London Cabbies and Strong Women -Martin and Roman Kemp in DNA Journey.

Roman and Martin Kemp’s episode of DNA Journey will be back on ITV tonight at 11.05, here’s a bit more background to the Kemp’s story.

Martin and Roman Kemp’s episode shows how important their female ancestors were in their Family Tree. And following on from that here is an interesting example of just how vital these women were to the Kemp Family.

The Life Blood of the Kemp Family Story

“Kings” of London Cabbies

Alfred Kemp, Martin Kemp’s Great Great Grandfather, came up from Suffolk to live in London in the 19th Century, he found work as a Cab Driver, in the days when Cabs meant ‘Hansom Cabs’ drawn by horses. Alfred married into an enterprising Family of Cabbies; the King Family. James King a Horse Keeper at South Mimms (yes where the services are now on the M25) had married Rachel Wing in 1820 and brought up a brood of eight children. James King was originally from Pentonville, Islington and after building a business in South Mimms, decided that he had a better chance of improving the family’s lot by moving the back to Islington around 1850, right after Potters Bar Railway Station had opened and made travel easier back to London.

The Kings set up as Horse Keepers in Swan Yard. “Yards” in Victorian London often contained stables. James and Rachel knew their business and did well, but they could not plan for the whims of cruel fate, and in 1854, just four years after they had arrived back in Islington, James died.

For most families at the time, the death of the Father of the family spelled disaster, but Rachel was made of sterner stuff, and rather than descend into despair, 50-year-old Rachel mustered the children into work, and by 1861 moved to Wellington Stables with her son George and his Family, where Rachel used the money from closing her husband’s business to Operate a horse drawn Cab, driven by one of her sons. Another of her sons, George, operated as an Ostler (a cross between Hotelier and Inn Keeper) renting out two rooms above the stables where they kept their horse and cab. Rachel had realised that they could not only pick up fares to and from the local railway stations, but could also rent out rooms to travellers they picked up, maximising their income, and also allowing them to charge for food and drink.

Here, in these busy, smelly, noisy urban stable-ways Rachel King would be the first of three generations of strong women that saved the King and Kemp Families from poverty.

Rachel King’s business thrived, and in the 1860s Rachel moved the business to Keen’s Yard (pictured below on the map as it was then, and now as a Sainsbury’s car park) here she extended the Cab Business.

Now entered the Kemps, in the shape of Cabbie Alfred Kemp (Martin Kemp’s Great Great Grandfather) Rachel’s new son -in-law. Rachel quickly recruited Alfred into the family business as a Cab Driver. Rachel also brought in another son, Henry King, to live in Keen’s Yard with his Family and was employed by his mother as a Horse Keeper.

Some of the yards are still there today, here on a contemporary map we see the location of one, and below that the present location. The Stables are gone, now replaced by a Sainsbury’s Supermarket carpark.

A New Generation of Fearless Businesswomen

The business did well until 1875, when both Rachel King and her son Henry died. This could have spelled disaster and the end for the King Family’s Cab business, but far from it, Henry’s widow Amelia stepped into her Mother-in-Law’s shoes and took over the business, keeping her Brother-in-Law Alfred Kemp as a Cab Driver, right through the late 1870s and into the 1880s.

By the 1880s Amelia was aging and running of the business was no doubt becoming a strain, and as if life hadn’t dealt the family a bad enough hand, In 1882 Alfred Kemp died, he was only 42 years old. Undeterred, the mantle was passed to Alfred’s Widow Elizabeth (Martin Kemp’s Great Great Grandmother) who stepped up, following the example of her Mother Rachel and Sister-in-Law Amelia, took over the business from the elderly Amelia, and continued as the Cab Proprietor. Elizabeth employed her sons as Horse Keepers and Cab Drivers, and took on one of Amelia’s sons as a Driver, all still in Keens Yard, through to the 1890s.

Elizabeth Kemp continued as Proprietor right through to the early 1900s, eventually her sons would take on the business as cabbies themselves. Martin’s Grandmother Eliza Hettie Crisp was living one door up from where the Kemps had lived in Keen’s Yard with her Cabbie Father around 1900, so it is likely that her father had worked for the King/Kemp Matriarchs, and this is how she met Walter Kemp, Martin’s Grandfather.

Strong Women to the Rescue

It is no understatement to say that the King/Kemp Women saved the family from disaster three times over half a century. Each of the three lost a Husband, and undaunted turned what could have been disaster into triumph. This combination of Mother, Daughter-in-Law, and Daughter ran the Family Business as Cab Proprietors, providing a roof over their heads, food on the table, and some money in their pockets, keeping the extended family employed, together, and out of the Workhouse. An example of what Victorian Working Class women could achieve when they put their minds to it.

A compelling story about the will to win of a group of women that rarely makes the history books.