Other Norfolk dulcimer players
There are many Norfolk dulcimer players for whom we have only a passing reference or just a few details, or who cannot be positively identified.
BINDLEY, Thomas and Minnie – Norwich
In 1897, a dulcimer with a ‘good tone’ was advertised for sale at 59 Churchill Road, Norwich. For a short while, no. 59 was occupied by Thomas (1859-1944) and Minnie (1865-) Bindley. Thomas had started life as a bell-hanger but followed his father into the gas fitting and plumbing trade. He and Minnie moved house within the Sprowston Road / Magdalen Road are with alarming regularity throughout the 1890s and 1900s and eventually, at the age of 60, emigrated to Detroit. He had periods out of work and Minnie lost three children in the 1890s, so maybe times were hard and the dulcimer was a luxury that need to be sold.
CHAPMAN, Mr – Cawston
One of the many players remembered by Billy Bennington was ‘Parson’ ( a nickname rather than his occupation I think) Chapman. Billy told us that Chapman was from Cawston and played in Cromer in the summer. He had a peg-leg and moustache, but unfortunately official documentation doesn’t mention such details and I haven’t been able to identify him further.
HALES, Herbert – Hockering (maybe Bawburgh?)
One of the many players remembered by Billy Bennington was Herbert Hales. Billy recalled him living in the Hockering area, and in 1939 there was a Herbert Hales living in Bawburgh, a deputy manager in the shoe trade. He was born in the Lakenham area of Norwich in 1885 and died in 1959, but I can’t be certain this was the same person referred to by Billy Bennington.
MARTIN, Maisie – Brockdish / Downham Market
Mrs Maisie Martin (1913-2010) contacted us a couple of times, and David Kettlewell had met her in the 1970s and photographed her dulcimer for his book “All the Tunes that Ever there Were”. Maisie (née Ellis) was brought up in Brockdish near Diss, and she wrote that ‘one or two families there had a dulcimer, a Mr Hines who lived in Common Lane, made dulcimers in the early 1920s.’ This would have been James Hines.
In the 1930s, Maisie and her husband Fred moved to Downham Market near King’s Lynn. In the 1960s she had bought a dulcimer for 7s 6d at Hawkins’ sale in Downham Market, but she says she never played it seriously – ‘I did not have the cane and wool hammers, but small wood ones, which are really too heavy.’
MATTHEWS, Charles – Pulham St Mary / Poringland
A chance find on a blog in 2020: Joe Mason wrote: ‘My next door neighbour at Poringland, Mrs Matthews, told me that her husband (a builder by trade who died in the early 1960s) had been a competent player of the hammered dulcimer. Although I remember the man unfortunately I never heard him play.’
Mason’s next door neighbour was Henry Charles Matthews (1894-1960) who worked as a bricklayer throughout his life and served in the Royal Artillery in the First World War.
RODGER, Brian ( and Jimmy – Norwich / Glasgow & Great Yarmouth
In 1972 Brian Rodger (b.1947) wrote to the Eastern Daily Press newspaper suggesting that he was probably the youngest dulcimer player in Norfolk at that time! His dulcimer was of typical East Anglian design with four strings to a course and twenty chessman bridges and he played with cane beaters. Little is known about Brian apart from that he worked in Norwich as a nurse.
His father, Jimmy Rodger (1921-1975), was from Glasgow, and so, by coincidence, had moved from one dulcimer area to another. David Kettlewell interviewed (and recorded) him in 1975 when he was living in Great Yarmouth but by then he had stopped playing regularly as the dulcimer ‘did not contribute to domestic concord’. His instrument and style of playing were both definitely more Scottish than East Anglian; his dulcimer having fixed interval bridges, and he played with hard wooden hammers.
SADLER, Albert – East Dereham
In 2010 we were emailed some photos of a dulcimer which had been owned by one Albert Sadler, from East Dereham, by a relative.
Family relationships and dates seem to have become a little muddled over the years, as is so often the case. Among the few certainties were that the Albert referred to by our informant lived at 6 Crown Road in Dereham and worked in the brewing industry, and indeed there was an Albert Sadler (1871-1956) resident there from at least 1911 to 1939 who was a maltster, but puzzling it out a bit further, we believe it’s likely to have been his son Albert William Sadler (1894-1981), who had been born in Dereham, but moved to London as a young adult and died in Barnet, who passed the dulcimer on to our informant. Which generation it was who played the instrument is not really certain.
Sampson, William – Norwich
David Kettlewell noted that there was a dulcimer which had belonged to William Sampson in the Stranger’s Hall Museum in Norwich. When we went to look at the Norfolk Museums’ Services dulcimers in 2005, there was nothing to identify the previous owners of the instruments.
Yet again we have multiple generations of the same family with the same name! William Thomas Davey Sampson (1) (1828-1906), Thorpe Hamlet, bricklayer; William Davey Sampson (2) (1861-1954), Thorpe Hamlet, sub postmaster; William Davey Sampson (3) (1902-1975), Thorpe Hamlet, electrical engineer, moved to Oulton Broad in later life.
The dulcimer is likely to have been donated after William Davey Sampson (3) died, but we have no way of knowing if any of the other generations had played it previously. Maybe a relative will read this and know more.
Sayer, Ted – Beetley / North Tuddenham / Norwich
Researcher Chris Holderness met Ted Sayer’s son in 2015, who told him that his father Ted Sayer, who had been landlord of the New Inn in Beetley between 1951 and 1958, had played the dulcimer.
Genealogical research suggests that Edward James Sayer (1897-1979) was born and brought up in North Tuddenham where he started work on a local farm as a young lad and then became a bricklayer. He lived and worked in Norwich in his twenties and by 1939 he and his wife and five children were living in one of the new council houses in North Tuddenham. In later life it looks as if he moved to Norwich where he was listed in the telephone directory for 1976 as living on Earlham Green Road. Nothing is known about his instrument or his playing.
SMITH, William – East Harling
In 1889 William Smith was taken to court for non-payment for a dulcimer bought from Elijah Green in Mellis. (Ipswich Journal, 5.4.1889)
In 1891 there were three William Smiths in East Harling, one aged 6, one aged 15, and one aged 36. There was also a William G. Smith b. East Harling aged 42, living elsewhere in Norfolk, but he had already moved away from E.H. before 1881. So “our” William Smith was born in December 1864, and in 1889 was an agricultural labourer living on Kenninghall Road, unmarried, with his widowed mother and twin sister. He married in 1897, but nothing is known of his later life and whether he continued to play the dulcimer which had cost him a bit more than expected.
TOFTS, Mr F. – Kenninghall
At a Wesleyan Chapel social gathering held in early January 1894, a Mr. F. Tofts played a dulcimer solo and sang the comic song ‘Father of a Family’ (Diss Express, 5 January 1894).
No Tofts (or spelling variants) have been found in Kenninghall itself; the only likely contender seems to be Frederick Tofts (1875-1927) who was born in Mattishall and became a baker, confectioner and grocer, moving to Hingham sometime in the 1890s. He would therefore very likely have known Frederick Cooper, who was a bandmaster and dulcimer player there, and his son, the famous dulcimer player Billy Cooper.
TURRELL, Billy – Welborne
Billy Turrell was another player mentioned to us by Billy Bennington, who said he lived in Welborne. So far the most likely candidate seems to be William Turrell, b c.1890, born in Wicklewood and working as a farm labourer in Hackford near Attleborough by 1911. Despite looking under different spellings, nothing more concrete has turned up so far, although there are a number of William Turrells, Tyrells and Terrells in Yarmouth and Norwich.
WATLING, Charles – Norwich
“Selections on the dulcimer were given with marked ability by Mr. Charles Watling, with pianoforte accompaniment.” (Norwich Mercury, 17 December 1902). There are several men by this name who might have been the dulcimer player mentioned.
WHALL, “Chucky” – Norwich
A dulcimer player known as ‘Chucky’ Whall busked in Norwich in the 1920s, setting the dulcimer up on a stand outside Knights the bakers on Waterloo Road and then collecting around the shops. He played with two sticks, wrapped in velvet, in each hand. Our informant told us that ‘Chucky’ had a son known as ‘Chucky’ Robinson who was a champion lightweight boxer, who had said that his father had played at the Royal Albert Hall. There was another son known as ‘Bubbles’ Whall, also a boxer who later became a landlord in Norwich.
It is the boxer ‘Chucky’ Robinson who has provided the clue to a provisional identification of this dulcimer player, thanks to the fact that his boxing history is documented through the newspapers of the 1930s and 40s. So we presently think that ‘Chucky’ Whall was Herbert Walter (aka Wallis) Whall, born 1896, who was the boxer’s stepfather. However, not everything in this jigsaw fits well together, so it’s still not entirely a positive identification.
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