1860-1942
Father
Unknown
Mother
Siblings
Three step-siblings, all died in infancy
Married
Children
William Ernest, Hugh Arthur, Mary (Wilson), Leo Cecil, Zita Kathleen, Eileen Agnes (Macpherson), Roy Laurence, Rupert Joseph
Katy’s Life
Katy was born Catherine Carney in 1860 without a listed father. It was never a secret that she was, what was called in those days ‘illegitimate’. It gave the family a great charity towards any girl who as they say, ‘got into trouble’ and had an illegitimate child.
Kate spent all her early life in Mudgee, living with her mother and stepfather Steven Malone, who married in 1865. She was a talented girl, who at school was no good at sewing, that was a girl subject, so she would listen in to the boys’ math’s lesson. Once, when the math teacher became exasperated with his boy students he said,
‘A girl could answer this! Kate –what is the answer?’ Replying with the correct answer to that math’s question allowed Kate to move into the boys’ math’s class as the only girl.
She was the first girl West of the Blue Mountains to pass the Junior University Examination. She also gained the highest marks in the State and shared the Fairfax Prize with another girl.
Her Mother. Catherine Mary Carney had worked for William Waterford I, who owned the ‘Chain of Ponds’ Hotel at Singleton so the two families knew each other and Katy spent many of her holidays at the property of William’s parents before her marriage to William in 1886.
William and Katy lived at ‘Morton Bay’, home schooling their children until 1897. The children’s love of learning for its own sake and their subsequent brilliance must be attributed, in no small degree, to the influence and expertise of their mother, Katy, who laid the foundation of their education in those early days at ‘Morton Bay’.
The move to Mudgee, to manage the Town Hall Hotel for her mother, was not successful due to Will’s generosity to and Katy sending the customers home to their wives.
In 1907 Catherine Malone, Katy Waterford/Carney’s mother sold the Hotel to finance William and Katy’s purchase of the property “Ellerslie’ of 3000 acres at Tooraweenah. Their daughters, Eileen and Mary were at school at St Vincent’s College, Rose Bay while the boys Roy and Rupert lived at home.
After three years of drought and then a flood, they were bankrupt and in 1920 after selling “Ellerslie’ William and Katy moved to Mosman and as city life was not for them, they moved to Quirindi, where their son, Will had his own Solicitors Office.
In 1926 her sons, William Ernest and Hugh Arthur, both lost their wives in childbirth within a year of each other. This left Will with seven motherless children aged from 15 months to 12 years of age and his brother Hugh living on their property ‘Yarramin’ with six children.
Katy and William oversaw the care of both families of children. Katy taught home schooling to the six children at ‘Yarramin’ while William helped his son working the property.
Katy got her strength from her mother, Catherine Mary Carney, and her grandmother Mary.
Catherine Mary Carney, Katy’s mother, born in 1837 was the fourth child of Hugh and Mary Carney.
Hugh, an Irishman, charged with Insurrection was deported to Australia for 14 years on 16 July 1820. He owned a small farm in Ireland and even though his wife said he was home on the night in question he was still convicted and their farm was confiscated.
In 1828 Hugh received his ticket of leave, and then his wife Mary, and their son Martin walked from Roscommon to Cork – a distance of 261 km – to catch the ship ‘Joseph Banks’, to take them to Australia to her husband Hugh.
Hugh and Mary leased 640 acres of land from William Wentworth in the Bathurst area.
When Hugh Carney died, Mary married again Peter Fitzgerald, who took her land and starved her children, including Catherine Mary Carney. This is how she came to work for William Waterford at the ‘Chain of Ponds’ Hotel at Singleton and from this association their children met and married.
Katy and William reluctantly left ‘Yarramin’, in late 1930s and then they lived next door to the Catholic Church in Quirindi so Katy could go to Mass every day.
Her children referred to her as Katy Carney and were very proud of her as a very strong intelligent woman who handed on to her children and grandchildren strength of character and intellectual qualities, particularly in mathematics.
Authored by Paula O’Connor