50-Day Family History Blogging Challenge - Day 4
Fragments of Family History
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.
CHARLES STEVENS 1821-1866
Charles Stevens, my 3x Great Grandfather, was from Bristol, England. His death notice in the newspaper states he was a “native of Bristol, England”. I have found, here in Australia, that “native of” does not always mean they were born there but were from there. I don’t know if this was for case for Charles.
‘Deaths’, Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Saturday 24 November 1866, p. 1.
On the 23rd instant, of consumption, at 179, Cumberland-street, CHARLES STEVENS, native of Bristol, England, aged 45 years ; leaving a wife and seven children to deplore their loss.
‘Funeral’, Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Saturday 24 November 1866, p. 10.
FUNERAL.—The Friends of the late Mr. CHARLES STEVENS are requested to attend his Funeral, which will move from his late residence, TO-MORROW, Sunday, at 3 p.m.
Cumberland Street, Sydney ca. 1860-1887 / William Andrews, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
Charles Stevens was a sailor. It is not known when he came to Australia, but it was before his first child with Julia Brennan was born in 1852 in Sydney.1 They had eight children with one dying as an infant. When Charles died, Julia became, or always was, a washerwoman. Read a little more about her here
In 1866, The Sydney Morning Herald charged 3 shillings for each insertion of a birth, death or marriage.2 It is unlikely that Julia could afford to pay for the death notice, however others may have helped. I thought this was unusually long and detailed for a death notice, until I found many death notices in the Sydney newspapers around this time included where the person was from and how they died.
Charles Stevens was buried in Camperdown Cemetery.3 It is unlikely Charles had a headstone. This cemetery was closed in 1868, just 2 years after he died.4 In the 1940s, the 13-acre (5.2 hectares) cemetery was reduced to 4 acres (1.6 hectares) around St Stephens’ Anglican Church and the remaining 9 acres (3.6 hectares) was turned into parkland, The Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, with headstones moved to the fence line or lost altogether.5
New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Online Birth Record of Martha Stevens (Registration Number 534/1852).
‘Advertising’, The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW: 1842-1954), 2 January 1866, p. 8.
New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Death Certificate of Charles Stevens (Registration Number 1427/1866)
‘Camperdown Cemetery, NSW, Established 1849’, Project Gutenberg Australia, https://gutenberg.net.au/camperdownNSW/_home.html.
Ibid; ‘Camperdown Cemetery’, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camperdown_Cemetery.
What a hard life for Julia. Eight children! Yes, there were strong people in those days.
Just imagine if these families were to learn of their descendants sharing their stories with a worldwide audience. They were amazing and strong people living through tortuous times. Your stories and appreciations honor them.