Frederick Kemp (1834 - 1898) was very much involved with the oyster industry in Whitstable and the development of beds at the Isle of Wight. His loss at sea is the subject of one of our Whitstable Times newspaper features.

This picture is believed to have been taken in 1885, on the Silver wedding anniversary of Frederick and Fanny, probably at their home, Albion House. It can be seen that Frederick was no mere oyster dredger. He did start off as such and served his apprenticeship with his uncle Ozias. In later years he bought larger boats and used them for the bulk carrying of oysters and spat.

This was the home of Frederick Kemp at the time, Albion House, 17 Harbour Place, Whitstable. In a larger picture the name can been seen on the end of the house and the build date, 1855.

This is quite a substantial house for the area which mainly consists of groups of terraced houses. The majority of these were occupied by the masters of ships, whilst most of the oystermen lived within the 'walls'. This is another sign of Frederick's standing within the community.

We decided to try and find this house today, having learned that 'Harbour Place' became 'Woodlawn Street' in 1947 and in doing so discovered things we had never noticed before. We soon found that Albion House no longer existed, so we turned to the fine detail in the picture to locate its position. When we started looking closely at the rows of terraced house, which on first impressions appeared identical, we soon realised that they weren't. It transpires that each row of houses between intersecting roads were built by many different builders. Some had arched doorways, some had attic dormer windows, whilst others had subtle decorative trim.

We traced the only row of these houses that had exactly the same features as the row next to Albion House in the picture. This is the photograph we took.

On closer inspection we found that the original wall of Albion House, that supported the end of the terrace, is sandwiched between them and the newer flats. We haven't yet found out what happened to the house but believe it was used as apartments in the early 1900's, eventually becoming derelict before being demolished for the building of the six flats we see today in its place. Maybe some older residents of the town will be able to fill in the missing details.

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