CHAPTER 17

A Jeweller’s Demise
1938

After a little while I managed to get the knife. At that time I think we were both quite mad.

Ernest Perceval Key was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, in 1872 and was the son of a Methodist minister and hosier and hatter, John Key, who was also born there. Ernest, who had at least three siblings, was apprenticed to a jeweller and a watchmaker. In 1901, he was an assistant jeweller, working in South Shields. In this year (on 8 January 1901 to be exact) he married Miss Rachel Maud Taylor of that town, whose father, Captain Jack Taylor, was a master mariner. They had at least three children (Gertrude, born in 1907, Jack, born in 1908 and Mormie, born in the following year). The family moved around various towns in Yorkshire, Key later managing jewellery shops in London. With the outbreak of war in 1914, Key, who was a crack shot, having competed at Bisley, taught musketry to volunteers in Sheffield. The family moved to Surbiton in 1916.

Key had many interests. He was a keen bowler and snooker player, and was a member of the St Mark’s Men’s Club and the Constitutional Club, too. He was a freemason, being a member of the Surbiton Lodge, where he had once been president, and also attended the Ditton Chapter. Spiritualism was another of his concerns, and most of the family were spiritualists, being members of the Surbiton Spiritualist Church and the equivalent in Tolworth. He was sober and moderate, respected and had not an enemy in the world.

At first the family lived above the jewellery shop in Victoria Road, Surbiton, where Key repaired watches and sold jewellery, but by 1933 they lived in Ewell Road. Key seems to have been a respected member of the community, but that did not prevent him from being safe from burglars. In March 1937, he lost goods to the value of about £300, a heavy loss indeed. This was all the more so because he could not get insurance. From that time on, he took his most valuable items home each night, a friend acting as bodyguard when returning home. By 1938 he was by no means a wealthy man, with his total estate being worth £185 16s.