Category Archives: All Posts

Murder in Wells next the Sea

Written by Christine Shackell, NRO Research Blogger The Murder On Saturday 11 October 1817, Robert Baker, a fifty-eight year old glover and breeches maker, left his home in Wells next the Sea, on the North Norfolk coast to collect debts … Continue reading

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Forgotten: R. H. Mottram

It’s become a historical trope, not to mention a clever marketing ploy, to use forgotten in book, article, blog and documentary titles, whether actually warranted or not (Google ‘forgotten history’). It’s catchy, pithy, and excites curiosity. In the case of … Continue reading

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Dickleburgh Churchwardens’ Accounts Present an Unresolved Conundrum

Norfolk Archives and Heritage Development Foundation (NORAH) trustee David Stannard discusses the acquisition by the Norfolk Record Office (NRO) of a single manuscript folio, which must have been removed from a set of 16th century churchwardens’ accounts of the parish … Continue reading

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The Peterloo Address by the Citizens of Norwich

The 16th of August 1819 saw what has become known as the “Peterloo Massacre” (Wroe, 1819) at St Peter’s Field, Manchester where between nine and fifteen men, women and children were killed and hundreds of people were injured. The Events Over … Continue reading

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What was the True Identity of ‘Black Bart’? – part 3

In 2018, a two-part article was published on this blog (part 1 here, part 2 here) challenging the parentage of Charles E. Boles aka ‘Black Bart’ an infamous US outlaw, who committed some 28 holdups of Wells Fargo stagecoaches in … Continue reading

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How a Second World War air raid caused the closure of a Norfolk School: The accounts of Amy Buckley, Head Teacher

On the night of 26 – 27 June 1942, St Mark’s Primary and Infants’ School on Hall Road, Norwich was bombed and destroyed during a Second World War air raid. The school’s temporary log book (NRO, N/ED 1/86), written by … Continue reading

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Helping community archives during the pandemic: The Norfolk Record Office’s ‘Community Archives’ project

Community Archives: Skills, Support and Sustainability (CAS³) is a National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported project that began in March 2020 and is due to run until March 2022. As its name suggests, the goals of this project are to:

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She was ‘a natural, a poor fool and ideot …void of reason or sense’: A harsh judgement on Margaret Cooper of Snetterton

Recent indexing work at the NRO on witness depositions from the bishop of Norwich’s consistory court has uncovered many stories relating to everyday life from the 16th to 18th centuries in both Norfolk and Suffolk (for the ancient Diocese of … Continue reading

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