PARSON WOODFORDE, CLOCKMAKER JOHN HALSEY, QUAKER SAM PEEL and my mother-in-law
Wells is an historic port on the North Norfolk Coast. In Nelson’s day it was a place of commerce, vessels using it for travel to the continent as well as to other English ports. The Napoleonic wars would have temporarily halted Continental trade. We have a record from the late 18th century of corn being taken from Burnham Market by horse and cart to Wells, where it was loaded onto ships. On returning the carts were loaded up with coal, which would have come to Wells by sea from Newcastle. This sea borne industry made Wells the important centre for trade in North West Norfolk.
In May 1779 Parson Woodforde stayed at the Royal Standard Inn on the Quay at Wells, where he spent the night. It was kept ‘by one Smith, a very civil and obliging man’. The Parson later went for a boat trip out to sea but this was not a success; he found the waves frightening and he was nearly seasick. In September 1787 he stayed at the inn again and had a snack of bread, cheese and porter. It cost him 1/6d (he always recorded things like that). Nelson had a relative who lived in Wells and he would be taken to visit him there from time to time. As well as the import and export of goods there was a vigorous shipbuilding industry carried out at Wells in the eighteenth century. It continued to have a trade of seagoing vessels until the last years of the 20th century. The final cargo of soya bean meal from Rotterdam was unloaded in Wells in 1996, but by then its principal economic support was from the tourist industry.
Even in the heyday of the shipping trade there were other things going on in Wells. This picture is of the face of a longcase clock bearing the name of John Halsey, and the place of construction is given as Wells. We know that a John Halsey worked as a clockmaker in St Andrews in Norwich in the 18th century, and is certainly the same person, who moved from Wells to the city. From the style we can date the clock to the middle of 18th century. It is a moot point whether he or Isaac Nickalls was the first clockmaker in Wells; Nickalls made the fine clock that is illustrated on the dust jacket of the book Norfolk and Norwich Clocks and Clockmakers by Clifford and Yvonne Bird. He was building the church clock in Holt in the mid 1730s (he charged £36.15 shillings). He went on to build some very ornate high-end longcase clocks. With that sort of competition to contend with a move to Norwich was a wise one for John Halsey.
Eighteenth century longcase clock by John Halsey.
The town went into period of decay in Victorian times and despite the arrival of the railway in the mid 19th century it had reached its low point in the early years of the 20th century. Its revival since then has much to do with the activities of that remarkable man Sam Peel. A Norfolk man who was a printer by trade, he was born in Wymondham. He arrived in Wells to recuperate from an illness in 1909 but he remained for the rest of his life.
At that time the railway kept the town in contact with the wider world. I was recently informed that Sam Peel, the leading Councillor of Wells during the first half of the 20th century, could catch the train up to London in the morning, attend a meeting or two in the capital and be home for tea. He would warm his hands by the fire in the ticket clerk’s office as the post-war shortage of coal meant that there was no fire in the waiting room. I was talking to the former railway ticket clerk in 2012; by then he was an old man. The railway was the first to be built in North Norfolk, and its loss (5th October 1964) was sad day for the town.
Alderman SAM PEEL, O.B.E.
Sam Peel was a staunch Quaker, but a tolerant one. He had been brought up a Methodist but became a Quaker on moving to Wells. The Quaker Meeting House had fallen into disuse before he arrived, but with his dedication and charm it soon had a thriving congregation once again. He would preach down on the quayside; there not all his audience found what he had to say to their taste. The mother of my mother-in-law Doris (who lived in Wells) did find Sam Peel’s message attractive and she became a Quaker herself. She could not persuade her husband to become a Quaker however. She also had attended Methodist services as a child in Woodton. As resut of her mother’s conversion Doris was brought up a Quaker, although it seems that she attend the afternoon gatherings rather than the morning services, where a 16 piece orchestra would play hymns. The quiet prayer Meetings in the morning were more typical of Quakers, who in places other than Wells disapproved of hymn singing.
My wife’s mother Doris was born in Wells in 1922, and live there until she was 18. Her youth was therefore all spent in the seaside town. Perhaps time lent a glow to those years, but they seem to have been a particularly happy time, at least until the death of her mother when she was 13. There was the bustle of the town, and the quiet of Holkham Park to explore. Abraham’s Bosom, the area of sand dunes and pine trees by at the seaward end of the creek that leads to Wells harbour was a place of peace, quite different from the quay where her brother built himself a Wells “Sharpie” to sail the sheltered waters of the harbour.
Sam Peel died in the early 1960s, shortly before the railway closed, and his most lasting memorial is perhaps the Alderman Peel High School in Wells. His influence is however still felt all over the town and beyond to the wider community of Norfolk. His determination saw the first Council Houses built in Wells very early on, while the First World War was still in progress. This surprised me as I thought the provision of housing was part of the post war effort to provide a land ‘fit for heroes to live in’. In fact it can be traced back to the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890. It was not until 1919 that local authorities were required to provide housing and were given subsidies to do so. Wells was indeed in the forefront of progress under Sam Peel.
WELLS QUAY about 50 years ago.
Education was a favourite hobby-horse of Sam Peel; being a Quaker he was never known as Mr Peel. Quakers do not approve of titles, although the title of Alderman was apparently acceptable. He was also granted an O.B.E. The building of the Alderman Peel High School, or Secondary Modern as it then was, was very much a result of his personal efforts but he was also active across the county. Lincoln Ralphs, the long serving Director of Education for Norfolk was a close colleague and collaborator on many projects. One of these in which Sam Peel was an enthusiastic advocate was the establishment of Wymondham College. Another was the creation of the UEA as Norwich’s own University.
JOSEPH MASON
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