Page 6 - Hindsight Issue 26 April 2020

KetteRIng
What is your religion?
Kettering has always been a major centre for religious non-conformists. the town contains many chapels which testify to the popularity of the movement. Without membership of the Church of england, however, certain freedoms were not permitted. generally speaking, one of these freedoms was the right to enter British universities. Because of this, Kettering’s non-conformists successfully pioneered and developed the town’s trades and industries instead of pursuing academic careers. Most notable, of course, was the shoe trade, but industrial machinery and printing should not be overlooked. on the other hand, members of the Church of england were allowed to enter university and so, in general became the town’s doctors, lawyers, teachers, and church officials.
Why is this important? stand in London Road inside the cemetery fence. You will at once notice that the cemetery has two chapels of rest. the one on the left is Church of england; the one on the right is non-Conformist. this division is also reflected in the graveyard burials: on the left, Anglican professionals, on the right the industrialists. this is further reinforced by the positioning of cast iron plaques, bearing the letter ‘C’ (consecrated) on the left and ‘UC’ on the right
Finding a grave
From this point on things get much less logical. enter the cemetery itself. the earlier graves are mostly nearer the chapels, at the front and fanning out to the sides and down the gradual slope away from the road.
there is a section of military graves, with burials from both the First and second World Wars, and the Crimean War, but other war graves are scattered throughout the cemetery. there is a section of children’s’ graves. Family plots disrupt the chronological sequences.
the first row of graves, running parallel to London Road is Row A, numbered from left to right, facing the chapels. the rows run from A to Z, away from you, and then start again as AA to ZZ further down. each grave also has a plot number, but you are very much at the mercy of the stonemason as to whether he has engraved this information on the stonework. Also, many of the graves do not have any stonework, which then challenges your counting and alphabet skills!
Things to look out for
At e8 there is the grave of John Burton, hero of the charge of the Light Brigade, and further down, beyond the chapels on the left is James Dray who also charged into the Valley of Death. to the left of the central War Memorial stands the Celtic cross of sir Alfred east, and on the other side, the grave of Charles Wicksteed. Adjacent are the graves of members of the Roughton family, doctors who did
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