William Couzens (1879-1949)
William Thomas Couzens grew up on Earlham Road, on the western edge of Norwich. He spent his early working life as a groom, and in 1911 he was working at Ashwellthorpe Hall where his future wife, Isabella Wright was a parlourmaid. They then moved back to Earlham Road where they stayed for many more years, and William found work as an insurance agent.
He bought a dulcimer at a house clearance sale in Norwich Corn Hall in the 1920s-30s, but according to family members, he wasn’t really very musical and didn’t get on well with it, so it went away in the attic.
There it stayed until 2005, when his grandaughter contacted us. Inside is a typewritten label which appears to say Mr W. Dennington – although it is more than likely to be Bennington, indicating that it was one of many instruments to have been through the hands of the master player Billy Bennington, who tuned and repaired dulcimers for other people as well as playing himself.
William Couzens’ dulcimer
A diagram of this instrument may be seen on the Dimensions page.
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