Louisa Baldock & William Joseph Lewis
1827–1904
William and Louisa’s eldest child — she married a Balmain mariner turned publican, raised nine children of her own, and saw two daughters married in a single double wedding.
- Born
- 17 July 1827 · Frant, Sussex
- Died
- 4 October 1904 · Newtown
- Married
- William Joseph Lewis (1825–1906)
- Lived
- 77 years
Louisa was baptised at Frant in 1827, and was ten when the family emigrated in 1838. In 1853 she married William Joseph Lewis, a mariner, at Sydney, and the couple settled at Balmain. They had at least nine children between 1854 and 1867: Irwin Alexander, Isabel Eliza (died as an infant), Blanche, Charles Rupert, a daughter who also died young, twins Florence Beatrice and Alice Maud, another daughter, Louisa Alexandra (who likewise died young), and Bertha Edith.1
Two more daughters, Emily Louisa and Ellen Adelaide, were born before that 1853 marriage was ever registered — Ellen in 1849, already under the surname Lewis. Both were later described, in records of their own, as William Joseph Lewis’s daughters: Emily Louisa’s 1892 remarriage register (to Eli Augustus Shanan, after an earlier marriage to a Mr Cohen) names him as her father, with her half-sister Alice Maud Lewis a witness; Ellen Adelaide married Samuel Charles Dalton in 1869 as his “second daughter.” Whether William and Louisa were together, informally, for several years before their marriage was formally registered, or the girls were simply born before the wedding and folded into the family afterward, is not yet clear.2
Several of the children left a clear record of their own. Florence and Alice were married in a double wedding at St Stephen’s, Newtown, in 1893, their father witnessing both ceremonies. Bertha Edith married William Douglass and later travelled to England with him; she died at Point Piper in 1955. Alice’s son John Lewis Gore served with the AIF in the First World War. Irwin Alexander died a Manly freeholder in 1926; his brother Charles Rupert survived a bankruptcy at Cootamundra before a long career as a Manly draper — as did their father, William Joseph Lewis, who was declared bankrupt himself in 1894. Louisa died at Newtown in 1904, and William in 1906; both were buried at Camperdown Cemetery, not far from her parents.1
Questions Not Yet Resolved
William Joseph Lewis’s own origins remain elusive. A Brighton, Sussex parish baptism register for 1824 records a “William Joseph, son of William Anthony and Esther Lewis,” born in the same corner of Sussex the Baldocks themselves came from — consistent with his recorded age at death (81, in 1906) — but nothing yet confirms this is the same man.2 Several candidate shipping records exist for a William Lewis arriving in the colony in this period, but nothing distinguishes which, if any, is his, so how or when he came to New South Wales is still unknown.
The Record
Sources & References
- 1
Louisa (Baldock) Lewis and family, 1853–1955
NSW BDM marriage registration, Sydney, 1853: Louisa Baldock to William J. Lewis. Family-tree aggregation and a photograph of their shared headstone at Camperdown Cemetery: Louisa Lewis, née Baldock, born 1827, died Newtown 4 October 1904; William Joseph Lewis, born 1825, died 12 April 1906. Two daughters, born before the 1853 marriage was registered: “Emily Louisa, eldest daughter of William Joseph Lewis, Esq., of Balmain,” married (groom’s name partly garbled in the surviving clipping) at the bride’s parents’ residence, 17 August 1867 (Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 1867, p.1); “Ellen Adelaide, second daughter of Mr. William Joseph Lewis, of Balmain,” married Samuel Charles Dalton, Esq., of Botany Street, Surry Hills, 2 January 1869 (Sydney Morning Herald, 9 January 1869, p.1) — see ref. 2 for their birth registrations and further evidence of their parentage. Nine children of the marriage to Louisa Baldock, by NSW BDM birth registration (Balmain district unless noted) and other sources as follows. Irwin Alexander (b. 1854): “Lewis—Hinds,” Evening News, 9 February 1878 — married Sarah Jane Eveline Hinds, youngest daughter of the late John Hinds of Hunter River, 6 February 1878, St Philip’s Church, Sydney, groom “of Stephen-street, Balmain” (NSW BDM marriage 116/1878); St Matthew’s, Manly, burial register, no. 196, grave 36H, “31 Osborne Rd,” died 29 Dec 1926 aged 72, buried 30 Dec; NSW probate index, Perpetual Trustee Co., occupation “freeholder,” estate £350 16s. Isabel Eliza (birth reg. 244/1856; death reg. 1012/1856, Sydney): Camperdown parish burial register, “Isabel Elyza Lewis, Union St,” daughter of a mariner, died aged 8 months, buried 20 December 1856. Blanche (b. 1858, reg. 2287): “Young—Lewis,” Sydney Daily Telegraph, 9 October 1879 — married Edwin James Young, third son of Edwin Young of Richmond, 25 September 1879, St Philip’s Church, Sydney, bride called “third daughter of William Joseph Lewis, Balmain” (NSW BDM marriage 999/1879); death reg. 11814/1938, Woollahra. Charles Rupert (birth reg. 2438/1860, Balmain): NSW Government Gazette, 11 August 1897, notice of application for certificate of discharge in bankruptcy, of Cootamundra; 1934 electoral roll, 31 Osborne Road, Manly, draper; NSW probate index, died Manly 27 October 1938, occupation bookkeeper, estate £106 5s 9d; death reg. 2757/1938. A daughter, sex only recorded (birth reg. 2463/1861). Florence Beatrice (birth reg. 2375/1863): NSW marriage register, St Stephen’s, Newtown, 7 June 1893 (entry 612), to Andrew Alexander Prentice, accountant; 1930 electoral roll, 9 Haigh Street, Chatswood; family-tree aggregation names a daughter, Essie F. Prentice. Alice Maud (birth reg. 2374/1863): NSW marriage register, St Stephen’s, Newtown, 7 June 1893 (entry 613, the same day as her twin Florence’s, with their father William Joseph Lewis a witness to both), to John William Gore, hairdresser; St Stephen’s parish baptism register, 1895, daughter Irene Maud Gore; AIF attestation papers, son John Lewis Gore, enlisted 12 January 1916 aged 18; 1943 electoral roll, 14 Oakura Street, Rockdale, with daughter Irene; NSW probate index, died Rockdale 3 May 1953, occupation widow, administered by sons J. L. and J. H. Gore jr; cremated Woronora Memorial Park, 4 May 1953. Louisa Alexandra (birth reg. 2659/1865, Balmain, registered as “Louisa V. A.”; death reg. 2225/1867, Balmain, father given as “William S.”): Camperdown parish burial register, “Louisa Alexandra Lewis, Balmain,” aged 1, died 2 May 1867, buried 3 May 1867, Camperdown Cemetery, Newtown — the same child as the birth registration; a family-tree index (Jenny Kidd) independently confirms the fuller name Louisa Alexandra Lewis, which this branch now follows in place of the birth registration’s initials. Bertha Edith (birth reg. 2853/1867): “Douglass—Lewis,” Daily Telegraph, 8 January 1891 — married William Douglass, eldest son of John Douglass of Doree, Lake Macquarie, 23 December 1890, St Stephen’s Church, Newtown, bride called “youngest daughter [of] William Joseph Lewis, of Newtown” (NSW marriage register entry 498, parents recorded as “William Lewis” and “Louisa ‘Baldock’”); an undated “Personal” newspaper clipping records “Mr. and Mrs. William C. Douglass” leaving for a visit to England aboard the RMS Orsova; NSW probate index, “Douglass, Bertha Edith,” died Point Piper 29 April 1955, occupation widow. William Joseph Lewis himself: New South Wales Government Gazette, 13 November 1894, notice of sequestration order in bankruptcy, “of Alice-street, Newtown, gentleman.” Louisa’s own death notice, Australian Star, 6 October 1904: “at her late residence, 21 Alice-street, Newtown, Louisa Lewis, dearly beloved wife of William Joseph Lewis, aged 77 years.”
- 2
Emily Louisa and Ellen Adelaide, born before the 1853 marriage; a candidate baptism for William Joseph Lewis
Three documents bearing on the two elder daughters and on William Joseph Lewis’s own origins:
- NSW BDM birth registration, 147/1849: Ellen A. Lewis, father William, mother Louisa — registered under the Lewis surname four years before Louisa Baldock’s marriage to William Joseph Lewis was registered in 1853.
- NSW marriage register, St Stephen’s Church, Newtown, 23 March 1892 (entry 563): Eli Augustus Shanan, bachelor, of Cooma, to Emily Louisa Cohen, widow, of Sydney — the bride’s parents recorded as William Joseph Lewis (plumber) and Louisa “Coleman,” witnessed by William Joseph Lewis and Alice Maud Lewis. (The mother’s maiden name here is almost certainly a records error: every other certificate in the family gives Louisa’s maiden name as Baldock, not Coleman — Coleman being her own mother’s maiden name, one generation further back.)
- Brighton (Brighthelmston), Sussex parish baptism register, 1824, entry No. 1326: “William Joseph, son of William Anthony and Esther Lewis, Brighton Place, painter,” baptised 8 August 1824 — a plausible but unconfirmed candidate for William Joseph Lewis’s own baptism, consistent with his recorded age at death (81, in 1906) and the family’s own Sussex origins.