The Cators of Beckenham & Woodbastwick

Quaker John Cator from Ross on Wye rose to financial success in London as a timber merchant in Bankside, Southwark and acceptance in the world of the landed gentry for his descendants by means of increasingly favourable marriages. John retired to Bromley in about 1762 and it was his son John who expanded the family estates, acquiring land in Beckenham that was eventually used for the building of superior houses on what became the carefully laid out Cator Estate. The choice of Betty Cator by Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon as one of her eight bridesmaids on the occasion of her marriage to the future King, the Duke of Kent, shows a measure of the family’s success in climbing the social ladder.

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