The CHAS committee has recently started to discuss ideas to celebrate the centenary of the death in 1928 of Walter Cozens* (image 1), the leading founder of CHAS (or the Canterbury Archaeological Society as it was called when it was formed in 1920). The current members of the CHAS committee were unaware of any living relatives and so it was a great delight when Deborah Dickey, a resident of Florida and a great great granddaughter of Walter’s father, Thomas Grant Cozens, left a message via the CHAS website to the effect that she and her husband were shortly to visit Canterbury.
Many CHAS members will be aware that Walter Cozens was not only a leading builder in Canterbury but also very interested in archaeology, heritage and the preservation of older buildings, and the author of a book on the history of Canterbury (image 2). His grave is in St Martin’s churchyard and is unusual in containing a sarsen stone (image 3). Most CHAS members are probably not aware that Walter Cozens’ father, Thomas Grant Cozens, hereafter referred to as TG Cozens (image 4) was also a leading local builder (he built 250 houses in the city). TG Cozens’ first wife, Jane, died in 1858 at age 41, shortly after the birth of Walter, and TG Cozens later married Ellen Banister. Deborah is a descendent from this second marriage, but she managed to get in touch with Jonathan Day, a descendent from the first marriage (TG Cozens and Jane Cozens, née Burgess).
Together Deborah, her husband Jerry and Deborah’s distant cousin, Jonathan Day, visited Canterbury in June, and arrangements were made to meet CHAS members Clive Bowley, Doreen Rosman and Ian Osterloh (Image 5). Deborah had brought extracts from TG Cozens’ account of his own life in Canterbury, and this revealed much information of interest. For example, although TG Cozens had several sons from his two different marriages, he decided to make over his building business to his youngest child from his first marriage, Walter Cozens, on January 1st 1880 (image 6).
TG Cozens was a deeply religious man throughout his life and was a leading member of the Methodist Church. Doreen Rosman welcomed Deborah, Jerry and Jonathan to a Sunday morning service at St Peter’s Methodist Church, and she showed them the stained glass window donated to the church by TG Cozens (image 7).
During their visit in Canterbury Deborah, Jerry and Jonathan were able to visit the Cathedral Archives, St Martin’s Churchyard (several members of the Cozens family buried there) the City cemetery (grave stone of TG Cozens and his second wife Ellen, image 8) and the non-conformist cemetery in Wincheap where several more members of the Cozens family are buried.
Deborah and Jerry brought with them a copy of TG Cozens’ Journal written in copperplate script which detailed how he was at one time living at Dover House, Old Dover Road and later built and moved into an adjacent smaller property, Ferndale. Clive Bowley contacted the current occupant of Dover House, and was able to facilitate a visit of the Cozens family to see the property as it is now (images 9 and 10). The three visitors were also treated to a tour around the city to the various other houses that TG Cozens lived in during his time in Canterbury and also the sites of the Cozens family builder’s yards that were once located in Ivy Lane and Love Lane in the early C 19th, before their move to premises in Broad Street (the yard and buildings now occupied by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust)
Finally, how come there are Cozens’ relatives living in the USA? Well, TG Cozens was not the only deeply religious family member. William Joseph Cozens was one of his 3 sons from his second marriage to Ellen Banister. William Joseph Cozens (image 11) travelled to America (with others including Evangeline Booth) to found the Salvation Army in USA. Deborah Dickey is a great granddaughter of William Joseph Cozens.
*Walter Cozens, CHAS founder, also had a son called Walter Sidney Cozens who continued his father’s work in building and conservation. In this article Walter Cozens refers to Walter Cozens senior, CHAS founder, unless otherwise stated.
With many thanks to Jonathon Kreffer and Daniel Korachi-Alaoui who facilitated the Cozens family visit to various cemeteries and to the Cathedral Archives respectively, and to Kara McKeown for allowing the visit to Dover House. And thanks to Deborah Dickey for photographs of her ancestors, Thomas Grant, and William Joseph Cozens, and for sharing the wonderful journal written by TG Cozens.
Click on the images below to enlarge them
