Whitstable is the only place of that name in the world, but Tankerton can also be found in Canada. Is this just some sort of co-incidence or there a connection? The following following proves the latter is true.
The Tankerton District 1
(from History of Mannville and District – p119)
The Tankerton district was named after a residential suburb of the Kentish town of Whitstable on the Thames estuary about 60 miles east of London, England. Whitstable is renowned as being the home of that delectable delicacy the Royal Native Whitstable oyster. The seashore at Whitstable is lined with cottages, boat-building sheds, huts full of gear, ropes, baskets and odd looking tools connected with the dredging of oysters. There is other [sic] kind of native there also, human, and in April 1905, a little party of the latter left their home at Whitstable and sailed for Canada on the S.S. Vancouver. They were headed by the late John F. Reeves, a baker and confectioner, and included Fred Humphrey, school teacher; Arthur Cox, bookseller; Charles Allen, bricklayer; Sid Dadd, carpenter; Albert Payne and Billy Coleman. On board the Vancouver they were joined by Nehemiah Rich, a Cornishman, who had run a shoe store in London.
They all worked in and around Edmonton during 1905 and in the spring of 1906 they all filed on homesteads in the Tankerton district. They had very little money, no experience in farming but plenty of grit, perseverance and a full measure of hope for the future. Mr. Reeves was one of those unforgettable characters that one meets occasionally. He was a lay preacher who sought to serve his Master at all times. He worked as a railroad construction gang cook on the C.N.R. and the Grand Trunk Wainwright West. When the Fort Saskatchewan bridge was under construction he was catering to the bosses. On Sundays he preached to the railroad gang and these tough men liked and respected him and nicknamed him “Parson Jim.”
Mr. Reeves built a sod house for his family on the farm. They arrived in the spring of 1906. This was a wet year and Mr. Reeves had lapped the tar paper roof the wrong way and a caller at the home during a rain found the shack roof leaking in 18 places and one of the family was slumbering in a packing case with an umbrella for protection. Most of the other shacks in the district were built from poplar logs cut from Englishman’s Ravine west of the Sid Dadd farm.
In 1912 Mr. Reeves returned to Whitstable for a visit and his accounts of the life at the new settlement
attracted many younger lads who headed for Mannville. Ed. And Tom Webb, Will McIllwaine, George Witherdon, Leslie Foreman and Bernie Blaxland. After the First World War broke out these boys all enlisted soon after the start,
and all returned. …
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1 Tankerton — district of Alberta about 110 miles east of Edmonton, Alberta
