Louisa Whitehouse arrived in Sydney, in 1850, with her two children, William (7) and Emily (6). Their father, Frederick Bond, whose father was James Bond, had died in 1844, aged 32, when the children were still babies. They arrived in Sydney with Louisa’s second husband, Joseph Bottrill. They had left London a month after getting married, in September, 1849. Joseph Bottrill died in 1859, “of natural causes, accelerated by intemperance.”
Louisa’s son, William Henry Bond, attended Dr. Lang’s Grammar School in Sydney and later worked at The Sydney Morning Herald. In 1862, Louisa married Richard Stevenson, who also worked at the SMH. The wedding took place in Grafton, where Richard had recently bought The Clarence and Richmond Examiner, Grafton’s first newspaper, established in 1859. William Bond worked at the newspaper owned by his step-father.
In 1870, William Bond married Kate Hodges. Their first two children, Arthur and Frederick were born in Grafton. Then, in 1875, they moved to Inverell, where William became the editor and owner of The Inverell Times. The family expanded, with the births of Percy, Walter, Edith, Ethel, and Herbert, all born in Inverell. That same year, Louisa and Richard Stevenson travelled to England, where her mother, Louisa Jones, died the following year. Louisa had been away for 25 years.
They returned to Sydney, settling in Stanmore. Louisa died in 1896, by which time, Richard had been a member of the NSW Legislative Assembly for ten years, holding the position until his death in 1899 aged 67.
Dan Webber 