Lesley

If you read the relevant words I wrote in my book on Casement I don’t make a definite case for the Balharry girls, who married his brothers, Tom and Charles Casement, being members of the Catholic Apostolic Church.

“Charlie, at least, returned to settle down in Melbourne where he worked for the Tramway and Omnibus Company and lastly the Melbourne Steamship Company. Their first marriages were to two sisters Minnie and Blanche Balharry, daughters of James Balharry and Emily Perry. She was the daughter of Charles J. Perry (1817-1893) who married as his second wife Isabella, the widow of Hugh Casement, their only full uncle. The Perry and Casement families were therefore linked through membership of the Catholic Apostolic Church. A third Balharry sister, Emily, migrated to London.”

However it does seem a strong possibility, confirmed to a degree by what you write of your great aunt Ethel (I don’t know where she fits in however), and the number of Perry/Casement/Balharry intermarriages that they were all members at some point.

The church may have started petering out by the 1920s. I wonder what happened to its buildings and assets in Australia?

Do you know anything of the fate of the two sons of Hugh Casement (b. Belfast ca. 1825 d. 1861 Australia m. ca. 1856 Isabella Hussey of Dublin b. 1836 d. 1924: two sons Francis and Somerville b. 1861. She m. 2nd Charles J. Perry b.1817 d. 1893.)?

I am still on the hunt for the origins of RDC’s mother Anne Jephson.

Best wishes

Jeff Dudgeon