Elijah & Cecil Ely

Billy Bennington named them as makers and players, commenting that ‘Eli’ worked at Page’s wood factory in Wymondham and their dulcimers were ‘home-made’, rather thick and that Cecil’s instrument was made by someone else (possibly Marshall). In 2005, Des Miller from Rig-a-Jig Norfolk Music History group was in touch with the family who still had a dulcimer and two fiddles in their possession.

Elijah (1875-1952) and his son Cecil Ely, aka Watts/ Cowles (1895-1969) both worked as wood sawyers for Pages’, which was actually a brush factory employing a large proportion of the local population, and Wymondham was quite a centre for wood-turning. Cecil married in his forties, by which time he was working as a horticultural labourer.

Billy Bennington also mentioned a Jack Ely, but we have not yet identified who he was.

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