Bridget Young : Short Biography

On 3 February 1850 the Thomas Arbuthnot sailed into Sydney Harbour carrying 194 single young women from Ireland, some of the 4114 who left the Famine and the workhouses for Sydney, Port Philip and Adelaide. Bridget  was from the Tuam workhouse. In 1852 Bridget married Dublin-born ex-convict Richard Harding alias Hart at Gundagai, where the first two of their twelve children were born before they moved to land near Wangaratta. Their fifth child, Steve, born in 1859, was a member of the Kelly gang and was shot and killed at the siege at Glenrowan. Bridget died in 1898, the year after her husband and both are buried in Wangaratta Cemetery.

This Chronicle has been adapted by kind permission of the Aisling Society. The content has been inspired by the Aisling 20/20 Vision project, which forms part of a programme marking the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the Consulate General of Ireland to New South Wales. 

The Aisling Society is an Irish Australian cultural society whose main interests are the study of the history, life, and culture of Ireland, and the effect of Irish heritage on Australian life.