Ann PHILP- from Scotland

Ann Philp is my one great-great-grandparent from Scotland. She was born around 1840, in Ceres, Fife, (estimated from the 1851 census), though we have not been able to find her baptism entry.




She married Martin Burke, (originally from Co Mayo in Ireland), in February 1861, in Perth, with her residence at the time given as Abernethy. Her parents are named on her marriage entry as Thomas Philp, ploughman, and Isabella Philp, whose maiden name was Nicholson. From the 1851 census we find that Thomas Philp was born in Strathmiglo, and Isabella Nicholson was born in Ceres.

(copied from microfilm in FHC)

 Ann was the sixth child in a family that had 10 children that we know of, some of whom we know were born in Ceres, Fife, others in Dunbog, Fife, and the youngest, Fanny (Euphemia) was born in Abernethy. Ann was said to be 11 in the 1851 census, and a scholar. When her mother Isabella died in Abernethy in 1855, Ann was listed amongst her children, and was said to be 15.

By the time of the 1861 census, Ann had married Martin Burke. However, rather than appearing in the Burke household in the census, she is listed as being in Abernethy with her father Thomas, as housekeeper at the Balvaird Cot House. Her youngest sister Euphemia is also there, aged 12, as well as another female child, Isabella Forrester aged 10. (I don’t know how/if Isabella fits into the family at this stage.)

The following year, on 21 August 1862, Ann Philp became a mother, with her firstborn child being Mary Burke, my great-grandmother. The young family were living in the Parish of Inchture at this time.

Mary Burke was just a young child when the family of three embarked for Canterbury in New Zealand, and they arrived in the port of Lyttelton on the ship Mermaid, in February 1864. From the newspaper account of the voyage we read that:- During the voyage the passengers had the benefit of fine weather nearly all the way out, and, in their own language, “there was scarce one evening but they could dance on deck.” 

Ann gave birth to two more children in New Zealand. Ann Burke was born in December 1864, and a son Thomas was born in 1866.

The family were living in Burnham when Ann Philp died in March 1895, aged 53 years old. Her death entry says she died of cancer of the liver. However, her brother-in-law John Burke died just two months earlier of a cause also said to be cancer of the liver, so we must wonder whether in fact there was some infectious cause.

Ann was buried in the Darfield Catholic Cemetery in a group of four family graves, near her daughter Mary, her brother-in-law John Burke, and Mary’s husband Patrick Riordan. The four graves are amongst the oldest in the cemetery.

I’d like to acknowledge the help Maggie Gaffney (third cousin) has given me in my research about the Philp family, especially by sharing the 1851 census and the 1855 death entry for Isabella Philp nee Nicholson.