Sarah Dewar was the second wife of Richard Bevan (the Bevan family being part of the banking group that eventually became Barclays Bank). Sarah was a long time friend of Charlotte, Richards first wife, so it is perhaps no surprise that Richard married Sarah after the death of Charlotte.
Sarah had a brother James, who was married to Mary Anne and they had three children: Raymond, Robert Malcolm and Mary Elizabeth. James and Sarah had other siblings: Sibella, Elizabeth and possibly someone only currently identified as G. The mother of the Dewar siblings was Hanna.
In 1856 when the letters are written, Sarah is living in Brighton with Richard, and the letters are largely sent from St. Leonards in East Sussex.
Robert Malcolm Dewar, son of James and Mary Anne, joined the Navy as a boy during the Crimea War and died in the Black Sea of a fever at the age of 12, despite an operation to help him breathe. The news was conveyed to his family via and he was buried in the military cemetery at (now Tarabya on the European side of Istanbul).
Raymond sat the entry exams for the military training academy for officers. Mary Elizabeth, the only daughter, married a clergyman before dying in January 1882, and is buried in the cemetery in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. Mary Anne died in September 1892.
