The Sevenoaks Poor Law Union was formed in 1835 and comprised the parishes of Brasted,Chevening,Chiddingstone,Cowden,Edenbridge,Halstead,Hever,Kemsing,Leigh,Otford,Penshurst,Riverhead,Seal,Shoreham,Sundridge,Weald and Westerham. Prior to this several of these parishes had been part of the Penshurst Union which was shortlived and the building of a workhouse at Bough Beeches near Chiddingstone for paupers from Chiddingstone,Cowden,Edenbridge,Hever,Leigh and Penshurst. Violent opposition to this workhouse building resulted on one occasion when the Riot Act was read and the crowd dispersed. The building completed in 1836 was sold by 1838 and these parishes became part of Sevenoaks Union.
The Sevenoaks Poor Law Guardians took the view that the Saint John's Hill premises were adequate and resisted the Poor Law Commissioners efforts have a new workhouse built. In the winter of 1840/1841 inspection of the Sevenoaks premises resulted in heavy censure of the provision and the Guardians relented and the new Workhouse bult at Sundridge to house 500 inmates at a cost of £12,000 opened on 19 September 1845. The former premises at Sevenoaks Saint John's Hill were demolished in 1846.
Kent Archive and Library hold a register of baptisms from 1846-1932 under reference G/Se/Wlb1 and I hope to transcribe this in due course when Covid 19 restrictions are relaxed.
The Union Workhouse at Sundridge did not have a chapel although a room was used for religious services and some baptisms were carried out there. This practice was without approval of the Church of England and when the practice came to light the Archbishop of Canterbury deemed these to be illegal. In a front page of the Sundridge parish Register of Baptisms 1834-1852 the following explanation for the sharp increase in baptisms for the year 1849 is offered:-
"the great increase this year is to be partly attributed to Union Poor House.The Archbishop's Secretary having stated that public baptisms were illegal there as the room used for a chapel there is not licensed for baptisms".
The Sundridge parish baptism register contains as a result the following numbers
1845 30
1846 30
1847 31
1848 46
1849 62
1850 50
1851 75
The register of baptisms from 1834-1852 is therefore unusual as the parish included the chapel at Ide Hill which was licensed for baptisms. The practice was for the churchwardens at Ide hill to ensure that a copy of baptisms there was furnished to Sundridge to incorporate into the parish register before the end of December when the Registry at Rochester required a return for Bishop's Transcripts. There is therefore a sequence of Sundridge Baptisms followed by the annual total of Ide Hill baptisms. This results in some entries being deleted and loss of some parts of pages to accommodate the Ide Hill entries.
I have encountered similar problem with the Bromley Poor Law Union chapel licensed for baptisms and the chaplain there not communicating the number of entries needed in the Farnborough parish register see Farnborough Saint Giles Baptismal Register.
Sundridge burial registers also reflect deaths at the Workhouse including a small number of Sundridge parishioners who died at the workhouse.
My transcript of Sundridge Baptismal registers for Kent Online Parish Clerks is being prepared for publication in due course.
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
Sunday 26 April 2020
Friday 17 April 2020
Brasted Saint Martin 1813-1858 Burials
My transcript for this volume of burial records is being prepared for publication at Kent Online Parish Clerks in due course.
The parish includes Brasted,Brasted Chart Toy's Hill and some entries from Emetts which at the time was farmed.
The record begins with impeccable clarity during the period of Reverend John Gibbons as Rector. There is an example of Bishop's Transcript collection in the form of two entries on a cut sheet of transcript. There are omissions in some years which are picked up by the process of return to the Rochester registry.
However in 1822 Reverend Jones arrives as curate. Reverend Jones had become familiar to me in the Sundridge burial register. His particular talent apart from faint and blotted entries is misspelling surnames of the prominent members of the parish and demonstrating his familiarity with parts of the district. His "Goaters Common" for Goathurst Common in both the Ide Hill and Sundridge registers illustrates his approach to surnames. I had therefore to examine Monumental Inscriptions to make sense of many of his burial entries. Some of his entries can only be replicated as they appear but are unlikely spellings. His last entry is in 1833 when order returns to record keeping in the register.
Exhumation of human remains in consecrated ground is rare and requires a Bishop's faculty. In the case at Sundridge authority was obtained from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The child had died in Italy and was buried in January 1832 some months after the death at Florence before 17 November 1831. On application by the deceased's brother Captain E H Turton the Archbishop of Canterbury acceded to the request and on 27 January 1853 the Archbishop's agent authorised and supervised the exhumation of Robert's remains for the purpose of reinterment by the Rector of Kildale Yorkshire. The Turton family home was Upsall Castle.
From 1844 it became practice to record the date of death in marginal entry although in the 1850's this ceases near the end of the register. All local deaths with rare exceptions contain this information and only those deaths outside the parish in hospitals or Bromley Union workhouse prevent such detailed record.
There are a number of Coroner's order burials and unknown travellers. The large number of cholera deaths in the parish in the 1854/5 are in contrast to neighbouring Sundridge which records the absence of cholera. The outbreak could be an outlying cluster from the Broad Street oubreak in London.
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
The parish includes Brasted,Brasted Chart Toy's Hill and some entries from Emetts which at the time was farmed.
The record begins with impeccable clarity during the period of Reverend John Gibbons as Rector. There is an example of Bishop's Transcript collection in the form of two entries on a cut sheet of transcript. There are omissions in some years which are picked up by the process of return to the Rochester registry.
However in 1822 Reverend Jones arrives as curate. Reverend Jones had become familiar to me in the Sundridge burial register. His particular talent apart from faint and blotted entries is misspelling surnames of the prominent members of the parish and demonstrating his familiarity with parts of the district. His "Goaters Common" for Goathurst Common in both the Ide Hill and Sundridge registers illustrates his approach to surnames. I had therefore to examine Monumental Inscriptions to make sense of many of his burial entries. Some of his entries can only be replicated as they appear but are unlikely spellings. His last entry is in 1833 when order returns to record keeping in the register.
Exhumation of human remains in consecrated ground is rare and requires a Bishop's faculty. In the case at Sundridge authority was obtained from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The child had died in Italy and was buried in January 1832 some months after the death at Florence before 17 November 1831. On application by the deceased's brother Captain E H Turton the Archbishop of Canterbury acceded to the request and on 27 January 1853 the Archbishop's agent authorised and supervised the exhumation of Robert's remains for the purpose of reinterment by the Rector of Kildale Yorkshire. The Turton family home was Upsall Castle.
From 1844 it became practice to record the date of death in marginal entry although in the 1850's this ceases near the end of the register. All local deaths with rare exceptions contain this information and only those deaths outside the parish in hospitals or Bromley Union workhouse prevent such detailed record.
There are a number of Coroner's order burials and unknown travellers. The large number of cholera deaths in the parish in the 1854/5 are in contrast to neighbouring Sundridge which records the absence of cholera. The outbreak could be an outlying cluster from the Broad Street oubreak in London.
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
Thursday 9 April 2020
The Burial of Alfred Kemp at Sundridge Kent
Alfred Kemp was buried at Sundridge on 10 January 1886 age 39. The entry in the burial register contains a neat marginal entry "cruelly murdered by a soldier of unsound mind at Farningham".
In fact Alfred was one of two murder victims at the hands of an Army pensioner called John Knocker who committed the double murder at the Greyhound Inn Sutton at Hone.
Alfred Kemp was the first to die his throat cut in the presence of a witness who was seated with him but managed to escape and summon police. Knocker approached the landlord David Smith and attacked him and killed him. Both men's bodies were discovered by another lodger who had been in bed upstairs after Knocker had left. Knocker had begun to walk to Dartford and there he was apprehended by a constable with blood stained hands but with no weapon. He confessed to the constable that he was responsible and willing to be hanged.
The Hemel Hempstead Gazette of Friday 8 January 1886 contains a report of the double murder and Knocker's subsequent court appearance for a capital offence. However he did not receive a sentence of capital punishment and as the Sundridge burial register suggests he was found to be of unsound mind.
Alfred Kemp was a bricklayer's labourer and was lodging at The Greyhound. He and another lodger James Stroude a bootmaker were seated quietly drinking together when at ten o'clock David Smith had served Knocker and closed his doors for the night. About fifteen minutes later Knocker calmly got up and cut Kemp's throat;Stroude escaped through the back door and called out to Smith and went to call for help.
Knocker had served in the Army for 25 years and had lodged at The Greyhound for about four months. He was born at Chatham in Kent. He had an amicable relationship with both the landlord and his fellow lodgers. At the inquest Mrs Smith said he had left on Christmas Eve and had returned from his holiday "a different man".
Knocker on his court appearance to face trial for murder at Maidstone Assizes had application made by Mister Dickens without objection from Knocker to be remanded to appear at Lewes so that enquiries could be made by a competent person into his state of mind.The application was granted and Knocker appeared at Lewes Assizes on 24 May 1886 when he was ordered to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure for murder in strict custody as insane. On 2 June 1886 a Home Office order for removal of a criminal lunatic to Broadmoor was issued to the Governor of HM Prison Lewes and the Superintendent of Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.
John Knocker was detained at Broadmoor for the rest of his life. He died at Broadmoor on 24 October 1928; his case notes remain closed to public examination until 2029. His case file is held at Berkshire Record Office reference D/H14/D2/1/1278 and covers dates from 1886-1928. His death was subject of an inquest by the Reading Coroner and his death certificate is recorded on the basis of the Coroner's Certificate that he died of natural causes as a result of myocardial degeneration and senility. He is described as "Of the Greyhound Inn Sutton at Hone Kent inmate of Broadmoor Asylum formerly a soldier". His burial was at Broadmoor in the burial ground at the foot of the hill and within the Victorian brick walls of the Criminal Lunatic Asylum. This area is now grassed over and landscaped.
David Smith was buried at Saint John the Baptist Sutton at Hone on 10 January 1886.
Alfred Kemp was born at Chevening apparently the only son of William and Mary Kent. On the night of the 1881 census of number 7 Martin's Row Sundridge he was living at home with both his parents and was employed in Sundridge at the Old Mill as he is recorded as working as a labourer in a paper factory, There is an irony that within five years his fellow lodger and murderer was working in a paper mill.
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
In fact Alfred was one of two murder victims at the hands of an Army pensioner called John Knocker who committed the double murder at the Greyhound Inn Sutton at Hone.
Alfred Kemp was the first to die his throat cut in the presence of a witness who was seated with him but managed to escape and summon police. Knocker approached the landlord David Smith and attacked him and killed him. Both men's bodies were discovered by another lodger who had been in bed upstairs after Knocker had left. Knocker had begun to walk to Dartford and there he was apprehended by a constable with blood stained hands but with no weapon. He confessed to the constable that he was responsible and willing to be hanged.
The Hemel Hempstead Gazette of Friday 8 January 1886 contains a report of the double murder and Knocker's subsequent court appearance for a capital offence. However he did not receive a sentence of capital punishment and as the Sundridge burial register suggests he was found to be of unsound mind.
Alfred Kemp was a bricklayer's labourer and was lodging at The Greyhound. He and another lodger James Stroude a bootmaker were seated quietly drinking together when at ten o'clock David Smith had served Knocker and closed his doors for the night. About fifteen minutes later Knocker calmly got up and cut Kemp's throat;Stroude escaped through the back door and called out to Smith and went to call for help.
Knocker had served in the Army for 25 years and had lodged at The Greyhound for about four months. He was born at Chatham in Kent. He had an amicable relationship with both the landlord and his fellow lodgers. At the inquest Mrs Smith said he had left on Christmas Eve and had returned from his holiday "a different man".
Knocker on his court appearance to face trial for murder at Maidstone Assizes had application made by Mister Dickens without objection from Knocker to be remanded to appear at Lewes so that enquiries could be made by a competent person into his state of mind.The application was granted and Knocker appeared at Lewes Assizes on 24 May 1886 when he was ordered to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure for murder in strict custody as insane. On 2 June 1886 a Home Office order for removal of a criminal lunatic to Broadmoor was issued to the Governor of HM Prison Lewes and the Superintendent of Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.
John Knocker was detained at Broadmoor for the rest of his life. He died at Broadmoor on 24 October 1928; his case notes remain closed to public examination until 2029. His case file is held at Berkshire Record Office reference D/H14/D2/1/1278 and covers dates from 1886-1928. His death was subject of an inquest by the Reading Coroner and his death certificate is recorded on the basis of the Coroner's Certificate that he died of natural causes as a result of myocardial degeneration and senility. He is described as "Of the Greyhound Inn Sutton at Hone Kent inmate of Broadmoor Asylum formerly a soldier". His burial was at Broadmoor in the burial ground at the foot of the hill and within the Victorian brick walls of the Criminal Lunatic Asylum. This area is now grassed over and landscaped.
David Smith was buried at Saint John the Baptist Sutton at Hone on 10 January 1886.
Alfred Kemp was born at Chevening apparently the only son of William and Mary Kent. On the night of the 1881 census of number 7 Martin's Row Sundridge he was living at home with both his parents and was employed in Sundridge at the Old Mill as he is recorded as working as a labourer in a paper factory, There is an irony that within five years his fellow lodger and murderer was working in a paper mill.
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
Monday 6 April 2020
Ide Hill Saint Mary the Virgin burial register 1853-1918
As part of the southern area of Sundridge parish the district of Ide Hill, Goathurst Common, Toys Hill was recognised as being sufficiently distant over hilly terrain as to require a chapel to serve the needs of the district. The Bishop of London who lived in nearby Sundridge built a small chapel at Ide Hill in 1807 and years later on his demise Reverend Matthew Bloxham Incumbent of Ide Hill Chapel was interred in the floor of the Chapel aged 71.
The chapel was demolished in the 1860's and the much larger present day Church of Saint Mary The Virgin was built in 1865. It has been described as the highest church in Kent
The history and images of the highest point in the County of Kent are captured in this Kent Churches video.
The burial register for the parish commences in1853 and continues to 1918. It therefore records the last year of the chapel use and continues during the construction of the more modern parish church.
As with many parts of the Kent Weald close to East-West corridors there is evidence of traveller populations. Goathurst Common and the predominantly agricultural settlements provided seasonal work. The register contains burials of travellers found in tents and people from Chiddingstone and Hever travelling on foot to the Union Workhouse at Sundridge to the north of Ide Hill.
The hamlet of Toys Hill is within the neighbouring parish of Brasted but many residents of the ridge which links them chose to be buried at Ide Hill, Some burials from Bough Beech and Chiddingstone are also found and the occasional burial from Hever to the south.
Octavia Hill donated land at Toys Hill and this is now managed by the National Trust. Ide Hill also includes Emmetts Garden which until 1860 was farmed land. In 1890 the land was purchased by Frederick Lubbock a banker and plantsman. His borther Sir John Lubbock who became the first Baron Avebury was an acknowledged expert on ants and was no doubt fascinated by the large anthills which gave rise to the "Emmetts" (ants) name. This is also part of the National Trust land and forms a footpath through Toys Hill to the Chartwell National Trust estate which attracts many visitors.
My transcript of the burial register is being prepared for publication at Kent Online Parish Clerks website for publication on a newly formed Ide Hill parish page in due course.
Researchers for Ide Hill burials are strongly urged to consult the transcript for Sundridge burial registers at Kent Online Parish Clerks as Ide Hill burials were frequently held at Sundridge before 1853 and there is therefore the possibility of burials at Sundridge.
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
The chapel was demolished in the 1860's and the much larger present day Church of Saint Mary The Virgin was built in 1865. It has been described as the highest church in Kent
The history and images of the highest point in the County of Kent are captured in this Kent Churches video.
As with many parts of the Kent Weald close to East-West corridors there is evidence of traveller populations. Goathurst Common and the predominantly agricultural settlements provided seasonal work. The register contains burials of travellers found in tents and people from Chiddingstone and Hever travelling on foot to the Union Workhouse at Sundridge to the north of Ide Hill.
The hamlet of Toys Hill is within the neighbouring parish of Brasted but many residents of the ridge which links them chose to be buried at Ide Hill, Some burials from Bough Beech and Chiddingstone are also found and the occasional burial from Hever to the south.
Octavia Hill donated land at Toys Hill and this is now managed by the National Trust. Ide Hill also includes Emmetts Garden which until 1860 was farmed land. In 1890 the land was purchased by Frederick Lubbock a banker and plantsman. His borther Sir John Lubbock who became the first Baron Avebury was an acknowledged expert on ants and was no doubt fascinated by the large anthills which gave rise to the "Emmetts" (ants) name. This is also part of the National Trust land and forms a footpath through Toys Hill to the Chartwell National Trust estate which attracts many visitors.
My transcript of the burial register is being prepared for publication at Kent Online Parish Clerks website for publication on a newly formed Ide Hill parish page in due course.
Researchers for Ide Hill burials are strongly urged to consult the transcript for Sundridge burial registers at Kent Online Parish Clerks as Ide Hill burials were frequently held at Sundridge before 1853 and there is therefore the possibility of burials at Sundridge.
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
Sundridge Saint Mary Burial Register 1813-1851
The register is archived at Kent Archive and Library Maidstone and is an interesting piece of social family and parish history. The Parish itself is six miles long and at the narrowest width one mile. On the northern border it follows a part of the Pilgrims Way along the ridge line.
It is also traveresed by the River Darent and what is now the A25 but was a major route from Westerham to Sevenoaks during the years of this register.
Helpfully at the start of the register inside a blank page an annual total of burials was recorded.
The entry for 1849 records that the drop from the previous year total of 44 for 1848 to a total of 23 for 1849 was due to "a severe visitation of cholera from which this parish was mercifully preserved".
This is very useful for historical purposes because the early years of the register refer to burials of children and elderly adults from The Parish Poorhouse confirming that in addition to the Sevenoaks Workhouse (at Saint John's Hill) for Sevenoaks parish and district Sundridge also accommodated its poor in the parish. The earlier 1777 parliamentary report records that up to 40 persons could be accommodated in the parish.
After 1834 the Sevenoaks Poor Law Union was established and Sundridge was able to elect 2 Guardians to the Union Board. Initially the Board of Guardians received poor from Sundridge at the old Saint John's Hill site,which they had expanded and resisted the Poor Law Commissioner's recommendation to erect a purpose built Workhouse. Over the early 1840's the Board of Guardians faced increasing demands to erect a new purpose built Workhouse. Several inadquacies at the Saint John's Hill site were criticised following an inspection after the 1840/1841 winter which identified overcrowding and illness amongst children as particulary unacceptable. The inspection report makes grim reading and the Sevenoaks Board of Guardians were compelled to seek a site to erect alternative accommodation, The site chosen is in Church Hill Sundridge. Unusually and possibly because of it's rural location many of the buildings survive transferring from Union to National Health Service Hospital in 1948 retaining the original infirmary buildings. When the NHS closed the hospital and disposed of the land the original buildings were still retained in the conversion to private residential homes within a gated community.
The Sundridge burial register therefore records pauper burials before the 1840's and after 1843 refers to Sundridge Union Workhouse or more appropriately Sevenoaks Union paupers. As is usual with parishes in which a Union Workhouse is located any paupers requiring burial which cannot be returned to parish of origin within the Union are to be buried there. Sundridge churchyard therefore contains burials for very young infants including one child who was intended to be returned to Bolton in Lancashire and referred to as a "casual Pauper". The Union workhouse did not build cells for "Casual" paupers until 1896. This population of men and women "on the tramp" would arrive 15-20 daily according to Guardians minute books in mid afternoon. Until the 1896 buildings they would be accommodated for up to 3 nights on the site. They were required to bathe and their clothing would be fumigated and stored. George Orwell describes this "spike" as having the worst reputation in Ingland although he found conditions acceptable as he writes in Down and Out in Paris and London.
The register also reflects that two additional settlements at Goathurst Common and Ide Hill were for parts of the year cut off from the church at Sundridge. A large group of burials each year are from this part of the parish. The Bishop of London constructed a chapel and burial ground in 1807. In 1853 a burial register for Ide Hill was created. I have transcribed both registers for Kent Online Parish Clerks and they will be published in due course. It is possible to find some family members from Ide Hill and Goathurst Common buried in Sundridge after the creation of Ide Hill Saint Mary the Virgin as a parish although the larger number of burials take place at Ide Hill . Family graves at Sundridge would have been used until they were full subsequent graves were at Ide Hill.
The 1807 chapel at Ide Hill was replaced by the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in 1865 and this became a separate parish,
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
Helpfully at the start of the register inside a blank page an annual total of burials was recorded.
The entry for 1849 records that the drop from the previous year total of 44 for 1848 to a total of 23 for 1849 was due to "a severe visitation of cholera from which this parish was mercifully preserved".
This is very useful for historical purposes because the early years of the register refer to burials of children and elderly adults from The Parish Poorhouse confirming that in addition to the Sevenoaks Workhouse (at Saint John's Hill) for Sevenoaks parish and district Sundridge also accommodated its poor in the parish. The earlier 1777 parliamentary report records that up to 40 persons could be accommodated in the parish.
After 1834 the Sevenoaks Poor Law Union was established and Sundridge was able to elect 2 Guardians to the Union Board. Initially the Board of Guardians received poor from Sundridge at the old Saint John's Hill site,which they had expanded and resisted the Poor Law Commissioner's recommendation to erect a purpose built Workhouse. Over the early 1840's the Board of Guardians faced increasing demands to erect a new purpose built Workhouse. Several inadquacies at the Saint John's Hill site were criticised following an inspection after the 1840/1841 winter which identified overcrowding and illness amongst children as particulary unacceptable. The inspection report makes grim reading and the Sevenoaks Board of Guardians were compelled to seek a site to erect alternative accommodation, The site chosen is in Church Hill Sundridge. Unusually and possibly because of it's rural location many of the buildings survive transferring from Union to National Health Service Hospital in 1948 retaining the original infirmary buildings. When the NHS closed the hospital and disposed of the land the original buildings were still retained in the conversion to private residential homes within a gated community.
The Sundridge burial register therefore records pauper burials before the 1840's and after 1843 refers to Sundridge Union Workhouse or more appropriately Sevenoaks Union paupers. As is usual with parishes in which a Union Workhouse is located any paupers requiring burial which cannot be returned to parish of origin within the Union are to be buried there. Sundridge churchyard therefore contains burials for very young infants including one child who was intended to be returned to Bolton in Lancashire and referred to as a "casual Pauper". The Union workhouse did not build cells for "Casual" paupers until 1896. This population of men and women "on the tramp" would arrive 15-20 daily according to Guardians minute books in mid afternoon. Until the 1896 buildings they would be accommodated for up to 3 nights on the site. They were required to bathe and their clothing would be fumigated and stored. George Orwell describes this "spike" as having the worst reputation in Ingland although he found conditions acceptable as he writes in Down and Out in Paris and London.
The register also reflects that two additional settlements at Goathurst Common and Ide Hill were for parts of the year cut off from the church at Sundridge. A large group of burials each year are from this part of the parish. The Bishop of London constructed a chapel and burial ground in 1807. In 1853 a burial register for Ide Hill was created. I have transcribed both registers for Kent Online Parish Clerks and they will be published in due course. It is possible to find some family members from Ide Hill and Goathurst Common buried in Sundridge after the creation of Ide Hill Saint Mary the Virgin as a parish although the larger number of burials take place at Ide Hill . Family graves at Sundridge would have been used until they were full subsequent graves were at Ide Hill.
The 1807 chapel at Ide Hill was replaced by the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in 1865 and this became a separate parish,
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
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