Mrs Ruck Keene
(1832-1901)
1 November 1861

Volume 5, page 208, sitting number 6326.

[Identified in the Silvy daybooks simply as 'Mrs Ruck Keene,' the following entry is identified as 'Rd. Ruck Keene,' presumably this sitter's husband.]

Baptised at Buckland in Surrey on 26 July 1826, Benjamin Ruck Keene was one of the sons of Reverend Charles Edward Ruck Keene (the incumbant at Buckland). 

On 30 August 1855 'at Erwarton, the Rev. B. Ruck Keene, Vicar of Bentley' married 'Edith Alice, eldest daughter of the Rev. Ralph Berners, Rector of Erwarton' (London Evening Standard, 1 September 1855).  

Born on 25 November 1832, Edith Alice Berners was baptised on 6 January 1833 at Woolverstone in Suffolk.

She and her husband appear on the 1861 census living at the Rectory in Erwarton, Suffolk. Also present on the night of the census were their two young sons, an eight-day-old daughter, and seven servants. 

By 1881 the family had moved to Copford in Essex, where Reverend Benjamin Ruck Keene was now the Rector. 

Reverend Benjamin Ruck Keene died, aged 72, at Copford on 17 October 1898, leaving an estate valued at £4322. 

Mrs Edith Alice Ruck Keene, 'formerly of Comford Rectory, Colchester,' died on 17 January 1901 at Church House, Lexden, Essex. She left an estate valued at £4703.