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Frances (1) Woodhurst was born to parents William (3) Woodhurst and his first wife Mary. An uncorroborated IGI ancestral file (*) claims that she was born (or christened?) at Milton (near Sittingbourne) on June 16th 1827.
In 1850 she married James Stevens [Marriage Index: Medway V 577, 1850 (Dec)]. Various uncorroborated IGI records all give the place as Rochester and the date as October 9th 1850.
James was the son of William (1) Stevens. Some IGI ancestral files claim - though, as usual, offering no evidence - that William (1) was christened on May 1st 1794 at Boughton in Kent of parents Thomas Stephens and Mary (nee) Brown. However, William (1) gave Canterbury as his birthplace in the 1851 Census.
James was probably the child christened on October 11th 1829 at the Bible Christian Union Chapel in Water Lane, West Street, Faversham of parents William "Stephens" and Mary (nee) Kings [IGI: Batch C068261]. The IGI contains several individual submissions purporting to cite the marriage of this William and Mary, variously spelling her maiden name as Hinge, Hirge, Inge and Ingie. They all give 1813 as the date but they all give different places. None of them comes from the IGI's controlled extraction programme.
The 1851 Census finds William (1) aged "57" living with his wife Mary at 3, Drayson Square in Faversham. James and Frances (1), together with the latter's 18-year-old unmarried brother Stephen Woodhurst and the 2-year old daughter Emma Jane of her other brother William (4) Woodhurst, were also living there. William (1), James and Stephen were all agricultural labourers. The record gives the birthplace of James, then aged 21, as Preston Brents in Faversham.
The ancestral file (*) first-mentioned claims further that Frances (1) died at Faversham on July 29th 1857, whilst another states that James died at Faversham on June 25th 1857. The GRO reference for Frances (1) is [Death Index: Faversham 2a 356, 1857 (Sept) - indexed as "Stephens"].
These premature deaths rendered their children orphans. It is known that there were at least two such children, William (2) and Edward. These two were admitted to the Union Workhouse in Faversham on Tuesday August 10th 1857 [Workhouse Admissions Register, 1857, Schedule C, Form 21]. The register describes them as orphans and states that their residence at the workhouse was to be charged to Faversham Parish. The Parish costs of their residence at the workhouse were recovered from Frances (1)'s father William (3) throughout the period 1858-61. It seems unlikely that Frances (1) had any surviving children other than these two boys, as the records of payments made by William (3) always refer to his "two grandchildren".
The 1861 Census finds both these boys living in the Faversham Union Workhouse, at which time William (2) was aged "10" and Edward was aged "5". They are described as paupers born at Oare, on the outskirts of Faversham. Oare is where William (3)'s second wife Ann came from, so perhaps Frances (1) spent her confinements there among Ann's relations. The age of the older boy suggests that he was her first child. He may have been born at Faversham on October 14th 1851 [IGI: Batch 6940042]. The Workhouse also contained a pauper girl Kate Stevens aged "7", but she was not enumerated in company with the two boys (who appear consecutively in the census schedule) and - for the reason noted above - is unlikely to have been their sister.
The 1871 Census finds Edward at age "15" still in the same workhouse, described as a pauper inmate, and appears to find his brother William (2) lodging in Ospringe with the family of a farm labourer William Andrews, and likewise occupied as a farm labourer.