The author - Philip J Taylor
I was born in Aldershot in 1954, the third son born to Norma White. Norma's mother was a McAuliffe.
In the case of my immediate family in the United Kingdom,with the help of my daughter in law Karianne Taylor,we were able to build a family tree which has grown steadily with each new search. The only real limits were the lack of records in Ireland due to the political and social conditions in Ireland, leading to the loss of 2oo years worth of records. We were abl to navigate back to the late 18th century though.
At the time of their marriage, Denis McAuliffe and Mary Haly were living in a country ravaged by political squabbles and hunger caused by bad harvests. The crop failures were so severe the ports were blockaded to prevent food from being exported. The population of the City of Cork was steadily growing as workers were forced off farms, some evicted because of protestant landowners taking advantage of the Penal Laws which prevented catholic ownership of land.
Denis McAuliffe married Mary Haly (b1781) in 1807.
Children: Edward (b1811), John (b1812), Denis (b1817) and Stephen (b1820).
Both Denis and Mary were christened at St Finbarr’s Roman Catholic Church, in the Cork and Ross South Parish. They were listed as residents of Friar’s Walk, Ballyphehane, around ½ mile south of the church. The same church was used some twenty years later for the baptisms of their three children John (or Joseph) in 1812-13, Denis in 1817 and Stephen in 1820.
John McAuliffe married Honora Fitzgerald (b1813) in c1830.
Children: Edward (1831-1906) and David (1838-1925).
John McAuliffe was a young man himself when he met Honorah Fitzgerald, whose family were from Newmarket, Co Cork. their first child Edward was born in 1831, his parents only around eighteen years of age at the time. The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 gave Catholics new rights to enter the parliament of the United Kingdom and Ireland, but this had little positive effect on the rural economy, where landowners still held sway of the economy of most of Ireland. It is likely the family moved from Cork sometime after, their second child David was baptised in Castleisland, Co Kerry in 1838.
The 1840s bore witness to some of Ireland’s darkest years. The Poor Relief Act ensured that a system of workhouses were made available to those had lost everything, but they were in no way prepared for the great numbers who were to suffer five consecutive potato crop failures of the mid-late 1840s. An estimated 1million people died of starvation and other famine-related diseases, whilst another 2million were forced into the already overcrowded cities and emigration. Eldest son Edward remained in Ireland where he married Margaret Hyde, he died in 1906.
David McAuliffe married Mary O’Donahue (1835-1914) in 1862.
Children: Denis (b1858-1936), Eleanor (b1865), Johanna (b1867), John (b1868), Josephine (b1868) and Alice Kate (b1876).
David married Kerry born Mary O’Donahue in 1862, but David’s eldest child Denis was born before he emigrated between 1858-60. At this time, Ireland was in the grip of a series of cold and wet winters which led to severe food shortages as agriculture collapsed. David, a blacksmith at the time, and Mary had four children once settled in America. Whilst Denis remained in Ireland, all the remaining siblings were born in Columbia, USA.
Denis McAuliffe married Hannah Callaghan (b1859) in c1880.
Children: Daniel (b1881-1929), Hannah (1885-1975), Ellen (1888-1978), Catherine (1891-1968), Dennis (b1893), Thomas John (1895-1968), Nora(h) (1897-1943) and Bessie (1901-1971).
Denis is then recorded as living and working in Ireland as a foreman in a flourmill. He meets Mallow born Hannah Callaghan and they both move to London. They were living at 14 Wild Court (or possibly Milo Court) when they married at St Giles Church, Middlesex in or around 1880. But his parents had by now emigrated to America to start their lives in relative prosperity compared to the hardships of 19th century Ireland and London.
In 1854, over a thousand people were found living in 13 ten room houses with virtually no sanitation, but improvements to the area were negated by unscrupulous landlords. By the time McAuliffe’s arrived, conditions had improved, but by how much?
Denis and Hannah then set out their stall in Lambeth, just south of the river Thames, and ½ mile upriver from Westminster Abbey and the House of Parliament. It was in Lambeth that all eight children were born: Daniel 1881, Hannah 1885, Ellen 1888, Kate 1891, Dennis 1893, Thomas 1895, my grandmother Norah 1897 and my Auntie Bess in 1901. I recall that Bess was the only aunt that we were regularly in touch with, Norah had died before I was born in 1954.
Of Norah’s siblings, Hannah married William Brislane from Liscarroll, Co Cork in 1911, Ellen married Londoner Francis Fife, also in 1911. Catherine married William Sorrell in 1916, Dennis and Thomas John married Mary Colston from Treorchy, Wales in 1926. Lastly, Bessie married Jack Allison in 1923.
Norah McAuliffe married Henry George White (1894-1954) in 1922.
Children: Norma (1923-1973) and Rita (1932-1979).
When our family started to research our own McAuliffe links, my brother Michael set to work on a project to highlight the plight of Norah McAuliffe and George White (our grandparents) and their daughter Norma (our mother). The result was a historically accurate map of the area around Vauxhall and Lambeth during wartime London.
In 2018, during a family get-together, Mike unveiled the map. Using war office records and searching maps of the day, Michael was able to plot where each bomb fell, as well as the radius of damage caused. It was clear to see how many streets were so badly damaged, the remaining buildings had to be demolished and who neighbourhoods redeveloped. Among those damaged streets were the streets where George and Norah once lived, and had to move to other streets also damaged by the bombings. We are unsure where they lived during the war.
George and Norah were married at St Anne’s, Lambeth in 1922, at the time they were living next door to each other at 129 and 131 Tyers Street. Norma was born at 37 Doris Street (now demolished), just off Princess Road and now known as Black Prince Road. Norah’s brother Dennis was also registered at 128 Tyers Street, in 1911, possibly until he emigrated to New Zealand in 1925.
At the outbreak of World War Two, as with many other children in London, my mother Norma White, a teenager at the time, was evacuated to Hampshire. It was in Aldershot that she met and married Ernest Edgar Withers, before a second marriage to Robert John Taylor five years later.
The 1932 electoral roll shows George and Norah living at 1 Auckland Street, Kennington, two years later they were recorded as living at 2 The Grove, Kennington, with two other families. By 1936, they had moved again, this time to 33 Durham Street, Kennington, they were still there at the outbreak of war. George, now 73 years old, was listed as a master baker and Norah an unpaid domestic. Norma, aged 16, was listed as a junior office clerk.
And as they say, the rest is history.
Please add your story to the book.
