Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Kate Osborn

1870 –1929

Wife of Albert Osborn

Relatives

Albert Osborn — husband

Henry Duncombe — father

• Melanie Hilton

Unmarked grave Kate Osborn (née Duncombe late Wilson) (1870-1929)

Kate was born c.1870 in Berkhamsted, the daughter of labourer Henry Duncombe and his wife Ellen (née Crawley). Her family had lived in Tring until at least 1863, as her brothers George and Robert were born there.

In the 1871 census the family’s address was The Wilderness, Berkhamsted. Henry is described as a labourer and twelve year old George and eight year old Robert were “collecting horse dung.” The census checker has crossed that out and written in “scavengers.” Two year old John (born Lambeth, but baptised in Berkhamsted 7 October 1870) and three month old Kate (born Berkhamsted and baptised 12 May 1872) had been added to the family.

Kate married John Wilson in 1888 and their son John jnr. was born in 1893. John died in 1892 and Kate married Albert Osborne, a labourer, in Berkhamsted in 1894.

Orice (Horace?) was born in 1891 and Kate in 1900.

In the 1901 census Jemima is shown living in Holliday Street with Orice and Kate and her brother Edward Duncombe. The census record, crossed out, reads “Husband on active service”. It has not been possible to trace any military records relating to Albert, or to find the family’s census records between then and 1921.

Rose Bertha was born in 1903 followed by Ivy Hilda (1906) and Ethel Alice (1908).

In the family was living at 1921 15, Provident Place where Kate died in September 1929 aged 59.

Her parents are buried in this cemetery.

Albert Osborn

06/05/1866 –1943

A plumber who served in Army during WW1

Relatives

Charles Osborn — father

Kate Osborn — wife

• Melanie Hilton

Unmarked grave Albert William Osborn (1866-1943)

Albert was born 6 May 1866 in Berkhamsted to Charles and Mary Ann (née Timson) Osborn. His father was a carpenter and joiner and in 1871 they were living in Park Street with Albert’s three older brothers.

By 1881 the family had moved to London and were living in Silver Street (now The Mount), Hampstead. This was a poor, but not slum, area of Hampstead and the inhabitants – whose houses still  survive in The Mount, could never have imagined the prices their homes fetch today (average £1.6m). Albert now had four younger brothers, so his mother must have had her hands full with eight boys.

Albert became a plumber and in January 1886, aged 19, he joined the 7^th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment Volunteer Corps. This appears to commit him to undergoing regular drills, but not actually serving. His height was five foot five and a half inches.

In 1890 he married Fanny Elizabeth Howard in Hampstead. In April 1891 they were living at 3, Prospect Place, Hampstead. Their first child, Albert Howard, was born later that month and

Dorothy Frances in 1892.

In April 1908 Albert, then aged almost 42, and after twenty five years’ service, signed up again for one year with the Territorial Army, 7^th Middlesex Regiment. This involved him attending training drills but did not mean he had to live away from home. However, in the event of “imminent national danger or great emergency” he would be called up.

His address was given as 6, Gayton Road, Hampstead and the street is still as he would have known it, with terraces of respectable Victorian houses of three floors plus a semi-basement.

Despite initially only signing on for one year, Albert’s records show him attending training at various South Coast camps between 1908 and 1913.

In 1911 the family were still at Gayton Road. Both Albert jnr and Dorothy were clerks and his brother-in-law, a builder was living with them. The census records shows that they had one other child who had died.

 With the outbreak of war he found himself posted to the Army and between February and July 1915 was in France with the British Expeditionary Force. He reached the rank of Pioneer Sergeant despite suffering from haemorrhoids, indigestion and finally being discharged in July 1915 with “debility”.

Albert received the Long Service Medal, the Queen’s Jubilee and the King’s Coronation Medals, the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

In 1921 Albert, Fanny and son Albert were at 7, Gayton Road.

The 1939 Register shows Albert and Fanny living alone at 51, Gayton Road but by February 1943, when he died aged 75, his address was 15, Provident Place, Berkhamsted.

The photograph shows his mother, aged 95 in 1935, with all eight of her sons. Albert is second from the end on the far left.

His father (died 1914) is buried in this cemetery.