Kidger - Thorpe/Ilam/Dovedale

[ansteynomad]

As you come down the hill into Ilam/Dovedale, coming from the direction of Ashbourne, my memory tells me that there is a farm on the right as you go down the hill.  My parents spent holidays there in the late 1930s, when it was kept by Mr and Mrs Kidger.  Mr Kidger was a friend of my grandfather and I’d like to try and work out how they might have known each other.  My grandfather was a railwayman from Lincolnshire.

Unfortunately, I can find no trace of the Kidger family in that area, but that may be because I’m getting confused with the registration districts. Can anyone with better local knowledge give me a hand out please?

[Mabel Bagshawe]

There's a Bert Cecil Kidger at Ilam Meadows, Blore  in the 1940 Kellys directory, (and other directory entires from 1921 onwards) but finding other traces isn;t easy, as you say.

Ah - 1939 has suggested he was also called bertie

Bertie Cecil Kidger
Q1 1880    Billesdon Vol 7a, p24

1881 The Grange, Owston

Elijah Kidger    58- farmer b Loughborough
Mary A. Kidger    47 - b Gaddesby
John Kidger    21 - b Gaddesby
Julia Kidger    16 - b Gaddesby
Bertie C. Kidger    1 - b Owston
Walter Scott    14 - servant

he died in 1961, when his address was Glencote, Blackbrook nr Belper. I believe his wife was called Agnes.

Can't guarantee this is your man, but wondered if any of the info triggers anything?

[ansteynomad]

Mabel, you're a genius!

So he came from Leicestershire.  That immediately makes sense.

Thank you so much.

[ansteynomad]

I've now found the family on a census with daughter Mabel.  They lived not far from my grandparents in Leicester at the time.  The daughter's name clinches it.

Another mystery solved.

Thanks again.

[Mabel Bagshawe]

Glad to have helped-  and in a small world I have present day connections near Anstey!

[ansteynomad]

A small world indeed.  You may then recognise the pun in my username.

[davidSw]

Bertie Cecil Kidger and his wife, Agnes, moved, from Ilam, to the farm and lived there for twenty five years. In 1940, Mabel Kidger, contracted meningitis and, because of the heavy February snow, had to be carried by sledge to Ilam. She was taken to hospital but, sadly, died and was buried in Ilam churchyard.

Sydney Allen, age 23, was working as a farm labourer on the farm, he also contracted meningitis and died. Local opinion says that the illness was contracted by infection from one of the horses. There appears to have been an epidemic of meningitis, around this time, as Vera Smith, from a cottage opposite the school, in Swinscoe, also died of the disease.

[ansteynomad]

Oh wow David.  Thank you for this.  I have now found Mabel's death in Derby in the March Quarter of 1940 at the age of 29.  My parents would have seen her the previous summer when they stayed at the farm on holiday.

There is so much detail in your post that I have to ask how you know this.