Sisters Sarah Matilda and Maud Thomasine were both born in Bundellsans, near Liverpool. Sarah was born in August 1889 and Maud followed two years later in July 1891.
On year after Maud was born, their mother died of scarlet fever. Following their mother’s death the girls lived with their father Thomas, a black man from Sierra Leone, who had served in the Royal Navy and the Coastguard services.
In October 1897, just five years after the death of Maud’s mother, the girl’s father passed away from a haemorrhage and the two sisters became orphans.
Maud and Sarah continued to live with their stepmother for three years, but were admitted into Barnardo’s care on 10 July 1901.
The two sisters spend several years at the Girl’s Village in Barkingside before Sarah left Barnardo’s in 1906 and Maud followed a year later to take up work in domestic service.
In 1911 Sarah was recorded in the census working for a family in Palmerston Road, Southend-on-Sea.
Maud worked at The White House in Tenbury, before she gave birth to a baby boy in 1918. After she had her son, Maud took up work at the Nurses Home in Eastbourne Street, Liverpool in 1921.
It’s not known where the Richard sisters went and what happened to them in the end.
