1844 – BAPTISM OF MELINDA AND BASIL’S CHILDREN AT ST JAMES CHURCH SYDNEY
Posted by nellibell49 on June 25, 2008
IN 1844 Basil and Melinda have the children baptised at St James Church in Sydney. The former minister of St James was the Rev Richard Hill in whose household Melinda spent most of the 1820s and where she is twice listed in census figures as SERVANT. Family legend has her as a beloved foster daughter turning fine hems and writing pleasant verse but that doesn’t appear to be the case at this time. Family legend also says she took the children to Sydney to be baptised by the said Hill – but he was long dead by 1844 from apoplexy in the vestibule of St James in 1836 and if some of the letters we have copies of and which were written by him are as true as they appear to be – then apoplexy would not be a surprising termination for him. It seems that Basil and Melinda had left their farming life at Kirmington on the Illawarra by 1844 and were living in Sydney. This is how this record reads as well as I am able to transcribe :
| when baptised | when born | child’s christian name | parents’
CHRISTIAN |
names
SURNAME |
abode | quality or profession | by whom the ceremony was performed |
| oct 19 or 29( writing unclear) | august/april 1839 18th(appears to read august but the twins were born in April) | BASIL EDWARD | BASIL AND MELINDA | KENDALL | SOUTH HEAD ROAD | WRITING CLERK | CHAS. C KEMP |
| “ | “ | THOMAS HENRY | “ | “ | “ | “ | “ |
| “ | JANUARY 29 1843 | JANE CHRISTINA | “ | “ | “ | “ | “ |
| “ | JUNE 11 1844 | MARY JOSEPHINE | “ | “ | “ | “ | “ |
