Annie Elizabeth O’Connell [Gen-053]

The following text was provided by John O'Gorman, a distant relative in Canada around February 2022. 

Interestingly, it reiterates 14 Henrietta Street as an address for William O'Connell's family around 1870. The anecdote about William O'Connell rescuing Colonel Wolseley and their ensuing friendship is also mentioned.

The Short Sad Saga of Annie Elizabeth O’Connell

It could be said it all started in 1859 with the birth of Anne Elizabeth Connell in Limerick, to Sergeant William Connell of the 17th Foot regiment and his Mayo wife Mary Burke. 

Although Anne died shortly after birth, she was not to be forgotten.

There were two other siblings at that time, Ellen, born in Oughterard, Co. Galway in 1851 and John Joseph, called Jack as a young lad, born in Dublin in 1853, just before his father and the 17th regiment embarked for Gibraltar on their way to the Crimea and action in the siege of Sevastopol.

William survived that conflict but then was sent with the 1st battalion to British North America for two years. On return to Ireland, Katherine Mary came along in Limerick in 1863, followed by Mary, born in 1865 in the South Camp at the big military base in Aldershot, England; then William Gregory in 1868 at the Curragh Camp in Co. Kildare, near the town of Newbridge.

In 1870, “Jack” , now going by JJ (John Joseph) enlisted with his father’s regiment, the 17th and was posted immediately to India. William was 6 months shy of 21 years military service, the magic number for a pension and naturally was reluctant to leave all his family again. Further, a soldier’s life was not an easy one in those days, enduring horrible conditions. William spent some time in the military hospital in Carlow in 1870.

Now, during the conflict in Crimea in 1854-55, William had assisted in saving the life of an injured army captain named Garnet Wolseley, and they had generated a friendship. By 1870 Wolseley had risen to Commander–in-Chief of the armed forces in Ireland and he issued an order to transfer William to serve out his final six months with the Dublin Militia, thus keeping him in Ireland and qualifying him for full pension.

Henrietta Street Dublin had once been a grand collection of houses occupied by lawyers, doctors and other professionals and politicians. However, it went into gradual decline, due to a number of factors: following the Act of Union in 1801 and the transfer of the Irish parliament to London, many of this class of society left town; the advent of the railway in 1833 from Dublin to the rural areas of south Dublin like Blackrock, Kingstown and Stillorgan, led to their growth as well as suburban areas like Rathgar, Ranelagh and Rathmines.

By 1870 the large homes on Henrietta St were being rented out. Some units were rented out to the Dublin militia and that is where William brought his family for a short time. In October, Anne Elizabeth Connell was reborn [sic] as Annie Elizabeth O’Connell at 14 Henrietta St.

Shortly after, William retired on pension and moved the family to Newbridge, where he opened a new public house on Eyre St. It’s possible, Wolseley assisted in this, for Wolseley’s family had connections in the brewery trade.

In 1875 William's hard life caught up with him and he died at age 46, perhaps from lung [cancer] or TB. Annie, aged 5, lost her father. That same year, her eldest sister Ellen 23, married John Brown. That left Mrs. Mary Burke Connell 45, with a pub and rooming house to run and 4 children to raise: Katherine 12, Mary 10, William 7 and Annie 5.

Ellen and John Brown no doubt helped but then Ellen died in 1879. Annie was 9. In June 1884 Mary Burke O’Connell died. Annie was 14. A year later, Katherine married George Turner, a pub owner. The other children were taken in by friends and neighbours. In Feb 1887, Annie’s brother William,18, sailed from Queenstown on the Wisconsin to New York. A year later, her sister Mary married local tailor Robert D’Arcy with 17yr-old Annie as a witness/bridesmaid.

Her parents and eldest sister were dead. Her oldest brother JJ, whom she had never met, was somewhere in India. Her other sisters Katherine and Mary were married and starting their own families. Her brother William had emigrated to the U.S. Annie was 18 and alone.

Newbridge was a military town with barracks right on the Main Street across the road from several pubs , including Myers’ Leinster House, and Turner’s King’s Arms, and Higgin’s further down. Plus there was a large military camp at the Curragh less than two miles away. There were always soldiers in town and there were also civilians employed at the camp, cleaning, cooking, working in the canteens, etc. Did Annie get a job there?

Ernest Sidney Webb, born in Cirencester England in 1866, son of a coachman, joined the 5th Batt Wiltshire Rgmnt and was posted to Ireland where he rose to Sergeant, usually managing canteen services at various barracks. In 1890 he married Ellen Regan in Athlone and then was posted to the Curragh. Two years later Ellen died of TB. Three years later. in May 1893 Sidney married 22 year-old Annie Elizabeth O’Connell.

Sgt Sidney Webb was transferred to North Camp Aldershot, Hampshire and Annie gave birth to her first and only child Ernestine Mary in April 1894. Just before her 3rd Christmas, Ernestine lost her mother Annie who died in Hampshire, England.

When Ernestine was 11, her father [Ernest] Sidney Webb, now stationed in Kilkenny, married Annie Jane McClelland and they had six more children before Ernest died in 1916 from a brain haemorrhage. Annie and her children emigrated in 1922 to Maine USA where she remarried Albert Clark in 1931.

In the meantime, in July 1913, Ernestine, daughter of Annie Elizabeth O’Connell and Ernest Webb married Sidney Elton Phipps, a soldier. He was posted to India and they had two children there before settling down in Bath, England. Two of Annie Elizabeth’s great grandchildren still live there. Do they know about their great-grandmother?

Ernestine was only three when her mother Annie died. Then she lived in Kilkenny and Cork. Did she know of the Connell’s and Turners in Newbridge?