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wlhgnewsletterMEMBERS’ NEWSLETTER No 30 • SEPTEMBER 2005

Marsh House, Wells FROM M WELLAND

The 2005/06 Committee

At the AGM in May two members of last year’s Committee chose not toseek reappointment. Both Michael Dunford and Bob Huntington hadserved for three years, the latter as treasurer for all that time. Our thanks are due to them both.

We are fortunate to have two new Committee members who have taken on important duties straight away – David Whitaker as treasurer, and EricAbsalon who is to take forward our plans for a Museum and Archive Centre(see his contribution on page 5).

The other members are to continue as before: Cynthia Jackson as Chairman,Ann Hissey as Vice Chairman and chair of the Publications Subcommittee,Keith Leesmith as Secretary, Lorretta Rogerson to specialise in Family HistoryStudies and John Christmas to continue with voice recording and COMMA.Brian Scott and Guy Warren, although not Committee members have agreedto continue with our publications, including the Newsletters.

Chairman’s Notes

Welcome!

Another year, another newsletter!

We have a varied and interestingprogramme of talks to look forwardto (see outside back page). Thankyou Ann Hissey for organisingthem for everybody. Also a specialthank you to our hard-workingSecretary, Keith Leesmith, who is

called upon by one and all on a hugerange of topics and who seriouslyneeds a hand with dealing withthem.

As we warned at our AGM, wehave decided that it is time to makeour first increase in membershipfees since the Group started. Wehope to run it adequately on thisincome so that we can ring-fencethe monthly meeting charges to go

Future Meetings

Please note that the first meeting ofthe new season will be held, as usual in the Maltings Community Centre, at 7.30pm on Wednesday 5 October.Come in time to pay your subscriptions for the coming yearbefore the lecture. This is to be givenby Peter Elphick who is to talk onJohn Fryer. Captain Elphick, mastermariner, spent sixteen years at sea andanother twenty in port management.In retirement, he has retained hisinterest in shipping and is the authorof eight books on related subjects.John Fryer (see the picture on page 2),Master of the Bounty, was born anddied in Wells, and his place in historyis still being argued!

On 2 November, Mike Welland is to talk on Famous Houses of Wells.Mike is well known to Members as a past Chairman of our Group andfor his many contributions to ourNewsletters. He intends to tell usabout his researches into a number of the ‘grand’ houses of the town.

On 7 December, Mike Bridgesis coming to tell us about theFakenham Museum of Gas andLocal History. Dr Bridges, born in Fakenham, graduated from theUniversity of Sheffield, worked withthe Soil Survey for some years andthen joined the academic staff of the University of Wales in Swansea.Now retired to Hempton, he hasquickly become involved (as one does)in local affairs, and in particular thegasworks museum.

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towards the Museum and ArchiveCentre project. The Committeemeeting that set the subscriptionswas a long one with many disparateviews. However we finally came toa solution that we hope will satisfyeveryone:

Annual membership to be £10 single and £15 for two at oneaddress.

Monthly meeting charges to remainat £1 per person for Members andincrease to £2.50 for visitors.

This means that Members comingto all eight talks will now pay £18 per year, formerly £13, andpairs £15.50 each, formerly £12.Visitors will contribute £20 asagainst £16 before. So it’s not ahuge increase and still not badvalue for eight nights out!

As the Committee is increasinglycomposed of working people wereally do need assistance fromeveryone to make your Groupwork, so we are asking people totell us what they can do comfortablyso we have a bigger pool to call onfor jobs.

These jobs, outside the committeework, include:

• Putting out and clearing up chairs at the monthly meetings

• Assisting at events/displays/etc

• Erecting tents

• Researching enquiries from letters and calls etc

• Assisting speakers

• Distributing Newsletters aroundtown

• Addressing envelopes for posted Newsletters

When you pay your subs, pleasesign up for what you can manage.

Our thoughts have been with JohnChristmas over the summer afterhis sad loss of Alison, his wife.

John Fryer RN of Wells SUPPLIED BY P ELPHICK

We would ask everyone to supporthim and help maintain and developthe COMMA and Oral HistoryArchives that are Alison’s lastingmemorial for the town.

On a personal note, many of youwill have seen a ‘For Sale’ noticeoutside our house. I will be startingan exciting new job in September,working with young people at theGaywood Library, so at some stagewe will be moving closer to King’sLynn. Where and when is in thelap of the gods. Get your thinkingcaps on for more Committeemembers!

CYNTHIA JACKSON

Wells Men at Trafalgar

A CD ROM has recently been published giving the names of 18,000 men who were in the fleet at Trafalgar, together with the names of the towns that they came from. Four of the participants were from Wells. Unfortunately no forenames are listed, but the surnames are Framingham, Mann, Parker, and Ram.

All of these names are listed in our own births index compiled by Bob Brownjohn. I list below some of the possibles together with the year of their baptism here in the town:

Framingham: Simon 1760; Edmund 1763; Edmund 1785

Mann: Robert 1758; Edmund 1762; Stephen 1764; David 1782; Mark 1785; James 1787; John 1790

Parker: Charles 1761; John 1789

Ram: Henry 1757; Henry 1758; Christopher 1765

Perhaps further research will establish which of these men were actually there!

KEITH LEESMITH

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Quay Fire January2005 – Sequel

Readers will recall the article contributed by Mike Welland for the last Newsletter (No 29), about theproperties so badly damaged in thefire of last January. Another Member,Graham Barker, has kindly writtenwith some additional information:

The Scotsman referred to as living in the old Lord Nelson public housewas Peter MacMillan, manager of the Eastern Counties Farmers’Cooperative depot in Staithe Street, and at one time Chairman of the Harbour Commissioners. On retirement he moved to Cley.

The property on the corner of Staithe Street, now part of the Grayfamily businesses, was thankfully not seriously involved in the fire andso was not discussed except to implythat like the neighbouring propertiesit was acquired by them in the early1960s. This was not necessarily so. It can be seen from the 1880s photograph with Mike’s article that it had bay windows on both groundand first floors. The evidence fromTrade Directories is that it was occupied from 1912 until at least 1937as a butcher’s shop by a succession ofSeppings. Long time Wells residentswill remember it as such (Seppings isa common name among butchers in Norfolk and Suffolk). It is listedfrom 1967 onwards as the QuaysideSuper Stores run by Brian Grimes.He was well known in the town as aSharpie sailor, winner of the BritishChampionship, and Commodore of the Sailing Club. He and his familyemigrated to Australia where he died.

Thank you to Graham Barker, we wish our features always provokedas interesting a response! (editor)

Publications

The first of what we hope will be a series of Occasional Publications will be available for purchase at

our October meeting. Entitled ‘The Wells Murder of 1817’ it is an illustrated version of the talk MikeWelland has given in the town on thesubject, and is gripping reading!

Town Walk booklets One & Two and Inns & Pubs 1 are now out ofprint, (though copies can be found in some shops). We have plenty stillfor the East and West End Walks.The Sketchbook, comprising theillustrations from the four Town Walks,is similarly available, and wouldmake a great seasonal gift for exiles!

The Old Lifeboat House

Everyone is pleased and relieved thatthis building has been rescued andrefurbished to provide offices for theHarbour Commissioners and facilitiesfor visiting mariners. Sadly theMaritime Museum no longer occupiesthe space so generously provided by the Commissioners in the past,but there is new hope that a suitablehome for it can be provided in thefuture (see Eric Absolon’s note onpage 5).

The reopening of the restored buildingby Lord Leicester on 5 July last wasreported briefly in the Eastern DailyPress, mention being made of theoriginal opening on 12 November1869 by the then Countess Leicester.

That occasion was reported at length in the Norfolk Chronicle of 20 November of that year, as follows:

The contrasts in the styles of reportingare very marked! Maybe the 19thCentury correspondents were paid by the column inch but, apart fromthat, it was obviously felt to be necessary to mention everyone of any consequence by name (althoughthe rest are described as ‘the principalinhabitants of Wells’).

Members will wish to note that on 29 October of this year there are to be several events in Wells commemorating the disaster to the Eliza Adams in 1880, in which11 of the crew were lost. The rebuiltmemorial on the Quay will be rededicated, and a re-enactment of the inquest into the tragedy will be held, as originally at the CrownHotel.

BRIAN SCOTT

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Notes from the Holkham Archives No 2

At the height of the summer season in 1922, a clerk in the Estate Office atHolkham made a note of the amount of traffic on the Beach Road at Wells.

On 24 July there were 7 ‘two-wheeled vehicles’ (presumably bicycles), 21 four-wheeled vehicles, 7 wagons, and 6 motor-cars.

The Bank Holiday, 7 August, was much busier, of course: 41 two-wheeledvehicles, 76 four-wheeled vehicles, 20 wagons, 29 motor-cars, and 22 motorlorries.

At that period, the old bathing tents had been replaced by the first of thewooden beach huts. Mr Dewing (of Dewing and Kersley, the millers) seemsto have been the first to ask the estate for permission to erect a hut, in 1902,because his tent, like many others, had been a victim of the ‘disgusting habits’ of opportunists: ‘used during the previous night in a manner never contemplated by the owner’.

CHRISTINE HISKEY

Alison Christmas

To those of you living outside thetown, we regret to announce thedeath of Alison Christmas.

Alison was one of the founder members of the Group back in 1996and had always taken an energeticpart. Although she was active inmany of the Group’s activities, shewill be particularly remembered fortwo of them. Along with husbandJohn she collected sound recordingsof older people of the town, whichnow form a part of the CountySound Archive. More recently shewas responsible for setting up theCOMMA in the town; some of you

will have purchased copies of the disc that resulted from this. AlthoughJohn and Alison acted as a team in these activities, John described himself as the technical assistant,whilst Alison was the driving forcebehind the collections.

Alison’s untimely death at an agewhen many people new to the townare only just taking up residencyhere, was particularly unkind. It is to be hoped the John can gain somecomfort from the genuine affectionin which Alison was obviously heldby the Members of this Group and by other organisations in the town.

KEITH LEESMITH

The Old Lifeboat House, Wells, and the Eliza Adams in 1880 FROM COMMA

A Museum andArchive Centre

Every city, every town, every villageand every community, no matter howsmall, has a history. A social history, a development history, a working history, whether it be industrial, fishing or farming.

Indeed, a history of everything thathas made the community what it is.For what we have been in the pastshapes what we are today and whatwe are today shapes the future thatcomes after us.

No need to tell History Group Members that – that is why webelong. We believe in recording the past for the future.

But there is more to it than that. We need to preserve the past for thefuture. We do that by preserving artefacts; whether written documents,or records of peoples’ memories oractual physical items. It is particularlyimportant to record and preservepeoples’ memories. In the past peoplecorresponded with chatty lettersrecording events and ‘goings on’ not only in the family, but in thecommunity in general. These arevital records not seen so much today.How much family history would belost if letters had not been kept.

However, it is one thing to recordmemories, collect artefacts and documents of the past. It is quiteanother to make them available toeverybody in a form that is accessibleand intelligible. Which is why wehave museums. Museums can be thecentre of much in the communityand, in the opinion of many, are an essential part of community life.At the time of writing this article, wehave a small History Group displayat The Maltings during Carnivalweek. In the space of two hours onone afternoon we had at least fiftyvisitors, some local and some fromafar, all fascinated by the display and spending much time reading and studying the documents andphotographs. A perfect justificationfor a Town Museum.

Hitherto, Wells has been blessed witha Maritime Museum, put togetherand run by enthusiastic and dedicatedvolunteers. This has, unfortunately,succumbed to development progress,but the artefacts are safely stored atHolkham, by arrangement with LordLeicester. But artefacts in storage willeventually deteriorate and irreparabledamage can be caused.

It is vitally important that Wells has a Town Museum that will house theMaritime Museum artefacts plus all

the material and records collected by the History Group. If a viable and efficient museum existed there is no doubt that other items wouldcome forward.

Thanks to the vision of Guy Stratton,that possibility now exists. Mostmembers will be aware of this fromthe presentations made by Guy andmyself at the AGM.

The present position is that plans are drawn up to move the GranaryTheatre upstairs to a larger space, at present unused, and to install liftsand facilities. This will release theexisting Theatre space for use as aTown/Maritime Museum. This is theideal place for it, with entrance fromStaithe Street and truly a part of theCommunity building. Some initialwork will have started by the time thisNewsletter is published, but there is agreat deal to do for which substantialfunds are required. Application hasbeen made to the Heritage LotteryFund and much effort is needed toprogress the application (see the provisional layout below).

But, above all, what is needed isenthusiastic support and belief in theproject from the whole community. I am quite confident that will beforthcoming.

ERIC ABSALON

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Provisional layout for the proposed Wells Town / MaritimeMuseum, April 2005

ARCHIVESAND

RESEARCH

SHOP

RECEPTION

FEMALE

TOILET

MALE

TOILET

DOCUMENT DISPLAY

DOCUMENT DISPLAY

MARITIME CABINETS & WALL DISPLAYDISPLAY &

INTERACTIVE FEATURE

DISPLAY

DIS

PL

AY

DIS

PL

AY

LARGE MARITIMEDISPLAY &

INTERACTIVEFEATURE

EMERGENCYEXIT ONLY

ENTRANCE

ST

AIT

HE

ST

RE

ET

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wlhgwellslocal history groupWinter programme 2005-2006

20055 October John Fryer Peter Elphick

2 November Famous Houses of Wells Mike Welland

7 December History of Fakenham Museum of Gas and Local History Mike Bridges

20064 January Wells 1850 to 1900 Tom Sands

1 February Wells and its Literary Connections Bernard Phillips

1 March Forts of Brancaster, Caister-on-Sea and Burgh Castle David Gurney

5 April Sandringham 1850 to 1950 David Grimes

3 May Savages of Lynn (Victorian manufacturer of fairground rides) Tim Thorpe

10 May Annual General Meeting

All meetings take place at The Maltings Community Centre, Staithe Street, Wells at 7.30pm

contacts chairman: Cynthia Jackson 01328 710446secretary: Keith Leesmith 01328 710261treasurer: David Whitaker 01328 710630

editorial team: Brian Scott 01328 710408Guy Warren 01328 711738