Margaret Hannah was born about 1849, in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland. The second child of William and Agnes, her siblings were Robert (1844), Janet (1849), Agnes (1852), Jane (1854), William (1857), Mary (1859), Isabella (1861), Thomas Baird (1863) and John Cooper (1867).
She is listed on the 1861 Census as living with her parents as an unmarried daughter, age fourteen and occupation as a cotton power loom weaver.
Margaret would have moved with her family from Ayrshire to Glasgow in about 1862. At the age of twenty one, she married Charles Burns, who was born 1847 in Ireland. The marriage took place in Anderston, Glasgow in on the 21st of July 1868 “after Banns according to the forms of the Roman Catholic Church”. Margaret gave her address as 20 Whitehall Street, Glasgow.
Charles, the son of Charles Burns and Bridget Thomas of Ireland, was twenty one years of age, gave his occupation as boilermaker journeyman, and his address as 89 McAlpine Street, Glasgow. Neither Margaret or Charles could sign their name.
A son, William, was born to the couple in 1869. Another son, Charles, was born 1871 at Hill Street, Glasgow but died at four years of age in 1876. A daughter Margaret was born in 1878.
Around this time Charles migrated to Australia as an unassisted immigrant. It is not yet known how and exactly when he arrived. However, in October 1879 he paid deposits in the Colony for the assisted passage of Margaret, their children William and Margaret, and also Margaret’s brother William Hannah, who never made the journey. His deposit was repaid in July 1880. Margaret’s address was given as 35 Mill Street, Anderston, Glasgow. A reference was provided by Stephen Kelly of the same address.
Margaret and her children boarded the Samuel Plimsoll out of Plymouth harbour on the 29th April 1880. Built by the Walter Hood shipyard in Aberdeen in 1873, the clipper ship of 1440 tons was one of the fastest on the Australian run, and the pride of the Aberdeen and Commonwealth fleet.
Only Margaret and her son William were to be greeted by husband Charles as they stepped ashore in Sydney on the 9th July 1880. Their daughter Margaret died on the 20th June on voyage.
Charles and Margaret settled in Ross Street, Kerosene Bay. It is believed that Charles worked on the Sydney Harbour ferries. Margaret sponsored the assisted passage of her youngest brother Thomas to the colony, by paying a five-pound deposit for him on 25th January 1882
The couple were to have several more children in Sydney. In 1882 Charles James Burns was born. 1885 saw the birth of Mary, and Robert was born in 1887.
By 1896 their oldest son William, had moved to Western Australia, where he was killed in a brawl.
Charles died in North Sydney on the 21st April 1898. The coroners report stated that cause of death was “the effects of poison to wit ‘strychnine’ self-administered”. Family legend has it that he had been fired from his position of engineer on the Sydney Harbour ferries for not “polishing the brass” as instructed. Feeling unable to support his family he decided to suicide by means of a strychnine tainted milk drink. Perhaps the violent death of his son William some months earlier in Perth had its effect as well. For whatever reasons, he choose to take his own life.
The coroner also recorded that Charles’ property amounted to a “cottage”. This would be the family home at Ross Street where Margaret continued to live after her husband’s death with her remaining children Charles James, Mary and Robert. Her sister Jane also apparently also lived there after her husband’s death in 1899.
Margaret died on the 13th of December 1903, at the Royal North Shore Hospital, St. Leonards. Her death certificate states that she died of “cerebral haemorrhage and tuberculosis of the lungs”. She was aged 54 and had been in the colony for 23 years. Margaret was buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery, Gore Hill on Sydney’s north shore.
The only surviving members of her family at the time of her death were Charles (James) aged 21, Mary aged 19, and Robert aged 16.
