Saints and Sinners

Tom Tunaley was not the first in his family to emigrate to Australia. According to Phil Tunaley's website, a distant cousin, Thomas Tunaley from Derby emigrated to Melbourne on a sailing ship in 1868. Then in 1881, Tom Tunaley's uncle, Matthew Henry Tunaley from Manchester emigrated to Sydney and led a somewhat mysterious life thereafter. Finally, Tom's aunt Catherine Tunaley paid a visit to Australia in 1885 as a young woman, but didn't stay long.

In the mid-1800s, conditions on ships carrying emigrants to Australia were notoriously bad, particularly for passengers travelling on cheaper tickets, such as steerage class. Many died of diseases en route. On a sailing ship, the journey between England and Australia could take as long as three months. So as a steerage passenger on a sailing ship, "housed between decks in cramped, noisy, damp conditions", Thomas Tunaley probably endured a long and hazardous trip when he emigrated in 1868, only to disappear without a trace upon arrival.

Government regulations led to better conditions on emigrant ships during the second half of the 19th Century, and steamships replaced sail. The journeys taken by Matthew Henry and Catherine Tunaley in the early 1880s would have been challenging but orderly. By the 20th Century, when Tom Tunaley and his wife Maggie emigrated, conditions on board emigrant ships had improved markedly.

Thomas (1868)

The first Tunaley to emigrate was 34 year-old Thomas Tunaley, a silk dyer from Derby. In 1868, Thomas sailed in steerage class aboard the Suffolk, embarking at Gravesend, Kent and destined for Melbourne, Australia. The Suffolk was a sailing ship built in 1857, pictured below. More details can be found here.

In the year Thomas left England (1868), his father, (Thomas Tunaley Jnr) died and one of his sisters, Mary Anne died too. His mother Susannah Sparkes lived until 1890.

Thomas Tunaley disembarked in Melbourne in 1868, according to Australian immigration records, but nothing is known of him thereafter.

According to Phil Tunaley's research, Thomas is not mentioned in his grandfather Henry's will of 1874, although his sisters Sarah and Elizabeth are.

Matthew Henry (1881)

The story of Matthew Henry Tunaley of Manchester - Tom Tunaley's uncle - is even more mysterious. According to research by Jane Holmes and Phil Tunaley, Matthew Henry may have been a bit of a scoundrel.

Matthew Henry Tunaley (b. 1848) was the eldest of eight children born to John Tunaley (1813 - 1863) and Sarah Wood (1822 - 1888) who were originally from Derby. John Charles Tunaley (Tom's father) was born two years after Matthew in 1850, followed closely by another son, Thomas Gronow Tunaley, born in 1851. The three boys were followed by five girls: Elizabeth Tunaley b. 1854; Sarah Gronow Tunaley b. 1857; Mary Thomason Tunaley b. 1857; Catherine Tunaley b. 1860 (see below) and Alexandra Edith Tunaley b. 1863 (the year her father died).

The first four children were born in Derby, but by 1857 when Sarah was born, the family had moved to Manchester. "Gronow" (given as a second name to both Thomas and Sarah) was the maiden name of the children's maternal grandmother (ie. Sarah Wood's mother).

Matthew Henry Tunaley was a joiner by trade, (his father and brother were joiners too). In 1871, when he was 23 years old, Matthew Henry Tunaley was declared bankrupt, although this was later annulled.

A year earlier, in 1870, Matthew married Mary Stafford from Manchester. She gave birth to four children over the next eight years. The first two - Louisa Tunaley (1871-1882); and Florence Tunaley (1873-1873) - died young. Then Annie was born in 1877 and Joseph Henry Tunaley was born in 1878. Three years later, their father Matthew Henry emigrated to Australia, unaccompanied.

In 1881, at the age of 34, Matthew Henry Tunaley sailed to Australia on the SS Lusitania, a steamship of the Orient Line, pictured below (not the famous SS Lusitania that was torpedoed in 1915).

After Matthew arrived in Sydney on 25 May 1882, he moved north. By 1891 he was living in Casino, an inland town near the Queensland border (thanks to Jane Holmes for this research). In 1897, Matthew Henry Tunaley married a woman called Mary Mason in Drake NSW, 74 kilometres west of Casino. Two years later, Matthew Henry died at the age of 50, 250 kilometres away in Toowoomba, Queensland

Jane Holmes found notices in Australian newspapers indicating that Matthew Henry's family were looking for him for many years. These continued even after he was declared "deceased" on his daughter Annie’s marriage register entry in 1897 (presumably to "save face").

In 1906, a Missing Persons advertisement placed by daughter Annie finally elicited a response. On response to a plea for information about Matthew H Tunaley placed in Lloyd's Newspaper that was circulated in Australia, the Adelaide Observer reported on 12 May 1906 (p.43), "Mr. J. Knsetzsch, in New South Wales, kindly sends tidings of Matthew A. Tunaley (sic), asked for by daughter Annie, in Manchester (December 24)". Through this connection with the Knsetzsch family, who lived around Casino, in New South Wales, Annie probably received the news that her father had died seven years earlier. In all likelihood, Annie would also have been told about her father's marriage to Mary Mason in Casino in 1897.

What would Annie have done with these two pieces of news? The news of Matthew's death would presumably have been passed onto Annie’s immediate family (her mother and brother). Annie may also have informed Matthew's two brothers and five sisters, one of whom - Catherine - had made the the astonishing decision to travel alone to Australia in Matthew's wake thirty years earlier (see below).

The news of her father's Australian marriage on the other hand (assuming that Annie was informed of it by the Knsetzsch family) may have been too sensitive to share. There's no evidence that Matthew Tunaley and his English wife Mary Stafford were ever divorced. Matthew was still married to Mary Stafford when he married Mary Mason in Australia in 1897. Mary Stafford lived until 1914.

And except for her marriage record to Matthew Tunaley, "Mary Mason" has been impossible to trace.

Catherine (1885)

The first woman in the Tunaley family to arrive in Australia was Matthew Henry's sister Catherine Tunaley (Tom's Tunaley's aunt). When she was 25 years old, Catherine 'emigrated' to Australia four years after her brother Matthew had left England.

Twelve years younger than Matthew, Catherine Tunaley (b.1860), came to Australia alone in 1885, possibly to join (or to find?) her brother. She travelled on the SS Iberia as an emigrant, but returned to England within a few years. We know this because she was a witness at the wedding of her younger sister in 1888 (Phil Tunaley's research found Catherine's signature on her sister Alexandra Edith's marriage certificate in Birmingham in 1888).

Catherine never married. With her elder sister Sarah Gronow Lidyard, she became a nurse and served with distinction during a 1897 Typhoid epidemic. Phil Tunaley reports that Sarah Tunaley's gravestone indicates that Catherine and Sarah Gronow trained as nurses at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary before moving further south from their original Manchester home.

Catherine died in 1926 at the age of 66. On 12 November 1926, the Buckinghamshire Advertiser published her obituary (below). The article summarises her life and nursing career, as well as providing the names of mourners who attended her funeral (thanks again, Jane Holmes!).

In the obituary, Catherine's three surviving sisters are listed first among the mourners at her funeral under their married names: Elizabeth Tunaley (Mrs Smith - Bill Smith's mother); Mary Thomason Tunaley (Mrs Powditch); and Alexandra Edith Tunaley (Mrs Wain). Mr. T. Tunaley was most probably Catherine's nephew Thomas Gronow Junior (b. 1883). Phil Tunaley provided this information and also pointed out that although Catherine was cremated, her ashes were buried with her mother in the Uttoxeter New Road Cemetery, Derby as indicated below.

From the little we know from the records of these early emigrants, Catherine, who chose to return to England and become a nurse, probably led the most distinguished life of all three.