The Matthews family

The Matthews family is another story I keep returning to although a recent attempt to track them all down has proved frustrating.

Maria Smith and Jesse Matthews married in 1867 and during 38 years of marriage produced 16 children, 13 of whom survived to adulthood.

Unfortunately, there is no key to this magnificent family portrait taken in around 1893, but it has been possible to identify some of the siblings by later photographs.

Ada Maria Matthews

Ethel Sarah Matthews

George Stephens Matthews

Walter W.J. Matthews

Edward Thomas Matthews

Emmeline Dorcas Matthews

Mary Catherine Bramble Matthews

Gertrude Amelia Matthews

Frances Josephine Matthews

Winifred Dorothy Matthews

All of the 10 sisters were apprenticed to trades and at least two became teachers. Eldest daughters Ada and Ethel both emigrated to Canada with possibly a third, Emmeline, joining them.

In 1901 daughter Jessie Ellen Matthews (born in 1876) worked alongside her brother Walter in a Stationer’s shop they ran together at 14 Victoria Street. In 1905, the year her father died in tragic circumstances, Jessie married Stephen William Filtness at the Wesley Chapel, Faringdon Road where the family worshipped. Sadly, Jessie was admitted to the Wiltshire County Lunatic Asylum in Devizes on June 10, 1911 where she died on August 9. She is buried in grave plot E7455 where she was later joined by her mother-in-law Mary Elizabeth Filtness who died in 1912; her husband Stephen William who died in 1931 and his sister Mary Sophia Boxall who died in 1932.

Jesse Matthews died in 1905 and Maria in 1940. They are buried in grave plot E7389 with their baby granddaughter Rosemary Gay who died aged 4 days old in 1929.

My research into the Matthews family continues. Many thanks go to Shelley Hughes who has provided so much information and so many photographs and to Prof John Gregory for his gift of Memories of Another Age – Frances Josephine Gay 1886-1974. Frances was a writer, teacher and founder member of the Richard Jefferies Society. Copies of this book are available in Local Studies, Swindon Central Library. Frances was Jesse and Maria’s second youngest daughter.

You can read more about Maria Matthews here.