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February
Meeting 2009
Nelson : A
Norfolk Hero
Charles Lewis,
our speaker on the 26th February from the Nelson Society,
described Nelson's history from birth to death, with an interesting and
inciteful account of the real Nelson
Did you know that
as well as being a courageous person, Nelson was a colourful personality,
with a tendency towards the dramatic and a weakness for the ladies?
As an officer in
battle he exhibited courage sometimes amounting to recklessness, always
wanting to be where the action was, with little regard for his personal
safety. He was also an innovator exploiting, different and unexpected
tactics in battle that confused and confounded his enemies, the Spanish
and the French. These were exploited at the Battles of the Nile,
Copenhagen and Trafalgar. Expect the unexpected was one of his lifelong
mottoes.
As a man, his
often naïve involvements with different women, married and unmarried, led
to him making rash assumptions about the true nature of his relationships
with them. Firstly, after marrying one eligible woman, he was ensnared by
Lady Hamilton, whose wiles eventually ended their respective marriages and
started their long-lasting affair.
Nelson was also
given to the dramatic often over emphasising his injuries acquired in
battle, although he lost both his arm and eye as a result of combat with
his enemies, the French and Spanish.
Overall, he was
an interesting and very human character and his death at Trafalgar and his
affection towards Hardy illustates the essential character of the man.
Thanks to all who
have supplied Photos, Information, Memorabilia and for the support to the
Historical Society.
If you are property owner, selling or buying a property in the Parish of
Cawston could you please ask for the old deeds as they are not now
required and could be destroyed.
The Historical Society would be like to have sight of them to copy for our
records, or if you do not need them we would be very much like to store
them in the Cawston archive with any photos or information for the benefit
of present and future generations.
Our future programme are as following:-
Thursday March 26th 2009 talk
on
Happisburgh Lighthouse
Thursday April 23rd 2009 talk
on
The
Burston School Strike
Thursday
May 28th 2009 Talk on Wool & Wealth
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March Meeting 2009
Carole Palfrey, a guide
and fundraiser for Happisburgh Lighthouse,
the oldest Lighthouse in the country,
gave our gathered audience a very informative talk about the history of
the lighthouse. Did you know that once there were two lighthouses at
Happisburgh and that the reason the one left standing is painted in l'ed
and white stripes is so sailors
can distinguish it from the white painted Cromer lighthouse? The
lighthouses were built in the first place because of ships being wrecked
on the Happisburgh Sands.
One night 60-70 ships went down with the loss
of numerous lives which was the last straw!! If you have the intern et and
would like to find out more about the lighthouse and perhaps visit, have a
look on
www.happisburgh.org.
Our next meeting will be
on Thursday 28th May and we will be
having a talk about Wool and Wealth"
so
do please come along at 7 pm at the
Village Hail, entrance is 50p for members and £1.50
for non members and includes refreshments.
Items of historical interest
carry on being given to our society for safe keeping or copying, in what
is certainly turning into Cawston Museum at the village hall
Recently we have been given a photo of one of
the Cawston railway signal boxes which we were very grateful to receive as
we do not have many photos of the railway. If you have anything that you
think will be of interest to
future generations of Cawstoners please bring
it along to our meetings or give to one of our committee members.
To Top
April Meeting
2009 The
Burston School Strike was the subject of our April meeting. Another good
turn out were enlightened on the subject by Peter Medhurst, one of the
present trustees of Burston School.
It was the sacking of school teacher
KittY Higdon and her husband Tom Higdon that started the longest strike in
history. Their sacking came after a dispute with the school management
which consisted of the rector of the day and local farmers etc. It was the
children of the school that came out on strike because the Higdons went
out of their way to make school conditions and lessons so much better for
the children. Following their sacking from the Church of England School
the Higdons set up school on the village green for the children, later
they moved into a carpenter's premises and then a purpose-built school was
financed by donations from the labour movement. The Strike School still
stands in Burston today and is certainly worth a visit.
Our May meeting will be a
talk on Wool and Wealth with reference to Cawston of course. Make a note
on your calendar for Thursday 28th May at 7 pm. Everybody is welcome, 50p
for members and £1.50
for non-members with tea, coffee and delicious cakes served (thanks to our
ladies!!)
Meetings coming up:
Thursday 25th June - Norfolk in the Great War Thursday 23rd July - Memoirs
of a Norfolk Dumpling
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May Meeting 2009
Our May talk about the Wool and Wealth was
given by Brian Morgan an expert on anything to do with the woollen
industry. The talk was attended by around forty people.
Pre industrial revolution Norfolk was
the focus of weaving and the wool industry with whole families being
involved in the process from carding to final production of the cloth.
Our July meeting on Thursday
23rd July Memoirs of a Norfolk Dumpling
Please come along, all talks
begin at 7 pm and we welcome all to the meetings. Entrance is 50p members
and £1.50
for non-
members.
This includes refreshments.
If you have any historical
items that may be of interest to us and to Cawston folk in the future,
please contact any of the committee below, so that we can take copies and
collate them.
Chairman: Des Cook
01603 872111
Secretary: Theresa Carman
01603 871917
Treasurer: Terry Simons
01603 871523
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June Meeting 2009
Neil Storey is a local historian and provided an
interesting incite into Norfolk in the Great War
Experiences of recruiting soldiers in the Boer War found that many were
undernourished and had poor reading skills. Similarly, conditions had not
changed a great deal when the floodgates opened in 1914 in a wave of
enthusiasm to fight “ in the War to end all wars”. As in many places
throughout the country, recruitment centres in Norwich, Kings Lynn and
Great Yarmouth were inundated with volunteers.
Coastal defenses in the form of pill boxes were constructed around the
Norfolk coastline to stop a seabourne invasion force, which in the event
never materialized.
Many of those recruited together served together under the same command.
Often those volunteering from one company such as the Great Eastern
Railway went to war together under the same command, and in their case
were commanded to defend the Essex coastline.
One of Norfolk's armies built from volunteers was the Norfolk Sixth
Battalion that undertook maneouvres on bicycles. Interestingly, the horse
was still seen as having a combat role, although the reality of facing
machine guns, taught the allies a painful lesson.
Eventually, of course the tank would start to serve as an instrument of
war.
In 1915 Norfolk experienced its first air attack by three zeppelins. Two
of these landed at Bacton and Great Yarmouth and one of these caused
considerable damage in Kings Lynn.
Many arrangements were made to convert buildings into hospitals once the
injured started to stream back from the front. In all there were 60
hospitals in Norfolk; our local hospital being at Cawston
Manor.
As the experiences of the War became clearer and the death toll mounted
many women replaced men in the factories and workshops.
Finally Neil reminded us of the reality and harshness of war and the
commemoration of Remembrance Day and Peace Day.
Please come along, all talks begin at 7 pm and we welcome all to the
meetings.
Entrance is 50p members and £1-50 for non- members. This includes cakes
and refreshments.
No meeting held in August
24th September meeting:- Talk about George Sawer, (1550-1627)
Overseer of the Poor & Churchwarden etc in Cawston by Mr Chris Barringer.
If you have any historical items that may be of interest to us
and to Cawston folk in the future, please contact any of the committee
below, so that we can take copies and collate them.
Chairman : Des Cook 01603 872111
Secretary : Theresa Carman 01603 871917
Treasurer : Terry Simons 01603 871523
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July
Meeting 2009
The July talk
(A Norfolk Dumpling)
delivered by Mary Gurteen was about growing up in Cawston. She recalled
her days at the Primary School, with great fondest. In the 1950's there
was no such things as the national curriculum and John Kett was the head
teacher. She went to high school at North Walsham.
She remembered, how a local American, who had settled at Heydon, initiated
a minstrel troupe which played
extensively in Norfolk; something which would produce a different reaction
nowadays.
Mary lived in Cawton until 1973, returning to live in Eastgate in 1989
During the talk she quoted extensively from various letters and mentioned,
with regret, how the Norfolk dialect would be likely to die out in a
generation, because the current generation of young people were not using
it.
She also quoted from various letters which described the Norfolk way of
life and attitudes to living.
“You can tell a Norfolk man but you can't tell him much”.
“ A woman can never keep a secret unless she has friends to help her”
Overall Mary delivered a very enjoyable and entertaining talk.
Please come along, all talks begin at 7 pm and we welcome all to the
meetings, entrance is 50p members and £1-50 for non- members. This
includes refreshments.
Our future meeting are as following:-
August No Meeting
Thursday 24th September - Talk about It Went By Steam
Thursday 22nd October - Talk - George Sawer, (1550-1627) Overseer of the
Poor
& Churchwarden
etc in Cawston by Chris Barringer.
Thursday 26th November - Talk about Norfolk Ghosts by Neil R. Storey BA
If you have any historical items that may be of interest to us
and to Cawston folk in the future, please contact any of the committee
below, so that we can take copies and collate them.
Terry Simons
Chairman : Des Cook 01603 872111
Secretary : Theresa Carman 01603 871917
Treasurer : Terry Simons 01603 871523
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August Meeting 2009
Best Wishes from the Cawston Historical Society
We hope all our members and
supporters had a good holiday break and are fighting fit ready to return
for our regular meetings which start on 24th September. The
programme for the next few meetings are:-
Topic
Speaker Date
It Went by
Steam Bev Woolner
September 24th
George Sawer, Overseer of the
Poor and Churchwarden in Cawston Chris
Barringer October 22nd
Norfolk Ghosts
Neil Storey November 26
All meetings start at 7pm
If you have any historical items that may be of interest to us and to
Cawston folk in the future, please contact any of the committee below, so
that we can take copies and collate them.
Terry Simons
Chairman : Des Cook 01603
872111.
Secretary : Theresa Carman 01603 871917
Treasurer: Terry Simons 01603 871523
September Meeting 2009
Our
meeting in September was very well attended with the subject being “It
went by steam”. Mr. Bev Woolner gave a very interesting talk about his
memories of working with steam trains and steam boats.
We are still collating the Role of Honour of Cawston' s war heroes and
people in the forces for our village archive, and we would ask that if you
have the details of a relative that has been in the forces and would like
their photo, name, rank and number added please get in touch.
If you have any historical items that may be of interest to us and to
Cawston folk in the future, please contact Des Tel: 01603 872111, so that
we can take copies and collate them.
Our future meetings are as following:-
Thursday 22nd October – Talk about George Sawer by Chris Barringer
Thursday 26th November - Talk about Norfolk Ghosts by Neil R. Storey BA
Please come along, all talks begin at 7 pm and we welcome all to the
meetings, entrance is 50p for members and £1-50 for non-members which
includes refreshments
To Top
October
Meeting 2009
Chris
Barringer provided an interesting insight into the life of George
Sawyer, a church warden and overseer to the poor. George was a
cartographer and surveyor and made many interesting maps of the area.
Although not in the first rank of nobility, he was a local landowner
and was friendly with the Boleyn family.
Sheep
grazing rights on common land was regularly the subject of disputes
between local landowners and many such disputes were the subject of
legal arbitration such was the extent of the acrimony.
George was also fastidious in the execution of his duties and tried to
ensure that the poor in the parish were cared for even to the extent of
providing money for heating; a worthy precursor to the more
comprehensive system of social security introduced after the second
world war.
An
interesting point made by Chris during the talk was that George Sawyer
may have lived at the white house.
Overall Chris provided an entertaining and informative discourse.
On
November 26th at 7pm at the Village Hall, our talk will be
given by Neil Storey BA on Norfolk Ghosts.
Entry
is 50p members and £1-50 non-members including refreshments.
Many
thanks to all our supporters.
Terry
Simons
To Top
November Meeting 2009
Our November talk was delivered by Neil Storey who is
becoming a regular at the Historical Society
Almost sixty people attended the meeting and were entertained in
humorous manner by Neil's account of the different variety of ghosts
seen around the buildings, graveyards and countryside of Norfolk.
One personal favourite is the story of the black hound seen in Cromer
called old shep. Neil mentioned that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
himself visited Cromer and heard the story of the black hound seen in
Cromer and used it in his famous story- The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Neil's talk was both
interesting, if not a little scary.
Our programme to July 2010 is as following:-
January 28th History of Aviation
in Norfolk
February 25th
The Castle Mall
March 25th History of the Womens
Institute
April 22nd The Peasant's Revolt
May 27th The Archeology of
Cawston
June 24th How not to Destroy
Your Heirlooms
July 22nd At Home in the
1930's
Please come along, all talks begin at 7 pm and we
welcome all to the meetings.
Entrance is 50p members and £1-50 for non- members.
This includes refreshments.
For enquires please contact:-
Chairman : Des Cook
01603 872111
Secretary : Theresa Carman 01603
871917
Treasurer : Terry Simons
01603 871523 or any
committee member
Happy
Christmas to you all
To Top
December Report 2009
No meeting in December
Items of historical interest carry on being
given or to copy for our society for safe keeping in the
Cawston Archive
in the Village Hall.
If you have anything that you think will be of interest for
future generations of Cawstoners please bring it along to our meetings
or give to one of our
committee members.
Our Programme to July
2010 is as following:-
Jan 28th History of Aviation in Norfolk
Feb 25th The Castle Mall
March 25th History of the W.I.
Apr 22nd Peasants Revolt
May 27th Archeology of Cawston
Jun 24th
How not to destroy your heirlooms
July 22nd At home in the 1930s
August: No meeting
For enquires please contact:-
Chairman : Des Cook
01603 872111
Secretary : Theresa Carman 01603
871917
Treasurer : Terry Simons
01603 871523 or any
committee member
All Welcome: Entrance is 50p members and £1-50 for non- members. This
includes refreshments.
Many thanks to all who have supported the Society
Happy New Year to you all |
