865. After Mary's death Richard reared his two young daughters. It appears that  Richard had a second marriage in 1875 to Anna Maria Fell before he died in Carcoar Hospital in 1883.

 

It seems that Richard did not mend his ways after gaining his freedom.  Richard, as Black Dick, is reputed to have done a bit of bushranging with John Vane.  Mary Jane told a story about hiding under the kitchen table when the police came to round up some bushrangers.