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INTRODUCTION - WHY THE CATORS?

The flying bombs fell in July 1944. The first destroyed the shops near the junction of Albemarle Rd and Beckenham High St on 2nd July. The second was worse, falling on 27th July on numbers 7&8 Church Rd. The parish church of St George’s barely one hundred yards away took the brunt of the blast. Up to a third of the gravestones on the North side of the church were shattered but not those of the Cators. They remain there today as two large table tombs standing among the yew trees. They bear row upon row of family names, twentyfour in all, with relationships, ages and dates of death.

Now I am not a Cator but I was born at Blackheath Park on the Cator Estate and lived for the next thirtyseven years on the Beckenham estate of the Cators. Their principle was to buy up land for leasing for the construction of superior housing. Their nineteenth century planning is still reflected in the layout of Blackheath and Beckenham. However I knew nothing of this until I started recording the monumental inscriptions of St George’s church as one of the team of North West Kent Family History Society. I had no idea that from 1773 to 1806, John Cator of Beckenham Place had been the Lord of Beckenham Manor.

In Burke’s “Landed Gentry” the Cator pedigree covers several pages of small type. They were closely knit and made increasingly favourable marriages among the gentry, particularly in Ireland. Names acquired by marriage were used for roads on the estates including the Albemarle Rd (from Admiral Sir Albemarle Bertie) where the first flying bomb landed. The Bromley Record of October 1st 1885 has an article of the marriage of the Rev Lord Victor Seymour with Miss Cator, daughter of Mr Albemarle Cator of Woodbastwick, Norfolk at St Paul’s Knightsbridge that was attended by Earls and Lords and Ladies too numerous to list.

Perhaps the most notable of such occasions was the marriage of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, when Elizabeth Cator was one of her eight bridesmaids.

Tracing John Cator, Lord of the Manor backwards, I found that he had been a timber merchant at Bankside in London’s Southwark. This was the constituency of Henry Thrale M.P. in the 1770s.

The Thrales entertained Dr Samuel Johnson at both their houses; one was in Deadman’s Place, Bankside, now Park St and the other at Streatham Place where Dr Johnson visited for about twenty years and had his own room. Since Henry Thrale owned the Anchor Public house on Bankside by the River Thames, it would be a good guess that the timber merchant, John Cator, met Dr Johnson and the Thrales there.

At first Mrs Thrale did not like John Cator and described him as an insulting enemy. In Streatham’s Society she marked John nought out of ten for most of society’s graces like morality, wit and manner although she gave him three for his voice and thirteen out of twenty for his general knowledge!

John was the Son of the timber business of John Cator & Son. John Cator Snr (1703-1764) had moved from ROSS, HEREFORD to London around the time of his marriage in 1728 to Mary Brough at the Quaker Meeting House, Society of Friends, Savoy, London although this marriage also appears in the Ross records.

John senior was the son of Jonah Cator, glover of Ross and the grandson of John and Elizabeth Cator. They are said in the Burke’s pedigree to have been staunch Quakers and I found their births, marriages and deaths in the Quaker records for both Ross and London held at the SoG in London on microfiche. As you will see there is plenty of evidence of the Cator family’s prominence in the Friends of Ross.

I should be very interested to receive any information about the Ross Cators and Quakers. The family line can be traced directly to members alive today who own the village of Woodbastwick. The Lord of the Manor John Cator’s nephew, John Barwell Cator, bought this nearly 200 years ago. He was the son of John’s rich merchant brother, Joseph. In spite of making a fortune John Cator had no surviving children of his own to whom he could pass all his wealth.

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