How many Byrne descendants in Western Australia? Lots and Lots!!

Martin Byrne born 1809 in Ireland. In 1831 working as a servant, he joined the 84th Regiment at Dublin. 5’7” with brown hair he served 21 years including 11 years in West Indies and India. He was discharged 1852 due to declining health. 2 years later with wife Margaret and daughter Eliza they came to W.A. on the convict ship Sea Park.

Martin was, for some time, employed as a carter for the Commissariat in Fremantle. In 1877 he had a 2 roomed brick cottage with shingle roof erected at a cost of £47 ‘at the back of Perth’. After a Pensioner’s grant of £15 he paid the balance off over 16 months.

Daughter Eliza was born 1843 in India. In 1860 she married William Simmons and they had 12 children, William (born 1861), George (1865), Charles (1868), Walter (1870), Bessie (1875), Ernest (1877), Frederick (1880) and married daughters Sophy Fowles (1862), Matilda Nicholls (1864), Margaret Arthur (1872), Eva Brigatti (1878) and Zoe Bovell (1884).

Martin died in 1880. Times must have been tough as wife Margaret who had become blind, applied for relief in mid-1883 and died a year later. Both were buried in East Perth Cemetery.

Eliza Simmons died in 1936 aged 94!! Martin's EPG profile is here on the Enrolled Pension Guard website.