Kitchener Family

Kitchener Family – On 31 December 1799 Crabb Robinson’s brother, Habakkuk (1771-1851), married Elizabeth Kitchener (1777-1803), daughter of William Kitchener (1768-1807), a tea dealer in Abbey Gate Street, London (he was originally from Eriswell, Suffolk), and the former Letitia Waldegrave (d. 1797), daughter of the Rev. Thomas Waldegrave (1732-1812), Independent minister at Whiting Street, Bury St Edmunds, 1771-1802 (Waldegrave was originally from Norwich). The Kitcheners were dissenters (Independents), but by the 1820s William Kitchener, through his second wife, had become an Anglican. William Kitchener’s son married a Miss Crisp, a cousin of Catherine Clarkson.  Letitia Kitchener’s sister, Mary Anne Waldegrave, married Samuel Robinson of London, whose brothers (John and Nathan) were all successful London businessmen and became known to HCR. Thus the three families – Kitcheners, Waldegraves, and Robinsons – were all connected by marriage. For more on the Kitcheners and their connections to Robinson, see Timothy Whelan, ‘Six Letters of Robert Robinson from Dr. Williams’s Library’, Baptist Quarterly 39 (2002),  347-59; Clyde Binfield, ‘Six Letters of Robert Robinson: A Suggested Context and Noble Footnote’, Baptist Quarterly 40 (2003),  50-60.