Page 101 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 9

branch of the Statter Carr family, a line of London lawyers, ended
up in Brighton, Sussex, and another group fled Russia in 1919
to end up in Australia and New Zealand. The family tree also
contains a talented woman artist cousin, an MI5 officer, and a
colonial Governor who became the international head of Planned
Parenthood. The stories and objects passed down from family
members illuminate the lives of the expatriate community in St
Petersburg, whose family, cultural and religious practices in
some ways echoed the patterns of Anglo-Irish social behaviour
in Dublin.

To that mix must be added merchants, brewers and bankers
from her father’s birthplace of Tullamore, and some more
lawyers, the legal family of Whelans, related to the Deverells by
marriage.

Much of Tullamore’s history provides the connections to other
familiar Greystones names such as Featherstonhaugh and
Morphy. They were part of the family’s social life: in January
1897 and February 1900, for example, the Deverells were at
Viceregal events at Dublin Castle with Herbert
Featherstonhaugh (a Gentleman in Waiting), Mr & Mrs Edward
Morphy, Alexander Blood, and the Brereton Barrys. Judge
Edward Morphy and his family had a house at Churchview, off
Church Road, and their links with the Deverells were particularly
strong. At the 1888 inquest into the death in Tullamore gaol of a
nationalist prisoner, John Mandeville, Dr Morphy, then a
barrister, appeared on behalf of the Crown. Dr James Ridley, a
Deverell relative, was the prison’s medical officer and his suicide
during the inquest gave rise to a huge scandal. The extensive
press coverage of the scandal covered the death and ensuing
heated political debate on both sides of the Irish sea in
considerable detail.

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