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This page summarises what is known of Elizabeth Bennett of West Wickham and Crockenhill in Kent, who became Elizabeth Kemp on marriage. |
| There is some confusion about when Elizabeth Bennett (also recorded as Elizabeth Bennet) was born.
The parish records for St John the Baptist, West Wickham, record her birth and baptism as
4 Dec 1767 and 6 December 1767 respectively. Yet according to her age at death on her gravestone in West Wickham
Churchyard, she was born in 1765. She
may, though, have had good reason for claiming to be older than she
was, but that is getting ahead of the story.
Elizabeth was born to parents William and Mary Bennet where Mary was born a Barrington, and she grew up in their well to-do household in West Wickham, Kent. However she was orphaned at only 13 when her parents died within a few days of each other. Was it an accident or a serious infectious illness that Elizabeth managed to escape? Elizabeth, presumably with her siblings, was then left in the care of a guardian. Elizabeth married John Kemp on 27 April 1784 at Eynsford. She was still young - 16, reckoned on the more reliable parish record date. He was more than twice her age at 36. Being orphaned was possibly not the only reason for Elizabeth's early marriage which was with the express permission of her guardian. She may - just may - have been heavily pregnant at the time. The evidence is that according to the family bible, the baby, Ann Kemp, arrived on 10 July 1784, just six weeks after the marriage. Yet the year must be in question because, according to the family bible, baby Ann was baptised at Eynsford more than a year later on 7 August 1785. Was there a clerical error in the bible? Or was there an attempted cover up of a forced marriage through a late baptism? Why, too, the change of location from West Wickham to Eynsford? If the number of children is anything to go by, Elizabeth's marriage to John was a happy one. After Ann, who was Neil's direct ancestor and who married John Best, came:
Elizabeth was not yet 50 when John, her husband, died, but she was well taken care of under the provisions of his will. He was buried in West Wickham Churchyard, Kent. Why not at Eynsford, one wonders? Nearly 30 years later, Elizabeth was buried there too. She died on 29 November 1839. The inscription on her gravestone reads:
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Neil at the tombstone (now a flagstone) of John and Elizabeth Kemp, his great great great grandparents, Church of St John the Baptist, West Wickham |
Close up of the stone. The inscription at the top is now almost illegible. Only thanks to notes taken by Zena Bamping in 1891, can we transcribe it. |
version date: 24 September, 2007
