Ancestor Stories: Kate Kibble

At Your Family Line, we tell stories built from records such as census forms, certificates and workhouse registers. They’re not glamorous, and the people we meet in them usually didn’t get to write their own versions. But sometimes, through those fragments, a fuller picture starts to emerge.

This is one of those stories.

Kate Kibble was born around 1853. Her birth name was likely Catherine Morris, and her father was a blacksmith named James. There’s no sign that she went to school, and throughout her life, she signed her name with an X. That tells us something about her background — working-class, probably living in the crowded, smoky edges of Birmingham, where children worked as early as they could, and formal education wasn’t a guarantee.

In 1891, when she was around 37, Kate married John Kibble, a builder’s labourer. He was also 37, and both of them were living on Cecil Street at the time. It was a late marriage by Victorian standards, which might hint at earlier relationships or other circumstances we can’t see in the records. Their fathers, a blacksmith and a labourer, were men of modest means. The couple came from the same world.

Just over a year later, Kate gave birth to a daughter, Annie.

In 1901, they were still together. Annie was eight and at school. John was still working. Kate’s occupation was left blank, which could mean she was keeping house, or it could reflect something else starting to slip.

Because by 1903, things had changed drastically.

Kate had been convicted 36 times for drunkenness. She appeared in Smethwick Police Court, where it was noted that she was in such a state of intoxication that two constables had to carry her to the station. She had already been placed on Birmingham’s Black List — an official register of habitual drunkards — and the magistrates sentenced her to three years at Brentry Inebriates’ Reformatory near Bristol.

She was recorded as 50 years old, five foot one, with greying brown hair and blue eyes. She had lost her right eye and had crooked little fingers on both hands.

When she returned to Birmingham after her sentence, the pattern repeated itself. She was arrested again — this time found drunk and disorderly on Florence Road in Smethwick. At court, she promised to reform, but the magistrates said she seemed “hopeless” and difficult to manage. They fined her 40 shillings and costs, or gave her the option of a month in prison. According to one newspaper, the court believed this was “the kindest thing they could do for her.”

A newspaper report from 1907 tell us that Kate summoned her husband John to court for desertion. But he told the magistrates she was still getting drunk. The court sided with him. A separation order was granted, and John was given custody of their only child, Annie. 

By 1911, Kate was living at the Birmingham Union Workhouse, Western Road. She was still listed as married, but not living with John or Annie. Her daughter, now 18, was working as a servant in Kings Norton. John’s location isn’t clear, he doesn’t appear with either of them.

Ten years later, in 1921, Annie was 28 and listed as head of household. She was working at Lucas & Co., making motor lamps. She recorded her father as recently deceased, but still “married.” Kate was still alive, somewhere, but not living with her daughter, and not listed on any household return.

The final piece of Kate’s story appears in 1930.

She died on 25 February 1930, at the same place she’d lived twenty years earlier, the workhouse infirmary on Western Road. She was 79 years old. Her usual address was recorded as 22 Hamsworth Lane, likely a shared lodging house in a poor district of the city. Her occupation was listed as hawker, which means she may have still been selling small items in the street to get by. The cause of death was heart failure. The death was registered not by a family member, but by a staff member at the institution.

There’s no indication of a funeral, no obituary, no family left to claim her name.

Kate Kibble’s story is not a heroic one. It’s not tragic in the theatrical sense either. It’s the story of a woman whose life became defined by poverty, addiction, and long-term institutional care, but also by endurance. She lived to 79, which was remarkable given her circumstances. Her presence in the records, time and time again, is evidence of a person who kept going, even when support was minimal and options were few.

We don’t know what Annie thought of her mother in later years. We don’t know if they ever saw each other again. But Annie did still record her parents as married, even after John’s death. And sometimes, that’s the closest thing we get to connection.

At Your Family Line, we don’t just research the people with medals or property or titles. We also look for the people like Kate, whose lives were hard, complicated, and often lived on the margins. Their stories matter too.