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Desborough Cemetery

Eliza Laker, formerly Matthews, nee Kemp - click for larger image. Opens in new window

In Loving Memory of

ELIZA LAKER

WIDOW OF THE LATE

THOMAS LAKER

OF HORSHAM, SUSSEX

WHO FELL ASLEEP

OCTOBER 27TH 1910

AGED 73 YEARS

I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH



Eliza Kemp was born about 1838 at Wymondham in Norfolk, the daughter of John and Ann Kemp.

At some point between 1851 and 1860 Eliza moved to Sussex where she married John Matthews. John was a butcher, and the young couple appear to have been living with his parents in Cowfold in 1861.

John and Eliza had at least one child: Charles, born at Horsham in 1866. John died the following year, aged only 29.

In 1869 Eliza married Thomas Laker, an ironmonger from Horsham. Curiously, although both appear to have been living in Horsham at the time, they were married at St Clement, Barnsbury, Islington.

ThomThomas and Eliza had at least two children: Alfred, born 1870, and Thomas, born 1873.

After she was widowed for the second time Eliza ran a lodging house in Horsham (1881 census), then worked as a servant to a poulterer in Lingfield (1891 census). By 1901 she was living with her son Thomas and his wife in Desborough, where she died in 1910.