At the beginning of the 19th century this manor was held jointly by Richard Elmhirst, Esq., of Usselby, and Mr. Thomas Kemp, the latter of whom resided at the Old Hall.[1] There is a field at the west end of the village, now the property of H. N. Coates, Esq., traversed by mounds and ditches, which was formerly divided into three separate plots, belonging to Elmhirst, Kemp, and Hotchkin. The Kemps were of an old stock. In the Thimbleby Registers the first mention of them is in 1723,[2] but their name implies a much greater antiquity. One theory has been that they were a Huguenot family, who came over to England at the time of the French massacre of Protestants, on St. Bartholomew's day, 1572. Those refugees, in their enforced poverty, prosecuted various kinds of useful industries; and the Kemps, it is suggested, acquired their name from being kempsters, or comb makers.
But it is probable that the name had a much earlier origin. Kemp (Saxon Cempa) meant a soldier[3] being connected with the Norman-French and modern English "Champion;" and although we might look back with pride to forefathers who suffered for their religion, it is pleasanter, if only in imagination, to regard them as having been a race of doughty warriors, sufficiently distinguished to win a name by their deeds.[4]
Mr. Thomas Kemp, in the first half of the 19th century, was a wealthy bachelor, and added to the Hall-garth estate by the purchase, from time to time, of adjacent property. He lived in some style, with two maiden sisters to keep house for him. By his will the land at Thimbleby passed into the possession of his great nephew, Robert Edwin Kemp; another nephew, Samuel Harrison Kemp, inheriting most of the personal estate. But alas! liveried servants, crests and arms, and other emblems of wealth have become things of the past; for when this Robert died the property passed to his son, Thomas Kemp, in whose hands the patrimony speedily evaporated; and other members of the family are now dispersed, "their places knowing them no more," save as a lingering memory, which will soon be gone.
The interesting old hall and the manor were then bought by Reuben Roberts, Esq., of Linden House, Horncastle, who resides there in the summer. He also owns other land in the parish. Other owners are E. Hassard,
- ↑ Weir's History of Lincolnshire, p. 334.
- ↑ Henry Kemp and "Elinor" Panton were married in 1723. They had a numerous family, including Michael, baptized May 2nd, 1731; Thomas, baptized 1737, married 1768; and Robert, baptized 1740 married 1766. Thomas and Robert were family names, which occurred in successive generations. There were other branches of the family, whose representatives still survive; including the Rev. Edwin R. Kemp, already referred to, whose grandfather was first cousin of the last Thomas Kemp residing at the Hall-garth. When the Kemp property was sold, a portion, at one time belonging to William Barker, was bought by the Rev. R. E. Kemp of Lincoln.
- ↑ N. Bailey's Dictionary, 1740.
- ↑ The Saxon word "cæmban" meant "to comb," whence our words "kempt" and "unkempt," applied to a tidy, neatly trimmed, or combed, person, and the reverse; or used of other things, as Spenser, in his Faery Queen, says:
"I greatly lothe thy wordes,
Uncourteous and unkempt."—Book III., canto x, stanza xxix.On the other hand, more than 100 years before the days of the Huguenots, there was a Cardinal John Kemp, afterwards consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 1452, born at Wye, near Ashford in Kent. In the old Rhyming Chronicle "Lawëman's Brut," of date about A.D. 1205, we find "Kemp" used as a parallel to "Knight," or warrior; as
"Three hundred cnihtes were also Kempes,
The faireste men that evere come here."
("Hengist and Horsa," Cottonian MS., Brit. Mus, "Otho," c. xiii.)
("Morris's Specimens of early English," p. 65.)In Bedfordshire there is a village named Kempston, which, like Campton in the same county, is supposed to be derived from the Saxon "Kemp," meaning "battle." Taylor's Words and Places, p. 206.
