Norwich University of East Anglia, King’s Lynn-born Dr Hassell Smith, Fakenham Grammar School – Lynn News Wensum column

Wensum Fakenham area column, August 1, by Jim Harding

It’s fair to say that when I enrolled for a history degree which included landscape archaeology I had little idea what might be involved.

But thanks to a couple of brilliant teachers at UEA I was quickly entranced by the subjects which helped me enjoy learning much more about the terrain and a good deal more about the medieval history of Norfolk. This was a part-time arrangement for so-called mature students, mainly those who were in employment but allowed one day off a week to attend the university.

We were pioneers of a sort back then in the 1980s. The then head of Fakenham Grammar School, Ian Anderson, had supported my plea to enrol for the degree. I was reminded of this experience when learning that Volume V11 of the Nathaniel Bacon Papers had recently been published.

The endeavour to track down the legacy of this particular justice of the peace had been the main preoccupation of one of our tutors, Dr Hassell Smith. He it was who quickly enrolled us new students into the world of Nathaniel Bacon, whose principal home was in Stiffkey Hall up on the north Norfolk coast.

The long life of this county magistrate included close connections to royalty, with the Bacon Papers painting a descriptive picture of court life during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Along with Bacon’s regional responsibilities as a J.P. and magistrate across a broad cross-section of our region. Before long we students were relating to an entirely different world and trying our best to understand what life might have been like in that era for both the rich and the poor.

One of my best memories is of a day spent at Stiffkey Hall itself, wandering around the gardens and sizing up the building and all it represented. Also trying to picture the changes in the surrounding landscape over the previous centuries. With Dr Hassell Smith as our guide it was a fascinating experience.

A happy conclusion to those four intense years was that all ten or so of us students were successful in passing, with the degree certificates handed out at a presentation ceremony in the sports hall at UEA in the summer of 1987.

My young son joined my wife and myself for the occasion and has remembered it ever since thanks to the generous supply of fresh strawberries laid out at the reception afterwards. I think he got his priorities spot on.

Dr Hassell Smith, who died at the age of 87, was born in Lynn and attended the town’s King Edward VII Grammar school. He read history at University College London and received a doctorate with a thesis on 16th century local government in Norfolk. He was the founder of UEA’s Centre for East Anglian Studies which aims to ‘encourage the academic study of all aspects of East Anglian life past and present.’

My university days may now be over but I am incredibly grateful to have known Dr Hassell Smith and learnt so much from his considerable expertise.