Jessie Steventon

Signed family name

Steventon

Signed given name

Jessie

Given address

Port Albert

Sheet number

Town/Suburb

Port Albert

City/Region

Auckland region

Notes

Biographical information provided by Bernadette Siebert.

Jessie Steventon was born in 1859 in London, England the seventh and youngest child of Alfred and Mary Alice nee Syers. In 1862, Jessie arrived on board the Matilda Wassenbach the first of the ships bringing non-conformist settlers to Port Albert, with her parents and four older siblings. Alfred was a printer by trade and a Freeman of London. Both Jessie’s parents were well educated, and shortly after they had settled in Wharehine, north of Auckland. Mary Alice started a small private school, to which the settlers were only too glad to send their children. Alfred had charge of the Port Albert Post Office and used to walk nine miles twice a week from Wharehine to "the Port" to receive and despatch the mails. Later, when the Government established a State school in the district, he was appointed schoolmaster and remained a teacher until nearly seventy years of age.

In 1879, at the opening of the new school at Tauhoa, the entertainment included Miss Jessie Steventon reciting the poem "Emigration." In 1899 she lived in Port Albert with her parents and by 1905 she was living in Jervois Road, in Auckland city. Mother Mary Alice died in 1885 and when her father Alfred died in 1906, Jessie was one of the executors of his will, and was bequeathed 230 pounds, a greater share than her siblings, “partly in consideration of her loving attendance to her late mother during her long illness”.

By 1928 Jessie was living in Great North Road, New Lynn near her brother Alfred H who died in 1941. After her brother died, Jessie moved to Gisborne to be near nieces and nephews. She died there in December 1942, aged 84y. She was privately interred at Taruheru Cemetery, Gisborne. “Peace Perfect Peace.”

Jessie is a sister to #374 L M HOLLOWAY