Left to right: Charlotte Kent (1846-1918) and Catherine Cunningham (1823-1911)

Source: www.mississauga.ca

Catherine Steele, the fourth of five known children of John Steele and Margaret McAulay, was born on 12^th March 1823 in Cardross (Dunbartonshire) Parish:

Steel - Catharine, Daughter of John Steel and Margaret McAulay was born at Renton the 12th day of Jany and Baptd the 19th February 1823

At the time of the 1841 census, Catherine, entered as aged 15 and born in the county, i.e. Dunbartonshire, was residing with her elder brother, John Steele, in Bridge Street, Bonhill.

In 1851, Catherine, 28, unmarried, was John’s housekeeper in Alexandria.

Catherine Steele was referred to in the Trust Disposition and Settlement of her step-father Archibald Clark and mother, Margaret McAulay, dated 17^th October 1853, as ‘Catherine Steel residing in Renton’. In a subsequent Codicil, dated 13^th January 1866, she was styled ‘Catherine Steel (now wife of William Cunningham residing in Canada’. Originally she was intended to receive one eighth of the combined estate after the deduction of four legacies of £50 each, in favour of Archibald’s four children. The Codicil of 1866 changed and simplified this arrangement, so that under the concluded position Catherine stood to receive (and presumably actually did receive) a legacy of £500 instead.

In the (typewritten) Mutual Trust Deed and Settlement of her brother Aulay Steele and his wife Mary Cochrane or Ross or Steele, subscribed by them at Helensburgh on 28^th March 1895, Catherine was referred to as ‘Catherine Steele or Cunningham, Strutsville (sic, external evidence indicates that this should actually be ‘Streetsville’), Ontario, Canada’. From this it is inferred that she was probably still living at this time. Mention was also made in the same document of ‘her son William Cunningham residing there’, i.e. Streetsville.

Concerning Catherine’s time in Canada, the following particulars are taken from www.mississauga.ca:

Matthew Cunningham, brother of Catherine’s husband, William, arrived in Streetsville in 1852 with his father and started a tinsmith business with William in 1860, in the frame building at the corner of Queen Street and Barry Avenue (280 Queen Street South). William left the business in 1886 but Matthew carried it on until his death in 1898.

In 1902 William’s nephew donated the tinsmithy to the Streetsville Library Board.

In the above photograph, Catherine stands in front of the William Cunningham house, at 19, Barry Avenue, in 1910, with Charlotte Kent, whose identity is yet to be established. It was built c. 1860 for Matthew and William Cunningham, tinsmiths, and is designated under the terms of the Ontario Heritage Act.

Catherine Cunningham died in 1911.