Margaret GREEN

was the daughter of two convicts, Thomas GREEN and Catherine DELANEY or McLAUGHLIN. Like their other five children, she was born at Green Hills (later Windsor) in NSW. I believe she was born about 1809 - also like her siblings, there is no mention of her birth in the records of the NSW Registrar-General.

She spent time at the Female Orphan School, along with her sisters Mary Ann and Catherine, while their younger brothers John and Thomas were in the Male Orphan School. William, the eldest child, was apprenticed as a shipwright at the Government Dockyard in Sydney. Margaret was apprenticed to the Revd. Mr Cartwright as a house servant.

At the time of the 1828 census, Margaret, her brother Thomas, and their half-sisters Martha and Susannah were living in Pitt St Sydney, with their mother Catherine and Richard Selby. The children were shown as a family group, with Richard and Catherine as another family group.

Margaret married Lawrence DELANEY in 1843, and they had at least six children. In keeping with family tradition, the first two don't appear in the records either, but are mentioned in Margaret's will. Most of them were born before their parents' marriage in 1843. Lawrence and Margaret ran the Cat and Bagpiper hotel in York St Sydney for several years. The interesting part is that there was a Lawrence DELANEY on the Rolla with Margaret's mother Catherine, and Catherine was often known as DELANEY. I haven't yet discovered whether there was a family connection. Lawrence died in 1847, and was buried at Devonshire Street (see photo below); his burial registration simply says that he was an emigrant. Their son Lawrence later ran a hotel called the Honest Irishman at Camperdown.

Margaret remarried to Samuel GUY in 1850, and they had a son Samuel Dennis, b.1851 d.1853. I believe they continued to run the hotel for several more years. When Margaret's mother Catherine died in Maitland in 1852, Margaret paid to have a gravestone made and transported to Maitland to her grave. I think she wanted people to know she had done well, as her own name and address were also carved on the stone. Samuel died in 1861, and was also buried at Devonshire St.

When Margaret died in 1875, her will divided her assets between family members:

• £100 to my daughter Catherine Margt. Beattie
• £100 to my son Alfred Delany
• £100 to my son Lawrence Delany
• £50 to my son Thomas Delany
• £50 to my brother William Green shipwright

Margaret, both husbands, and several other members of her families were buried together at the Devonshire St cemetery between 1847 and the 1870s. Their grave and its unusual monument (see right) were later moved to Botany cemetery.