Mary-Jane (Burnett) MacPherson (abt. 1810 - abt. 1883)

Born about 1810 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Wife of Edward Chapman — married 7 Dec 1826 (to 1854) in Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, Australia

Wife of Aeneas Mackintosh MacPherson — married 14 Jul 1855 (to 1867) in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom

Died about 31 Mar 1883 at about age 73 in London, England, United Kingdom

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Stephen Corkey [send private message]

Biography

Mary-Jane (Burnett) MacPherson was born in Scotland.

Mary was born sometime between 1806-1811.^[1] She was the daughter of John Burnett and Penelope Hayes.^[2]

She was the eldest child of nine. Her parents moved from Aberdeenshire (her father reportedly descended from the Burnetts of Ley) to the Isle of Man sometime around 1820.^[3]

In March 1826 her father was appointed Colonial Secretary of Van Diemen's Lane, and all bar the oldest of her brothers set sail later that year, arriving in November.

Also arriving in Hobart on 22nd November was Edward Chapman, master of the Woodford a ship carrying 100 convicts.^[4][5] It seems unlikely - though not beyond the realms of possibility - that the Burnetts (and their 9 young children) would have travelled on the same ship.

How Edward and Mary Jane came to get to know each other and decide upon marriage is a mystery. However on 5th December, Edward wrote to the Acting Colonial Secretary, W. H. Hamilton requesting a licence to marry without the publication of banns. Attached to the letter was a note from John Burnett (who was the incoming Colonial Secretary) giving permission for his underage daughter to marry Edward.^[6]

On 7th December 1826, Mary Jane married Edward Chapman in Hobart, witnessed by her parents and the Acting Colonial Secretary.^[7]

Most of what we know about Mary Jane after that comes from the facts of a Privy Council court case, Chapman v Oriental Bank Corporation 1865, resulting from a financial dispute arising after the death of Edward in 1854.^[8]

They had a son, George Henry James Mobery (Mowbray) Chapman born in 1834.^[9]. They also had a daughter, Mary who was legally underage in 1854 - probably therefore younger than George - who unfortunately passed away in 1854 after her father.

The family may have lived for a time on the island of Mauritius - they certainly held property there. Edward was in business with Mary's brother, Atholl Burnett.

Following Edward's death, Mary Jane remarried to Bengal-born Eneas Mackintosh McPherson, son of Col. Duncan MacPherson and Ann Brodie Campbell, in Cheltenham, England on 14 Jul 1855. Their marriage was registered in the Jul-Aug-Sep quarter of 1855 in the Cheltenham district.^[10] The marriage was referred to in an 1864 court report on the ongoing appeals over her husband's estate.

Her husband passed away in 1867 and is buried at Brompton Cemetery in London.^[11].

There is a grave with the exact same plot location reference, marked "Mary Anne McPherson." This person passed away on 31 Mar 1883.^[12] It could be a daughter of Eneas's from a previous marriage (although there is no evidence of such). Or it could be the final resting place of Mary Jane Burnett, with her name still causing confusion to people 140 years after her passing.

Sources

1. ↑ Married underage with father's permission in December 1826
2. ↑ Some genealogies suggest she was rather the daughter of a James Burnett.
3. ↑ Birth records for two of their children
4. ↑ https://www.opc-cornwall.org/Resc/emigrant_pdfs/nankervis_henry_1826.pdf
5. ↑ https://convictrecords.com.au/ships/woodford/1826
6. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89PQ-Y9TF?cc=2514003&personaUrl=%2Fark%3A%2F61903%2F1%3A1%3AQLT9-J6JH
7. ↑ "Australia, Tasmania, Civil Registration, 1803-1933," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q279-9XTN : 3 October 2018), Edward Chapman and Mary Jane Burnett, 7 Dec 1826; citing Marriage 7 Dec 1826, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, line #1844, Archives Office of Tasmania, Hobart; FHL microfilm 7,368,152.
8. ↑ http://knyvet.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKPC/1865/1865_19.html
9. ↑ The court decision specifies the date on which he turned 21
10. ↑ Marriage Registration: "England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005"
    citing 1855, quarter 3, vol. 6A, p. 628, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, General Register Office, Southport, England
    FamilySearch Record: 2D3Z-XV5 (accessed 23 November 2023)
    Eneas Mackintosh Macpherson marriage registered Jul-Aug-Sep 1855 in Cheltenham.
11. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/222024904/eneas-mackintosh-macpherson
12. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/222024917/mary-anne-macpherson

• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/M5LR-VVL

Research Notes

Father's page was getting too crowded so I decided there was enough evidence to make a profile.

This was so difficult to pull together, and there are some areas where the balance of probabilities has been marginal.

Bottom line: a Captain Edward Chapman definitely married a Mary Burnett and later died in Mauritius (court report). That Edward was PROBABLY the son of Abel Chapman whose company definitely owned the boat he captained. And Mary Burnett was PROBABLY the daughter of the Colonial Secretary of Tasmania who definitely gave his blessing in writing for her underage marriage. But...

Areas of dispute:

• Parentage. There is a very detailed Chapman genealogy which mentions the wife of Edward as being Mary Jane, daughter of James Burnett. John's father was called James, but that James's biography is definitive that John was the only child. For me it made sense that John would be the father, given the court case has TWO Burnett connections in Atholl, Mary's brother, and Sholto James Douglas, nephew of her sister Henrietta's husband. Both are representing Mary Jane and her son, one with power of attorney, the other as curator so there is a high degree of trust there you'd associate with a close family connection. The Familysearch marriage documents with John giving permission for Mary to marry were decisive.

• Parentage - contra. It does seem odd that John and Penelope had three daughters with similar names - Mary Jane, Mary Gascoigne and Marianne Jane. But it is what the records are indicating. My concerns that any daughter of John must be too young to marry in 1826 were addressed by the underage waiver. (I have changed her first name to Mary-Jane to lessen the confusion a little).

• Different Edward Chapmans. It is a common name. The Chapman in the court case and in the marriage records are obviously the same person, and Chapman genealogists seem pretty certain that the one who married Mary Jane was the son of Abel and Rebecca. But why am I so certain that the Master of the Woodford arriving in Hobart in November 1826 is the same man who married Mary Jane two weeks later? This is largely due to a reference in the Journal of Anne Baxter, edited by Sherwood "Burnett had two other daughters: one of whom married a Captain Chapman of the Woodford in Sydney in Dec. 1826" Obviously Sydney is incorrect, but the rest is pretty well documented - there was a Woodford with a Captain Chapman arrived FROM Sydney in November, and an Edward Chapman married Mary Jane in Hobart in December. In addition, if the genealogy is correct Edward comes from a nautical family, his father and grandfather were both sea captains. And, for what it's worth, he came from a town in Essex called Woodford!

Note: there was another Aeneas MacIntosh MacPherson who lived around the same period as Mary's second husband. This one was the son of Andrew and Anne, he married Anne Helen Clark and lived in Scotland before emigrating to Timaru, New Zealand, where he died in 1875. On Familysearch there is some confusion over whether Mary's Eneas (son of Col. Duncan) was born in Scotland or Bengal. There's no record of him having a previous wife.

Still a mystery - what was her date of birth? When did she pass away? (WORKING THEORY) Who was her 2nd husband? (SOLVED) Where were her son and daughter born? How did she meet Captain Chapman - did she know him in the Isle of Man? Or did the Burnetts really travel to Hobart on the same ship as 100 convicts?