Herbert Davenport Kay, 9 September 1893 - 24 November 1976

Abstract

Herbert Davenport Kay was born at Heaton Chapel, Lancashire, on 9 September 1893. During the last years of his life, he became interested in his family history, constructing detailed family trees and tracing his ancestry to the eighteenth century. The Kay family had moved to Cheadle (Cheshire) from Bury in Lancashire in the early nineteenth century. They were descended from John Kay the inventor, also known as ‘Kay of Bury’ who in 1733 took out a patent for his fly-shuttle and later invented the extended lathe and a card-making machine. On his mother’s side, the Davenports were descended from yeoman farmers in Cheshire. It was a source of quiet amusement to Herbert Kay to learn from his archival searches that one of his maternal great-grandmothers, Mary Barlow ( née Joliffe), was said to be illegitimate. Certainly the sum left to her by her father remained in Chancery because of the absence of a marriage certificate.