Ditton, Kent

History

Notable people

• William Kempe, the parson of Ditton, was sued for £80 in 1534 for being absent from his parish and for taking a stipend for saying prayers for the souls of the dead. Although Kempe admitted being absent, he claimed that he was chaplain to Baron John Zouche and thus entitled to receive two benefices.
• The Rev. John Young Stratton was an author, essayist, social reformer, campaigner against rural poverty, and Rector of Ditton for 48 years. He is now remembered chiefly for his tireless campaigning to improve the lives of farm labourers and hop-pickers. In terms of the latter, the remaining hopper huts across Kent and further afield are a testament to his legacy. In 1868, he advocated for a system of national insurance to be administered through the Post Office, which closely resembles the modern welfare state. A highly respected figure, his obituary referred to him as “probably the best known clergyman in Mid-Kent” and “the Hoppers’ friend”. John Stratton was also responsible for the restoration and alteration of St Peter’s Church in 1860, under the supervision of Sir Gilbert Scott.
• William Boghurst was an apothecary, and native, of Ditton, who remained in London during the Great Plague of 1665. During the plague, his medical practice expanded and he made his name. He stayed in the city throughout the epidemic, treating by his own account "40, 50 or 60 patients a day". By the end of the year his reputation was sufficient to attract offers from the corporation of Norwich, which tried to employ him when the infection reached there. He wrote a book about his experience which, although not printed at the time, was subsequently published in 1894 for the Epidemiological Society of London under the title Loimographia: an Account of the Great Plague of London in the year 1665. In later life his fortunes appear to have declined, as he could not afford the livery of his company in 1682. Boghurst died on 2 September 1685 aged 54 and was conveyed from London to be buried in the churchyard at Ditton.
• Thomas Tilson was the rector of Ditton from 1679 to 1702 and was in correspondence with the Protestant cleric Richard Baxter. In one letter Tilson described how a woman from Rochester had gone to her father's house in West Malling where she died on 4 June 1691. While on her death bed, at two o'clock in the morning, she appeared as an apparition to a nurse in Rochester, some nine miles away, where her children were being looked after. It had been the dying woman's wish to see her children before she died, but she had been persuaded not to travel because of her ill health. Baxter included this account in his subsequent book The Certainty of the Worlds of the Spirits published in the same year. Tilson died in 1750 and his memorial in St. Peter's AD Vincula Church records a bequest he made to the poor of "£100 in money, the yearly produce to be distributed annually on the feasts of All Saints and the Purification, in wood and wheat".
• Reverend Samuel Bishop was a poet, headmaster of Merchant Taylors' school and rector of Ditton. His posthumously published book entitled Poems was much admired and several times reprinted. Not everyone was complimentary about Bishop and his verses: "the character of Bishop's countenance is not very intellectual, and there is a timid, and almost mean expression about the mouth. He looks but little qualified to insist upon the discipline necessary to be observed at Merchant school or to wield the weapons of Dr. Busby. However, we suppose, he did both occasionally, besides writing his epigrams, and composing verses to his wife, — "To Mrs Bishop." Of this lady, he sometimes sings more like the tea-kettle than the Nightingale".
• , sheriff of Kent in 1703, was living in the nearby parish of Leybourne when he acquired Ditton Place in 1701. He had been the mortgagee of Thomas Brewer in respect of a number of properties when the latter defaulted. His arms were "argent, a cross voided between four lions passant, guardant gules". He left Ditton Place to his nephew, another Thomas, who seems to have sold it and then repurchased it around 1735. The surname Golding is synonymous with a variety of hop known as Goldings and, although there has been some uncertainty as to who discovered the hop, evidence has more recently come to light suggesting it was almost certainly John Golding, the great-nephew of Thomas and the owner of Ditton Place.
• Lt. Col. Clifford Sheldon, DSO, was joint managing and senior director of Reeds, the paper manufacturer, and was connected with that firm and its associated companies from 1911 until his death in 1950 at the age of 62 years. He gave his name to the Clifford Sheldon Club House, a converted oast house, which subsequently became the Manor and Greenside Oast.
• Edward Humphreys, known as Punter Humphreys, who was born in Ditton in 1881, was an English professional cricketer who played first-class cricket for Kent County Cricket Club between 1899 and 1920. He played nearly 400 first-class matches and coached cricket after his retirement.
• Charles Hooman, often known as Chubby Holman, was born in Ditton in 1887. He was an English amateur sportsman who played cricket for Oxford University and Kent County Cricket Club between 1907 and 1910. He won Blues for golf, rackets and cricket and later represented the Great Britain and Ireland golf team in the Walker Cup in 1922 and 1923. He served in the Royal Naval Reserve during World War I and the RAF Volunteer Reserve during World War II.
• Barry Hawkins is an English professional snooker player from Ditton. He turned professional in 1996, rising to prominence in the 2004–05 snooker season, when he reached the last 16 of the 2004 UK Championship, the quarter-finals of the 2004 British Open, and the semi-finals of the 2005 Welsh Open. He has now spent twelve successive seasons ranked inside the top 32. He reached his first ranking final and won his first ranking title at the 2012 Australian Goldfields Open.
• Simon Webley, the Anglican economist, research director of the Institute of Business Ethics, and former board member of the Centre for Policy Studies, is a long-term resident of the village.
• Dr Daniel Morris, scientist, specialising in synthetic polymers, was brought up in the village.