Mrs James Fletcher
(1826-1863)
13 May 1862

Volume 6, page 303, sitting number 8082.

Born at St Helier on the island of Jersey in 1826, Frederica Mary Stephen was the daughter of solicitor John Stephen. 

She married firstly in 1846 Lieutenant Alexander McLeod May of the 58th Regiement of Foot, The wedding took place at Port Macquarie in New South Wales, Australia. According to one announcement of the marriage, the groom was the 'eldest son of Colonel Hay, of Westerton, Elgin' and the bride was the 'daughter of John Stephen, Esq. of Melbourne' (Limerick Chronicle, 4 February 1846).

When the census was taken in 1851, Frederica was an 'Annuitant' living at 22 Moss Street in Elgin, Morayshire, with her two-year-old daughter Mary. At some point her first husband died. Frederica was a widow when, on 21 July 1852 at St George's Hanover Square, she married merchant James Fletcher, still using his birth name James Jack, a Scotsman originally from Elgin who had moved south to Liverpool and made a vast fortune importing alpaca from South America. 

The couple appear on the 1861 census living at Woolton Hall near Liverpool with their seven-year-old son Alfred and Frederica's daughter from her first marriage, Mary M. Hay. 

Frederica Mary Fletcher died on 2 September 1863 at 10 Abercromby Place in Edinburgh. 

The year after her death her widower acquired Rosehaugh near the fishing village of Avoch on the Black Isle. On this property he lavished much care and attention, adding to the size of the 6400 acre estate through the acquisition of a further 1000 acres from adjoining properties, and greatly enhancing the already imposing house. His son James Douglas Fletcher later turned it into a veritable stately home but the building was demolished in 1859. The family also owned Letham Grange near Forfar.