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### 2004 BICENTENNARY OF THE ARRIVAL OF ANN REFFIN ###
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## AT CASTLEREAGH METHODIST CHURCH - Sunday 20 June 2004 ##
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*** ORGANISER VOLUNTEERS, SPEAKERS ARE NOW SOUGHT ***
Please write to john.mail@ozemail.com.au
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SEMINAR TO COMMEMORATE ARRIVAL OF ANN REFFIN IN AUSTRALIA
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(Matriarch to Byrnes, Jackson, Wilkinson etc families .. a large range of descendants)
Ann Reffin was born on the wolds near Nottingham in 1783. She was transported for burglary and had six children, all born at Parramatta before most of the extended family later moved to Castlereagh. Ann's children themselves had up to 14 children each, some died, most survived. By now the descendants of Ann Reffin must number in the thousands, with surnames of Byrnes, Jackson, Wilkinson, and many more. Ann's husband was David (Davy) Burne / Burns / Byrnes. David arrived in Sydney in 1800 about the Friendship II. One record states that he was tried in Dublin on 22 October 1798. No details of this trial have come to light but there is little doubt that he was a political prisoner like others aboard this second voyage of the Friendship to Australia were. David's sentence was Transportation for Life and Ann's was for seven years. Ann received a Certificate of Pardon in 1810. David received a Conditional Pardon (in 1809 under Colonel Paterson, later revoked, and re-issued under Governor Macquarie in 1813). Ann Reffin/Byrnes died of bronchitis in Castlereagh on 26 July 1839 and was buried by Reverend Henry Fulton. The year before her death she saw the sad demise of her youngest daughter Catherine Sophia Byrnes who died shortly after childbirth in 1838, aged 19. Catherine's baby Harriet died the following year on 29 October 1839. The next year, 1840, one of Ann's sons, John Byrnes who married Eliza Ablett, re-perpetuated the name Catherine Sophia Byrnes for their first born child. David Byrnes died in 1848. The Byrnes family plot in the Christ Church Cemetery at Castlereagh lies in the rear left corner of the burial ground enclosure and is next to the vault with Henry Fulton. Other early Byrnes and Jackson family members are found at the Methodist church cemetery in Castlereagh. Through the leading influence of Harriet Byrnes most of the early family members are believed to have converted to Methodism of the early or "primitive" or revivalist spirit (of which the Salvation Army may be derivative). It is not known if the parents Ann and David ever converted to Methodism.
The Castlereigh Methodist church is the site of the first Methodist chapel in Australia, built by John Lees and later under trusteeship of James and Samuel Byrnes (Samuel is buried there and James is in the Byrnes plot in the Christ Church cemetery).
The Ann Reffin seminar will be held at the Castlereagh Methodist church on Sunday 20th June, 2004. Speakers for this seminar are welcome, on all aspects related to the life and times of Ann, and her descendant lines.
HISTORICAL HERITAGE NOTES: The heritage of Castlereagh is important to the descendants of Ann Reffin and many other pioneers of the district. It is also important to the nation, as various "Australia's first" (or likely firsts) occurred at Castlereagh. Fulton's Castlereagh Classical Academy was Australia's first effort at higher learning. He advertised that it would teach Latin, Greek, French, English, writing and mathematics in a curriculum suitable for boys intending commercial, military or naval pursuits. It produced Australia's first native-born published poet, Charles Tompson Jnr, who in turn wrote a poem "Fair Castlereagh" which may contain the first known lament over the felling of the Australian bush to the settler's axe.
The Methodist establishment at Castlereagh was Australia's first (if not the first in the Southern Hemisphere). And no great distance behind the Methodist establishment lay the farm house of the Catholic settler John McCarthy. There, according to family legend Catholism was carried on in secret on the property and the house had a permanent "priest room". The first three Catholic priests in the colony were political convicts. The convict priest Father Harold stayed there, and on that property there was commenced the first Catholic cemetery in Australia (regardless of government's initial desire that Catholics be buried only in the General/Anglican cemeteries of the day, and not on property lands). Catholic Byrnes are buried in the McCarthy cemetery.
Nowadays most of the Castlereagh alluvial plain has been quarried away to feed the sand market of greater Sydney. McCarthy's cemetery has been isolated by the quarrying and who will care for it in the future seems unclear. It has suffered a great deal of damage to monuments. The Christ Church cemetery is cared for by Penrith Council, and also has a friends group interested in it. The Methodist Church and cemetery is the most safely preserved of all at present and benefits from having a permanent on-site caretaker. Prior to the resident caretaker stage vandals had wrought destruction in the graveyard (since repaired) and on one occasion placed a garbage bin of waste in front of the wooden church doors and set that alight, no doubt hoping to burn down the church. Fortunately a passing motorist saw the flames and put them out.
The current state of the Methodist church precincts, on a "sacred acre" bestowed to Methodism from his property by settler John Lees, derives from the efforts of the Rev. Dr Gloster Stuart Udy, recently deceased. Rev. Udy was son of a Methodist minister, whose three boys all became Methodist ministers. Rev. Udy had a long career including time in the USA; and time in the army as sergeant, then chaplain, in WW2 including at the battle for Tarakan. He was a Director of Lifeline, a well known Methodist service program, for many years; and also appointed to the staff of the General Board of the Methodist Department of Evangelism in Nashville.
After his retirement in 1988 he worked on promoting the restoration of the Castlereagh chuch precincts (chapel, hall and cemetery) and the establishment of a retreat centre there. Just as this site, and Castlereagh more generally, is regarded as the founding site or family hearth of the Ann+David family of Byrnes and other descendants, it is also the founding site of Methodism in Australia. It has the restored chapel of 1847, the school erected in 1860 (now used as a meeting hall) and the church cemetery all restored to good order. Udy also arranged for a specially built bell tower which contains a historic set of bells acquired from Kiama Anglican Church. Also built there is a group of accommodation units which will provide income to maintain the complex under the care of a permanent caretaker.
Gloster Udy died at about 5 pm on Sunday May 4, 2003, aged 84. His wish was to be buried at the Castlereagh church cemetery and there he now lies.
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*** Ann Reffin was born on the Wolds near Nottingham in February 1783, committed a burglary at Ruddington, was transported to Sydney, and married a David Burns/Byrnes from Ireland. Both Ann and David are buried at Castlereagh (near Penrith at the foot of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, NSW, Australia ***
*** If you are an Australian Byrnes you are possibly one of Ann's descendants. Write to us if uncertain. ***
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Hello,
This is solely Byrnes-focussed at the moment although the Byrnes & Irish Study Group would like to develop and share more general Irish interests/contacts as well; so would like to hear from anyone whether Byrnes or not. Byrnes'es commonly also have many Scottish and Scots-Irish links as well as Irish heritage.
The author of these pages is a geologist with the government of New South Wales (the first Australian colony).
John Byrnes, Sydney, Australia; site created 23 April 2003.
Email: byrnesj@minerals.nsw.gov.au
FOR THE BYRNES FAMILY WORLDWIDE
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~~ BURN; BURNE; BOURNES; BURNES; BURNS; BYRNES; etc.
If interested in Byrnes life, times, culture, interests or whatever you like .. of Byrnes, O'Byrne, Burn etc peope of Ireland, Scotland, America, Australia .....
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The organisers are in Australia and are particularly interested in THE EARLY BYRNES TO ARRIVE AUSTRALIA. For these see State Records of New South Wales - Colonial Secretary's Papers, 1788-1825: http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/indexes/colsec/default.htm
If you would like to get a PDF file of the NSW State records (Colonial Secretary's records) of early Byrne/s entering the penal colony of NSW, download it from the Byrnes family interests homepage via http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the-byrnes/ files section; or else directly as http://a4.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/gNelPnRQCnBnmDLaidlTWVXJtQNQSqUV8IhP8Pg37eSYUJcGT1QRaPAIwxRKkeUFIHKQ9fF1_8KMhF4A/the-first-byrnes.pdf (This compilation is 94 Kb).
Should you have material on the early Australia BYRNES referred to herein, then please send it to the Study Group. We undertake to make any material freely available to all, or available at only the costs of distribution. Send material to:
BYRNES AND IRISH STUDY GROUP
PO BOX 264 SUMMER HILL NSW 2130 AUSTRALIA
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