GRACE STEVENS One of 190 Convicts on “Rajah” 1841 Sentenced to 7 years at Penzance Quarter Sessions Transported to Van Diemen’s Land

- SEE ALSO - CHARLES BLIGHT, OF “AUGUSTA JESSIE”

NAME: GRACE STEVENS ALSO KNOWN AS: Grace Stephens

AGE: 15 – born about 1825, Penzance-Cornwall DIED: 17 November 1902, aged 78 years; buried Wesley Vale-Tas

TRIED: 13 July 1840, Penzance Quarter Sessions SENTENCE: 7 Years CRIME: Stealing a gown and purse

GAOL REPORT: Convicted before

CRIMINAL REGISTER: Note – Ancestry.com has the same page entered for both convictions -  Grace Stevens, 15, born about 1825, tried 13 July 1840, Penzance Borough Sessions 6 January 1840, for Larceny, sentenced to 3 months imprisonment  Grace Stevens, 15, born about 1825, tried 6 January 1840 at Penzance Borough Sessions, for Larceny, 3 months imprisonment

SHIP: Rajah – departed Woolwich 5 April 1841, arrived 19 July 1841, a voyage of 105 days, carrying 190 female convicts (179 landed). Master Charles Ferguson, Surgeon James Donovan SURGEON’S REPORT: Quiet

SURGEON’S GENERAL COMMENTS: (Folios 25-28) - The convicts who embarked on board the Rajah were from Millbank Prison. On the 19th March 1841 a steamer came alongside with 24 [females] who were selected by the Ladies Members of the Society for the Reformation of the Female Prisoners as the best conducted and most suited to fill the different situations on board the ship such as mess women, hospital nurses &c. They all appeared in tolerably good health. The surgeon stated that on the following day 127 female convicts and 6 of their children were received on board, seven of them aged between 50 and 60 years. Between 24th and 25th March [1841] 36 female convicts and two children were received on board from Newgate, and three also were received from the General Penitentiary. During the same time ten females and two children were removed from the ship, five by an ordered from the Home Office and the remaining five in consequence of insanity. According to the surgeon, one of the women who was appointed hospital nurse became outrageously violent and on the next day it became necessary to confine a second similarly attacked, both were removed on shore on the 25th March. Shortly after three others showed violent symptom of derangement and were separated from the rest and removed into the hospital

THE RAJAH - The Rajah Quilt, made on board the Rajah in 1841, is the only surviving quilt known to have been produced during transportation. The ship Rajah set sail from Woolwich on 5 April 1841 reaching Hobart, on 19 July. It landed with 179 women prisoners (one died during the voyage), 10 children, a Royal navy surgeon and three or four other passengers. The quilt was made possible by the exertions of The British Ladies Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, a group of Quaker women formed in 1816 by Elizabeth Fry. .... In addition to personal items such as combs, bibles and sewing supplies, the British Ladies Society supplied the transportees with tape, pins, 100 needles, four balls of white sewing cotton thread, a ball each of black, red and blue thread, black wool, 24 hanks of coloured thread, a thimble, scissors and two pounds of pieces ...... nearly ten metres. ... It appeared that a number of pieces (more than twenty) had faded extensively ... however an examination of the back of the quilt reveals that these patches have been positioned and sewn back to front and had not faded at all. This oversight would indicate that the work was carried out in poor light or by someone with failing eyesight ... There are a few patches marked with dark brown small circular stains, identifiable as bloodstains, associated with pricked fingers. These stains are on the patches with the crudest of stitches and although the rocking of the boat may have led to numerous prickings, the cause of these stains appears to have been a lack of skill ... Possibly twenty different hands may be deduced (i.e. the number of female prisoners undertaking the quilt). The report of a London Parliamentary Select Committee on Transportation (1838) noted that the patchwork only lasted 2/3s of the voyage, that the women talked as they sewed and that the conversation was obscene. [Extracted from article by Debbie Ward, Senior Textiles Conservator, National Gallery of Australia.]

VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, CORNWALL - Article on the ‘Rajah Quilt’ – (poignant and extraordinary stories) …”The first revolves around a young girl of 15, exiled from her family for stealing a length of printed cotton and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. Grace Stevens set sail for Van Diemen’s Land on HMS Rajah in 1841. In contemporary accounts Grace was described as a housemaid, or nurse girl, a redhead with florid complexion and light blue eyes. She had a scar on the thumb of her left hand. We don’t know whether Grace contributed to the quilt, however we do know that Grace served her seven years but did not return to England. She was married twice, and had ten children. In her obituary, written some fifty years after her arrival in Launceston Grace was described as ‘Granny ….. (who had) a host of sincere friends, who esteemed her kindly disposition and motherly advice’ and who ‘regretted her somewhat sudden demise’. The Rajah Quilt - http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/research-journal/issue-01/doing-time-patchwork- as-a-tool-of-social-rehabilitiation-in-british-prisons/

RELIGION: LITERACY: Imperfectly

FAMILY – Marital status: Single

DESCRIPTION – Trade: House girl Height: 5’ 0” Age: 17 Complexion: Florid Head: Oval Hair: Red Visage: Oval Forehead: Flat Eyebrows: Light red Eyes: Light blue Nose: Long Mouth: Medium Chin: Round Native Place: Pensantz-Cornwall (Penzance) Remarks: Scar on thumb of left hand

TASMANIAN CONDUCT RECORD –

Crime: Transported for stealing a gown and purse – stated this offence “stealing a purse and gown, once for the same 3 months”

Previous Conviction: Once for the same – 3 months January 1840 – Stealing a piece of cotton from the shop of Mr Tucker

Prostitute: 3 months On-the-Town

Probation:

Assignment: 14 November 1842 – Campbell Town

Offences and Sentences: 17 Feb 1843 – Archer – Misconduct in being with Isaac Kitt for improper intercourse – 6 months hard labour in the Female House of Correction – sent to the Factory at Launceston, vide Lieut-Governor’s Decision dated 24 Feb 1843

Ticket of Leave: 4 November 1845

1841 Census: Grace Stevens, Rajah, assigned to J. Archer, Esq, of Launceston (believed to be Joseph Archer, of the Panshanger Estate - http://www.panshanger.com/hist.htm )

1846 Convict Muster: Grace Stevens, Cornwall 1840, 7 years, Rajah 1841, Ticket-of-Leave holder (HO 10/39)

Convicts Permission to Marry Index: 25 Nov 1843 - Grace Stevens of “Rajah”, and Charles Blight of “Augusta Jessie”

Colonial Families Index: FIRST MARRIAGE – 1844 - Grace Stevens married to Charles Blight (native of Cornwall) at Campbell Town; Charles Dewhurst was a witness to this wedding. It is believed Charles Blight died in the 1850s but unconfirmed, possibly during a diphtheria epidemic Children: John Louchlan Blight (b.1846, m.1864 Ellen Dewhurst at Port Sorrell) Robert Blight (b.1848 Avoca); moved to Victoria and married Frances Edwards at St John’s Church of England & Ireland at Colac in 1875 and had children – Charles (1876), Sarah, William, Frances (1882), Alice (1883), Catherine (1885), John William (1887), Ellen (1888), Louisa, Robert (1891), and Sarah Grace (1893) Martha Blight (b.1849-Fingal, m.1866 Charles Dewhurst at Port Sorrell) he had been the best man at her wedding to Charles Blight Sarah Ellen Blight (b.1851-Launceston, m.1866 George Dewhurst at Port Sorrell) Emma Amelia Blight (b.1853-Launceston) SECOND MARRIAGE – 1855 - Grace Blight married Charles Dewhurst (b.1802, d.1887, bur.Northdown Anglican Private Cemetery) at Port Sorrell in 1855 Children: Grace Emma Amelia Dewhurst (b.1860-Port Sorrell, m.1800 George Green) Alice Horton Dewhurst (b.1863-Port Sorrell, m.1884 George Brown) Thomas Dewhurst (b.1864-Port Sorrell, d.1866-Port Sorrell) Joshua Stephens Dewhurst (b.1866-Port Sorrell; m.1896 Annette Kate Payne) Thomas Dewhurst (b.1870-Port Sorrell).

SPOUSE 1 : Charles Blight – see separate entry for Charles Blight who arrived as a convict onboard “Augusta Jessie”

SPOUSE 2 : Charles Dewhurst, bapt 14 July 1805 at Horton, Bradford-Yorkshire, died 11 May 1887 at Port Sorell in Tasmania of Dropsy; married previously to Elizabeth Banks at Campbell Town-Tas on 7 May 1836; was a convict aboard “Roslyn Castle”, a blacksmith by trade – http://www.geni.com/people/Charles-Dewhurst/6000000003146080435 http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jmbhome/dewhursthomastas.html

DEATH – Grace Dewhurst died in 1902 aged 78 years, (registered Port Frederick-Tas, No 0597) and was buried in Wesley Vale Methodist Cemetery (died 17 Nov 1902, 78y, nee Blight wife of Charles, Portion UC, Row 40 – also in the same cemetery is William Dewhurst, 21y, son of Charles and Grace (nee Stevens) accidentally killed, Portion UC, Row 40) died 13 June 1892 (the Argus in Melb has a short report from their Tasmanian correspondent that William Dewhurst of Northdown was killed on Monday 13 June by a dray overturning on him at Latrobe, Argus 14 June 1892)

NEWSPAPER REPORTS –

WEST BRITON, 1- JANUARY 1840 - Penzance Quarter Sessions - These Sessions were held on Monday last, before the Recorder, Thomas Paynter, Esq., and the Borough Magistrates. After the usual formalities, Jeremiah BARTON, 31, was placed at the bar charged with an assault on a constable in the execution of his duty. It appears that the prisoner had been given in charge for soliciting money with a brief containing signatures suspected to have been forged; and in his efforts to escape, he kicked the constable with great violence. The charge was clearly made out, and on the jury pronouncing a verdict of guilty, the prisoner was sentenced to be imprisoned six months' at hard labor. Grace STEVENS, 15, pleaded guilty to stealing a piece of cotton from the shop of Mr. Tucker, Draper, and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Mary SIMS, 26, also pleaded guilty to the charge of having concealed the birth of her female infant, the particulars of which we gave a short time ago, and was sentenced to one year's imprisonment at hard labor. The prisoner was in so feeble a state as to be unable to walk without assistance. The court then broke up.

REFERENCES – http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON40-1-10,257,53,L,80 http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON19-1-1,142,131,L,80

Founders and Survivors – http://foundersandsurvivors.org/pubsearch/convict/chain/c40a6147 http://www.vam.ac.uk/things-to-do/blogs/quilts-hidden-histories-untold-stories/tis-season http://genforum.genealogy.com/blight/messages/73.html http://rajahsgranddaughter.blogspot.com/2011/02/cascades-female-factory.html

Last Updated: 5 March 2011

Compiled by Trish Symonds