Margaret Vaughan (c. 1660-1733)

Margaret Vaughan was one of eight daughters born (circa 1660) to John and Margaret (Lloyd) Vaughan.

She married, Sir Thomas Stepney of Prendergast (near Haverfordwest) at Llanarthne on 9 December 1691. He was descended from Alban Stepney, Receiver General of the Diocese of St David’s and who came to Wales around 1561 and settled at Prendergast, Haverfordwest, in Pembrokeshire. When his father died in 1681 he inherited the title and became Sir Thomas Stepney 5th Baronet.

Margaret and Sir Thomas’s pre-nuptial settlement was dated on the day before their wedding, her portion being £1,000.

Her father had died in 1669 and her brother Walter had died in 1683. After her marriage she lived with her husband Sir Thomas Stepney at Llanelly House.

When her mother died, as one of the four surviving daughters she inherited the fourth 1/4 Share of the Vaughan Llanelli Estate on 2 August 1705. Dame Margaret Stepney inherited 22 messuages and one water corn grist mill and when her older sister Anne Vaughan (wife of Griffith Lloyd), died in 1706/7 she also inherited land and property, including Llanelly House and Machynys.

Dame Margaret Stepney died on 1 November 1733, aged 73, and was buried at Llanelli church where a monument exists to her memory. Her husband Sir Thomas, who had been High Sheriff of Pembrokeshire in 1697, MP for Carmarthenshire from 1717-22, died on 24 Februarv 1744-5, aged 76.

They had one son, John Stepney, who became the 6th Baronet when his father died.