Michael GRIFFIN 1750 - 1833

Michael Griffin was born in Galway, Ireland and was stationed in Gloucester,England in when his daughter Ann was baptised at St Nicholas Church on 4 Aug 1784. No marriage for Michael and Mary has been located in Gloucester. Their second child, Nathaniel was baptised at Dartford, Kent on 17 May 1788 after Michael was transferred there. Michael then enlisted in the NSW Corps at Chatham, Kent, on 28 September 1789 and sailed to Sydney on the Third Fleet ship Britannia in 1791. Thomas was born on the voyage out from England.

Michael's wife, Mary, died 1st of September 1794, six months after the birth of their youngest child, Lydia. Ann was then ten years old, and younger brothers, Nathaniel six, and Thomas three years old. There is no record of who looked after the children after Mary's death, but Nathaniel appears as Drummer on the 1798 pay list of Captain Johnston’s Company, NSW Corps. Thomas also enlisted as a Drummer in 1799 . Ann married emancipist, Thomas Bates, at St.Philip’s Sydney on the 12 May 1800.

Michael was  present on Musters until 1796 for the NSW Corps, then on the 73rd Regiment, Invalid Company 1812 Pay List. He appears on the November 1828 Census as Griffen, M, aged 85, CF (Came Free) Britannia 1791, Protestant, Lodger with John McDonald, Pitt Town, reference G1469.

Michael died on the 20th of February 1833 and is buried at St Mathew's Anglican Church cemetery, Windsor, NSW, with his younger daughter, Lydia and her two husbands, John BENN and John McDONALD, the same cemetery as Dennis' Gt Grandfather, Theodore Trautwein.