Graveyard Memorial Inscriptions

Welcome to the Elham Historical Society database website. Feel free to browse and uncover the history of Elham. Our dedicated team of historians has recently finished recording the details on all the memorials in the graveyard. Our chairman Derek Boughton has overseen the operation, correlating the data and checking for errors. The results of their labours can be seen on the burials page.

Elham beat off stiff competition for the title of Kent Village of the year 2011 organised by Action with Communities in Rural Kent.

Censuses for outlying communities in the parish will be rolled out gradually. Check out the stats page for interesting facts and

trivia about the village. We still need your help so please send us any information relating to Elham that may be of interest.

Les Ames hits out

Elham resident Les Ames in action for England against the West Indies in 1939. He was one of the finer wicketkeeper - batsmen and played for Kent CCC.

Abbot's Fireside c 1450

The Abbot's Fireside is one of the older buildings in the village and probably dates back to the mid fifteenth century.

Audrey attends school

Audrey Hepburn (neé Rushton) lived in Orchard Cottage (Five Bells) for five years in her childhood (1935-1940) and attended the local village schools. She took ballet lessons and dreamed of becoming a prima ballerina. I wonder what became of her?

George V Playing Field

Dave Lee opens Elham's brand new playground with a sensory garden and a pretty flower meadow created by the Play for Elham charity. 21st November 2010

Swing Riots of 1830

The machine breaking that led to the riots of August 1830 onwards started in the Elham Parish, writes our historian Derek Boughton, who has made a lifetime's study of the subject.

Elham residents were prominent in the gangs that sought out the new fangled threshing machines and destroyed them. Some of them cost the not inconsiderable sum for the day of £100. Full Story

Cyril Parkinson 1950

Former Elham resident Cyril Parkinson was appointed Raffles Professor of History at the newly-established University of Malaya in Singapore. While there, he initiated an important series of historical monographs on the history of Malaya, publishing the very first of the series in 1960. A movement developed in the mid-1950s to establish two campuses, one in Kuala Lumpur and one in Singapore. Parkinson actively attempted to persuade the authorities to avoid dividing the university, but to maintain it to serve both Singapore and Malaya in Johor Bahru. His efforts were unsuccessful and the two campuses were established in 1959. The original Singapore campus, where Parkinson taught, later became the University of Singapore

Electricity 1934

The first electricity comes through the village. All the wires were on long poles along the street but it was some time before most people were connected up.

"It was a very welcome service. All you needed to do was put a switch down and you had heat or light; no more candles or oil lamps to read or sew by. It's wonderful how people managed with such poor light."

Memoires of Bill Watson

Claysons' dreams nearly sunk 1873

Elgar and Frances Clayson (nee Marsh) decided to emigrate to Australia. The ship that was to take them on a 3½ month journey to Queensland via Tasmania was the migrant ship the Southern Belle, an 1128 ton ship that could hold nearly 500 crew and passengers. On board with Elgar and Frances were their children Ann, Sophia, Mary Elizabeth, Isaac Alfred, Amelia, Agnes, Elgar’s sister Ann, her husband John Pattison and their children John, Anne and Frederick. They were probably assisted migrants. Also travelling with them were Charles and Eliza Lawrence and their son William form Southfleet. William was later to marry Ann. The Claysons did have another daughter, Clara, but she had died aged 5 in 1866. The Pattisons had also suffered the loss of a child, Emily, who died at just 3 months in 1871.

They set sail from the East India Docks, London on 16th November 1873 and all was going well, dropping off the Pattisons in NSW before proceeding to Rockhampton in Queensland. Then on the 25th February, just nine days from their destination, disaster struck. While300 miles east of Moreton Island, black clouds appeared to the south. The wind varied to all points of the compass with heavy squalls and calms alternating sometimes with great rapidity. At midnight of that day she lost her maintop-gallant mast. Two hours later (2 a.m., Thursday) the mainmast snapped off within a few feet of the deck, carrying with it the mizen-topmast. At 5 a.m. the foretop-gallant mast went overboard. The foresail and fore topsail blow away, but were soon replaced. Of seven boats on board, two washed away, two were smashed by falling spars and one of the remaining was only a dingy. The pumps were also broken below the decks and rendered temporarily useless.

Captain Carpenter allowed her to drift northward, keeping outside reefs and shoals, until reaching a point within three miles of the bluff northward of Waterpark Creek, where he dropped anchor in six fathoms of water, paying out sixty fathoms of chain. By that evening the weather had moderated and the greater part of the wreckage had been cleared away. Sails were jury rigged the next day, Thursday, and the ship attempted to enter Curtis Channel, but owing to the crippled state of the ship, this had to be abandoned and she then ran for Capricorn Channel. On Saturday 28th, an attempt to enter Keppel Bay was also abandoned and the ship finally anchored off Waterpark Creek. National Library of Australia

EHS Database

Swing Riots of 1830 recounted by Derek Boughton our local expert historian.

Les Ames for England v West Indies at Kingston, Jamaica 1930 or 1935. WK Ivan Barrow watches on.

Audrey Hepburn attended private schools in the village and dreamed of being a ballerina. I wonder what became of her?

What's in the database? Find the latest additions here.

1834 New Inn

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Les Ames (1905 - 1990)

Former Elham resident Leslie Ethelbert George Ames CBE; who died suddenly at his home in Canterbury on February 26 1990 - aged 84 - was without a doubt the greatest wicketkeeper-batsman the game has so far produced; and yet - at the time he was playing - it used to be said there were better wicketkeepers than Ames - and that he was in the England team because of his batting. If this was so would Jardine - for example - have preferred him to Duckworth in Australia in 1932-33?

Surely not. When fully fit - Ames was England's first-choice wicketkeeper from 1931 to 1939 - when he virtually gave up the job. For Kent - he was an integral part of their Championship side from 1927 to the first match of 1951 - when a sharp recurrence of back trouble - which had dogged him for so long - brought his career to an end while he was actually at the crease. By this time he had amassed 37248 runs - average 43.51 - made 102 hundreds - including nine double-hundreds - and passed 1000 runs in a season seventeen times - going on to 3000 once and 2000 on five occasions. He had had a direct interest in 1121 dismissals - of which more than 1000 were effected when he was keeping wicket. His total of 418 stumpings is easily a record.

In Test cricket - Ames played 47 matches - scoring 2434 runs with a batting average of 40.56 - and taking 74 catches - and 23 stumpings. Record 8th wicket partnership in all tests of 246 with GO Allen :Made 123 in the pre-lunch session of the 1923 test against South Africa (a record for runs in a session): Scored centuries against every first-class county apart from Kent. Unusually for a wicket-keeper - he also bowled over 200 overs - taking 24 first-class wickets with a bowling average of 33.37.

Ames was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1929. He was a pupil at the Harvey Grammar School in Folkestone and he also played five times for Gillingham FC.

EHS Database

Swing Riots of 1830 recounted by Derek Boughton our local expert historian.

Les Ames for England v West Indies at Kingston, Jamaica 1930 or 1935. WK Ivan Barrow watches on.

Audrey Hepburn attended private schools in the village and dreamed of being a ballerina. I wonder what became of her?

What's in the database? Find the latest additions here.

1834 New Inn

EHS Database

Swing Riots

Les Ames (1905 - 1990)

Audrey Hepburn (1929 - 1993)

She came to village with her mother Dutch Baroness Ella van Heemstra. She lived at Orchard Cottage (now the Five Bells) and attended the private schools in the village square.

Stats

1834 New Inn