Celebrating the Collections & Archives of Otautau Museum

Brief history of some of Otautau & Districts earliest and most interesting midwives... 1. Biddy McCoy or McLoy (nee Clerkin) In 1847, Mary Anne (or Biddy) as she was known, was tried and convicted at 19 of stealing a goose, in Ireland; this was during the years of the great famine, where 2 million starved to death. She was then transported to Tasmania to serve a 7 year sentence. © Artists impression of Biddy McCoy/McLoy, from her criminal records description; used with permission from family After marrying John McLoy, also a convict and him going missing after arriving in NZ (presumed drowned), Biddy had to fend for herself in the strange new land she had adopted, and ended up becoming very well known as the keeper of the Gropers Bush Hotel (just south of Otautau), from about 1857. Biddy was well known to be an expert sportswoman, with both a knife and a gun. She seems a real character and this is probably what got her through the tough times. In 1870, after ...

Biddy McCoy (McLoy) - Born Mary Anne Clerkin in 1820's; From County Fermanagh, Ireland.  ‘Claim to fame’: Had a somewhat undeserved reputation as a 'wild woman' across Western Southland in early days. Most people in Southland have heard of the fearsome Biddy McCoy, who had apparently poisoned her partner and gone to prison for it; but when you dig a little deeper into the story, that is not actually true and the difficulties that Biddy faced as a child during the Great Famine of Ireland and her ensuing transportation and sentence served in the rough convict days of Tasmania, along with the loss of her husband at an early age - leaving her unsupported with young children, show that her wild and wilful reputation may have well merely been her trying to survive by desperate measures in desperate times... 'Biddy' McCoy was born Mary Anne Clerkin, but was called Biddy. Her father one John Clerkin was a farmer and her mother Ann, had been a M...