Ademia Henry was born on 29 March 1828 at Kirkoswald, Ayr, Scotland to John Henry and his wife Margaret McSeveny. She was a sister of Agnes Henry who married Edward Spinks (1818-1880). Ten year old Ademia and her family arrived in Sydney on the William Rodger on 26 September 1838 but passengers spent three months in quarantine before they were free to move on. Ademia’s brother Isaac was born during their time at the quarantine station. Sixteen people had died of typhus fever on the voyage and a further 45 died at the quarantine station. Four headstones were erected by passengers in memory of those lost to typhus.1
By 1840 the Henry family were in the Illawarra with another brother to Ademia, Hugh, born in Wollongong in 1840. A sister was Margaret born at Jamberoo on 7 August 1842. In 1843 15 year old Ademia married John Bradney of Jamberoo. Pregnancy probably prompted the marriage as their first child John Bradney was born on 19 February 1844. Another seven children followed between 1846 and 1857. Sometime in the late 1840s John Bradney, whilst still married and having children with Ademia, started a relationship with Ann Louisa Pugh Nichols.
On Saturday 7 April 1860 Ademia Bradney gave birth alone to a male infant at their farm ‘Plough Weary’ at Jamberoo. The child was found in their barn that afternoon by Emily Bradney, Ademia’s eldest daughter. At an inquest held on 9 and 10 April and Ademia stated that she had given birth to a live male child but then was taken with a fainting fit and when recovered at about 10 am she found the baby dead in the bed where it had been born. She then put the baby in the barn at about 2 pm until it could be buried and intended to send for her mother and husband to do so. Her husband was not present on the day of the birth having gone to stay with Ademia’s mother in Kiama on the Thursday previous.2 After the inquest Ademia and her husband John Bradney were discharged but the magistrates then took up the case.
On 4 June 1860 Ademia Bradney stood trial at the Central Criminal Court in Sydney charged with the murder of a male infant.3 Ademia repeated the evidence she had given at the inquest. Emily, aged 14 years and Eliza aged 11 years, were called as witnesses. Emily stated that her mother was ill in bed on the 6th and 7th of April and that she saw the baby first in the bed and then in the barn. The judge said that there was not sufficient evidence to convict the prisoner of the capital charge but there was some evidence of concealment. The defence argued that there was no motive and no evidence to conceal the birth as Ademia had prepared baby linen. The jury came to a verdict of not guilty.
Ademia was clearly fed up with her situation and the town gossip. She would have been about six months pregnant with the baby who was to die so tragically when she posted this notice in the local newspaper:4
When Ademia gave birth to the baby boy in April 1860 she already had eight children with John Bradney. From 1850 John Bradney was also having children with Anna Louisa Pugh Nichols and they had five by 1859, another in 1860, and five more after that. Ademia was probably feeling abandoned and humiliated by the local gossip. Her husband had left Jamberoo to go to Kiama just two days before the baby was born at full term. Most likely he was with his ‘other’ wife. If not a bigamist in the legal sense John Bradney was certainly a scoundrel.
Ademia went on to have one more child with John Bradney, a son named William Nelson Bradney born in 1862. She died on 17 March 1863 at Jamberoo.
John Bradney eventually married Anna Louisa Pugh Nichols on 9 June 1869, the day before their tenth child was born. All up John Bradney fathered 21 children in his 50 years of life. When he died on 2 January 1872 there was no glowing obituary for John Bradney.
One of his sons to Anna Louisa Pugh Nichols was John Gilbert Bradney Nichols who was born at Jamberoo in 1853. John was to marry Ademia’s niece Dorcas Spinks, the daughter of her sister Agnes and Edward Spinks in 1877.
1. ↑ Sydney Quarantine Station https://ehive.com/collections/3671/objects/36215/headstone-passengers-of-the-william-rodger-no-4
2. ↑ “CHILD SMOTHERING AT JAMBEROO—INQUEST” Illawarra Mercury (Wollongong, NSW : 1856 – 1950) 20 April 1860: <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article132225240>.
3. ↑ “CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.—SYDNEY.” Examiner (Kiama, NSW : 1859 – 1862) 9 June 1860: 4. <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article102519016>.
4. ↑ “Advertising” Examiner (Kiama, NSW : 1859 – 1862) 14 January 1860: 1. <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article102521011>.
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