CFHS code : AG443
Parish : St Andrew the Great
Inscription : JANE KETTLE widow of the above d October 20 1920 age 86
Monument : Headstone (broken)
Above information amended from Cambridge Family History Society Survey
Lat Lon : 52.202963, 0.13719564 – click here for location
Monument
Located five monuments (roughly ten rows) north of the east west path and five rows west of the centre circle. Only the base of the headstone can be seen above ground but we have used the grave register to establish that Jane’s husband was Henry Kettle.
Inscription
Henry Kettle (presumed)
JANE KETTLE widow of the above d October 20 1920 age 86
Henry Kettle (c.1836 – 29 December 1873)
Henry was born in Brockdish on the Norfolk/Suffolk border and was the son of Samuel and brother of Samuel Jnr. His father was a publican and Henry later married Jane Wilson in Bingham, Nottinghamshire c.1857. They had at least three children: Henry (1857-1860) , a daughter who died in December 1859 as an infant and James Henry (1860-1913).
The family had moved to Cambridge by at least 1860 and in 1861 were living with Henry’s brother at 31 East Road. Henry took over as tenant of the Clarendon Arms on Clarendon Street later the same year. He was only the second landlord of the Clarendon Arms, which had been newly built in 1853. The sale details from 1853 reveal: ‘the frontage …is 20 feet and the depth in Victoria Street, 65 feet..it contains front and back parlour and passage, with 4 rooms above, kitchen and cellar under, yard, large pantiled shed and pump of good water at the back’.
In 1863 Henry took William Bacon to court for payment of £2 10s 6d which had been run up ‘for dinners, liquors etc supplied to the defendant’s son’. William Bacon claimed that the case ‘was a vile oppression upon a respectable tradesman. This foolish misguided young man was encouraged to go to the plaintiff’s house, where he had indulged in dinners and liquors having all at home that he required’. Henry’s case was not upheld.
The Clarendon Arms was used by several clubs to host dinners and events. The Star Cricket Club used it as their headquarters and held their annual supper there in November 1867 to mark the end of the season. The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal noted ‘about 25 members sat down to a first-rate repast and the evening was spent in conviviality and good fellowship’. Henry was buried at Mill Road Cemetery on 3 January 1874.
Jane Kettle (née Wilson) (c.1833 – 20 October 1920)
Jane was born in Bingham and was the daughter of Thomas and Ann Wilson. She was baptised on 19 January 1834, and grew up on East Street in Bingham where her father was a wheelwright. By the age of 18 she was living at 44 Canal Street in Nottingham and working as a general servant to Edwin and Eliza Gordon. She married Henry Kettle aged c.27 years old.
After she was widowed Jane took over as landlady of the Clarendon Arms. In January 1901 Charles Graves, Ernest Johnson and Alfred Curry were charged with stealing a bottle of whisky from the Clarendon Arms. The men had come in for beer, but when Jane was absent for five minutes were accused of having taken a bottle from a nearby shelf. The case was delayed on several occasions and by the time it came to court in February Jane was ill and unable to appear, so the case was dismissed. It is not known when she gave up the tenancy of the Clarendon Arms, but by December 1907 it was already changing hands from John Smith to Mr Freemantle.
By 1911 she was living at 12 De Freville Avenue with her son James, daughter in law Elizabeth and two grandchildren. James was a college cook who died in 1913, and granddaughter Muriel died in 1915. Jane appears to have moved away from Cambridge and died in Ramsgate, Kent aged 86.
Sources:
Ancestry
Newspaper archives
by Claire Martinsen and Mary Naylor
[If you have any further information about this family, please contact us at Friendsofmillroadcemetery@gmail.com]