Sarah Starkins

Sarah, daughter of George and Elizabeth Starkins, married William Wallis (1743 - 1822), a liveryman and innkeeper living in Whitechapel and had issue: George Starkins Wallis 3 (1788 - 1864) and Sarah.

William's will was simple:

I, William Wallis, do hereby bequeath to my daughter, Sarah Ricket, the sum of one hundred pounds.

And the residue of my property I bequeath to my son, George Starkins Wallis.

And I do hereby appoint my said son, George Starkins Wallis, to be my sole executor and hereby declare all other wills made by me to be void, dated this twenty eighth day of November one thousand eight hundred and twenty two.

Proved at London 13th March 1823.

George Starkins Wallis 3, my children's 5x great grandfather, was born in Shoreditch in 1788 and married Elizabeth Appleton, by whom he had five sons and one daughter, in 1811 in Wanstead, Essex.

George 3 owned a livery stable in Whitechapel and, in 1848, was Master of the Worshipful Company of Upholders; in the 1861 census he was enumerated as a Magistrate living at 16 Mansell Street, Whitechapel.

His will is more extensive than his father's:

George Starkins Wallis of Mansell Street, Goodmans Fields in the County of Middlesex Esquire do hereby revoke all Wills and Codicils by me heretofore made and do declare this to be my last Will and Testament.

I direct that all my just debts and funeral and testamentary expenses be fully paid and satisfied as soon as conveniently may be after my decease by my Executers hereinafter named and appointed.

I bequeath to my daughter Emma the wife of Thomas Windle my Silver Teapot, Sugar Basin and Cream Jug and also my best set of China and also my Silver Forks and the Silver Inkstand presented to me by Sir William Clay, Baronet, and also my gold watch for her absolute use.

I bequeath to my Son in Law Thomas Windle my gold snuff box.

I bequeath to my son Walter White Wallis my Silver Tankard and also the several articles of Household Furniture in the bedroom he occupies in my dwelling house.

I bequeath to my Grandson William Wallis the son of my deceased son William the Silver Salver presented to me by the Guardians of Whitechapel Union.

I bequeath to my son Frederick John Wallis all the rest of my plate not hereinbefore bequeathed.

I bequeath to my daughter in law Emma Wallis the widow of my said son
William all the residue of my Household Goods and Furniture and also my books pictures prints wines glass and all the rest of my China not hereinbefore bequeathed for her own absolute use.

I give and bequeath to Mr.George Usley of Great Prescott Street and Mr. Richard Windle of Osborn Street, two of my Executers hereinafter named and appointed, the legacy or sum of Ten Pounds each for a gold ring to be purchased by each of them in remembrance of me.

I give devise and bequeath unto the said Thomas Windle, George Haley and Richard Windle all that my Freehold piece of ground with three houses erected on part thereof situate and being in Garden Street Stepney in the County of Middlesex and also all those my copyhold houses in Bloomsbury Terrace and John Street, Commercial Road in the County of Middlesex held by me of the Manor of Stebenheath otherwise Stepney to hold the same unto and to the use of the said Thomas Windle,  George Haley and Richard Windle and the survivors and survivor of them and the heirs of each survivor upon trust to pay and apply the rents and profits of the said last mentioned freehold and copyhold hereditaments and premises for the benefit of my four grandchildren  the sons and daughters of my late son William Wallis until the youngest of my said grandchildren shall attain the age of twenty one years and from and after such event happening upon  trust to sell the same hereditaments and premises and out of the purchase monies to arise from such sale to pay the expenses incurred in and about the same and shall divide the residue of such monies unto and equally amongst the said four children of my said son William Wallis  in equal shares and proportions with benefit of survivorship among them in case any or either of them shall depart this life under the age of twenty one  years.

And I give to the said Thomas Windle, George Haley and Richard Windle and the survivors and survivor of them and the executers and administrators  of such Survivor the sum of two thousand six hundred pounds sterling upon trust to invest the same in the Parliamentary Stock or Funds and to stand possessed of the same and the dividends and interest thereof upon the same trusts for the benefit of the said four children of my said son William Wallis as are hereinbefore directed with respect to the rents and profits of the said last mentioned freehold and copyhold hereditaments and the proceeds of the sale thereof.

I give and bequeath to my son Frederick John Wallis the legacy or sum of two hundred Pounds of lawful money.

I give and devise all my messuage or tenement situate and being No. 84 Whitechapel High Street in the County of Middlesex and also all that my freehold messuage or tenement in Angel Alley adjoining thereto with their appurtenances all which two messuages or tenements are on lease to Miss Wallis to the use of the said Thomas Windle,  George Haley and Richard Windle upon trust that the said Thomas Windle,  George Haley and Richard Windle their heirs and assigns shall pay the rents and profits of the said messuages or tenements and premises to my  daughter in law Jemima Wallis the wife of my said son Frederick John Wallis during the joint lives of my said daughter in law Jemima Wallis and her said husband for her separate use independent of her said husband and his debts control  and engagements and so that the said Jemima Wallis shall not have power to deprive herself of the benefit thereof by way of anticipation and for which her receipts alone shall be sufficient discharges and after the death of either of them the said Jemima Wallis and Frederick John Wallis shall sell the said last mentioned messuages or tenements and premises and after payment of the costs incurred in or about such sale shall invest the residue of the monies to arise from the sale thereof in their or his names or name in or upon such Stocks Funds and securities as are hereinbefore mentioned with power to vary the same at their or his discretion and shall hold the said trust monies Stocks Funds and securities in trust for all the children or any the child of my said son Frederick John Wallis who being sons shall attain the age of twenty one years or being daughters or daughter shall attain that age or marry and if more than one in equal shares.

I give and bequeath unto the said Thomas Windle, George Ilsley and Richard Windle and the survivor of them, his Executors and Administrators the sum of two thousand one hundred Pounds Sterling upon trust to invest the same in some or one of the Parliamentary Stocks or funds of Great Britain or in real securities in England or Wales in their or his names or name and to stand possessed of such Stocks,  Funds and securities and the Dividends, interest and annual produce thereof upon the like trusts for the separate use of my said daughter-in-law Jemima during the joint lives of herself and her husband and after the death of either of them upon the like trusts for the benefit of the children or child of the said Frederick John Wallis as are hereinbefore expressed and declared with respect to the rents and profits of the said last mentioned freehold and  copyhold premises and the proceeds of the sale thereof.

I give and bequeath unto each of the three children of my late son George Appleton Wallis deceased who shall have attained the age of twenty one years at the time of my decease the legacy or sum of five hundred and twenty five pounds and I give and bequeath to each of the three children of my said George Appleton Wallis who shall be under the age of twenty one years at the time of my decease the Legacy or sum of five hundred and twenty five pounds to be paid to them on their respectively attaining the age of twenty one years and I direct that the interest to accrue due on the legacies to the said last mentioned children during their respective minorities from the investment of the said several sums bequeathed to them as aforesaid shall be paid to their mother for their respective maintenance and education and in case any or either of the said last mentioned children shall die under the age of twenty years then I give and bequeath the legacy of him or her so dying unto the survivors or survivor of the said children of my said son George Appleton Wallis who shall live to attain the said age of twenty one years.

I give to each of my grandsons Alfred Wallis and George WALLIS the two sons of my deceased son Mark Wallis the legacy or sum of four hundred and fifty pounds to be paid to them on their respectively attaining the age of twenty one years and should either of them my said last named grandsons die under the said age of twenty one years then the legacy of him so dying shall go and be paid to the survivor of them and I direct that the interest or dividends to accrue due on the legacies to the said last named legatees during their respective minorities from the investment of the said several legacies bequeathed to them as aforesaid shall be paid to their mother for their respective maintenance.

I bequeath to my son Walter White Wallis the Legacy or sum of one thousand two hundred pounds sterling.

I also give and devise all that my estate at Roydon in the county of Essex being part freehold and part copyhold to the use of my said son Walter White Wallis and his heirs.

I also give and devise to my said son Walter White Wallis for his life an annuity or yearly rent charge of fifty pounds to be charged on and payable out of my copyhold estate consisting of a messuage or tenement stables, erections and buildings now In the occupation of Miss Croft and Mr Sanders situate in Whitechapel Road and Rummers Row in the parish of Saint Mary, Whitechapel and hamlet of Mile End Old Town in the County of Middlesex purchased  by me of the devisees of the late John  Clark Powell, deceased, to be paid by quarterly payments on the twenty fifth day of March, the twenty fourth day of June, the twenty ninth day of September and the twenty fifth day of December in each and every year without deduction the first payment to be made in such of the said quarterly days as shall happen next after my decease and a proportionate part to be paid up to the determination  thereof and I declare and direct that if the said annuity or yearly rent charge shall at any time be unpaid for twenty one days after any of the said days appointed for the payment thereof it shall be lawful for my said son Walter White Wallis to enter into and distrain upon the said copyhold premises hereinbefore charged therewith or any part thereof and to dispose according to law of the distress or distresses then and there found to the intent that thereby or otherwise the said annuity or yearly rent charge of fifty pounds and every part thereof so unpaid and all expenses incurred  by the non payment thereof shall be fully paid.

And I do hereby declare and direct that in case the said Walter White Wallis shall became bankrupt or shall, do. Permit or suffer to be done any act whereby the said annuity or yearly rent charge shall be seized or taken in execution or shall sell or dispose of, incumber or charge the said annuity or yearly rent charge or attempt to sell, dispose of or incumber the same then and in either of the said cases and from thenceforth the said annuity or yearly rent charge shall wholly cease, determine and be no longer payable or chargeable.

I give and devise all that my said Copyhold estate held by me of the Manor of Stebonheath otherwise Stepney consisting of the said messuage or tenement, stables, sheds, erections and buildings with the appurtenances now in the tenure or occupation of Miss Croft and Mr Sanders situate and being in Whitechapel Road and Rummers Row in the Parish of Saint Mary, Whitechapel and hamlet of Mile End Old Town in the county of Middlesex subject nevertheless and charged and chargeable with the payment of the said annuity of fifty pounds per Annum hereinbefore given and bequeathed by me to my said son Walter White Wallis as aforesaid and also all other my freehold and copyhold messuages or tenements, lands, hereditaments and premises hereinbefore specifically devised with the appurtenances to the use of the said  George Ilsley and Richard Windle their heirs and assigns upon trust that they the said George Ilsley and Richard Windle their heirs and assigns shall pay the rents and profits of the said several hereditaments and premises to my said daughter Emma Windle for her life for her separate use, independent of any husband and of his debts, control or engagements and so that the said Emma Windle shall not have power to deprive herself of the benefit thereof by way of anticipation and for which her receipts alone shall be sufficient discharges.

And I give and bequeath all the residue and remainder of my personal estate and effects whatsoever and wheresoever and of what nature or kindsoever not hereinbefore specifically bequeathed unto the said Thomas Windle, George Ilsley and Richard Windle, their executors and administrators upon trust that they or the survivor of them, his executors or administrators, shall as soon as convenient after my death sell, call in and convert into money such part of my said residuary personal estate as shall not consist of ready money and shall stand possessed of the monies to arise from such sale, calling in and conversion into money and of the ready money of which I shall die possessed upon trust, after payment thereout of my debts, funeral and testamentary expenses and the legacies hereinbefore bequeathed, to invest the residue or surplus of the said trust monies in their or his names or name in or upon any of such stocks, funds and securities as are hereinbefore mentioned with power to  vary the same at their or his discretion and shall pay the interest, dividends and annual produce thereof to my said daughter Emma Windle for her life for her separate use free from the debts, control or engagements of any husband but so that she may not have power to deprive herself of the benefit thereof in the way of anticipation and so that her receipts alone shall be sufficient discharge for the same and from and after the death of my said daughter Emma Windle I give, devise and bequeath my said copyhold estate and hereditaments in Whitechapel Road and Rummers Row aforesaid and also other my freehold and copyhold hereditaments and premises not hereinbefore  specifically devised and also all and singular the said last mentioned trust stock, funds and securities unto such person or persons and for such purposes as my said daughter Emma Windle shall, notwithstanding her coverture by dead or will or codicil appoint and in default of such appointment and so far as any such appointment shall not extend I give , devise and bequeath the said copyhold hereditaments in Whitechapel Road and Rummers Row aforesaid and also the said other freehold and copyhold hereditaments not specifically devised as aforesaid to the use of the right heirs of the said Emma Windle.

And I give and bequeath the said last mentioned trust stock funds and securities unto such person or persons as under the statues for the distribution of the estates of intestates would have became entitled thereto if the said Emma Windle had died possessed thereof intestate and unmarried such persons if more than one to take as tenants in common provided always.

And I declare that until my said messauges, lands and premises hereinbefore respectively devised as aforesaid shall be sold it shall be lawful for the said Thomas Windle, George Ilsley and Richard Windle or other the trustees or trustee of this my will for the time being at their or his discretion to demise all or any part of the same messuages, lands and premises with the appurtenances for any term of years absolute not exceeding twenty one years to take effect in possession so that there be required in every such demise the best yearly rent or rents to be incident to the immediate reversion that can be reasonably given without taking any fine, premium or  foregift or anything in the nature thereof provided always.

And I declare that in case any sale shall be made of my said freehold, copyhold and leasehold premises and residuary estate under the trusts hereinbefore declared it shall be lawful for the trustees or trustee for the time being of this my will to sell the same either together or in parcels and either by public auction or private contract with such stipulations as to title or evidence of title as the said trustees or trustee shall think fit with power to buy in the same premises or any part thereof at any sale by auction and to rescind after or vary any contract for Sale and to resell without being answerable for any loss to be occasioned thereby and to do and execute all such acts and assurances for effectuating any such sale as they or he shall think fit.

I devise all the freehold and copyhold estates vested in me upon trust or by way of mortgage to the said Thomas Windle, George Ilsley and Richard Windle, their heirs and assigns upon trust subject to the equities affecting the same respectively but the money occurred on such mortgage to be considered as part of my personal estate.

And I appoint the said Thomas Windle, George Ilsley and Richard Windle upon trust executors of this my will.

And I authorise the acting executors or executor for the time being of this my will to satisfy any debts claimed to be owing by me or my estate and any liabilities to which my estate may be obliged to be subject upon any evidence they or he shall think proper and to accept any compensation or security for any debt and to allow such time for payment (either with or without taking security) as to the said acting executors or executor shall seem fit and also to compromise or submit to arbitration and settle all accounts and matters belonging or relating to my estate and generally to act in regard thereto as they or he shall deem expedient without being responsible for any loss thereby  occasioned.

And I hereby declare that the receipts or receipt of the said Thomas Windle, George Ilsley and Richard Windle or the survivor of them or the heirs, executors or administrators of such survivor, their or his assigns or of the trustees or trustee for the time being acting in the execution of any of the trusts hereof for the purchase money of premises sold or for any rents, monies, funds or securities which may be paid or transferred to them or him in pursuance hereof of any of the trusts hereof shall effectually discharge the  purchaser or purchasers, lessee or lessees or other the person or persons paying or transferring the same therefrom and from being concerned to see to the application or being answerable for the misapplication thereof.

And I hereby declare that of the said Thomas Windle, George Ilsley and Richard Windle or any or either of them shall die in my lifetime or if they or any of them or any trustee or trustees to be appointed as hereinafter is mentioned shall after my death die or desire to be discharged or refuse or become incapable to act then and so often it shall be lawful for the surviving or continuing trustees or trustee for the time being (and for this purpose refusing or retiring trustees shall, if willing to act in this power, be considered as continuing trustees ) or for the acting executors or administrators of the last surviving or continuing trustee to appoint any other person or persons to be a trustee or trustees in the room of the trustee or trustees so dying or desiring to be discharged or refusing or becoming incapable to act and therefrom the said trust estates, monies and premises shall be vested in the new trustee or trustees jointly with the surviving or continuing trustee or trustees or solely as occasion  shall require and every new trustee shall (before and after the said trust premises shall have become so vested) have the same powers and discretion as if he had been hereby originally appointed a trustee.

And I exempt every trustee and executor of my will from liability from losses occurring without his or her own wilful default or by reason of any banker, broker or other person in whose hands any of the trust monies shall be placed or by reason of the insufficiency of any stocks, funds or securities.

And I authorise him or her to retain and allow to his co-trustee and co-executor all expenses incidental to the trusteeship or executorship.

In witness whereof I, the said testator George Starkins Wallis, have to this my last will and testament contained in nine sheets of paper set my hand to each sheet thereof this seventeenth day at February in the year of our Lord one thousand  eight hundred and sixty four…..

Proved at London 1st November 1864.

Late of Mansell Street, Goodmans Fields in the county of Middlesex Esquire and died 10th October 1864 at Mansell Street aforesaid.

Thomas Wallis 1822

This is the last will and testament of me Thomas Wallis of Shepreth in the county of Cambridge, miller.

Whereas I gave unto my son, George Starkins Wallis, when we became co-partners in business a moiety of my stock in trade and whereas I also gave unto my two daughters, Ann Inkersole and Sarah Wedd, a fortune on their marriage now I do hereby give unto each of them my said daughters, Ann Inkersole and Sarah Wedd, a further sum of eight hundred pounds apiece to be paid to them by annual instalments of one hundred pounds a year each commencing from my decease until the whole be paid but without interest in the meantime.

Also I give to my brother Richard Wallis and his wife for their lives and the life of the survivor ten shillings a week.

Also I give unto my granddaughter, Sarah Wallis, daughter of my son, George Starkins Wallis, one thousand pounds to be paid her on her attaining her age of twenty one years or day of marriage which first happens with interest thereon in the meantime and which interest I direct to be applied as it becomes due for the purpose her education and subject and chargeable with the payment of my just debts and funeral and testamentary expenses.

I give and devise all my freehold and copyhold messuages, lands, tenements and heredits whatsoever unto my son, George Starkins Wallis, his heirs and assigns.

Also I give and bequeath unto the said George Starkins Wallis, his executors and admins, all the rest and residue of my stock in trade, crop and crops, book debts, securities, money, household furniture and all other my real and personal estate and effects whatsoever and wheresoever to and for his and their own present use and benefit subject to the payment of the said debts and expenses and of the aforesaid legacies.

And lastly I appoint my said son, George Starkins Wallis, sole executor of this my last will and testament hereby revoking etc...this second day of February in the year of our Lord 1822 etc...

This is a codicil to the above written last will and testament of me the above named Thomas Wallis.

First I revoke the legacies of eight hundred pounds each by my said will given to my two daughters, Ann Inkersole and Sarah Wedd, and interest thereof I give and bequeath to each of them, the said Ann Inkersole and Sarah Wedd, the legacy or sum of five hundred pounds apiece which two legacies of five hundred pounds each shall be payable by instalments of one pounds each; the first instalments to be paid out the end of one month after my decease, the next at the end of one year after my decease and the remaining instalments by yearly payments on the anniversary of my decease so as to discharge the whole of the said two legacies by the end of four years after my decease but without any interest in the meantime and I charge the said substituted legacies on my freehold and copyhold heredits.

And I revoke the annuity of ten shillings a week by my said will given to my brother, Richard Wallis, and his wife and in lieu thereof I give to my brother, Richard Wallis, an annuity of six shillings a week during his life commencing from my decease.

And I direct that in case my granddaughter, Sarah Wallis, should marry under the age of twenty one years without the consent of her father or his executors then her legacy of one thousand pounds given by my said will shall not be payable until she shall attain her age of twenty one years.

And in all other respects I ratify, confirm and establish my said will in witness whereof etc...on this eighth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty two.

Proved at London with a codicil 17 May 1822.

George Starkins 1843

This is the last will and testament of me George Starkins of Bishop Stortford in the county of Hertford esquire.

I devise my freehold messuage, homestead farm and lands called Whites Farm containing ninety eight acres or thereabouts be the same more or less situate in Magdalen Laver and North Weald in the county of Essex now in the occupation of __ James and also all my farm and lands adjoining to Oates Farm which was bought and purchased of {illegible}and now in the occupation of {illegible}and situate in High Laver in the said county of Essex to the uses following viz -

To the use of my nephew George Starkins Wallis of Meldreth in the county of Cambridge, Miller,  my friend Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford afterwards Tanner and my friend Frederick Woodham Nash of The Temple, Barrister, and to their heirs and assigns during the life of my niece Sarah the wife of Charles Wedd now of Brentwood in the said county of Essex , farmer, without impeachment of waste in trust to pay the rents and profits of the said hereditaments to such persons and for such purposes only as the said Sarah Wedd by any writing under her hand shall from time to time as the said rents and profits shall become payable, but not by anticipation, direct or appoint and in default of such appointment unto her own hands for her separate use and so that the same shall not be subject to the control, debts or engagements of any husband and the receipts of my said niece or of her appointees shall alone be an effectual discharge for the said rents and profits and after her decease then as to my said {illegible}in High Laver to the use of my great niece Sarah the wife of Thomas Chaplin daughter of the said Sarah Wedd for her life and from and after her decease to all and every the children and child of my said great niece Sarah Chaplin in tail and if more than one to be divided between them in equal shares with {illegible}remainders among them in tail and if all such children but one shall be without issue or there shall be but one such child then the whole shall go to the use of that one child in tail and for default of such issue to such uses upon such trusts for such intents and purposes and subject to such limitations as the said Sarah Chaplin by her last will and testament in writing or any codicil or codicils thereto to be signed and published by her in the presence of and to be attested by three or more credible witnesses and made during coverture or when sole shall direct or appoint and in default of such direction or appointment and so far as any such appointment shall not extend to the use of the said Sarah Chaplin her heirs and assigns.

And as to the farm called Whites and the residue of the above devised premises - to the use of all and every the children and child of my said niece Sarah Wedd, except her two daughters the said Sarah Chaplin and Elizabeth Chaplin, in tail and if more than one to be divided between them in equal shares with {illegible}remainders between them in tail and if all such children (except the said Sarah Chaplin and Elizabeth Chaplin) but one shall be without issue or there shall be but one such child then the whole shall go to the use of that one child in tail and for default of such issue to {illegible}upon such trusts and for such interests and purposes and subject to such limitations as the said Sarah Wedd by her last will and testament in writing or any codicil or codicils thereto to be signed and published by her in the presence of and to be attested to by three or more credible witnesses shall direct or appoint and in default of such direction or appointment and so far as any such appointment shall not extend to the use of the said Sarah Wedd her heirs and assigns forever.

And whereas I am seized to me and my heirs or otherwise absolutely entitled to the manor of Oates and divers' freehold and copyhold messuages, farms, lands and other hereditaments situate at Oates, Matching, Magdalen Laver and at High Laver or some of them in the county of Essex not herein otherwise devised with their appurtenants and whereas I have {illegible}a map or plan of the said hereditaments to be prepared which I have divided by a line marked red into two portions or shared which I consider actual in value to each other the one which contains amongst other hereditaments the High Laver Farm and estates and which is described in this my will as the portion of my estates in which Laver Farm is situate and the other contains amongst other hereditaments a certain farm called Hogs Farm and I describe the place as the portion of my estate in which Hogs Farm is situate.

And I am desirous to adopt such division and delineation of property in the devises hereinafter contained of my above named hereditaments {illegible}in case the same map shall be lost or destroyed or the division made therein shall, in the judgement of the said Frederick Woodham Nash and Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford, their executors or administrators, be obliterated or incapable of being rated or acted upon then I authorise the said Frederick Woodham Nash and Frederick Chaplin two of the executors of my will who are not interested in the said division, their executors or administrators, to cause the division to be declared or a new division to be made into two portions of equal value by two competent surveyors to be named by them and the said surveyors shall have power to appoint an umpire in case of their differing in opinion.

And I direct that the ascertainment of boundary award division or partition so made shall be binding on all the devises of the said hereditaments and premises.

Also I give and devise all that portion of my said estates in which High Laver Farm is situate to the uses following viz -

To the use of my nephew, George Starkins Wallis, and his assigns for his life without impeachment of waste and from and after his decease then as to one moiety of the said hereditaments devised to the said George Starkins Wallis to the use of the said Frederick Woodham Nash and the said Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford their heirs and assigns during the life of my great niece Ann, the wife of Joseph Ellis, one of the daughters of the said George Starkins Wallis by his first wife without impeachment of waste in trust to pay the rents and profits of the said last mentioned hereditaments to such persons and for such purposes only as the said Ann Ellis by any writing under her hand shall from time to time, as the said rents and profits shall become payable but not by anticipation, direct or appoint and in default of such appointment into her own hands for her separate use and so that the same shall not be subject to the control, debts or engagements of any husband and the receipts of my great niece or of her appointees shall alone be an effectual discharge for the said rents and profits and after her decease to the use of all and every  the children and child of my said great niece, Ann Ellis, in tail and if more than one to be divided between them in equal shares with {illegible}remainders among them in tail and if all such children but one shall die without issue or there shall be but one such child then the whole shall go to the use of that one child in tail and for default of such issue to such uses for the benefit of my great niece Sarah the wife of Thomas Hacker Body (sister of the said Ann Ellis and also daughter of the said George Starkins Wallis by his first wife) and her children as are herein declared.

As to the other moiety of the said hereditaments devised to the said George Starkins Wallis or such of them as shall be then subsisting or capable of taking effect and from and after the determination thereof to the use of the person or persons who on the determination of all the previous limitations shall be the right heir or right heirs of the survivor of the said Ann Ellis and Sarah Body and the heirs of such person or persons for ever and such persons (if more than one) to take as tenants in common and as to the remaining moiety of the said hereditaments so devised to the said George Starkins Wallis from and after his decease to the use of the said Frederick Woodham Nash and Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford aforesaid, their heirs and assigns during the life of my great niece, the said Sarah Body, without impeachment of waste in trust to pay the rents and profits of the said last mentioned hereditaments to such persons and for such purposes only as the said Sarah Body by any writing under her hand shall from time to time, as the said rents and profits shall become payable but not by anticipation, direct or appoint and in default of such appointment into her own hands for her separate use and so that the same shall not be subject to the control, debts and engagements of any husband and the receipts of the said Sarah Body or of her appointees shall alone be an effectual discharge for the said rents and profits and after her decease to the use of all and every the children and child of the said Sarah Body in tail and if more than one to be divided between them in equal shares with {illegible}remainders among them in tail and if all such children but one shall die without issue or there shall be but one such child then the whole shall go to the use of that one child in tail and for default of such issue to such uses for the benefit of the said Ann Ellis and her children as are herein contained as to the first mentioned moiety of the said hereditaments devised to the said George Starkins Wallis or such of them as shall be then subsisting or capable of taking effect and from and after the determination thereof to the use of the person or persons who on the determination of the previous limitations shall be the right heir or heirs of the survivor of the said Ann Ellis and Sarah Body and the heirs of such person or persons for ever and such persons (if more than one) to take as tenants in common.

And as to that potion of my said estates in which Hogs Farm is situate I charge the same with one clear annuity of one hundred pounds a year which I give and bequeath unto my great nephew James Inkersole, one of the sons of my late niece, Ann Inkersole, deceased, the late wife of John Inkersole, to be payable thereout to commence from my decease and to be payable quarterly at Lady day, Midsummer day, Michaelmas day and Christmas day in every year, the first quarter of the said annuity to be payable on such one of the days as shall occur next after my decease.

And I give to the said James Inkersole the same powers of distress for recovering the same when twenty one days in arrears after any quarterly day of payment as he would have had by law if the same were a cost reserved to him on a demise for years by him of the said premises and subject to the said annuity.

I give and devise the said last mentioned premises unto the said Frederick Woodham Nash, his executors, administrators and assigns for the term of one thousand years commencing from my decease upon the trusts hereinafter mentioned and subject to the said term.

I give and devise one moiety of the said last mentioned hereditaments and premises unto my great nephew Thomas Inkersole the eldest son of the said Ann Inkersole for and during the term of his natural life and from and after his decease to the use of all and every the children and child of the said Thomas Inkersole in tail and if more than one to be divided between them in equal shares with {illegible}remainders among them in tail and if all such children but one shall die without issue or there shall be but one such child then the whole shall go to the use of that one child in tail and for default of such issue to such uses upon such trusts for such intents and purposes and subject to such limitations as the said Thomas Inkersole by his last will and testament in writing or any codicil or codicils thereto to be signed and published by him in the presence of and to be attested by three or more credible witnesses shall direct or appoint and in default of such direction or appointment, and so far as any such appointment shall not extend to the use of my great nephew John Inkersole one other of the sons of the said Ann Inkersole and his heirs and assigns.

And subject to the said term I give and devise the remaining moiety of the said last mentioned premises and hereditaments unto my said great nephew John Inkersole for and during for and during the term of his natural life and from and after his decease to the use of all and every the children and child of the said John Inkersole in tail and if more than one to be divided between them in equal shares with {illegible}remainders among them in tail and if all such children but one shall die without issue or there shall be but one such child then the whole shall go to the use of that one child in tail and for default of such issue to such uses upon such trusts for such intents and purposes and subject to such limitations as the said John Inkersole by his last will and testament in writing or any codicil or codicils thereto to be signed and published by him in the presence of and to be attested by three or more credible witnesses shall direct or appoint and in default of such direction or appointment, and so far as any such appointment shall not extend to the use of my great nephew Thomas Inkersole and his heirs and assigns.

And I declare that the said term of one thousand years hereinbefore limited to the said Frederick Woodham Nash is so limited upon trust out of the rents and profits of the hereditaments comprised in the said term or by mortgage or sale of the same premises or any part thereof or by any other means to {illegible}for the portion of my great niece Mary Inkersole one of the daughters of the said Ann Inkersole, deceased, the sum of two thousand pounds which I give thereout to the said Mary Inkersole and for the portion of my great niece Elizabeth Inkersole another daughter of the said Ann Inkersole a like sum of two thousand pounds which I give thereout to the said Elizabeth Inkersole the portion of each such daughter to be raisable and payable when and as she shall attain the age of twenty one years or marry with interest after the rate of four pounds per cent per annum for the said portion or portions from the respective period or periods at which the same ought to be raised and paid until the same shall be actually raised and paid.

And I declare that when the trusts of the said term of one thousand years shall be satisfied or become unnecessary the said terms shall respectively cease.

And I enjoin the said before mentioned devisees, as {illegible} as I lawfully can or may do, not to sell or dispose of their shares in the said hereditaments and premises to any other person than to some or one or more of the devisees entitled either in possession or reversion to some other share in the said hereditaments and premises.

And I enjoin the devisee or devisees best {illegible} to sell his, her or their shares to offer the same to some one or more of the said devisees at a price to be fixed by two arbitrators, one named by the selling and one by the purchasing party of by the umpire to be named by such two persons.

And I declare every estate for life hereinbefore limited to be unimpeachable for waste and for the purpose of preserving the contingent remainders before in this my will created from being destroyed.

I give, devise and appoint the hereditaments by this my will limited to any person during the term of his or her natural life immediately after the determination of that estate by forfeiture or otherwise during his or her respective lifetime unto and to the use of the said Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford and to his heirs during the life of the tenant for life whose estate shall so determine in trust for him or her and by the usual means to preserve the contingent remainders expecting or depending thereon from being destroyed provided always.

And I do hereby declare that it shall be lawful for every person who by virtue of this my will shall be tenant for life in possession or tenant in tail in possession of the hereditaments hereby devised and who shall have attained his or her age of twenty one years and to the said George Starkins Wallis, Frederick Woodham Nash and Frederick Chaplin and the survivors and survivor of them and the executors or administrators of such survivor from time to time during the minority of any such tenant for life or in tail by deed or instrument in writing to limit or appoint by way of lease all or any part of the said hereditaments to any person for any term not exceeding twenty one years to be computed from the making thereof at the best yearly rent that can be reasonably gotten for the same without taking any fine or foregift for the making thereof but so that there be contained therein a condition of re-entry for non-payment of the rent thereby to be reserved and so that the lessee execute a counterpart thereof and thereby covenant for the payment of the rent and be not by any clause or words therein to be contained made dispunishable for waste.

I declare that the trustees or trustee for the time being under this my will shall, during the minority or respective minorities of any child or children who shall be entitled to any estate in possession in any of the hereditaments hereby settled to any portions thereof, receive the income arising from such estate or any portion thereof and shall and may apply the whole or a competent part thereof for or towards the maintenance and education of the child or children so entitled to such estate or any portion thereof and the said trustees shall accumulate by investment in the government funds or other government or real securities any income which shall not be so applied as aforesaid and all or any part of the accumulation derived from the income of any such interest in the said hereditaments or any part thereof shall be applicable by the said trustee or trustees to the same purposes of maintenance and education or to the advancement, establishment or otherwise for the benefit of the child or children entitled to such interest and subject thereto the said accumulations shall be held by the said trustees and trustee upon trusts corresponding with the limitations of the estates from whence such accumulations shall have proceeded.

And I charge all my freehold and copyhold messuages, lands and hereditaments situate at Bishop Stortford aforesaid not hereinafter absolutely disposed of and all my freehold and copyhold hereditaments situate in the parish of Elsenham in the county of Essex and also my freehold farm containing about two hundred and four acres, more or less, in Wallasea Island in the parish of Canewdon in the said county of Essex with the payment of all my just debts, funeral and testamentary expenses and legacies in and of my said residuary personal estate and for that purpose I declare that my personal representatives or representative for the time being shall and may raise any sum or sums of money for the purpose aforesaid by sale or mortgage of the said farms and premises or any part thereof and in case of mortgage to limit a term or terms of years for securing the sum or sums of money so raised and interest for the same or to sell and absolutely dispose of and convey the said messuages, lands, hereditaments and premises for the purposes aforesaid and their or his receipts shall exonerate the person or persons advancing such sum or sums of money or paying any purchase money or monies from all obligation of seeing to the application thereof or {illegible} into the necessity or {illegible} the same mortgage money or selling or disposing of the said messuages, lands, hereditaments and premises.

And I direct my said executors to apply in the first place to the payment of the said debts, legacies and expenses, the purchase money to be received from the said Frederick Chaplin under the power of purchasing my hereditaments at Bishop Stortford aforesaid hereinafter given to him and in the next place to sell or mortgage the said hereditaments in Wallasea Island aforesaid and Bishop Stortford and if the same are not sufficient then to sell or mortgage the said hereditaments at Elsenham aforesaid but no purchaser or mortgagee shall be bound to enquire whether such order of sale or mortgage has been processed nor be affected by or answerable for any deviation from such order nor for any breach of these directions and subject to and from and after full payment of all the said debts, funeral and testamentary expenses and legacies.

I give and devise the said hereditaments and premises at Bishop Stortford aforesaid not hereinafter absolutely disposed of and all the said hereditaments in Wallasea Island and Elsenham aforesaid in manner following, that is to say:

One moiety thereof to my said nephew George Starkins Wallis and his heirs and the other moiety thereof to and between the children of my said late niece, Ann Inkersole, except her son, the said James Inkersole, and their heirs as tenants in common.

Also I give and devise all the capital messuage or tenement now in my own occupation situate at Bishop Stortford aforesaid and the stables and outbuildings therewith, wood and the yard and garden hothouses and buildings thereon and the gateways and entrances to the same premises from the street to the said Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford and his heirs.

Also I give and bequeath unto the said Frederick Chaplin the furniture of and belonging to the dressing room and dining room of my said capital messuage for his own use.

And I empower the said Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford after my decease, if shall think fit, to purchase all the cottages and appurtenances thereto in the front of my dwelling house next the street in Bishop Stortford aforementioned at such price as the same shall be valued by two persons, one to be chosen by the said Frederick Chaplin and the other by the said George Starkins Wallis his executors or administrators and in case such two persons shall differ in opinion then by an umpire to be chosen by such two persons.

And I empower the said Frederick Chaplin to purchase the land or piece of ground called the Half Acre and the field adjoining at the price or sum of one hundred pounds an acre and if he shall, within six months after my decease, elect to purchase either of the said premises at the sum above mentioned I empower my personal representative or representatives receiving the said sums respectively to convey and assure either of the said premises in respect whereof the above mentioned purchase money shall be so paid unto the said Frederick Chaplin and his heirs or to a trustee and his heirs to the use of or in trust for the said Frederick Chaplin and his heirs and if he shall refuse to make such purchase then I authorize and empower my personal representatives to sell the said hereditaments and premises to any other person or persons and his or their heirs.

And I direct that the receipt or receipts of the said George Starkins Wallis and Frederick Woodham Nash or the survivor of them, his executors or administrators for either of the said sums if payable by the said Frederick Chaplin and of my personal representatives or representative for the time being if payable by any other person or persons shall effectually discharge the said Frederick Chaplin and his heirs or any other purchaser or purchasers of the said hereditaments or any part thereof therefrom.

And I direct that the said purchase money so paid shall be applied in the first place for payment of my debts, funeral and testamentary expenses and legacies herein mentioned and subject thereto and as to so much thereof as shall not be required for the purposes aforesaid I direct that the same shall sink into and become part of and go with my residuary personal estate.

Also I give and bequeath to my great niece, Elizabeth Chaplin, one of the daughters of the said Sarah Wedd, the sum of five hundred pounds of lawful money to be payable at the end of three months from my decease in addition to the advancement which I gave and paid to her on her marriage.

Also I give and bequeath to the said Frederick Woodham Nash the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds for his trouble in acting as my executor, to my cousin, George Wallis of Whitechapel three hundred pounds, to my cousin Mary, the widow of James Marwhinnie, two hundred pounds.

I bequeath to my respected friend and minister, the Reverend William Chaplin of Bishop Stortford, the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds.

Also to my servant William Christy, if he shall be in my service at my decease, the sum of nineteen pounds nineteen shillings.

Also to my servant Hannah Hurley, if she shall be in my service at my decease, the sum of nineteen pounds nineteen shillings.

Also I give to my late servant, Sarah Hanson, the sum of nineteen pounds nineteen shillings.

I direct that all stocks, funds and securities which shall be subject to any of the trusts of this my will shall from time to time be altered, varied and transposed by the trustees or trustee thereof and as they shall think proper and that the receipt or receipts of the acting trustee or trustees for the time being under this my will shall be an effectual discharge for all monies subject to the trusts of this my will or any of them.

Also I give all debts and sums of money which shall, at the time of my decease, be due or owing to me from the said Charles Wedd to all and every the children of my said niece, Sarah Wedd, his wife in equal shares.

Also I give all debts and sums of money which shall, at the time of my decease, be due or owing to me from the said John Inkersole, late husband of my said niece, Ann Inkersole, deceased, to all and every the children of my late niece, the said Ann Inkersole, his late wife, in equal shares.

Also I devise and bequeath unto my said nephew, George Starkins Wallis, all debts and sums of money which shall, at the time of my decease, due or owing to me from him, the said George Starkins Wallis, and subject to the payment of my debts, funeral and testamentary expenses and legacies.

I bequeath all my personal estate and effects whatsoever and wheresoever except such as is herein otherwise bequested in manner following that is to say one moiety to my nephew, the said George Starkins Wallis, and the other moiety to and between all the children of my late niece, Ann Inkersole, (except her said son James Inkersole) in equal shares for their own absolute use.

I give, devise and bequeath unto the said George Starkins Wallis, Frederick Woodham Nash and Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford, their heirs, executors, administrators and assigns respectively all the estates which, at the time of my decease, shall be vested in me upon any trusts or by way of mortgage of which I have power to dispose of by this my will with their rights, members and appurtenances to have and to hold the same premises unto the said George Starkins Wallis, Frederick Woodham Nash and Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford, their heirs, executors, administrators and assigns respectively according to the nature and quality thereof respectively upon the trusts and subject to the equity of redemption which at the time of my decease shall be subsisting or capable of taking effect therein respectively and the money serviced on such mortgages shall be considered and taken as part of my personal estate.

And I do hereby nominate and appoint the said George Starkins Wallis, Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford and Frederick Woodham Nash to be executors of this my last will and testament.

And I hereby authorise and empower my executors to pay any debts owing by me or claimed from me upon any evidence they shall think proper and to accept compositions or a part for the whole from any debtor and to accept any security, real or personal, for any debt or debts owing to me and also to allow such time for the payment thereof as to them or him shall appear reasonable provided always.

And I do hereby declare my will and mind to be that if the said respective trustees hereby appointed or the trustees to be appointed as hereinafter is mentioned or their respective heirs, executors or administrators or any of them shall depart this life, desire to be discharged from or decline or become incapable to act in the trusts hereby reposed in them then and so often as it shall so happen it shall be lawful for the surviving or continuing trustees or trustee for the time being of the trust estates, monies and premises the trustees or trustee whereof shall so depart this life, desire to be discharged from or decline or become incapable to act as aforesaid or the executors or administrators of the last surviving or continuing trustee for the time being by writing under their or his hands or hand to appoint one or more person or persons to be a trustee or trustees in the room of the trustee or trustees so dying, desiring to be discharged from or declining or becoming incapable to act as aforesaid and that upon every such appointment the said trust estates, monies and premises shall be conveyed, assigned and transferred to and in such manner that the same may become vested in the new trustee or trustees jointly with the surviving or continuing trustee or trustees or solely as occasion shall require and every such new trustee shall have such and the same powers and authorities and discretion to all intents and purposes whatsoever as if he had been originally nominated a trustee in this my will provided always.

And I declare my will to be that the said trustees hereby nominated and appointed or to be appointed by virtue of the proviso last hereinbefore contained and each and every one of them shall be charged and chargeable respectively only for such monies as they shall respectively actually receive by virtue of the trusts hereby in them reposed notwithstanding his or their or any of their giving or signing or joining in signing any receipt or receipts for the sake of conformity and any one or more of them shall not be answerable or accountable for the other or others of them or the acts, receipts, neglects or defaults of the other or others of them but each and every of them only for his and their own acts, receipts or neglects or defaults respectively and that any one or more of them shall not be answerable or accountable for any banker, broker or other person with whom or in whose hands any part of the said trust monies shall or may be deposited or lodged for safe custody or otherwise in the execution of the trusts hereinbefore mentioned and that they or any of them shall not be answerable or accountable for the insufficiency or deficiency of any security or securities, stocks or funds in or upon which the said trust monies or any part thereof shall be placed out or invested nor for any other misfortune, loss or damage which may happen in the execution of the aforesaid trusts or in relation thereto except the same shall happen by or through their own wilful default respectively.

And also that it shall and may be lawful to and for them the said trustees in this my will named and such future trustee or trustees to be appointed as aforesaid and every or any of them, their and every of their heirs, executors, administrators and assigns by and out of the monies which shall come to their respective hands by virtue of the trusts aforesaid to retain to and reimburse himself and themselves respectively and also to allow to his and their co-trustee and co-trustees all costs, charges, damages and expenses which they or any of them shall or may suffer, sustain, expend, disburse, be at or be put unto in or about the execution of the aforesaid trusts or in relation thereunto.

In witness whereof I, the said George Starkins, the testator, have, to this my last will and testament, contained in fourteen sheets of paper, set my hand and seal in manner following, that is to say, my hand to the first thirteen sheets thereof and my hand and seal to this fourteenth and last sheet this eighteenth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty seven etc…

This is a codicil to be annexed to and taken as part of the last will and testament of me George Starkins of Bishop Stortford in the county of Hertford, esquire.

I give and devise unto my friend, Frederick Chaplin of Bishop Stortford aforesaid, Tanner, and to his heirs and assigns for his and their own use and benefit all my field of pasture ground in my own occupation adjoining to my garden, also in my occupation, in Bishop Stortford aforesaid with the outbuildings and timber on the said field and the plantation around the same containing in the whole about four acres be the same more or less and without paying any valuation or consideration for the same.

And in all other respects I ratify and confirm my said will in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this sixth day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty eight etc..

This is a second or further codicil to be annexed to and taken as part of the last will and testament bearing date the eighteenth day of October one thousand eight hundred and thirty seven (sic) of me George Starkins of Bishop Stortford in the county of Hertford, esquire.

I give and bequeath unto my niece, Elizabeth Chaplin, the wife of Frederick Chaplin of Harlow, the sum of five hundred pounds of lawful money in addition to the sum of five hundred pounds given to her by my will and to be paid at the same time and together with the same.

Also I give and bequeath unto my cousin George Wallis of Whitechapel, London, the sum of two hundred pounds in addition to the sum of three hundred pounds (sic) given to him by my said will and to be paid at the same time and together with the same.

Also I give and bequeath unto my cousin Mary the widow of James Macwhinnie the sum of three hundred pounds of lawful money in addition to the sum of two hundred pounds given to her by my said will.

Also I give and bequeath unto each of the sons of John Macwhinnie deceased, the brother of the said Mary Macwhinnie, widow, {illegible} Melville Macwhinnie and _____ Macwhinnie, solicitor, Brighton, the sum of one hundred pounds apiece.

Also I give and bequeath unto Jones Gifford Nash of Bishop Stortford aforesaid, Brewer, the sum of three hundred pounds of lawful money.

Also I give and bequeath unto Frederick Woodham Nash of the Temple, Barrister, the sum of fifty pounds of lawful money in addition to the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds of lawful money given to him by my said will and to be paid with the same.

Also I give and bequeath unto John Canning of Parsonage Mill, Bishop Stortford, the sum of one hundred pounds of lawful money.

Also I give and bequeath unto Wedd William Nash, Hester Nash, Elizabeth Nash, {illegible} Nash and Mary Wedd all of Royston, the five children of my late cousin William Nash, deceased, the sum of one hundred pounds apiece of lawful money.

I confirm my said will and my first codicil thereto bearing date the sixth day of November one thousand eight hundred and thirty eight as to my will in every particular in which the same is not affected by the first or by this second codicil and as to my first codicil in every particular in which the same is not altered by this second codicil - in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this fifth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty nine etc…

Proved 31 May 1842 London

James Starkins

James Starkins', my children's 8th x maternal great grandfather's line has been, without doubt, the most complicated and intertwined I've had to decipher - for reasons that will become apparent.

James (dates unknown) of Elsenham, Essex was a miller in nearby Henham viz:

11,12 Aug 1756 Conveyance (Lease and Release) for £100

Samuel Feake senior to James Starkins, of Elsenham, miller re a parcel of ground (1/2 rood), formerly part of waste of manor of Henham Hall, and a windmill lately erected thereon, with millstones, running gears, utensils and implements, in tenure of James Starkins, in Henham.

He and his wife, Jane, were parents to George Starkins (1732-1785) who took over the mill and married Elizabeth ? (1729-1821) and who had George (1765-1843), Sarah, of whose line more at a later date, and Unknown Starkins (a daughter).

George jnr was born in Elsenham on 9 Aug 1765, married Mary Jones in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, on 22 Feb 1790 and died, without surviving issue on 1 Feb 1843.

Chantry House, one of the oldest former residences remaining in Bishop's Stortford, was built by George Starkins, now unremembered but in his day a highly successful businessman and farmer. It became his principal home in 1824.

In April 1823, Cockett & Nash, of Royston, designed the house for him at Chantry. It was a handsome residence with large windows just inside the present day gateway; its appearance is identical with today's building, now used as offices.

Inside it has been modernised, but downstairs much of the decorative pargetting to the beams remains; upstairs there are large rooms and a finely panelled dressing room.

George's father died in 1785 and left him a farm and the windmill in Henham. His interests expanded; in 1796 he was a currier (dressing, finishing and colouring tanned hide) and in 1811 a tanner - the business probably deriving from John Jones, his father-in-law. Property in Elsenham came to him after his mother died in 1821 at the age of 92.

In around 1826 George formed a tannery business partnership with Frederick Chaplin, 26, son of George's Congregational Church minister, the Rev William Chaplin. Most likely Frederick learned this trade from George at the Water Lane tannery. An 1837 field plan maps his 1,000 acre farmland in Matching and High Laver.

George's death at the age of 77 on January 23, 1843, was recorded in The Times.

He left 1,300 acres of Essex farmland, £7,500 of cash legacies (worth about £725,00 today), a beer house in Elsenham and 290 gallons of ale in his cellar.

His will caused some drama. Firstly, the map: it indicated how his holdings should be divided to provide income for his relatives and their descendants. Sworn testimony records that on January 24 his Royston solicitors transmitted the will to Frederick (an executor) who read it over; he knew of the map's importance and so locked the door to the Chantry House dressing room where it lay in a japanned deed box.

The Map lists the following properties:

The Reversion
The Readings
Househam One Farm or Clarkes
Tadgets Farm
Logters Farm
Fagotters
Manor of Oates
Hog Farm
Monters Farm
High Laver Farm

All in or around High Laver and Matching, Essex and in total worth £10257.17 in 1837 which equates to £4,5,2371.19 today (2010).

After the funeral on February 1, the door was unlocked by the executors, the map was fetched downstairs and examined by those gathered and the will was read.

More dramas occurred when it turned out that George's birth was unrecorded (his mother's Bible contained the necessary family detail) and the Elsenham property had no deeds of ownership!

Frederick Chaplin inherited the Chantry estate. The house contents were mostly sold, but not, it seems, the ale.

Meanwhile his nameless sister married one Thomas Wallis (d. 1822 Shepreth, Cambridgeshire) and had issue: George Starkins Wallis 1 (1794-1856), Sarah b. 1788 and Ann.

Sarah married Charles Wedd 23 Jun 1810 and had two boys and two girls; the girls, Sarah and Elizabeth married, I assume but not proven, brothers Thomas, a brewer in Harlow, Essex, and Frederick William Chaplin, a farmer also in Harlow, and both had issue.

Ann married John Inkersole who first appears as a Miller in Thriplow, Cambridgeshire and subsequently as a bankrupt brewer in 1856 in Sawbridgeworth, Herts. They had issue three boys and 2 daughters:

Thomas b. 1816 married an Essex girl but had no children. He seems to be a bit all over the place having been a farmer in 1851, a spirit merchant in 1861 and finally a commercial clerk in 1881.

Charles b. 1821, Mary b. 1825, James 1826, Elizabeth b. 1826.

Elizabeth married Thomas Frederick Cheesman (1814-1900) ex RN and Surveyor of Taxes (early Inland Revenue) and had issue three boys and two girls.

George Starkins Wallis 1 was born in 1794 at Shepreth, Cambridgeshire and was twice married; 1st to Ann Matilda Fitch on 28 Jul 1810 in Meldreth, Cambridgeshire & 2nd to Martha Fordham on 30 10 1819 at St George, Hanover Square, London.

By his first wife he had Ann b.1812 Harston, Cambridgeshire m. 25 May 1836 Joseph Ellis and subsequently A Wright; and Sarah (1814-1857) m. Tomas Hacker Body or Boddy 21 10 1835 Meldreth, Cambridgeshire (she died in Wisconsin).

By his second wife he had a son and three daughters:

George Starkins 2 (1824-1900) see below.

Mary Jane b. 1821, Martha Fordham b. 1827 and Elizabeth Harriet b. 1833.

Mary Jane died unmarried, Martha Fordham married, in 1859, either Thomas Bush or William Olive in Bishop's Stortford and Elizabeth Harriet married William Wilkerson in 1853 as per my previous post.

George Starkins Wallis 2 (1824-1900) was born in Melbourn and married Smithson Wilkerson (1827-1900) in 1850. They had no children.

He was a dairy farmer in Renhold, Bedfordshire from 1861-1881 and subsequently an estate agent (1891).

James Clear Wilkerson

I am coming to the end of my current project of cross referencing 7646 family tree members who were born after 1771 and died after 1841 against the available UK census returns (1841 - 1911)* and have reached the Wilkersons who married into my wife's Wallis line.

First up was William Wilkerson born in 1823 in Roxton, Bedfordshire who married Elizabeth Harriet Wallis in 1853 in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire by whom he had 11 children.

William, prior to his marriage, farmed 300 acres in Roxton (1851) but in 1861, living in Wimblington, Cambs, had no occupation listed and by 1871 was farming a considerably smaller 95 acres back in Beds at Goldington. In 1881 and 1891 he is enumerated as a retired farmer living in Melbourn.

Whilst cross referencing William I came across, or rather re-found, an orphan (family tree orphan that is) Smithson Wilkerson born 1827 married to George Starkins Wallis **, the aforementioned Elizabeth Harriet's brother.

After a bit of Googling I'm satisfied that Smithson was/is William's younger sister and that their parents were James and Jane Wilkerson dates unknown.

George and Smithson were childless but, as I mentioned, William and Elizabeth had four boys and seven daughters.

The eldest son, Wallis b. 1855 Renhold, Bedfordshire, was a Chemist & Druggist in Bedford and, having married Elizabeth J in 1886 producing an unmarried daughter, Elizabeth Wallis (1889-1964), died in 1928.

The next three sons, William b. 1860, George Wallis b. 1862 and James b. 1867 emigrated to Canada where George died in 1938 having married and produced numerous offspring. I assume William died in Canada as I can find no trace of him post 1871 but James returned to the UK and is enumerated in 1901 and 1911 as a farmer in Bedfordshire. He married Elizabeth Measures in 1895 and had two daughters, Kathleen b. 1897 and Gwendoline b. 1903.

Of the seven daughters: Elizabeth Smithson b. 1856 married Andrew Carr Wright of Melbourn, Martha Jane b. 1858 married James Clear Wilkerson in 1891 (see below) and Sarah Wallis b. 1869 married George Hamilton-Browne in 1909.

The other four, Annie Mary b. 1861, Harriet Fordham b. 1864, Emily b. 1865 and Kate b. 1869 were all unmarried.

Although I am currently unable to make a connection between James Clear and Martha Jane I'm fairly sure they are related. My reasoning is that they lived in a relatively small geographical locale (Barley, Hertfordshire and Melbourn, Cambridgeshire) and, less reliable, I feel it in my bones!

James Clear Wilkerson was born in Barley, Hertfordshire, in 1873. The son of a farmer, Clear Wilkerson (1812-1874) and Ann Elizabeth Shearman (1819-1869), he lived and farmed in Barley all his life.

In 1873 he married his first wife, Harley Rebecca Wilkerson (1844-1889) daughter of John and Harriet, nee Shippey, of Hadstock, Essex - obviously I surmise a family connection here - and had three children with her; Frances Harley b. 1875, John Clear b. 1876 and Stanley James b. 1880. Frances and Stanley died unmarried whilst John married Ellen Maud Chaplin (1868-1925) another surname connected to the Wallis tree and another connection I have failed to find.

Following Harley's death in 1889 James married Martha Jane in 1891 and had Arnold Fordham (1892-1975), Wilfred E b. 1895, Dorothy Grace (1896-1985 and Gladys Mary b. 1898.

I'm going to re-visit Hadstock, Linton and Barley to have a look through the graveyards and will re-do Melbourn next time I'm up that way.

I'm sure that James, Harley and Martha are all interconnected.


* Next up is to do those baptised and died between the same dates.

** Probably the subject of my next post.

Norwich Cathedral, Norfolk

My first visit to Norwich and I have to say that the city is a delight. Having parked on the top floor of the Andrew Street car park I was confronted by no less than 10 churches but had only enough time to visit the cathedral (for the record, & linked to Simon Knott's Norfolk Churches site, looking west from l to r were St Gregory, St Giles on the Hill, St John the Baptist RC Cathedral, St Lawrence and St Margaret; to the east l to r were the CoE Cathedral, St George & St Michael at Plea + St Andrew & Blackfriars Hall; to the south were St Andrew and Norwich Castle; I failed to look north having been overcome by this cornucopia of churches.

Norwich, although being well out of a reasonable distance from home, appears to merit some revisits.

Having been seriously impressed by the view of Norwich from the top of a municipal multi storey car park and the walk to the cathedral, yes I did get lost as I thought the far more prominent RC cathedral was my destination, I found the Most Holy Trinity a huge disappointment.

The west front makes St Albans' look like a masterpiece in restoration and when you enter from the visitor entrance, despite the friendliest, helpful and most welcoming volunteers I've ever encountered, the first impression is one of austerity and paucity of interest.

How wrong first impressions can be. Norwich may not be overly endowed with monuments and brasses but is architecturally stunning and enriched with great glass, several fine reredoses (especially the Despenser retable), good misericords and, above all, an intimacy I've not felt since Bury St Edmunds.

I was decidedly inclined to dislike Norwich on sight but two and half hours of perambulation has pushed it up to my No1 favourite English cathedral.

Having been absorbed in the body of the church I ran out of time to give the cloisters the attention they deserve and so missed the Priors door - good, a reason to go back.

Not having Pevsner's Norfolk this will have to substitute (it's good):

The year 630 marked the final conversion to Christianity of East Anglia, when the Burgundian monk Felix, its first bishop, established his see at the Suffolk port of Dunwich, now utterly vanished as a result of coast erosion. In 660 the great diocese was subdivided by Archbishop Theodore, and both Dunwich and Elmham in Suffolk were the seats of bishops until about 950, when it was once again united at the latter. In 1075 the bishopric was removed to Thetford, but in 1094 it was finally established at Norwich in compliance with the decree of Lanfranc's Synod that all sees should be fixed in the principal town of their diocese. Herbert de Losinga was the first Bishop of Norwich, a Norman-Benedictine careerist owing his early advancement to simony that was flagrant even for his period. But on the assumption of his bishop’s office he seems genuinely, if somewhat belatedly, to have repented of his disreputable association with Rufus; “I entered on mine office disgracefully,” he wrote in a letter that has been preserved, “but by the help of God's grace I shall pass out of it with credit.” The founding of a cathedral and great religious house at Norwich, on a scale commensurate with the dignity of his famous Order, was considered to have been undertaken as a partial expiation of former irregularities.

The foundation stone of Norwich Cathedral was laid in 1096, and the building of the Norman fabric seems to have occupied some forty years. In about 1170, however, a fire broke out in the monastic quarters, which spread to the church, and probably partially destroyed the Lady Chapel, which formed the central feature of the apsidal chevet. This event, combined with the growing cult of Our Lady during the thirteenth century, determined Bishop Suffield to demolish what remained of the chapel and rebuild it about 1250 on a more lavish scale in the current Gothic manner. His work, however, falling into disrepair after the Reformation,  was destroyed under Dean Gardiner towards the close of the sixteenth century. In 1271 rioting broke out in the city against the monks, whose unpopularity had reached a climax under the fierce and truculent despotism of Prior William de Brunham. Something like a pitched battle took place in Tombland, lasting for several days, in which many lives were lost and the cathedral gutted by fire to its stone walls. Sentence of excommunication was passed on the city, Henry III himself travelled to Norwich to preside at the trial of the leaders, and vast sums were extorted from the townsmen to repair the damage. The final misfortune occurred in 1361, when the wooden spire and part of the central tower collapsed in a gale, severely injuring the eastern limb. This resulted in the building of the fourteenth-century clerestory to the quire; and the main body of the church was finally fireproofed by the construction of a stone lierne vault under Bishop Lyhart about 1446.

Despite these additions, Norwich today, more than any other English cathedral with the exception of Durham, retains the  appearance and characteristics of a great Anglo-Norman abbey church. The west front, never very striking in design, was reduced to insignificance by Blore in 1875, but the long north and south elevations of the nave rise like cliffs, scarred by intricate stratabands of arches, arcades and windows. The transepts were rebuilt with plain Norman fronts, and the southern is another example of how literal refacing can rob a facade of its charm and character. The eastern limb is easily the most beautiful part of the building , the tall lantern-like clerestory of the Perpendicular reconstruction, with its delicate precision of window tracery and lofty ring of flying buttresses, rising high above the close-knit Romanesque texture of the original presbytery, with its chevet of apsidal chapels, rare in England. The recent addition that takes the place of the Lady Chapel is a memorial to the fallen of the last war. The Norman tower at the crossing is very rich and magnificent, with its horizontal bands of Romanesque patterning, flanked by buttresses of vertical shafting that rise to crocketed pinnacles at the four corners. It is surmounted by a tall spire that forms a dignified landmark over the flatter surrounding country, and is perhaps best seen from Old Crome’s Mousehold Heath, or from over the Wensum by the water-gate to the precincts at Pull’s Ferry.

Probably the first impression on entering the cathedral is of the exceptional length of the Norman nave, extending through fourteen bays, and of its great height. The yellowish stone appears warm and mellow in the full even lighting of the interior, and the general effect is one of homogeneous texture and solid dignity. A remarkable feature of the design, probably dictated by requirements of lighting, is the height of the single-arch triforium, which equals that of the main arcade; and despite its general uniformity, the nave can show occasional vagaries, such as the massive cylindrical diapered piers of the ninth bay from the east, marking the original western termination of the cathedral, and the two bays of elegant sixteenth-century reconstruction introduced by Bishop Nix for his personal chantry. The aisles are roofed with a simple Norman groined vault, in contrast with the elaboration of the lierne work of the nave roof, which ranks among the finest achievements of English medieval masoncraft. As has been seen, it was built during the later fifteenth century in the episcopate of Walter Lyhart, whose rebus of a stag lying in water appears on every other vaulting shaft; and a striking feature is its profusion of sculptured bosses, which extend in three ranges from east to west, comprising in the nave alone some 328 subjects, illustrating in graphic and homely idiom the course of Bible history from the Creation to the Apocalypse. These bosses have recently been cleaned and touched with bright colour to give an approximation of their original effect. At the crossing, the tower repeats on the interior something of he rich patterning of its exterior faces, though the swagged Renaissance ceiling that appears in Britton’s engravings did not survive the nineteenth century. The organ screen is a modern adaptation, but between the transepts and the quire aisles, the Romanesque arches have been filled with beautiful screens of open Perpendicular tracery, erected under Prior Catton about 1509. The eastern limb is short in comparison with the nave, but architecturally is without question the finest part of the cathedral. The Norman design extends through arcade and triforium, and above it rises the lofty lightly poised canopy of Bishop Percy's clerestory, with its great areas of glazing admitting a flood of light into the quire. It is remarkable how this fifteenth-century transformation blends with the massive Romanesque of three centuries earlier, and the whole with the delicate lierne vaulting that spreads its web over the roof above. The view culminates eastward in the semicircular sweep of the apse, which, with its radiant lighting effects and soaring complexity of arch and vault, forms perhaps the most effective background in any English cathedral for the high altar.

The ambulatory around the apse forms a continuation of the groined-vaulted presbytery aisles. From this open a number of small chapels and chantries, among the most interesting being the two remaining chapels of the apsidal chevet, which are so conspicuous a feature of the exterior design. Each is formed of two separate segments of a circle, and in the little Jesus Chapel, traces of the original painting have been used as a basis for the reconstruction of the medieval polychromatic scheme. The cloister garth is on the south side, between nave and transept, and the fourteenth century Prior's Door that gives access from it to the cathedral is very elaborate and magnificent, with canopied figures of saints and Bishops ranged in stellar radiations around the arch. The cloister itself is broad and spacious, and its tracery of several periods covers a wide range of curvilinear and Perpendicular pattern. It contains much of interest, such as the remains of the monks’ lavatorium and bookshelves, and, as at Gloucester, the holes in the flagstones for the novices’ games; but perhaps its finest feature is the series of sculptured bosses in the vaulting, which, though uncleaned and unrepaired, are almost the equal for variety and interest of those of the nave. The thirteenth century chapter-house was pulled down by Dean Gardiner at the same time as the Lady Chapel, but the Choir School of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with its ribbed stone vault, remains and is worth a visit. The close contains some beautiful and interesting old houses, and is entered from Tombland by two splendid gateways in the local flint flushwork - the Ethelbert Gate, erected as part of the penance of the townsfolk after the riot of 1271, and the Erpingham Gate, built as a memorial to Sir Thomas Erpingham, Shakespeare's “white-headed knight" of Agincourt, designed by the famous Norfolk mason, William Hindley, later master of the work for the York quire, who modelled it on the great centre arch of the Peterborough west front.

WE come now to the gem of this galaxy of old buildings telling romantic story of Norwich, the cathedral, set in a loop of the river. Though it stands in a hollow where the sea once ebbed and flowed, its lovely spire soars so high that it crowns all views in the city. Only Salisbury has a higher spire, the spire made familiar to the world by the most famous artist of East Anglia, and in all England there is not a loftier or richer Norman tower than this from which it springs. The tower itself is 140 feet high, and though the stone of its tiers of arches and windows has been much renewed outside, the interior is perfect. Poised on the top of the spire, 315 feet from the ground, is a golden chanticleer, which flashes on a sunny day against the blue. The spire is like a finger beckoning us to come to see this exquisite structure rising so graciously into the sky. Whether we look at it from the east or from the west the beauty of its lines thrills us; from the east it rises higher and higher until the eye is drawn as by a magnet to the crowning glory of one of the noblest ancient buildings in the land.

The story begins in 1091 with Herbert de Losinga. Even bereft of all the legends and traditions that have grown up round one who achieved such a monument as this cathedral, the story of this bishop is a fascinating revelation of clerical life eight centuries ago. He was born before the Conqueror set foot on our soil, but where he was born is a matter of dispute. Educated in the monastery at Fécamp, he served so well as Prior that William Rufus made him Abbot of Ramsey and gave him a place in the royal household. It is said that he received a bishopric for paying £1900 into the treasury of Red Rufus, and that the king made him a bishop without consulting the Pope. Most men acted corruptly then, but only the conscience of one seems to have greatly troubled him. Losinga himself realised that he had been sinful, and he determined to go to Rome to resign in person. Rufus discovered the purpose of his journey and degraded him; but Herbert went on, the Pope accepted his resignation, granted him absolution, and made him Bishop of Thetford again; but as penance imposed on him the duty of removing the see to Norwich and building a new cathedral.

Such was the beginning of Norwich Cathedral. He returned to his diocese with renewed vigour and made his peace with Rufus, who helped him with the building. The foundation stone was laid in 1096, and before Losinga’s death in 1119 the eastern portion of the great pile was standing much as it is today — the presbytery with its apse and rare ambulatory, the lower part of the central tower, the great transepts with the eastern chapels, and perhaps four bays of the nave, which served as a choir for 60 monks.

His cathedral is unique in many ways, and has many treasures, but it has nothing of more interest than the painted medallions which have come to light in our time and been restored by Professor Tristram; one shows Losinga passing money across a table, in another he is robed as a bishop in an attitude of prayer, while the third has a picture of a church perhaps meant for the cathedral. Besides the painting of the medallion we see him here in crumbling stone, bareheaded and with uplifted face, his crozier in one hand and the other raised in blessing; so he stands in a niche over a cathedral doorway, facing the garden of the bishop’s palace.

Though the palace has seen many changes, and is now largely modern, it still has portions of the stout walling and vaulted basement of Losinga’s foundation. The picturesque ruin in the garden is supposed to be part of the entrance to a medieval hall 120 feet long. The private chapel comes from the time of Charles the Second. The approach to the palace from St Martin’s Plain is by a two-storeyed gatehouse of about 1430, imposing with a big archway and a smaller archway at its side, a traceried frieze with shields and crowns, and a seated figure in a niche between the windows. It has battlements and vaulting, and its beautiful carved doors were added later in Stuart days.

Green lawns and many old houses cluster about the cathedral. At the south-east corner of the Upper Close is the Audit Room, with 15th-century windows in flint walls, and facing it is a fine old house with Dutch gables. A little road close by leads to Pull’s Ferry, where the river laps the picturesque old Watergate of the precincts. It was once at the mouth of a canal, which was cut to bring the stone for the cathedral almost to its doors. From the Ferry the cathedral is a charming picture, rising behind the clustering houses with roofs of rich pantiles peeping from among trees. From what is curiously called Tombland (not from any association with tombs but from Toomland, or waste land), lovely in spring with the limes in new leaf, two beautiful gateways lead into the Upper Close. St Ethelbert’s Gate was built by the city as payment of a fine for their riot with the monks in 1272, when they set fire to the cathedral. Over its vaulted archway is a chapel; over the chapel is a gabled compartment of rich flush-work in flint and stone.

The lofty arch of the Erpingham Gate, set in flint walls, has old panelled doors, and through them is the lovely view of the cathedral’s west front. The gate was built about 1420 by Sir Thomas Erpingham, whose kneeling figure, with his sword slanting at his side, is in the gable. In the rich mouldings of the arch are bands of foliage canopies sheltering 24 saints, and at the top are two angels by a shield with the Five Wounds. The spandrels are delicately carved. The turrets at each side are panelled with shields of Sir Thomas and his two wives; and at the top of each turret sits an ecclesiastic. The word Yenk, for Think, is repeated on the gateway, which some say Sir Thomas built as a penance for his sympathy with the Lollards. It is more likely that he erected it as a thankoffering for coming safely through the Battle of Agincourt, where he led the English archers.

At one end of the Close is a bronze statue of Wellington with his sword; at the other Nelson stands with his telescope, sculptured in marble, looking to his old grammar school just within the Erpingham Gate. Founded as a chapel in 1316, and converted to a school by Edward the Sixth, the fine little building is now the school chapel, keeping its old trussed roof, the gallery with balusters, and the big windows adorned with an array of men and women with golden hair, some hooded, some wimpled, some in netted headdress. The old vaulted crypt (once a charnel house) is now the school’s library, and in it are several old chairs and a quaint list of school regulations. Quaint, too, is the porch added in the 15th century; at the top of its steps we can touch the bosses of its vaulted roof, and from it another flight of steps leads to the splendid old door of the chapel, charming with its old hinges of scrolls and leaves and its rich boss with an iron ring. George Borrow came to this school, and that Lord Justice Coke who hounded Raleigh to his doom.

No other great English church has its Norman ground plan so little changed as Norwich Cathedral. Not only does the original plan remain, but most of the Norman work stands. The great nave and transepts remain, with the Norman lantern of the central tower, and the choir and the presbytery preserve the Norman plan with the projecting eastern chapels which are so attractive outside and in. The central chapel of these three, pulled down in Elizabethan days, has now been rebuilt in memory of the men who fell in the Great War, so that the exterior of the cathedral is as it was, a captivating spectacle with the roofs of these low chapels round the apse, the choir behind them rising twice as high, and the beautiful tower soaring like an eagle into the heavens. The tower is a mass of carving, giving it a striking air of grace which is emphasised by the lightness of the spire. The shafted buttresses at the corners, like fluted pillars, end in spire-like pinnacles above the medieval battlements, and the four faces of the tower have rows of slender arches and windows (probably 100 in all), delicate tracery of ring and diamond pattern, and two tiers of great circles. All this work is Norman, but the elegant spire, pierced with dainty windows, decorated with buds or leaves running from top to bottom at its six angles, and crowned with a cross, is 15th century.

The west front, plain compared with many of our cathedrals, has a dignified simplicity with a great window filling the space above the western doorway; it is Norman and medieval. The central doorway, which has been refashioned since Norman days, has still the old traceried door swinging on its hinges, and inside the original Norman arch remains. The aisle fronts are as the Normans left them, each with doorways of three orders, arcading and windows above them, and twin towers with turrets like pepper-pots to match the great gable. The cathedral has a length of 461 feet, made into a simple cross by the great transept, which is 178 feet from end to end.

But, majestic as is the cathedral without, we are spellbound, as we enter the nave from the west end, by the stately grandeur into which this gleaming stone is wrought. The walls rise in three tiers of Norman arcading; the massive strength of the great piers is relieved by their slender shafts, from some of which grows Bishop Lyhart’s exquisite vault, enriched with 329 wonderful bosses shining with colour and gold. The arches of the triforium are framed with zigzag, and those below with other ornament. Norwich is unique in having a triforium almost as lofty as its main arcading. Breaking into the uniformity of the main arches are two enormous round pillars with spiral carving, and two four-centred arches on the south side which Bishop Nykke set up for his chapel. It is an unforgettable scene. When the sun is shining through the windows the triple-arched clerestory is a golden passage, reflecting its light on the vaulting and showing up the sculpture of the bosses, which are only part of over 1200 in the cathedral and the cloister, an amazing collection unrivalled in the land, containing thousands of sculptured figures. These in the nave are arranged in groups, telling the chief stories of the Bible from Creation to the Last Judgement. Look up, they seem to say, and see written above you the history of the revelation of God to Man.

Seventy feet above the floor, this roof is teeming with life; it has hundreds of figures in animated groups, people and animals carved with directness and vigour. The whole work shows a fine sense of decoration, and remarkable inventiveness. We will run through the 14 bays of the nave and pick out from the bosses on the roof those that have most significance or beauty, going east to west.

In the first bay a human face encircled by golden rays signifies the Creation of Life like a fancy of William Blake, and the Almighty is raising a hand in benediction. Then comes the Creation of Adam, Eve with an apple in each hand, the coming of fishes and birds (the eagle with beak and claws of gold), and the death of Cain. The second bay has the story of Noah and the Ark with Noah’s wife looking out from the windows. The Tower of Babel opens the story of the third bay which continues with the tale of Abraham, Isaac, Esau, and Jacob. We see Rebekah at the well, a most graceful figure, Jacob deceiving his father, and Esau calling for the blessing his brother has stolen. In the fourth bay the story of Jacob continues and we see him wrestling with the angel, and meeting Rachel; a very curious boss is Jacob’s ladder with angels ascending, but the work is not so fine as that of the flocks of sheep and goats. The fifth bay shows us Joseph and his brethren; we see Jacob, with a turban of gold on his head, sending out his son, his brothers stripping him of his coat of many colours (though here it is gold), the merchantmen carrying him to Egypt, and the strange adventures which brought him to power. The sixth bay continues Joseph’s story, showing him standing amid sheaves of corn with his brethren, and in this bay we see the Birth of Moses, his rise to manhood, the burning bush, the overthrow of Pharaoh’s host in the Red Sea; and we come to the life of Samson who is rending a lion. In the seventh bay Samson is carrying off the Gates of Gaza, and is seen again losing his power by surrendering to Delilah, who shears his locks and binds him. David succeeds him, and we see him aiming his sling at Goliath and trying on Saul’s armour; it is a very graphic boss which shows us David’s stone buried in the giant’s forehead. We see David crowned in the biggest boss of this bay, and Solomon following him in all his glory, bearing the Temple in one hand.

The eighth bay brings us to the end of the old and the beginning of the new, for Gabriel is bringing the good news to the Madonna, whose hair falls over her shoulders. The Holy Child lies in the manger, the ox and ass bow their heads, the Wise Men bring their offerings, the Shepherds come, Herod’s order goes out for the Massacre of the Innocents. In the ninth bay we see Mary escaping with the Child to Egypt, and the sculptures pass on to show us Christ growing up, with the doctors in the Temple, performing miracles, sitting at table with Mary and Joseph, baptised in Jordan, and tempted in the Wilderness. We come to the supper in Bethany after the Raising of Lazarus, and the tenth bay brings us to the Last Supper followed by the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. We can pick out most of the disciples at the table; John is leaning forward with the Master’s arm resting on his shoulder. In the eleventh bay the hour draws near to Calvary and we see Our Lord in Gethsemane, the Betrayal before Pilate (in which Pilate’s wife whispers into his ear). In the twelfth bay the sculptors approach the height of their power and the Crucifixion is in the midst, soldiers crowd the bay, but the lower half is filled with the dawning light of the Redemption. We see the Entombment and the Resurrection, and finally, in the thirteenth bay, the Ascension. The next and last bay shows the Judgment, with angels sounding the summons to the dead, the evil ones being thrown down, the righteous ones rising with the angels; and last of all we see the very modest boss with the portrait of good Bishop Lyhart who built this noble roof 500 years ago.

The bays forming the choir are cut off from the rest of the nave by Bishop Lyhart’s stone screen, of which the lower part is original. In the mouldings of its doorway are delicate canopies, and in the Spandrels are the bishop’s shield and the hart. A blue stone under the screen marks his grave. A piscina at the side of the doorway marks the site of the altar of a vanished chapel dedicated to St William of Norwich, the boy supposed to have been martyred by the Jews. Over the screen is the organ, beyond which we see the arches of the tower on incredibly tall pillars and the windows of the Norman apse shining like a jewelled mosaic.

The bosses of the vaulting in the transepts show the Nativity and the early life of Christ, but the work here is not so versatile as in the nave, and the same subject is often repeated. Two unusual pictures are the death of Herod and angels receiving the Innocents. In the profusion of star-like bosses adorning the lovely vault of the presbytery are the gold wells of Bishop Goldwell who gave it. Even higher than the roof of the nave this roof grows from finials of the smaller arches between the great ones framing the windows of the clerestory. The Norman arches of the triforium continue towards the presbytery, but the main arcade of the north and south sides is believed to have been altered by Bishop Goldwell. Their four-centred arches have traceried roofs; between the bays are canopied niches; and under the triforium is handsome cresting.

In the arches dividing the aisles from the transepts are stone screens. An old one with beautiful tracery, leading to the south aisle of the vaulted ambulatory, has been immortalised by John Sell Cotman, the water-colourist of the Norwich School, and was the gift of Robert Catton, the last prior but one of the monastery. His initials are on the lock of its old door, through which we come to the 14th-century Bauchun chapel, which has a fine original window and a canopied niche, and many bosses in the 15th-century roof telling the story of the life and death of the Madonna. We see her in a long cloak, surrounded by rays of gilded light, and again hearing the message of Gabriel and kneeling to receive her crown.

We next pass into Bishop Losinga’s little Norman chapel of St Luke, curiously rounded in shape, as is its companion Jesus Chapel on the north side of the processional path. Both have arcaded walls and vaulted roofs. St Luke’s Chapel has windows made new in Norman style, but it still has some original painting. It is now the parish church of St Mary-in-the-Marsh, in place of an old church on the south side of the Close which was destroyed 400 years ago, and its sadly battered old font stands near the entrance to the chapel, richly carved on the bowl with the Seven Sacraments, angels under the bowl, canopied figures round the stem, and headless figures and birds round the base.

There is a lovely view from this chapel of the apse end of the presbytery, and of the two 700-year-old arches in the vanished lady chapel. They are exquisite with their clustered shafts, ornament-like chains of flowers, and quatrefoils between the two arches. The ashes of Dean Beeching lie opposite this lovely entrance, and it is fitting that it should be so, for it was his wish that these arches should be opened out again and a new chapel built. Dean Beeching is remembered as a poet of no mean order, and it is to be hoped that every English boy knows his Boy’s Prayer. Through these two arches we come to the cathedral’s biggest chapel, fragrant with the memory of those who gave their lives in the Great War. Here is the Book of Remembrance with over 15,000 names, and with the names of the women is that of Edith Cavell, who sleeps outside the wall on what is called Life’s Green.

Dedicated to the Holy Martyrs of Losinga’s day, the Jesus Chapel has been much restored, and its walls are painted in the old style. Here the body of St William of Norwich is said to have been buried for a time. Here, too, is an old altar stone (marked with five crosses) beneath which relics were kept; and also in this chapel is the only brass left in the cathedral, a Latin inscription to Randolph Pulverton, master of the charnel house in the 15th century. Near Jesus Chapel is another of the cathedral’s rarities, a curious low archway built across the aisle like a bridge, on the top of which, reached by a spiral stairway, the relics of saints were once displayed. In the painted vault above the bridge are 12 saints grouped round Our Lord in Majesty; the faded paintings on the arch west of the bridge are apparently the Disciples. A round chapel east of the transept has been restored in memory of Archdeacon Westcott, and is entered by an oak screen.

Rarest of all the possessions here are the remains of the ancient bishop’s throne, now under the central arch of the apse behind the high altar, at the head of a flight of stairs. It has been restored in our time, and what is left of the old throne is believed to be part of one built by Losinga on his return from Rome. An oak seat has been placed on the original stone ledge. By the simple altar on fluted pillars are four silver candlesticks richly worked, which, with an almsdish, were given to the cathedral in 1665 to replace those stolen during the Civil War. The altar rails are tiny marble pillars, with a top rail of interlacing bronze on enamel. By them is a rare brass lectern 500 years old with its original pelican, and three modern figures round the stem representing the three orders of the ministry.

The cathedral has a noble array of canopied oak stalls, made by craftsmen who would hear the bells ringing for Agincourt. They are wonderful in the delicacy and infinite variety of their rich carving. The canopies have leafy arches, sometimes carved with eagles, and the tracery of the panels beneath them is tipped with leaves and flowers, dogs curled up asleep, pelicans, faces of men, and a quaint company of girls with expressive faces. The return stalls have exquisite vaulting. On the arm-rests are birds, grotesques, a king, and odd-looking men. The misereres are captivating. Much of the cathedral’s rich store of carving is in the roofs for all to see, but here in woodwork superb craftsmanship lies hidden. There are animals fighting, dragons, monks, a squirrel eating nuts, a knight in armour, a man forcing open a 1ion’s jaws, a monkey riding a dog, a mermaid and dragons, a man on a pig’s back. A monk is distributing bread to boys whose books are open on the table. An old woman with distaff and spindle chases a fox which is rushing off with a chicken, and a pig behind her is drinking out of a three-legged pot. Notable among the rest are the carvings of a woman reading, a domestic scene, and a bird’s-eye view of a shepherd with his flock.

On the Corporation seats under the tower are 22 needlework tapestry cushions presented to the cathedral in 1621 by Thomas Baret, mayor. There were 24, but one is in the Castle Museum, and the other was presented in 1904 to Norwich in Connecticut. These cushions have the arms of Norwich, the castle over the lion with a flowered border worked in red and green, and are still in good condition. At the ends of these seats are the oak pulpit and the bishop’s throne, both modern and well worthy of their place, one a tribute to Bishop Pelham, the other to Dean Goulburn. Round the pulpit are eight saints in niches adorned with angels and foliage, and beautiful arcading under a border of vine and grapes almost hides the fine pedestal, which grows from the roots of a vine and is entwined with its leaves. An angel stands at the foot of the arcaded stairway. Fashioned like a tower and spire, the bishop’s throne is a wonderful mass of carving from floor to finial, with faces peeping everywhere out of the delicate tracery, angels on the arm-rests, and under canopies at each side figures of Bishop Losinga and Bishop Pelham. The old bishop’s throne is now in the Bauchun chapel.

The two bishops’ thrones have a cardinal’s throne to keep them company, for the dean’s seat in the nave, near the handsome stone pulpit, is believed to have been the official seat of the Emperor Maximilian over 400 years ago, and is a quaint chair of wood marvellously inlaid with ivory, the back having star pattern and a coloured medallion of a man in a cardinal’s hat, set in a frame of delicate ivory filigree.

But the cathedral has no greater treasure than the rare painting on wood now in the south aisle of the ambulatory. Originally a reredos in the Jesus Chapel, it escaped destruction by a miracle in the Civil War. It was stolen from the cathedral and turned upside down to serve as a table till Professor Willis discovered its secret in the middle of last century. Its five panels show the Scourging, the Bearing of the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. The colour is rich and most of the figures are in fine robes. It is believed to be the work of Thomas de Okell, Mayor of Norwich who painted the wonderful Wilton Diptych, one of the most exquisite small possessions of the National Gallery. Both Okell and his son were artists, and it is known that they did painting for Norwich Cathedral. The oak leaves of the background of the Resurrection scene are thought to be a rebus of their name. The arms of Henry Spencer, the fighting bishop, are also on the picture. The Wilton Diptych belonged to a Spencer family related to the bishop, and it is likely that the bishop commissioned Okell, the chief East Anglian painter of those times, to paint the Wilton Diptych in 1377 to commemorate the accession of Richard the Second, and the altarpiece five years later to commemorate the suppression of the peasants. Most realistic is the Resurrection scene, where the soldiers look sound asleep and might well have been painted from living people; the figure of Christ is impressive and dignified. In the Crucifixion St John holds the fainting Madonna, who wears a dress of red and gold and a blue-green cloak. There is much expression in the faces, and the elaborate background is of vine leaves. The face of Christ has evidently been repainted in the panel of the Scourging; the man with the three-thonged whip has a fearful look.

There are many relics for us to see in the ambulatory. Three carved and painted bosses are very striking, one showing three people lamenting over a king who lies in a bed with a golden coverlet. Here is the big Bible, bound in red morocco and embossed with gold ornaments, on which Queen Victoria signed her coronation oath; a 13th century-gold ring, a medieval signet ring cut with the scene of a duck holding a sprig, and the carved oak head of Bishop Lyhart’s pastoral staff. With the parchments of grants and charters with seals are a grant by Losinga and a grant by Hugh Bigod, who succeeded William Bigod as constable of the castle when William was drowned with Prince Henry in the White Ship. The 14th-century Domesday Book of the diocese is a copy of an older one, and the beautiful writing is probably that of Richard Middleton, sacrist, who gave the book to the Norwich monastery.

Two little Jacobean men of painted wood, with striped trousers, are holding up swords to hit a bell; they once belonged to an old clock, and are known as quarter-jacks or jacks of the clock. Now they stand below the modern clock in the south transept. One of four old chests is 16th century and foreign; inside the lid are pictures in a sort of poker-work showing the Last Days in Jerusalem. Two tattered flags hanging in the choir have a thrilling story; they belonged to one of the original battalions of the Norfolk Regiment, which was on its way to India during the Mutiny when the transport caught fire a thousand miles from shore. At the height of the fire two of the men rescued these colours at the peril of their lives.

In the cathedral museum are some Jacobean helmets, an old flint gun about six feet long, and a watchman’s box with folding doors. In the muniments room is what is probably the finest collection in existence of 1500 rolls of the Obedientiars (the twelve assistants of the prior who were at the heads of the various departments), about 2000 manor and account rolls, and many other documents, with old seals. They are in excellent condition; no other cathedral has so many dating from the 13th and 14th centuries. If put together, the rolls of the Obedientiars would make about a mile and a half of parchment. They are from one to ten feet long.

In the old glass we see a beautiful Madonna in golden rays, a smaller Madonna, a saint in a roundel, heraldic shields, and foreign roundels. The painted glass of the great west window shows the Old and New Testament story. Burne-Jones glass in the other transept shows three warrior saints on a heavy background of trees and mountains. A window to Dean Lefroy shows Paul on Mars Hill.

Many of the bishops who sleep in their cathedral have nothing to mark their resting-place; some have simple stones. Bishop Goldwell lies in his elaborate chantry in the presbytery he transformed. His is the only known monument in England that has survived the Reformation with a bishop wearing the processional cope over the vestments. His lifesize figure lies with the feet on a crouching lion. On his broken hands are jewelled gloves. This much-travelled bishop had been secretary of State to Edward the Fourth and ambassador at Rome. His features are defaced, but his robed figure is considered one of the finest of the kind in England.

In the next bay (seen from the ambulatory) are the remains of Bishop Wakering’s tomb, with ten figures on pedestals. He was a persecutor of the Lollards, and many of them were martyred in his time. On a pillar here is a monument with the coloured portrait of Bishop Overall of 1619; he has a black cap on his white hair, his ruff gives him dignity, and he has a keenly intelligent face. He was known as the best ecclesiastical scholar in the English nation, and Sir Thomas Browne tells us that he was highly reverenced. The famous Norwich doctor also tells us that Sir Thomas Erpingham and his two wives, both named Joan, are buried next to Queen Elizabeth’s seat. When Elizabeth visited Norwich a magnificent throne was prepared for her on the north side of the high altar, facing the resting-place of her great-grandfather, Sir William Boleyn, on the other side of the presbytery. Around her the walls were decorated, as they are now, with the arms of her ancestors. As we look at the place where Sir Thomas Erpingham lies we may recall the words of Shakespeare, who makes the king wish Sir Thomas had a good soft pillow for that good white head instead of the churlish turf of France, whereupon Sir Thomas answers him:

Not so, my liege, this lodging likes me better,
Since I may say, Now lie I like a king.

The fighting Bishop Spencer is buried close to the founder in the middle of the presbytery. He died six years after Chaucer. Bishop Corbet, poet and wit, son of a Surrey gardener who became chaplain to James the First, is also buried in the presbytery. There is an 18th-century monument on a pillar to Bishop Horne, whose inscription tells us that he had depth of learning, brightness of imagination, and sweetness of temper. Two other bishops here should be remembered for the courage of their opinions: William de Turbe, who was the only bishop to take the part of Becket against Henry, and William Lloyd, who ruled the see of Norwich 500 years later. If his letter had not been delayed in the post there would have been eight instead of seven bishops at the famous trial for sedition. As they did not hear from him whether he wished to sign the petition or not, the Seven Bishops took action without him.

One of the last works of Chantrey is in the south transept, the monument to Bishop Bathurst, who was in his day the only Liberal bishop in the House of Lords; he wears his robes and a short wig, and sits with folded hands in deep contemplation. Chancellor Spencer’s 16th-century tomb, on which tenants long ago paid their rents, is under one of the arches of the nave, and in the next bays are the tombs of Bishop Parkhurst, a leading spirit of the Reformation, who fled to Zurich from Mary Tudor’s Terror; and Bishop Nykke, who for conspiring with the Pope against Henry the Eighth, was imprisoned and fined a thousand marks. Opposite, under an arch of the north arcade, is the neat tomb of Sir John Hobart, Attorney-General in Tudor days and friend of one of the writers of the Paston Letters. The heraldry on the tomb was broken during the Civil War, when the cathedral was filled with musketeers. Under another arch here is the tomb of Sir Thomas Wyndham and his four wives. Sir Thomas was one of the counsellors of Henry the Seventh. A monument on a pillar near by has a headless figure playing a harp and an inscription to Osbert Parsley, a chorister, who sang on that great day when Elizabeth came in state and a concord of sweet sound was prepared for her. He was a composer too, so that his inscription is right in speaking of him as a man

Whose harmony survives his vital breath
Who here a singing man did spend his days,
Full fifty years in our church melody.

William Inglott, organist in the time of James the First, has a painted memorial on a pier of the south arcade, showing two figures by his tomb. Thomas Gooding’s stone memorial in the south aisle has a praying skeleton, and the words:

Thomas Gooding here do staye
Waiting for God’s Judgment Day.

One of three fine memorials is the brass portrait of George Pellew in his robes; he was dean for 37 years last century. Bishop Pelham, a lifelong friend of Cardinal Manning, is a white marble figure lying on a tomb adorned with mitre and shields. Charming is Violet Morgan’s marble figure, kneeling at prayer near Jesus Chapel, sculptured by Derwent Wood, RA. She died just out of her teens at the end of the Great War.

We now leave the cathedral and come into the cloisters. There are slight remains of some of the monastic buildings, and the cloister remains complete, the biggest monastic cloister in England, the only one with an upper storey, and second in beauty only to Gloucester’s, while outrivalling that in the wonder of its bosses. It is a lovely quadrangle, with walks 12 feet wide, and a garth 145 feet square.

The Norman cloister was largely destroyed by fire in the riot of 1272. No man who saw the beginning of the cloister we see could have seen its completion, for it was 130 years in building, having been begun in the last years of the 13th century, and finished in 1430. There are half a hundred bays with beautiful windows, and their tracery is glazed, showing the development of style as the work proceeded. The eastern walk was the first to be built. We come to it from the south aisle of the cathedral through a beautiful doorway of 1299, its pointed arch resting on seven slender shafts at each side. Across the mouldings of the arch is a splendid series of seven figures in relief under leafy arches, all in colour and gold.

As we stand on the seven steps leading from this Prior’s Doorway to the floor of the cloister, we gasp with amazement at the inspiring sight of the two walks in our view, the east and the north. They are like avenues of stone trees touched with bronze, russet, and gold, with clustered shafts for trunks, vaulting for overhanging boughs, and glorious coloured bosses hanging as if they might be fruit or flowers. By the Prior’s Doorway, with an arch which is one of the masterpieces of medieval art, are three big recesses which served as book cupboards. Beyond is the rich arch of a 14th-century doorway which led to the slype, and then come the three traceried bays which opened to the vanished chapter house. In the charming south-west corner of the cloister is the doorway which once led to the refectory that adjoined the south walk; and just within the west walk are the two beautiful bays where the monks washed their hands. The two tomb-like tables are richly carved on the front with entwining vines, and are hollowed on top for the water; the arches are carved with figures in roundels of tracery, and all of it shines with colour. In the back of each recess are three battered niches which have lost their old statues, but in two of them are now fine figures of George the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth, both wearing crowns and ermine robes. In niches close to them are small statues of George the Fifth and Queen Mary, finely sculptured by Gilbert Ledward. Very striking are two bosses here, showing Our Lord in Glory with the heavenly host, and a knight at the castle gate, a crowd standing in the battlements, and faces peeping from windows.

The cloistcr bosses, like those of the nave, are an unending delight. Those of the east walk illustrate the story of the Gospel and the Four Evangelists; those of the south and west walks have scenes from Revelation; and legendary subjects are treated in the north walk, on the wall of which is a great modern display of heraldry.

The Monk’s Door leads from the cathedral to the west walk, in which there is a doorway to the choir school. The upper storey of the cloistcr may have been built for the little studies where the monks did their literary work. One of the rooms has been made into the cathedral library, and here is a collection of rare old books and manuscripts. Among them is the Berners Book, printed on the Caxton press by Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton’s clever foreman. The smudgy pictures of heraldry are some of the first examples of colour printing. There is a 15th-century prayer-book, brilliantly illuminated. A few of the 7000 books have original wooden covers.

From the south-west of the cloister is a lovely view of the cathedral, beyond the green garth and the walks; but there is no more attractive near view of it than from Life’s Green, the secluded retreat round the east end, hemmed in by old houses and trees, where the birds are singing and the city is lost to sight. It may have been a graveyard for the monks; now it is the resting-place of Edith Cavell. A simple cross marks her grave, and a few words tell us that she gave her life for her country. She lies close to the chapel raised in memory of those who died for us in the Great War, in the shadow of impressive Norman walls with tiers of arches and windows. In this quiet place, to which her body was brought with the return of peace, the mind runs back to those days in the first year of the war, when she was nursing the wounded, Germans and Belgians, too, and when, driven by the sight of free men turned to slaves, she dared to risk her life by sheltering Belgians from the Army hacking its way through their country. Caught in an act of war, she was arrested and sentenced to death in spite of the protests of the ambassadors of neutral lands, and one autumn night in 1915 she was led into a garden and shot. The shot rang round the world and thrilled men’s hearts with pity, but her last words, which we read in this corner of Norwich, ring round the world still and thrill every Englishman with pride:

Standing as I do, in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough; I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone.

It was the supreme lesson of the war which was only then beginning and was to run for four long years, and it was spoken in that bitter hour by a daughter of Norwich in the hands of her country’s enemies and beyond all help. It is fitting that she should lie here in the serenity of Life’s Green, far from strife and bitterness, with the homage of her own people about her, and in the shadow of this incomparable citadel of our English spirit.

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