Daniel Kettle was the son of Daniel and Sarah Kettle. He was 13 when his father died and his mother moved back into her family home, The White House, on Hayes Common.  Encouraged from an early age by his grandfather, Alexander Findlay, and uncle, Alexander George Findlay, he soon was involved in the production of many different types of maps and in the 1871 census his profession was given as a Geographical Draughtsman.Ten years later he had taken over his uncle’s business and was now a nautical publisher with a special interest in producing or updating coastal and ocean maps.

It is fortunate for people interested in the history of his local village that he was very keen to preserve information on and drawings of Hayes that would otherwise have disappeared. He reproduced a map of Hayes & its Environs in 1882 which had originally been made by his grandfather Alexander Findlay in 1829. He ensured that the statement of the receipts and expenditure for the 1856 building of the north aisle of the Parish Church was preserved and also provided details of the building of the south aisle in 1879 and the contribution of Lord Sackville Cecil of the Oast House. After the death of the Revd George Varenne Reed a full list of the contributors to the rector’s memorial fountain was made.  He made black and white drawings from some of the original paintings of Wilhelmina Traill of Hayes Place, including a view of the Village showing the old George Inn and the stocks in 1815. Another illustration he saved was a drawing by his uncle, Alexander George Findlay, of the village in about 1835.

He was also interested in archaeology and drew a palaeolithic flint & neolithic flint axe found in 1896 on the Common.The following year he discovered and made a detailed coloured copy of a Hayes palaeolithic flint. Shortly before he left Hayes in 1897 he collaborated with Lord Sackville Cecil of the Oast House to insert these drawings in a copy of Kadwell’s History of Hayes 1833 which was created with space for later insertions.  

He still retained an interest in the village after he moved and on his death he was buried in the churchyard.

References:
P Griffiths The Findlays of Leith & London and their Kettle descendants www.genealogycrank.co.uk with special thanks for the photograph of Daniel Walter Kettle 
C Kadwell The History of Hayes in the County of Kent, 1898 edition Bromley Historic Collections P180/28/12