The Murder and Mutilation of Mrs Sarah Freeman at Broke Farm Halstead

The burial register of Halstead contains  an entry for the burial on 30 October 1848 of the body of an unknown woman found murdered near Broke and supposed to be about 43 years old.
 The area of Broke has altered a great deal; the former London- Hastings road took a different course to the modern A21. Broke Farm and Broke Lodge (which remains today) formed land to the side of  an isolated stretch of the Highway. The body was found in a field at Broke Farm police recovered some items from nearby hedges.
The body had been mutilated and police flyers about the murder provided little information for the Coroner's inquest held at the Cock Inn. However as reported in the Daily Chronicle two brothers John and Thomas Chapman attended in the belief that their sister was depicted in the police flyer. The Chapman brothers had not seen each other for some years one residing in Southborough Tunbridge Wells the other in London. Their sister had married and was Mrs Sarah Freeman but had been estranged for several years from her husband who was a contractor on railway construction. Although John and Thomas Chapman hesitated to identify her body Thomas recognised her small plaid shawl. Two other women who responded to the police appeal identified the shawl and another item thrown into a hedge as belonging to Mrs Sarah Freeman who had been living in Maidstone with another man but had left him. These two witnesses described an argument with an Irish women in which blows were exchanged.
Sarah Freeman was also recognised to have stayed at the Cock Inn at Halstead in recent months.
It appears that the Coroner released the body for burial in the absence of positive indentification by her brothers or any other witness. No one was ever identified as the murderer who mutilated her body.
The burial took place in the old churchyard at the ruined Halstead Place church site (demolished 1880) and it is no longer possible to determine whether the burial was marked in any way.
Spare a thought for the murder victim lost somewhere in the old site.
My transcript of the Halstead Burial register is available at Kent online Parish Clerks Halstead page.


© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

Halstead Saint Margaret Kent

To trace the history of the parish of Halstead one has to consider the now demolished Halstead Place which was lost in 1952 due to dereliction see  Lost Heritage It is believed that on this site was an Anglo-Saxon church which was replaced in the 13th century by what was a chapel for Halstead Place. The parish was a small and poor one; the living for a priest was much smaller than Chevening Otford or Shoreham nearby. The old church remained until it was pulled down in 1880/1881. It's remaining ruined walls and burial ground are a scheduled ancient Monument see ancientmonuments website.
My transcript of the burial register for Saint Margaret 1813-1920 for Kent Online Parish Clerks therefore includes burials in the old churchyard which still has gravestones standing. The stones are not scheduled but the ground beneath them is. In 1855 a new graveyard was consecrated and a burial chapel was built. In 1880/1 the chapel was extended to form the  present church which formed the burial ground from 1855. Leland Duncan noted Monumental Inscriptions 4 August 1919 and recorded that the old ground at Halstead Place was in very poor condition. His notes are valuable at Kent Archeological Society.
Marriages which took place in the parish church were taking place in a building which had no rights for Church marriage due to a failure to transfer that right from the Ancient Parish church. 119 Marriages which took place until 1919 were technically invalid rendering many of the population of Halstead illegitimate. This was resolved by a 1920 Act of Parliament which validated these marriages and licensed the church for marriages.

The Kent Churches video captures the history and images of the churchyard and 1881 building which retains several features from the older building.
Halstead was a strawberry growing area which attracted traveller families and seasonal workers also to the hop yards. Although on top of the North Downs it lay adjacent to the Pilgrims Way. The burial register reflects deaths amongst seasonal workers and traveller families.
The author Edith Nesbit lived at Halstead Hall for three years in 1870's when she was a child. She liked to sit on the banks of the railway line and watch the digging of the long tunnels for the railway line. Halstead station was renamed Knockholt station after confusion arose with Halstead in Essex. These childhood memories and recollection of the railway building were to form themes in her classic novel "The Railway Children". Although the burial register records many accidental deaths and a murder victim there appear to have been no railway fatalities in the construction.
The "new" burial ground was soon fully occupied  and an extension was needed;the register starts to record how may graves were full systematically to make the case. There is an entry which records the dedication by the Bishop of Rochester of the extension on 20 November 1914.
My transcript of part of the complete register 1813-1929 is the first transcript for the parish page at Kent Online Parish Clerks for the years 1813-1820 due to international privacy laws publication of the remaining years will be held until 2029.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

The Burial of Jesse Delani Laurence at Chevening Kent

As my transcript of the Chevening burial register from 1813-1866 is being prepared for publication online at Kent Online Parish Clerks Chevening page one of several traveller burials in the parish is worthy of comment.
The register records the burial on 9 June 1858 of fifteen month old Jesse Delanie Laurence. The registration of death records the second given name as spelt Delani. Chevening is one of the Pilgrims Way parishes and was a useful route to travel East or west as it avoids the steep inclines  of the North Downs to the north of the ancient route.
For a number of years in Kent parishes I have located a number of eighteenth and nineteenth century Black servants,bareknuckle boxers and travelling fair people as well as Asian people. It has frustrated me to hear the mistaken assumption that Kent parishes do not contain Black family history. Perhaps it is only the record transcriber who can provide such insights!
Jesse was recorded in the parish register as "Travelling through the parish a black child" at death and could have been travelling with her parent (s) either for seasonal work or as part of a travelling fair.
One reason for Kent Online Parish Clerks interest in the Pilgrim's Way parish burials is to help traveller research to locate family member's burials. Some years ago our Cudham burial register helped one Showman's Guild member locate the burial plot in Cudham Churchyard through the parish office and erect a memorial for a family member. For a quarter of a century the family had been looking elsewhere and then a google search by name located my transcript.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

The Earth Museum and Darwin's Apprentice-The John Lubbock Collection

In 1980 when I moved to live in Farnborough Kent  one of the first places I discovered was Bromley Museum in Orpington. I was by this point in my life an experienced genealogist and record transcriber and archive researcher. The museum displays lead me to discover the John Lubbock collection and the history of High Elms Downe the country home of Sir John Lubbock Baronet. I was fascinated by the collection of stone flint and other minerals fashioned by "Stone Age" hands into implements. Over the years two excellent Museum Directors educated visitors about the collection
In 2012 I volunteered as a Kent Online Parish Clerk for Downe and in 2019 for Farnborough.
Sadly Bromley Museum was closed to the public and its collection in storage became less accessible. The John Lubbock Collection which is extensive was reduced to a display case to illustrate the array of countries John Lubbock had visitd himself on his travels or been given by other archaeologists and collectors of ethnographic cultural items.
The John Lubbock gallery within a corner of Bromley Historic Collections is seldom visited despite the best efforts of a part time curator to involve student and history groups.
I was very happy to read Doctor Janet Owen's book entitled Darwin's Apprentice several years ago when it was published. Janet as a young teenager had volunteered at Bromley Museum and handled collection items. She later used the collection to form her Durham University PHD thesis 2010 The Collecting Activities of Sir John Lubbock which can be read online in a PDF file Durham e theses
Doctor Janet Owen went on to found The Earth Museum and I now have the opportunity to volunteer for the Earth Museum mapping project to add the complete Lubbock Collection online and tell the remarkable story of this international resource.
John Lubbock natural scientist, politician,banker,entomologist,social reformer,archaeologist and anthropologist has been correctly described as Darwin's apprentice and Doctor Owen in her book traces three stages of the apprenticeship:

1. Prior to 1859 when Darwin published On the origin of the Species.
2. John's collection of objects as supporting evidence of Darwin's theories
3. the latter part of John's life when the large collection served as a traditional museum collection at High Elms Downe.

The "Catalogue of my Collection" contained handwritten details of acquisitions over a thirty year period. There are number of articles on the Earth Museum website which introduce online Sir John Lubbock and his travels to acquire items  see The Earth Museum website.
It seems only fitting that I now volunteer to bring the places,objects and stories of this collection to a worldwide online audience and contribute to the development of the Earth Museum website development. I am looking forward to handling and describing the objects of this internationally important collection. Our first training session has been held and Bromley Historic Colections curator Jane Cameron will be directing volunteers to begin work in March 2019.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

Reverend John Austen 1777-1851 Rector of Chevening

Chevening Saint Botolph (image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) is one of 68 churches in England dedicated to Saint Botolph who is patron saint of travellers along what we nowadays call the Pilgrims Way. The church is Saxon in origin and is first mentioned in the document which records payment of Easter dues to the Diocese of Rochester The Textus Roffensis refers to the parish of  Civilinga,the Anglo-Saxon name for the parish now called Chevening.
In 1813 The Reverend John Austen was appointed Rector of Chevening and as a life long lover of his cousin Jane Austen's works it is a pleasure to transcribe John's entries in the Chevening parish registers. For the most part John's handwriting poses few challenges for the transcriber and I have been able to make rapid progress on the initial entries in the burial register from 1813. My transcript is available at Kent Online Parish Clerks Chevening parish page  here.
The Austen family are a long established Kent family and John was born third son of  Francis Motley Austin (1747-1815). John was baptised on 17 July 1777 at Wilmington in Kent. He was born on 6 June 1777.
He was educated at Oriel College Oxford where he matriculated in 1794 graduated BA 1799 and was awarded MA in 1803. He was ordained a deacon in 1800 and a priest in 1801.
In 1806 he became Rector of Crayford Kent and served there until 1813.
In 1813 he was appointed Rector of Chevening and remained until his death in 1851. In addition in 1806 he was appointed as domestic Chaplain to the fourth Duke of Dorset at Knole and in 1817 as the
domestic Chaplain to the fourth Earl Stanhope at Chevening.
He married on 7 September 1813 at Seal Kent Harriet Lane (1785-1873),daughter of Thomas Lane of  Bradbourne Kent. The couple had 7 children all baptised at Chevening:
John Francis Austen 1817-1893
Charles Wilson Austen baptised 20 September 1818 at Chevening.He became a Lieutenant Colonel in 1858 and died 7 December 1863 from wounds received in action in New Zealand.
Elizabeth Austen baptised at Chevening 11 July 1820.She married at Sevenoaks 11 September 1856 Major General Terrick Fitzhugh JP (1827-1910).
Catherine Frances Austen baptised at Chevening 19 August 1821 who lived at The Old House Sevenoaks and died unmarried 4 October 1907.
Henry Morland Austen baptised at Chevening 6 March 1823. He was educated at Winchester and Christ Church Oxford matriculated 1841 BA1845 MA 1849 ordained deacon 1847 priest 1848. He was appointed Rector of Crayford Kent 1851-1873 and served that parish longer than his father had.
Henrietta Louisa Austen baptised at Chevening 30 May 1824.
Marianne Austen baptised at Chevening 31 October 1825 and lived with her sister Catherine at Old House Sevenoaks;she died there 31 March 1892
John appears in 1807 to have inherited a family property at Horsmonden under the terms of the will of his first cousin once removed John Austen (1726-1807).
Reverend John Austen died at Chevening Rectory 22 September 1851;his will was proved 6 October 1851 and can be read at the National Archives website. He was buried on 27 September at Sevenoaks parish church aged 74. The burial was conducted bt the Rector of Sevenoaks.
Jane Austen's familiarity with Sevenoaks,Seal and the Westerham area  are recorded in  he writings.The 12 year old Janes stay at the Red House Sevenoaks where her uncle was agent for the estate at Knole. She would through her uncle's law practice specialising in land (and the land Tax) no doubt have met many families who were landed and in her writing she describes a large house with a deer park; almost certainly Knole.
I am personally not persuaded that the fictional Rodings in Pride and Prejudice is based upon Chevening House. The novel began under a working title First Impressions and was written in 1796-1797 and published in January 1813;before Reverend John Austen had left Crayford. It is likely that during her stay in Sevenoaks she became acquainted with the Sackvilles at Knowle (and possibly the Stanhope Family at Chevening)and her themes of inheritance and the landed gentry may originate from her juvenile stay in Sevenoaks with her sister.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020