George (France) Kemp

• Birth Notes
  • GRO 1ST Q 1858 BILLERICAY 4A 116

• General Notes
  • Notes from Heather Boosey GR
    
    Born at Priest Lane, Shenfield. Mum remembers the house - it was a wooden shack, with a huge garden where vegetables were grown. She used to visit Rhoda (George's sister) who lived there. When the shack was pulled down, Rhoda was moved to Queen St in Brentwood. When George was a boy , he ran away to sea, borrowing a shilling from the Rector of Shenfield Church to get to Tilbury. He wrote a diary of his travels including a shipwreck on Flinder's Island then apparently called Knight Island in the Pacific which is fascinating. "Tragically", after the manuscript was copied out by my mother on a typewriter in the 1970s, my Gt aunt Lily who had lent her the original, thought there was now no need to keep the battered old diary and threw it away! My mother still has her grandfather's old oak sea chest though. She has also researched the R. Navy records of the ship that was wrecked, and has seen the entry for the shilling owed (and paid back) in the church records. A museum in Tasmania has all the details of the wreck and has a copy of my Great Grandfathers diary. Witnesses of marriage were Joseph Chudley and Mary Kemp - not yet sure who she was. George met his wife at work at the Warley Mental Assylum. My grandad also worked there at one stage. In 1901 census, the family had a visitor, Annie Turp from Grays age 22, a drapers assistant. I have a photo of George which I have not added to the site yet. In 1881 worked at Brentwood lunatic assylum where he met his wife.

Details of France's family with Emily Coe