Birth

Enlistment Information

Military Service

Embarkation Information

Military Awards

Death

Biographical Notes

Joseph Grosvenor Kett was born on 15 December 1883 at Timaru, the fifth son of Joseph Daniel and Bridget Annie (Annie, née Fanning). He was baptized Roman Catholic at Timaru on 20 January 1884. Joseph (senior) and Bridget married in 1870 in Victoria, Australia. There, a son and a daughter were born, before Joseph and Mrs Kett came to New Zealand from Melbourne with their three-year old son Rodger and two-year old daughter Mary, arriving at Port Chalmers on 15 July 1874. In New Zealand four sons and three daughters were born between 1875 and 1887 – at Palmerston, Oamaru and Tapanui. The eldest son Roger was admitted to Oamaru South School in October 1879 after two years at a private school. A greyhound pup (47 days old), the property of Joseph D. Kett, was stolen on the night of 15 August 1880 from the yard of the Royal Hotel, Oamaru. Joseph D. Kett had purchased the Royal Hotel in mid-1879. As of February 1882, Mr J. D. Kett was at Tapanui, and of November 1883 at Timaru. No birth registrations have been found for the three youngest children, all said to have been born at Timaru – Joseph Grosvenor, Eileen Bridget and Victor Fanning. A newspaper notice tells that their daughter (Eileen) was born on 7 January 1886. Mr J. D. Kett was certainly in the Timaru district in the early 1880s. Mr J. D. Kett took possession of the Grosvenor Hotel in early 1883. “Mr Kett is the right man in the right place, and his success in his new venture should be as assured . . . . Mr Kett is well known in Otago, having conducted first-class hotels in Oamaru, Palmerston, and Tapanui, and he always had the name of being an excellent host.” He was lately host of the principal Hotel in Tapanui, Southland, and previously of the Royal Hotel, Oamaru, of which he was licensee for a couple of years, and where he made the acquaintance of a large number of South Canterbury people. “Mr and Mrs Kett, with their long experience, are well able to sustain the character of the hotel. Mr Kett, we may mention, is a brother of Mr R. Kett, of the Criterion Hotel, Waimate.” Mr Kett was soon associated with the Jockey Club, the Port of Timaru and the South Canterbury Caledonian Society. Both J. D. Kett and R. Kett were summoned for keeping their billiard rooms open after hours. From the mid-1880s Mr J. D. Kett was involved in local Catholic church and school affairs. He himself, was also a regular cricket player, and with success. In October 1886, Joseph Daniel Kett, of Timaru, hotelkeeper, was bankrupt. He also acquired the licence for the Clarendon Hotel. Roger Kett went to St Patrick’s College, Wellington, where he sang in concerts in October and December 1885, and also received prizes for Christian Doctrine, geography, writing, vocal music and cornet. He was mentioned for playing well in a college football match in May 1886. His father had subscribed to the college in November 1883.

“Mr. J. D. Kett, the popular host of the Clarendon Hotel, has gone to Victoria, his native colony, where he is likely to remain.” [NZ Tablet, 20 April 1888.] Surely, his wife and all his young family went with him. Joseph Daniel Kett died in hospital at Melbourne in February 1905; Bridget Annie Kett died in 1911. Some of the family did, however, return to New Zealand. The eldest daughter, Mary Josephine Kett who was born at Geelong in 1873 and had attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Timaru from 1883 till 1888 as both a day pupil and a boarder, married James Patrick Leo Delany (De Lany) in Victoria, Australia in 1905. Mary and James settled in Southland and had three daughters. When Mary died in February 1925, a motion of condolence was passed by the Invercargill Swimming Club to the De Lany and Kett families. Constance Wilhelmina Kett also attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart (day school) from February 1887 till February 1888. Joseph Grosvenor Kett and Victor Fanning Kett, the subjects of these records, also returned to New Zealand. Joseph was residing in Invercargill when his sister Mary died.

Joseph Grosvenor Kett was a cook in Dunedin in 1905 and a cook at Wellington Hospital in 1908. He married Elsie Emily Perry on 27 October 1908 in Wellington. Nothing more is known of Molly who was born in 1909. Walter Grosvenor was born at Karamea in 1910 and Grace Constance at Blenheim in 1911. Still a cook, Joseph was at Blenheim in 1911. William Gregory Joseph was born at Levin in 1913. Joseph and Elsie were in Palmerston North in 1914, Joseph now a labourer. Coral Eileen Winifred was born at Palmerston North in 1915. Joseph Grosvenor Kett enlisted firstly on 15 October 1915, then on 7 March 1916 at Trentham. A labourer at the Freezing Works at Hastings and Roman Catholic, he named his wife as next-of-kin – Mrs Elsie E. Kett, 303 Hastings Street, Hastings. Private J. G. Kett embarked with the Specialist Machine-Gun Section of the 15th Reinforcements, leaving on 26 July 1916. He embarked at Glasgow on 1 April 1918 to the return to New Zealand per the “Athenic” and arrived on 16 May. Discharged on 10 December 1918, on the termination of his period of engagement, he was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. He was going to 90 Liddle Street, Invercargill. There with him in Invercargill from 1922 was Olga Florence Kett (married), through till 1931. Sometime thereafter, Joseph went to Australia. Joseph had had a few brushes with the law. In January 1916 at Hastings, he was fined £2 for using obscene language; in January 1919, a cook, at Christchurch, he was drunk and disorderly; in August 1922, a cook, he was convicted and discharged on a charge of theft; in June 1923, a cook and labourer, at Invercargill, he was fined £2 for breach of peace. “Property Stolen - Invercargill. 2lst or 22nd April last, from 90 Liddle Street, the property of Joseph Govenor Kett, a gentlemen’s black-enamelled free-wheel New Monarch bicycle, upturned handles, no grips, top of right front fork dented, 22 in. frame; value, £l0. Identifiable.” [NZ Police Gazette, 12 Jun 1929.]

In the mid-1930s, Joseph and his son Walter Grosvenor Kett were at Mossman, New South Wales, Australia, Joseph a cook. Joseph Grosvenor Kett, 55 years old, a cook and a widower, enlisted on 10 October 1940 with the Citizen Military Forces, Australian Army. His next-of-kin was his daughter – Grace Constance Kett, Invercargill. It was also in 1940 that he married Hazel Amy Webb in Victoria. Joseph and Hazel lived at Ivanhoe, Victoria, Joseph listed as a soldier in 1941 and 1943. Joseph Grosvenor Kett died at St Vincent’s Hospital, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia, on 3 September 1944, aged 60 years. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at Fawkner Memorial Park Cemetery, Fawkner, Victoria. Hazel Amy Kett remarried in 1950. The children of Joseph Grosvenor Kett remained a close-knit unit. Walter appears to have been the only one of Joseph’s children to have spent time in Australia with their father. Walter Grosvenor Kett enlisted at Port Melbourne for service with the Royal Australian Navy in World War Two, his next-of-kin J. Kett. Walter Grosvenor Kett (known as Grove), a Navy storeman, died on 1 May 1968 at Port Melbourne. He was cremated and his ashes were interred at Eastern Cemetery, Invercargill on 29 November 1968. Grace Constance Kett, eldest daughter of Mr Joseph Kett, Australia, married Melville Cyril Maynard in 1941. Grace died in 1988 at Milton Hospital where she resided. She was cremated at Dunedin, her ashes interred at Milton Cemetery with Cyril. Eileen Winifred Coral Kett (Ila) married James Flynn in 1942. She died in 2010, her ashes interred at Eastern Cemetery, Invercargill with James, a veteran of World War Two. Grace and Eileen lived together at Invercargill before their marriages. William Joseph Gregory Kett (Bill) who had also resided in Invercargill and Southland, married Annie Smithies in 1939. He was at Invercargill when he enlisted for service in World War Two. He died suddenly at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Christchurch in 1985 and, after a Funeral Mass, was cremated. Joseph’s first wife, Elsie Emily (Perry) Kett, married William John Wilkins in 1928. She died at Hastings in 1957, leaving all to her Wilkins family (two sons and a daughter). It is likely that Elsie’s relationship with William Wilkins started during the war and was the reason for the separation from Joseph Kett. Perhaps it was the presence of Joseph’s sister Mary De Lany and her family that drew Joseph and his children to Invercargill. Joseph’s youngest brother, Victor Fanning Kett also ‘served’ with the New Zealand Forces in World War One. And two cousins served – Sydney Kett and George Alexander Kett. Both sons of Joseph Grosvenor – Walter Grosvenor Kett and William Gregory Joseph Kett - served in World War Two; and two nephews – Vernon Vincent Ernest Dines (son of his sister Constance) and Victor Fanning Kett (born Francesco Vittorio Pobar), the son of his brother Victor).

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [05 June 2025]; NZ BMD Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [05 June 2025]; South Canterbury Times, 1 March 1883, 8 January 1886, Timaru Herald, 5 March 1883, NZ Tablet, 20 April 1888 (Papers Past) [07 & 08 June 2025]; NZ & Australian Electoral Rolls (ancestry.com.au) [06 & 07 June 2025]; Fawkner Memorial Park Cemetery record (Find A Grave) [07 June 2025]

External Links

• Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph record
• Military personnel file

Related Documents

No documents available. 

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC Genealogy Society

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.