Henry McManus 1767 : Short Biography

SOURCE NOTE: Much of the information in this narrative is from Rod McManus's draft history of this branch of the McManus family, augmented a bit by my own research.

The attached image is of Main Street in Virginia, County Cavan. By the mid-1820's this strip of buildings was occupied by Henry McManus and various members of his family. The town of Virginia was largely rebuilt under the patronage of the Marquis of Headfort during the period 1810 – 1830 when the Church of Ireland, Market house and two storey houses on Main Street were constructed. I believe the gray house in the center is no. 19. The 1821 census records the occupants of number 19, Main Street, as 54 year old Henry McManus, a shopkeeper and farmer, his 60 year old wife, Martha, and their 16 year old daughter, Jane, both flax spinners. With them on census night are 18 year old Walter Tormey and 14 year old John Cronan, both of whose occupation is listed as servant.  In common with the rest of Main Street, number 19 is a neatly constructed, two storey house. The shop occupied the ground floor and was most likely a general store selling farm produce, other provisions and maybe hardware. Walter and John were probably employed in the shop rather than the house.

Next door in number 18 (probably the white building to the right of the center house) lived Henry’s son, 30 year old William McManus and his 25 year old wife, Martha. In the 1821 census they are both shopkeepers and William is also a baker. They have three children, Mary, David and Henry, aged 8, 6 and 2. The bakery appears to have been located on the other side of Henry and Martha in house number 20, the sole occupant of which in 1821 is Henry Farrelly, a 21 year old baker. He was most likely employed by William and living above the bakery premises. The census also records that Henry and William McManus each hold 5.5 acre plots of land in Virginia and the nearby townland of Ballyaghanea. These were probably 11 acre plots originally which Henry sub-divided when William married Martha. 

Henry and Martha also had a younger son, James Henry, M.D., who had left Virginia by then. He trained as a doctor in Dublin and graduated in 1818 from the Royal College of Surgeons on Digges Street. In 1821, aged 24, he is working in Rutland Square Lying-in hospital in Dublin. Henry also had at least one nephew, John McManus, the son of his brother James. In 1821 John is a 26 year old farmer in Aughaconey, a small townland in the open countryside 17km north west of Virginia, where he lives with his wife, Isabella, and daughter, Lucinda. John, Isabella and Lucinda left Aughaconey not long afterward and in the 1825 Tithe books are living in 17 Main Street, Virginia. When they moved into town, John joined Henry, William and Martha behind the counter in the shop.

The burial and census records suggest that Henry was born in Ballymachugh in 1767 and he may have started life there as a farmer before becoming a shop-keeper in Virginia. There are four McManus families living in Ballymachugh in the 1821 census, all in Mulloughboy townland which fronts directly onto the lake. The heads of household are three farmers and a carpenter. Both Henry and his son William were buried in Saint Paul’s Church of Ireland graveyard in Ballymachugh, 20km to the west of Virginia on the shores of Lough Sheelin. A kind volunteer from Find A Grave visited the churchyard but informed me he could find no marker.

It is not known how or when Henry and Martha left Ballymachugh and came to Virginia. However, it was common practice for plantation town landlords like the Marquis of Headfort to invite trades-people to settle in their town, offering the inducement of a long lease on favourable terms subject to the tenant building and maintaining a house to the landlord’s precise specifications. In this way the landlord could control the uniformity and aesthetics of the architecture of the town, improve the amenities and, in theory, secure a loyal voting block of tenants for the local elections. The landlord also provided the tenant with a town park or plot of land, usually of a uniform size and in close proximity to the town, so that he or she could grow produce and keep livestock. The estate papers of the Marquis of Headfort survive, including the settings or lease book for his County Cavan estate in 1831. This records, under Virginia tenements, that Henry McManus holds the lease on three premises or houses, on plots which have road frontage of 30 feet, 52 feet and 90 feet. He is paying a total rent of 6 pounds, 3 shillings and 11 pence. Under Virginia townparks the book documents that Henry also has 1 and 4 acre plots in the town and 9 acres just outside the town in Cranadillon. That Henry’s leases were on favourable terms is evidenced by the house next to his largest plot which is occupied by a Dr Thomas Love who, although his plot is smaller at 44 feet, is paying rent of 18 pounds, 9 shillings and 4 pence per annum.

It appears likely that Henry and Martha were part of a wave of settlers invited into Virginia by the Marquis of Headfort at some point before 1821. One possible date for their arrival in the town is May 1817, the date on which Henry’s earliest lease was signed in the 1831 settings book. However, Henry would have been 50 in 1817 and Martha 56, relatively old to be starting afresh. They were also quite well established in Virginia by 1831 and, on this basis, it appears likely they were living in the town before the rebuilding work began in 1810. 

Henry and Martha’s children had mixed fortunes. Their daughter, Jane, married Charlton Spinks on 4 th March 1825 in Kildrumferton Parish Church. In the 1821 census Charlton was 16 and living 3 doors down from Jane in number 22, with his 50 year old father Charles, a farmer and publican, his 44 year old seamstress mother Jane and seven brothers and sisters. Jane and Charlton went on to have at least four children: William, Jane, Eleanor and Margaret.

They lived to see their eldest son, William, die aged 36 on 12th May 1827. He was buried in Ballymachugh. After he died his wife Martha and their three young children moved to Cornahilt in the nearby town of Ballyjamesduff.

Their youngest son, James Henry (my third great-grandfather), went on to further study and practice in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Queen’s University Belfast. He then took up posts closer to home as Medical Officer in Glasson and Finea in Westmeath and Abbeyshrule and Keenan in Longford. He became quite a prominent citizen in County Longford and I have given him his own entry in these chronicles.

In 1832 a cholera epidemic swept through Virginia. Mortality rates were reported to be high. I don't know if it took Henry McManus, but he died that year and was buried on 28th March in Ballymachugh. His wife Martha’s death is not recorded. They may both have died during the cholera epidemic and, if that was the case, nephew John and Isabella next door in number 17 were very lucky to survive. Henry made a will before he died and while it didn’t survive we know from later records that he left the shop and houses on Main Street to his nephew John. While the bequest appears unusual, given his son James Henry was still alive, there may have been more to his estate than the houses and shop. (Henry’s will was destroyed in the Custom House fire of 1922. The index entry is in the PRONI pre 1858 will and probate calendar in the Kilmore Diocesan Index.)

At the time of his death Henry and his wife Martha had nine grandchildren. Their son William and daughter-in-law Martha had given them Mary, David and Henry, James Henry and his wife Margaret McGill had Louisa and Henry Edward, and Jane and Charlton had William, Jane, Eleanor and Margaret. Henry was a man of property when he died. His surviving son James Henry became a successful doctor and began a medical tradition which has sustained through six generations and up until the present day.