When the ship which Ellen and her family boarded set sail from Southampton Hampshire on 17th November 1854 there must have been mixed feelings about the new life ahead. They were at sea for 100 days and fear for baby John Kelly and baby John Dunn must have plagued the families after Scarlet Fever spread through the passengers killing 10 children onboard.
They finally arrived in Sydney Cove 25th February 1855 but the ship and those aboard were placed in quarantine for 16 more days with the immigration records showing they embarked on the 13th of March.
For Ellen we find little in the way of interesting news stories. We gain a sense of her though through records pertaining to James and those of her children. John's immigration records show he was a bricklayer and he had arrived at the time railway lines and stations were being built. Stephen Phillips and his sons after him were rail men so in the early days of arriving in the colony perhaps James was involved in building rail infrastructure.
Around 1860 Ellen gave birth to Mary Ann Kelly and through a number of records this was at Campbelltown. The only source to this birth though is an entry in the now destroyed Phillips bible "Mary A Kelly born Australia 1860".
[This post is still a draft but published while I work on other projects]
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