Mary Ann and Absalom Loney c. 1910

Rosewood History. Qld.
Calvert Pioneers

Absalom and Mary Ann LONEY

© Jane Schy 2025

Name: Absalom LONEY
Occupation: Weaver (1865); Lengthsman in Railway; Contractor; Bullock Driver; Farmer
Birth: c.1841, Richhill, Armagh, Northern Ireland
Residence: 1864 Kilmoriarty, Portadown, Armagh, Northern Ireland
Immigration: Unknown about 1864/65
Residence: 1874, Western Creek, Grandchester
Residence: 1895, Calvert, Queensland
Residence: 1903, Calvert, Queensland
Residence: 1908, 56 Railway Street, Booval
Residence: 1913, 1917, Loney’s Estate, Booval
Residence: 1919, Perret’s Hill, Bundamba
Death: 30th November 1925, at his residence Station Hill, Bundamba aged 84 years.
Burial: 1st December 1925, Ipswich General Cemetery
Religion: Church of England
Father: George LONEY (Linen Weaver)
Mother: Anne Jane TROUTEN
Marriage: 7th April 1864, Portadown Church, County Armagh, Northern Ireland

1st Spouse: Mary Ann McMURRAY
Birth: c.1837, Portadown, Armagh, Northern Ireland
Residence: 1864, Clownagh, Armagh, Northern Ireland
Immigration: Unknown about 1864/65
Death: 18th January 1918, at the residence of her son George, Booval, Ipswich aged 80 years.
Burial: 19th January 1918, Ipswich General Cemetery
(Loney Headstone, Ipswich Cemetery, Church of England New C/20/Unknown)
Religion: Church of England
Father: Joseph Robert McMURRAY [1]
Mother: Not verified 

Children: 7
Joseph Robert LONEY (1866-1927) = Sarah Adelaide TIPPETT
Elizabeth LONEY (1868-1958) = Alexander RODGERS
William Isaac LONEY (1870-1947) = Bertha RUTLAND
George LONEY (1873-1956) = Sarah CHALK (cousin of Sir Gordon William Wesley CHALK)
Frederick Absolom LONEY (1876-1962) = Edith GIBSON
Mary Jane LONEY (1879-1962) = 1. Charles Henry RIDDELL 2. Sidney Roy BURNETT
Margaret Ann LONEY (1882-1959) = John Wilson VAUGHAN

2nd Spouse: Clara Annie Hicks CULLUM
Birth: 1867, Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, England (Clara HICKS ) [9]
Baptised: 19th July 1869, Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire (Clara Annie CULLUM)
Immigration: 11th April 1874, Alexandra arrived Brisbane from London (departed 26th December 1873).
Death: 18th February 1943, Brisbane Queensland aged 76 years.
Residence: 1919, Perret’s Hill, Bundamba
Father: Richard CULLUM (Labourer)
Mother: Susan HICKS
Married: 19th July 1918, St Paul’s Church of England, Ipswich

Absalom Loney was born at Richill, Armagh, which is a village between Armagh and Portadown. Richill was known for its linen textile production at that time. Originally the town had an Irish name from the middle ages, Legacorry – in Gaelic, Log an Choire, meaning the hollow of the cauldron. From the early 17th century, the English name was used, probably after the Richardson family who were landlords of the village. Absalom and his siblings grew up through the worst years of the Irish Potato Famine 1845 -1852 when Ireland suffered a period of starvation and disease.

Absalom was a weaver when he married Mary Ann McMurray. They were married by J. Corvan according to the rites and ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland. Mary Ann could write and signed the register, but Absalom made a cross as his mark (signature). Mary Ann was living at Clounagh and Absalom at Kilmoriarty, both townlands in Portadown.

Mary Ann’s parents have been elusive to find. Her father’s name was recorded as Joseph Robert McMurray at her death but her mother’s name was not recorded. I have a couple of possible candidates for her parents, but have not been able to verify the information.

Nor have I been able to find a record for Absalom and Mary Ann’s immigration to Australia. The immigration indexes show a Mary Loney aged 24 and a Margaret Loney aged 22 on the Fusilier in August 1864, but no Absalom. I haven’t found him coming on another ship. In the UK Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths at Sea, Piece 2 (1858-1865), there is a birth recorded for a Mary Ann Loney on board the Wansfell on 21st Feb 1865. The ship arrived Moreton Bay on 10th March 1865. The passenger list I have does not show any Loneys on board. On Absalom Loney’s death certificate it states that there was one female deceased by his first marriage. I haven’t l found this record either. Could this have been the child Mary Ann from the Wansfell? These are mysteries yet to be solved. I welcome any information.

After their arrival in Queensland, Absalom and Mary Ann immediately made their way to Western Creek (now Calvert) and settled there. Absalom worked as a Lengthsman on the railway line. Their son Joseph Robert Loney was born there in 1866.

Eventually Absalom selected 260 acres of land at Calvert. Their home was built on Portion 65. Agricultural land could be freeholded after three years if conditions were fulfilled and the balance of the rents owed was paid. Selections could not be transferred until after a Certificate of Fulfilment of Conditions was obtained.

Here are his selections:
25th May 1870, Portion 65 -100 acres parish of Grandchester  See Land Purchase
2nd March 1877, Certificate of Fulfilment of Conditions was granted for Portion 65.
3rd July 1873, Portion 103 – 80 acres at Alfred, parish of Grandchester  See Land Purchase
22nd May 1876 Portion 125 conditional purchase – 80 acres parish of Grandchester  See Land Purchase
7th February 1879, Certificate of Fulfilment of Conditions was granted for Portion 125.

Absalom also bought another 160 acres (Portion 191) at Grandchester from Thomas O’Brien and, on 3rd November 1885, he acquired almost two acres in Rosewood from John William Vance. This land in Rosewood is just over my back fence and down the end of Royal George Lane.

Later Absalom worked as a contractor and carter with a team of bullocks. Examples of the work he tendered for are:

• Rosewood Divisional Board – January 1896, Contract No. I, Work on Green’s Hill-road – A. Loney, £4 16s., one month; No. 2 – work on Rosewood-Calvert Road. A. Loney, £2 10s., one month.
• Railway Department – June 1896, Supply two thousand cubic yards ballast, Eastern district, Southern and Western Railway – A. Loney, J. V. Jenkins, T. O’Shea.
• Rosewood Divisional Board – March 1898, Contract No 3, 60 chains of clearing from Calvert to Grandchester – A. Loney, £13 10s., six weeks.
• Rosewood Divisional Board – March 1899, Contract No. 4, Work on Lanefield-Calvert Road – A. Loney, £2 15s. two weeks.

On the last Friday in May 1902, Absalom was driving his bullock team along a road at Calvert when the animals swerved and he was forced up against a log. His right thigh was very badly fractured just above the knee joint and he was admitted to the Ipswich hospital for quite a long period. This accident probably led to Absalom retiring from physical work because he had a big clearing out sale in July (see ad at left). Limberd Wass purchased his farm in July 1903 and later sold it to Mr. Ponting in 1925. 

The Loneys moved to the suburb of Booval in Ipswich where Absalom bought Section 8, which contained 5 acres and 2 roods of land, from Patrick Real. The area became known as the Loney Estate. Their home was described as being on the left side of the railway station (North Booval). Absalom subdivided his land and stared selling the allotments. Some of the advertisements for the sales are at the bottom of this story. In October 1911 three allotments (14, 15, 16 of Section 8) in the Loney Estate were sold to Edward John Loftus Easton, well known owner and trainer of racehorses and the owner of Buttonsville located in Clifton Street, Booval.

Mary Ann Loney died at the home of her son George and his wife Sarah in 1918. Their home was at 56 Railway Street, Booval.  Mary Ann left Absalom, her four sons, three daughters, eighteen grandchildren and two great grandchildren to mourn their loss.

In July, at age 70, Absalom married 51 year old spinster Clara Cullum. He was able to sign his name on the register this time. Clara was born at Waterbeach on the edge of The Fens, in the South of Cambridgeshire. It was on the Car Dyke, which was a Roman waterway traceable as far as Lincolnshire. She lived with her parents in Elizabeth Street, Booval. Her father died in 1915 and her mother in 1916.

In August 1918 Clara sold her old family home and Absalom bought a cottage and two allotments on the Bundamba Hill (Perrett’s Hill). He and Clara moved there. 

THURSDAY NEXT, 22nd AUGUST.
At 11 a.m.
AT RESIDENCE, ELIZABETH-STREET, BOOVAL,
Ernest Cole & Co.
WILL Sell by Auction by Instructions from Mrs. LONEY, Sen., owing to Property being sold.
ALL HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE AND EFFECTS.
Quantity of Chairs, Tables, Blinds and Curtains, 1 Bird in Glass Case, Pictures, Ornaments, Safe, Crockery, Glassware, Safes, Plants, and everything pertaining to a nice cottage home.
VERY CLEAN.TO BE SOLD. [10]

Absalom passed away from apoplexy in 1925. During his illness his son William, a Senior Sergeant at Warwick, came to be at his bedside. Absalom was buried with his first wife Mary Ann at the Ipswich Cemetery.

Another son Joseph, a school teacher living at Toowong, inherited realty and personalty to the value of £1,032 from his father. (Resubdivisions 18 and 19 of subdivision 1 of portion 153, county of Stanley, parish of Goodna.)

Joseph was enrolled on the opening day of Calvert State School in 1872 and attended its jubilee in 1922. He joined the Education Department on 7th March 1881 as a pupil teacher at Rosewood State School. After spending six years there, he had a life long career in education, his last posting being as Head Teacher at Windsor State School.

When Clara Loney died she left her estate to her brother Reuben Callum, a retired dairyman from Morningside, and George Loney, a butter cutter from Booval. I haven’t located her final resting place, but it is possible she was buried in the Ipswich Cemetery with her parents.

Here is the obituary of William Isaac Loney which gives some details about his interesting career in the police force.   Ex-Police Officer’s Death Recalls Dramatic Events

References:
[1] Queensland Death Registration: 1918/C/495
[2] Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld. 1909 – 1954) Saturday, 4 September 1909, page 16
[3] Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld. 1909 – 1954) Saturday, 13 August 1910, page 16
[4] Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld. 1909 – 1954) Saturday, October 1912, page 16
[5] Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld. 1909 – 1954) Monday 17 April 1916, page 8
[6] Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld. 1909 – 1954) Saturday, 17 March 1917, page 2
[7] Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld. 1909 – 1954) Thursday, 22 March 1917, page 2
[8] Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld. 1909 – 1954) Tuesday 3 April 1917, page 8
[9] Registered at Chesterton, Cambridgeshire July-Aug-Sep 1867  Volume 3b Page 452
[10] Queensland Times (Ipswich, Qld.)  Saturday, 17 August 1918, page 12

Ireland, Select Marriages, 1619-1898
Ireland, Civil Registration Marriages Index, 1845-1958
Queensland, Australia, Immigration Indexes, 1848-1972
Queensland PO Directory (Bailliere) 1874
Queensland Brands Directory
Australian Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980
Index Qld Registrar Births, Deaths and Marriages
Register Cattle Brands Queensland