taggerty

We know a lot about James Beatty, Draper, of Ballina, born Co. Fermanagh c1842, who came to Melbourne with his young family in 1878, but his father James Beatty the farmer/swimmer continues annoyingly elusive. Clutching at straws, I decided to investigate the Archibald Beatty, merchant, “Late of Lisnaskea” who appeared on the record in Ballina in 1861, about the same time as James is first mentioned there. With that name, and also from Fermanagh could he be a relation? It wasn’t hard to find out a lot about Archibald, mainly because he tended to put notices in newspapers, including his marriage to Eudora Tucker (though they misspelled her name)

Archibald Beatty, merchant of Lisnaskea. Marriage 17 June 1858

Another thing that made him easy to track was his move to Liverpool in 1874 after about 15 years as a “well to do merchant” in Ballina. He and Eudora and their son Edward John (born in Lisnaskea c1859 and obviously named after his maternal grandfather) appear in the 1881 and 1891 census in Liverpool, though I don’t know what happened to the daughter whose birth was announced in Ballina in 1861. Archibald and Eudora evidently both returned to Fermanagh from Liverpool in the 1890s as they both died there, he aged 61 in 1897. Archibald left his estate to his son also a merchant. Here’s his will:

Archibald Beatty death, 1897 from Index of Wills

Archibald was about 6 years older than draper James, and his father was also a James Beatty. Could they be brothers? I even lashed out $40 to get Archibald’s marriage details as that would give the profession of his father. Now you’d think that someone who was a “merchant” by age 22 was probably the son of a merchant right? Well no. His father James Beatty was a farmer! Another coincidence?
A few months after Archibald died, his bacon factory in Enniskillen (near Lisnaskea) was broken into:

Archibald’s nephew is a Joseph Beatty – Belfast Newsletter 9 July 1897

According to this news article he had a nephew Joseph Beatty. Joseph is another name that has occurred in our family – Alfred Joseph was the youngest son of James the draper. I think this is too many coincidences. I’m going to track down Joseph now, in case he eventually leads back to the mysterious farmer James.