Summary
One of Newnham College’s founding families, classicist Marion Kennedy was the daughter of Professor Benjamin Kennedy, a supporter of women’s access to a university education. Her sister, Julia Kennedy would become the joint-first woman to stand for election to Cambridge Borough Council.
The first thing to note is that the internment of Marion Kennedy’s ashes took place at the Mill Road Cemetery. (You can see their article about Marion Kennedy here). It was only twenty-nine years before that cremations were legalised – Marion was cremated at Golders Green crematorium – a secular one.
The Mill Road Cemetery volunteers have also transcribed the Cambridge Daily News report on the funeral – being an almost word for word identical to the one in the Cambridge Independent.
So many familiar names stand out.
- Mr. W.E. Heitland – husband of Margaret Heitland (previously Bateman),
- the Principal of Newnham (Miss K. Stephen), and Miss Clough – Anne Jemima Clough, one of the founders of Newnham College
- Miss Strachey – Joan Pernel Strachey – future principal of Newnham College
- Mistress of Girton (Miss Constance Smith),
- Sir Francis Darwin – brother of Mayor Horace Darwin and astronomer Sir George Darwin,
- Prof. Henry Jackson (classicist – no connection with the society of the same name sometimes seen on current affairs programmes, which is named after another politician)
- Prof. and Mrs. Bethune Baker – Edith Bethune Baker was one of Cambridge’s first women magistrates.
- Prof. and Mrs Alfred Marshall – Mary Paley Marshall both economists, and Mary being a close friend of Florence Ada Keynes (strangely missing from the list),
- Prof. and Mrs. James Ward – Mary Ward
- Dr. and Mrs. Alan Gray,
- Hon. Mrs. Horace Darwin – Ida Darwin – mental health campaigner
- Lady Darwin – Ellen Darwin
- Mrs. Darwin – Maud Darwin
- Mrs. [Beatrice] Bateson & [her sister in law] Mrs. Heitland (mentioned earlier).
- Miss Philippa Fawcett – daughter of Millicent Garrett Fawcett & Professor Henry Fawcett
- Mr. Sedley Taylor – philanthropist – paid for the first municipal dental surgery in the country, we named a school & an expensive road after him.
- Mr. H. Rackham – Harris Rackham, husband of Cllr Clara Rackham
- Mr. Tillyard – husband of Catherine Tillyard, he was Editor of the Cambridge Independent and onetime Mayor of Cambridge.
- Mrs. Stewart – Jessie, husband of Hugh Fraser Stewart (who presided over the funeral) and the mother of Cambridge hero Frida Stewart, musician, Quaker, peace campaigner and anti-fascist activist.
- Mrs. Adam – classicist and mother of Barbara Wootton – the first woman to be elevated to a life peerage.
- Mrs. Dutt – Anne Palme, social reformer, husband of Mill Road physician Dr Upendra Dutt, a popular figure in a well known working class part of town, mother of Rajani Palme Dutt, British Communist activist in 20th Century.
And those are the ones off the top of my head that stand out! There are many others in the full list who were high achievers and prominent people in their own right.
Lost Cambridge 