Susanna West and William Casement

Susanna, or Juana West was the eldest daughter of Godfrey West and Elizabeth Hadzor. She married William Casement (no relation of the famous Sir Roger Casement). William was a shoemaker, which gives just some idea of how far the stock of the West family had fallen over the years. And in what appears to be a repeated occurrence amongst the West and Hadzor families in this period, the marriage did not last. At some point, William chose to pack up and emigrate to America, leaving Susanna, and their one daughter, Rose Casement to fend for themselves.

Robert Foster Dill.
Portrait from Queen's University, Belfast. 

By the time she died though in 1851, aged ninety-one, Susanna West had seen her grand-daughter marry an eminent Belfast medical practitioner, by the name of Robert Foster Dill, and give birth to five of her nine children. 

In marrying into the Dill family, a revival of fortune and prestige, is certainly evident, and this in itself suggests that whatever misfortunes Godfrey West may have faced, the name of the family and its pedigree still had enough currency to secure some sound marital alliances.

As this line spreads out, the attachment of the family with the Scottish Presbyterian community becomes more and more evident, with one branch departing Ireland entirely for Ayrshire in Scotland. 

A second branch remained in Ireland, to continue its engagement with the intractable problem of Anglo-Irish relationships. 

And a third branch made its way to England, there to become loyal servants of King, Crown, and Empire. 

These then are the Irish cousins of Hetty Jane Owen, as descended from Susanna West, the elder sister of Maria West, the x2 great-grandmother of Hetty Jane Owen. In all cases, they share direct descent from Godfrey West and Elizabeth Hadzor. 

Susanna died on ‘The Hill’, presumably Cathedral Hill, the site of Downpatrick Cathedral, burial place of St. Patrick. From there it was a short stroll past Downpatrick prison, where Susanna might had she chosen, witnessed the hanging of Thomas Russell, and then down to the town centre, where the town divided into the main arteries of English Street, Scotch Street, and Irish Street, neatly reflecting the demographics of the town, and the divisions of the day.