The Reverend Frederick Arthur Colbatch Share was Rector of Kettlestone from 1911 until his death in 1926. During this time, he was a diligent note maker in the church service book where he recorded not only details of services, baptisms, marriages and burials but also village events, political changes and weather conditions. He was particularly prolific during the First World War, making notes about events at the Front, Zeppelin raids and how the war was affecting village life .

He was born in 1851 in Hammersmith, the son of John Colbatch Share, gentleman, and his wife Constance Ellen. Frederick studied theology in Dublin and Cambridge before becoming curate of St. Martin and St Paul Canterbury[1878 -80]. Following this he was ordained as vicar of Riddlesden near Keighley in Yorkshire,[1880-91] and then as Rector of Linton-cum-Hebden near Skipton from 1891 until he was appointed to Kettlestone.

Frederick married Bertha Pyari Doxey, daughter of Reverend John Smith Doxey and Catherine Mary Sutcliffe on 11th September 1901, when he was around 50 years old and she was just 21.Bertha was from a family that were missionaries in India in the late 1800s. She died suddenly in 1918, possibly from Spanish flu. It is probable that she was diabetic.

Bertha and Frederick had three sons.

Wilfrid Arthur C Share was born in July 1902 in Linton, Yorkshire. He died in 1924 in Kettlestone. Wilfrid had diabetes and died as a result of associated complications. Apparently insulin arrived for him two weeks after his death. (Michael, the youngest son, remembered his father having to lecture the local shopkeepers not to sell William sweets.)

Peter Colbatch Share was born about 1904 in Skipton, Yorkshire and sadly did not survive more than a few months.

Michael Ralph Stansfield Share was born about 1911 in Linton, Yorkshire, England. After his father died there was no immediate family left in England and so Michael emigrated to Canada at the age of 15, to live with his mother’s relatives in Saskatchewan.

Michael returned to England and served in the RAF at York during WWII. After the war he settled back in Canada where he married Dorothy Nash, originally from York.

INSCRIPTION ON THE RECTOR’S GRAVE IN KETTLESTONE CHURCHYARD

SACRED

TO THE MEMORY OF

FREDERICK ARTHUR

COLBATCH SHARE

RECTOR OF THIS PARISH

WHO PASSED AWAY AUGUST 3^RD 1926

AGED 75 YEARS

ALSO OF BERTHA PYARI SHARE

HIS WIFE

WHO DIED SEPTEMBER 7^TH 1918

AGED 39 YEARS

ALSO OF

WILFRID ARTHUR COLBATCH SHARE

HIS SON

WHO DIED DECEMBER 8^TH 1924

AGED 22 YEARS

ALSO OF

EMILY GERTRUDE MATILDA

COLBATCH SHARE

WHO DIED DECEMBER 18^TH 1919

AGED 66 YEARS

R.I.P.