Friends of Princes Street

The two public houses in Princes Street were frequently in trouble with the law for breaching licensing conditions throughout the second half of the 19th century, at the same time that the Congregationalists and other non-conformists active in the Temperance movement expanded their presence in the street.

Joseph Hewing (1811-1877) became the licensee of the Plumbers Arms (20 Princes Street) from 1846, through to 1875. John Hewett, a self described Radical, ran The Coopers’ Arms at what is now 13 Princes Street, next door to the Congregationalist chapel and temperance hall. By 1872, a further outpost of the temperance movement, a British Workman’s coffee house, had opened next to the Plumbers’ Arms.

Joseph Hewing

Hewing married Jane Small of Ireland in 1833, in Bunwell, Norfolk. It seems they did not have any children, and the census of 1851 only shows the couple and some lodgers –  various soldiers from the 98^th Regiment of Foot and three young women – Elizabeth Hales, a 23 year old dressmaker, Hannah Catchpole, a 20 year old shoe binder and Elizabeth Hunt, a 23 year old dressmaker and her 3 year old daughter, also named Elizabeth Hunt.

The 1851 census also included a tally of churchgoing, which revealed that Congregationalist chapel on Princes Street had capacity for almost a thousand seated and held Norwich’s third largest morning congregation (573 with 191 children) and second largest evening congregation (452).

Assault

In 1847, Joseph Hewing “alias Whitehead” charged Lucy Browne with having been concerned in stealing a watch and some money from an old pensioner who had been drinking with a female in Hewing’s house, after which he was robbed. The watch was afterwards given to a boy to take to the station house, where it was detained.

A few weeks later, Hewing and Browne were at a house in Red Lion Street, when they “had a few words and Hewing struck her.” She went for a police officer but upon her return Hewing charged her with having been concerned in the robbery, and instead of being taken into custody himself for the assault, he gave her into custody. She was taken to the station house, when Hewing most positively swore she was the thief. It was afterwards proved she was not the party, and ”a charge of assault was preferred against Hewing,” which Lucy Browne “clearly substantiated.”

The Magistrates, after strongly reprobating the conduct of Hewing, fined him 10s and 10s 6d costs for the assault. In default of payment he was committed for twenty one days to the House of Correction. [1]

Jane, Joseph’s wife, died in 1855 at the age of 42 and was buried at St George Tombland. Joseph then married Sarah Mayes (1827-) at St George Tombland, in 1857.

The Plumbers’ Arms continued to attract attention in the wrong way. In 1859, George Olley, a married man, accused Archibald Maltman of assaulting him in the Plumbers Arms on the 12^th March, arguing about money and a girl. Both were lectured severely and the landlord cautioned. Later that year, in July, William Browne, a 21 year old shoemaker was charged and found guilty of stealing three brass candlesticks from the landlord, Joseph Hewing.

Hewing’s licence was renewed in 1859 but with clear reservations about character of the house and concerns that it might be operating as a brothel.

Hewing managed to stay out of the news for the next couple of years and in the 1861 census he is recorded as “John” Hewing, living at the Plumbers Arms with Sarah and a lodger, Joney Wooton, an agricultural labourer.

The semblance of respectability did not last long. In 1862 Joseph Hewing was refused a license and admonished for allowing prostitutes to assemble at his house. He reapplied in 1863 but the magistrates refused the application again. He seems to have finally regained his licence, or moved to another premises to do so, as in 1865 Joseph Hewing is noted as being “a beer house keeper of Redwell Street” in a court hearing of an attempt to steal money from his till.

In 1869 the congregationalist chapel on Princes Street was rebuilt, to designs by a non-conformist architect, Edward Boardman.

One of the most improbable stories that was ever told in a Court of Justice

The very next year, Hewing was back in the news again. Ellen Chapman (28) a prostitute of Sardinian Court, St Stephen’s and William Fairweather (51), shoemaker of Heigham were charged with stealing £64[2] from him.

Hewing was near the Golden Ball public house, where he met William Fairweather, who asked him where he was going and on his telling him “anywhere where he could get a pint” the prisoner took him to a house in Sardinian Court, where Hewing gave him 6d to get a half a gallon of beer. When he came back, they sat smoking and drinking the beer. Shortly after this, another half gallon was ordered, and the female prisoner then came in and he and Fairweather played a game of cards.

When they had finished playing, Hewing went upstairs to count his money and found he had £63 in gold, which he returned to his purse and put in his pocket. When he came downstairs, he gave another 6d for more beer and at the same time a shilling for the use of the room. After drinking the second lot of beer he felt dizzy. Out of the first half gallon he only drank twice, and the same quantity the second time. Fairweather went for the beer and “both partook of it.” After he became drowsy, Fairweather told him to go and lie down, and he would call him at eight in the morning.

Hewing went upstairs and found when he woke up at seven the next morning, that he was sitting on a chair with his head resting on the bed. There was a little girl in the room. On feeling for his purse he found it was gone; and on going downstairs neither of the prisoners was there, or any other person in the house. On reaching the street he saw a policeman to whom he communicated his loss.

In answer to the Bench, Hewing said the reason he gave a shilling for going upstairs was in order to count his money without being observed. He had had two half quarterns of gin previous to meeting with Fairweather at the house where he had sold his pony and cart that evening.

Cross examined by the female prisoner he responded: “I did not go upstairs with you. I did not, after I had given you some silver, offer you four or five pounds to do what I liked with you.”

Police constable Bacon said that after Hewing had approached him he went in search of the two prisoners, whom he found together in an unoccupied house in the Pipe Burner’s Yard, St Stephen’s. He asked Ellen Chapman if she had any money about her and she handed him six sovereigns, saying they had been given to her by the man for a certain purpose. The policeman heard more money “jinking in her pocket” and she said that was her own. Fairweather handed over a half sovereign and some coppers saying it was all he had. Both were then taken to the station. The policeman said that he had known Chapman for five or six years and that after taking them to the station he went to her house, where he found a purse containing £40 in sovereigns and half sovereigns and also a phial labelled Laudanum – poison.  

The defending lawyer contended that Hewing’s story was one of the most improbable stories that was ever told in a Court of Justice and that the appearance of the prosecutor was sufficient to convince the jury that he was not speaking the truth, that he preferred going with the female prisoner instead of being in bed with his wife at home.

The jury nonetheless convicted the prisoners and the Deputy Recorder remarked that the evidence was clear and he had no doubt they had drugged Hewing to obtain the money. He hoped the sentence would be a warning to them, but added that he was afraid they were too far gone to be reformed. Chapman and Fairweather were sent to prison for eighteen months with hard labour.

The British Workman coffee house

The 1871 census shows that Hewing was back at the Plumbers Arms, with his wife Sarah, but no lodgers.

A year later, Philip Impson moved into 22 Princes Street next to the Plumbers Arms and opened the British Workman coffee/public house. The British Workman movement had started in the 1860s with the aim of establishing alcohol-free public houses for working men.

Impson was a Quaker and active in the temperance movement. Before moving to Princes Street, Impson had been running a bakery in King’s Lynn in the 1860s after which he moved to Heigham, Norfolk, where he also ran a bakery.

As well as serving “a cup of coffee for 1d, a cup of tea 1 ½ d, a cup of cocoa, 1 ½ d, a rasher of bacon 2d, unadulterated bread, eggs and butter, ginger, peppermint and lemon syrups, noted horehound and ginger beer &c.” it had a club room used for meetings, singing and phonetics classes, readings, recitation and bible reading classes.

In 1872 Hewing was summoned for allowing beer to be drunk in his house at unlawful hours on Sunday night. Evidence was called to prove that the men in the house were relatives of the landlord, whose wife they were visiting on account of her illness, so the magistrates dismissed the case.

Hewing’s widow takes over

This was the last time Hewing appeared in the press, although he is shown on the 1873 electoral register as occupying a house on Prince’s Street. He died in February 1877 at the age of 66 – “greatly respected by all his friends”.  He left effects of under £100.

His widow Sarah continued to run the Plumbers Arms, in a similar fashion it would seem, to Joseph, after his death. In the 1881 census she is recorded as living with Robert Wigg, 27, her nephew, Sarah M Wigg, 29, her niece, Alicia L Mayes, 19, a dressmaker and Ellen Grand, a servant, 17.  

In July of that year she was summoned for allowing her house to be used as a brothel. Detective Barlow had watched the Plumber’s Arms on several occasions and saw 24 men and 23 women, some of whom were prostitutes, enter the premises between 2pm and 8:30pm. Their neighbours, Philip Impson of the British Workman and Mr Dawson deposed to the noise and turbulence not infrequently taking place at the house, the latter deposing to the fact that this had been the state of things for the last 25 years. Sarah Hewing was found guilty and in default of payment, was sent to prison for two months and the license was forfeited. This precipitated the sale of the property:

For Sale by Auction Wednesday 3rd August 1881, a Freehold property lately known as the PLUMBER’S ARMS. Easily convertible into Trade Premises. In the occupation of Mrs. Sarah Hewing and containing Bar and Tap-room, Snuggery, two Sitting-rooms, passage with access to the Yard, leading to Waggon and Horses Yard; Scullery, Wash-house, Privy, Coal-house, back passage to Garden, formerly used as a Skittle Ground; also Privy. On the First Floor, Landing, front Sitting-room and five Bed-rooms. On the second floor, Landing and two Bed-rooms. Also a Two-stalled Stable, with Hay Loft over and Cellar in the Basement situate adjoining, now in the occupation of Mr Furse.[3]

After the sale of the Plumber’s Arms, Sarah went to stay with her sister-in-law in Corpusty, where she died in 1884, at the age of 65.

The temperance movement in the 1880s

Jeremiah James Colman MP, a nonconformist from the Colman’s mustard family laid the foundation stone laid for new lecture hall and Sunday School rooms on Princes Street in 1879.

Two years later, a Temperance Hall opened in the room previously used by the Prince’s Street congregation as a school – purchased and redecorated by the Norfolk and Norwich Temperance Society.

Impson continued to run the British Workman in the 1880s, appearing in White’s History, Gazetteer and Directory as the “proprietor of a refreshment and reading room (British Workman No. 1)”. He also provided refreshments for those who met at the Temperance Hall, such as the Independent Order of Rechabites, a temperance society providing insurance for working men.

Impson’s oldest daughter Catherine married Samuel Scarlett, an insurance agent for the Rechabites in 1874.

In the 1891 census Philip Impson and his wife Charlotte were living at what was then 31 Princes Street (now 22) with their daughter Mary. Philip is described as a baker and Mary as a mission worker and preacher. Their son James was also working as a baker, in St Pauls, Norwich.

By 1892 Impson was living in Swansea Road, but continued to own the coffee house premises at 31 Princes Street, until 1893, when it seems he sold 31 to the Bretts, who were living at what is now number 24. He then moved to St Mark’s Villas on City Road, where he died in 1902 at the age of 77.

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[1] Norwich Mercury, 30 October 1847 p 3

[2] Around £10,000 in current day value.

[3] Norwich Mercury, 30 July 1881 p 8

The 1837 electoral roll shows that both John Darken (1765-1863) and John Ninham (1775-1841, son of of John Ninham (1753-1817), founder member of Norwich School of painters and father of Mary Ann Ninham, married to Robert Mounsear II) were living on the St George Tombland end of Prince’s Street. It is likely this was on the south side of Princes Street, opposite 22-26.

The Darkens

John Darken was a Baptist, and a builder, had premises on Princes Street in St George Tombland, but in 1830 he dissolved his interest in a foundry business which had bankrupted in St Martin’s at Palace and then took his family to the United States in 1830. James Worman and Simon Stout of Princes Street announced that they took his business over.

The Darkens were intending to become inhabitants of the United States according to the passenger list for the Salem. They were heading to upstate New York, but ended up in Pennsylvania where John was commissioned to build a church. This was most likely St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Wilkes-Barre which had outgrown its initial 1823 wood-frame building. He was apparently cheated by the building committee and the church collapsed during the spring rains. (From NeilASCarver on Ancestry.com) Darken returned to Britain after his wife Frances died in Pennsylvania in 1831.

He placed a notice in the Norfolk Chronicle in September 1832 to contradict a malicious report that he voted at the election for Sheriff. “I did not vote at all yesterday, nor did I tender my vote, neither did I intend to do so, not having resided in my native city a sufficient time since my return to England, to entitle me to vote.”[1]

His eldest son, Edward John Darken, stayed on in the United States, graduating from Yale university and becoming Assistant Secretary to the Council of the House of Representatives, Iowa in 1842.

John Darken remarried in 1833 to Elizabeth Deynes, the older sister of his late wife. By 1834 he was advertising his business on Princes Street, offering the construction of horticultural buildings with heating by water.  

The Ninhams

The Ninhams were originally a French Huguenot family who had fled religious persecution in the late 16th century.

John Ninham (1775-1841), was the brother of the Norwich School painter Henry Ninham. Their father was John Ninham (1754-1817), also a painter. John Ninham junior was a painter, plumber and glazier, had occupied premises and may also have been living on Princes Street in St George Tombland since at least 1822. He was in a partnership with his son John Michael Ninham, an “imitative painter”.

He may well have bought a Princes Street property in June 1834, when there was an auction of “all that dwelling house with appurtenances and carpenter’s work rooms and convenient yard, opening into Princes-street, in the parish of St George Tombland, now in the occupation of Mr Darken, builder, and all that dwelling house adjoining the last lot, with appurtenances, pleasantly situated next Princes’ Street, now unoccupied. Late in the occupation of Mr William Allen, stone mason.”[2] Presumably Darken had continued to occupy the work rooms and Ninham had moved into the dwelling house.

John Ninham senior’s wife Ann died in 1835 and was buried at St George Tombland. A notice was placed in the Norfolk Chronicle “in the 60th year of her age, after severe illness, which she bore with Christian fortitude and pious resignation to the will of her Divine maker, Ann, the beloved wife of Mr John Ninham, plumber and glazier, Tombland.”

Less than six months after his wife’s death, John Ninham, by then 60, married a Devonian woman, Harriot Joslin, who was 35 years younger than him. John and Harriet had a son, William Henry Thomas Joslin Ninham, the next year, and then a daughter, Harriet Joslin Ninham, in 1838, who died within a few months of birth, as did their second son Robert Ninham, who was born at the end of 1839. All of the children were baptized at St George Tombland.

Bankruptcies

In 1837 Ninham was declared bankrupt, with John Darken as one of the trustees. Ninham’s dwelling house, workshops and yards in St George Tombland were put up for auction in February 1837.

Darken moved his premises from Princes Street to Magdalen Street in October 1837 and the Princes Street premises were taken over by another builder, A.T. Tillett.

In December 1837 Darken was also declared bankrupt. In 1838 his residence in St Martin at Palace was put up for auction.

John Ninham senior died in May 1841, at the age of 66, and was buried at St Giles, his former parish. Harriot announced in the Norwich Mercury that she intended to carry on the business, via John Green, the foreman to her husband. She was living in Princes Street with her son William at the time of the 1841 census, possibly in the property whose freehold had been put up for auction. If so, then the likely route of the 1841 census taker suggests this property was on the south side of Princes Street, opposite 22-26. She appeared in the 1845 in White’s History, Gazetteer and Directory under her own name, at Princes Street, in the list of plumbers, glaziers and painters. In 1850, she put the assets of the business up for sale, moved to London and remarried.

John Darken re-started his building business in 1842 as John Darken & Son, in Magdalen Street. He sold his premises in 1844, retired to Holt shortly after and died there in 1863 at the age of 77.

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[1] Norfolk Chronicle, 1 September 1832 p 2

[2] Norwich Mercury, 28^th June 1834 p 1

Augustine Steward, three times mayor of Norwich and Miles Spencer, five times Chancellor of the diocese of Norwich were to the shape the messuages around St George Tombland for centuries to come, in their property dealings surrounding the dissolution of the monasteries.

The Le Bruns

Until the dissolution, the advowson of St George Tombland church belonged to the College of St Mary in the Fields.

The advowson had been given to the college in the 13th century by the priest John Le Brun, the founder of the hospital of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Chapel in the Fields. The remains of the chapel and college buildings can be seen in the current day Assembly Rooms.

The advowson of St George Tombland included “three messuages…and their gardens and orchards” (Blomefield), probably the land and buildings surrounding the church in what is now Tombland Alley, Princes Street, Tombland and Waggon and Horses Lane. It may have been that the hall type building now at the back of 26 Princes Street was the rectory of St George Tombland.

John’s brother Jeffrey, rector of St Andrew, gave the advowson of St Andrew’s to the college, as did his brother Matthew the advowson of St Mary Unbrent (which would have been on present day Magdalen Street). The three brothers had probably inherited the advowsons from their father.

The name Le Brun suggests Norman origins, although the area of Tombland continued to be a centre for Anglo-Saxons after the Normans moved the market and settled more around what is now the Guildhall area and St Peter Parmentergate.

The college of St Mary in the Fields became a counterbalance to the Cathedral, receiving civic funds, bequests and support from the city. John Le Brun was even thought to have been involved in the riots of 1272 in Tombland, against the Cathedral, when lighted arrows were fired from the tower of St George Tombland.

Augustine Steward

By the time of the dissolution of the monasteries began in 1536, the Dean of the College of St Mary in the Fields was Miles Spencer (1480 – 1569). The college had come to be used as a meeting place for the city corporation and assemblies of Norwich’s freemen, aldermen, sheriffs and mayors.

Augustine Steward was one such alderman, born of Geoffrey Steward and Cecile, nee Boyce/Boys, in St George Tombland in 1491- probably in the predecessor of what is now called Augustine Steward’s house.

Augustine’s father Geoffrey was an alderman too, and a mercer. Augustine became his apprentice, presumably in his early teens, before Geoffrey died in 1504, and was admitted as a freeman of Norwich in 1516.

After Geoffrey’s death, Augustine’s mother Cecily married John Clarke, a merchant and grocer and later mayor, and continued as a merchant herself, with her own merchant’s mark. Cecily’s father, Augustine Boys or Boyce, is thought to be the reason for Augustine Steward’s given name, and possibly some of the family fortune.

Augustine Steward added to the fortune as a merchant and by the time of the dissolution was wealthy enough to buy up the Blackfriar’s monastery (now St Andrew’s Halls) and the messuages around St George Tombland, adding to the various manors he had already acquired around Norfolk.

Steward had already been negotiating with the King to review the settlement made by Cardinal Wolsey in 1524 between the Cathedral Priory and the city corporation when he was first mayor in 1534. In 1539 the king found in the city’s favour, and in 1540 Augustine Steward bought Blackfriars monastery, for the city, for £81, with his own money.

Miles Spencer

At around the same time that Augustine Steward was buying Blackfriars, Miles Spencer, the dean of the college of St Mary in the Fields, negotiated a deal with the king whereby the college members resigned for small pensions, the chapel and college were surrendered to the crown and the chapel and cloister destroyed.

The remaining buildings and other properties, including the manor of Bowthorpe, were then granted to Miles Spencer, after which he used one of the buildings in St Mary in the Fields as his private residence. Blomefield described Spencer as having not only alienated (sold) the revenues of the college, but that he “swallowed up” the revenues for himself by obtaining a grant of it and many other things as an annuity of £4 and 17s from the priory. This is only £2,000 or so in present day value, so he would clearly have been wanting to add to it with other property dealings.

Spencer sold St Mary in the Marsh (the church within the Cathedral precincts) to Dr Gascoigne, which was then pulled down. He also sold at least one of the St George Tombland messuages, current day 22-26 Princes Street, to John and Elizabeth Clarke, nee Clarke. John Clarke is described as a cook, and was possibly related to John Clarke, the merchant who married Cecily Boyce, Geoffrey’s Steward’s widow, the mother of Augustine Steward.

Up until 1538 or so, Augustine Steward had been renting the Princes Inn messuage from Miles Spencer. He petitioned the Norwich Assembly in that year for reduction of rent on the estate because it was a ” voide and decayed grounde… called the Prince Inn off the graunt of the Deane off the Chapell in the Feldes in Norwich ffor the terme off an hundred year, which voide grounde is soore accombred and replenysshed by divers persons with muk and such other vile mater to the grette noysaunce of all the Kynges liege people passing by the same by reason that itt hath ben open and nat ffensed by many yeres”.

It seems likely that shortly after that, Spencer gained the grant of the buildings and messuages that had belonged to the college, from the king, and then sold Princes Inn and the other St George Tombland messuages to Augustine Steward and his family.

The great rebuilding of Norwich and other cities in England began around 1550 and it seems likely that either Augustine or his son William rebuilt what is now 22-26 Princes Street and 20/Princes Inn, large parts of which had been in ruins since the fire of 1508. Steward also rebuilt Paston House in Elm Hill around this time.

Kett’s Rebellion 1549

By 1549 Augustine Steward was living in the house he was born in, probably rebuilt and refurbished, facing onto Tombland, opposite Erpingham Gate and the Cathedral and next to St George Tombland and the church alley.

In July 1549 Robert Kett and his rebels made their first camp on their march from Wymondham to Norwich at Bowthorpe manor – belonging to Miles Spencer. It was land that had been enclosed, and was uninhabited except for thousands of sheep – the very thing that Kett and his followers were rebelling against. The church had been used as storage and it seems the hall itself was unoccupied, as Kett used it for his headquarters.

Once they entered Norwich, Kett’s men captured the then mayor, Thomas Codde. Codde had actually signed the petition of grievances organised by Kett, but urged the rebels to moderation and denied them passage to the city, apparently saying “I will give the blood and life out of my body before I will by villainy treacherously forsake the city, or through fear or cowardice wickedly cast off my allegiance to my king.”

Codde appointed Augustine Steward as his deputy, who presented the city’s sword to the Marquess of Northampton and his troops, and invited the Marquess to dinner at his house on Tombland. However the Marquess quickly withdrew from the city when the rebels entered. They forced their way into Steward’s house ‘took him, plucked his gown beside his back, called him traitor and threatened to kill him’ and then ransacked his home.

The rebels sent Steward and Robert Rugge to negotiate on their behalf with the Earl of Warwick, who was also approaching the city with his troops. However, Steward and Rugge informed Warwick of how to retake the city instead.

Despite his capitulation to the king’s men, Steward retained his standing in Norwich after the rebellion, becoming mayor again, in 1556.

Miles Spencer and the Marian Persecutions

Norwich remained quiet for some months after Queen Mary’s heresy statute went into effect in January 1555, but Miles Spencer and Dr John Fuller, the Vicar General and the Official Principal to Bishop Hopton, moved with “celerity and speed” to deprive English clergymen who had taken wives after the March 1554 injunctions.

Miles Spencer, who is thought to have been “traditional” in his religious views, was co-chancellor of the Norwich diocese with Michael Dunning. Dunning was termed the “Bloody Chancellor” by John Foxe and seen as responsible for the burning of 31 heretics, although few of them took place in Norwich.

It may have been that Spencer used his position as co-chancellor to restrain Dunning’s activities in Norwich itself. After many years as Dean of the secular college of St Mary in the Fields, Spencer was friends with and had relatives among the gentry and freemen of Norwich.

Nonetheless, by spring 1555, thirteen priests who had served at Norwich Cathedral or in city parishes had been forcibly divorced from their wives and deprived of their livings.

Dunning died in 1558, the year that Elizabeth I succeded to the throne and Miles Spencer became Canon of Norwich – another indicator that he had not been too openly on the Catholic side of the Marian persecutions.

Settlement and rebuilding

The rebuilding of 22-26 Princes Street must have happened by 1565,when John and Elizabeth Clerke/Clarke granted to Augustine Steward the tenement and garden they had bought from Miles Spencer. This was described as being between the tenement of John Clerk to the east, a tenement of Augustine Steward to the West and a garden of Augustine Steward to the north, and a highway to the south (which would now be Princes Street). This suggests that the tenement they had bought from Spencer and then sold to Steward was 22 and/or 24 and that they continued to live at 24 and or 26 Princes Street, and/or perhaps what is now 1 Tombland Alley, the old rectory.

Augustine Steward passed on the Princes Inn messuage by the time of the Landgable Rental of 1568-1570 (a tax record) to his son William, who was a clergyman and alderman. The neighbouring tenement is recorded as being owned by Augustine Sotherton, a grandson of Augustine Steward.

Legacies

Augustine Steward died in 1571, at the age of 80, having ensured the prosperity and continuation of his family and of Norwich, with his property dealings and development, and through the good marriages of his many children. He asked to be buried in St Peter Hungate on the west end of Princes Street/Hungate, where his wives had been buried.

Miles Spencer continued to hold positions in the Norwich Diocese several times from 1537 onwards, until his death in 1569, at the ripe old age of 89.

According to Blomefield, quoting Thomas Browne’s Repertorium of 1680, Spencer was buried in the Cathedral, “between the 5th and 7th south pillars, and over his grave was an altar tomb, covered with a sort of touch-stone, which is robbed of its brasses and much split, but was formerly taken notice of, because people used to try their money upon it, and the chapter demanded certain rents to be paid on it.”

Spencer had “died single” and left the manor of Brandon and all land, tenements and other hereditaments to his nephew Robert Constable. He also asked that Constable ensure Spencer’s sister Jane had an annual income.

Other beneficiaries of his will were the Yaxleys and the Cornwallises, both leading Catholic families. The Yaxleys became the owners of Bowthorpe Hall, the property of Miles Spencer that had been occupied by Kett’s men, shortly after.

Another indication of Spencer’s wish to keep an ecumenical and civic peace in Norwich was that he also left money to Richard Fletcher (-1570), described as a “friend” in his will. Fletcher was an alderman, sheriff and mayor who in his own will of a year later left money to George Leeds, a Puritan curate of St Stephen who was suspended for nonconformity in 1576.

Sources

The first parish register of St. George of Tombland, Norwich (A.D. 1538-1707) Transcribed by the late George Branwhite Jay, with notes by Thomas R. Tallack. Revised by William Hudson

The Mayors of Norwich 1403 – 1835- Cozens Hardy and Kent

A History of Norwich – Frank Meeres

A History of 20 Princes Street – Geoffrey Kelly

The Visitation of Norfolk 1563

https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/steward-augustine-1491-1571

A Topographical History of Norfolk – Francis Blomefield, volumes 3 and 4

The Quiet Reformation: Magistrates and the Emergence of Protestantism in Tudor Norwich – Muriel C McClendon, Stanford University Press, 1999