Person    | Male  Born 1849  Died 13/4/1909

Chairman of the Plaistow Library Committee in the Borough of West Ham in 1902.

Apart from the information and image of John Kettle that is contained on the London Wiki website our research has found that he was born in 1849 in Forgandenny, Perthshire, Scotland, the eighth of the eleven children of James Kettle (1808-1885) and Margaret Kettle née Crow (1811-1873). 

The 1851 census shows him living at Rossie Ochil, Forgandenny, Perthshire, with his parents and eight siblings. His father's occupation was recorded as a shoemaker. In the 1861 census he was described as a scholar still living at the same address with his parents and five of his siblings.

He was listed in the 1871 census as a clerk and a servant at 130/132 Marylebone Road, Marylebone, the home of John and Mary Hanbury, a grocer and wine merchant. Also shown on the census were five other servants, i.e. three male grocer's assistants, a female cook and a housemaid.

On 14 September 1880 he married Jane Russell (1848-1929) in Milton, Glasgow, Scotland, and in the 1881 census he is described as a grocer & provision merchant, living at 1 Earlham Cross, Woodgrange Road, Forest Gate, West Ham, Essex, with his wife.

When the 1891 census was undertaken he was recorded as a grocer and wine merchant residing at 58 Woodgrange Road, Forest Gate, with his wife and their four children: Florence Jane Kettle (1883-1893), Jessie Baird Kettle (1886-1893), Russell Kettle (1887-1968) and Margaret Crow Kettle (1890-1893), together with a female domestic servant. Sadly, their three daughters all died within 10 days of each other between 22 June 1893 and 1 July 1893.

On 8 February 1897 he was initiated into Freemasonry, being the first initiate of the newly consecrated Byfield Lodge No.2632 that met at the Great Eastern Railway Hotel, Liverpool Street, London.

In the 1901 census he is shown as a grocer and provision dealer, still living at 58 Woodgrange Road, Forest Gate, with his wife, whose forename was recorded as Jeanie, together with a female general domestic servant. He died, aged 60 years, on 13 April 1909 and was buried in the City of London Cemetery & Crematorium, Aldersbrook Road, London, E12 5DQ. Probate records confirm that his address had been 189 Earlham Grove, Forest Gate, and that when probate was granted on 19 May 1909 to his widow, who was recorded as Jeanie Russell Kettle, his effects totalled £9,848-18s-8d.

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