A tax on his time.
Faith Simon and Brigette Uren share an ancestor, Thomas McClelland, who was secretary of the Maitland Hospital in the mid-1840s.
Faith’s research into her ancestor provides the foundation for the following account of his association with the hospital and of his background and business interests.
Thomas James McClelland (1810-1859)
Thomas McClelland was the secretary to the Maitland Hospital committee during 1845 and 1846. His tenure witnessed the transition from the Maitland Benevolent Asylum to the Maitland Hospital as well as some bitter sectarian rivalry between the local Catholic and Protestant clergy who visited the hospital.
In March 1846 in response to criticisms of the institution’s bias in favour of Protestants McClelland, a staunch Wesleyan, pointed both to the Protestant origins of the hospital and to its lack of bias in relation to the religious denominations of its patients. With something of a sting, he wrote:
Maitland Mercury, 11 March 1846, p.2.
At the annual meeting of the subscribers to the Maitland Hospital in January 1847, McClelland ended his tenure as secretary noting he ‘was no longer in the way of a reconciliation’. The phrase suggests he recognised his role in aggravating sectarian rivalry. He did, however, go on to point out that the task of secretary ‘had been a tax on his time, and had interfered much with his private business’. (Maitland Mercury,30 Jan 1847, p4)
Background and business interests
McClelland came from County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, arriving in the colony in 1842. By the following year he was in Maitland. In 1845, he married Lucretia Soper in Newcastle. Both gave their religious denomination as Wesleyan Methodist.
McClelland opened a drapery store in Hibernia House, High Street, West Maitland. He traded there until 1849. At one stage, he also expanded and opened a store in Cassilis.
As well as his active support for the Maitland Hospital, McClelland worked hard for the Wesleyan church and education while in Maitland. In 1847, for example, he placed the advertisement calling for tenders for joiners to work on the Wesleyan Chapel and in 1849 he was one of four men listed in the Government Gazette in charge of Wesleyan Schools in the Hunter Valley. (Maitland Mercury, 23 Jan 1847 and 17 Jan 1849).
In 1849 McClelland sold his business and the family moved to Sydney where he opened a store in George Street. He subsequently moved to Newcastle and, again, opened a store.
Business, however, did not go well for McClelland. In 1850 and again in 1855 he was declared insolvent. As Brigette Uren observes, ‘he did great things for education and he set up small schools between here [Maitland] and the Upper Hunter, but he clearly didn’t know how to run a business and he went bust’.
McClelland, it seems, was more than a poor businessman. In 1850 he went to trial for ‘fraudulent insolvency’ (Maitland Mercury, 19 June 1850). Ironically, as descendant Faith Simon observes, in 1845 McClelland was on the Maitland Hospital committee with Edward Denny Day and, 5 years later, appeared in court before Day as the magistrate.
McClelland died in 1859. His wife died the following year. They were survived by four children.
In summing up her ancestor’s contributions, Faith Simon observes:
Although it may appear on the surface that McClelland was no businessman, in researching the 17 years of his life lived here in NSW, I am inspired by his courage and determination to ‘make a mark’, despite personal grief and tough economic times that were common in the foundling colony during the mid 19th century.