50-Day Family History Blogging Challenge - Day 29
Fragments of Family History – The Family of William Stephens and Mary Newman Buckman - Matilda Edith Stephens
Jennifer Jones from TRACKING DOWN THE FAMILY has initiated a 50-Day Family History Blogging Challenge. This is a big writing commitment, but I have decided to participate. I have decided my topic will be “Fragments of Family History”. I will write short posts of newspaper items or single stories connected to my family history. This may expand over the 50 days.
Matilda Edith Stephens
Matilda Edith Stephens was the fourth daughter and seventh child of William Stephens and Mary Newman Buckman. Matilda Edith Stephens was born on 11 May 1845 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.1 She was baptised on 29 June 1845 at St Lawrence’s Church of England, Sydney.2 St Lawrence Church, now known as Christ Church St Laurence, is an “anglo-catholic” or “high church” which embraces the “catholic tradition of Anglicanism”.3 The foundation stone for what was then St Lawrence’s Church was laid by Bishop Broughton on 1 January 1840, and the partially completed building was consecrated on 10 September 1845.4 Perhaps William and Mary were not giving up Catholicism by attending an Anglican Church but were attending a church that had not given up all the Catholic traditions.
Matilda Edith was not named according to the English naming pattern as her four oldest siblings were. If she was, as the fourth daughter, she should have been named after her mother’s eldest sister, which was Maria, but Maria died as a baby. The name Matilda does appear in the family. Mary’s younger sister Sophia had a daughter Matilda Maria who died as a baby in 1835 who Mary may have named this daughter for.5
Like her Australian born brothers, Matilda’s death was not registered. Compulsory registration of births, deaths and marriages was introduced in 1856 in New South Wales. It is unlikely that Matilda lived beyond childhood as her name was not passed down with any of the family stories. She was their sixth child to die.
New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, NSW Government, Baptism Record of Matilda E Stephens, daughter of William and Mary, Reference No. 837/1845.
Ibid.
Christ Church St Laurence, About, Website accessed 9 July 2025, https://ccsl.org.au/about.
Australian Christian Church Histories: a portal for historical information on Australian Christian Churches. Website accessed 10 July 2025, https://www.churchhistories.net.au/church-catalog/sydney-nsw-christ-church-st-laurence-anglican.
Ancestry.com. England, Select Deaths and Burials, 1538-1991 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: England Deaths and Burials, 1538-1991. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.