Marriage: Love and Law exhibition catalogue - Flipbook - Page 48
EMMELINE BLAKE
& PATRICK MEEHAN
On 13 June 1851, Emmeline, the 14 year old daughter of Sydney publican
and merchant Thomas Blake—a man of considerable means—left for school
as usual. Unbeknown to her parents, she met up with 22 year old Irishman
Patrick Meehan, and his sister Mary Oates and sister-in-law Mary Ryan,
all drinkers at her father’s hotel on Old South Head Road, Sydney. Taking a cab,
Emmeline changed into a wedding dress, assumed an alias— ‘Amelia’—and
presented herself to Presbyterian clergyman, Dr James Fullerton of Haymarket,
as a 17 year old woman. Emmeline and Patrick’s marriage was then solemnised.
Patrick Meehan, Mary Oates and Mary Ryan were each tried on 12 July 1851.
All three pleaded not guilty to abduction. Emmeline’s agreement to the
marriage was not in question. Indeed, the cab driver who had taken the
foursome to Dr Fullerton gave evidence that Emmeline was ‘quite willing’ and
was ‘titvating’ [sic] with excitement at the prospect of ‘entering the bands of
wedlock’. It was the lack of the consent of her father, coupled with the fact that
the 14 year old Emmeline was an ‘infant’, that informed the abduction charge.
Evidence presented during the trial showed that Patrick had sworn before
clergyman Fullerton that there was no cause that would hinder the marriage
between him and Emmeline (35). Oates and Ryan had falsely certified that
Emmeline (aka ‘Amelia’) was 17 years old, and therefore of marriageable age,
and that her father, Thomas Blake, would approve of the union (36).
Fullerton had solemnised and registered Patrick and Emmeline’s marriage (37).
His actions later became the subject of an inquiry.
Emmeline wrote to her mother informing her of the event. It was she, not the
Meehans, who was to ‘blame’. She had urged Patrick to marry her, for, if not,
he would be the ‘cause of my ruin’. A furious Thomas Blake beat his daughter
and had a case brought against Patrick Meehan and his sisters on the grounds
of ‘abduction’.
‘I do pity any one that
is in love, for I know
what love is.’
Emmeline Blake to Patrick Meehan, letter, in ‘The Great
Abduction Case’, Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting
Reviewer, 12 July 1851, p. 3
35 Clerk of the Peace
Exhibit B: Affidavit and oath
signed by Patrick Meehan
and James Fullerton,
11 June 1851
Paper
1851
NSW State Archives,
NRS 880 [9/6364]
36 Clerk of the Peace
Exhibit A: Affidavit signed
by Mary Ryan and James
Fullerton falsely certifying
Amelia [sic] Blake’s age,
11 June 1851
Paper
1851
NSW State Archives,
NRS 880 [9/6364]
35
36
48
49
