The Wise Family - Merchants of Cork PART TWO

by Virginia Rundle 00:55 1 comments

Wise Merchants of Cork Part Two

The Spratts of Pencil Hill descend from a member of a Somerset family from England. The Reverend Devereux Spratt, acquired estates in the counties of Cork and Wexford, Ireland, in the mid-17th century. The Spratts intermarried with their neighbours the Foott  family of Springfort Hall and Carrigacunna Castle on a number of occasions. It was through one of these marriages that the Spratts came to own Pencil Hill. The Spratts were located in the parish of Caherduggan, barony of Fermoy, while Messrs. Spratt, Nagle and others held land in the parish of Brigown, barony of Condons and Clangibbon. In the 1870’s members of the Spratt family of Pencil Hill, Mallow, owned over 850 acres in county Cork between them, while Spratt and Horace owned 860 acres. Harmer Spratt married Martha Foote and it was their grandson George James Spratt Wise who married Maria Wise. The Wises left Ireland in about the mid 1850's and settled in Avoca, Victoria, Australia, where they continued to name their children, Martha, Harmer, Maria, Devereux and Spratt well into the 20th Century. They are listed in Leask's book of Early Australian Families under the Wise surname. Pencil Hill is located at Baltydaniel East, North of Mallow on the N20, turning off at Twopothouse Village Pencil Hill was built in the 1780s by Harmer Spratt who had married a member of the Foott family. It was known as Monte Video in 1837. The Spratts continued to live in the house until the early 20th century when it was sold to the Perrott family. The Perrotts changed the name of the house to Beechfield and it was still the home of this family at the beginning of the 21st century. I hope it has been protected from demolition, as so many historic homes in Ireland have been razed to the ground, or are in ruins. It pains me to admit that in 1994 Geoff and I visited Ireland for a 10 day holiday, we drove from Shannon to Dublin taking in the glorious views of the Ring of Kerry, staying at Bantry Bay, Waterford, Cork, Wexford and Dublin. I knew I had family from Cork, but that was about it. We probably drove right past Kilnasoolagh Church, in County Clare, on the south bank of the Shannon River, where William McOboy Wise married Ellen Frances Matilda Murray. We did however play golf, and were blessed with magnificent weather, visited many castles, including Blarney Castle where I kissed the Blarney stone twice. Geoff’s camera didn’t work the first time, so I was unceremoniously lowered down over the castle walls a second time by my feet, for a second kiss of the Blarney stone - this might explain a lot! I can remember the views from the large fortified battlement, and incredibly the lands surrounding Blarney castle to the East were those of Rathpeacon, Monard, Kilbarry and Killeens, the very lands where the Wises had lived in around 1800. “Ballyenahan, located at South Ballyenahan Co Cork, off the N73 between Mallow and Mitchelstown, take right hand turn off at Kildorrerey onto Fermoy Road, so named R512 driving south towards Rockmills.” Guide Book to Cork & Surrounds A house on the Hyde estate was inhabited by the Welsh, Kearney, Spratt, Greene and Barry families in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Eliza Greene was the occupant at the time of Griffith's Valuation in about 1851, when the buildings were valued at £18. The Barrys owned this house until the late 20th century. Springfort Hall, Cork, Ireland. Home of the Foote Family, today this magnificent house is a boutique hotel.

  Ireland, Prison Registers 1790-1924, Original image courtesy of Find My Past, transcription below:

Name:	George James Wise
Role of Individual:	Prisoner
Event Type:	Prison
Event Date:	1852
Event Place:	Cork County, Cork, Ireland
Age:	40
Birth Year (Estimated):	1812
Prison:	Cork County
Offense:	Debtor
Item Number:	4
Book Number:	1/8/5
County:	Cork

GS Film number: 2356519 , Digital Folder Number: 004492626 , Image Number: 00873

Family Search Website

This record from the previous page is quite distressing, as it is clearly a prison record for George James Wise. It shows for the first time what a shocking time the Wises must have had in Cork around the time of the potato famine. The crisis affected people across all walks of life. George and his family must have migrated to Australia and settled in Avoca shortly after his release. The Diggers Index for George James Spratt Wise in Avoca is brief, in complete contrast to his brother-in-law William McOboy Wise, whose profile is possibly the largest on the ADHS database. George died on 12 February 1865, after living a quiet existence in Avoca, and I worry that he was a broken man, having lost his inheritance in Ireland. It is such a sad event, and as such it does tie in with another story related to me by John Lee, a direct descendant of George Henry Wise, a brother-in-law to George. Passed down to John by his grandmother, was a story about the Three Wise Men from Cork who settled in Avoca, the men were described as “Poor man, rich man and farmer man”. Down the generations it became unclear as to who was who. However, John Lee challenged himself to work it out, “Poor man” was George James Wise, “Rich man” was George Henry Wise, and “Farmer man” was William McOboy Wise. I too thought for a while that William may have been “Poor man”, but William was known as a farm manager in both Ireland and Australia.

With the information from the MacCotter Report, I decided to pay a visit to the Society of Australian Genealogists (SAG) in Kent Street, Sydney to search for more records. I had joined their society in 2011, and at the beginning of 2012 applied and was accepted into their two year Certificate Course in Genealogy – maybe I was taking on too much at the time, however it was a helpful course in making sure I was on the right track with all my family research. The SAG Library has access to several UK online record sources, including Find My Past. In no time I had keyed in Henry George Wise and his date of death, and came up with two interesting records confirming this 1836 date, which I previously knew from other sources.

As I opened this record on the SAG Library computer, another researcher commented that not everyone is entitled to Esq. after their name, and this relative of mine was an important man of Cork. He explained that only those from the upper classes were entitled to Esquire after their names. He was impressed with my connections, but I was just a bit disappointed there was no other information provided, such as a cemetery or home address. My parents visited Ireland in 1970 and my father, due to misinformation from his grandfather’s obituary, was searching Waterford Cemeteries. I can remember him mentioning how he and mum combed Ballybricken Cemetery and found lots of Wise graves. However I don’t really think he knew exactly which Wises to look for!

                                   Death Notice for George Henry Wise Esq. of Cork

The next document is a newspaper transcription from The Cork Constitution, and proved to be a little more informative. The date of death compares identically with the date of Henry George Wises death on the Wise family tree. The other piece of information about the Wises is that his address was given as Cork City, and for the first time I know that our more recent ancestors were definitely from Cork, and not from Waterford. Every other entry on the page had information for their family and my Wises provided so little, no written material to give me an image of their life.

Newspaper transcription from the Cork Constitution for Henry G Wise of Cork 1835, Find My Past

As I mentioned in my chapter, The Wise Family of Avoca, I collaborated with John Lee, whose ancestor is George Henry Wise, William McOboy Wise’s elder brother, both sons of Henry George Wise. I had never heard of George Henry Wise until I started on ancestry.com. As I collected and sorted the huge amount of Wise records, I placed George Henry Wise and his large family of descendants into my ancestry tree, knowing that good practice in genealogy is to record as many of the extended family as possible. Earlier in this chapter I illustrated the Cork marriage record for George Henry Wise and Elizabeth Humphries. It was shortly after I placed Henry George Wise into my tree that I was able to see John Lee’s tree on ancestry and could see that he was a Wise cousin. John told me about his interest in trying to find a link to the Whiskey Wises of Cork, and in that endeavour he and I worked away at our family trees, sharing our records and information. Stephen Dalton, who I mentioned earlier, also found John Lee’s Wise Family Tree on ancestry and messaged him. John then informed Stephen about me and he gave my email to Stephen, and from there we collaborated as a trio. I had remembered the name Stephen Dalton from an Ancestry notice board, where he named his topic North Mall Distillery, Cork, and I had found it most interesting. I had kept the link, copied the information to my Wise folder on my lap top, patiently waiting for the day that I would be able to connect more of the pieces in this complex Wise jig saw puzzle.

The email correspondence between the three of us happened at exactly the same time that Lavinia and I were awaiting the MacCotter Report, and when I received the report I then copied it to them both. I am sure it has been a most valuable document for their Irish research into the Wises. The greatest difficulty for all of us, including MacCotter, was that the Wises were a very large and intermarrying family, who had been living in Cork for many generations. The interwoven link between the Wise families was one where a wide network of first and second cousins were recognised, and their family relationships were linked inexorably by their trades and professions. From the help provided by the MacCotter Report, which was limited by the hours that I commissioned, he confirmed that the Wises were tanners going back to early 1700, and were most definitely ancestors of our direct family. Stephen Dalton, John Lee and I still felt that there had to be a family link to the North Mall Distillers, even if it was distant cousins which linked back a few generations to Francis Wise. MacCotter agreed that Francis was a strong familial name in our family. When you consider that the Christian names of the three main whisky distillers were Francis, Thomas and James, we had to differ with MacCotter’s conclusion that there was no family link, adopting the strong family belief that there was a relationship, though probably through second cousins.

Here is the link and extracts from the Dalton “chatter” on Ancestry.com:

http://boards.ancestry.com.au/localities.britisles.ireland.crk.general/10713/mb.ashx

NORTH MALL DISTILLERY, CORK

Hi Everyone 

I am trying to find out some information on the Wise family who ran the North Mall Distillery in Cork until about 1867. Francis Wise had a house in North Mall (number 8) next to the distillery. The hill that ran alongside the house is known as Wise's Hill so the family must have been fairly well connected in the area.

I have reason to believe that my great-great-great grandmother Julia Wise was part of this family. She married Francis Adams and they had my great-great grandmother Ellen Wise Adams. When Ellen married it said that she was from North Mall and it looks as if she was living with an Adams relative Ann Adams, who lived three doors down from Francis Wise.

Any background that anyone can give me about the North Mall Distillery and any of the above mentioned people would be appreciated and greatly help my research.

Regards
Stephen D'Alton

26 October 2006

Hello Stephen, 

I found information about Francis and Thomas Wise residing in the North Mall in an Irish property tax record known as Griffiths Valuation. Griffiths Valuation was enumerated in all 32 counties of Ireland between 1847 and 1864, with the valuation for County Cork taking place between 1851 and 1853.

Griffiths Valuation names the occupiers or heads of household and the people who owned or leased property to the occupiers. Family members of occupiers are not generally mentioned in Griffiths Valuation, except in agnomens, such as junior or senior for example, or unless more than one person is listed as the occupier of the property. 

Griffiths Valuation actually lists Thomas Wise at number 8 North Mall, leasing a house, outbuildings, yard and small garden from the Earl of Cork and Orrery.

Thomas is also listed again, along with Francis at number 1 and number 2 North Mall. The location at number 1 North Mall shows that Thomas and Francis had leased stores and yards from the Earl of Cork and Orrery, while at the number 2 North Mall location, they had leased a house, outbuildings, and yard, also from the earl. It is possible that Thomas had lived at 8 North Mall and Francis at 2 North Mall, though that is not clear in the record.

Griffiths Valuation also shows that the distillery, strictly speaking, was on a different, but an adjoining street to North Mall, called Wise's Quay. This indicates the distillery was near a water source, such as the River Lee. The description of the leasehold at Wise's Quay from Griffiths is "Distillery, malt mill, & yards." This property too, was leased from the Earl of Cork and Orrery.

But, the Griffiths record for Wise's Quay also shows that Thomas and Francis Wise had leased property to other individuals. These individuals include John Kelly and William Cooke, Richard O'Neill, and Daniel Clifford. All are shown to have leased a house, outbuildings, and yard from Thomas and Francis Wise. Though, it is possible that Thomas and Francis were acting as agents for the Earl in the leasehold transactions for these three properties.

If you would like, I can send you the Griffiths Valuation page for Thomas and Francis as an attachment, if you send your email address.