Caroline Kearney faced a heartbreaking dilemma. In 1865 she was newly widowed, thirty-one years old, and the mother of six children. She had hoped her husband would leave his sheep station in Victoria, Australia to her sons. Instead, his will required that the family move to Ireland and live in a house chosen by her brothers-in-law. Pieced together from archives, newspapers, genealogical sites, and legal records, Caroline’s Dilemma sheds new light on colonial family and gender relationships of the nineteenth century and tells the story of how one woman fought to shape her own life within the British Empire.
The Bax and Kearney family trees
Map – location of Bax family and relatives, 1837–70
Introduction
Part 1: Migration, marriage and station life: Becoming Australian colonisers
1 Migrations and ma
