Stories – Norfolk Tales, Myths & More!

Colman’s Revisited: The Real Mustard!

By Haydn Brown.

Jeremiah Colman was born 16 July 1777, the son of Robert Colman (1749-1807) and Mary (née Harmer); he was baptised on 6 August 1777 at Ashwellthorpe. Jeremiah was originally a farmer but went on to learn the business of miller at Bawburgh watermill, which was then processing corn, starting there in 1802.

Colmans (Bawburgh Mill).jpg — Bawburgh Mill. This is not the mill operated by Jeremiah Colman, but a later one which was built in the late 19th century to produce cloth pulp for paper making at Taverham Mill. Painting by Arthur Edward Davies.

In 1804 Jeremiah Colman transferred his flour milling business from Bawburgh, near Norwich, to Jeckall’s Pockthorpe Smockmill close to Magdalen Gates in the city itself.

Colmans (Pockthorpe Towermill) — Pockthorpe Towermill, formerly a Smockmill which Jeremiah James Colman bought in March in 1804. It was sometime during the following ten years that the smockmill was demolished and replaced by a towermill on the same site. Prior to moving to Pockthorpe, J. J. Colman ran the old wooden watermill at Bawburgh. During its years the towermill was also known as Bagshaw’s Mill, Bayfield’s Mill and St Paul’s Mill.Image: Norfolk Mills.

Some ten years later, on the 3 April 1814 to be precise,, Jeremiah Colman leased Stoke Holy Cross watermill on the river Tas as a going concern, paying £51 2s to his friend, Edward Armes, for his stock of mustard. One of Jeremiah’s account books survived from that very moment and records this sum. That particular business move between the two men was picked up by the press late on 30 April, and also on 7 May 1814 with the Norfolk Chronicle announcing that Jeremiah Colman had taken over the stock and trade of the mustard and flour mills at Stoke Holy Cross near Norwich, ‘lately carried on by Mr Edward Armes’.

With clear colaboration between the Colmans and the press, Jeremiah Colman had the following advertisement inserted. In it, Mr Colman:

‘respectfully informs his customers and the public in general that he will continue the manufacturing of mustard, and he takes leave to assure those who may be pleased to favour him with their orders that they shall be supplied in such a manner as cannot fail to secure their approbation’.

There was, of course, the inevitable press and business speculation as to why Mr Colman had taken over the Stoke Mills, and it transpired that the Ames and the Colman families knew each other very well. One of the Colmans had been engaged to Sarah Ames, the daughter of Edward, and although she had died before the marriage could take place the closeness between the families was unaffected. No only that, but Jeremiah Colman continued to visit Edward Ames and his remaining two daughters, Ann and Maria, in Yarmouth. Jeremiah’s own daughter recalled some years later that:

‘their names always bring before my eyes a childish recollection of alarming looking personages and rich plum cake’.

Thus, began the Mill’s most prosperous 50-year period at Stoke when Colmans’ began its aim of increasing its range of products, one of the first included the introduction of starch manufacture.

Jeremiah Colman had no children and adopted James who was the eldest of his brother Robert’s 15 children. Jeremiah was a devout Baptist, kindly, honest and a good master. Under his ownership, between 1814 and 1850, wages rose. Boys of 8 or 9 worked 12-hour shifts with two breaks and earned 3d per hour. A working day was normally 6.00am to 6.00pm, although sometimes a shift could go on until midnight; many workers then faced a long walk home.

February 15th 1823 was the day when Jeremiah Colman took his 22-year-old nephew, James, into partnership. James began with a quarter share which increased to one-third in 1827 and half in 1831. Thus, progressed the J & J Colman business which was to have such a beneficial effect on the life of the city, County and leading eventually to a change of the greatest importance to an agricultural region – the efficient processing, packaging and distribution of foodstuffs by industrial methods.

“Old” Jeremiah died on 3rd December 1851, aged 74. Then, barely two years later on 24 November 1853 James Colman, his adopted nephew and successor, also died, leaving his 24-year-old son, Jeremiah James Colman to take control of the family business.

At that time, Jeremiah James Colman controlled a small local company, employing a hand-full of workers and selling only modest amounts of mustard. In the space of 50 years he was to build the company into a global brand using innovative marketing techniques and through his hard-work, honesty and integrity as a business man and proved to be a brilliant innovator whose masterstrokes included creating Colman’s famous bull’s head trademark in 1855.

Then, in 1862 when the lease on the Stoke mill ran out, J.J. Colman transferred his production to a new and much larger factory built on land at Thorpe Hamlet near Carrow Road in the south of Norwich. He had earlier bought the land from the Norfolk Railway, an early railway company that controlled a network of some 94 miles around Norwich. This railway company had been formed in 1845 by the amalgamation of the Yarmouth and Norwich Railway and the Norwich and Brandon Railway. Thus, the Colman company had secured beneficial railway and river links, and also a ready-made workforce in the city – cloth workers made redundant by the industry’s exodus to northern mills.

Colmans (Factory-1850-photo-by-j-stewart) — Carrow Works in the 1850’s. Image: J Stewart.

Mustard Revolution (carrow works 19th century)2 — Carrow Works later in the 19th century. Photo: Norfolk County Council

Increasingly, Jeremiah James Colman took a benevolent interest in his workforce as his company grew far further then the numbers he had employed at Stoke Holy Cross. He continued to follow ‘Old’ Jeremiah’s, benevolent principles of believing in education for the employees’ children. In 1864, twenty years before parliament made any provision for compulsory education, Colman built a school on Carrow Hill for his workers children; its motto – ‘Sat cito, si sat bene’ (quick enough if it is well enough) When the school opened, Colman sent a letter to each of his employee’s extolling the benefits of education. Here are a few highlights from that letter:

‘In these days of progress, that man is sure to be left far behind, who has neglected the cultivation of his intellect while he who strives to improve his mind stands a fair chance of raising himself in the social scale’

‘Remember the motto of your Reading Society ‘KNOWLEDGE IS POWER’, power for advancement, power to be good and to do good, power to be happy and to cause happiness to others’

‘It is of the utmost importance that you should teach your children to be punctual, neat and industrious.’

Mustard Revolution (Colman's School 1864)2 — Colman’s School built on Carrow Hill in 1864. Photo: Norwich Museum Service.

A nursery was established for younger children and from 1864 a dispensary was set up for the benefit of his workers. In 1872 Colman set up a self-help medical club for his workers, encouraging them to contribute, matching their contributions with his own donations. By 1878, the Company had employed the first industrial nurse – a Philippa Flowerday. According to Reggie Unthank, in his blog about ‘The Plains of Norwich,

“Before being employed by Colmans at their Carrow Works, Phillipa Flowerday (1846-1930) trained and worked as a nurse at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. According to Rod Spokes, former Colmans manager, when the company’s dispensary was founded in 1864 a man was employed to visit male employees at home and report on cases of need. In 1872, Phillipa was employed to visit the families of the workpeople as well as assisting the doctor in the dispensary. She is therefore celebrated as the first industrial nurse in the country”

Colman (flowerdew) — Phillipa Flowerday is far right in this photograph. Image: Courtesy of Reggie Unthank and the Norfolk Record Office at www.picture.norfolk.gov.uk

In recent years, Phillipa has been commemorated by a third Plain on the site of the old Norfolk & Norwich Hospital, known as Phillipa Flowerday Plain.

Both images are courtesy of Reggie Unthank.

Then an onsite kitchen was opened and this provided tea or coffee in the morning and a hot meal for lunch, charged at cost – 4p bought hot meat, vegetable stew and a pint of coffee. Workers who were off sick long term would have food parcels delivered to them at home courtesy of the company (somebody was employed full-time to deliver these food provisions.)

Mustard Revolution (employees day trip 18th-century) — Colman’s Employees in the 19th century. Photo: Norwich Museum Service

This benevolence did not stop there; Colman also built and rented out houses to its workers and for those of its pensioners who had retired from a lifetime of serving the company. Many of the houses were in neighbouring Lakenham and Trowse areas, and some of the terraces in which these houses stood were said to have had mustard-coloured front doors. Special provision was made for single women who were provided with low-cost accommodation. He even provided public houses in which his workforce could enjoy a pint or two!!

Mustard Revolution (School Terrace) — Former Colman Cottages built in School Terrace, Norwich for employees by the Company. The doors of some houses, built by Colman’s, were said to have been painted mustard yellow. Photo: BBC

Colmans contributed towards its staff well-being with such treats as Christmas dinners in its granary plus regular staff outings They also provided a clothing club; this made saving towards the cost of clothing much easier. Additionally, the company contributed to the savings scheme. From 1874 a dressmaking teacher was hired to help female employee’s learn new skills that could be used in the home and to save money. In fact, a whole series of educational classes were provided free of charge to all employee’s. Colman insisted his employees were insured against sickness or injury, the company ran its own scheme for workers who could choose between that or joining a friendly society. A lending library and, as if to cap all these benefits, coffins for those of its workers and their families.

Artwork surrounding the title page of the Carrow Works magazine. Image: Joe Mason

There was even a works magazine and, with Art Nouveau well in vogue, the artwork surrounding the title page reflected this. The content was always topical with a good spread of photographs throughout. Individual headings included topics like the clubs and societies that employees could join and take an active part in. There was a gardening club to join, and that section would include illustrations via photographs showing examples of healthy plants and those on the other end of the scale. The Company’s footballing club was no forgotted with past cup winners etc. publicised. Then there was the Musical Society which boasted both a military band and an orchestra. There was, from time to time, plenty of other topics which found their way into the magazine.

Colmans (Military Band_Joe Mason) — J.J.Colmans Carrow Works Military Band from the early 1920’s. Image: Joe Mason

There was a large fire on the 30th June 1881 in the mustard packing factory. After this Colman acquired a 600-gallon steam engine (see image below) for use at the site and employed a dedicated team of fire fighters.

Mustard Revolution (carrow fire engine) — This engine is currently on display in the Bridewell Museum. Photo: Norwich Museum Service

In 1856, Colman’s employed just 200 people, by 1862 this had risen to 600 and by the time of his death in 1898 it was closer to 2,000. He expanded the range of products under production to include laundry blue, flour and starch. When Jeremiah James Colman was asked how he had made such a vast fortune from the sale of mustard he replied ‘I make my money from the mustard that people throw away on the sides of their plate’.

Being aware of the rise of Colman’s and of the work and life of Jeremiah James Colman himself is fundamental to understanding the history of Norwich in the 19th century. Colman’s influence could be seen everywhere and his morals, actions and achievements drastically altered the lives of many thousands of people living in Norwich. Clearly, the rapid growth of Colman’s Mustard runs counter to most people’s understanding of 19th century industrial growth, a time characterised by child labour, unsafe working environments and long hours for low pay, Colman, on the other hand, displayed a remarkable duty of care to his employee’s. Many industrialists of the time claimed that they could ill afford to treat their workers better or pay them more and to do so – that would destroy their business and the nation’s economy. Again, Colman demonstrated his ability to dramatically grow a profitable business whilst treating his employee’s with humanity. When Jeremiah James Colman died, he left £2,000 in his will to the employee’s trust and the money from this was used to set up a pension fund. By the time he had departed Colman had built up a system of nurseries, schools, medical care, food provision, housing and pensions. A system of protection for his workers from cradle to grave and 50 years before the creation of the welfare state!

Colmans (Leaving Work) — Leaving work at carrow Works. Photo: Unilever BNPS.

Why did Colman feel the need to provide such assistance? He could very easily have turned a blind eye to the plight of his workers, like the majority of his contemporaries did. He was no social revolutionary, in an age of socially radical ideologies when Colman was politically a liberal. He was however a devout Christian, paying strict adherence to the Protestant religion. This drove his belief in a strong work ethic but also his compassion for his fellow man and his ethical approach to business. Colman’s brand of charity was that of self-help; he believed in helping people, but he also believed that once helped, people had a duty to do everything in their power to help themselves.

Mustard Revolution (Production Line 1800's) — Colman’s production line during the late 19th century.

Such was Colman’s religious conviction that he was even tempted to turn down the opportunity to run the family business in the first place; he feared it would impinge upon the time he could devote to religion and self-improvement. He also questioned the morality of wealth and feared he would become corrupted and greedy. In time, he became a close friend of four-time Prime Minister William Gladstone, who offered Colman a baronetcy; Colman declined the offer saying:

‘anything I can do to promote the principles I have always supported … I am glad to do, but I much prefer that it should be without the reward or rank a title is supposed to give’.

So how was a small local company able to transform itself into one of the top 100 British companies in just under 50 years, whilst simultaneously providing a decent living for its workforce? Well, marketing was the key to Colman’s success, and Jeremiah James Colman was the man driving this forward. In 1855 they adopted the now instantly recognisable bright yellow packaging with the distinctive bulls head and in 1865 they gained a royal warrant from Queen Victoria. Colman’s products are still used by the Royal household today.

Colmans (Goods Train 1896) — An 1896 Colman’s train with its distinctive brand advertising. Later, the brand would be painted permanently on each wagon. Photo: Unilever BNPS.

Colman’s was one of the first companies to really push forward the marketing of their products to a consumer market. As early as the 1840’s Colman’s made the decision to start selling their products in much smaller packages (penny tins). This enabled smaller amounts to be purchased more cheaply which opened up a huge new potential customer base. Railway carriages were decorated in the distinctive brand colours to transport their goods across the country. Before the age of Television this allowed the whole country to see the Colmans imagery. By the 1870’s Carrow had its very own marketing department, and by the late 1890s they had started hiring famous artists to create high quality advertising posters for them. Including the illustrator John Hassall and later the painter Alfred John Munnings.

Outside his business interests, Jeremiah James Colman also had a great sense of civic responsibility stating:

‘Men should go into municipal affairs to see what they could do for the town, instead of seeing what the town could do for them’.

At the young age of 29 he was elected to Norwich City Council. He was Sheriff in 1862-63, Mayor 1867-68, in 1869 he became a magistrate for Norwich and then for Norfolk in 1872. In 1871 he was elected as a liberal MP for Norwich, serving for 25 years. However, his political career was mixed; he did not thrive in the Houses of Parliament as a Liberal MP, in part due to his poor oratory skills, but also because he very quickly became disillusioned with national politics. He was however much more successful as a local politician he sought to end the corruption for which Norwich was well known.

Mustard Revolution (jeremiah james colman-1867-1868) — J. J. Colman.

He was a part of Norwich’s ‘Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Society’, this group met regularly and spent their time writing, reading and debating the great questions of the day, focusing on politics, religion, society, and morality. He was closely involved with the successful launch of the Eastern Daily Press in 1870 (a newspaper that is still going strong) and fought for and won having a preservation order placed upon the city walls.

Colman was one of the leaders of a subscription campaign that sought to argue for all public buildings in Norwich being used for the public benefit. By 1886 they had been successful in securing both the Castle and Blackfriars Hall for public use. At the time Colman was a trustee of Norwich Museums, whose collections were then housed in a purpose-built building on Exchange Street. After closing as a prison, the castle was offered to both the city and county councils for purchase, but they were unwilling to meet such expense. Briefly the decision had been made to allow the castle to become a ruin, however banker John Henry Gurney purchased the castle, and it re-opened as the museum we know today.

In the winter of 1896, he visited Egypt with several family members, for the purpose of offering re-cooperation to his ill son Alan. Sadly, Alan died in February 1897 and the family headed home, however Colman procured over 250 artefacts whilst there. In 1921 these were donated to Norwich Museums by his daughters and include an Egyptian shroud! After his son had died, he purchased and donated the land that was used to build the extension of the Jenny Lind Hospital.

In the space of three and a half years Colman lost his son Alan his wife Caroline in 1895 and then his mother in 1898, himself dying at home in Corton, Suffolk shortly afterwards. His funeral procession numbered 1200 people, which is perhaps the greatest indication of how important Jeremiah James Colman was to so many people in 19th century Norwich. Today, Norwich has much more than just Mustard to thank this gentleman for!

THE END

Footnote:
In 1973 the firm celebrated 150 years of business since the first partnership, and to commemorate the occasion opened the Mustard Shop in Bridewell Alley, Norwich, which has become a firmly established tourist attraction. In 1995 Colman’s was bought by Unilever, and became part of the Van den Bergh Food Group. In January 2001 Van den Bergh Foods merged with Bestoods UK Ltd to form Unilever Bestfoods Ltd. Material relating to the Colman brand would. from that year, be found in the Unilever Bestfoods collection (UBF).

Sources:
Colman, H.C., Jeremiah James Colman: A Memoir, 1905; Norfolk Chronicle.
http://unilever-archives.com/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=GB1752.CON
https://joemasonspage.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/comans-of-norwich/

Baconsthorpe: Its Spectral Sentry!

By Haydn Brown.

Hidden from the busy roads around Holt is a hint of a prosperous past; a past that comes in the form of a ruin of a once-magnificent manor house which was originally the home to the Heydon family. This ruin is a hidden gem, now owned by English Heritage; the guardians of not only what remains of brick, stone, flint and mortar, but of a place that boasts a very curious caretaker – that of a spectral sentry!

It is Baconsthorpe Castle of which I speak, a peaceful place standing once-proud in the middle of open meadows and farmland with an impressive moat and lake offering an image of its lost grandeur which lent itself to this gentle corner of Norfolk. What meets the eye is also a stony reminder of how far one can fall from grace.

The Heydons began building work on the fortified manor house in 1450, adding extensions as their wealth grew. The person who started the whole project was lawyer, Sir John Heydon who was born the son of William Baxter, a peasant in Heydon. It is thought that Sir John changed his family surname to his village name to disguise his humble beginnings. In time, Sir John Heydon was appointed Recorder of Norwich in 1431, but soon became so unpopular with townsmen that he was dismissed as Recorder by May 1437; he was also accused of giving the City’s documents to Norwich Cathedral priory during a dispute. It was clear that John was, by nature and profession, an unscrupulous lawyer, hard man and opportunist; as an old Norfolk rhyme states: “There never was a Paston poor, or a Heydon a coward.” It also seemed to matter not to John that there was always a possibility that he may need those around him to help him see off enemies! One of these was Lord Moleynes whom John was to incite when he laid claim to the Paston Estate at Gresham, a claim that resulted in Margaret Paston and a dozen retainers being attacked by a mob of around 1,000. John also clashed with the Paston’s patron, Sir John Fastoff in disputes of property.

If turbulent relationships was not enough, John Heydon, during the intensive Wars of the Roses, often switched political allegiances to serve his own means. However and despite being also linked to extortion, duplicity and underhand tactics, John Heydon proved to be an astute survivor. At least two of those close to him were beheaded but John managed to not only stay alive but managed to retain his seat in Baconsthorpe, his property portfolio and his wealth.

The Heydons lived at Baconsthorpe for 200 years, their fortune built on the wool industry. But the family were poor estate managers and Christopher Heydon, who died in 1579, left his son William with growing debts. It was him and his eldest son Christopher who were the ones who wrought the family’s downfall; both were hot-tempered and clashed badly. Christopher lived at Saxlingham Hall with his wife Lady Mirabel. William was forced to sell off parts of the manor house.

In the late 16th or early 17th century, an ornamental mere was created to the east of the moat and formal gardens were created, but by the mid-17th century, the insolvency of successive Heydons forced them to demolish most of the castle and sell the stone, some of which ended up at Felbrigg Hall. The remains of the castle was sold to merchant Daniel Bridges in 1673. The gatehouse was eventually converted into a private dwelling and occupied until 1920 when it collapsed and the building left to decay.

There is so much more to the history of the Heydons and all of it would be very interesting but, unfortunately, there is not enough space here to document it. However, there is another side to Baconsthorpe that not many know about; it may surprise and intrigue you. It is that when visitors come to the castle and wander through the shattered remains to the moat, some will witness the silence broken by the unmistakeable sound of stones breaking the still waters – stones clearly thrown from some height! This and the sight of ripples spreading to either side and along the moat may well cause confusion with a few, but on turning inward to the ruin they will see clearly from where the stones were thrown. Not only that but some may catch sight of a ghostly medieval sentry standing on the castle walls, throwing these stones – as if to pass the time maybe? Those that witness this may feel startled, but rest assured – no one has ever reported feeling threatened by this stone-throwing spirit!

So be at ease, for this experience is only a further reminder that a spectral sentry was, at one moment in the distant past, detailed to be on guard at Baconsthorpe. There is every possibility, as things stand, that this lone soul may well stay there until such time as a counter order is issued from the appropriate authority for him to stand down. Until then……………….!

THE END

Sources:
http://www.northnorfolknews.co.uk/news/weird-norfolk-the-ghost-of-baconsthorpe-castle-1-5187113
https://great-castles.com/baconsthorpeghost.php

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An Ex. Smuggler in Yarmouth

The date is 5 February 1840. Charles Lewis Redwood, ex. smuggler, steers the St Leonard into the Yare and deftly slips the vessel up against the quay from where he oversees his men unloading the ship’s cargo. It is now honest fare that he carries between Harwich and London. Not like the bales of tea and barrels of brandy, stashed in the hulk and discovered when the excise officers intercepted the Nancy crossing the Yarmouth Roads and disguised as a fishing smack way back. He now stands at the helm of the St Leonard and remembers the tightening of his stomach the last time he watched Yarmouth coming into view, shackled as he and his men were aboard the Admiralty cutter as his sloop, the Nancy, was towed into port.

It is in fact four years since he was on this quay when Harwich men were waiting to greet the five smugglers from the Nancy after their six-month imprisonment in Yarmouth. Singing and slapping each other’s shoulders, they marched down to the dock and into the nearest tavern. Redwood was impatient to return home but first he must treat the band of smugglers for supporting his men during their confinement with regular supplies of food and tobacco. It felt ungrateful to watch his friends supping their ale and not join them in a glass. After all this time, he was glad to get the commission to come back to Yarmouth. At last he can call on the prison teacher whom he promised to visit sometime. Now, he seeks directions to Row 57. Will Miss Martin remember him?

Smugglers Return (A Yarmouth Row) — A typical Row in Great Yarmouth where Sarah Martin lived.

She recognizes the sailor instantly, welcoming him into her little room. He’s taken aback by its bare simplicity. Brewing the tea strong, she manages to get two cups out of the teapot, made only for one. It was a hard time, he tells her, when he left the Gaol. Fourteen months he spent, searching for honest work. With his wife and children to feed, it was a sore temptation not to go back to the contraband. But he stood by what his teacher taught him. Now, he says proudly, he is master of a respectable merchant’s ship.

The mariner’s eyes light up when she asks after his family. Sarah, his wife, has another baby on the way. William, his first-born, has become a sailor. He’s a strapping lad. Good and steady. The teacher rummages through a box of envelopes, and takes out the letters of thanks from Edmund Cole and his wife, to read their cheery news. Like Redwood, the first mate had struggled when he returned home. But Cole had visited last summer and told Miss Martin how all the Nancy’s crew had finally left off smuggling. They are doing well, Charles Redwood nods. Fine men. He sees them often. The teacher is happy to hear him confirm Edmund Cole’s reports. Shyly, before he leaves, the former prisoner takes from his sack two presents for the teacher. He bought them in France, a token of his gratitude for all she has done for him. He hopes she will like them. But sat on the table between them, the pretty vase and jewellery box look out of place, he thinks.

Once the master mariner bids her farewell, Sarah Martin opens the Liberated Prisoners book and writes of his visit and gifts—a vase covered in shells, and a curious glass box—his gratitude for what he thought his obligation to me. At the end of their confinement, she remembers smiling, the smugglers asked to speak with the prisoners, and begged them to listen to her advice, and treat her with respect. She picks up the vase and box, and hesitates, weighing the strange trinkets in her hands. I am not sure if she stands them on the mantelpiece or hides them away in a cupboard. The smugglers on the Nancy had been in prison before, as they told Sarah Martin. Why did her teaching touch them when previous correction had failed to deter their illegal activities?

Smugglers Return (Sarah Martin Reads to Prisoner)1 — Sarah Martin reads to a prisoner in Great Yarmouth’s jail. Image: *Chatterbox*, 1891

In 1832 Charles Redwood was found in charge of the Union of Ipswich, sailing as a collier hauler with contraband concealed under the coal. His men were pressed into the Navy for five years—a gain for the Admiralty that won the services of experienced sailors, and for the Home Office that saved on the cost of imprisoning them. Of the six crew members, only the cabin boy was acquitted, as at the Yarmouth trial. But the captain must be made an example. Unable to afford the £100 fine, Redwood was sent to Springfield Gaol, a convict prison near Chelmsford.

Smugglers Return (Chelmsford Gaol) — **Springfield/Chelmsford Gaol**
The County Gaol, at Springfield, stands in an airy and pleasant situation on about 9 acres of land, half of which is enclosed by the boundary wall. The erection of the old buildings was commenced in 1822, and took six years to be built at a cost of about £57,000. Springfield opened in 1828 as a modern penitentiary, designed in the radial style to ensure close observation of inmates, with a tread wheel for hard labour. Under a ‘silent system’, inmates were prohibited from speaking with each other, on pain of punishment.

Housed together at Yarmouth Gaol and able to converse freely, the ‘Nancy’ men laboured keenly at their lessons. While agreeing with the teacher that smuggling was a form of fraud involving habitual lying, they doubted they could afford to leave the trade. Discussing their concerns with Miss Martin, and mulling over the costs and benefits when she left, the five men began to embrace Christian reclamation as a group.

Mateship had bound the Nancy men together on the open seas. It sustained them in prison, with gifts from the smugglers’ band—one of the illicit friendly societies formed by contraband men. The vision of Christian fellowship, offered by the prison teacher, shared much in common with the values of fraternity and mutual obligation expressed by friendly societies across the trades, often symbolized in Christian terms, especially in the figures of the Good Samaritan and St Christopher. They were embedded, too, in the sea-faring life where the maritime spirit of hardy independence was built on the interdependence of crewmen. Those same values girded the men in the difficult months after release, when the older ones kept a careful eye on their younger mates.

Determination to leave the smuggling trade was surely strengthened by the strain their imprisonment had placed on the men’s families and the fear of transportation if they were caught again. When Charles Redwood was arrested in 1836, his son Lewis was just two-years-old. The census returns for the Redwood household suggest the precarious nature of sailoring life but also the principles of kinship and reciprocity that kept the master mariner on the straight-and-narrow and his family together. At each census the sailor and his wife lived at a different address but always in the streets by the harbour. In 1841, five of their eight sons and daughters, were with them in Castle Street. When the children left home, they remained close by.

All Redwood’s sons became mariners and his daughters married sailors or men employed in trades connected with the sea. In 1851 his widowed daughter Jane had returned to live with her parents, while she worked as a charwoman to support her young daughter and new-born son. By 1861, now remarried to another sailor, she was living next door to her mother Sarah, who was caring for two of her grandchildren. The former smuggler had passed away in 1859, aged sixty-five. Proudly, his family or his friends placed notices in the Essex Standard and Chelmsford Chronicle, to note the death at Harwich of Mr Charles Redwood, mariner of that town – and, in the 1850s, a very busy port on Essex’s North Sea coast where the town’s quays had to be extended through land reclamation

****

At the click of the latch, young Lewis Redwood runs squealing to the door and tugs at his father’s breeches. Sarah is all smiles. He feels the baby, firm in her belly, as he presses her in his arms. This one will not know his Daddy once went to gaol. Sitting in his chair by the hearth, he keeps an eye on the potatoes bubbling on the stove while his daughters set the table. Suddenly he is hungry as the herrings, bought today in Yarmouth, sizzle smoky-sweet on the griddle. Up on the mantelpiece, Sarah has added the vase to the collection of shell decorations, beloved by sailors, which her husband has brought back from his travels. The new jewellery box has pride of place, already containing her blue bead necklace and money for next week’s housekeeping. Its glinting glass casts flickering rays of lamplight onto a picture, cut out from a magazine; it is his favourite print – ‘A Sailor’s Family’ by Thomas Rowlandson:

Smugglers Return (A Sailor's Home 1787)1 — ‘A Sailor’s Family’ by Thomas Rowlandson. Image: Public Domain

Though often portrayed as rowdy, drunken womanizers, sailors are rarely shown in that domestic role that many of them played – that of father. In the drawing a jack cradles his infant child in one hand, while embracing his wife with the other. Even a dog joins the happy family, looking up to the sailor for approval or acknowledgement. Though drawn in a year of relative peace for the Crown, the pistol, musket, sword, and powder keg above the family all hint at the ever present threat of war that intrudes on their private moment. The sailor wears a round hat with a low crown and very short brim. His hair is long and unruly. Though it is difficult to make out, the neckcloth appears to be plaid or striped. Our tar’s jacket has unbuttoned slash cuffs. The trousers are very narrowly striped, his stockings are white, and his pointed toe shoes have oval buckles.

Redwood turns away from the happy picture and looks at his own equally happy family, gathered around the table, his wife beckoning him. For a moment he thinks of Miss Martin, sitting at the table in her spartan room, writing out verses for the prisoners to copy. Charles Redwood shakes his head and then joins the homecoming supper, beaming.

****

They say that everyone loves a sailor, so here are few more returning
smugglers and sailors ………

Smugglers Return (Wilkie) — The Smuggler’s Return, by David Wilkie, Image: Wikigallery

Smugglers Return (The Arrest) — The Arrest of the Smuggler in West Looe, 1820. Credit Looe Guildhall

Smugglers Return (Successful Cruise) — The Smuggler at Home after a Successful Cruise, Henry Perlee Parker 1850

Smugglers Return (Sunderland Lustre)1 — Credit Sunderland Lustre. United Collections

Smugglers Return (A Sailor's Return)1 — The Sailor’s Return by Thomas Rowlandson. Image: Yale Centre for British Art

By Helen Rogers, Oct 2016.

Sources:
https://convictionblog.com/2016/10/31/the-smugglers-return

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A Murderer Amongst King’s Lynn School’s Staff!

By Haydn Brown.

The subject of the gibbet has become a topic of correspondence of late. Amongst the names of those who were so called ‘gibbeted’ for a crime is a Eugene Aram of Knaresborough in the County of Yorkshire. He suffered this fate in 1759.

Here, it should first be said that Eugene Aram was born in 1704 in the village of Ramsgill, near Harrogate to a family of labourers, his father being a gardener. But Aram was bright; his intellectual energy and quick mind enabled him to gain an education and to discover and develop a particular gift for languages, especially ancient ones. He was therefore, not the typical eighteenth-century murderer, for he had become an educated professional, a published author of works of philology who, at the time of his arrest at the King’s Lynn Grammar School, was working on his comparative lexicon of Latin, Greek and Celtic.

A note of Eugene Aram’s appointment as an usher at King’s Lynn Grammar School in February 1758, as it appears in the minutes and memoranda of the King’s Lynn Town Council. King’s Lynn Borough Archives, Hall Books, KL/C 7/13.

But before then, and after spending some time without success in London, he returned to Knaresborough and became a teacher, marrying and fathering seven children whilst at the same time gradually running up debts. Matters became particularly sour when he made the acquaintance of a shoe-maker, Daniel Clark, whose wife was a woman of means. Clark was spending lavishly and running up debts with local traders. Then, on 7 February 1744 he vanished. This set tongues wagging and by April 1745, Aram was starting to feel insecure; he abandoned his wife and children, moving from town to town before he was appointment as an usher at King’s Lynn Grammar School in February 1758. At that time the school was housed above the 14th-century Charnel Chapel, alongside St Margaret’s Church on Saturday Market Place. Later it was to become a Workhouse.

A pre 1914 view of the ‘New Shambles’ (meat market downstairs and King’s Lynn Grammar School upstairs) once stood near the site of the Saturday market place until 1914. Eugene Aram taught in the grammar school. Wikipedia.

The Plaque showing the site of the former St John’s Charnal Chapel between 1364 and 1779. In front was a row of butcher’s Shambles. Above, for a time, was the King’s Lynn Grammar School in which Aram’s taught until his arrest.

At first it was thought Aram had run away to escape his debts; his friends assuming that he had also fled with a quantity of valuable goods he had acquired illegally. At the same time Daniel Clark remained unaccounted for, even a ‘no questions asked’ reward of £15 (more than £3,000 in today’s money) was offered for information, but there were no takers.

Thirteen years later, the discovery of bones in St Robert’s cave. just outside Knaresborough led to speculation that Aram and another man, Richard Houseman, had conspired to kill Clark and steal his possessions. Aram was traced and arrested; this came about when a visiting horse trader to King’s Lynn recognised him, and the wheels of justice began to turn. In the same year, a skeleton was discovered in St Robert’s Cave near Knaresborough which did not do any favours for Aram. At some point his property was searched and some of Clark’s booty was found in Aram’s Garden as well as those of other friends. Aram was later to say that Clarke had left the goods there. Also, Houseman, who seemed by some to be far more suspicious, was to turn King’s Evidence and testified that Aram had murdered Clark.

St Robert’s Cave, Knarsborough in which bones were found. Mark Pallant.

The saying “hell hath no fury……” seems to have been appropriate for Mrs Aram, Eugene’s abandoned wife; she was quick to accuse him of the murder of Daniel Clark. Added to this was the rumours going around of an affair between her and Clark, which added more fuel to the fire. Aram was taken back to Yorkshire and tried for murder.

At his trial, in August 1759, Aram decided, unwisely as it turned out, to conduct his own defence. He questioned the identification of the bones and asserted his own good character but did not challenge the shaky, inconsistent and unreliable evidence of his former friend, Houseman. Despite the lack of conclusive evidence, Aram was convicted and sentenced to death. Accordingly, Aram was executed at York Castle, after an unsuccessful attempt to end his own life in prison, and his body returned to Knaresborough, where his gibbet was erected close to the scene of crime, overlooking the river Nidd; his body remained there, gradually decomposing, for at least 25–30 years.

There was great public interest in Aram’s crime and trial. The association between the apparently gentle and scholarly man and violent murder for material gain was unusual and, combined with the instability of the evidence on which he was convicted, resulted in a widespread belief that the wrong man had been executed. His biographer, Norrison Scatcherd, even described the riots and threats with which Houseman was greeted on his own return to Knaresborough.

Historical image of Eugene Aram

Historical image of Eugene Aram and the incident.

Aram’s story was irresistible to cultural producers of the period. Bulwer-Lytton’s novel ‘Eugene Aram (1831)’, giving Aram a beautiful and brilliant lover, romanticised the story. Bulwer-Lytton’s Eugene Aram, though involved in the death of Clark, was the victim of circumstances and no murderer. The novel was adapted for the stage and had a successful run with Henry Irving in the title role. Thomas Hood’s narrative poem “The Dream of Eugene Aram” (1829) was recited by generations of schoolchildren. PG Wodehouse even has Bertie Wooster quoting Hood’s poem in proper Wooster style – (something along these lines): Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tumty-tum, I slew him, tum-tum tum! (PG Wodehouse, Jeeves Takes Charge, 1916) Hood’s Aram, though guilty, was thoughtful, penitent and intelligent: a sympathetic hero. Bulwer-Lytton’s novel and Hood’s poem are the best known of Aram’s literary incarnations, but there were many more – forty-one, including a stage play and at least three films.

Gustave Doré’s engraving of Eugene Aram. Photostock.

At some point, probably before the end of the eighteenth century, a doctor called Hutchinson, then practising in Knaresborough, decided to augment his private cabinet of curiosities with the skull of Eugene Aram and managed to remove it from its gibbet cage. But why was Hutchinson so keen to acquire Aram’s skull? Maybe it was simply that he wanted it as a curiosity because of its association with a significant local event—and one which had attracted national attention – who knows!

The skull resided in Hutchinson’s personal museum until he died, when it passed to his widow’s second husband, and his former assistant, Mr Richardson, a surgeon from Harrogate. When, in 1837, the young Dr James Inglis, burning with phrenological zeal, took up a post as physician at the public dispensary in neighbouring Ripon, it is probable that he found out about Aram’s skull from Richardson, as a fellow medical man working in a neighbouring town. It was Inglis who presented the skull to the Newcastle meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1838.

5. Aram’s skull. Norfolk Museums Service.

The skull then passed from Dr Richardson to his step-grandson, John Walker, in whose private collection it remained, first at Malton in Yorkshire and then at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, when Walker moved house. He presented the skull to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1869, by which date it had become something of a strange embarrassment to its owner, an Anglican minister, who therefore sought to place it in a museum. The skull was included in Sir William Flower’s catalogues of the Royal College collections in 1879 and 1907 and remained in that museum until 1993 when it was given to King’s Lynn Borough Council and passed to the Old Gaol House Museum in the town.

Today, and for anyone who is interested, there are three last bits to this story. In the Stories of Lynn Museum there are exhibited in the old gaol cells: Aram’s skull, a fragment of Clark’s skull, and a small pill box made of the wood from the gallows on which Aram was hung.

THE END

Sources: Tarlow S. (2017) The Afterlife of the Gibbet. In: The Golden and Ghoulish Age of the Gibbet in Britain. Palgrave Historical Studies in the Criminal Corpse and its Afterlife. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-60089-9_3. Link: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-60089-9_3 Also: https://norfolkrecordofficeblog.org/2019/03/12/a-murderer-in-the-school-the-case-of-eugene-aram-of-kings-lynn/
https://web.archive.org/web/20151224161853/http://lifeloom.com/Eugene_Aram.htm

Banner Heading Image: This is the Caxton Gibbet, which is on the old Ermine Street Roman Road where it crosses the Cambridge to St Neots Road. Wikipedia.

Robert Walpole and ‘The Bloody Code’!

By Haydn Brown.

England in Georgian times is remembered as a period of great elegance and refinement but it was also notorious for the brutality of its judicial system and a time when more than 200 crimes on the statute book carried the death penalty. Imprisonment for debt was commonplace and public floggings and executions were a popular source of entertainment.

Walpole (Execution of Lord Ferrers) — The execution of Lord Ferrers at Tyburn (From an Old Print of the Period.). Image: Public Domain.

The Government of the day had no desire to to improve the life of ordinary people – and probably was not expected do so. It was however expected to protect the land and property of the 3% of the population with wealth; these were the lawmakers and the only ones who were permitted to vote in elections even though they were unlikely to be the victim of crime – unless it was the pickpocket on the street, the robber on the highway, or from poaching on the rich man’s estate. The true beneficiaries of the draconian laws were more often middle-class shop owners and tavern keepers who along with the poor were always more vulnerable to being the victims of crime; however, this was a by-product of, and not the intention of, those who made the law.

Walpole (bloody-code) — Sir Robert Walpole

The man most responsible for the shaping of Georgian England was Robert Walpole. He was born near Houghton in Norfolk on 26 August 1676, the son of a prominent Whig politician who upon his father’s death in January 1701, was elected as Member of Parliament for his old constituency of Castle Rising.

Walpole (Houghton Hall) — Houghton Hall, Norfolk.

British politics in the eighteenth century reflected a society divided between the pro-Church and pro-Monarchy landed aristocracy and the rapidly expanding commercial class that sought the primacy of Parliament in all things (the vast majority had no say at all) and it was a fraught arena where tensions often ran high. The Tories and the Whigs were not political parties as we would understand them today but factions who formed alliances to best serve their own interests, and it was no friendly rivalry. They were in effect two warring camps with both willing to take up the cudgel if required. Their mutual enmity was reflected in the names they called one another – a Tory was an Irish bandit or thief – a Whig a Scottish rebel or Presbyterian fanatic.

The fact that elections were held every three years guaranteed a febrile atmosphere with members of the different factions meeting in their own coffee houses to conspire with one another and plot their opponents, downfall. Also, Political meetings were violent affairs, graft and corruption was commonplace, votes and constituency seats bought and sold and the behaviour on the hustings would often border on riotous assembly.

Yet this would be the world in which Robert Walpole, the great manipulator not to say enabler, would thrive and prosper. Walpole’s connections ensured that he soon gained political office and he proved himself an able administrator and earned a reputation for probity at a time when such a thing was transparently lacking in politics, this despite the fact that he had been briefly imprisoned for embezzlement in 1712. Having gained the favour of King George I, as he would later his son George II, he began to rise through Government ranks but his ambition was a secret to no one and he was hated by the Tories who time and again tried to discredit him and have him impeached. But, Walpole’s reputation was to soar following the fiasco of the South Sea Bubble.

Walpole (bloody-code_Bubble) — The South Sea Company.

The South Sea Company had been formed in 1711 as a joint-stock company which through the sale of bonds would purchase the national debt but in reality, it was a get rich quick scheme underpinned by promises of vast profits to be made from trade. After all, the Company had been granted a monopoly of trade with South America. The fact that Britain was at war with Spain meant that there was little real trade to be had – a fact that was seemingly overlooked by most investors. The rich flocked to buy shares but by 1720 it was apparent that the South Sea Company was an empty shell and the rush to sell shares caused it to crash spectacularly.

Though Walpole had also invested heavily he had earlier been advised to sell his shares. Even so, he tried to re-invest but his purchase of further shares was delayed in the mail and did not arrive in time. This was to prove a stroke of good fortune both financially and more significantly politically for coupled with a few minor criticisms he had made of the Company’s behaviour in the House of Commons it appeared to many that he’d had the foresight to see the crash coming. However, nothing could have been further from the truth but it provided him with a reputation for financial rectitude at a time when others who should have known better had allowed their greed to overwhelm their common sense.

The King now turned to Walpole to help the Government out of the financial mess it now found itself in, and he seized the opportunity with aplomb. Walpole was quick to smooth things over making a series of emollient and reassuring speeches in the House of Commons and confiscating the estates of the Company’s Directors to pay off those worst hit financially in the crisis. He also deflected criticism away from the King who as Governor of the Company was heavily implicated in its wrongdoings. For this both the King and his successor George II would be eternally grateful. Appointed to the position of First Lord of the Treasury alongside a number of other high offices Walpole was the King’s indispensable man and effectively Britain’s first Prime Minister and he would remain so for the next 15 years. It was to be the beginning of the Whig Supremacy and Walpole was to refashion Georgian England in his own image – a country of both conspicuous wealth and extreme poverty, of unapologetic self-interest and punitive laws.

First Walpole, or Cock Robin as he was known, not always with affection, secured his own position. He accumulated for himself a vast array of patronage, ensured that people who would be his men in Parliament were elected to Rotten Boroughs, and aware that he could break as well as make political careers where bribery didn’t serve his purposes, he wasn’t averse to a little intimidation. As a last resort he could always turn to the King for support. Walpole’s policy would be to maintain the status-quo by appealing to the naked self-interest of those who mattered. He adopted a peace policy avoiding ruinously expensive wars, kept taxes low especially those on land, and introduced laws that would protect property, game, and livestock. The rich could sit back and enjoy their wealth comfortable in the knowledge that they were safe from ideological dispute, revolution, robbery, or foreign invasion, and as long as the calm waters of conspicuous self-indulgence and display remained undisturbed then all was well in Georgian England. It would prove for the time being at least a winning formula.

Walpole (bloody-code)2 — Debtor’s Prison Scene

The most potent symbol of Walpole’s England was to be the Debtor’s Prison. Every major city had at least one and there were seven in London alone, the most notorious of which were the Fleet Prison in Farringdon Street and the Marshalsea Prison in Southwark. These prisons were Government owned but privately managed, and were run for profit. For example, in 1728, Thomas Bambridge purchased the Letters of Patent to run the Fleet Prison as its Warden for £5,000, and like most Warden’s he immediately divided the prisoners into those who could pay for their keep and those who could not. Indeed, Bambridge was to become particularly notorious for extorting money from his inmates even manacling them on occasions until his demands were met. It was possible to be imprisoned for a debt as little as £2 and incarceration would often come as the result of a request from the creditor.

Walpole (bloody-code)3 — Debtor’s Prison Cell

Whilst in prison the interest on the debt would continue to accrue and release would only come after a financial arrangement had been made for repayment of the debt or the creditor himself relented, and with no specific time to be served a prisoner could be wrangling for his release ad nauseam. For those able to pay imprisonment would be less onerous and depending on how much money they had they might get a cell to themselves with a bed, they would also be able to purchase food, and beer that was often brewed on the premises. They could receive visits from their family, if they were not already imprisoned with the inmate which sometimes happened, and could even conduct business.

The Fleet Prison even permitted prisoners to live within a short distance of the confines of the prison itself, a practice known as the “Liberty of the Rules”. If you were unable to pay for your keep then you would be left to rot in the squalor of the common cells, the damp, windowless, rat-infested rooms situated on the ground floor where the petty criminals were confined. Forced to sleep on a bare floor strewn with straw, fed on gruel twice a day, and with nowhere to urinate or defecate disease was rife and life expectancy short.

The “Bloody Code” as it was to become known, saw offences ranging from poaching, the theft of a loaf of bread, and sheep stealing through to murder and treason carry the death penalty. It was harsh in the extreme, as also were the penalties for those crimes that did not carry the ultimate sanction such as being publicly whipped, branded with hot irons, and confined to the pillory for days on end. In the case of many women and children, and those men who could show themselves to have been of previously good character there was always the option of transportation to the colonies as an indentured slave.

Despite the many laws that now made up the statute book there were few formal structures in place with which to enforce them. There was no police force at this time and instead every parish was obliged to have at least a Constable but these were unpaid volunteers often concerned only with the status their position brought them and little concerned with the actual enforcement of the law. In London and other major cities there were paid Watchmen, these were often elderly ex-soldiers who patrolled the streets at night and at the top of every hour would ring a bell to declare the time and cry “All is well.” Though they were much-maligned at the time they did play a role in keeping the streets safe at night and provided reassurance if nothing else.

Walpole (Henry Fielding) — Henry Fielding

In 1749, the author Henry Fielding who had been appointed Chief Magistrate for London along with his brother John founded the Bow Street Runners. They now largely replaced the “Thief Takers”, the men often recruited from amongst the criminal underworld itself who would investigate crimes and arrest people for a fee. This had always been an unsatisfactory arrangement to say the least for the Thief Takers were most likely involved in the crime itself and were merely turning in their associates for money. The Bow Street Runners did not serve as policemen as we would understand them, they did not patrol the streets at night or make themselves available for emergencies. They did however serve writs and make arrests on the authority of the Chief Magistrate, and they travelled the length and breadth of the country to do so.They were also paid for the first time by central Government.

Walpole (Bow Street Runners) — Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in London: This engraving was published as Plate 11 of *Microcosm of London* (1808). Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Justice was administered by Local Magistrates who were invariably drawn from amongst the wealthiest of any parish. They were unpaid and often found their work burdensome and time consuming. Also, there was no oversight as to their activities and they were not necessarily disinclined to act maliciously or take a bribe. Indeed, the gothic novelist Horace Walpole, the son of Robert, remarked of the Magistrates in London: “The greatest criminals of this town are the officers of justice.” More serious crimes such as burglary, murder, and treason would be tried before the Quarterly Assizes and in London at Newgate, later to become the Old Bailey.

Unlike the trials for petty crime more serious offences were tried before a jury of the accused person’s peers. Even so, it was commonplace for such cases to be dealt with quickly as it was rare for there to be a defence barrister as none was provided by the State. Also, the presumption on the part of the Magistrates was always one of guilty. Also, the fact that the Courtroom itself would be liberally sprinkled with fresh smelling herbs and flowers to mask the smell of the filthy and unwashed prisoners indicates the attitude of those dispensing justice.

A guilty verdict at the Quarterly Assizes would invariably carry the death penalty and such trials were popular events that would be well attended and raucous affairs. The crowd would heckle and jeer throughout but a silence would descend upon the courtroom as the Judge would place the black cap upon his head and speaking these words pass the sentence of death:

“Prisoner at the bar, it is now my painful duty to pronounce the awful sentence of the law which must follow the verdict that has just been recorded, that you be taken to the place of execution there to be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may the Lord have mercy on your sinful soul.”

Public executions in London were carried out at Tyburn and were occasions for a social gathering in an atmosphere that often resembled that of a fairground. Thousands of people would gather in the field where the gallows were located whilst others lined the streets of the three mile journey of the condemned man from his place of incarceration to his place of execution. Carried on a cart where he would be sat upon his own coffin and accompanied by the Sheriff, a Chaplain and an armed escort the condemned man was for a short period at least the centre of attraction and sometimes as the cart passed a tavern the landlord would offer him a last drink to which the Sheriff would invariably reply: “Not for him, he’s on the wagon.” There would be a celebratory feel to the day with music played, pies sold, and many people drunk. As in the Courtroom however once the condemned man mounted the gallows the crowd would fall silent to hear the Chaplain’s last words:

“You have been adjudged by the laws of this country unworthy any longer to live, unworthy to walk this earth, unworthy to breathe its air, and that no further good to mankind can be expected from you, only the example of your death to warn others in the future, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Popular Heroes of the Period:
The common people knew full well that the justice system was not there to serve them as a popular saying of the time testifies: “The laws grind the poor, and the rich make the law”. As a result the more notorious a criminal, no matter how brutal, the more likely he was to be treated as a folk hero in the tradition of Robin Hood, and Highwaymen such as Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, and Sixteen String Jack who intercepted and robbed the Stage Coaches ridden by the rich were particularly admired and became celebrities. In 1774, when the famous Highwayman John Rann was found not guilty of robbery thousands of people who had gathered outside cheered and carried him aloft from the Court.

Claude Duval:
Claude Duval (or Du Vall) is credited with being one of the first great gentlemen highwaymen. Born in France in 1643, Duval emigrated to England after meeting a group of Royalist exiles, who were laying low in France during the Civil War. Once the war was over, Duval not only moved to England, but got an intimate look at the life of English nobility. Not content to live off a servant’s wage, he turned to the life of a highwayman, and he did it in style.

One of the most famous stories about him is his robbery of a carriage on Hampstead Heath. Here, upon meeting the beautiful young wife of the elderly knight he was robbing, Duval danced with the young woman on the side of the road. He then took only a portion of the money the knight was carrying as payment for the entertainment. He was well known but, by all reports, far from reviled. After fleeing to France for a short time to let the heat die down, he returned to England and was arrested during a drunken night out.

Once his death sentence was given, it was said that a number of his previous victims (mostly women that had been wooed by his courtly demeanor) tried to speak up on his behalf to get him a pardon. It didn’t work. He was executed in 1670, and his body was taken to lie in state at a local tavern. There were so many mourners present that the wake was cut short, as it was deemed rather unseemly.

John Rann:
John Rann, also known as “Sixteen String Jack,” was one of the first highwaymen (and indeed, criminals) to make his occupation as much about his celebrity status as about his actual crimes or the spoils of his robberies. He was a larger-than-life, over-the-top figure whose nickname came from his extravagant dress. He was always perfectly groomed and gentlemanly in his appearance, always wearing silk breeches that had eight silver strings hanging from them. He encouraged all rumors that were spread about him, and consequently, there are a couple of different versions of his story.

He was born somewhere around 1752, and at some point, he entered life as a coachman. He was strongly associated with several different women. His apprenticeship didn’t give him enough income to support his lifestyle or his women, so he turned to highway robbery. Many of his crimes were of the flamboyant, drunk and disorderly type. It was ultimately an attempt by one of his mistresses (who quickly gave up his name) to sell a stolen watch that earned Rann his first arrest. When he got off, it only made him that much more confident. He boasted to full pubs of his highwayman lifestyle and predicted his own early death. He got off on minor charges of attempting to climb through windows into homes where the ladies always seemed to come to his defence.

It was a similar situation—his female associates trying to sell stolen property—that led to Rann’s final trial, after he and an associate robbed a clergyman riding through Ealing. His female associates got off, stating that they unknowingly traded clean clothes for the stolen property, but Rann himself was executed in December 1774.

Jack Sheppard:
The most popular hero of his day however was the 22-year-old apprentice carpenter, Jack Sheppard. He had served five years of his apprenticeship and had been showing great promise at his chosen profession when encouraged by the other apprentices he began to frequent the Black Lion Tavern in Drury Lane, a popular haunt of the local criminal underworld and with his newly acquired taste for alcohol and having made the association of a local gang leader, Joseph “Blueskin” Blake, he soon found that there was easier money to be made in crime than there was in having to work for a living and he quickly progressed from petty theft and pick-pocketing to burglary.

Arrested on numerous occasions it was to be his increasingly spectacular prison escapes that made him a popular hero. Arrested once again and sentenced to hang he promised to escape on the day of his execution but the pocket knife he was carrying to cut the ropes that bound him was discovered. Nonetheless, he had another plan and remained supremely confident that he would not hang and boasted of his forthcoming escape calling upon public to come and witness it. The people expected him to be as good as his word.

Jack Sheppard, a wide-eyed young man with a ready smile was only 5’2” and weighed barely 100 pounds and he firmly believed that as the cart was wheeled away to leave him hanging he would not be heavy enough for the noose to break his neck, and so he had arranged for his friends to cut him down and take him to a doctor to be revived. On 24 January 1724, more than 200,000 people turned out to see Jack Sheppard hang – or escape?

On his journey to the gallows Sheppard joined in the celebratory mood revelling in the banter and urging on the crowd. He even persuaded the Sheriff to stop off at the City of Oxford Tavern so he could down a pint of ale.

As he stood beneath the gallows with his neck in the noose, he continued to play to a crowd that truly expected him to escape once again. As the cart was pulled away from beneath his feet the raucous crowd descended into a hushed silence as they watched his body squirm and twitch. But there was to be no escape this time and this Sheppard was to dangle from the rope for a full 15 minutes as he endured the agonies of slow strangulation. When the body was at last cut down the crowd surged forward to grab their souvenirs, they pulled out tufts of his hair, cut off his fingers, and gouged out his eyes.

His friends who had planned to rescue him before death’s deadly embrace took hold never even got close to retrieving his lifeless corpse. Such had been the popularity of Jack Sheppard that newspapers were forbidden to write of his exploits and theatres were banned from using his name for the next forty years.

Dick Turpin:
He was, perhaps, the best known English highwaymen, and he is possibly the worst example of what the idea of a gentleman robber was supposed to be. Born in 1705 in Essex, Turpin couldn’t be bothered to put in the hard work that would have allowed him to make a good, honest living as a butcher, following in his father’s footsteps. He joined a gang instead, raiding houses in the London area, stealing what he could, and outright destroying the rest. Turpin was one of the last members of the gang to be caught; he had since moved on from robbing houses to holding up carriages that were traveling to and from London.

The fictional stories that grew up around Turpin were largely just that: fiction. Turpin became a character in books that embellished the details of his life. Added to the story were dashing good looks, a beautiful, devoted black horse, and a family inheritance that Turpin was supposedly cheated out of. The historical Turpin was a cold-hearted murderer, whose egotistical boasting and a letter back home eventually led to his capture, trial, and execution. It was only after his death and the publishing of a book called Rockwood in 1834, that he was catapulted to fame as a gentleman robber. Perhaps more fitting to his memory was the fate of his corpse. The night that he was buried, Turpin was dug up by grave robbers, who sold his corpse to a doctor for dissection. His body was discovered missing, recovered, and reburied, while the doctor was fined.

Gin – or ‘Mother’s Ruin’:
London was the largest city in the world with a population of over 800,000 and was growing all the time. It was a place like no other with more than 50,000 shops, taverns, restaurants, coffee houses, and brothels where every need and desire could be catered for; a place of both outlandish display and grim squalor, with beautiful parks and filthy streets; a place of hucksterism and gaudy self-indulgence. A city of vice, violence and disease its many iniquities were vividly captured in the paintings and lithographs of the artist William Hogarth, and no problem was more evident than that of public drunkenness.

Walpole (Beer Street & Gin Lane) — *Beer Street* and *Gin Lane* (1751) By William Hogarth.

By the 1720’s London was quite literally awash with gin, or “Mother’s Ruin,” as it was known. The craze for gin had caught on in the 1690’s following its cheap importation from the Netherlands and within a decade distillery producing it were cropping up not just in London but throughout the country. Of the 15,000 drinking establishments in London alone more than half were Gin Palaces. By 1743, it is estimated that the English were drinking up to 10 litres of gin per head of population a year.

Drunkenness had become a common feature on the streets of all England’s major cities and with it a corresponding rise in the crime rate, and the number of abandoned children that thronged the streets and dead babies that littered the gutters had become a national disgrace. Attempts to stamp out the craze for gin were easier said than done, however. The Gin Act of 1736 that priced it at 20 shillings a gallon and required a licence to sell it at a fee of £50 per annum provoked disturbances so violent that they lead to it being repealed in 1742. A further attempt to curtail its production and distribution the following year were to lead to the Gin Riots that were to leave many dead and cause widespread destruction throughout London. Learning the lessons of past mistakes, a series of more moderate measures were introduced which over time saw a decline in the consumption of gin and by 1757 it was perceived to be no longer a problem.

Back to Walpole:
By this time Robert Walpole, the man who had done so much to forge Georgian England in his own image was long gone. He had by the early 1740’s ceased to be seen as the guardian of wealth but as an impediment to increased prosperity and people had tired of the widespread corruption that had so come to mark his time in power. His peace policy of placating Britain’s enemies abroad had come to be seen as a national humiliation and his increased taxes on commodities to ensure that the tax on land remained low was damaging the economy. Many amongst an aspiring and growing middle-class, and even many of his natural supporters amongst the nobility and gentry, now saw their futures in overseas trade and the expansion of Empire and so with his enemies, and he had always had many, gathering in Parliament and fearing impeachment on 11 February 1742 he resigned, returning to his palatial home at Houghton Hall a bitter and resentful man. There he died in great splendour three years later on 18 March 1745, aged 68, a bloated caricature of himself and the country he had created. The draconian laws that Walpole had introduced did not go with him, however.

Indeed, the number of capital offences on the statute book increased. It still remained possible to be hanged for impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner, going out at night with a blackened face, damaging a turnpike, and writing a threatening letter. Most of these offences would continue to carry the death penalty late into the Victorian era though as the decades passed they were rarely enforced. Even so, between 1791 and 1891, long after the Bloody Codes had first been introduced more than 10,000 people were hanged in England alone, and imprisonment for debt and Debtor’s Prisons were not abolished until the Bankruptcy Act of 1869. The first professional police force wasn’t established until 1829 when the Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel formed the Metropolitan Police to maintain law and order on the streets of London.

THE END

Sources:
www.prisonersofeternity.co.uk/the-bloody-code-law-and-order-in-georgian-england/
https://listverse.com/2014/03/23/10-highwaymen-who-gallantly-terrorized-britain/
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol5/pp188-203

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Fustyweed – You Better Believe It!

By Haydn Brown.

Quite often I pass by the road signs on the Fakenham Road in Norfolk that tell me where the villages of Lyng and Elsing are. Each time I do so the name ‘Fustyweed’ comes to mind – a name that had been curious to me in the past – but no longer; but it still does tempt me to delve into the realms of ‘fantasy’ from time to time!

Upper reaches of the river Wensum near the Norfolk hamlet of Fustyweed, between Lyng and Elsing. Credit: Bill Smith – Archant.

For those who do not know, ‘Fustyweed’ is real, both as a word with a pedigree, and also the name of an actual hamlet that sits comfortably between the neighbouring villages of Lyng and Elsing; all blessed for being on a sheltered side of the valley, and with open meadows. This hamlet itself consists of a collection of five older, artisan sized, houses, one of which is a treehouse!

A Fustyweed cottage, as you approach from the direction of Lyng; it is the first you see before entering this small hamlet. Credit Zorba the Greek- Wikipedia.

It seems that Fustyweed has always been a hamlet, remaining so because it never grew to warrant a church or a working mill as did its neighbours. So, there must have been another reason for it being where it is; and why was it so named? Was it simply that in the very distant past, not only did crops grow thereabouts, but also some unpleasant smelling plant – possibly offering medicinal benefits to the community? The reason I suggest this is the possible origin of the word itself, which may offer a clue.

Fustyweed Cows by the River Wensum. Credit Julian P Guffogg 2016.

Here, I had to go back to an 1822 publication by Robert Nares (1753 – 1829), titled ‘Nares’ Glossary’; this book was described in 1859, by Halliwell and Wright, as indispensable to readers of Elizabethan Literature. Within it I found the following information:

“Fusty” – Musty or mouldy:

Hector shall have a great catch if he knock out either out your brains: ‘a were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernal’. (Troilus and Cressida ii. 1.)

“Dirty, Musty, Ill Smelling”:

…. Where the dull tribunes,
That with the fusty plebeians [a commoner] hate thine honours,
Shall say, against their hearts, “We thank the gods
Our Rome hath such a soldier.” (Coriolanus. i. 9.)

Now, with the dry stuff out of the way – how about a little of that fantasy that I hinted to earlier. On that topic, I can do no better than recommend the following, by fellow blogger, Molly Potter in her November, 2009 blog, titled ‘Fustyweed’. Here it is:

“Fustyweed:

A terrace of five small houses sits some distance back from the only road. Smoke from the five little chimneys zig zags into the sky. The doors and window frames are haphazardly painted orange, purple, red and green. The front gardens are brimming with stunningly beautiful flowers: mostly noddydil, fraf and craggleweed. Silver and gold fluttifol buzz around them collecting gliff to make their glittery crunnyplop (which is sold in jars from a table at the roadside).

All of the houses are kept perfectly maintained with the exception of number four. Minky Flupp who lives there says she spends far too much time granting wishes to bother with keeping her house shipshape. Her neighbours don’t mind, as long as she grants them a wish now and then.

Jiggy Paloozeville at number three keeps yickins. The yickins lay the most delicious eggs with a yoke so deeply purple few can resist. He willingly shares the produce with his neighbours and most mornings the fruity aroma of freshly poached yickin eggs wafts around the terrace.

People tend not to call round to number five because its resident: Professor Batty Baffookink conducts science experiments there. The one-time Minky knocked on the door, it was answered by a squealing green and brown slimey mass. It took Minky some time to recover even after she had learned that the sight was just Batty covered in Harpypoo Sulphate after a tuttyfragwill experiment had blown up. Even so, these days everyone prefers to wait for Batty to come to them.

The eldest Fustyweed occupant lives at number one. At four-hundred and forty-two, Neg Keg is filled with memories. So many, in fact, that he has to have them regularly removed by Chiffle Lacey-Trickle-Doot who conveniently lives next door. The removal process uses a bespoke machine that Chiffle invented. The machine has many cogs, several springs, a few sparking wires, two glass tubes and a large wooden memory vat. A wriggling hose-like attachment (tailored to Neg’s spikey head) sucks out twenty years’ worth of memories at a time. With the relief this provides, Neg can go back to filling his head up with new memories. These memories mostly come from his time on the wirrity field playing tuffball.”

– What more can one say!

A suitable candidate for inclusion. Credit Peter Owen Steward 2022.

THE END

Sources Include: Molly Potter’s website at: http://torturedcreative.blogspot.com/2009/11/fustyweed.html

Heading Image: The welcoming village (hamlet) sign. Credit Cameron Self, 2010.

NOTICE:
‘Norfolk Tales, Myths & More!’ is a ‘non-commercial’ Site seeking only to be informative and educational on topics broadly related to the history and heritage of the County of Norfolk in the U.K.

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Miss Savidge’s Version of ‘Moving House’!

By Haydn Brown.

The story of Miss May Savidge is not new; it has done its rounds on television via ‘Bygones’ and the Antiques Roadshow, YouTube, newspapers, social media and local history groups. But it does have an endearing theme which makes it readable with all who discover it for the first time. For that reason, I am ressurecting the detail in the hope that a fresh audience will find it. And, where better to start her story than where it reached its final conclusion – at Wells-Next-The-Sea in Norfolk. This was where the love of her life – Ware Hall House, ended up!

But first, let’s establish its actual location, which is not an easy task as the house, from one direction at least, is hidden down a pathway and behind a curved wall. It is, however, not too far from The Buttlands and if one exits that place by walking down the hill from its south-west corner, Ware Hall House come easily into sight. It is, in fact, a medieval house which was originally built some 100 miles from Wells-Next-The Sea, at Ware in Hertfordshire. Why, you may well ask, would a house of that vintage need to find an excuse to move its roots?

Well, this particular part of May’s story continued from the 1970’s when the house was brought, in many parts, to Wells by Miss May Savidge and rebuilt over a period of 23 years, first by her and then finished by her niece, Christine Adams, after May had died. What follows is very much about May and her determination to see off death-watch beetles, rats, developers, bureaucracy, planners who threatened to demolish her historic cottage under a road-building project – and even her eventual failing health – and accompanied only by her faithful dog, Sasha. But who was May, and why did she move her 15th-century Ware Hall House from one County to another!

Born in Streatham, South London, in 1911, May Savidge was just ten when her father died of heart failure, plunging the family into poverty. As soon as she was old enough to go out to work for a living, she found a job with the Ministry of Aircraft Production where she trained to become a draughts-woman; as thing were to work out, this skill was to hold her in good-stead years later.

At a relatively young age of 16 years, May met an older man, his name was Denis Watson; he was a gifted Shakespearean actor and they had planned to marry; however, after they became engaged Denis died prematurely in 1938. It was said that May never completely recovered from this blow and continued to wear his signet ring on her wedding ring finger. She also retreated into herself for a time, that is, until she entered into a 17-year courtship with a man she believed would marry her. His name is not known, but from letters found amongst her many belongings discovered after her death many years later, he wrote a devastating letter to May in 1960. In it he revealed to her that he has simultaneously found God and fallen in love with his cousin, stating:

‘I have, thanks to God, seen my dear cousin Iris in a new and wonderful light……I know this will hurt you as I know only too well how you feel towards me. I pray to the Lord that you, too, may experience this most wonderful love…….I should like nothing better than for you to regard us as a new sister and brother. I would like to bring Iris to see you when you feel like it, I know you, too, will love her – everybody does!’

Clearly cut to the quick, May wrote back:

‘It surprises me that anyone so dear and lovable as your Cousin Iris should have thought it right to come between us, after 17 years. My heart is not made of stone. You often spoke of our marriage. Is it surprising that I thought you really cared? I hope you will be more faithful to Iris than you have been to me. Goodbye.’

Next to these letters was a photo of her former fiancée, Denis, playing Hamlet! From that moment on May wrapped her broken heart in a parcel, tied it with string and hid it at the back of her attic to be discovered years later. She became a loner, a spinster – but not through choice.

May Savidge’s 15th century house in Ware, Hertfordshire.

Then in 1947 she bought a house with the intention of restoring it. The address was No. 1 Monkey Row, Ware, Hertfordshire, a house built around 1450 for a wealthy monk as a ‘hall house’, a medieval arrangement in which the living space was attached to an open hall overlooked by a minstrel’s gallery. At the time of May’s purchase, the remainder of the house was still being used as a bakery. Encouraged by her wish to renovate it, the Local History Society launched their own research exercise into the property, soon finding they could date it even further back, to 1415, when Monkey Row was used daily by monks, and named Monke Road.

As a self-taught home improvement enthusiast, May set about exposing the heavy oak beams of the house, each bearing the marks of medieval carpenters, and she lifted crumbling lino to reveal wide, hand-cut floorboards which needed to be preserved. She employed a builder to repair the roof, but for all the rest of the work – including brick-laying, carpentry, re-glazing and stripping plaster from the ceilings and 20 layers of paper from the walls and re-plastering – she did with her own hands.

Then in 1953, having spent so much of her time renovating her house, the Council told May that they had planned for it to be demolished to make way for a road sometime in the future! In her eyes, that was nothing less than vandalism, forcing her to declare her form of outright war! May dug her heels in and resolved to save the building and for 15 years, she fought the Council’s plans, writing to them at one point:

‘If this little house is really in the way, I would rather move it and re-erect it than see it destroyed.’ She also separately commented: ‘I just won’t have such a marvellous old house bulldozed into the ground……. I’ve got nothing to do all day, so I might as well do the job myself.’

By 1969, when she was 58 years of age, but before the bulldozers were primed to advance, May effectively embarked on a 23-year labour of love and life of hardship. Dressed in a workman’s apron and her greying hair tucked beneath a headscarf, she single-handedly began first to number each beam, tile and pane of glass so that her home could be reassembled like a giant jigsaw puzzle. She then organised the dismantling of the heavy oak timber frame, held together with tapered wooden pegs; this was both difficult and dangerous and a team of local demolition contractors offered to help. Thousands of hand-made Hertfordshire peg tiles from the roof were piled high on the ground and huge timbers were laid out in a set order and in various and appropriate sizes. She had no electricity and worked by the light of Victorian paraffin lamps. She used an alarm clock to set herself targets each day; even noting how many nails she had extracted from oak beams per hour, as she dismantled the house and prepared for rebuilding. May even traced over a sample of brickwork using greaseproof paper and crayons so that she would know which bond to use and how thick to lay the mortar. Eventually, all these materials would all be loaded on to a lorry alongside Tudor fireplaces, Elizabethan diamond leaded glass and more, for a rebuild she might not have already realised, could span the rest of her life.

May cataloging and storing the house materials prior to transporting to Norfolk.

But doggedly, she pressed on and continued to live in the house as it was being taken down, sleeping beneath the stairs – even in the freezing cold. All this time, charitable local reaction continued to build up and even leading to complete strangers offering help to May. Some sent her money to help with the inevitable expense and many became life-long friends. One was said to have commented: ‘Yours is the spirit that once made Britain great!’ May even woke up one morning with an idea which she considered to be a brainwave. On the basis that ‘if you don’t ask, you don’t get’ she hastily wrote to the R.A.F; she simply asked if they could possibly supply a helicopter and ‘lift and move the house for her’; they, unsurprisingly, sent a negative reply, saying unfortunately, the load was too big and they felt, much too risky. Even if they could, the journey would need to be painfully slow, given the age and structure of what they would be moving; it was a diplomatic way of saying No!

But this was the point when May already knew where she and her entire house would be going, and she had already found a site on which the house would sit; it happened to be in the seaside town of Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. Taking the next step, May had also secured the necessary planning permission to re-build, and went as far as to employ a Wells builder to lay the foundations. All it needed was for a lorry to make 11 round trips, between Ware in Hertfordshire and Norfolk, every part and section of May’s dismantled house.

Back in Hertfordshire, the dismantled parts had been stacked up and stored around the garden, ready for their long journey. Visibly, the scene resembled a builder’s yard, in which everything was arranged with strict military precision. All bricks were placed together as were roof tiles in neatly stacked rows and seemingly innumerable piles of wooden beams, roof joints and more. Screws, nails, hinges, door handles, hooks, door knobs, nuts & bolts; cabling, dozens more items and maybe a few other possessions as well all had their own place, box or container. This neat arrangement even suggested that May would immediately know if any single item had been the least bit disturbed!

And when the day came for the first load to leave for Wells, three men and a lorry made the first of eleven round trips to Norfolk, to ensure every single part of the house – regardless of size or type – was moved. With the completion of this manoeuvre, May’s 20-year reconstruction programme continued; her temporary home at Wells being a former holiday caravan. Conditions there would often be unbearably cold, but she remained doggedly determined to press on; her niece, Christine Adams told the Fakenham Ladies Circle Club in 1971:

“My mother brought us up to believe there’s no such word as can’t” and this possibly fuelled her determination to continue and succeed.”

Two years later, the main framework had been fixed to the foundations by a local carpenter and May had also started to infill the brickwork; her still somewhat limited experience of this skill had been honed during her previous repair of the same house at Ware, that skill would be honed further over the coming years; but she was determined to lay every single brick perfectly – and it might still be another eight years before the roof tiles were put in place and the property made watertight.

By her 70s, May had almost moved in as the house now stood proudly in its new surroundings. Each old oak beam had been correctly placed, the brickwork nearly completed and most walls plastered. Despite her age, she still continued to build, climbing the layers of scaffolding daily to reach the upper floors, top windows or whatever else required her attention. By 1986, the Queen had heard of May’s incredible project and immediately invited her to a garden party at Buckingham Palace. But now it seemed, May was running out of steam and in 1992 she installed a small wood-burner stove to heat the ‘new’ house, while already having difficulty climbing ladders. She also found cement work ‘a bit heavy’. Her failing health sometimes required home visits from the local doctor but reputedly, such conversations were only exchanged through the letterbox!

During 1993, May Savidge passed away peacefully, in the Wells Cottage Hospital just before her 82nd birthday, with the house still unfinished. The walls were up and the roof was on, but overall, it was still little more than a shell. However, in her Will the property had been left to members of her family and after May’s death, they subsequently finished it over the ensuing 15 years. Still standing not far from The Buttlands it is now the home of May niece, Christine Adams – and a B&B.

Footnote:
But there’s still one more story to tell about Miss May Savidge; she was, on the side, a collector extraordinaire and perhaps even a hoarder. It was a fact that May had filled her home to possibly resemble an overstocked curiosity shop. In the garden, were nine side-saddles, as relics of a bygone age. Boxes of unworn wartime nurses’ bonnets and May’s Service Medals lay inside heavy trunks, stacked to ceiling height. She kept packets of old-fashioned soap powder, Omo and Oxydol, alongside bottles of J Collis Browne’s Mixture, the Victorian cure-all.

There were thousands of train, bus and trolley bus tickets, milk bottle tops and notes left by the milkman. She reputedly kept old matchboxes, confectionery wrappers and still more which today, might be items eagerly sought by collectors or dealers. And in 440 diaries, she had listed every daily action carried out, revealing life in a Britain now lost – e.g., the use of farthings, florins, half-pennies, half-crowns, shillings, three-penny pieces, milk churns, chains, furlongs, yards, ounces, telegrams and typewriters on a much longer list. It was much of these memorabilia that was sold in order to raise funds to complete the renovation project left by May after she died.

She clearly had much dogged determination to pursue a passion that existed long before conservation became fashionable. May Savidge had decided to move her home lock, stock and barrel across Britain from the busy Ware High Street in Hertfordshire to peaceful Norfolk around 100 miles away. What a remarkable lady and such an incredible task she undertook!

THE END

Sources:
A Lifetime in the Building: The Extraordinary Story of May Savidge and the House She Moved, by Christine Adams with Michael McMahon, published by Aurum.
Christopher Weston, Norfolk Archive 2021.
Images: Courtesy of Christine Adams.

NOTICE: ‘Norfolk Tales, Myths & More!’ is a ‘non-commercial’ Site seeking only to be informative and educational on topics broadly related to the history and heritage of the County of Norfolk in the U.K.
Further Note:
If you are the originator/copyright holder of any photo or content contained in this blog and would prefer it be excluded or amended, please contact us via our ‘Contact Us’ page to flag it for correction.
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‘Old’ Crome, the ‘Norwich School’ and Much Else!

By Haydn Brown.

My other hobby is oil painting – landscape painting. Having ‘cut my teeth’ with those of John Constable many years ago. I later discovered John ‘Old’ Crome and, apart from his paintings, I soon became interested in the man’s background; for, apart from some 200 years between us, we share certain aspects: such as same county, city, locations of work, home, painting, church – and public houses! So why shouldn’t I follow his trail, and maybe dream; and, hopefully, with you in tow:

Riding on the backs of sheep and cloth, Norfolk was once rich; it was also at the forefront of the Agricultural Revolution which brought further wealth. Norwich’s mercantile class also blossomed and comfortably melded in with the surrounding country gentry. Between them, privileged society provided a cultured patronage on which aspiring local artists could emerge.

John Crome, (1768 – 1821) was one such artist. He, as many art enthusiasts would know, was a principal English landscape painter of the Romantic era, and one of the founding members of the ‘Norwich School of Painters’. It was he who, in later life, was better known as ‘Old’ Crome; this to distinguish him from his son, John Berney Crome, who painted in his father’s manner but who, in the opinion of some at least, had an inferior talent – but no matter!

St Georges Church in Tombland, Norwich where John ‘Old’ Crome was baptised on Christmas Day 1768. Photo: Julian White.

John Crome was born on 22 December 1768 in an alehouse named the ‘Griffen’ (Griffin)’ which, according to Hocksetters Map of 1789 used to be in the Castle Meadow/ Tombland area of the city, near the corner of Tombland and Upper King Street, on what was then called Conisford Street in the quarter known as the Castle Ditches. Records show that the building itself dated back to at least 1603, but it completely disappeared when the Prince of Wales Road was constructed in 1860. Here, John Crome’s father, despite being an active weaver by trade, ran the Griffin; it would appear that being in more than one occupation was not an uncommon practice at the time!

On Christmas Day 1768, in St George’s church in Tombland, Crome was baptised. By then, this church had already accumulated a long history, which dated back to at least the 14^th century (some say as far back as the late Anglo-Saxon period) – its tower dating from 1445 and then having major repairs in 1645. The font from which John received his baptism was, and remains, of Purbeck marble, not uncommon in many rural East Anglian churches; in 1768 it had yet to be ‘urbanised by enthusiastic Victorians who would place it on grand marble pillars.

An inscription on the above drawing states:
“South Porch of St George, Tombland, Norwich – formerly called ‘St. George at the Gates/of the Holy Trinity’ the Cathedral – A new [19th century?] porch, in the same style, has been erected within the last 15 years in place of the above. I would particularly call attention to the singular form/of the buttresses / HH”. Image: Norfolk Museums Collections.
On the day of Crome’s baptism, this would have been the porch through which the congregation would have walked.

The young boy Crome was later to be described as ‘very likeable’ with a ‘charming character’; even, a ‘loveable rascal’ – with these attributes it may be no surprise to learn that he grew up and lived in Norwich for the whole of his life! However, it was a life which only slowly emerged in any sort of recorded detail when the boy had reached 12 years of age. At that point, in 1781, young Crome had become an errand boy for the eminent city doctor Edward Rigby. Dr Edward Rigby owned an apothecary’s shop, at 54 Giles Street, and it was there where the 12-year-old lived and worked for about three years.

***54 St Giles Street, Norwich.***
The Rigby family, of husband, wife and fourteen children shared this corner house with their country residence named Framingham Earl Hall. The St Giles address could well have been where Dr Rigby also had his Practice and Apothecary’s shop, standing as it does on the corner of Rigby Court (formerly Pitt Lane) and St Giles. Rigby Court linked St Giles to Bethel Street. Photo: Evelyn Simak.

Dr. Rigby was to have an initial influential effect on Crome’s life for he appears to have been the first person to recognise Crome’s potential as an artist. As time went on, he introduced him to some of the influential people of that period whom Rigby knew and who were interested in art. In particular, the weaver-turned-banker Gurney family – although of equal importance was to be Thomas Harvey (1748-1819), of Catton House in the village of Old Catton, who would also make an early appearance in Crome’s development.

Dr. Edward Rigby MD, (1747-1821) Physician by Joseph Clover – circa 1819. Portrait: (Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital) – Image: Edward Rigby Clover

Of course, Crome’s personal responsibilities and interests were not expected to be solely directed towards art; there was also the matter of work that he was employed to do for the doctor who, in his own field of skill, was already someone of eminence. But the doctor, it seems, had to handle a sometimes ‘mischievous’ lad in Crome – for the lad had a propensity for pranks, with several stories surviving through time. An example was the occasion when young Crome changed the labels on the medicines that he was delivering on behalf of the doctor! Another, which may have been one which had rebounded on to him, was when he threw the doctor’s medical skeleton out of his bedroom window; it was said that medical students had placed it in his bed for a joke – Boys, it seems, will always be Boys!

Nevertheless, young Crome survived a full three years of employment with Dr Rigby before his employer, having given him lodgings, paid him and nurtured his desire to paint, decided that it was time for Crome to move on – and here, we may have to thank the doctor for what followed. Just around the corner from the apothecary’s shop, stood Francis Whisler’s, Coach and Sign painting business – in Bethel Street. It was there, in August 1783, where Crome began his seven-year apprenticeship, learning first-hand how to mix colours and to appreciate what these substances could produce in the right hands. Clearly a precocious lad, with an ability to apply paint to canvas, board and paper with effect, he had taken the first steps in establishing his preferred career path.

Fast forward now to today; and surviving in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London is believed to be the earliest known example of Crome’s work, produced during the time of his apprenticeship, which was between 1783 and no later than 1790. The painting is known as ‘The Wherryman’; it was a sign which must have formerly hung outside a public house – and it would be interesting to know where? In 1906, an auction in Norwich first brought this signboard back into the light and, at that time, it was sold for the price of twelve guineas. The V & A Museum’s description of the work is as follows:

**‘The Wherryman’**
“Figure in the centre foreground is wearing the dress of a boatman or wherryman. He points to a wherry, which is shown sailing on the Norfolk Broads behind him, with his right hand.”

It was also during the early years of his apprenticeship when Crome became firm friends with an apprenticed printer named Robert Ladbrooke, who was employed by Whites of Norwich. The two boys had serious compatible interests in art and went out together to sketch the streets and lanes around Norwich, and particularly to Mousehold Heath on the outskirts of the city. For a time, they shared a garret studio and between them, sold some of their art-work to a local print seller, Smith and Jaggers of Norwich. At that time Ladbrooke concentrated of portraits whilst Crome on landscapes, which both sold for very small sums. Subsequently, Ladbrooke turned to Landscape painting, in which he was said to have ‘become highly successful’.

Thomas Harvey of Catton by John Opie (1761–1807) – after. Norfolk Museums Service

It has also been said that it was through the print seller, Smith and Jaggers of Norwich, that Crome met Thomas Harvey of Catton; but here it should be remembered that Harvey and Dr Rigby, mentioned earlier, were already friends; and young Crome had been in the employ of the doctor and through ‘introductions’ probably already knew Harvey. That apart, the little extra money that Crome and Ladbroke earned during their excursions went on buying prints of Dutch masters to copy – and Ladbroke was much inspired by Crome’s undoubted superior skills; skills which included the ability to make his own paintbrushes from cat’s hairs, whilst using oyster shells as palettes!

Harvey House in Colegate, Norwich; Thomas Harvey’s city house, which was in addition to his country pad ‘Catton House’, north on the outskirts of Norwich in the village of Old Catton. Image: Courtesy of Reggie Unthank.

When Crome’s apprenticeship ended, in 1790, he began to take up commissions and to give drawing lessons to children of the wealthy. This was also the moment when Crome’s earlier introduction to Thomas Harvey, the wealthy weaver from Old Catton – who also, by the way, had a house in Colgate (see above), really began to pay off.

Thomas Harvey was a rich master weaver who had come from a line of wealthy merchants, ten of whom had been mayors of Norwich. Harvey had married a Ann Twiss, the daughter of an English merchant living in Rotterdam who had an important collections of paintings, which included Thomas Gainsborough’s ‘Cottage Door’ (see below), plus several of the Dutch School. These eventually passed into the Harvey family and to Thomas who was something of an artist himself, but very much of the amateur kind. His wealth also allowed him to build up his collection of Dutch masters, some of which had come from Antwerp dealers; these were supplemented by paintings from other artists, including those of Richard Wilson and Miendert Hobbema.

Thomas Gainsborough – The Cottage Door. By Thomas Gainsborough, circa 1773. Commons Wikimedia.

When Harvey became Crome’s patron, both his own studio at Catton House and his art collection became available to the young artist and he, it seems, became particularly influenced by the Wilson and Hobbema paintings – and their ‘ability to give landscape paintings a sense of space and breadth’. Given this patronage, Crome certainly visited Catton House frequently; and it is probably quite true that, for a time at least, Crome may have lived there. This would have been of real benefit when it came to Crome actually copying these paintings as part of his further development, thus ensuring that the qualities and colour aspects of these two masters would feature in Crome’s future works and teachings.

111 — Thomas Harvey’s ‘Catton House’ years later. He, along with other members in the Harvey line, had a considerable presence in Old Catton. It was Thomas who had built the above Catton House, and then there was Robert Harvey whole lived at ‘The Grange’, not to mention Jeremiah Ives Harvey at Eastwood. Image: Courtesy of the Old Catton Society.

Catton House was also the place where young Crome met other artists, such as Sir William Beechey R.A. and later, John Opie. Then there was Sara Siddons the famous actress who was related by marriage to Harvey’s wife, Anne; as a consequence, Siddons was reputed to have given ‘a Reading’ before an invited audience at Catton House in October 1793. But it was Sir William Beechey who saw Crome’s promise as an artist and gave him some lessons – all be it in London. Beechey was also the one who described Crome as:

‘…. an awkward country lad when I first met him, but shrewd in all his remarks on art, although he wanted words to express them’.

This post-apprenticeship period was certainly a busy one for Crome one way or another; included in which was an activity that had little to do with painting – romance! He had met Phoebe Berney and in the October of 1792, they married at St Mary’s Church, Coslany; just in time, for by the 30^th of that same month, their first child, Amelia, arrived! Quite a relationship one would suppose since the couple were to go on to produce eleven children in total during their marriage. However, four were to die in infancy and Amelia died shortly before her second birthday. Two of their surviving sons, John Berney Crome and William Henry Crome (1806–67). were to follow in their father’s footsteps to become well-known artists in their own right.

Robert Ladbrooke who, unsurprisingly, had been present at Crome’s wedding in 1792 followed his close friend one year later when he married Phoebe Berney’s sister, Mary.

113 — St Mary Coslany Church, Norwich. Photo: Steve Adams.

Either side of his domestic life, Crome continued to paint and, increasingly, to build up his contacts and clients. By 1796 he was teaching sketching to Master Sparshall, the son of the Quaker wine merchant who lived in St Clements Alley which, incidentally, was quite near to Thomas Harvey’s town house in Colgate. The Sparshall house itself had previously been the residence of Alexander Thurston, the 17th century Mayor and MP for Norwich.

Then in 1798, Crome accepted a post as drawing master to the three daughters of Quaker and business-man, Joseph Gurney of Earlham Hall. It was also the year when John Opie painted Crome’s portrait. This may have been during the time leading up to May of 1798 when Opie married Amelia Alderson, a gifted poet and authoress, whom he had met at a party in Norwich. Also, in that same year, John Opie was not only in Norfolk visiting Thomas Harvey in his home at Catton House but, principally, carrying out some commissions for Thomas Coke at Holkham Hall.

114 — John Crome’ 1798 by John Opie.
Here, Crome has turned 30 years of age. John Opie’s oil painting captures, as an art critic once described: “A handsome young man whose heavy brows, full lips, thick black hair and brooding, perceptive countenance suggest deep waters. Norwich Museum & Art Gallery.

By this time, Crome had become a Freemason, joined the Philosophical Society and the ‘Dirty Shirt Club’, which met in the Rifleman’s Arms in Calvert Street, across from Cross Lane which in turn led to St George’s Street. There, a group of like-minded characters, smoked ‘churchwarden’ pipes and enjoyed a drink or two with other members of the ‘Dirty Shirt Club’ – the origins of which were said to be as follows:

“The Rifleman was located in an industrial area of shoe and weaving industry workers. And through this, came an unusual if not ingenious idea to attract more customers to the pub. The normal working week in such trades was then six days during which their workers clothing unavoidably became dirty. So, one Master Weaver arranged with the Rifleman for him to ‘set up shop’ in the bar on Saturday afternoons so that he could pay his out-workers when they came in to have a drink to end the week.

115 — The former Rifleman Arms in Cross Lane, off St George’s Street, Norwich. Image: George Plunkett.

Not only were they paid, but naturally arriving dirty, the distribution of wages was accompanied by a change of shirt with a clean one provided for the following week. The number of people “enjoying” this opportunity, led to the formation of the ‘Dirty Shirt Club’. While enjoying a drink or two and a gossip, members also smoked their own churchwarden clay pipes, given to them on entry. Each member’s initials were inscribed on the bowl and pipes were kept aside for them by the publican, between visits. Any new members had honour of smoking from a silver pipe. From the early 1800s, ‘Old’ Crome was a regular visitor, and had his own special chair – witnessing everything.”

By 1801, Crome had established a school of art in his house at 17 Gildencroft, possibly Green Lane (now demolished) and later took up a post as drawing master at the King Edward Grammar School which lay within the shadows of the Cathedral in Norwich. At the Grammar School he helped the sons and daughters of the Norfolk gentry and middle-class, as well as private pupils to learn to paint and draw. Amongst these pupils were notable artists of the future, such as James Stark and Edward Thomas Daniel. There was also George Borrow’s brother, John – who was to paint George Borrow’s portrait in 1821, whilst the latter was working as a solicitor’s clerk in London

117 — The Poringland Oak by John ‘Old’ Crome, circa. 1818–20.
Here Crome depicts the open heath at Poringland. His painting centres on a large oak tree that would have been familiar to locals. The warm glow of the setting sun and the carefree bathers give the scene an idyllic feeling. Crome may have painted this for nostalgic reasons of knowing Dr Edward Rigby who owned nearby Framingham Earl Hall and who, by 1819, had enclosed the Poringland heath for over a decade for his tree planting scheme. John Crome’s painting of the Poringland Oak was to become the inspiration behind the present Poringland village sign. Image: Tate Gallery.

In 1802, and by way of an extension to the business of tutoring the Gurney’s three daughters in art, Crome was invited to join the whole Gurney family on a tour of the Lake District. Sometime after their return to Norwich, on 19 February 1803 to be precise, Crome, together with his long-standing friend, artist and printer Robert Ladbrooke, became the principal movers in the foundation of the ‘The Norwich Society of Artists’; this was later to become famously known as the ‘Norwich School of Painters’ — the first art movement in England to be formed outside London. The term ‘Norwich School’ was coined because its style reflected landscape painting which had moved away from European influences, which favoured warm, burnt-brown palettes. The Norwich School replaced these with the verdant greens actually seen in the Norfolk landscape. It was Old Crome himself, through the Society, who had advocated that paintings should look ‘only to nature’, a statement that regularly appeared in the Society’s exhibitions catalogues at the time.

It is not known whether it was Crome or Ladbrooke who first raised the idea of forming this debating/exhibiting society in Norwich, but the two’s growing involvement with local art patrons and fellow artists probably made it inevitable that such a body would emerge – to be added to the many other clubs and societies that were flourishing in Norwich at the time? The purpose of the Crome/Ladbroke version was, from the outset to be:

“An Enquiry into the Rise, Progress and Present State of Painting, Architecture and Sculpture, with a view to point out the Best Methods of Study to attain to Great Perfection in these Arts”

118 — 1810 portrait of Robert Ladbrooke – by an unknown artist! Wikipedia.

Also, the Norwich Society of Artists promoted, from the outset, an ‘open-door’ policy whereby no one was turned away who had a genuine interest in art. The only criteria to joining was for each to submit a piece of their own and to secure a place via a ballot of existing members. These members consisted of active painters in oils and watercolours, and included such people as John Sell Cotman, Joseph Stannard and ‘Old’ Crome’s artist son John Berney Crome, Robert Dixon, Charles Hodgson, Daniel Coppin, James Stark, George Vincent and of course others. Some would have seemingly worked under Crome’s influence, with a bias in favour of Norfolk scenery – the slow-flowing rivers and gnarled trees, the people and places of their home city and the Norfolk coast.

119 — Sir Benjamin Wrench’s Court off Little Cockey Lane was demolished in 1826 to make way for the first version of Norwich’s Corn Exchange (red star) which, in the long term, ended up as the Jarrold’s Department Store. Also suggested here is not only old ‘The Hole-in-the-Wall’ Lane, but also the location of the tavern of the same name (purple star). As per Millard and Manning’s plan of Norwich 1830 – Courtesy of Reggie Unthank and Norfolk County Council.

Throughout, the Society’s meetings were held fortnightly at the ‘Hole in the Wall’ tavern, which was destined to be demolished by 1838. Its actual location of this tavern is not clear today; time and changes to street layout etc. have seen to that. However, it has been said by the likes of George Plunkett that it was once near the St Andrews Street end of the Hole in the Wall Lane, and built into a part of the east wall of the chancel of the Church of St. Crowche, most of which had itself been demolished as far back as the 16th century. The tavern must have also stood very near to what is now the lower section of Exchange St. It was said that at the time pedestrians had to walk round the old churchyard to get into St Andrew’s. Today, all that remains of both the tavern, and St Crowche, is a mediaeval stone corbel set in a flint wall off the north side of St Andrew’s Street.

As for the Norwich Society of Artists, its evenings at the tavern were taken up with ‘taking supper listening to the presentations of papers’; for this, there was a yearly subscription of 4 Guineas to maintain membership.

120 — Sir Benjamin Wrench’s Court, off Little Cockey Lane, Norwich by David Hodgson (1798–1864). Norfolk Museums Service.

By 1805, the Society had enough paintings to present their first exhibition, hosted at Sir Benjamin Wrench’s Court, which was off Little Cockey Lane and not far from Little London Street; Crome contributed twenty-two works. This venue was later to became the home of the Society. From that point onwards, and until 1825, these exhibitions were held annually and coinciding with the city’s Summer Assizes Week when many people from the surrounding area visited the city and where amusements took place. Norwich became the first English city to establish regular art exhibitions outside London.

John ‘Old’ Crome was to become the president of the Society on several occasions up until his death in 1821, but when he was again elected in 1808, his long-standing friend, Robert Ladbrooke was elected as Vice-President. However, in 1816 Ladbrooke, Stannard, Thirtle and a few other members – Ladbroke having also fallen out with Crome – broke away from the Society to set up and run rival exhibitions; but these proved a failure and were ended after three years. Ladbroke and Crome were reconciled at just about the same time; maybe simply because theirs had been a long-standing friendship; it was a friendship between entirely different characters though:

“Crome was found of company, a ‘dashing fellow’ and with great ideas; whereas, Ladbroke was ‘plodding, prudent and took great care of what cash came his way; he taught his family likewise”.

121 — St George Church, Colegate, Norwich, Norfolk. Photo: Courtesy of John Salmon.

Finally, on 14 April 1821 and after a few days’ illness, John ‘Old’ Crome died at his house in Green Lane, Gildengate, and his death certificate recorded that he had died of ‘an inflammatory malady induced by early labours as a house painter’! On the 27^th of that same month, his remains were interred in St George’s church Colegate – a mere stones-throw away from his home and his local, ‘The Rifleman’. The local paper reported that ‘an immense concourse of people’ attended his funeral at St Georges, which had been his church and where, in later life, he became its churchwarden. It was an appropriate place in which to mount a memorial tablet to him.

122 — John Crome’s memorial plaque in St Georges Church at Colgate. Whilst some may feel that it is nothing spectacular, it does display a nice clean-line relief profile of the man; also a palette and brushes below and a laurel wreath over his head.

When ‘Old’ Crome died in 1821, John Sell Cotman became President of ‘The Norwich Society of Artists’; its activities continuing until his own departure for London in 1834. It was at that point when Cotman actually closed the Society and many former members and their pupils went off elsewhere to continue painting and exhibiting.

127 — Crome’s grave in St. George’s Church ,Colegate, Norwich. Wikipedia.

Surprisingly perhaps, Crome and what was known as the ‘Norwich School’ had been little known outside Norfolk; that is, until the late twentieth century. This was due mainly to the fact that many of Crome’s paintings, together with paintings of other ‘Norwich School’ members, were bought privately by the J.J. Colman family. It was in 1946 when Russell James Colman donated these to the city’s Castle Museum. He also gave money in order for the museum to build a gallery to house them in a permanent display.

Following the death of ‘Old’ Crome, during the November of 1821, the Norwich Society of Artists held a memorial exhibition of more than 100 of Crome’s works in the city. During his life, however, he had exhibited an estimated number of 307 pictures, 16 of which had been exhibited in London – and none of which had been signed. It appears somewhat strange that Crome, above all, never signed any of his paintings. Bearing in mind that his pupils and sons had been trained by Crome on the basis of copying his works, meant that it has always been difficult, or impossible indeed, to verify which are ‘Old’ Crome’s paintings and which are replicas!

It is also a sad fact that when Old Crome died, he was in debt – to the sum of £145 owed to the Gurney’s Bank. Nevertheless, John ‘Old’ Crome was and remains, in my eyes at least, as an artist of considerable repute.

Footnote:

An incident in Crome’s life was the subject of the one-act opera ‘Twice in a Blue Moon’ by Phyllis Tate, to a libretto by Christopher Hassall: it was first performed in 1969. In the story Crome and his wife split one of his paintings, depicting Mousehold Heath, in two to sell each half at the Norwich Fair.
Part of the front of Stranger’s Hall was once the home of sculptor Pellegrino Mazzotti; it was he who produced a bust of John Crome; today, a ‘blue plaque’ on Its wall refers to this.

THE END

Heading Image: John Crome by Denis Brownell Murphy, watercolour and pencil, exhibited 1821. National Portrait Gallery.

Sources Generally Referred to Include (and in no particular order):
(Chillers, Ian (ed), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists, Oxford University Press, 1990).
Wikipedia.
The Norwich School of Painters | COLONEL UNTHANK’S NORWICH (colonelunthanksnorwich.com)
http://www.norwich-heritage.co.uk/monuments/John%20Crome/John%20Crome.shtm
In Focus: John Croome, the ‘mouse that roared’ of the art world – Country Life
https://joemasonspage.wordpress.com/2016/07/17/the-norwich-society-of-artists/?fbclid=IwAR2UnZ6dJcsZEym89FtZtKe7kAWZjH4mBqFbsDuEgav3burHXTFRf5_T24Y
http://www.avictorian.com/Ladbrooke_Robert.html
Walking Crome’s Norwich self guided trail (1).pdf

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Norfolk in Brief: The Bale Oak.

By Haydn Brown.

The village of Bale can be found just off the A148, which runs from Fakenham towards Cromer. There is some history here, not so much for being mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086, but for it’s famous ‘Bale Oak’, once an enormous tree with a trunk 36 feet in circumference. The Bale Oak is said to have been a gathering place for pagan worship before the coming of Christianity. Indeed, it is said the 14^th century church of All Saints was built beside the oak, in a place already considered sacred. By the early 18^th century, the oak was hollow and it was said that ten men could stand inside its trunk. The then Norfolk historian, Rev. Blomfield, added to the information by recording:

“A great oak at bathele near the church, its hollow so large that ten or twelve men may stand within it and a cobbler had his shop and lodge there of late and it is or was used for a swinestry.”

Bale Oak3 — Sir Willoughby Jones © Norwich Civic Portrait Collection

However, in 1795, the oak was severely damaged and was heavily pollarded, with the removed bark and some of the wood sold to the Hardy’s of Letheringsett for tanning. The tree never recovered and was deemed dangerous by the local populace; it was also subjected to abuse and this led to its removal in 1860 on the orders of the Lord of the Manor, Sir Willoughby Jones. There was said to have been much local mourning as the remains of the oak was taken in a cart to Cranmer Hall at Fakenham.

Bale Oak4 — Cranmer Hall. Photo: Pinterest.

The site was replanted with a grove of 12 Holm Oaks (Quercus Ilex) and may have been planted to commemorate the Bale Oak, although there is a record of oaks being planted there in 1617. The trees have been National Trust property since 1919, and are now ‘listed’ by that body as a ‘Place of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty’. A wooden sculpture now marks the approximate position of the original Bale Oak tree, and the trees that surround it have now grown to maturity and form a screen between the church and the road.

Bale Oak1 — The Bale Oak Site: © Copyright Humphrey Bolton

THE END

Mad Windham’s Rich Pickings at Felbrigg.

By Haydn Brown.

The Windhams—the real Windhams that is—ended with William Windham; later versions were merely Lukins who assumed the name on inheriting the Felbrigg Estate.

William Windham, the statesman, who, having played a patriotic part as Secretary for War under Pitt from 1794 to 1801, and as Secretary for War and the Colonies in Lord Grenville’s Administration of 1806, died on 4 June 1810, ‘a sad loss to society’. Thomas Grenville voted him ‘a model of an English gentleman’, and Canning ‘the best-bred man in England’. A reflection of William Windham’s younger days was that he had all the outward advantages imaginable: To quote Fanny Burney, who had met him frequently in his capacity as a manager of Warren Hastings’s trial, he was, on first impression:

“one of the most agreeable, spirited, well-bred and brilliant conversers I have ever spoken with ….. a man of family and fortune, with a very pleasing though not handsome face, a very elegant figure, and an air of fashion and vivacity.”

However, his death signalled the end of the high reputation of the Windham’s; what followed was little more than a romance; but a romance which was peculiar. It arrived speedily and, whilst it certainly made the family name of Windham far better known than ever before, it also brought with it a huge chunk of notoriety – rather than enviable fame!

It remains true that the story is sordid, but what it lacks in good feelings, it fully makes up for in human interest – hence the retelling here. This story of Felbrigg and of “Mad Windham” in particular, was the talk of England in the early 1860’s; and, for a long time afterwards, was vividly remembered in Norfolk for it reeked with foulness far beyond the washing of dirty linen in public. It was a tale of family degeneracy, in which the honoured name of Windham should have had no part.

The Lukins – Come Windhams:

When the famous statesman died, the historic property went to his nephew, William Howe Lukin, who assumed the name of Windham, and he married Lady Sophia Hervey, sister of the Marquis of Bristol.

Lady Sophia Elizabeth Caroline Hervey, Lady Sophia Windham (1811-1863). National Trust.

In November, 1854, this self-styled William Howe “Windham” died, leaving a widow and an only son, William Frederick, at that time fourteen years of age. At that tender age he was already, at Eton and elsewhere, an “ill-disposed and uncontrollable buffoon and vicious idiot”. His guardians were his mother and his uncle, General Windham, whose actions and motives were so severely criticised during the notorious “Windham Trial.”

William Frederick Windham. Oil on canvas, c. 1850. Felbrigg, Norfolk. National Trust

William Frederick Windham would, in the ordinary course of events, have come of age and succeeded to his inheritance in 1861 without question; but his conduct as a boy and as a growing man was so outrageous that it was reluctantly decided by General Windham and others to petition for a judicial inquiry into the state of mind of this heir, who, they claimed – to be fully supported by future events by the way – could not be trusted with the management of his own affairs.

The Essential Details of the ‘Windham Trial’:

The “Windham Trial,” began on 16 December 1861, lasted thirty-four days and attracted hugh interest amongst the public; so much so that pamphlets were printed at the time, detailing the dreadful evidence, and selling by thousands.

Title page of The Great Lunacy Case of Mr. W. F. Windham. Reported by a Solicitor. (1862).

The brief details of the case were that the alleged lunatic, William Frederick, was in line to inherit Felbrigg Hall and the rents that with it. In all, he would enjoy a considerable income which, in today’s terms would be around £700,000 per annum – according to one estimate. The petitioners sought to have their ward adjudged ‘incapable’ and for them to be made guardians of the property during his lifetime. To support that contention, they made a long series of allegations, showing that William Frederick had exhibited simple imbecility in childhood, and that with his physical growth his mental powers had declined.

The petitioners further recounted Windham’s idiosyncrasies. At Eton he was a buffoon and commonly known as “Mad Windham.” His indescribable habits led to his being early removed and placed under the care of a long succession of tutors, none of whom could make anything of him. Many testified that he was incapable of reasoning, addicted to low associates, filthy and profane language, and wanton and capricious cruelty to animals. He would gorge his food without using a knife and fork; eating until he was sick!

His violent temper had led to extraordinary scenes. For instance, at an evening party he had rushed at a gentleman whom he had never seen or spoken to before and, shrieking ‘like a wild Indian, had pinned him to the wall by his whiskers’. He was consistently exceptionally rude and offensive to ladies, and delighted to tear their clothes and make grimaces at them. He could not follow out any train of thought, and acted from one minute to another without reference to previous actions, becoming the laughing-stock of servants. He would also throw money away in the streets, and laugh when saner people scrambled for it. He would fondle a horse one moment and thrash it unmercifully the next. These actions, said Counsel, could not be those of a person enjoying reasonable use of his faculties, but there was worse to come.

It was only with apparent reluctance that General Windham was obliged to publicise these painful affairs of his unhappy nephew ……. there was no other course:

“for his nephew’s vile associates had persuaded him that all the efforts being made to prevent his moral, physical, and financial ruin were only part of a scheme by his uncle to deprive him of his liberty and property”.

But it was explained further in a statement that this was not the case because, whichever way the inquiry went – or whatever happened to his nephew, General Windham would not be the heir.

Witnesses were then called who bore out the opening statement, and added a great deal more. Some told how Windham would at times pretend to be a fireman, and, dressing in character, go about in a devastating manner with an axe and chop down doors and smash windows. At other times he would act the part of a railway guard. With uniform made for the character, he would frequent railway platforms, blow a whistle, and wave a flag. Once, performing these pranks, he nearly caused a railway disaster. At other times he would make off with passengers’ luggage. Altogether, from the family’s point of view and that of the public, William Frederick Windham should have been put under restraint. But it seems that the real compelling reason for bringing legal action was the connection young Windham had recently formed with a woman whom he had picked up in London, during Ascot week.

Anne Agnes Willoughby in riding habit, 1860s.

Agnes Willoughby, alias Rogers, in the words of Counsel:

“was not the chastest of the chaste; her favours in love-affairs were not few; she was known to the police.”

On 30 August 1861, having come of age on the 9th, he married her and settled £800 a year on her, to be increased in 1869 to £1,500. She had been, up to that time, living with a man named Roberts – after the marriage the three lived together!

A 19th Century image of the English aristocrat, William Frederick Windham, during what became known as the Windham Trial of 1861. He was heir to the Felbrigg Estate.

The action was defended by Windham and his associates, who, in the event of his being declared a lunatic, would have lost “the rich harvest of plunder they were reaping.” A pitiful feature of the case, and one tending to prejudice the public against the petitioners, was that Windham’s mother, naturally unwilling to see her son branded as a madman, gave evidence in favour of him. Then, of the more than 150 witnesses called during the progress of the case, a number declared they had never noticed any peculiarity about young Windham, apart from:

“perhaps he was exceedingly high-spirited. He always behaved like a gentleman.”

It did not take the special jury of twenty-four “good men and true” very long to deliberate upon the concluding speeches of counsel. In half an hour they returned, with the astonishing verdict:

“That Mr. Windham is of sound mind and capable of taking care of himself and his affairs.”

This announcement was received with cheers!

Felbrigg (David Ross) — St Margaret’s Church, in the grounds of Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk. David Ross.

Footnote:
On 2 February 1866 the Norfolk Chronicle published the following:

“Mr. F. W. Windham, who for five or six years had enjoyed unenviable notoriety, died suddenly at the Norfolk Hotel, Norwich. He had been unwell for several days, and was seen by his medical attendant, Mr. F. C. Bailey, on 31 January. Mr. Windham became better on 1 February, and still further improvement was manifested on the following day; but later in the same day his symptoms were completely altered, and became so alarming that Mr. Bailey called in Dr. Bateman and Dr. Eade. Every effort was made to restore animation, but without avail; this victim of an ill-spent life gradually sank, and in a few hours expired, in the presence of the medical men and of some of the servants of the hotel. Death was due to the obstruction of the circulation by a clot of blood in the pulmonary artery. On the 7 February the body was removed to Tucker’s Hotel, Cromer, and the interment took place on the 8th, in the family vault at Felbrigg.

Mr. Windham had completely dissipated the residue of the extensive property which he inherited, after payment of the law expenses contingent on the great suit, Windham v. Windham (q.v. November 22 1861), and became dependent for a livelihood on the little income he made as driver of the Cromer coach. His uncle, General Windham, had made arrangements by which he was supplied with the means of living respectably. He had rooms at the Norfolk Hotel, but generally spent his time in one or other of the low public-houses in the city. The effect of his death was to deprive Mrs. Windham of the annuity granted on Mr. Windham’s life, and of any interest whatever in the Hanworth estate.

THE END

Sources include: The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford, and Cromer Road, by Charles G. Harper-A Project Gutenberg eBook

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