(Last updated: 5 May 2011)
I could find no record of Stephen's birth or baptism in the parish registers for Hythe, West Hythe or Lympne. The 1841 census shows Stephen Cheeseman, single and aged 25, living at West Hythe with his mother Mary and siblings Amy, Alfred, Benjamin and Mary. They would have been in view of Lympne Castle (pictured on the left in around 1830).
Stephen married Grace Tyrrell, the daughter of William and Mary Tyrell, at Rye in Kent on 31 October 1841 (we think that Grace was baptised at St Stephen's at Lympne on 6 December 1818). The couple's marriage certificate states that they were both of full age at the time of their wedding and both living at Rye. Stephen was a bachelor shepherd and Grace a spinster. Her father, William Tyrell, was said to be a labourer. No details were provided of Stephen's father. The wedding was witnessed by a George 'Shetter' and a Sarah 'Sainster'. Both Grace and Sarah signed the certificate with a cross.
The UK censuses and local parish records indicate that Grace and Stephen, who worked as a shepherd and later a grazier, spent all their married lives at West Hythe and had four children we know of there: William Masten (or Master) Cheeseman (baptised at St Stephen's at West Hythe on 3 Sep 1843), Charles Tearall Cheeseman (25 Dec 1846), John Cheeseman (25 Mar 1853) and Stephen Cheeseman (born at West Hythe in around 1850).
Grace Cheeseman nee Tyrrell/Tearall died and was buried at West Hythe on 28 September 1862. The 1871 census shows the widower Stephen living at 12 Botolphs Bridge West Hythe with his sons William (27) and John (18). Also living there was Stephen's 24 year-old housekeeper Eliza Partridge and her four children: Anna Louisa (7), Elizabeth (5), George Thomas (3) and Mary Eliza (1). We suspect that some or all of these children may have been Stephen's, a possiblity enhanced by the facts that one child, Elizabeth, had Cheeseman as her middle name, the LDS index of baptisms shows all four were born out of wedlock, and all were baptised at Lympne: Ann Louisa Partridge on 3 April 1864, Elizabeth Cheeseman Partridge on 20 April 1865, George Thomas Partridge on 2 February 1868, and Mary Eliza Partridge on 26 June 1870.
It is possible, too, that all or some of the children were fathered by Stephen's neighbour, Charles Tearall who, according to the mid-Kent Marriage Index, married Eliza Ann Partridge at Lympne on 1 March 1873. The 1881 census shows Charles and Eliza living next door to Stephen at West Hythe. With them were five children all of whom had been born at West Hythe - Annie L. Tearall (17), Mary E. Tearall (11), Emily I. Tearall (6), Ellen T. Tearall (4) and Harriet M. Tearall (1) - together with Eliza's married and invalid sister, Mary Ann Eve, who was born at Brenzett in Kent in around 1842. Stephen, then aged 66, had living with him an Elizabeth Cheesman (16) and a Thomas Cheesman (14) both of whom had been born at West Hythe. Next door to them was Stephen's younger brother Alfred (55) and his wife Ann Cheesman (47) and their three children: George (19), Walter (14) and Alice (8).
The 1891 census shows Stephen, a 76 year-old grazier, still living at West Hythe. With him were his 27 year-old 'daughter-in-law', Louisa 'Burbridge', who was his housekeeper, and a nine year-old Ada Tearall (described as a 'visitor'). Living next door was his sister-in-law Ann Cheeseman, a 57 year-old widow and dressmaker who had been born in Burmarsh, plus a 'visitor', Albert Cheeseman (10 and born at Folkestone). A few houses away was another of Ann's sons, Walter Cheeseman (a 24 year-old labourer born in West Hythe) with his 22 year-old wife Annie.
Stephen Cheeseman died at West Hythe on 29 December 1898, aged 83 years. His death certificate states that he was a retired grazier and had died of bronchial catarh. The informant was his daughter A. L. Lynn (probably Anna Louisa Partridge).
What of Stephen and Grace's children? Information provided by Judy Harvey and Kay Miller Prather in the United States indicates that Stephen and Graces's oldest son, William Masten (or Mastus) Cheeseman (pictured on the right in Victoria BC in Canada in 1912), emigrated to the United States some time between 1871 and 1880. There he married an Irish or Irish-American woman, Alvina Miller (1844-1891), who died in Steilacoom in Washington. William and Alvina had a daughter, Grace Terrel Cheeseman (1880-1958), who was born at Puyallup in Washington, died in Portland Oregon and was buried in the Seattle area of Washington. She married an Albert Lyrton Miller (1861-) from Portland. Another family descendant, Jane Fox, tells us that Grace divorced Albert Miller and remarried Francis Anthony Tobin. Grace and Francis had three children: Genevieve Marie Tobin (Jane's grandmother), George Tobin (who married but did not have children) and Grace Cheeseman Tobin (peering from behind her mother in the photo below which was taken in around 1928).
Jane adds that 'Grace died young from tuberculosis' and 'George is the last living member of that family'. She also thinks that William 'must have remarried after Alvina's death as I have a photo of a person identified as Grace T's stepmother' (William married an Elizabeth Finlay or Findlay - see below). Jane adds that 'the 1880 Washington State census has the Cheeseman family listed, along with a boy - Jos. L. Linesberg, aged 5. He is listed as their son, which makes me wonder if Alvina was married before she met William'.
Judy Harvey has also told us that the younger Grace had two brothers and a sister: Stephen, William (who died at Vancouver in Canada) and Ethel Pauline (1893-1978). This is confirmed by records published by the LDS as follows:
1). Its burials index for British Columbia show that William Mastus Cheeseman, the son of William Cheeseman and Elizabeth Finlay, died at Vernon in British Columbia in 12 June 1980, aged 87 years (William was born at Puyallup in Washington in the United States on 7 August 1892 and seems not to have married).
2). The LDS records also show that another son of William Masters Cheeseman and Elizabeth Finlay, Stephen Alfred Cheeseman, was born at Puyallup in 1891 and married Edith Albert Fee at Kamloops in British Columbia on 30 December 1925. According to the 'William J. Ross' family tree on Ancestry.com, Edith (pictured below) was born at Kamloops in British Columbia in 1900 and died at Vancouver in British Columbia in 1989. Her father, Trenholme Wesley Fee, was born in South Durham, Quebec on 2 August 1876 and died in Vancouver on 29 April 1954. Her mother, Eliza Jane Paull was born at Ailsa Craig in Ontario Canada on 29 September 1877 and died at vancouver on 26 April 1943. It adds that Trenholme and Eliza had three children in addition to Edith: Roberta Trenholme Fee (1907-09), Bertha Lucille Fee (1914-90) and one still living.
The LDS index of burials in British Columbia also shows that William Mastus Cheeseman, the 73 year-old son of Stephen Cheeseman and Grace 'Tyrall', died in British Columbia in Canada on 8 September 1915.
The photo on the left is of William's second wife, Elizabeth Finlay and her daughter Ethel Pauline ('Polly') Cheeseman.
It was taken in Victoria BC in Canada in 1938 and has written on the back: 'My Aunt Polly (my mother's sister)
on left with my mother's stepmother'. The one on the right is of Edith Alberta Cheeseman nee Fee, wife of William and Elizabeth's
eldest son Stephen Alfred Cheeseman.
Stephen and Grace's second son, Charles Tearall Cheeseman, married Eliza Hobbs at Wareham in Kent in 1866. They had two daughters, Ann Grace and Lydia Cheeseman, before Charles' death in June 1869 (he was buried at Lympne). Eliza had a further son, James, in Saltwood (near Hythe) in 1871. The 1871 census shows Eliza and her three children lodging with her brother Henry Hobbs and his family in Saltwood. Next door were Eliza's parents Henry and Lydia Hobbs. The 1881 census shows Eliza living at Union Square in Hythe with her children James (10), Emma (6), Louisa (4) and John Cheeseman (2) where James was born in Saltwood and the others in Hythe. Also present was an unmarried lodger John Bartford (34, and born at Hern Hill in Kent) who could also have been the father of the last three children.
We have not yet discovered with any certainty what happened to Charles and Eliza's oldest daughter Ann Grace or their youngest son James Cheeseman. Their second daughter, Lydia Elizabeth Cheeseman (1868-1946) married George Thomas Pilcher (1865-1940) in Kent in 1886 and was still living in Saltwood in 1901. The UK censuses and the 'Owen Family Tree' on Ancestry.com indicate that George's parents were Thomas William Pilcher and Charlotte Pitchford, and that he and Lydia had five children all born at Saltwood: Elizabeth (1886), James Thomas (1890), Alfred William (1891), Lydia Eliza (1895) and Richard Llewellwyn Pilcher (1900). We think that their two youngest children, Richard and Lydia Eliza Pilcher, married Florence M. Gilbert and George English in the Thanet RD in Kent in 1926 and 1917 respectively.
Stephen and Grace's third son, Stephen Cheeseman was working as a 'pot man' at the Bell Inn in Ealing in London in 1871. The 1881 census shows a Stephen Cheeseman, a labourer aged 31 and born at Hythe, living at 8 Princes St Folkestone with his wife Elizabeth (31 and born at Dover), two children - Stephen W. (2) and Albert C. (5m), both of whom were born at Folkestone - and his mother (in-law?) Ann Cheeseman aged 65 and born at Canterbury. Stephen's wife was Elizabeth Lewis, the daughter of John Lewis and Betsey Ann Cheeseman nee Lewis nee Bowen, the wife of Stephen's uncle, William Masters (Mastus) Cheeseman snr (1819-87). The 1901 census shows an 'Alfred Cheeseman', a 50 year-old railway worker living at 8 Princes Street Folkestone with his wife Elizabeth (51 and born at Dover) and sons Albert (20) and Charles (14) both shop assistants and both born at Folkestone. The Catherine House records show that a Stephen Cheeseman, aged 51 years died in the Elham district in the September quarter of 1901.
Stephen and Elizabeth had three children we are aware of, all born at Folkestone in Kent: Stephen William (1879), Albert Charles (1881) and Charles Cheeseman (1887). We know very little about the latter two beyond their dates of birth and the fact that Albert was living and working (as a shop assistant) at Folkestone at the time of the 1901 census. Their brother, Stephen William Cheeseman, married Frances Agnes Walker, the daughter of Walter Richard Walker and Susannah Harrison Major, at Folkestone on 4 June 1900. The couple had at least one son at Folkestone, William Lewis Cheeseman, born there in 1904. Although still to be confirmed, we think that the family may have later moved to East Yorkshire where Stephen died in 1949.
Last updated: 5 May 2011
Photo sources:
'West Hythe and Lympne', 'Botolph's Bridge', 'St Stephen's Lympne', 'St Leonard's Hythe', private collection.
'William Masten Cheeseman' and 'Grace Terrel Tobin (nee Cheeseman) and daughter Grace Cheeseman Tobin', courtesy of Jane Fox.
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