Records of thousands of people who lived in Chislehurst and district over a period of many centuries are now featured on the Kent Archaeological Society's website.

The records, in the form of memorial inscriptions (‘MIs') on gravestones, tablets, tombs and monuments at St Nicholas, Chislehurst's 15th century parish church, were compiled 120 years ago by Leland Lewis Duncan of Lewisham, antiquarian and author, and were among the papers he left to the KAS when he died in 1923.

The MIs have been transcribed and indexed so that they can be read anywhere in the world by researchers who would not be able to visit the KAS Library in Maidstone, Kent.

Since 1890 many of the MIs on outdoor graves have become illegible or even lost, so Duncan's work is of particular value to family historians and genealogists, because the memorials often give the names of relatives, ancestors and descendants of the people they honour.

Among the MIs are tributes to the victims of a double murder, gamekeeper Edward Ellis and his wife Elizabeth, ‘who died by the hand of an assassin in Petts Wood, St Paul's Cray Common', on Sunday October 31, 1880.

Some of Chislehurst's parishioners died young as a result of occupational accidents, among them Edwin Batchelor, 22, ‘formerly a chorister in this parish, afterwards a porter at Charing Cross Station. He died from injury there received Dec 19 1874'; Henry James Moul, 27, who ‘met with his death suddenly in fulfilment of his duty at Chislehurst Station in 1883'; and Walter J. Whomes, 17, ‘who fell from the mast of the Minnesota at Cherbourg'.

                Among others commemorated are:

• Jessie Drummond, who ‘for 20 years held with loving care the charge of the children of St. Michael's Orphanage'. Many children from the orphanage are commemorated, including John Peri, ‘an aboriginal native of Queensland, Australia, died St John's Day 1873 aged about 6 years'.
• John Palmer, ‘aged 100 years and 16 days, who resided upward of 80 years in this parish'.
• William. Glide, ‘aged 86, one of the band of Ringers ... he rung for 50 consecutive occasions for the opening of the year'.
• Ann Husbands, ‘sixteen years servant to the amiable daughters of Viscount Sydney'.
• William Jones, ‘eighteen years Bailiff and Steward to Lord Sydney'.
• Ann Jones, ‘36 years an Honest & Faithfull Servant in Lord Sydney's Family'.
• Noel H. Paterson, ‘killed by a sudden fall on the Lyskamm'. [a mountain between Switzerland and Italy].
• Percy Line, ‘shot in a cowardly attack upon him at Jacksonville Florida on Xmas Eve 1894'.
• George Lewis, ‘Colonel in the Royal Regiment of Artillery ... who served in the several glorious Campaigns against the French and Spaniards in America ...was present at the taking of Louisbourg, Quebec, Martinique, and the Havannah ... and commanded the Artillery at the Siege of Gibraltar ... where he eminently distinguished himself'.

Said Ted Connell, KAS webmaster: ‘The real value of MIs is that not only do they tell us about people who are buried in our graveyards, they often provide details of people who once lived in the parish but were buried abroad - sometimes at sea.

‘Although visiting churches and cemeteries to compile MIs is a project that many family and local historians enjoy, there is nothing they can do about inscriptions that have been destroyed or eroded over time. This is why the KAS is publishing MIs that were recorded a hundred or more years ago by antiquarians whose work was previously accessible in only a few libraries and collections.

‘But MIs are only the "tip of the iceberg" of all the burials at a church. Many graves were marked with wooden rails that lasted only last a few generations. Stone gravestones often weather badly and become illegible. And of course many of the people buried were from poor families who could not afford a gravestone.

‘Church registers, often dating back to the late 16th century, should provide a comprehensive list of burials at our churches but we often find that MIs recorded by our project cannot be cross-referenced to the church's burial registers ‑ presumably because the sexton or vicar failed to record them'.

To view the MIs visit...then click on Chislehurst in the ‘Churchyards MIs' list in ‘Library & Visual Records'.

 

Media enquiries: Ted Connell, ted.connell@btinternet.com , tel 01474 872763.

For more details of St Michael Orphanage visit...and see also attached 1861 census return