page_title: Mary Putland
section_title: The Rum Rebellion
hierarchical_section_title: Mary Putland / The Rum Rebellion
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir Maurice Charles Philip O'Connell
context_page_description: Mary Bligh, Lady O'Connell was the Lady of Government House, New South Wales, Australia during the period her father William Bligh was the Governor of New South Wales.
context_section_description: In 1808, the power struggle between Governor William Bligh and John Macarthur, one of the leading colonists involved in the trade in rum, came to a head, leading to the Rum Rebellion on 26 January 1808 when the New South Wales Corps deposed Bligh based on a petition of officers and leading colonists. William Bligh and Mary Putland were placed under house arrest. William Bligh refused to leave the colony until he received an official order from London and so they remained under house arrest while John Macarthur became the de facto head of the colony.
  In April 1809, the British Government appointed Lachlan Macquarie as Governor of New South Wales. In making this appointment, the British government reversed its practice of appointing naval officers as governor and chose an army commander in the hope that he could secure the co-operation of the unruly New South Wales Corps, and aided by the fact Macquarie arrived in New South Wales at the head of his own military unit, the 73rd Regiment of Foot, led by Maurice Charles O'Connell (also the new Lieutenant-Governor). They arrived in New South Wales on HMS Hindostan and HMS Dromedary. At the head of regular troops, Macquarie was unchallenged by the New South Wales Corps, whose members had become settled in farming, commerce and trade.
  William Bligh and Mary Putland were to return to England on Hindostan in May 1810. However, before that occurred, Mary Putland was courted by Maurice Charles O'Connell, encouraged by Macquarie's wife Elizabeth. Only days before the ship was to depart,  Maurice O'Connell proposed marriage to Mary. The couple were married quickly on 8 May 1810 at Government House and Mary remained in Sydney with her new husband, while William Bligh returned to England alone.
  Although William Bligh had departed, his daughter, now Mary O'Connell, had not forgiven those who had deposed her father. She was prone to creating tensions between her husband and others in the colony, and O'Connell soon came to partake in her feelings and antipathies. In August 1813, Macquarie wrote in a dispatch to Lord Bathurst that, "though lieutenant-colonel O'Connell is naturally a very well disposed man . . . it would greatly improve the harmony of the country . . . if the whole of the officers and men of the 73 regiment were removed from it". On 26 March 1814, O'Connell and his regiment were transferred to Ceylon.
caption: Sir Maurice Charles O'Connell, second husband, circa 1840
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