Category: Norfolk

200 years ago this week, the Norfolk Chronicle published a story about about how Thomas Want, a former school master in Norwich, had cleared off and left his wife and four children. This was certainly a problem as far as the city was concerned, as the Corporation would now have to fund these children and I can’t imagine they’d have been thrilled at that thought. So, the hunt for him started, and it appears that he had run off with this woman who had a hawker’s licence.

I like a story and so I wanted to know more about this little arrangement, although the documentary chain of evidence was always going to be a little limited. Thomas had married Frances Oldman in St. Stephen’s Church in Norwich (the one in front of the Chantry shopping centre with a path leading to it through the graveyard) on 3 June 1806, so they had been married for fifteen years.

Francis Arthur Want was born on 24 July 1810 and baptised on 17 August 1810 at St. Stephen’s Church. Frances Lucinda Want was born on 10 November 1811 and baptised on 17 November 1811, this time at St. George Colegate Church. Jane Pearcy Want was born on 21 June 1816 and baptised on 30 June 1816, this time at St. Martin at Palace Church. There should be another child, since the newspaper mentioned he had left four, but I can’t find details of that, although I imagine they were born some time around 1814.

Francis Arthur Want married and became a railway station master in Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire, with none of his children being named after Thomas. Frances Lucinda Want never married, going to work as a servant cook, she died in Middlesex in February 1894. Jane Pearcy Want married Robert Newman in Cromer on 4 October 1841 and they lived in the town, with none of their children being named after Thomas. It is this lack of naming their children after Thomas that makes me suspect that the children didn’t have a great deal of respect for their father.

Moving back to Thomas’s wife, Frances. There are no suitable candidates showing on the 1841 census, so I’m fairly sure she died before then. And there is a burial of a Frances Want at Old Lakenham Church in Norwich on 26 August 1822 and I’m going to assume that this was the wife that Thomas left behind. She died just a year after her husband left her and, perhaps not unsurprisingly, I can’t find any record of a gravestone. I can’t imagine that anyone would have had any money to pay for one.

Back to Thomas, he was 42 when he went missing, so he was a fair bit older than Frances, having been born in around 1779. He was a schoolmaster from at least 1812 to 1815 at the academy on St. George’s Plain which was a boarding school for young gentlemen. As for his death, the only one I can find that fits anywhere in the country is the Thomas Want who was buried in Norwich on 17 September 1844. I have yet to discover what happened to Thomas after he went off with this woman with her hawker’s licence, but I don’t feel that he ever went back and his voyage of passion will perhaps remain a mystery to history.

Continuing with my theme of events that happened 150 years ago today, the Norfolk Chronicle reported in late February 1871 that Thomas Edgar had been charged and tried for the theft of a scarf from the Coach and Horses pub on Red Lion Street whilst the owner was playing skittles. I’d never realised that pub existed and it suggests an answer to a question I had of whether skittles was commonly played in Norwich in the past.

Anyway, back to the details of the court case, although this was just the first hearing. Thomas Edgar, who lived at Crook’s Place (that unfortunate fact isn’t lost on me…..), visited the Coach and Horses pub and I suspect he didn’t plan any nefarious activity when he arrived. However, Frederick Leech (named as William Frederick Leach in another newspaper) who lived at Oxford Street, located off Unthank Road, had arrived with his expensive cashmere scarf. I’ve got a picture in my mind of what I imagine he was like, but others can draw their own mental image here….. Leech was enjoying a game of skittles and had placed his scarf neatly on his hat and put that on a table. After a while of enjoying his game of skittles (the paper didn’t mention the score) he realised that his scarf had gone missing and he then saw Edgar rushing out of the pub looking suspicious. Leech left the pub and tried to follow Edgar, but lost him and so he contacted the police. The police rushed out and found Edgar and the missing scarf at Crook’s Place, which sounds some rather excellent detective work. Edgar’s defence was that he was drunk, which doesn’t seem unreasonable as far as excuses go.

For some more information about this, I had to jump forwards a month to late March 1871 when the full trial took place. More details came out, including that Edgar had offered to look after the hat and scarf, which doesn’t seem to be a very subtle way of pinching something. The detective work from the police was explained, a police officer and a man called Piggin had followed Edgar to his home and this wasn’t some brilliant piece of guesswork. Edgar’s defence was accepted, which was that he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. These were ferocious times in terms of sentencing though, and when Edgar was found guilty, he was sent to prison with hard labour for six months. The additional reporting also noted that Leech (or Leach) was an ironmonger and Thomas Edgar was aged 21.

Rolling back a little here, the pub itself, the Coach and Horses. This was located at 3 Red Lion Street and it’s still there today, although it’s now a Bella Italia having ceased being a public house in around 1984. The building was constructed by the brewery at the beginning of the twentieth century, on the site of an older building and the one where Edgar pinched the scarf from. And we also know that the pub had a skittle alley judging from the events of that night, and it also had a three dimensional bas relief panel by notable local artist John Moray-Smith. That is now sadly lost, although there’s one of his works remaining at the nearby Woolpack pub.

Back to Thomas Edgar though. He was born in 1849, the son of Matthias Edgar and Mary Ann Edgar and at the 1861 census he had four older brothers and sisters. Mary Ann was from Devon and the two oldest children had been born in Plymouth, but Thomas was born in Norwich. The family at this stage lived at 44 King Street (probably not where most people would think this was, but more on this in a moment) and Matthias worked as a brush maker.

The 1871 census isn’t entirely helpful about where he lived, since he was in the city gaol, which was at that time at the end of Earlham Road (or St. Giles’s Street at the time, before a bloody great road was built at Grapes Hill orphaning the end of it), which is now the site of the Roman Catholic Cathedral.

We do know from the newspaper that he had been living at Crook’s Yard and this is where things got a little confusing for me, as I’ve now discovered that there were two King Streets in Norwich at that time. Not the Upper King Street and King Street that we have today, which are still really the same road. Some bloody idiot had built a King Street and a Queen Street (ignoring the fact that these street names already existed) near to where the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital was located in the city centre. This clearly caused complete confusion at the time as records from the time are all over the place, but wiser heads prevailed and King Street was renamed Shadwell Street and Queen Street was renamed Nicholas Street. In the above map, Crook’s Yard (or Crook’s Place) is the road leading off from the right. It’s possible that this name confusion meant that Thomas was still living with his parents at this time on King Street.

At the 1881 census, Thomas was living with his mother at 44 King Street and he was working as a waiter. By 1901, Thomas was now married and living (alone, for reasons unknown if he was married) at 86 Shadwell Street and was working as a fruit-seller. Thomas died in the city in 1910, at the age of 61, and there is no mention of his death in the local press. At a guess, 44 King Street and 86 Shadwell Street were probably the same house, but either way, they would have been demolished after the Second World War.

But, the element of all this that I quite like is the thought of the atmosphere in the Coach and Horses in the city 150 years ago. I’m not sure that skittles is played much anywhere, not least because it’s quite space consuming, but there’s an equivalence with bar billiards. And I can imagine a similar set of circumstances playing out, someone leaving their expensive cashmere scarf out (and I can think of a couple of friends who would turn up at the pub with something like that….) and finding that it was stolen. Thomas Edgar doesn’t seem to have been a particularly bad person, he certainly didn’t have a long life of crime after this incident. And I’ve tried to work out the route that he would have taken from the pub back to his house (I bet he went down St. Stephen’s, walking by where there is a Greggs today), perhaps testament to the reality that I need to get out more.

I’d add firstly that this isn’t some angry blog post about being short changed on a sausage roll, this is a story from the Norfolk Chronicle that was published 150 years ago today, in late February 1871.

The newspaper noted that William Rudling was a butcher on Ber Street and he had rigged his scales to short-change customers. Samuel Sutton, the Inspector of Weights and Measures, had visited his shop and noticed that a piece of iron wire had been attached to the scales which found half an ounce against the purchaser. A second test was performed and the scales were still out, although now they were an ounce out.

The case was heard at the Guildhall in the city and William decided that he wouldn’t turn up and instead he sent his wife Charlotte to deal with the matter. I can imagine she was really pleased with this little arrangement, although she then didn’t say anything in court, so that might not have gone to plan. With that lack of defence, William was fined £1 (something like £60 in today’s money) and was also ordered to pay costs of just over £1.

At the 1871 census (which took place shortly after this, at the beginning of April 1871) William Rudling lived above his shop on Ber Street with his wife Charlotte, and his children, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Esther, Thomas and Emma, along with their grand-child Alice. At this time, both William and his wife were aged 53.

Going back ten years to the 1861 census, the family lived at the same property on Ber Street, with the children William, Henry, Emma, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Esther, Alice and Thomas living with them, along with a servant, Sophia Poll. At this 1861 census William was listed as being a carpenter and builder, so his butchery skills were perhaps acquired after that, and he had also been listed in the 1851 census as living as Ber Street and working as a carpenter. As an aside, the younger William Rudling had taken up an apprenticeship as a stone mason which he ran off from on 12 April 1865. At the magistrates court it was decided that the matter would be dropped as the young William said that he would return to complete his apprenticeship.

At the 1881 census, the household was rather quieter, it was just William and Charlotte, along with an Elizabeth Osborne who was listed as a companion. The husband and wife were now living at 4 Horns Lane in the city, with William being described as a carpenter again. Horns Lane is still a street in Norwich and it’s located off of Ber Street, so William didn’t really move very far in his lifetime. The property has gone though, the area was flattened by the council and the area is mostly now a car park.

WIlliam died on 26 October 1890, and he died at the age of 73 having been born in 1817. His death was reported in the local paper, the Eastern Daily Press, and he was now living at 10 Horns Lane.

Unfortunately, none of the trade directories tell me exactly where on Ber Street that William had his shop, but what I’m interested in is why he suddenly became a butcher. I’m guessing that he wasn’t perhaps doing very well, which is why he was sent to court for defrauding customers. There was in the 1860s a large increase in the demand for meat, with more people entering the butchery trade, so perhaps William was tempted by the financial rewards. I can’t imagine that some of the locals were too impressed after the court case, that might be the reason that William returned to carpentry.

And would this sort of behaviour happen today? Indeed it would, as just two days ago there was a butcher in Willenhall, the Muddy Pig Butchers, where it was found that coins had been attached to the scales to short change customers by 40g. That’s about 1.4 ounces, so only marginally more than William defrauded his customers. This butcher in Willenhall was treated more severely than William though, he was ordered to pay costs totalling £1,798 and given an 18-month community order of 200 hours of unpaid work..

Nothing ever really changes….

150 years ago today, on 25 February 1871, the Norwich Mercury reported that Henry Goulder of King Street had become “drunk and riotous” and had broken a square of glass in the window of the Old Barge pub. He had caused damage that cost 3 shillings to repair, and in a court hearing chaired by the Mayor of Norwich he was fined 1 shilling and ordered to pay 5 shillings 6d in costs.

George Plunkett has a photo of King Street from 1935 where the Old Barge is visible, along the sign noting that ales and stouts were available. It’s also possible to see the sign noting that the pub was owned by Youngs, Crawshay & Youngs Ltd. The pub was damaged during air raids during the Second World War, but it re-opened and it continued trading until 1969. I quite like that the boot scraper from the pub’s entrance is still visible in my photo of the building today, although the door has been converted into a window.

Sadly, this isn’t a pub today, it’s part of Dragon Hall, but a pub would be a fine way to allow the public to get access to the building now that the Dragon Hall museum has closed. Although I think lots of buildings would be better used as pubs, but rarely does that seem to happen at the moment.

Back to the crime though, Henry Goulder worked as a waterman and had clearly got a little over-excited with the drinks sold by the pub. But it’s rare that in the Victorian period that someone committed one crime and then nothing more was heard of them. Goulder seems to have been a bloody nuisance to the community and to the police. He had been arrested by Constable Emms in 1848 and brought before the court and its chair Samuel Bignold, charged with riotous assembly on Mousehold Heath where he had to give sureties totalling £20. That’s around £1,600 in today’s money, so I take it that he annoyed Samuel, who was also the General Secretary of Norwich Union.

This punishment clearly didn’t help, as in 1850, Goulder and two others entered the Prince of Orange pub on King Street and ordered beer which they then refused to pay for. Goulder hit the landlord, Thomas Adcock, and continued to beat him whilst he was on the floor, and he then attacked the landlord’s wife who came to help her husband. Goulder was fined £10 and told he would go to prison if he didn’t pay it. He was in court again for drunken behaviour in 1863 as well, but it was said that he was an industrious man when sober. It was clear that he had problems with alcohol and I can imagine he had a reputation on King Street for that.

His demise was reported by the Norfolk Chronicle in July 1881, as Goulder had been swimming (and this was known as the media reported noted “he had his swimming drawers on”) and fell from the wherry Dart, which was moored against the quay on Fye Bridge. He was drowned and it was reported that he had had a seizure which had caused him to fall, with his address noted as being in the Lanes Buildings on King Street.