what they collected became an important supplement to the winter larder. Children also stayed at home to pick acorns, which they sold to the gamekeeper as feed for his pheasants. Girls particularly were kept at home to look after younger siblings while their mother had yet more, or went out to work to supplement the family income.
In I Walked by Night Fred tells of a young vicar who came to the parish and took a great interest in the village lads, organising a night school and games to keep them occupied. He himself was reluctant to go, fearing he might be preached at:
But I did go in the end and I do not think he ever gave me a word of that sort, just treated me kindly. True he wold some times talk to me for my good, and some People thought I was getten better and quieter, but I am sorry to say I was some thing like the Smugglers and the Self rightus People; I was working in the dark as much as possible.
The vicar was John Samuel Broad, MA, who took over from the Revd. St John Mitchell in 1875, when Fred would have been 13. A new man, full of zeal to win over his flock, it was with his encouragement that Fred gained a love of reading and writing.
Fred’s first job at the age of 13 was with farmer Thomas Paul, of Ashwood Lodge, Pentney, as the ‘copper hole Jack’ or ‘back’ us [back house] boy’. Paul owned 850 acres and employed twenty-six labourers and nine boys on the land. Fred’s role was to light fires, carry wood and generally run errands issued from the back door. Paul was churchwarden at Pentney for fifty-six years; his wife and daughters were regular worshippers and pillars of the community. Fred was sure he got the job (perhaps the vicar asked Paul and his family to take him under their wing?), so they could keep an eye on him, but mostly his eyes were elsewhere.
He had been poaching since the age of 9. Despite a flogging from his father when he showed him a hare that he had snared, he had caught the bug. Now he poached whenever he could, selling hares to the fish hawker, who took them through to Lynn Market that he attended twice a week.
But Fred was unable to settle to the life that many of his fellow villagers were content with, staying all their lives in the same place with one job, marrying locally and perhaps venturing to King’s Lynn only once or twice a year. He wanted excitement and soon tired of being under the watchful eyes of Farmer Paul’s spinster daughters, so he took a job as pageboy to a shepherd. This was much more to his liking, for there he could poach to his heart’s content. During times when he was not required by the shepherd, he was put to work cutting turnips and working in the fields; there he watched and listened, and perfected the art of poaching. Whether he became cocksure or careless is debatable, but inevitably the long arm of the law eventually caught up with him.
CHAPTER 3
1882 Prison
Game Trespass – Frederick Rolfe labourer, Pentney was summonsed by John Bell, Gamekeeper, Narborough with trespassing in the day time on Pentney middle common, in search of game, on 21st October. – Bell stated that he saw defendant on the common with a pair of rabbits, each of which had a snare round its neck. Some snares had been set near to where defendant was standing. Defendant threw the rabbits away upon p.c. Flint approaching him, and also ran away, but was caught by the officer. – Flint stated that at 5.45 a.m. on the day in question he was with Bell on the common. Saw defendant going to a rabbit snare which was set. He approached witness within 5 or 6 yards, and witness spoke to him, whereupon he ran away. He had a rabbit in each hand, which he threw away. Each rabbit had a snare on its neck. Witness called out to him, and he said: “As long as you know it is me it is no use my running away.” He then returned and took a snare out of his pocket.
Defendant was fined 10/- and 13/- costs, and in default he was sent to Norwich castle for 14 days.
Grimston Petty Sessions, 6 November 1882, report from the Lynn Advertiser.
The Docking Divisional Court records and prison entries show that Prisoner 8901 Frederick Rolfe served his time with hard labour in lieu of payment of a fine of £1 15s 6d, which is at variance with the press report. If the second figure is correct, then his fine and costs would have amounted to about three and a half week’s wages. Fred’s education was listed as Imp., presumably meaning it was imperfect; he was 5 ft 4½ in tall, with brown eyes and his religion was entered as Church of England. He was released on 19 November 1882.
More importantly, this shows that Fred was 20 when he first went to prison. The court record (1882) shows he had no previous offences. Devotees of I Walked by Night will know this is much older than he led them to believe; in the book, Fred refers to himself as a lad and a boy, but in fact does not give his age. However, the blurb on the back of some editions states that he went to prison for the first time at the age of 12. How and when this inaccuracy came about is uncertain, but it has until now gone down as fact and is regularly quoted in historical records, books and academic papers as an example of the treatment of child prisoners.
An entire chapter of I Walked by Night is devoted to Fred’s time in prison and the daily routine and food are described in great detail:
Then came diner, wich was one pint and a half of stirabout, composed of one pint of oatmeal, and half a pint of maze meal put in the oven and baked.
He also recalls the system of rewards-marks for which prisoners could earn money and the very hard work of being on the treadmill from 9am to 12 noon and from 1pm to 4pm. Incidentally, the word ‘Screw’ (meaning a prison warder) comes from how tightly the screw was turned on the treadmill; the tighter it was, the harder the prisoner had to push as he walked on endlessly. Following this, oakum was picked until bed at 8 pm. Fred states that food improved after the first fortnight. This may well be an inaccurate recollection because he says that he was inside for a month when in fact it was only fourteen days. The fear and feeling of humiliation were certainly seared into his memory and he remembers much of the detail, including his cell, the suit covered all over with a broad arrow, the kindness of his turnkey (prison warder) and the role of the Church in trying to reform prisoners. In Fred’s case, prison did not reform him for he came to hate authority and made a vow that he would be as black as they painted him.
Norwich Castle is on a site that has housed prisoners since 1165. From the fourteenth century, its importance as a military building declined and prisoners were kept in the increasingly tumbledown keep. By 1698, there were complaints about the bad state of repair, which made it easy for prisoners to escape. Repairs costing £1,303 0s 1d were put in hand in 1707, the battlements being removed to provide stone for the repairs. The money to finance this was raised from the rates of the Norfolk Hundreds.
Originally, groups of people were literally gathered in hundreds and formed into administrative areas with their own court; even today we still have administrative areas known as ‘Hundreds’. By the latter part of the eighteenth century, a brick building was built within the four walls of the castle for felons and debtors. This included a bathhouse, a hospital and a chapel with a pump house in the yard for the prisoners’ use.
Over the next 160 years, in keeping with society’s changing ideas, various reformers tried to make prisons more humane. During this period the head gaoler paid the County to hold the post; he then earned his living by selling provisions, including wine, to inmates. Families of prisoners were allowed to bring food in, which was fine for those with loved ones and money to support them, but others less fortunate were reduced to begging at the gates and living on donated scraps. The expression ‘life on a shoe string’ came about because debtors used to beg from upper windows by lowering their boots by the laces for people to put coins in. Additional money could be earned from various tasks, such as making laces, garters, purses, nets, etc. At one stage spinning wheels were provided for the prisoners, and gaolers shared any resulting profits. Gaolers also made money
