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I have the tail end of the story but would be grateful if anyone could give any information on the parentage of R....Henry Moneypenny who was an Ensign in the 4th King's Regiment,1st muster on the convict ship "Strathfieldsay" which sailed for Hobart Town, Tasmania, c. 1831. Henry also served in the regiment at Norfolk Island in 1833, and Bathurst, NSW in 1834 where he was promoted to Lieutenant in 1835. When the regiment returned to the UK in 1838 he remained in Hobart. In 1847 he sailed to Sydney where he died in 1850, at the age of 42 years, unmarried. I would appreciate any information regarding this man's family and where he originated in the UK.

Registration Number Last Name Given Name(s) Father's Given Name(s) Mother's Given Name(s) District


V18501621 35/1850 MONEYPENNY JOHN MARY A

This is a John Moneypenny, death in Sydney NSW in 1850. R...Henry Moneypenny is not there at that date. Mother's name Mary A.

From Australian Shipping website.

First one looks like yours. Don't know who the Mr Edward St L Moneypenny is.

Moneypenny, Ensign Esther (ship) Sydney (1833 Sep 5) Norfolk Island

Moneypenny, Edward St L, Mr True Briton (ship), 1046 tons London (1872 Jun 21) Port Phillip (1872 Sep 19)

There are people of that name born in UK. However as R....Henry did not stay with them for the census it is difficult to work out which family might have been his.

Do you have a mother or father or even a place to help the equation.

Thank you for this information. However, none of these people are who I am researching. I have details of his death registration in 1850 and though Muster records show he was apparently R... Henry, he went as Henry and died as Henry in 1850 in Sydney. I think there is certainly some connection with my family with the John and Mary you mention. Mary's mother and father were William and Esther and I have done some tracing there. John was Mary's son. I found her christening records in England.

HOWEVER, I am keen to find out more about Henry and who his parents were and where they came from in the UK. I have checked and cannot find any record in England and Wales, so perhaps they may have been Irish or Scottish. There are Moneypennys/Monypennys aplenty in the north west of England and also the South where they appear to be seafaring people. The name came from Scotland and there are plenty in Ireland, though those are very hard to trace. I am endeavouring to find from which branch of the family he hails as there were 4 Scottish brothers who went to Ireland originally.
As far as I can make out 2 returned.

In your opening post you had

"Henry also served in the regiment at Norfolk Island in 1833"


Could this entry I posted on my reply possibly be him. I read it as
Ensign Moneypenny, on board the ship Esther sailed from Sydney to Norfolk Island on 5 Sep 1833.

Moneypenny, Ensign Esther (ship) Sydney (1833 Sep 5) Norfolk Island


Certainly would be intriguing if there were two Moneypenny military types on Norfolk island at the same time.

It seems your best bet will be to find Henry Moneypenny born about the correct time and then obtain his birth certificate. Easier said than done. You don't have any way of back tracking his parents from a marriage certificate. OK how about his death certificate. Let me look for a death for Henry Moneypenny in one of the eastern Australian states about 1850.

Thinking out loud.

Double bother!!


Registration Number Last Name Given Name(s) Father's Given Name(s) Mother's Given Name(s) District Purchase Certificate
V1850438 36A/1850 MONEYPENNY HENRY AGE 42

In the place where his parent's name should be, just his age. I gather you already have this info. You could contact the NSW transcription agent Joy Murrin (just google the name) and ask for a transcription of the certificate. Ask for a partial transcription with the names of father, mother or informant at death. I doubt if the parent's info is available because it would be on the index if it was.

Hmm need to do more thinking.

Thanks, AuntySherlock. You would be correct in assuming that Henry and Ensign are one and the same because while I didn't know the name of the ship he travelled on, he certainly was in N.I. at that time. He returned to Bathurst and was promoted to Lieutenant.

Yes, it is a pest that no further details were on the death registration and I am pretty sure from other research I have done on other members of the family that if the parents names are recorded, they are available through the net.

I have been in touch with Archives in England hoping that they may have details when Henry enlisted. However, there is no guarantee that they have the parents' details and the cost is prohibitive. I am not that desperate, just curious. It seems that I have exhausted all the avenues presently available. However, it is curious that I can find absolutely no record of any Moneypenny birth within the crucial period, either from England or Scotland. Perhaps he was Irish, and we all know how hard those records are to find.

This is not going to advance your search. However..... it may be of interest should you ever decide to follow up the life and times of.....

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/4th+King's+Own+Regiment+1831-1837:+Barrel's+Blues-a0119781319

A big thank you to all who have sent suggestions to help in my search. I have solved the mystery and have all of the details concerning Ensign R.H. Moneypenny (Monypenny). My biggest asset in the search was a newly discovered site called Trove, which features old newspapers. From there I followed Robert Honywood Moneypenny and have traced his family tree. Robert was transferred to Madras in India where he died at the age of 29 in 1839. He was a Captain at the time of his death. ;-)

Well done and, just to make you laugh, I was extolling the virtues of the Trove site yesterday on another thread on these boards.

I have found so much information from the family notices part of the newspapers.