Our speaker on 5 April 2025 was Jackie Depelle who gave us a presentation
on ‘Take Three Girls – Their Lives, School and Legacy’ which summarised
her research on a particular branch of her family. Jackie had recorded the
presentation and then joined us for questions by Zoom at the end.
The Kettlewell family originated in Pately Bridge but by 1820 had moved to
Leeds. Through her research Jackie was able to inform us what Leeds would
have been like at that time but Jackie’s story followed three spinster sisters –
Ann Elizabeth, Emma and Fanny Alicia Kettlewell. They were all baptised
into Wesleyan Methodism at the Brunswick Chapel in Leeds which was not far
from the present day O2 Arena.
Jackie told us that the 1881 White’s Directory showed Mrs Jane and the
Misses M H and A E Kettlewell were running a ladies’ boarding and day school
at Enmoor Lodge on Chapeltown Road in Leeds. The 1881 census shows
Jane, as principal of the school along with her three spinster daughters. The
pupils were mainly from the north of England, but they had a French governess.
In 1871 Mary Hannah, the eldest daughter, had been a teacher but she had
died in 1880 aged 38.
Jackie showed us the various sources she had been able to use for her research,
including contacting the author of an article she found in Aspects of
Leeds and discovered that the area where the women ran their school was
originally known as Button Hill. It was a neighbourhood which contained large
villas, some of which survive, like Enmoor Lodge, adjacent to the Northern
School of Contemporary Dance.
Enmoor Lodge was bought by Mrs Jane Kettlewell in 1876, to run a private
boarding school for young ladies and Jackie showed us an advertisement for
the school showing the subjects taught.
The 1911 census showed that mother Jane had died and the occupation of
her daughters was ‘until recently principals of school, just retired.’
Jackie then looked for death information and was delighted to find the Leeds
General Cemetery Burial Registers Index 1835-1992 and the wealth of information
they contained. We were told about the women’s wills; how each
passed on to the other sisters until only one remained. They were single ladies
and they left legacies to Leeds Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Leeds Unmarried
Women’s Benevolent Institute and Women’s Auxiliary Wesleyan Missionary Society.
They continued to be benefactors to the community and particularly to
women. These women were never wives or widows but sisters and daughters
and Jackie felt women were not always researched in depth and wanted to
follow the stories of these particularly independent women in her family.
