Philip Yaxley’s article and photo in the February edition of the Wymondham Magazine about No. 11 Market Place, now the home of Kett’s Books, prompted a search to piece together the earlier history of one of the town’s most prominent buildings.
Robert Everett was born in Wymondham in 1744 into a Quaker family and married Elizabeth, a local girl from Diss in 1768. She died in 1775 leaving him with a daughter also named Elizabeth. Some while later he remarried to Sarah, and we know from his will, made in 1827, that he and Sarah were living in No.11 by then. Robert died in 1834 and is buried at the Wymondham Friends Burial Ground at Chapel Bell. Both his birth and death are recorded in the records of the Society of Friends. He was a wealthy man, having traded as a shopkeeper from what are now Nos. 9 & 10 Wymondham Market Place and currently occupied by Chips Away and the opticians, Cecil Amey.
Following Robert’s death, and having given in his will a life interest to his wife Sarah and after she died his sons Jonathan and Robert junior, his properties were put up for auction in several lots on 1st July 1836.
No 11 was described in the auction particulars as a “Mansion being in a commanding situation in the Market Place; most substantially built, and conveniently arranged for a large family, having extensive offices, with servants’ sleeping rooms over the same, stable, yard and garden, in the occupation of Mrs Everett.”
The property at that time was a square site bounded by Everett’s shop on one side and Fairland Street on the other. At the back was the rear passage leading to the Queen’s Head, as it is today. Intriguingly, the 1836 auction particulars include a comment, “Copyhold of the Manor of Wymondham Grishaugh, all that messuage copyhold, built, sometime two messuages situate in or near the Market Hill”. This perhaps indicates that the present house was built during Robert’s ownership on the site of those two properties or possibly incorporating some of their parts.
The property either did not sell or was withdrawn. It was offered for sale again on 18th May 1849 when No 11 sold for £400 to Mrs Sophia Ann Jones.
Sophia Ann Jones was the widow of the Rev. Daniel Jones who had been the Vicar of Wymondham from 1836 until his death in 1848. She lived there for the next 24 years with a couple of servants and sundry lodgers, dying at the goodly age of 75 years on the 7th of February 1872.
Mrs Jones was the sister of William Robert Clarke of Wattlefield Hall and Edward Palmer Clarke a prominent local solicitor living in Vicar Street. As a result of various wills and deaths, the property was inherited in 1872 by Julia de Roubigne Beevor Clarke, the widow of Edward Palmer Clarke, who promptly put it up for sale. The house was bought that year by Francis John Howlett, a solicitor.
Francis was born on 12th May 1836 and by the time of the 1841 Census, he was living with his parents on a farm at Bawburgh. 10 years later he was studying at a school in Upper Surrey Street, Norwich with 18 other boys. This was run by the Rev. John Perowne, Rector of St Johns Maddermarket in Norwich from 1835 to 1863. The education at his school must have been exceptional since three of Perowne’s sons followed him into the priesthood. John ended up as Bishop of Worcester, Thomas became Rector of Redenhall and an Archdeacon of Norwich and Edward (who was curate to his father at St John’s during Francis Howlett’s time there) became Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, and a Royal Chaplain.
On the 5th of January 1854, young Francis signed the Articles of Clerkship with Norwich Solicitor and former Mayor of Norwich, William Rackham. Unfortunately, Rackham died in October of that year and Francis would have needed a new principal, possibly one of Rackham’s younger partners. In 1859 he completed his articles and was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors. By the 1861 Census, he was living somewhere in Wymondham Market Place and unmarried. Business must have been doing well since in 1862 his young brother became articled to him, and he too must have prospered since he is recorded in1895 as a partner in a London firm and was Francis’s London Agent. By the 1871 Census, he was back with his parents at Hall Farm Bawburgh and still, at the age of 34, unmarried. In 1872, he completed the purchase of 11 Market Place.
In November 1875, the Norfolk News recorded Francis removing his office from Market Place to his newly built office in Fairland Street opposite Back Lane (Friarscroft Lane today) and a year later, he married Mary Jane Millburne in Bromley, Kent. Children soon followed and the 1881 census recorded him living there with Mary Jane and three children Frank (age 4), Julia (age 3) and Edward (age 2) as well as three staff. A fourth child, Emily followed a year later and a fifth, John in 1890.
Frank pursued an eminent career as an entomologist, eventually becoming an Imperial Pathological Entomologist in India. Julia married another solicitor, John Empson Toplis Pollard from Norwich who eventually took over the Wymondham business. Julia died in 1925 and John in 1953. Edward became a planter in India and died of malaria there in 1916. Emily sadly died in the influenza epidemic of 1892. Local photographer Henry Cushing was asked to take a photograph of the dead girl, a not-unusual custom of the time. John studied at Cambridge University & joined the 7th Norfolk Regiment in World War I where he saw action in France and Malaya. He became a Captain and was awarded the Military Cross. He survived and became a colonial official, dying in 1956.
Francis Howlett died in 1894 from the effects of a stroke, but the business carried on round the corner in Fairland Street. Two years after Francis’s death Kelly’s Directory lists Frederick Edward Groom trading as Howlett & Groom in Fairland Street so Francis must have taken Groom into partnership sometime before his death. By 1904, the firm had become Newton & Pollard. This was Frederick Hawkins Newton who had been practicing in Church Street since at least 1892 and John Empson Toplis Pollard who had qualified in 1887 married Francis’s daughter Julia in 1897 and been carrying on business in Norwich & Acle. Various partners came and went but the firm was still practising in Fairland Street in 1937.
Francis’s widow carried on living in 11 Market Place until at least 1911 and eventually died on 16th July 1922 at the home of her daughter Julia in Thorpe Road Norwich.
In 1924 the house was sold to William Salkeld Hall: an auctioneer and estate agent who had been trading in Watton and Wymondham since at least 1915. It remains in the Hall family ownership to this day and is currently leased to Kett’s Books.
