Charles Jennings [abt 1780-1855] Monaghan Street, Newry, County Down. Part 4.

The construction of the Newry and Enniskillen Railway began in 1844 with a call for investment in shares in the Newry and Enniskillen Railway Company. The engineer William Dargan was one of its main promoters.

Prospectus of the Newry and Enniskillen Railway .....extension to Sligo.....to be raised in shares. Provisional Committee ...

Charles Jennings Esq. was a member of the Provisional Committee.[1]

At this time Charles’ business interests at 30 Merchant’s Quay, Newry, were comprised of a Coal merchants, Iron merchants, and Timber and Slate merchants.[2] It appears he not only sold shares in the Railway Company but may have invested heavily himself. The Railway Company ran into financial difficulties and collapsed. Charles was declared bankrupt in 1851.

Bankrupt: Charles Jennings, of Newry, county Armagh, merchant, dealer, and chapman, to surrender on Tuesday, the 3rd day of December, and on Tuesday, the 31st day of December next.[3]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary a chapman was a man whose business was buying and selling, a merchant, trader or dealer; an agent in a commercial transaction, a negotiator or broker.

Bankrupt Court - Yesterday (Before Mr. Commissioner Plunkett). In the matter of ---- Jennings. the bankrupt in this case was a shopkeeper in Newry, and his certificate was signed. Agent - Mr. F. Hamilton.[4]

Joseph Corley Jennings, who was born in 1827, was Charles’ third surviving son. He had been apprenticed to William Dargan, the engineer overseeing the building of the railways in Ireland. After the collapse of the Newry and Enniskillen Railway Joseph emigrated to the United States and spent the rest of his life in California.

Another son, Charles, who was born in 1837, and was Charles’ youngest son, was apprenticed to Arthur O'Hagan, Solicitor, Harcourt Street, Dublin, after a year at Clongowes Wood College. Arthur O’Hagan came from Newry, and was a friend, and possibly a distant cousin, of the Jennings family. Charles also emigrated to the United States where he died unmarried.[5]

Charles Jennings died in Queen Street, Newry, aged 74, in November 1855.

Death. November 12, Queen Street, Newry, at his residence, of an attack of paralysis, Charles Jennings, in the 75^th year of his age.[6]

He may have been living with Thomas Jennings, who resided at 49 Queen Street, also known as Needham Street, in Newry.

Charles Jennings, Queen Street, Newry, 14 November 1855.[7]

His widow, Sophia, moved to Dublin with one of her daughters, Kate Sophia, and her son Andrew John.

She died at 8 Cabra Parade, Phibsborough, on the 16th February 1871 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.[8] Her daughters Sophia Corley, who died in 1897,  Kate Sophia, who died in 1900, Ellen Mary who died in 1891, and her son Andrew John, who died in 1892, are buried in Glasnevin Cemetery with her.

It is not known where Charles Jennings is buried.

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[1] The Armagh Guardian, Armagh, Co. Armagh, December 3, 1844.

[2]  Slater's Commercial Directory 1846 

[3] Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, Wed., November 20, 1850.

[4] Freeman's Journal, Wed, July 30, 1851.

[5] Crossle, NAI

[6] Belfast Newsletter, 19 November 1855.

[7] Catholic Church Records. Newry. Funerals. 1855 p. 69. 05502/05.

[8] Glasnevin Cemetery, VB, 12, SOUTH.