An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 125 under Godfrey Hilder, a job he afterwards took on for awhile. On my return I heard of the death of C. H. Mason, one of the oldest members of the T.H. & H. Clnb, and a most able man of business-solicitor of the L. and N.W. Railway. During the year four of my old friends had died, viz., George Howick, C.H. Mason, P. M. Evans, and G. Bennett. This year (1902) I printed four books, viz., the Catalogue of the Art Exhibition at Norwich, the Bucken– ham Parish Register 1560-1641, an account of Norwich and the Broads for the "Quatuor Corona ti " Club, and extracts from the Corporation Records as to Masonry and Appren– ticeship for the same. Early in January, 1903, I was instrumental in getting returned to the Corporation a bundle of early documents which had been '' borrowed " from the Mnniment Room many years before. They included a most interesting Fabric Roll of tlle building of the present Norwich Guild– hall of 1390-1400, which was soon afterwards admirably edited for the N. & N.A.S. by my old school-fellow, R. Howlett, F.S.A. (Norf. Archy. xv., pp. 164-189). On the 24th I lectured on •·Folk-lore and Ghost Stories" at the Training College, and repeated it at Prince's Street Congregational Chapel soon after. Early in February I was able to obtain the loan for safe custody in the Castle Museum of the great map of Mousehold, temp. Elizabetb, and I had armorial qttarries of all owners of manors of Lammas, etc., made by Mr. G. A. King, and hung them up in my cottage there. This spring I tried to put some life into tlle N. & N.A.S., and on the 16th February handE:d in five notices of motion for tlle approach– ing General Meeting. On the 24th I lectured at Ea~t Dereham for Canon Arnold on '' Norfolk in the Olde11 Times" to a good audience. There having been au attempt to sell some doubtful old city plate to the Norwich Museum, I was privately told by Mr. Henry Birkbeck that he knew of another Elizabethan cup with a forged inscription. Years before I had exposed the Peg Pot said to have been presented by a Captain Conolly to the Corporation in 1681, which had been offered to the Corporation by a Piccadilly silver– smith (Eastern Counties' Collectauea, pp. I 54- I 58). K