A walk through Bridge Street. Soon after 9 am on Thursday , 10th June 1841 , 33 year old solicitor Edward Hett, left his elegant double fronted house in Bridge St , and made his way across Market Place to the High St. It was raining and he was anxious to get to the Union Workhouse before the gentlemen of the Board of Guardians arrived and without his file of papers being soaked . The weekly meeting was scheduled to start at 10 in the forenoon. The first planning and building meetings had taken place in the upper room of the Castle Inn, but since its opening , the Guardians had met in the grand fireplaced, half panelled Board Room over the front entrance of the Workhouse .
Edward had lived in Downham for a number of years ; he had been appointed solicitor and clerk to the Board of Guardians of the newly opened Union Workhouse . He was the minute taker of the meetings and general clerk attending to the business of the workhouse , his neat sloping handwriting filling page after page of the thick Minute book . He had married well . His wife was Julia daughter of the Rev Charles Mann of Southery , and on this June morning she was expecting their second child. Edward`s salary of £100 per year allowed the family to employ four live in servants .
Edward had been articled to Wm Nanson, solicitor of Carlisle by his mother Elizabeth Hett of Bawtry in 1826 , and in 1835 he in turn was asked by Fidelia Blackborn of Wisbech to take on her son Edward as an articled clerk for five years.
Edward Hett`s subsequent career after he left Downham sometime after 1841 was unexpectedly varied and unusual . By 1851 Edward and Julia were living with Charles Furtado , singing master, in Camberwell . But before Camberwell , in April 1850 , he advertised his "residence in Bridge St ...on a two acre site....to let....with 6 best bedrooms , a water closet, stabling for 4 horses, granary , brewhouse and a walled garden " In 1861 he and Julia were in Newcastle under Lyme , and he was an earthenware manufacturer, master, employing 56 men, 41 boys, 52 women and 7 girls. Ten years later they are back in Camberwell and after Julia`s death Edward decided to become a Feather merchant aged 72 . His will of 1892 showed that he left a net estate of £12 .
Edward Hett`s next door neighbour , to the left, was John Powell , the 40 year old owner/occupier of the historic Crown Inn . John died very young aged 43 in 1849 and " a large number of townsfolk attended the funeral " It was a sizeable inn, including stabling for 40 horses, piggeries, cowsheds and a walled bowling green . This last may still exist at the back of the Conservative Club . At 9 am on Thursday morning the Union coach from King`s Lynn would have left some half hour earlier from the Swan on its way to London , and the Market Place would no doubt have still been busy John and Sarah Powell and their four working age children would be about the daily chores of the inn . The Inn then as now was a long inconvenient building and needed many hands to keep it ready for its customers and the Royal Mail coach from London would be in to Downham at half past 6 that evening .
To the right of the Hetts , another big family rented a substantial house , called Eagle House, further down Bridge St away from Market Place , and these were the Pattersons. Both born in Ireland , James was a 37 year old surgeon and married with four children . Also in his household was his assistant surgeon , 20 year old Thomas Hall . Despite being born in Ireland , all James` medical qualifications were from Edinburgh and he continued to live in Bridge St into the 1850s. It may have been that James Patterson had hoped to be appointed medical officer to the Union workhouse but that post had been taken by the local doctor Thomas Wales . It is also possible that Edward Hett`s brother Alexander another surgeon , had hoped to be appointed to the Union workhouse , but maybe the Board of Guardians had felt uncomfortable with Alexander`s American medical degree and his French wife .
But the Pattersons too were on the move and by 1854 James had sold his horses and carriages and his furniture because he was emigrating to Australia .
The Patterson`s landlord John Houchen was a gentleman farmer and landowner of Wereham , though this one property in Bridge St seemed to be his only investment in Downham , he owned other property in the villages around .
Tucked in behind the Pattersons was Charles Bunkall , a 30 year old tailor , his wife Mary and their new baby William , all born in Downham.
Charles William and Mary Ann (Carter) were married in Downham in 1840 and Eli William was born in the early days of 1841 Charles William born 1806 was one of several children of Barker Bunkall and Sarah his wife. Barker and another son Henry were tailors and drapers in High St and Lynn Road . Also in this small group of buildings was William Steggals , born 1809 in Northwold . He was a saddler and later a collar and harness maker . He married Elizabeth Crisp in 1835 at St Edmunds, and by 1841 they had two young daughters and a son.. Another neighbour was John Long, a 40 year old police officer, one of the first in Downham , his wife Elizabeth and their daughter Matilda who earned her living by dressmaking , and possibly Matilda`s daughter Matilda Worby aged 4 .
The next house and buildings in Bridge St were owned by the 72 yr old Rev Henry Say , who lived at Swaffham , a widower and recently bereaved of his son the Rev Thomas Henry at only 29 years old . The Rev Henry was an educated man having attended Trinity College, Oxford in the 1780s . He was the son of William Say and Elizabeth Bell of Wallington , and the brother of Col. William Say . The premises were tenanted by William Bennett ., and consisted of a house plus four tenements and gardens . William was a bricklayer and had married the young Mary Lee of Stow Bardolph in 1829 , she was described as a minor and had been baptised in 1812 the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Lee . In just twelve years of marriage , William and Mary have four sons and a daughter .
Of the house and buildings and four tenements , apart from Wm Bennett, there lived Matthew and Margaret Horsley , an 80 year old brother and 78 yr old sister both born in South Lynn , but in their long retirement living in Bridge St . Matthew Coats Horsley married Isabel Phelps in Canterbury in 1809 , and their daughters Jane and Isabel were born in 1814 and 1816 and baptised at South Lynn . In Pigots Directory of 1839 Matthew Coats Horsley was listed amongst the gentry . .However the London Gazette reported that in 1804 due to the bankruptcy of George Gowan , Thomas Gowan and Matthew Coats Horsley were the principal creditors and were described as merchants of Calcutta . Matthew and Margaret`s father another Matthew Horsley had been a farmer and grazier in King` Lynn and had left a considerable estate . Possibly as a result of the turmoil of the riots of 1816 , Matthew sold up his farming stock and implements at Marsh House, South Lynn in 1817 . He would have been in his late 50s . In 1820 he dissolved the partnership he had with Edward Mugridge , they were "Chymists" . As late as the beginning of the 20th C , Jane, Matthew and Isabel`s older daughter died at a great age, as her father had done, and left £12,000. She and her father spanned three centuries, he was born in 1760 and she died in 1903 . Jane was commemorated in the churchyard at Downham .
So it is perhaps odd that the Horsleys were renting property in Downham rather than owning their house . Next to the Horsleys was John Clarke, a 42 year old baker , with his wife Sarah and their three children , John , William and Eliza . Another old lady , 81 year old Elizabeth Shinn, lived next door to the Clarkes with her unmarried 38 year old daughter Sarah who was a dressmaker .
Then in the next substantial house and garden , as owner occupier lived George Mumford . By June 1841 he was a man of consequence and had lifted himself above the trade of tanner to the status of wool and seed merchant .. He married Sarah Garnham at St Edmunds in 1824. For the baptisms in St Edmunds of all his children in the 1820s he was a tanner but by the publication of the 1839 Pigots Trade Directory he was a man of many parts . He was agent for the East of England bank , a maltster and a surveyor . He also became trustee with Robert Winearls of Marham , to the estate of John Bush, farmer of Stow Bardolph . The estate was put in trust in order to pay the creditors of John Bush ; this was 1841 and George Mumford was described as a farmer . Of his four children , both Sarah Louisa and Fanny Maria married , but sadly his son George Richard died in 1845 at just 20 years old . George Mumford was the brother of Charles Mumford who was also a surveyor and perhaps the railway coming to Downham in the mid 1840s had brought the brothers here. George lived next door to William Chapman`s property tenanted by the James family . This William Chapman may be the same as the 60 year old William who was living with his wife Sarah in Church Lane . He was described as a farmer ; and he may have been born 1781 the son of the William Chapman in the 1791 tax assessment who was the owner of a tan yard A tan yard close by the Market Place where cattle were regularly for sale , and where several butchers plied their trade, would seem likely and it may well have existed behind Bridge St , in Chapman`s Yard . In the 1841 census this seems to be an alleyway between Alexander James family house and the premises of Wright Daines, basket maker .
Tanneries were noted for their appalling smell and mess and were usually sited away from residential property for this reason . However as Downham grew and spread it may be that by 1841 the tannery became surrounded by dwellings and people . Maybe Alexander James who lived next to the Mumfords was able to bear the tannery . Alexander was born in Woolwich in 1792 probably the son of an Army family . He married Mary Bowles in Great Yarmouth in 1814 Their first two children Alexander and Mary Ann were born in Great Yarmouth which must have been Alexander`s first posting as an excise officer . Later children, and ten are still living at home in 1841 , were born in Holt , Wymondham and Downham . Sometime between 1841 and 1851 Alexander retired to London .
Between the James family , tenants of William Chapman , and the home of Wright Daines, was Chapman`s Yard down which some 40 people lived , so it must have had a considerable number of tenements and buildings . Perhaps they had been developed out of the disused tannery which might have moved further out of town .
Wright Daines lived in the first of six dwellings beyond Chapman`s yard. However on the Tithe map apportionment there are only two houses between Alexander James and the White Hart , yet the census shows six separate households which may not be the same as six separate houses . Wright Daines was born in 1806 in Carbrooke the son of Sarah Daines . No father`s name was given which perhaps suggests that Wright was illegitimate . With the family in the 1841 census is 60 year old Sarah Thompson . She may have no relationship to either of them , as a Sarah Daines married in St Edmunds in 1810 to John Heffer , a widower. Wright married Harriot Haylett in Great Dunham in 1826 and their four surviving children were with them in Bridge St .. Wright was a basket maker .
Next to the Daines was Francis Mace , his wife and four grown up children . Francis was a 44 year old gardener born in South Runcton in 1794 . Mary Fuller was his wife and they married in 1815 , their youngest son James was also a gardener but their 23 year old son William was a brazier , a skilled craft worker in brass . The name Francis Mace appears in the lists of Unlocated Downham pubs in 1836 ,1845 and 1854 as licensee of an unnamed pub in Bridge St . Francis and Mary are both in the cemetary of St Edmunds church, he died in 1875 aged 82 and she died in 1865 aged 48.
The unusually named Thomas Withnoe , was the occupier of the premises next to Francis Mace . The Withnoes were not without troubles in their lives. Thomas was 34 , born in March , Cambs , in 1808 , and had been imprisoned for Debt in Lincoln Gaol. The Stamford Mercury of Friday 11th March 1836, under the heading Insolvent Debtors , reports Thomas Withnoe, the younger, formerly of Long Sutton , following no employment, then of March , schoolmaster, then of 2 Johnsons Ct, Fleet St , London, journeyman printer, since of March , schoolmaster`s assistant , afterward of Long Sutton, schoolmaster, and late of the same , printer , bookbinder and stationer . In 1841 he is simply a printer and stationer .
But there was good with the bad and earlier in the Stamford Mercury of Friday , 5th Feb , 1830, "On Monday se`night, at Long Sutton, Mr Thomas Withnoe , son of Mr Withnoe , schoolmaster of March , to Mary Daffern, widow of Mr Daffern , blacksmith, of the same place , married ." Mary Daffern had been Mary Warwick , and had married William Daffern in 1827 only for him to die a year later aged 40. Later in the summer of 1830 Thomas Withnoe`s mother died aged 47, wife of Mr Thomas Withnoe of March , schoolmaster . It would appear that the elder Thomas Withnoe had also found life a struggle , and the Cambridge Chronicle of June 1827 reports , that the said Thomas has assigned by Indenture , all his household furniture , stock in trade, and all his personal estate and effects whatsoever to George Ball of March , fellmonger, and Thomas Elliott of the same, yeoman, for the benefit of his creditors . Thomas`s daughter 19 year old Mary Ann`s death appears in the Bury and Norwich Post of April the same year . The same solicitor who dealt with this , Edmund Barley , also dealt with the conclusion of this case, in 1835 when Thomas Withnoe`s estate is advertised for the creditors thereof to contact Edmund Barley . Thomas Withnoe senior was described as deceased .
Hard to live with, these business failures were reported not only in the local papers , but in the London Gazette of 1841 Thomas was described as of Downham Market , printer and stationer , as well as newspaper agent , and licenced dealer in tobacco and cigars There also was a mention of Thomas Withnoe as licencee of the fancifully named pub , the Lady of the Lake , in Bridge St , King`s Lynn in 1846 . Mary Withnoe , his long suffering wife , died aged 50 in Long Sutton in 1849 and two years later in 1851 Thomas himself is a lodger and widower living in Albert St , Wisbech . His daughter Mary appeared in the 1861 census living with her uncle Thomas Warwick , and his daughter Eliza appeared in the 1851 census as a servant in a household in March . After his wife`s death , Thomas seemed to have moved to Dudley in Worcestershire, he was there in 1858 when he returned to administer the estate of £50 of his late wife Mary . No reason was given for the 9 year gap between her death and his administration . Thomas survived until 1860 when he died in Dudley , Worcs. But saddest of all was the death of Thomas`s small son Tom aged 5 in 1841 who was buried aged 8 in St Edmunds in 1843. .
Another incomer with aspirations lived next door to the Withnoes . Robert Newman Murrell had been born in 1806 in Covent Garden , and married Catherine Whincop in St Nicholas, King`s Lynn , in 1832 . He described himself variously in the registers of South Lynn and King`s Lynn for each of his children`s baptisms . He was a writer of Valengers Road, or a mail guard , and by the mid 1830s , he was an attorney`s clerk and remained that or solicitor`s clerk for the rest of his life ..He lived in Bridge St with his family , elegantly named children Ashley , Robert Debenham, Sophia Whincop , from the 1841 census to his death in 1872. Both Robert and Catherine were buried in St Edmunds churchyard , he in 1872 and she in 1877
For Sarah Carter, living next to the Murrells , the busiest days of the week were Tuesday and Saturday . She and her only son William had inherited the carrier business in Bridge St from her late husband Isaac who died in 1838. For William this meant carrying goods and passengers to King`s Lynn on Tuesday , Thursday and Saturday , whilst his mother Sarah , was carrier to Wisbech on Saturdays, to Norwich and Swaffham and East Dereham each Tuesday . Of Sarah`s four daughters , two were already working as dressmaker and bonnet maker , and after Sarah`s death in 1849 , and perhaps not coincidentally three years into the new railway line carrying passengers and goods from King`s Lynn to Downham and further afield , they and their brother moved to Lynn Road , he taking a beer house to keep himself and his family .
Next to Chapman`s Yard and back in Bridge St ,was a barn, yard and field owned by Thomas Harris . This would have been the Thomas Harris who was described as a farmer, living in High St with his family , 27 year old Maria and a 16 month old baby , Albert , and the same Thomas Harris owner of the Castle Inn .
The last house before the White Hart , was owned by Philip Winearls and tenanted by Charles Mumford . Charles was born in 1804 in Lavenham and became a surveyor . His principal work was the Tithe maps and apportionments for many of the villages around Downham. He married in 1825 Louisa Woolnough in Sibton , Suffolk . In the 1841 census their four small children were living in Bridge St with their young governess Fanny Allcock, and two live in girl servants Lydia and Sally Banham .
On this June day , their parents Charles and Louisa Mumford were away in Ufford in Suffolk . Three days after the census , on the 9th June, Louisa Mumford`s father John, gent, died in Ufford . The four Woolnough siblings had gathered together in the family home for this sad event with Charles having to lodge with a next door neighbour for the time being . The Winearls and Mumfords were both interested in education. By 1851 young Charles aged 12 was away at boarding school in Fakenham with two Winearls sons. The previously mentioned George Richard Mumford son of George and Sarah , was also at the same school in Norwich Road, Fakenham in the 1841 census .
The Winearls were of Shouldham Thorpe and Marham , in particular Robert Winearls had owned the Smock mill at Marham and Philip who was a farmer at Shouldham . Philip and his wife are buried in St Edmunds in 1874 and 1883 respectively .
The White Hart inn was owned by Arthur Morse a scion of the Morse brewing family of Swaffham . Prior to 1822 the inn had been called the Whalebone and George Morse put it up for sale in 1847 when it was taken over by Stewart and Patteson In 1841 the licencee was John Capron or Capurn Brown . He was born c 1800 the son of John and Mary Brown (Wright) and married Jane Smith at St Edmunds in 1832 . He also appears to have been licensee of the Bridge Inn in Downham West for a short period and maybe it was whilst travelling across the bridge between the two pubs , that he fell and was drowned . John and Jane had four young children living at home in the White Hart as well as four " dealers " and two families of Irish hawkers , 21 people in all .
According to the Tithe apportionment and map , Oxley English owned the first house beyond the White Hart and his tenant was Edward Clark a 42 year old baker. However there is a John and Elizabeth Willimott on the census between the White Hart and the bakers . It may be that this John Willimott who was a hairdresser , somehow took over the running the White Hart in 1845 - 1847 to fill the gap between the death of John Capurn Brown and the sale in 1847 by George Morse , but he was certainly the licensee in 1847. John Willimott was the son of another John Willimott who was also a hairdresser, and married Elizabeth Ranson daughter of William Ranson , miller, at St Edmunds in 1840.
Oxley English who owned the bakers was born in 1810 and baptised at St Nicholas , King`s Lynn . He was the son of John and Mary English and in the 1851 census was still living in King`s Lynn with a footman and a house servant ; he described himself as a timber merchant . However after his death in 1884 , his will stated that he was of 19 Pall Mall and his executors were Sir Lewis Whincop Jarvis , knt , of King`s Lynn and William Floyd of Middlesex , the latter was almost certainly a relative of Oxley`s mother Mary Floyd who had married John English in Swaffham in 1802 . He left a shade over £139,000 .
Edward Clark , baker and miller , tenant of Oxley English , was born in Shouldham around 1799 , and Clarinda his wife at Stradsett . She was Clarinda daughter of John and Margaret Harper of Stradsett born 1798 . By 1841 they had 7 children all girls apart from 8 year old George, and by 1851 had a further two daughters .
The next group of houses was owned by Zachariah Stebbings, a gardener . He was listed as owner and occupier of five houses and gardens . It would seem that the appellation gardener does not mean in 1841 what it means today . In the Norfolk Chronicle of 1833 was reported the death of Frances , wife of Mr Zachariah Stebbing, seedsman and nurseryman of Downham , aged 43 . They were married in St Edmunds in 1827, she was a widow , Frances Dunham , and he a widower . In the 1841 census , two young women Mary and Sarah Dunham aged 25 and 16 are living in the Stebbing house as female servants . These were Frances Stebbing formerly Dunham`s two daughters by her first husband , William Dunham who died aged 35 in 1825 .
Zachariah Stebbings also owned a six acre nursery which is not recorded in the Tithe map apportionment but where it was may have been a plot of land off Lynn Road . And whether this was the same as the much later American Nurseries is not currently known . The 1840 Tithe map recorded that he owned this group of houses in Bridge Street and a further four tenements and gardens on the opposite side of Bridge St further down toward Andrews cottages .
One of the Stebbing`s tenants was John Brown a 44 year old grocer , sometime chandler, sometime farmer , who married Susanna Whybrow, widow , in St Edmunds in 1827 . One of the witnesses was Rachel Stebbing , possibly one of the daughters of the Brown`s landlord Zachariah . In fact Susanna before she married Thomas Wibrow in St Edmunds in 1822, was Susanna Stebbing . So it was as a mark of respect that the Browns oldest child was named Zachariah Stebbing Brown after their landlord and relative . With John and Susan was Henry , a baker, and John`s brother .
The next family to the Stebbings down Bridge Street, was William Scott, 35 , butcher . He was the third husband of his wife Martha , her first had been a Mr Robinson, the second Edward Simpson Stannard whom she married in St Edmunds in 1825 and thirdly William Scott who she married in 1836 also at St Edmunds .. Next door to the Scotts was Sarah Timwell, 40, a laundress with a young William Timwell aged 12 . There was no marriage for a Sarah and a Timwell or Timewell , but there was a marriage for a John Timewell, sadler, and Elizabeth Wilson , a marriage witnessed by George Garman and his soon to be wife Susan Pooley .. John and Elizabeth had a son William baptised in St Edmunds in 1828 . Could this Sarah , laundress, be a relative rather than young William`s mother . And next to them were the Wignalls, John , a gardener who no doubt worked for his landlord Zachariah Stebbing , his wife Mary and their daughter Rachel . Their daughter Rachel was baptised at Stow Bardolph in 1816 and John was described then as a lighter man . Mary his wife was Mary Snelling.
These families fill the street space between the White Hart and the Queenshead , which like the other two pubs in the street had lost its licencee within the last 5 years . In this case it was George Garman who died in 1840 aged 47, he had been the licensee of the Queenshead and on his death his widow Susannah took over the business . As well as the pub she had four small children to look after , Susanna the oldest at 10 and Frederick the youngest only 2 . Her lodgers were a mix of locals and hawkers, one in silk , one in china, a rake manufacturer, a book seller and two horse breakers and dealers .
The owner of the Queenshead was Biddy Blackburn the widow of James Blackburn whom she had married in St Edmunds in 1810 , she was Bridget daughter of James and Sarah King of Methwold . James King her father had been the owner of the Queenshead until his death in 1813 just after his daughter`s marriage . In his will of 1813 James King left the Swan at Methwold to his son James and the Queenshead to his daughter Bridget . Susannah Garman the innkeeper and her husband had been the licencee some years earlier .
At this point Paradise Road bisects Bridge St . And beyond this point , Bridge Street becomes Bridge Road. Continuing eastwards toward the river the next two properties are owned by Charles Lemmon and tenanted by Thomas and George Wood and consist of a house , garden and malthouse, and by John Hutson and others, of cottages and gardens . The position of the property known as house , garden and malthouse was approximately where Dial House and Emmerson`s garden centre are today .
The property numbered 501 which was in the tenancy of John Hutson and others , was depicted as four single oblongs on the Tithe map John Hudson or Hutson was 40 and a blacksmith living with his wife and two grown up daughters , and a nineteen year old blacksmith`s apprentice George Hitchcock , and Jane Browne, dressmaker and her young son Henry . Not one of this group are born in Norfolk. In another of these premises was Harriot Edwards, 50 , schoolmistress , and with her are Arthur Houchen son of John Houchen of Wereham , aged 7 , and John Wooll aged 6 who may have been the son of Hugh Wooll of Upwell born 1835. Next the small new family of James Scott, draper , aged 25, son of Robert Scott , also a draper of Downham , and his wife Martha formerly Puxley . They married in 1839 and had a small son Robert aged 1.
John and Alice Wotton both 55 both described as Ind , live next door , but neither are born in Norfolk There were two uninhabited cottages between Harriot Edwards and her small school and James Scott draper , and one between the Wottons and Rebecca Gover . However , Rebecca was the wife of Robert Gover, a Wesleyan Methodist preacher who spent census night with Wm Springfield , merchant, in Stoke Ferry leaving his family in Downham. Its not clear though if the property she was living in is part of the Chapel , cottage and burial ground which is across the road from the Queenshead . Or if the Govers rented a cottage for themselves and their five children plus a young Wesleyan Methodist preacher William Blackwell
Charles Lemmon the owner of these two substantial blocks of land and premises was born in Downham in 1797 the son of William and Sarah , by 1840 Charles and his wife Hannah ( Dean) were living in Shouldham and he was a farmer of substance . She was his second wife , and his first was Mary Winearls whom he married in Shouldham in 1821 .
However the house , garden and malt office was tenanted by Thomas and George Wood . This may be the George Wood of Denver who married Mary Ann , the only child of Jonathan Flower, merchant of the High St . But neither the Woods nor the Lemmon family were living in Bridge St .
Next to Rebecca Gover and her children , was Anne widow of Charles Thurston , 60 , a nurse and her daughter Mary aged 20 . Also a tenant of Charles Lemmon in one of these tenements was Jarvis Souter. He was " of Mattishall" on his marriage to Mary Parker at Longham in 1822 The surname Souter was spelled Souther in the Longham marriage register and is difficult to follow , except to note that Jarvis, Jervis, Gervas, Souther, Souter, Suter are variants and he died in 1854..
The next block of land , 503, toward the river is empty of buildings and not included on the Tithe Apportionment . The next building was owned by James Hacon who married Hannah Heythorpe at Lt Walsingham in 1802 . He was a schoolmaster . Hannah their first daughter died in 1806 and Hannah his wife died in 1809 aged 27. At the time of the 1841 census the family were living in Swaffham and he had remarried Mary possibly Herbert in Ipswich . But James Hacon`s tenant was William Jakes or Jex or Jacques , b 1793, a mustard manufacturer He married Elizabeth Nicholl who died in 1834 aged 46 and secondly Mary Ann Taylor in 1837 , he died in 1856 With the Jakes was Mary Palmer and her daughter Harriot who was born illegitimately in 1810 after an earlier illegitimate daughter Eliza born in 1807 .
William Jakes may have used the Tower mill to make his mustard . This was in Cowgate Street, " adjoining Parsonage Lane from which there is a back entrance " . What became known as Bird`s mill was not constructed until 1851 .
Next was a group of five houses owned by Daniel Phipps and tenanted by John Harper and others . Daniel Phipps was in Stow Bardolph in the 1841 census living with his wife Martha , but by the 1851 census he was described as a retired servant, 75 , a widower living with his daughter Catherine the wife of William Brown , builder . Daniel was another incomer being born in Enfield in Middlesex .
John Harper the tenant of Daniel Phipps was a 78 year old bricklayer. He has no family living with him but he may have been the John Harper who married in Stradsett in 1792 though by 1841 his wife Margaret Mann was dead . If so his married daughter Clarinda Clark was only a few doors away.. The other families in this group of five houses were farmers and ag labs . William Barker was the first beyond William Jakes and family and he was born in Wendling in 1807 the son of Martin and Ann Barker, and married Martha Harris in Wendling in 1826. She was from Swanton Morley and was nearly 20 years older than her husband . .
William Doubleday , farmer aged 40 was married to Sarah and on his death in 1848 she moved to Outwell to live with her son Henry aged 25 and his two small daughters . Despite his youth , her son was a widower , his wife Frances appeared to have died also in 1848 perhaps giving birth to their second daughter Alice . Another of Daniel Phipps tenants in this group of five tenements was William Horn , a 40 year old farmer born in Methwold, his wife Susan was born in Stow Bardolph and they had three children with a significant gap between the last Charles aged 4 and the first Elizabeth aged 17 which might mean that Susan was William`s second wife .
The last of Daniel Phipps tenants was Robert and Mary Rollison or Rallison he was a 69 year old cabinet maker and not born in Norfolk , he was buried in Downham in August 1841 . His next door neighbour who owned a house, garden and timber yard, was Henry Winter aged 40 , not born in the county though his wife Sarah was , and with them they have Joseph Scott a 25 year old cabinet maker`s apprentice who was no doubt working for Robert Rollison next door . Between 1841 and 1851 Henry Winter , timber merchant had fallen on harder times and he and his wife were living in Reading with their widowed daughter , he was described as `out of business` born Ely , Sarah was born Downham .
As the road gets closer to the river it also gets closer to the brickyards . The next six families were all either agricultural labourers or bricklayers or makers , except George Raby , a 25 year old butcher . . He and his wife Ann , both 25, were sharing a house with George`s sister Eliza who was married to Robert Gage , bricklayer , and their brother James Raby , 20 , a brickmaker . George , James and Eliza were the children of George and Elizabeth Raby , labourer of Downham.
Next to the young Rabys lived Henry and Jemima Sadler , they were both 45 and he was an ag lab . She had been Jemima Carter and they were married in Wimbotsham in 1816 ; by 1841 they have 7 children living at home including their eldest Emma Jane who was recorded as being blind . William Whenn or Wenn or Winn and his small family lived next door again to the Sadlers , despite only being 36 he is a widower , his wife Elizabeth nee Wilkinson having died recently , he had Elizabeth , William and Sarah to look after . He was a brickmaker and son of William and Ann Wenn of Denver .
Plot number 408 on the tithe map apportionment shows that this land was owned by William Bennett and tenanted by William Barrack and consisted of 4 tenements . William Barrack was the son of Ann Barrack or Barrick who in 1797 married William Poll , and William the bricklayer of Bridge Road in 1841 goes by the name of William Poll, but on the apportionment is William Barrack . William married Charlotte Adams and they had at least 6 children baptised in St Edmunds as Barrack . Charlotte died in 1869 aged 74.
The next plot down Bridge Road, belongs to Thomas Wright. His tenants of cottages and orchards , were John Shinn and his wife Lydia . He was a carter born around 1790 and married Lydia Traice at St Edmunds in 1827. It is possible that this John Shinn was one of the identified rioters of the 1816 Downham riots . He would have been born c 1792 so aged 24 in 1816. Their neighbours were William and Mary Rawson , both 70 , and living with their youngest son James who like most workers at this end of Bridge Road, is a brickmaker . William Rawson was born at Upwell around 1771 and his wife Mary was described as N for not born in county and their marriage and her birth and maiden name have not yet been found . Both died in the workhouse , she in 1844 aged 79 and he in 1854 . So from the 1844 schedule of land owners and tenants of land alongside the proposed railway line, James and Mary Rawson , son and mother, had a cottage and an orchard, Robert Laws had a cottage and John Shinn had an orchard .
Also living down by the river in these cottages and tenements is Elizabeth Watson , 35 , a widow and a schoolmistress .
Next to Elizabeth Watson were the Filbys . Henry was a carpenter and he and Elizabeth nee Gotobed Gordon ,married in 1835 in St Edmund`s, have three small children . Henry`s sister Elizabeth and his mother Mary were also living with them . Elizabeth Filby may be the young woman who died in the workhouse in 1851 aged 28. Their neighbour was Thomas Bridges aged 70 , described as Ind, which usually means that he had private means . He was living with his son Billy , 30 , a bricklayer and his wife Louisa nee Grimson . Billy and Louisa were married in 1837 in Aylsham . By 1851 Billy and his father Thomas have vanished and Louisa was back in Aylsham , widowed , with her parents . There is a death of a Thomas Bridges in the Freebridge Lynn district in the September quarter of 1844 and the death of a William Bridges also in the Freebridge Lynn distict in the September quarter of 1847.
Thomas Wright the landlord was by 1851 a bank agent living in the High Street .He married Margaret Dalton in St Margaret`s , King`s Lynn in 1810 This single property he owned at the business end of Bridge Road may well have been an investment with the railways in mind .
At this point the next four plots of Bridge Road continue down past what is now Knight`s bakery , down to the river itself . There are four large plots and all belong to Maria Juler . She was an interesting character . The daughter of John Mann , farmer, probably born Stradsett around 1786 , she married first in 1810 Richard Kemp, brickmaker , and they had six children starting with Leah in 1812 who was followed by four sisters and a brother . Maria was widowed before 1830 and she was recorded in the Land Tax Assessment as owning a house and land in her own right . In 1839 she married widower Henry Juler a bricklayer whose wife Isabella had died and left him with two sons . Henry and Maria do not appear to have had children between them , and he died in 1847 . Maria herself died in 1868 and is buried at St Edmund`s aged 82.
The last of her tenants alongside the river , after John Dyson , the engineer , her own orchard , Thomas Dyson her tenant at the brickyard , was James Haylett . The Dysons are clearly expecting the railway and are tenants of land and the brickyard down by the river where the railway will shortly be built . James and Margaret Haylett and their seven children were the final tenants right down by the river . As with so many other heads of households, James Haylett died in 1849 and Margaret his widow moved to Church Lane taking up business as a coal dealer .
John Dyson was 70 , an engineer , with his wife Elizabeth , 60, ( who was recorded as being buried in Downham in March 1842 aged 76, and her son John William buried in Dec 1843 aged 44).and their daughter Elizabeth , 35, and they live next door to the brickyard owned by Maria Juler and tenanted by their son Thomas. It would appear that William Talbot a brickmaker actually lives at the brickyard , and he was sharing this industrial area with Thomas Dyson , although the Dysons lived up in Market Place . John Dyson was not born in the county and may well be identified as the Yorkshire born father of Thomas Dyson who was on the board of the Lynn and Ely Railway Company. Thomas Dyson , son of John , described himself as a civil engineer at his marriage in 1840 , as widower, at St Edmund`s , to Dinah Wright . She was the daughter of John Wright , farmer . Thomas`s first wife Mary Ann , aged 30, and his 5 month old son Thomas died in March and April 1832 .
Oddly with the building of the railway so close , Thomas Dyson sold using Mumford and Casebow, his entire stock of bricks etc in the Michaelmas sale of 1844 . The sales particulars included " 185,000 patent pressed white, best white, second white, mingle, drain and fire bricks " plus huge numbers of drainage tiles , flat tiles, common floor bricks, polished floor bricks, arched tiles, a variety of sizes and shapes of pavements , pantiles etc together with various pumps and capstans and two pile engines . Mr Dyson was reported as " declining the brick making business."
William Talbot was from a family of watermen who earned their living transporting goods up and down the river Great Ouse . This William was a brickmaker however, the most skilled trade and he had married Ann Ollet at St Edmund`s . Their daughter Harriott , 11 in 1841, was living in the household of Mr Challis , schoolmaster, at Ten Mile Bank in 1851 as both William and Ann Talbot were dead in 1844 and 1845 respectively . Perhaps William Talbot saw the coming railway as the destroyer of the canal and river transport businesses as indeed it was , and joined the brick trade . Brickmaking in Downham was big business at this time .
" When a brickground at Downham Market, Norfolk, was offered for sale in 1821, the kiln on the premises was brick-built, was capable of containing 40,000 bricks, and sufficient clay had already been raised to make 300,000 to 400,000 bricks that season. This suggests up to ten firings in that kiln during the months of Brick-burning . " Ref NRO .. It is not clear who bought the brickyard in 1821 if it was the Dysons or someone who later sold on to them .
Bridge Road now ends at the bridge , and the land on the opposite side of the road belonged to the Batchcroft Charity . This was the bequest of Thomas Batchcroft in the 1660s which stipulated that land must be bought with his legacy of £100 which would earn £5 a year for the poor of Downham .. Today Bird`s mill stands on the site. And today the next houses are Railway cottages , formerly known as Andrews cottages . But on the 1841 census there are a number of families living at this end of the road whose names do not correspond with the tenants of the landowners of these plots of land.
Much belatedly , the walk can now continue.
The blockage in many senses was the bridge. We have a bridge. However behind this simple fact is a whole history of fen drainage, Government reluctance to fund a new bridge and the opening and closing of the two old unsafe bridges. And the enlargement of St John`s Eau into the Relief Channel we see today .
As it is so detailed
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
DOWNHAM RIOT 1816
At the end , on that hot August Saturday , on Norwich
Castle hill , there was a delay. A
rumour of a reprieve " and the execution not taking place until half past
one , gave strength to that rumour . "
But no urgent galloping horse, no urgent running man brought a reprieve
. The due process of the law continued
inexorably . A cynic might believe
that a public hanging as late as half
past one on a summer Saturday afternoon would guarantee to attract a bigger public
audience , the better to educate them in the ways of the law versus the law
breaker . Castle Hill was crowded with
the curious and the ghoulish and the thrill seekers .
Daniel Harwood faced the hangman and " suffered with firmness the dreadful sentence of the law ".The Cambridge Chronicle went on to say that Harwood aged 22, " had been lead away by bad example and in a moment of intoxication . " Harwood " was to have been shortly married , and that the unhappy object of his choice is now pregnant by him . " Thomas Thody the second of the Downham rioters held in Norwich Castle " when brought out , evinced great fear , which he expressed by convulsive shrieks and was obliged to be supported by several men. ". He left a wife and two children .
There had been at least two attempts to halt the executions. Thos. Wm. Coke of Holkham had written to Chief Justice Vicary Gibbs suggesting that the men , Thody and Harwood had been of previous good character and would certainly regret their actions and return to a quiet life . Pathetically Daniel Harwood`s father Thomas had written to suggest that this was a tragic case of mistaken identity , his boy had been christened Dan , as the parish register of Gooderstone would show , not Daniel . He would get the parish register to the Chief Justice to prove it . And there was a long 70+ signature petition from the townspeople of Downham asking for clemency . Privately , Chief Justice Vicary Gibbs reported to Coke of Holkham that these two had to hang , but the other rioters would be reprieved . It was reasonable . It was exemplary. No blood had been shed, but the townspeople had been terrified and their property had been stolen and severely damaged . The two would act as a deterrent to others who might consider rioting and smashing up and stealing the property of law abiding citizens. The acquitted would go home and feel lucky to be alive.
The magistrates had faced the rioters and attempted to calm them with offers of an increase in wages and a decrease in the price of bread .In fact the magistrates , Pratt, Hare and Dering had just escaped with their lives . They had been at their usual Monday meeting in the Crown Inn when the mob fell on the town . They got out and hid in Dr Wales house in the High Street and in other neighbours houses and gardens But crucially, they had managed to alert Captain William Lee`s Upwell Yeomanry Cavalry who arrived at around 5 in the afternoon of the first day of the riot . The Upwell Yeomanry Cavalry though heavily armed had also behaved in a disciplined way and no lives had been lost . Finally the rioters had dispersed loaded with free beer and free bread, and other food . There were no winners and no losers .
The Downham riot was not unique . Various seemingly unrelated events culminated in two years of terrible weather , freezing winters , cold wet summers , and Europe recovering from the Napoleonic wars faced extreme food shortages. Add to that the extraordinary eruption of Mt Tambora a " super-colossal event " the ash of which reduced the earth`s temperature by 1degree . 1810-1819 were reckoned to be the coldest since the 1690s . May and June 1815 suffered heavy rainfall which in turn had the effect of ruining the harvest. Because of or despite the ruined harvests, it was also in 1815 that the Government of the day passed the Corn Laws. These were designed to protect the cereal growing landowners from the effects of imports of cheap foreign cereals . The riots started in London in the same year .
But it was not just the Food riots, in Suffolk in 1815 farm machinery was broken , in October there were disturbances in Hull when the seamen went on strike, and in November the Bilston Collieries also went on strike . More machine breaking went on in Huddersfield in 1816, there were food riots in Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk in the first half of 1816 and more riots from Frome in Somerset to Birmingham in the north ; in October it was the turn of South Wales, December saw the Spa Fields riots and finally in 1819 , the horrific Peterloo massacre took place .
The Times of 30th May 1816 collects reports from Cambridge, Bury,and Norwich . The article writer seems to imply that the same rioters moved up the country from Bury toward Ely and Littleport and on to Southery and finally to Downham. He speaks of " a most desperate body of insurgent fen-men." as if they were a different species .
The fenmen assembled at Littleport and made a bee line for the home of the Rev Mr Vachel a magistrate , " who stood at his door armed with a pistol , threatening to shoot anyone who should attempt to enter , when three men rushed upon him and disarmed him . He immediately ran upstairs to relieve his wife and two daughters who with very slight covering , made their escape with him, running nearly all the way to Ely , where they arrived safe after midnight ." A group of rioters then marched a miller and his wife to the bank and demanded £50 . Further damage was done before the group was split into the Ely and the Littleport "banditti" The Royston volunteer cavalry broke up this disturbance but not before shots were fired on both sides, the rioter who shot a soldier wounding him , was himself shot dead, and a second rioter was shot in the face , from which wound he subsequently died . This fatal gunfight resulted in the rioters splitting up and disappearing .
The Upwell troop of yeomanry cavalry was sent to Southery " the magistrates and inhabitants expecting another visit from the insurgents of Southery and its neighbourhood , in consequence of their demands not being complied with . They insisted on 2/- per day for their labour, and to be paid for Monday and Tuesday ( the days they were rioting at Downham) ; also fixing their price for bread , flour etc . When the troop arrived, ( about seven in the evening ) the special constables were on the alert and several were immediately taken into custody ."
" On Saturday morning seven persons were fully committed for trial ; and on Sunday and Monday last many more prisoners were brought in , what have not been examined . The Upwell troop were ordered to Wisbech on Saturday morning to meet the March and Whittlesey troops , the magistrates and inhabitants being fearful of outrages ; but all is at present quiet there . "
The local papers were having a field day . On 24th August 1816 , you could buy " This day is published A REPORT on The Trials of the Rioters at Downham and Feltwell . At the late Norfolk Assizes . To be had of the Printers of this Newspaper and all their Agents. "
"Gibbs's unpleasant voice, disagreeable temper, and jejeune pedigree presented formidable handicaps at the start of his career. He initially employed himself as a special pleader, in which capacity he developed a good professional reputation, and was called to the bar in 1783. He proved successful, if acidulous, as an advocate, and powerful in marshaling evidence". Born in Exeter son of an apothecary 1751, educated Eton , Cambridge . Retired 1818 , died 1820 . Wikipedia ; DNB
. Many column inches were devoted to the trial before Lord Chief Justice Gibbs . " William Bell, Amelia Lightharness and Hannah Jarvis were indicted for having on the 20th inst. together with various other persons riotously and tumultuously assembled at the parish of Southery from whence they proceeded to acts of theft and violence in the town of Downham .......Frances Wiseman stated that she kept a pork and sausage shop : that in the afternoon of the 20th a mob assembled in front of her house : that she observed the prisoner Amelia Lightharness , looking in at the shop window , and that immediately afterward the same prisoner opened the latch of the door and brought in several of the mob , telling them `this was the shop for good pork `. The witness further stated that her shop formed part of her dwelling house : that Amelia Lightharness was the first that entered and at her instigation the mob ransacked the shop of the witness taking away forcibly a quantity of pork and sausages . The shop window was broken by the violence of the people."
"Maria Palmer, Wm.Buxton and Zachariah Stebbing severally corroborated the first witness and the latter proved that all the above named prisoners entered the shop of Mrs Wiseman and concurred with the acts of violence there committed . Bell and Jarvis severally produced evidence of good character . Verdict - All Guilty ."
" Thomas Thody , Charles Nelson , Daniel Harwood, the same Hannah Jarvis, Elizabeth King, Margaret Jerry and Elizabeth Watson . These prisoners were indicted as forming part of the same unlawful riotous assembly at Southery as before mentioned and for proceeding to assault William Spinks , at Downham aforesaid , and stealing from his person a certain quantity of meal and flour . William Spinks stated that he was an apprentice to Mr Baldwin , a miller at Downham and at the time of the riot had charge of his mill. That on 20th May at about two in the afternoon , he saw a large number of persons approach the mill whilst he was on the road alone about a furlong off ; that upon his coming up to them , they demanded of him the key of the mill , which he delivered to them through the impulse of fear ; that the persons so assembled had sticks and cudgels ; that upon him delivering the key , they proceeded to lay violent hands on the meal , flour and sacks found therein , some part of which they threw about and destroyed and the other part they carried away with them . This witness together with George Gillingham , Susan Stebbing, Pleasance Laws, and William Baldwin or some of them identified the persons of all the prisoners , and proved that Charles Nelson was the first who entered the mill . Verdict - All Guilty ."
"The same Thomas Thody , the same Daniel Harwood, the said Amelia Lightharness , William Youngs, Edward Mellon, and William Galley were indicted as part of the same unlawful and riotous assembly at Southery and having proceeded to Downham , for breaking open the dwelling house and shop of Samuel Bolton , a butcher there, and stealing therein and carrying away a certain quantity of pork the property of the said Samuel Bolton, the said Samuel Bolton and another being in the house and being put in fear . Samuel Bolton stated that on the said 20th May he had given the mob some meat , in the hope of pacifying them ; that about five o`clock in the afternoon of the same day , they came in a large body to his house and demanded more which he said he was unable to give them . Upon this occasion Thody , Harwood and a man named Fendyke who is still at large, appeared to be the ringleaders . Harwood said if witness did not give them more they would have all there was in the shop . To this menace uttered by Harwood the witness replied , ` he would be damned if they should `, and immediately closed and bolted the door , and went toward the kitchen for the purpose of finding two guns , with which he meant to defend his property . Before he had reached his guns however , the mob forced open the door and stripped the shop of all meat to the value of £5 or £6."
"These prisoners were all identified as taking an active part on this occasion by the concurrent testimony of the last named witness and Thomas Bolton , Zachariah Stebbing, and Ann Springfield . Verdict - All Guilty ."
" The same Thomas Thody, the same Daniel Harwood, Frances Porter , John Bell and John Blogg were indicted as parties to the same unlawful and riotous assembly , and for breaking open the dwelling house of John Parkinson in Downham aforesaid, no person being therein , and felonioussly stealing and carrying away a quantity of flour and various articles of wearing apparel found therein . Hannah wife of the said John Parkinson who is a tailor and baker and keeps a general shop at Downham , stated that being terrified at the appearance of the mob , they had, on the said 20th May last , shut their shop , and retreated to the house of a neighbour . The mob did proceed to Mr Parkinson`s house and shop as was expected and after they were gone away , the witness with her family returned , upon which they found the house had been broken open and they missed from the shop there, waistcoats , shawls , shoes, flour and other articles ."
" The evidence of the last witness corroborated by her daughter Charlotte Parkinson , Richard Gamble , Thomas Mallett Bailey , Wm . Gamble , Charles Smith , and James Weston, was sufficiently clear to establish the charge against all the prisoners except John Bell who had not been seen in the house but had been afterwards met with a ham under his arm . The latter prisoner was therefore acquitted and the others found - all Guilty ."
" John Stearne was indicted for larceny only , he having on the said 20th May , demanded cheese of William Oakes of Downham .Wm Oakes stated that the prisoner came with a mob and demanded cheese , which he delivered to him through fear , observing at the same time that he himself wanted it as much as they did . Samuel Johnson , landlord at the Crown Inn, at Downham stated, that on the same day the prisoner Stearne brought a cheese to his house and divided it amongst the mob . Verdict - Guilty.
"The same John Stearne , the same Thomas Thody , and John Pearson , were indicted for breaking open the Crown Inn, in Downham , with other persons, for assaulting the said Samuel Johnson , the landlord , and for stealing from his person , meat, flour and other provisions . Mr Johnson identified the persons of the prisoners Thody and Pearson as having been the foremost of the party who first broke in by force , but the prisoner Stearne was not observed by him until he ( Stearne) produced the cheese , which was sometime after the forcible entry . Stearne was therefore acquitted. The other prisoners were both found Guilty ."
"In addressing the Jury upon the several indictments for riot , the Chief Justice very clearly explained the law to them , that in tumultuous assemblies of this nature , not only the parties which commit any acts of violence are answerable to the law, but likewise all persons who by joining a mob give sanction to their unlawful proceedings were in the eye of the law equally guilty of any outrage which was committed by any of such mob . ...In allusion to the good characters which most of the prisoners adduced in their favour, with respect to the honesty and peaceable habits of their lives, the Judge emphatically observed, that nothing could more clearly show the necessity of suppressing such disorderly and mischievous proceedings as were subject of these trials . Persons who had heretofore acted honestly and had been good members of society , had now by deluding one another in the vain hope of redressing those grievances which their proceedings only tended to aggravate , evinced their peaceable dispositions by unlawfully assembling to the terror of well disposed persons , and their honesty by forcibly seizing the property of others .
" Having convicted the ringleaders at Downham , sufficient had been done to answer the purposes of the prosecution on the part of the Crown., which could only be to show persons who were disposed to join in such tumultuous proceedings , that these transactions cannot take place with impunity , for a day of reckoning must come sooner or later . "
The Sentences
The Chief Justice now proceeded to pass sentence of transportation for seven years on John Stearne who had been indicted and convicted of larceny only . ...the charge against him not having been laid capitally .
This being done the following prisoners , who had been capitally convicted of rioting , 16 in number ( viz, William Bell, Amelia Lightharness, Hannah Jarvis, Thomas Thody , Charles Nelson , Daniel Harwood , Elizabeth King, Margaret Jerry , Elizabeth Watson , Lucy Rumbelow, William Youngs, Edward Mellon, William Galley , Frances Porter , John Blogg and John Pearson ), were called before his Lordship to show cause why sentence of Death should not pass against them to die according to Law . The Chief Justice, then , in a very impressive manner passed that solemn sentence against them . His Lordship stated that on account of the good characters which some of them had borne , it would afford him high satisfaction if circumstances should appear to justify him in recommending their cases for a relaxation in the severity of their punishment . Nevertheless he wished them not to be deluded into any ill founded security . There were among them some who had excelled their fellows , and had stood foremost in the execution of their misguided and wicked actions . To these he could hold out no hope . His Lordship concluded by exhorting them all to use well the short time which might remain to them in this world , and to make their peace with Him before whom they must soon appear in the next ."
"Of the above 16 prisoners who received sentence of death , only two were left for execution, viz. Thody and Harwood ". All the others were reprieved . Reprieved is not the same as acquitted or discharged . " After the ringleaders had been tried and convicted the following minor offenders were discharged on giving security for their good behaviour , viz. .John Jerry, Harrison Bone, and John Bowers .. "
Apart from these minor offenders, the remaining 14 sentenced to death and reprieved , were dealt with quickly and harshly. Of the Hilgay rioters William Young got one year`s hard labour . The Southery two Stearne and Bell got 7 and 14 years transportation . Of the Downham rioters Lucy Rumbelow got 6 months hard labour, Elizabeth Watson , at the age of 49 , got a year`s hard labour as did Margaret Jerry and Elizabeth King . The harshest sentences were given to Amelia Lightharness aged 23 , Hannah Jarvis, aged 36 , widow , and Charles Nelson , all of whom got Transportation for life .
The transportation of convicts to Australia was big business and many shipowners contracted their vessels to the Government . Ships of the Royal Navy used as transports tended to be in the final seaworthy years of their lives . Charles Nelson sailed out on the Shipley with John Pearson He was fortunate and sailed from Woolwich on 20th November 1816 just a matter of months after the August sentencing in Norwich . They may well have been held in a prison hulk on the river Thames during that 3 month waiting period . For the women Amelia and Hannah , they had to wait almost a further year before they were embarked on the ludicrously named ship Friendship . They are reported removed from Norwich Castle in June 1817 and put on board the Friendship" now at Deptford awaiting orders to sail to the Bay." .
The convict ship Friendship was not the First Fleet ship of 1788 of the same name , that had been beached for want of healthy crew to operate her , on Batavia . This second Friendship was built in the Thames in 1793 of 430 tons burthen.
The Shipley had a very smart crew and master and for Charles Nelson and John Pearson , a good ship`s surgeon in George Clayton . Clayton managed to get all convicts to Australia in reasonable health and without too many punishments . In fact he writes in his journal that he was able to release most of the convicts during the journey of one and then both leg irons . Nevertheless 176 days with or without leg irons was a daunting prospect for convicts and guards alike . Charles Nelson and the Shipley arrived at Sydney on 20th August 1817 and the last sight of him is in 1844 when he finally got his pardon . Twenty eight years after his conviction and sentencing in Norwich , he was finally a free man again .
Bad luck followed Amelia and Hannah all the way to Australia . They arrived in Sydney on 14th Jan 1818. Governor Macquarie wrote in his journal that Friendship " arrived 7th Jan re-quarantine on suspicion of contagious diseases . " and more " re-arrival with female convicts with reports of prostitution on board . " and further " 26th Feb charges were brought against Capt Armet and Peter Cosgreave the surgeon . " By 20th Feb Amelia and Hannah were embarked on the Duke of Wellington for yet another voyage into the unknown , this time and finally to Tasmania .
(The middle paragraph of the above cutting , reads " Yesterday morning, 28 of the female prisoners arrived in the Friendship were landed ; 16 of whom having husbands in the colony were allowed to join them , and the remaining 12 went as servants into various families . Thirteen others who were afflicted with scorbutic diseases were sent to the General Hospital ; and 56 were transhipped from the Friendship to the Duke of Wellington to be conveyed to Hobart Town together with 28 artificers and mechanics , sent from this settlement to be employed on the Government works there ".)
(The middle paragraph of the above cutting , reads " Yesterday morning, 28 of the female prisoners arrived in the Friendship were landed ; 16 of whom having husbands in the colony were allowed to join them , and the remaining 12 went as servants into various families . Thirteen others who were afflicted with scorbutic diseases were sent to the General Hospital ; and 56 were transhipped from the Friendship to the Duke of Wellington to be conveyed to Hobart Town together with 28 artificers and mechanics , sent from this settlement to be employed on the Government works there ".)
There are four further sightings of Amelia Lightharness . Firstly she married in 1820 a Samuel Cash in Hobart . Female convicts in the female Factories were offered to the men of the colony who could drop a handkerchief or similar at the feet of the female convict they had chosen . But then her ticket of leave was taken from her in 1823 because of " immoral conduct and living in a disorderly house ." Clearly her marriage to Samuel Best was not long lasting nor a success . Her ticket of leave was finally restored in 1832 and she died in 1834 . She would have been about 40 years old . Hannah Jarvis did a little better . Internet posted family histories in Australia indicate that her two children born circa 1801 and 1804 in Norfolk finally joined her in Tasmania . She died in the newly named New Norfolk , in 1853.
For the women who rioted , the punishment was vastly disproportionate to the crime . They never again achieved their freedom and had to endure one of the longest , hardest voyages of any having to call in at St Helena for desperately needed water and supplies before sailing on to Sydney . And as if that was not the worst, their captain and surgeon were capable of acts of abuse against a captive group of women . Is it any wonder that Jane Brown "threw herself overboard and was drowned . " Despair was the most likely reason not as given in the Ship News, " from a sudden irritability of temper ." If Chief Justice Gibbs and the law of the land believed that hanging was the worst punishment , they should have researched the lives of those transported , for women for the most part it was a far worse punishment than death .
And of the rest ? John Pearson who travelled with Charles Nelson on the Shipley to Australia ,does not appear again in any record . The two , John Stearne and William Bell both from Southery, who were sentenced to 7 and 14 years transportation seem not to have made it onto a ship . Australia`s wonderful convict database has no sighting of either of them . Perhaps their sentences were commuted to imprisonment here . Of the other names, Lucy Rumbelow seems to have survived to 1861 still living locally ; Elizabeth King, Elizabeth Watson and Margaret Jerry are glimpsed in the first census living locally quiet poor lives . Of the men , John Shinn appears in the 1841 census living in Downham. Harrison Bone is a shepherd living in Brancaster, Spencer Rayner, William Galley , and William Youngs live in the villages around Downham , heads down , unremarked and unremarkable. .
The riots had unsettled the Government and over the next twenty years , a gradual humanising of the law and ideas of welfare for the poor started to emerge . By 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act had been passed. The destitute poor were to be housed in Union workhouses , but they were also to be fed, sheltered, clothed , to have a rudimentary education for children , some medical care, and protection and work . By the mid 1840s the dreadful Corn laws had been repealed , but not before nearly one third of the population of Ireland had died of starvation or been lost to emigration ; in fact parishes all over the country had forcibly emigrated their largest and poorest families.
Downham survived the mob of the "insurgent fenmen" and , in modern parlance, maybe lessons had been learned , maybe a distant memory of the sudden terror of an armed mob in the town inclined the magistrates and property and landowners to be a little more understanding in the future . And in a small way the tradesmen could hold their heads up in pride for having created a petition signed by 70+ of them asking the Chief Justice for clemency . . Perhaps the ordinary man in the street knew not only about being hungry , but about the terrors of transportation and the loss of freedom , the inescapable exile .
For the women who rioted , the punishment was vastly disproportionate to the crime . They never again achieved their freedom and had to endure one of the longest , hardest voyages of any having to call in at St Helena for desperately needed water and supplies before sailing on to Sydney . And as if that was not the worst, their captain and surgeon were capable of acts of abuse against a captive group of women . Is it any wonder that Jane Brown "threw herself overboard and was drowned . " Despair was the most likely reason not as given in the Ship News, " from a sudden irritability of temper ." If Chief Justice Gibbs and the law of the land believed that hanging was the worst punishment , they should have researched the lives of those transported , for women for the most part it was a far worse punishment than death .
And of the rest ? John Pearson who travelled with Charles Nelson on the Shipley to Australia ,does not appear again in any record . The two , John Stearne and William Bell both from Southery, who were sentenced to 7 and 14 years transportation seem not to have made it onto a ship . Australia`s wonderful convict database has no sighting of either of them . Perhaps their sentences were commuted to imprisonment here . Of the other names, Lucy Rumbelow seems to have survived to 1861 still living locally ; Elizabeth King, Elizabeth Watson and Margaret Jerry are glimpsed in the first census living locally quiet poor lives . Of the men , John Shinn appears in the 1841 census living in Downham. Harrison Bone is a shepherd living in Brancaster, Spencer Rayner, William Galley , and William Youngs live in the villages around Downham , heads down , unremarked and unremarkable. .
The riots had unsettled the Government and over the next twenty years , a gradual humanising of the law and ideas of welfare for the poor started to emerge . By 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act had been passed. The destitute poor were to be housed in Union workhouses , but they were also to be fed, sheltered, clothed , to have a rudimentary education for children , some medical care, and protection and work . By the mid 1840s the dreadful Corn laws had been repealed , but not before nearly one third of the population of Ireland had died of starvation or been lost to emigration ; in fact parishes all over the country had forcibly emigrated their largest and poorest families.
Downham survived the mob of the "insurgent fenmen" and , in modern parlance, maybe lessons had been learned , maybe a distant memory of the sudden terror of an armed mob in the town inclined the magistrates and property and landowners to be a little more understanding in the future . And in a small way the tradesmen could hold their heads up in pride for having created a petition signed by 70+ of them asking the Chief Justice for clemency . . Perhaps the ordinary man in the street knew not only about being hungry , but about the terrors of transportation and the loss of freedom , the inescapable exile .
Sources: National Archives , Kew
Britishnewspaperarchive : AJPeacock , Bread or Blood , 1965: National Portrait Gallery , London : National Archives of Australia : TROVE .
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Thursday, 14 March 2013
DOWNHAM`S RAILWAY
TOP NEWS ; ENGLISH HERITAGE HAVE LISTED AND SAVED THE SIGNAL BOX AT DOWNHAM AS OF JULY 2013.
As early as 1824 , the dawn of the railway era, a prospectus of the Norfolk and Suffolk Rail Road company was being circulated in the newspapers of the day , in themselves a new form of communication . The railway would take the line from London to Norwich and then divide east to Yarmouth and west to King`s Lynn.
As early as 1824 , the dawn of the railway era, a prospectus of the Norfolk and Suffolk Rail Road company was being circulated in the newspapers of the day , in themselves a new form of communication . The railway would take the line from London to Norwich and then divide east to Yarmouth and west to King`s Lynn.
From the very beginning these were speculative enterprises . The basic premise was that Parliament would pass an Act to enable the railway to be built , they would set a cost on the whole project and this was to be raised by the sale of shares . There were to be Boards of Directors and shareholders . Land was to be purchased along the proposed line of the railway . It was open to abuse , corruption and failure from the first day .
But the die was cast and speculators saw any number of opportunities to make money . There was a sudden boom in land sales and the value of ordinary agricultural land rose sharply where it was thought the railways might be built ; shares were sold in tiny segments each £25 share might be divided between 10 or 20 people , and profit was expected on every level
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The advertisement for the sale of these shares in 1844 read cautiously " No subscriber liable beyond the amount of subscription .. " and then more positively " The object of this undertaking is to construct the most direct and perfect Railway from the important sea port of King`s Lynn to the city of Ely meeting there the Eastern Counties Railway Company`s lines to London, Norwich and Peterborough and thus connecting King`s Lynn and West Norfolk generally with all the North, South , East, West and South West parts of England . The project is brought forward with the full sanction and concurrence of the Eastern Counties Railway Company ."
" The proposed line will commence at the town of King`s Lynn, proceed direct to Downham Market and Littleport , and thence to the city of Ely to meet the Northern and Eastern Railway . The precise points of terminus at King`s Lynn and Ely being such as shall upon full consideration be deemed the most desirable.
There will be a branch from the main line to the Harbour of King`s Lynn in order to afford to the extensive shipping interest at that port, the greatest possible facility for lading and unlading .
The main line and branch will together be about 26 miles in length.
This line has been examined and approved by Mr Rastrick whose character and experience will be sufficient guarantee that it is judiciously selected and will be efficiently constructed . The country through which it passes being almost a perfect level is singularly favourable for the construction of a railway and presents no engineering difficulties whatever.
The line does not interfere with a single private residence or park , nor with ornamental grounds of any kind , and there are no buildings except a few cottages to be taken .
The projectors have every reason to believe that the landowners on the line are without exception favourable to the undertaking .
The railway when completed may be worked at a very moderate cost the general nature of the country being most favourable for the transit to and from each terminus , and fuel at the port of King`s Lynn being cheap .
The expense of the earthwork, bridges, masonry , for a double line and a single line of road laid , with stations and all other conveniences has been carefully estimated by Mr Rastrick who is satisfied that the outlay including the purchase of land, costs of the surveys , and Act of Parliament and every other expense need not exceed £200,000 and that responsible contractors can be found to do all the works and deliver the railway in a complete state to the company at that sum .
The plans and sections will be deposited and all necessary notices given in compliance with the standing orders of the House of Commons so as to ensure an application to Parliament in the next session and it is believed that as the line is evidently of great public advantage and free from competition no difficulty will be experienced in obtaining the Act .
A confident opinion has been expressed by Mr Rastrick that the whole line may be finished within nine months after the works are fairly commenced .
It remains only to observe upon the amount of return which may be fairly expected upon the capital invested , and in so doing the promoters have most carefully guarded against all exaggeration .
The traffic on this line will also be much assisted by the extensive trade in timber , wines, coals , oil-cake, tar, flagstones, slates, pantiles and other general merchandise carried on between the port of King`s Lynn and the towns of Brandon, Thetford, etc, by the large mass of agricultural produce comprising corn, flour , wool, fruit , vegetables brought from those districts to the port of King`s Lynn .....and by the large number of beasts, sheep and pigs, and the quantity of dead meat and poultry which are annually sent from West Norfolk to the London Market ."
"Summary of Traffic: Passengers by coaches and other public conveyances at 2d per mile , ( plus ) local passengers by gigs etc , £9,779. Plus £13,000 worth of goods live, dead and manufactured currently carried by coach and carrier . Add 100% increase in passenger traffic , less 40% for maintenance , management etc. Net annual profit £20,148 . "
The Lynn and Ely Railway company was advertised in the London Times , and in the Cambridge Independent Press of 4th May 1844 . "Lynn and Ely Railway via Downham Market ; Capital £200,000 in 8,000 shares of £25 each deposit £1. 5s per share ." The local solicitor who was clerk to the Board of Guardians of the Union workhouse earned £100 a year . So a £25 share was worth a quarter of a professional man`s annual salary . Lynn to Ely is a distance of about 29 miles which works out at £6,900 per mile construction costs . These are staggeringly large sums of money for a small rural area largely dependent on agriculture .
As to the return on the shares , "A calculation of traffic, showing a net return of upwards of £10 per cent on the capital after deducting £40 per cent for working expenses , has been made by a large Committee of merchants, tradesmen and agriculturalists , conversant with the various departments of business in Lynn and the neighbouring districts ."
The Provisional Committee of the Lynn and Ely Railway were Sir William Folkes, bart, as Chairman , The Earl of Leicester maybe hoping the railways would extend to the Holkham estate , Lord George Bentinck , MP for Lynn, Viscount Jocelyn, also MP for Lynn, Lord William Powlett of Downham Hall, Brandon, the line would surely pass through his land on the way from Ely to Lynn , Lord Sondes , Sir Charles Clarke, bart, Dunham Lodge , maybe on the proposed Lynn to Dereham line, W Bagge , esq, MP for West Norfolk, and a local landowner , W Chote, MP for West Norfolk , J Bowker , Lynn, C Burcham , Lynn , T Carter , Lynn , Francis Cresswell, Lynn , Richard Dewing, Ashwicken , W Everard , Lynn, J Elsden Everard, Congham Hall, Martin Folkes, Hillington Hall , Anthony Hamond , Westacre High House , F Keppel , Lexham Hall, John Hudson , Castleacre , Colonel Mason , Necton Hall, E R Pratt , Ryston , C Neville Rolfe, Sedgeford Hall, J Beachamp St John, Gayton Hall, W Seppings, Lynn, Henry Villebois , Marham Hall, T Wythe, Middleton Hall, T M Wythe, Bilney Lodge ; with power to add to their number ".
There are some notable names missing from this list through whose land the railway would almost certainly pass , the Bells of Wallington, the Plestows of Watlington, and the Hares of Stow Bardolph . Were they not invited by the railway company to join the committee or were they all opposed to the introduction of the railway ? It is also interesting to note that the railway shares could only be bought in London, Liverpool, Hull, Leeds and Manchester .
In 1841 the population of Downham was 2,900 , of Ely, 6,800 and of King`s Lynn , 16,000 . What number of these local people could have afforded a £25 share was probably very few, which is why the railway company advertised and sold the shares in London and the rich railway successful North .
In addition to their remuneration as directors , the Committee would all make money on their shares, and they would make even more on the sale of some of their land as the railways spread across West Norfolk . Their enthusiasm for success before the railway was even enacted by Parliament and built , was contagious and small towns like Downham became the focus for Yorkshire men and other incomers seeing an opportunity to become involved in the latest technology . They also guessed that Downham would grow and skills and trades of all sorts would be needed to support the railway builders and the growing population .
In Bridge St. , Downham , in 1841 there are a number of heads of households , professional people , merchants, and skilled tradesmen , who are enumerated as N indicating that they were not born in the county. And a number of previously unknown names to Downham, John and Thomas Dyson for instance had bought land by the river and houses in the centre of the town . These are civil engineers who have insider knowledge that the railway was coming to Downham and more importantly where .
Thomas Dyson, esq. , a Committee member of the Lynn and Ely Railway , was of Carlton, Pontefract , ( and by 1845 of The Retreat , Lynn Road , Downham ) Joseph Gee, was of Cottingham , Hull, H. C. Lacy , was of Kenyon House, Manchester, Sir William Lowthrop , also Hull . The Yorkshire influence was because of the Stockton to Darlington railway , the great engineer Stephenson and the success of the first public railways around York . Yorkshiremen were regarded as the experts and had all the right contacts . Thomas Dyson may well be the Civil Engineer who was admitted to the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1832 , his successful application being signed by none other than Thomas Telford, the founder of the Institute and maker of many bridges etc, such as the Menai Suspension bridge , and Wm Cubitt a Norfolk born Civil Engineer of great reknown .
Thomas Dyson wrote a restrained letter of correction to the Norfolk Chronicle in July 1845 in which he says that the accident at Brandon Creek Bridge was not his fault . He had been requested to superintend the foundations and abutments and to set out the work for the superstructure of the bridge " and having done this much I left the contractor to finish the work and it was solely in consequence of this man`s interference with my plans by cutting away the skue back or springing stones in order to fit his work with less trouble that the superstructure gave way ; the original foundations and abutments are still firmly standing and the fact that the superstructure alone having been repaired after its giving way , disproves, at once, that any fault rested with me in this construction ." " The Contractor of the Brandon Creek Bridge . that person confided the works entirely to his foreman and not above five or six times did he come near nor appear to take the least interest in the proceedings . "
Thomas Dyson wrote a restrained letter of correction to the Norfolk Chronicle in July 1845 in which he says that the accident at Brandon Creek Bridge was not his fault . He had been requested to superintend the foundations and abutments and to set out the work for the superstructure of the bridge " and having done this much I left the contractor to finish the work and it was solely in consequence of this man`s interference with my plans by cutting away the skue back or springing stones in order to fit his work with less trouble that the superstructure gave way ; the original foundations and abutments are still firmly standing and the fact that the superstructure alone having been repaired after its giving way , disproves, at once, that any fault rested with me in this construction ." " The Contractor of the Brandon Creek Bridge . that person confided the works entirely to his foreman and not above five or six times did he come near nor appear to take the least interest in the proceedings . "
Locally the great mover in the eastern counties was J. C. Cobbold , landowner, shipowner, lawyer and brewer. Born in Ipswich in 1797 he was a director of the Eastern Union Railway and seemed determined to control the whole of the eastern counties railways . The early 1840s plans were rightly named Railway mania , and at one moment in early 1846 Sir Robert Peel told Parliament that there were no fewer than 519 Railway bills before Parliament . Obviously not all could succeed, nor could Parliament agree to more than one railway company building a railway between two particular places . Cobbold`s E.U.R had tried to promote the Norwich to Dereham line until one of his directors defected to the Norwich and West Norfolk line . There was even talk of a second terminus in Norwich for this second line , but it too failed before Parliament . The speculators were running around like headless chickens proposing lines from this village to that , from here to there and somewhere else regardless of cost and profitability .
If Cobbold`s E.U.R did not succeed , the company simply bought out or leased the rival railway company or their lines . It was going to live up to its name the Eastern Union Railway . In the end the Eastern Counties Railway continued to control the western section to and from Cambridge , and the Eastern Union Railway in Cobbold country from Colchester via Ipswich to Norwich . The short lived Lynn and Ely , Lynn and Dereham and Ely and Huntingdon railways merged into the East Anglian railway in the same year of 1846.
So who built the railway that we use today . The overarching engineer was John Urpeth Rastrick 1780-1856 , born in Northumberland and a pioneer steam locomotive engineer . He was one of the judges at the Rainhill trials in 1829 which proved that Stephenson`s Rocket steam locomotive was the superior means of transport over rope haulage . He later developed ,in partnership, all forms of engineering to do with railways . He retired in 1847 and many other engineers having learned their new trade from him and Stephenson and Brunel , spread across the country to develop the railways .
In the case of the Lynn and Ely railway , the engineer was John Sutherland Valentine , born in 1813 in Derbyshire and the son of an organist also called John Sutherland Valentine . In 1841 John Valentine was in Brighton and living in a household with James Potter , engineer, though the head of the household appeared to be Mary Penfold . He married in Kent in 1845 Clara Tristram and in 1851 they were living in Goodwin`s fields South Lynn , with their new born son . His inclusion as a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers did not occur until 1848 but it was a document worth waiting for with the signatures of JW Bazalgette and John U Rastrick attached . The men who actually dug and laid the railway line were within the time of building it , protected by a recent and urgently needed piece of legislation . In July 1846 the Report of the Select Committee on the Railway labourers was published with almost 250 pages of evidence of truly cruel working practices and treatment of the navvies . But Parliament had for the most part put a stop to the most killing of these practices and the railway owners and the contractors would from now on have to take a little more care of their men.
The system was that the navvy , or navigator , was part of a gang, the leader was called a ganger, he in turn contracted his gang to the best paying contractor or subcontractor , because the contracts given by the railway companies to the engineering firms were cut down again into component parts , and the actual labourers were at the bottom of this pile .
The evidence given to the Select Committee was detailed and was given by the navvies themselves as well as clergymen, engineers and contractors . Samuel Morton Peto a railway builder said he had 9,000 men under his direct control including 3,700 working on the Ely to Peterborough railway .
" Chairman ( to Samuel Morton Peto, esq ) You are a Contractor .-. I am . Do you know what number of men you have in your employment ? - . About 9,000 at the present time . How are they disposed ? - I will mention the works : the line from Ely to Peterborough , from Wymondham to Dereham , from Reedham to Lowestoft , the construction of Lowestoft Harbour ...... Do you employ those men yourself ? - Not in all instances ; I have now in my employment 3,700 directly from Ely to Peterborough and the rest indirectly ."
If the population of Downham was 2,900 and Ely 6,800 , this army of navvies must have been very intimidating . 3,700 men , of no fixed abode to all intents, camped in your parish , in your town , building a railway . And at times when not paid this army was angry to a point of riot .
Chairman (to the Rev Robert Wilson ): You are a clergyman and magistrate in Norfolk I believe ? - I am . Is there any railway constructing in your neighbourhood ? - The Swaffham and Dereham line is now constructing . Do you know at all what number of men are employed in that district ? - A great many . Have you had many complaints brought before you as a magistrate from the railway ? - I have had a great many complaints both on the Swaffham and Dereham line and the Norwich and Brandon which has lately been constructed . What is the nature of those complaints ? - Generally a difficulty in obtaining their wages .
Complaints from the men against their employers ? - Yes. Their complaint is against the gangers if I understand rightly ? - The chief complaint is against the gangers . What is the specific complaint ? - Non-payment of wages.
The Select Committee reported, " The rapid growth of the railway system of communication will be necessarily accompanied , for several years to come, by a vast expenditure of capital in mere construction , giving employment probably to not much less than 200,000 of the effective labouring population of the country . The great amount of outlay already thus made, its suddenness , and its temporary concentration at particular localities , often spots before but thinly inhabited, have created or developed evils . It does not seem altogether unreasonable to expect , that the steady employment , and the high wages obtained by the men engaged on Railway works ....should serve in effecting a valuable and permanent improvement of their state . Good wages , or at least such wages as secure those dependent thereon from constantly balancing on the verge of destitution , seem to be one element essential to the improvement of the labouring classes .
(The men ) are brought hastily together in large bodies ; no time is given for the gradual growth of accommodation which would naturally accompany the growth of numbers ; they are therefore crowded into unwholesome dwellings , while scarcely any provision is made for their comfort or decency of living ; they are hard worked ; they are exposed to great risk of life and limb ; they are too often hardly treated ; and many inducements are presented to them to be thoughtless, thriftless and improvident ....and they cannot wonder at the feelings of dislike and dismay with which the permanent inhabitants of a neighbourhood often view the arrival of these strangers among them .
The evils seem mainly to consist in the mode and time of payment of the men, and their consequent discontent , disorder and irregularity ; in the want of proper lodging for them ; in their careless exposure to risk ; in the defective provision for maintaining peace and good order among them ; and in the imperfections or absence of provision for their religious instruction and the education of their children . "
And the Select Committee offered the first of many remedies the most important of which was that the men were paid regularly , once a month at least, and in cash . The previous system was to pay them by ticket and by receipt for loans from their employers . These were to enable the men to obtain goods usually from a ` tommy shop` operated by the contractor which sold cheap goods at high prices in exchange for a ticket or token.. At the end of the month the men could find themselves still in debt to the contractor so at times were effectively working for nothing .
Samuel Morton Peto the contractor was already paying his men once a week on Saturday afternoon in cash .and he had " found during the last 18 years I have always paid the sum in money and have found the good effect of it in the moral character of the men , in their steady attention to the work . "
The Select Committee report is dated July 1846 and later in the same year , flying in the face of the purple prose of the Share Prospectus, was a small entry in the London Gazette of 14th November , "Eastern Counties Railway (Lynn and Ely Railway : Ely and Huntingdon Railway : Lynn and Dereham Railway ). Purchase or Lease . Notice is hereby given that application is intended to be made to Parliament in the next session for an Act to authorise the sale or lease by the Lynn and Ely Railway Company, upon such terms and conditions as have been or may be agreed upon , to the Eastern Counties Railway Company of the Lynn and Ely Railway , and also the Ely and Huntingdon Railway and the Lynn and Dereham Railway Company . "
The small railway`s sale of shares had been much less than anticpated and the giant ECRC was ready to swallow them up but on condition that the railway between Lynn and Ely was completed.
Henry J Hillen`s book , History of the Borough of King`s Lynn, vol 2 , confirms this " at a public meeting on 6th Oct 1845 , additional capital was needed of £151,000 as the appeal only brought in less than half ( of the money needed ) . The company applied to Parliament for power to take over several other lines ( but had still ) to construct the docks adjoining the Harbour . The Lynn and Ely Railway augmented their indebtedness by constructing a line to Wisbech via Watlington , opened in February 1848 ( Contractors Simpson Walker & Bennett ) . A through journey to Lynn was provided by the Eastern Counties Railway from Ely. The affairs of the company drifted and it was absorbed into the Great Eastern Railway system . The shareholders of the Lynn and Ely , the Lynn and Dereham , the Ely and Huntingdon railways met at the London Tavern in Bishopsgate and agreed to accept an offer by the ECRC to lease the line for 999 years on condition that the lines were completed . Parliament refused but passed a portion of the bill which amalgamated the small companies under the East Anglian Company in June 1847 . The directors unable to pay the dividend applied for an increase in capital of £375,562 which again was refused . "
The Lynn Advertiser and West Norfolk Herald , itself only in its 5th year of publication , published this good news .
Feb 26th , 1846 . " The Secretary laid before the full meeting ( at the London Tavern , a report from Mr Valentine , that ) the iron rails, chairs and sleepers for the whole line and branches have been purchased and are in the course of delivery to Lynn. The consequent outlay has entailed upon the directors the necessity of making a second call of £5 per share on the proprietors ..... In consequence of the extreme demand during autumn last year for engineering draughtsmen and assistants , I was unable until after 30th November to form a sufficient staff for properly commencing operations . Since that time however I have been more successful . The whole of the main line and the branch to the harbour are staked out . The contract for the portion of the line from Lynn to Denver being a distance of 12 ½ miles and for the harbour branch is let to Mr William Smith Simpson for a sum under my estimate".
"Oct 17th , 1846 . On Saturday the Eagle and on Tuesday the Vulture arrived at the Downham Station house via Brandon for the Lynn and Ely Railway ( No picture has been found of either of these steam engines ). This looks like business. On Wednesday , two navvies of the names of James Gooderham and John James ( as written) were brought before John Richardson Fryer esq., charged with stealing £9 the property of John Morley of Outwell . Jones ( as written) was discharged but Gooderham was remanded until Monday . "
And on a truly bright note the paper also reports, "Oct 24th , 1846. On Friday 2 troops of the 6th Dragoon Guards passed through the town on their way to Dublin and on Saturday one troop arrived with the staff officers, band, etc, and stayed until Sunday ."
Although the actual opening of the railway was announced in various newspapers , it was just as a small paragraph of rural news . The Lynn Advertiser of 31st October 1846 however went to town and really sold the railway to its readers .
Opening of the East Anglian Railways from Lynn to Downham and from Lynn to Narborough .
"An addition has this week been made in "the iron net work of England " - another link has been added to the great chain of railway communication which is now fast intersecting every part of Great Britain . That these railways will be of great benefit to our good old borough , we have great reason both to hope and believe , but , at the same time , injuries of a minor character must necessarily arise from their introduction . The shrill whistle of the locomotive on Monday last might be considered as the death knell of the various coaches and vehicles which have for so long a period conveyed the visitor and the man of business to the town of Lynn . We should think that a profitable speculation might now be made by transferring the "thorough breds " , which have horsed them to some other quiet and secluded spot where no steam competition exists . How little did our Unions- Rising Suns - Hopes - Victorias and other vehicles of a like description when moving along some years ago at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, imagine that their course would so soon be run , and that in October 1846 in their place a monster train would whisk along with its hundreds of passengers , steaming , puffing and roaring out the announcement of its approach.
Monday last was the day appointed for a formal opening of the line by the directors , on which occasion invitations were issued for an excursion trip to Downham and Narbro` to about 160 ladies and gentlemen of the town and neighbourhood . Amongst the company present we observed , Sir W B Folkes, Bart. and Lady Folkes, and Miss Folkes, W Everard, esq and the Misses Everard - W Seppings, esq and the Misses Seppings - C Goodwin esq, , Mrs and Miss Goodwin - F Partridge, esq, Mrs Partridge and Miss Rippinghall - J C Williams, esq and Mrs Williams - F Ingle , esq - J S Valentine, esq Mrs Valentine and Miss Valentine - W W Williams, esq - A Bowker , esq - L Self , esq - E Eyre , esq , and the Misses Eyre - Miss Parrot - Mrs Wilson and the Misses Wilson - Miss Self - J B Whiting esq - The Rev J F Francklin - The Rev J Bransby - R Pitcher, esq - Dr de Mierre - W Shipp,esq - G Sayle esq - E Self esq - J Marsters esq - F B Wilson , esq - C Burcham esq - J E Jeffrey esq - W Blencowe esq - A Swatman esq - W W Jeffery esq - J Kendle esq etc etc etc
Flags were hoisted on the terminus in honor of the event and with a display of which also the engine selected to draw the train was decorated . There were nine carriages of first, second and third class , the whole of which were filled . Eleven o`clock in the forenoon was the hour appointed for starting and a more favourable day could not have occurred for the morning opened with a thick fog , which continued throughout the day , so that it was not possible to see more than a few hundred yards in advance . . Fortunately we had been up the lines on the previous Friday with an excursion party , when the atmostphere was most propitious , so that we are able to describe the course , and the different objects that arrest the attention . We may here state that on the occasion of the opening the arrangements on the lines were under the able superintendence of Mr Carrington the station master , and Mr Platt the inspector of locomotives , acted as engine driver , both gentlemen being well versed in the detail of locomotion . We commend the company in having selected two such experienced men for their service - a circumstance truly congratulatory and of the utmost importance for the safety and comfort of those who travel on the East Anglian lines of railway. We now proceed at once to lay before our readers a description of the line. To begin at the beginning , we must start from the station at Lynn which though only intended as a temporary building is nevertheless substantial and ornamental in the appearance . The terminus is situate about the centre of the High Hills , or which , perhaps is better know to some as the Echo Road, having ingress into the town by way of Norfolk street North Clough lane , and St James street. It consists of a ladies and gentlemans waiting room - booking offices - clerks room and a spacious platform extending 200 ft on each side , the whole occupying an area of 170ft x 73 ft , which is enclosed by 1000 ft of fencing . The whole of these buildings together with a spacious engine house 100ft x 27ft , hard by , with tanks etc., have all been erected in the last two months by Mr Sagars, builder , of this town and we must say they are creditable to his perseverance and workman like ability . The whole appearance on entering the station yard shews repleteness in comfort and convenience , and both from one end to the other of the East Anglian Railways there is a character in the shape of finish that is rarely to be met with on any other line .
Having taken our seats in the train , the whistle sounds and we are off . The Lynn and Ely line which we traversed for about a mile, brought us up on the handsome bridge on the Hardwick road , and from its great extent this may be considered a work of no ordinary magnitude and was erected by the company at a great cost and labour . Proceeding onwards the first thing that arrests the attention is the beautiful view on the left ...of excellent grass lands..., in between which are seen the busy mill of Mr Fayers , and the tower of the church at West Winch .
We next crossed the bridge over the river Nar which is a sound piece of work . Passing on we arrive at the Station house at St Germans which is a small but neatly erected building . The station is about a mile from the village which may be clearly distinguished from its great extent whilst above the other objects stands the parish church .
The whole of the route along this part of the line is flat , and wheeling along at a brisk pace , we pass the Polver Drain over which the company have thrown a well constructed bridge . Just before reaching the Watlington Station , the land on the extreme right , is low and marshy , but this is beautifully constrasted by the fine woods in the locality of Watlington . We now arrive at the Watlington Station , which is both commodious and extensive , and is built on the same sound and ornamental style which characterises the other works of the company . Steaming it along the village of Magdalen is very distinctly seen , surrounded by fertile lands , abounding with stock of various descriptions cropping the herbage .
In a few minutes you are at the station at Stow , which is pleasantly situated and on the extreme left of which stands the church . A short distance from Stow , is seen peeping through the trees , the little village of Wimbotsham . Steaming and puffing along , a few minutes brought us to the Downham Station , and a neat and beautiful station it is . The landing stage here ( as well as at all the other stations ) is level with the doors of the carriages - a very great convenience and one which we hope will soon be imitated at Ely . The station is commodious and well adapted for the purposes to which it is to be applied , The front is extremely handsome - indeed it is altogether a chaste erection . These station houses along the line have been erected by Messrs Candler and Whitby ( who were in these instances jointly concerned ) , builders , of Lynn and we must say the execution of the work reflects on them considerable credit - nor can we withhold our mead of praise to Messrs Dobson and Tribe , the architects on the line , whose professional skill and ability must be apparent to everyone who enters carefully into the detail of their labours - indeed the whole staff of engineers including Messrs Harrison , F.Cruso and their co-adjutors , are entitled to our commendations for the indefatigability and arduous exertions manifested in their several departments . We cannot here refrain from remarking on the onerous duties which must have devolved on the secretary Mr W W Williams , esq, and his staff , for although their labours have not been so apparent to the public eye , yet they must have had their full share in bringing the lines to so favourable a termination . To Mr W.W.Williams then we would offer our tribute of praise - also to Messres Neame and Snell , and the junior members of the staff acting with them , all of whom have so laudably distinguished themselves in these great works .
We have now traversed the whole distance , 11 miles ( in 35 minutes) . A gentleman of the party has kindly handed to us the following note of arrivals which he took at the time . Left Lynn, 11.13, Arrived at first Lodge, 11.15 , Arrived Viaduct , 11.18, Arrived Junction Branch line , 11.19, Arrived Nar Bridge , 11. 25, Arrived St Germans, 11.26, Arrived Watlington , 11.32 ½ , Left Watlington 11.34 , Arrived at Magdalen , 11.37, Arrived at Stow , 11.40. Arrived at Downham, 11.48.
The party alighted at the station and after perambulating the locality of the railway for about 20 minutes - the whistle sounded and we were all once again snugly ensconced in the carriages on the return expedition. The whole distance as again run over in about 32 minutes , and we must say that on a more comfortable easy line we never travelled . It is alike creditable to the company - the engineer - the contractor Mr Simpson. We have on former occasions given our mead of praise to J S Valentine, esq , the engineer but we cannot at this period lose the opportunity of again paying a passing tribute of commendation to that gentleman for his labour and skill , as well as to Mr Symonds , the resident engineer , acting under him for the share he bore in this extensive and well approved undertaking . Arriving at the terminus at Lynn , a brass band in attendance played that beautiful air " See the conquering hero comes ". The company once more emerged from their carriages and proceeded to the waiting room and to the upper end of the platform , where tables had been erected , containing a choice , delicate and abundant supply of refreshments , together with wines of superior quality , provided by Mr M`Pherson of the Globe Hotel , the whole repast being got up in that excellent style for which that house is celebrated . The company seemed to enjoy this little interval of mingled society .
Sir W B Folkes , the chairman of the Lynn and Ely Railway spoke as follows . He said this was a most important day for the town of Lynn . The works which had been completed were executed in a most satisfactory manner , and would he trusted be beneficial to the borough . He would beg leave to confine his observations simply to the toast which he was about to give them which was - Success and Prosperity to the East Anglian Railways (Three times three , loud long cheers followed this announcement ) Three cheers were also given for Sir Wm Folkes , the Directors, and three cheers for Lady Folkes , when the whistle shrieked aloud and the party were once more in their carriages , and proceeding onwards along the Lynn and Dereham rail to Narbro` which is the extreme point to which the line is at present opened ."
The Ipswich Journal reported on 16th Oct 1846 , "Lynn and Ely Railway . Last week some of the directors made an experimental excursion on this line from Lynn to Ely to which place the line will be open to the public in about a fortnight , thus opening a communication by railway from Swaffham by way of Lynn to London . "
Later that same month the London Daily News, 26th Oct 1846, " Opening of the Lynn and Ely Railway . This line was opened yesterday and 29 first and second class carriages started from the Lynn Station at ½ past 10 o`clock filled with ladies and gentlemen comprising many of the principal inhabitants to pay a visit to Ely . The carriages which are painted chocolate certainly present a gay and handsome appearance ( there was ) a profusion of union jacks and a band of music . At ½ past 12 the train reached Ely . The visitors proceeded to the Bell Inn where the directors had ordered a substantial luncheon . At ½ past 3 the train started from Ely and at a little after 6 a sumptuous entertainment was given at the Town Hall . "
The Standard of the next day , 27th October 1846 , " The remaining portion of the Lynn and Ely Railway viz, that from Downham to Lynn was opened on Monday . The completion of the East Anglian system of railways of which that from Lynn to Ely forms the most important section , will bring a very valuable district of the eastern part of the country into railway communication not only with the metropolis but with the northern and western parts of the kingdom which will add most materially to the value of the low lands traversed by the various lines . It is unnecessary to point out the advantages which must be derived by the proprietors of land lying within the drainage jurisdiction of the Bedford Level , the Middle Level and the drainage corporations , from the construction of the railroads through the district . Within the memory of man the large tracts of land alluded to have , by drainage , been increased by five fold in value . The locality is in many parts impassable for heavy vehicles in winter and the materials for road making can be obtained only from a great distance and consequently at a very heavy cost.
And yet ...the East Anglian Company have met with a most annoying , most expensive and it is believed most absurd opposition from the drainage corporations and have had to submit to almost extortionate exactions from the very landowners , the value of whose estates will be materially enhanced by this system of railways .
The length of the Lynn to Ely line is 26 ½ miles and runs through a perfectly level country . At Watlington station about six miles from Lynn, a branch to Wisbeach, ten miles long , is in the course of construction . This branch is expected to be opened in November . Of the Lynn and Dereham line 17 miles have been opened to the public for some time past . The remaining 8 miles are under construct and will in all probability be ready for traffic in the spring of next year .
The Lynn and Ely line and Wisbeach branch were according to the prospectus to be cheaply and expeditiously constructed ; and but for the opposition of the drainage corporations there is no doubt the lines would have been economically made , and long since completed The bridges proposed to be built by the railway company offered much better " way " for navigation and drainage than those that have been recently erected by corporations themselves. There is not , we believe, a single bridge between Ely and the sea with a wider opening than 40ft yet the drainage people compelled the company to build one 121ft 6ins over the Ouse with side openings to the extent of 30 yards on either side with spans of 30 ft each .
Over the new drain made by the " Middle Level " corporation , Mr James Walker erected for the convenience of the public and the private occupation roads, 14 bridges of three spans each , the centre span not exceeding 40 ft ; yet this corporation obliged the railway company to consent to erect within 100 yards of one of these 40ft span bridges , a bridge of 110 ft on the square with 132 ft on the skew . The parliamentary estimate for building two bridges on the Wisbeach line was £10,000. The corporation objected to the bridges and as a consequence a temporary bridge was constructed for £7,000 and a permanent one at £30,000 .
The landowners have driven very hard bargains with the railway company The estimated cost of the Lynn and Ely railway with the Wisbeach branch was £300,000 but the corporations opposition and requirements have added £100,000 . As an illustration of the griping character of the men , a proprietor near the Ouse Bridge made a claim of £1,900 for damage done to his property , a windmill which was 150 yards from the railway . It went to arbitration and he was awarded £1,000 for " loss of wind ".
When Captain Wynne the railway inspector inspected the railway between Ely and Denver the Ouse bridge was tested by placing on it four engines and four tenders laden with coke and water and five waggons laden with six tons of iron each . The weight may fairly be taken as follows . Four engines and tenders at 26 tons each , 104 tons, five loaded waggons , 9 tons each , 45 tons, men and other things, say , one ton . Total 150 tons .
With this weight the bridge sank 5/16ths of an inch only ; and it is more than probable , that when this bridge has come to its proper bearing it will not sink more than one eighth of an inch under all the weight the bridge can hold .
The excursion train taken from Ely to Lynn in the afternoon consisted of 31 carriages . Two engines were attached . The train was taken at a moderate rate of speed over the new portion of the line which appears to have been formed with very great care by Mr Valentine The dinner in celebration of the event took place in the Town Hall with the Mayor Mr Carter presiding . About 150 gentlemen sat down to a very substantial repast but to very execrable wines .
Mr Armes proposed the toast to Mr Lacy , MP , and the Directors of the East Anglian Railways . Mr Lacy replied by saying that the spirit of railway speculation against which so much was now charged , had not been fostered by the old companies , but had been encouraged by a certain great man ( Sir Robert Peel) who one day took a spade in his hand and declared that direct lines were the thing . All the world were immediately up in arms for direct lines ; bubbles swarmed and he believed that direct as the Lynn and Ely Railway was , that if a " direct" Lynn to Ely line had been brought forward in 1845 the very name of it would have secured patronage and support .
Mr Armes now proposed the health of Mr J C Williams, the solicitor of the company . That gentleman was, he said, the originator of the Lynn and Ely line and it was mainly owing to his talent and perseverance that the Bill for it had been obtained and the undertaking carried to a successful issue . The health of Mr Valentine the engineer of the railway was next proposed and returned with thanks , Several other toasts were drunk , and the company separated shortly before 12 o`clock . " This London newspaper did its best to be pleased about the opening but this was one of many railways , and so it gave a rather more muted and resentful report on the railway , perhaps the writer was a disappointed shareholder .
Thus despite all the difficulties , financial and physical the line was opened and is still open today . The Sharp Bros of Manchester , 2-2-2 engine and its carriages steamed into the future. The woodcut illustration in the newspapers of the engine and carriages in motion , is not a cartoon or simple cutesy image, it was to advertise to the paying passengers and business men just what a cutting edge, white heat of technology means of transport this was . It was not then as now, a faultless service and alongside the article on the opening of the railway line, are three small paragraphs which describe delays on the line from Chelmsford, a fatality on the line from Cambridge and vandalism of the line . Worse was to come , the following year , 1847, the railway company put up the fares .
So next time you travel between Downham and Lynn or Ely , imagine the crowds of excited people lining the route of the inaugural journey on that cool misty autumn day in 1846..
References:
House of Commons : Report of the Select Committee on Railway Labourers, 1846
The Railway Navvies by Terry Coleman
East Anglia`s First Railways by Hugh Moffat .
Norfolk Record Office.( for permission to reproduce the map of the proposed line C/scf 1/250) .
King`s Lynn Library .
Map of the proposed line of railway at Downham 1844
Schedule of owners and occupiers of land
within the proposed railway line and lines of
deviation .
Book of Reference to the Plan of the Lynn and
Ely Railway With a branch to the
Harbour of Lynn and a branch from the Main line to Wisbeach . ( see the Map of the proposed railway line).
Deposited in my office at 9 ½ at night on
30th November 1844. Parmeter.
Land Owner Occupier
1) Land and drains .William Wilson Lee Warnes George
Wood
2) Field ditto ditto
3) ditto ditto ditto
4) ditto ditto ditto
5) Drove ditto and Edmund Beeton and Mary Barton ditto
6) Field and Drains Edmund Beeton . John Garner.
7) ditto George Wood in hand
8) ditto Edmund Beeton ditto
9) Sewers Drains Dikereeves of the parish Dikereeves .
9) Sewers Drains Dikereeves of the parish Dikereeves .
10) Field and Drains Mary Barton William Barton.
11)
ditto ditto ditto
12) Cottages , sheds, gardens and premises ,
Samuel Rawlings. Henry Walker, Matthew & Thos Atkins.
13) Field (blank) Mary Wenn
14) ditto Edmund Beeton Thomas Page
15) Brickyard , shed, garden and premises. Samuel Rawlings . in hand
16) Field Barnes Merrington George Mann
17) Cottages, barn, yard and premises ditto Francis Hunt, Henry Newman .
15) Brickyard , shed, garden and premises. Samuel Rawlings . in hand
16) Field Barnes Merrington George Mann
17) Cottages, barn, yard and premises ditto Francis Hunt, Henry Newman .
18) Field Robert Andrews Thomas Rose
19) House, shed, garden and premises ditto Maurice
Crawley .
20) ditto ditto Daniel Benstead
21) ditto ditto Robert Dodd
22) ditto ditto William Lang
23) ditto ditto Thomas Killingworth
24) ditto ditto Francis Green
24) ditto ditto Francis Green
25) ditto ditto Jonah Weston
26) ditto ditto Samuel Rawlings
27) ditto ditto William Webster.
28) ditto ditto Samuel Lavender
29) ditto ditto John Eagleton
30) ditto ditto Elizabeth
Palgrave
31) House, shed, yard , ditto Mary Barton.
32) House, sheds, yard and garden , ditto Thomas Rose
32) House, sheds, yard and garden , ditto Thomas Rose
33) Turnpike Road Trustees of the Turnpike
34) Cottage, sheds, garden and premises William Bennett Wm Walker, Wm Barrack.
35) Cottage and yard Thomas Wright Robert Laws
35) Cottage and yard Thomas Wright Robert Laws
36) Orchard ditto John Shin
37) Cottages , gardens, sheds and
premises ditto Mary Rawson, John Shin.
38) Orchard ditto James Rawson. .
39) Cottages, sheds and garden . John Johnson Elizabeth Watts, Henry Filby . .
38) Orchard ditto James Rawson. .
39) Cottages, sheds and garden . John Johnson Elizabeth Watts, Henry Filby . .
40) Field Henry Winter John Watts
41) ditto ditto William Brown
42) ditto John Dixon in hand
43) ditto ditto ditto
44) ditto George Scarnell ditto
43) ditto ditto ditto
44) ditto George Scarnell ditto
45) ditto James King Thomas Page
46) ditto ditto ditto
47) ditto Rev Charles Mann William
Allcock
48) Sewers Drains Dikereeves of the parish Dikereeves.
49) Brickyard, sheds and premises William Bennett in hand
50) Field Rev Sam Colby Smith William Horne
51) ditto Rev Charles Mann William
Allcock
52) ditto John Vipon Dyson Savage.
53) Private Road. Thomas Wright, James King, William Weston , John Dixon, William Bennett,
John Vipan , Rev Sam Colby Smith , Rev Charles Mann, William Chapman,
George Brown , Robert Taylor, Henry Winter, George Weston, Henry Juler,
Thomas Page, George Scarnell.
54) Field Rev Sam Colby Smith William Horne
53) Private Road. Thomas Wright, James King, William Weston , John Dixon, William Bennett,
John Vipan , Rev Sam Colby Smith , Rev Charles Mann, William Chapman,
George Brown , Robert Taylor, Henry Winter, George Weston, Henry Juler,
Thomas Page, George Scarnell.
54) Field Rev Sam Colby Smith William Horne
55) ditto ditto ditto
56) ditto George Weston William
Weston
57) ditto ditto ditto
58) ditto Henry Juler in hand
59) ditto William Weston William Brown
60) ditto George Brown William Chapman
61) ditto John Dixon in hand.
61) ditto John Dixon in hand.
62) ditto Henry Winter Bennett
Brown
63) ditto Robert Taylor Thomas
Harris
64) ditto ditto ditto
65) ditto William Chapman in hand
66) ditto ditto ditto
67) Field and Drains George Brown ditto
68) ditto ditto ditto
69) ditto ditto ditto
70) Sewers Drains Dikereeves of the parish Dikereeves .
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Finally
...it seemed important to try to follow the careers /lives of some of the main players involved in the building of the
railway and so I have finished off the railway blog with a postscript.
POSTSCRIPT
Our breathless
guide who reported on the first 11 mile journey of the train from Lynn to Downham
for the Lynn Advertiser , rightly
mentioned the names of some of the workforce behind the making of the railway .
The "
originator of the Lynn and Ely line " ,Mr J.C. Williams was a solicitor
born in London but who had been in partnership with Goodwin ( Partridge) of
Lynn attorneys, when Thomas Greenfield
was articled to a solicitor in London in 1840 .
J.C. , John Charles later married a Mary Sarah Greenfield . Mr W.W.
Williams the railway company secretary may well have been a brother to John
Charles Williams .
John Sutherland
Valentine the engineer has already been mentioned. The builders Candler and Whitby of Lynn were
both Lynn born and middle aged by the time the railway came . William Candler
was a master carpenter born in 1790 and Thomas Whitby was a builder born a few
years earlier in 1787 and lived in Whitby Yard off the High Street in Lynn with
his son James .. The contractor William
Smith Simpson was born in 1803 and lived in Park Farm ,Little Downham , Cambs ,
and also had a London address in Islington .
A month before the opening of the Lynn and Ely railway he dissolved his
partnership with Chas Briggs of "Ferry " both being described as
railway contractors . He later dissolved
his partnerships with James Walker the Middle Level builder of 14 bridges , and Chas. Bennett in 1847 and 1849 .
In 1851 he is living in Lt. Downham with his wife Julia and his daughter
Eliza who was born in Wisbech. He died
in 1868.
One of the
subcontractors was James Bailey . In the 1851 census he was living in Railway
Road, Lynn , aged 43 described as subcontractor to public works , and born
Westminster . His wife Elizabeth is 29
and born Ashford , Kent , for certain not his first wife as his son, another
James, is aged 21 and an assistant to his father , and born in the railway
central town of Stockton in Durham . If
anything gives James Bailey his credentials as a railway builder it is the birthplace of his son in
1830 at the pinnacle of the Stephenson era of very early railway building .
In the same house but not as the enumerator is clear to mention, are 8 navvies , " these persons do not occupy separate apartments ". But it is rare to find the names of the navvies. John Ibbinson, 22, b Yorks, Jonas Rolfe, 35, b Lowestoft, he later became a coal porter , James Bollowes, 26 , b Kirby Prior, John Corsey, 26, b Norfolk , William Pearman , 18, b Suffolk, William King, 25 , b Warwickshire , William Simpson , 22, b Lincs, and Charles Osborne, 29, b Boston . The last Charles became a labourer in a fish office in Lowestoft . Although by1851 the Lynn to Ely railway was fully opened , it is possible that James Bailey and his gang of navvies were needed at the development of Lynn Harbour, on the doomed Watlington to Wisbech branch line or to complete the Lynn to Dereham line.
Also in the 1851
census in Railway Road, Lynn is Richard Collar, described as unmarried,
21, stationmaster E.A.Railway, Lynn ,
born Chippenham , Wilts, so maybe a young man
with Great Western Railway experience . Later he is found as a coal
merchant in Norwich . Also with him is William Belshar Stanley , unmarried, 25, stationmaster in Downham ,
born in Margate , Kent . He was born in
1824 on the Isle of Thanet , and in later census becomes a mercantile clerk .
Of the others
mentioned by name Dobson , Tribe, Neame and Snell all seem to have moved away from the Lynn area but Frederic Cruso in 1851 is a 27 year old civil engineer and
son of Robinson Cruso the auctioneer and it is name known today in Lynn.
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