The Folk Who Lived On The Hill - The Kelly Family
Post date: Oct 04, 2016 8:49:35 PM
In 1898, Henry Kelly Sr. and his wife Ann Elizabeth became the first people to live in Alexandra Road’s house on the hill – The Knoll. Of course a knoll is a small hill, so technically they were living in the hill on the hill, but we’ll let that pass. Like Ann Elizabeth’s family, the Moodys, the Kellys were another fine example of Cleethorpes folk who made good from humble beginnings. When both Henry Kelly Sr. and his son, also Henry, died, both left estates worth around £4 million in today’s money. In 1851, Henry Sr.’s mother Judith was a single parent, who appears to have either split from or been abandoned by her husband and was working as a charwoman.
Judith was the daughter of William Chapman, a fisherman, and his wife Hannah Osborne. She was baptized at Old Clee Church on 16 January 1821 and was the third daughter and fourth oldest of nine children, two of whom died in infancy. In 1831, seven children, aged between two and sixteen, were left fatherless when William died.
A decade later, the family were no longer a unit. Hannah was living with youngest son Samuel at Far Thorpe, Cleethorpes. The census entry looks like it says her occupation is “fisherwoman”, although a year later in White’s Directory of Lincolnshire she is listed as a lodging house keeper. Eldest daughter Fanny, now twenty-five, was occupied as a Grocer, her seventeen-year old sister Isabel employed with her. Eldest son John was a farm labourer, whilst middle son William, aged thirteen, was living with his aunt and uncle Richard and Mary Garness.
Judith meanwhile was working as a servant to a physician named Edward Charlesworth in Lincoln and it was here that she was to meet her future husband Edward Kelly (also sometimes called Kelley). In early 1841, twenty-year old Edward was a cabinet maker, living in Lindum Terrace with his parents Thomas, a bricklayer, and Mary and his siblings Anne (14), Benjamin (12) and Frederick (5).
Judith and Edward were married by the Vicar Charles Wildbore at Old Clee Church on 28 September 1841. Witnesses to the ceremony were her uncle Richard Garness and her sister Isabel. The couple then made their home in Lincoln, where three children were born, William in early 1842 (which suggests that a hasty marriage had been in order), Henry in 1844 and Julia in 1847.
By 1851, however, it appears that the marriage was over. Judith was back in Cleethorpes, living in High Thorpe and working as a charwoman, whilst Edward was nowhere to be seen. A decade later, an Edward Kelley, a carpenter from Lincoln, was to be found living in Tower Hamlets with his “wife” Susannah, seven years his senior and from Sutton in Lincolnshire. So it does seem likely that Edward had gone off with another woman, leaving Judith to fend for herself and her children.
By the time the 1851 census was taken, only son Henry was with Judith. Older son William had remained in Lincoln with his grandparents, whilst her daughter Julia had died on the 18 January that year, at the age of only four. She is buried in Old Clee churchyard. The page of the burial records on which Julia appears shows that 12 children, 11 of whom were 4 or under, died between 12 December 1850 and 18 March 1851.
How Judith progressed during the first half of the 1850s is not known, but local directories show that her sister Fanny continued in business as a grocer and draper, whilst her mother remained a lodging house keeper and in 1851 had her sons William and Samuel living with her, now both fishermen. Her other brother John Osborne Chapman was in the same profession, whilst sisters Betsy and Isabel had both married fishermen and were busy producing children.
Change came in 1858 when, within the space of a few months, both Judith’s mother and sister died. Fanny was the first to go, on 4 April, the newspaper reporting that it followed “a protracted affliction”. Then, two months later, Hannah also departed this world.
It would seem that the grocery and draper’s business then fell to Judith. It’s likely that she had already been involved and the protracted nature of Fanny’s affliction may have given the opportunity for succession planning.
Judith ran the business for the next decade before she too died on 29 April 1868 at the age of only 47. She is buried with daughter Julia in Old Clee Churchyard (grave, pictured left) It then fell to her son Henry, who by then was also a fish dealer according to his mother’s probate record, to take the reins. By the time Judith died, Henry was already a father of three, having married 16-year old Ann Elizabeth Moody at Old Clee Church on 3 October 1865. Witnesses at the wedding were the bride’s father Walker Moody and Sophia Chapman, probably the same Sophia Chapman who would later give birth to Bert Coulbeck, the well-known Cleethorpes beach preacher.
Henry and Ann Elizabeth’s first child Sarah Jane was born in 1866, but died when she no more than six months old. She was buried at Old Clee on 25 November 1866 in the same grave as Ann Elizabeth’s older sister, also named Sarah Jane, who had died six years earlier at the age of 14.
A year later, the couple’s first son Walker Moody Kelly was born on 16 November 1867, to be followed by Henry Jr. on 13 December 1870 and finally Ann Elizabeth on 4 January 1873. By then, the family were living in Scarborough Street, which was soon to become Cambridge Terrace and eventually Cambridge Street. Before the move to The Knoll, the family residence and business was at
Cambridge House, which is currently a home furnishings shop (see picture right). Henry appears to have had the odd brush with the law, with a newspaper reporting in 1876 that he had been fined 2s 6d with 10s 6d costs for having flour scales in his possession that were eight drachms wrong (a drachm is equivalent to one-eighth of an ounce). It does however seem to have been a fairly common occurrence and Henry was to prove himself a fine businessman in the years to come.
In March 1881, Henry became a director of the newly-formed Great Grimsby Steam Trawling Company Limited. Other directors were Walker Moody, A.H. Cook, George Fellows, Charles Jeffs, Henry Jeffs, James Letten, Harrison Mudd and J.R. Mackrill, with Frank Barrett acting as secretary. The announcement in the press reported that,
“This Company is formed with the object of establishing and working a Fleet of Steam Trawling Vessels, similar in character to those already in existence sailing out of other places, and in order to satisfy the growing public demand for more regular supplies of prime fish – a demand which the existing mode of fishing is daily becoming less able to supply.
Within a short distance of Grimsby there are Fishing Grounds which abound with an almost inexhaustible quantity of fish of the best quality, but which have been practically forsaken by the ordinary fishing smacks, in consequence of the rough ground that surrounds these places, necessitating a superior and more consistent propelling power than that afforded by sails, the want of which, placing them at the mercy of wind and tide, invariably occasions considerable loss of time and fishing gear.
Vessels propelled by steam would avoid these dangers. It is obvious, and is universally acknowledged that steam trawlers fishing near home, and having the facilities for making a quick run in against wind and tide, possess a great advantage over vessels propelled by sails, which have to go twice the distance for their fish.
The extraordinary manner in which the application of steam to the fishing trade has grown within the last two or three years is a proof that capitalists have found it a lucrative and safe investment; whilst in the case of the steam trawlers themselves, fishing under almost identical circumstances further north, the profits have been enormous; in some cases they have paid 100 per cent, during the last year.
Commencing, as this Company does, entirely free from any encumbrance, and offering in the shape of the port of Grimsby every facility for the transmission of fish, together with one of the best markets in the world, the present undertaking holds out an excellent opportunity to the public for a safe and profitable investment; and the long experience of the Directors (who will take a substantial interest in the Company) as smack owners and fish salesmen, is a guarantee that the business of the Company will be properly conducted.
It is confidently anticipated that trawlers worked by steam and under proper management will pay a dividend of not less than 20 per cent per annum.
Taking the lowest earnings of those fishing elsewhere at £50 per week, their expenses at £25 per week, would leave say £1200 for the year as the vessel’s net earnings. Estimating the cost of building and fitting them out as £2700 each, the net income would be equal to 45 per cent on the actual outlay, which, after deducting say 20 per cent, for depreciation, would still leave more than the above-named dividend.”
In September 1882, Walker Moody (pictured left) signed over his fish merchant business to his sons Frederick Walker Moody, George Edward James Moody and his son-in-law Henry Kelly and it was presumably at this time that the Moodys & Kelly company was established. George and Frederick had previously worked for their father as fish salesmen, but at this time Walker chose to divide his businesses and concentrate on his other interests in owning smacks, basket making and grocery. Whilst the father’s finances were to take a turn for the worse, resulting in bankruptcy in 1887, Walker’s sons and their brother-in-law went from strength to strength.
On 5 September 1888, the Hull Daily Mail reported that,
“On Tuesday afternoon there was launched from the yard of Earle’s Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, at Hull, the steamship Arctic, which is the first of two steam fishing vessels being built by them to the order of Messrs Moodys and Kelly, of Grimsby, and which are adapted either for line or trawl fishing. This has necessitated some departure from the ordinary design of steam trawling vessels, the principal feature being a “fish well” or space amidships, open to the sea by means of perforations through the shell of the ship. A continuous circulation of sea water thus takes place, and enables the fish to be kept alive after being caught. The dimensions are 100 by 20 by 11-6, and the ship is built to Lloyd’s highest class, with considerable excesses of scantling over rule. Provision is made in the holds, in addition to the fish-well, for the storage of fish, ice &c and the vessel is fitted with a powerful steam winch of Earle’s special make, and other appliances are fitted on deck for working two sets of trawl gear. The captain, mate and engineer are berthed in the cabin under the quarter deck and the crew in the forecastle. The slip will be ketch rigged, and will have good sail power. Her engines are on the triple compound three-crank principle, and have cylinders 12in, 18in, and 30in diameter with a stroke of 18in, these being supplied with steam from a large steel boiler made to work a 150lbs pressure.
The christening ceremony was performed by Miss Lily Kelly (Ann Elizabeth), and there were present on the platform Messrs Moodys, Mr Kelly, and Mr Brown, of Grimsby; also Mr E. Hutton, of Hull, under whose superintendence the ship has been built, and Messrs O.J. Lee and Charles L. Marshall, the last-named being the chairman of the Grimsby Steam Fishing Company, the owners of the vessel.”
By 1891, the newspapers were reporting the 9th and 10th ships, the Kymric and Lyric, had been built by the Grimsby Steam Fishing Co. Ltd, managed by Messrs Moodys & Kelly. Walker Moody might have come a cropper in the smack owning business, but his sons and son-in-law were ensuring that the Moody family was now achieving the major success in that industry to which Walker had aspired.
Meanwhile, Henry had also been interesting himself in local politics and public office. In July 1885, the Stamford Mercury reported:
“Cleethorpes Liberal Association – The first meeting of the District Liberal Committee, in union with the Grimsby Liberal Association, was held in the National school-room, Cleethorpes, on Monday evening; Mr H. Kelly in the chair. The Rev. W. Mainprize, J. Wintringham Esq., and others were present. The meeting was called to appoint a chairman, secretary, treasurer, and 11 members of the Central Council and the following were appointed: - Chairman, Mr Henry Kelly; secretary, Mr George Moody; treasurer Mr Johnson Brown; and the 11 members elected were – the Rev W. Mainprize and Messrs W. Mudd, A. Frith, T.C. Gray, Joseph Fulford, B. Greaves, H. Lucas, John Wright, Wm. Cox, Wm. Porteous, and Charles Barry. This business being over a long discussion was held, during which several new claims were suggested, and the county voters’ list was thoroughly gone through.”
In 1892, Henry stood unopposed as the Cleethorpes representative on Lindsey County Council and then in April 1894 he was appointed as a new magistrate for Lindsey, along with Joseph Smethurst and George Doughty. Together with George Moody and other like-minded Cleethorpes-philes, he was also a passionate advocate for keeping the town separate from Grimsby.
In November 1893, the Lincolnshire Echo reported:
“THE PROPOSED LOCAL ACT FOR GRIMSBY
Indignation Meeting at Cleethorpes
A public meeting of the residents of Cleethorpes to protest against the proposed incorporation of a large portion of the parish with the borough of Grimsby, was held at the National Schools, Cleethorpes, last night. Mr F.W. Mackrill, Chairman of the Cleethorpes Local Board, presided, and there was a crowded attendance – Mr H. Kelly, C.C., proposed,
“That this meeting strongly protests against the annexation of any part of Cleethorpes by the borough of Grimsby, as it would be against the vital interests of the ratepayers of the township of Cleethorpes, and that this meeting pledges itself to oppose by every legitimate means in its power any such action on the part of the Corporation of Grimsby”. The resolution was STRONGLY SUPPORTED BY SEVERAL SPEAKERS, and carried unanimously, amid acclamation.
Mr E. De Lacy Read (churchwarden) moved,
“That this meeting resolves that letters be sent to the Right Hon. Edward Heneage M.P. and Mr S.D. Waddy, M.P., asking them to be neutral when the proposed local Act for Grimsby comes before the House of Commons.” – The Chairman seconded this resolution, and it was also carried unanimously.
The Chairman then proposed that twelve Cleethorpes residents be appointed to investigate the matter in conjunction with the Cleethorpes Local Board. – Mr W. Mudd, jun, seconded the resolution, which was carried, and the deputation was appointed from the meeting. The feeling of the assembly was one of the most uncompromising opposition to the proposed incorporation, which it was said, would be combated to the bitter end.”
So, by the mid-1890s, Henry Kelly was a highly successful businessman, with the business having by now expanded to the port of Fleetwood. He was also a prominent Cleethorpes resident, J.P. and county councilor. His success meant he was in a position to ensure that his children were well educated, with his older son Walker being sent first to King Edward VI Grammar School in Louth as a boarder and then finishing off his education at the recently opened Clee Grammar School. Brother Henry also attended the local grammar from 1882 to 1888.
Sadly, a devastating blow was to hit the family on 24 September 1896. Son Walker had joined the family business after leaving school and by the late 1880s, he was managing affairs at Fleetwood, Moodys and Kelly having seen an opportunity and expanded into this port. By 1896, he had amassed a personal wealth of more than a quarter of a million pounds, but unfortunately we know this because it appears on the probate record relating to his death. At the age of only 28, Walker Moody Kelly succumbed to an attack of congestion of the lungs and died. He is buried in Cleethorpes Cemetery.
As if the death of Walker was not bad enough, a newspaper report also tells that
“Yesterday afternoon, a case of sudden death occurred. Mrs Bancroft, wife of William Bancroft, of Highgate, Cleethorpes, was walking from her home with her nephew for the purpose of witnessing the funeral procession of Mr Walker Kelly, to whom she was related, when she suddenly became ill, and shortly after reaching home she died.”
This would have been 77-year old Mary Ann Bancroft, who followed Walker into Cleethorpes Cemetery a few days after his funeral took place on 28th September 1896. They would have been related through the Moody side of the family, Ann Elizabeth’s mother’s maiden name having been Bancroft.
Both the Kelly and the Moody ladies were already supporters of the local hospital, having taken part in the annual local collection for Grimsby Hospital in July 1894, with the Kellys collecting at Cleethorpes Railway Station and the Moodys on the Esplanade. Then in March 1898, the Hull Daily Mail reported that,
“Through the indefatigable efforts of Mrs Kelly, of Cleethorpes, the Institution has decided to employ a fourth district nurse. Entirely unsectarian in character, I heartily commend the claims of the Institution to the charitable, with the assurance that Miss Marshall and her energetic staff will extract the maximum amount of good from the donations, however small.”
Husband Henry was on the management committee of the Grimsby & District Hospital and later son Henry would have a long involvement with the Grimsby & District Nursing Institution. The family were clearly public spirited before Walker Moody Kelly died, but it seems likely that his death heavily influenced the causes in which they became involved.
Thankfully, happier times were ahead for the family and in 1898, Ann Elizabeth Kelly, or Lilly as she was presumably known to avoid confusion between mother and daughter, was married. The Lincolnshire Echo carried the following report on 10 August 1898:
“At the Parish Church, Old Clee, on Tuesday, the marriage was solemnized of Mr Walter Carter, Grimsby, manager of the Royal Insurance Company, and Miss Lilly Kelly, daughter of Henry Kelly, J.P., of Cambridge House, Cleethorpes. The ceremony was performed by the Rector, the Rev. Canon Hutchinson, assisted by the Rev. A. Abbott. The church bells were rung, and after the ceremony the happy couple received general congratulations. A reception was afterwards held in the Schoolroom, Cleethorpes, and the bride and bridegroom subsequently left for Switzerland, to spend the honeymoon.”
The couple remained in Cleethorpes for some time and son Walker Kelly Carter was born there in 1899. They later moved to Lincoln, before spending a number of years in New York. They returned to England in April 1926 and moved to Hoylake in Cheshire where Ann Elizabeth died in December that year, aged 53, another Kelly child gone at a relatively early age.
The local electoral rolls and other resources show that the Kellys had acquired a significant amount of land and property by the early 1900s in addition to The Knoll (pictured left), into which they would presumably have moved not long after Lilly’s wedding. The Rolls list property owned by the Kellys as a qualification for voting and Henry Jr. seems to have had land adjacent to 24 Mill Road in his possession, as well as 51 Sea View Street, whilst Henry Sr. had Cambridge House prior to moving to The Knoll, as well as the jointly owned stores of Moodys & Kelly on the Fish Docks. Clearly Henry Sr. must have purchased a considerable parcel of land when he built The Knoll because in his book, “Cleethorpes: The Creation of a Seaside Resort”, Alan Dowling mentions that,
“The UDC (Urban District Council) purchased from County Councillor H. Kelly 2,382 square yards of land for the new council offices at the junction of Cambridge Street and Knoll Street. The price was 7s 6d a square yard, considerably more than the 2s per square yard the Council paid Sidney Sussex College for its land on Isaac’s Hill, where it had originally decided to build a Council House.”
The UDC held its first meeting in the Council House in 1905.
In 1909, another chapter of the Kelly family story ended with the death of Henry Sr at the age of 65. Christmas 1909 had presumably been celebrated by the family, but New Year’s Day 1910 saw them burying the head of the household at Cleethorpes Cemetery following his death at The Knoll on the afternoon of Wednesday 29th December.
The Lincolnshire Echo carried the following short tribute:
“The Chairman (of Lindsey County Council) also referred to the death of the late Alderman Kelly, who he said had served the Council as Councillor and Alderman since the commencement of the Council’s existence. In the midst of a very busy and successful life he found time to devote himself with assiduity to the work of several very important committees and the Council.”
This report in the same publication several months later gives more detail about his activities during his lifetime:
“Mr Henry Kelly (pictured left), J.P., of The Knoll, Cleethorpes, fish merchant and steam fishing vessel owner, of Messrs. Moodys and Kelly, founder of the Cleethorpes Coronation Homes for Poor People, and Chairman of the Trust Committee for their maintenance, Chairman of the Old Age Pensions Committee under the Lindsey County Council for his district, a director of five companies connected with the Grimsby Fish trade, a director of the Cleethorpes Gas Co., and a Governor of the Humberstone Foundation Grammar School, who died on December 29th last, aged 65 years, left estate of the gross value of £40548 12s 5d, of which the net personalty has been sworn at £36596 1s 10d. Probate of his will, dated August 21st 1906, has been granted to his widow, Mrs Annie Elizabeth Kelly, of The Knoll, Cleethorpes, his son, Mr Henry Kelly, fish merchant, Cleethorpes, and his daughter, Mrs Annie Elizabeth Carter, Lincoln. The testator left the whole of his property to his wife for life, and on her decease £1000 to his grandson, Walker Kelly Carter, his household effects to his son Henry and his daughter, Annie Elizabeth Carter, in equal shares, but his son is to have the option of his daughter’s share and the ultimate residue of his property he left as to one-half to his said son and one-half upon trust for his daughter for life, with remainder as to one-half as she may appoint, and one-half to her issue.” With an estate worth in excess of £4 million in today’s money, Henry Kelly’s will, not surprisingly, is a rather complicated document. The following section relates to The Knoll:
“And I hereby declare and direct that my trustees shall upon the decease of my said wife offer for sale to my said son Henry Kelly my said dwellinghouse known as “The Knoll” and the garden that is walled around and adjoins it (but not the adjoining land beyond the wall which is not to be included in this offer) at the price of two thousand pounds such offer to be accepted by my said son within six calendar months from the date thereof after which time he shall be deemed to have refused such offer and no purchaser under this my will shall be concerned to see or enquire whether the said dwellinghouse and garden had been duly offered for sale to my said son as hereby directed nor whether such offer had been accepted or declined nor should the title of such purchaser be afterwards impeached on the ground that the said dwellinghouse and garden had not previously been duly offered for sale as aforesaid or that any such offer (if made had not been duly declined).”
The will also reveals the division of shares within Moodys and Kelly, with Henry Sr., Frederick Walker Moody and George Moody each holding a two-sevenths share and Henry Jr. holding the remaining seventh. Henry Sr.’s will states that, “I am desirous if my partners in the said business are agreeable that my said son shall take one half of my shares of two sevenths in the said business and that he shall be allowed by my trustees to take the same at the price at which they are valued or stand in the books of the Company at the close of the last financial year preceding my decease.”
At around the same time as Henry Sr.’s estate was being sorted out, his son was looking to diversify into a different area of business. The previous year, Joseph Chapman, the owner of Yarra House and consequently a near neighbour of the Kellys, had died. The Kellys had done well for themselves, but compared to Joseph Chapman they were on the poverty line. His estate was worth £239015 8s 1d, the equivalent of around £25 million, and most of it was left to various charities. Chapman had started life as a timber merchant’s clerk, but later became a merchant, quarry owner and hotel owner, as well as having interests in steam fishing vessels and music hall companies. Upon his death, £8000 was given to build and endow a church at Little Coates, with the Grimsby Church Extension Scheme also receiving several thousands. There were legacies to two orphanages in Hull and also to the National Lifeboat Institute, Brompton Hospital and several other London Hospitals. There were only small legacies to family members because they didn’t need the money and the remainder went to the Grimsby and District Hospital.
Evidently, the Kelly family had managed to acquire Yarra House because on 2 March 1910, the Lincolnshire Echo carried the following report:
“CLEETHORPES “A DUSTHOLE”
At the Grimsby County adjourned Brewster Sessions, on Tuesday...the magistrates also refused an application made by Henry Kelly, steam trawler owner, for a full license in respect of Yarra House, Alexandra Road, Cleethorpes, and premises proposed to be constructed on land adjoining, to be used as a family hotel hydro. During the latter application there were some amusing passages between the applicant and Mr W.H. Gane, of Boston, who appeared for several license holders in Cleethorpes against the granting of the license.
Mr Gane (to the applicant): “If it is suggested it is purely a commercial venture, and if you get the license you are going to part with the property, that would not be true?”
Mr Kelly: “No, I am not going to part with it.”
“But I may take it there will be others?”
“If I get the license I may turn it into a private company.”
“With the assistance of the brewers?”
“No.”
“But the brewers will be interested in those big cellars”, suggested Mr Gane.
Applicant: “No, I don’t think so.”
“Then does it not come to this, that what you want is a license for an hotel?”
“And Hydro,” interjected Mr Kelly. Mr Gane: “Oh, yes, I know that gag”. (Laughter)
“It may be a gag on your part,” retorted Mr Kelly.
Mr Pratt, a local hotel proprietor, called by Mr Gane, said Cleethorpes was going down because the Great Central Railway were making a dusthole for Lancashire and Yorkshire (Laughter).”
Henry Kelly may have failed to turn Yarra House into a hotel and hydro, but he was true to his word when he said he was not going to part with it. Instead it became the Yarra Café, as this advert shows and he was still listed as the proprietor a quarter of a century later in local directories.
During the First World War the Yarra Café was taken over as an officers’ mess and used as an emergency dressing station following the Zeppelin bombing of the Baptist Church in 1916.
It later became a Youth Hostel and Youth Club before being demolished to make way for the new Cleethorpes Library in the 1980s.
One can’t help but wonder how Henry Kelly Jr.’s life would have played out if his older brother had not died so young. Walker should by rights have been the one to take on the role of head of the Kelly kingdom and all the duties it entailed when his father died, but instead it was the second son, described as “somewhat shy and reserved in manner”, who at the age of 25 became his father’s heir apparent.
In many ways, when the time came to take over from his father, the transition was almost seamless. Henry Kelly still lived at The Knoll and owned two-sevenths of Moodys & Kelly and was a director of numerous companies, Henry Kelly was still a J.P. and county councillor and Henry Kelly was still a Governor of the Grammar School and involved in various other activities for the public benefit. It just so happened that this Henry Kelly was a quarter of a century younger than his predecessor.
Henry Kelly Jr. appears to have taken on the majority of his father’s roles, with the exception of that of husband and father. He never married, instead living with his mother at The Knoll until her death on 11 April 1934 at the age of 85. Ann Elizabeth (pictured left) died intestate, but then there was no great need for her to make a will since her husband had already determined where everything would go after she died. Local legend has it that the ghost of Mrs Kelly has been seen brushing her hair at one of the windows of The Knoll.
Clearly Henry Kelly (pictured right) followed the instructions of his father and purchased The Knoll because he lived at the house for
another five years until his death there on Tuesday 28 March 1939. There were many tributes to him when he died. The Council, before standing in silence for a moment, approved a resolution voicing their appreciation of Ald. Kelly’s public and philanthropic work in Cleethorpes and the county generally, whilst the Mayor (Ald. F. Rhodes) referred to Alderman Kelly as an illustrious citizen of the borough, a definite asset to Cleethorpes and to Lincolnshire. He went on to say, “I can speak with thirty six years’ knowledge of him and I think that, whether with long or short periods of knowledge of him, we can say sincerely that he was one of England’s gentlemen and a great credit to Cleethorpes. In a quiet sort of way he did a tremendous lot of good work, and there are many people in Cleethorpes who will miss him. His memory will be a lasting one.”
The Grimsby Telegraph also reported that,
“Grimsby and District Nursing Institution will sadly miss its president, Alderman H. Kelly, who for a long time carried some of the heaviest responsibilities of the work on his shoulders. Somewhat shy and reserved in manner, Alderman Kelly always found the annual meeting of the Institution something of an ordeal, for he was sometimes a lonely male among the many lady supporters of the society.
The Institution does splendid work in Grimsby, one which does not gain all the recognition it deserves. I fear that unless an equally enthusiastic successor is forthcoming, Alderman Kelly’s death is likely to be severely felt by the Association and the people whom it assists.”
Old Clee Church was packed with the great and the good to say farewell to Henry Kelly on Saturday 1 April 1939 and “five carriages were necessary to carry the numerous wreaths sent as tributes from relatives, public authorities, local and county organisations etc, and in spite of the unfavourable weather on Sunday, crowds of people visited the grave to inspect the masses of exquisite blooms which covered a wide area around the grave.” He was laid to rest in Cleethorpes Cemetery, in the same plot as his parents and brother Walker. To the right of the monument (pictured left), the smaller cross marks the grave of his sister.
Henry Jr.’s will was much less complicated than his father’s. In it he leaves £1000 to his cousin Catherine Taylor (who managed the Yarra Café), £500 to cousin Dora Taylor (an English teacher) and £100 each to cousins Dolly Wildsmith and Janie Francis. Meanwhile £500 was left to his chauffeur Samuel West and £100 each to his domestic servants at The Knoll, Elsie Robinson and Elsie Walmsley. The remainder of the estate was left to his only nephew Walker Kelly Carter.
It was the £500 left to his chauffeur that made the headlines in the newspapers and it was presumably Samuel West who drove
Henry around in this 1928 Rolls Royce (pictured left), which was up for sale on the internet several years ago for around £40,000. Henry’s nephew and heir, Walker Kelly Carter, was another local boy who did extremely well for himself. Educated at Highgate School, London and then Repton, he left to join the Royal Artillery as a second lieutenant during the First World War and later completed four years’ service as a Major on the Staff of Western Command during World War Two before being invalided out in 1943. Between the wars, he attended Sidney Sussex College, as a good Cleethorpes lad should, and was called to the bar in 1924.
According to the Lincolnshire Echo in 1945, Walker Kelly Carter was “regarded as one of the most able barristers practicing on the Midland Circuit, which embraces the city of Lincoln. In June 1939, he became a Justice of the Peace for Lindsey (presumably taking his uncle’s place) and was appointed junior vice-chairman of the Quarter sessions.”
A Liberal like his grandfather and uncle, Carter stood for the party in the Louth Division at the General Election in 1945, but came in third, well behind the Conservative victor, with a creditable 7000 plus votes.
He was made King’s Counsel in 1951, which became Q.C. soon afterwards when the present Queen took the throne. Most of his life was spent in London, where he sat in the Royal Courts of Justice.
From 1954-1971, he was Senior Official Referee, Supreme Court of Judicature and in 1965 he received a Knighthood.
Married to his wife Phyllis for just shy of 60 years and having spent much of that married life in London, when she died in 1984, it would appear that Walker Kelly Carter (pictured left) decided to come home. When he died on 29 March 1985, his address was given as the Kingsway Hotel, Cleethorpes. By then, The Knoll had been out of the family’s possession for forty years, having been acquired by the Council in the mid-1940s to be used as offices. Walker had spent very little time there after inheriting it. On 4 October 1939, the Evening Telegraph reported that,
“Upheavals in one’s life are all too common nowadays, but Mr and Mrs Walker Carter seem to have had more than their fair share in the last week or two.
On the outbreak of war they decided to close down their London house, and to make their home at The Knoll, Cleethorpes, for Mr Carter has always had a warm affection for this part of the country.
After all their arrangements had been made and their furniture and goods brought here, they learned that Mr Carter was to be called up. So now they have to set to work again and close their Cleethorpes home. They are at present in South Wales, while their daughter is away at school.”
With his career taking him away from Cleethorpes, it would have made no sense to keep hold of The Knoll and so its time as a family home came to an end. It is said that the house was entrusted to the Council to be used for the benefit of the public and it is easy to believe that this family would have made such a philanthropic gesture.
I had never heard of the Kelly family until I began to research The Knoll, but even though it is now almost eighty years since the last of them to bear the surname of Kelly died, it still seems hard to believe that they are not better remembered and appreciated in Cleethorpes. Their rise from single parent charwoman to millionaire businessmen with a passion for serving the people and helping those less fortunate than themselves is a testament to the indomitable Kelly spirit, both entrepreneurial and public.
The Kelly family are barely mentioned in the histories of Cleethorpes that have been written to date, but their achievements and their story deserve to be resurrected and remembered. One blue plaque has been awarded in Cleethorpes recently and surely the Kelly family are deserving of another? And where better to put it than on their former home, The Knoll?
© Rachel Branson and Friends of Cleethorpes Heritage, October 2016
Bibliography
Kelly/Moody family photographs – courtesy of Liz Bonsall
Photographs (pages 2,3 and 13) – Rachel Branson
The Betty Watkinson archives
www.findmypast.co.uk (incorporating the British Newspaper Archive)
www.gravestonephotos.com
Cleethorpes: The Creation of a Seaside Resort, Alan Dowling, Phillimore & Co Ltd (2005)
Street Names of Cleethorpes, Alan Dowling, Phillimore & Co Ltd (2010)