KENNEDYS
SAUSAGES 1877 – 2007 by Ron and Julia Todd.
The 22nd December 2007
will be a sad day for many - the last day of trading
of Alex Kennedy Ltd of Peckham, bringing to a close
130 years of sausage-making by the Kennedy family. The
Kennedy family originates from the Stranraer area in
Scotland and is associated with Culzean Castle. Andrew
Kennedy, a tea trader, moved south to Kent where he
married Harriet Bangham in 1835. The reason for
his move is not known. They lived in Canterbury
and had 7 sons and 2 daughters. Their second eldest
son John was born in 1837 and in 1869 he married Mary
Ann Rolfe, a local girl. Mary Ann’s parents sold
meat and meat products, including sausages. John
and Mary Ann moved to Maidstone where they lived until
1877 and had three boys and one girl. John worked
in the drapery business but in 1877 he and his family
moved to 140 Rye Lane, Peckham. Here he and Mary
Ann started up a meat products business, making sausages
and meat pies at the back of the shop. The family
lived over the shop and four more children were born
there. They continued to live in Rye Lane until
John’s death in 1895.
John and
Mary Ann Kennedy
We can only speculate
why John and Mary Ann Kennedy decided to move their
family to South London. It is believed that they
saw a business opportunity following the arrival of
the railways in the 1860s, allowing people to move away
from Central London. Many professionals and other
middle class people took up residence in areas such
as Peckham and Camberwell and Rye Lane became a much
respected shopping district with its own department
store Higgins and Jones. Consequently there was
a ready market and business boomed, with a second shop
being opened at 85 Rye Lane. John Kennedy became
a much respected trader and an active member of the
Camberwell vestry.
After John’s death the
business was run jointly by his two eldest sons, Sion
Rolfe and Alexander. This continued until the
death of Sion Rolfe in 1920, and shortly afterwards
the business split into two. The existing John
Kennedy business was run by Sion Rolfe’s son Herbert.
Alexander set up a new company, Alex Kennedy,
converting an old fire station in Peckham Road into
a factory where the sausages and other products were
made. Over the next 20 years or so the business
opened up many shops in South London, including those
in Beckenham, West Wickham and two in Bromley. The
John Kennedy business, too, moved from Rye Lane into
factory premises in Harders Road in 1931 and sold sausages
from its shops in Catford, Lewisham, Crystal Palace
and Orpington. This situation lasted until 1974
when the Harders Road factory closed and the John Kennedy
shops were supplied by Alex Kennedy Ltd. Eventually
the John Kennedy shops closed and in recent years the
sausage-making business has been run solely by Alex
Kennedy Ltd.
With the advent of the
supermarkets and changes in the population of its core
areas, the business has been declining for many years
to such an extent that it has become unviable. Reluctantly
the directors – all members of the Kennedy family –
decided that they would cease trading at the end of
2007.
One only has to read
the local papers to see the devastating effect that
this decision has had on people in the Bromley and Beckenham
area. As well as sausages, the company was known
for its Christmas puddings, sausage rolls, meat pies,
puff pastry etc. It will be sadly missed.
Ron Todd and Julia Todd
(nee Kennedy), great-granddaughter of John and Mary
Ann Kennedy, the founders.
The photographs on this
page are reproduced here with the kind permission of
Ron and Julia Todd. |