An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 73 eldest son in bis picture of May morning on Magdalen Tower, and the flowers which formed the garland were from my Pntney garden. The weather this year right up to June was the vilest I ever remember, and I shall never forgetjonrneying in an open trap to Scoulton Mere on the 17th May in a Yeritable snow and hail storm which agreed weirdly with the white wing· of the innumerable gulls. In this year I was asked to take up the Hickling :Sroad case which turned on two questions, one whether the tide regularly ebbed and fl.owed there, in which case the public would have had the right of free fishing on it, and the other whether or not the public right to row and sail over it was limited, as wa · contended by the so-called "Broad Owner," or whether, as I showed, was a rio-ht 1.o sail or tack over the whole Broad. Some person· unwisely also claimed a public right to shoot over the Broad. The whole argument for and against was set out by me in a book published in 1892. The first aggressors had been Blofield of Hoveton, who chained up the two entrances of Hoveton, and Blake Humphrey, who got a conviction for a man fishing on Wroxham. The crass ignorance of facts both on the aggressor's part and of the judge, would have been amus– ing if it had not been painful and unjust. The judge, A. L. Smith, (r) in his judgment said that it was an inland lake not connected witll the river; and (2) that the only access to it from the river had a gate and chain across the entrance ! These very inconsistent statements showed that he could not have even read the case submitted to him, which ~pecially stated that the broad commuuicated with the river by two entrance.-, of which one was 15 or 16 feet wide, and the other wa. open and is about 50 or 60 feet wide. The Norfolk Broads Protection Society was formed and I acted as its Hon. Solicitor, and also started the funds with the gift of 100 guineas. The acting Committee were T. J. Woodrow (hon. sec.), M. Wilmer. and Nisbet, and we received very considerable support, including a handsome donation from the City of London, but we never had the fonds out of which to pay the heavy charges of the crack "professional expert witnes es" brought against us. The Judge· were very severe on our witnesses, calling them '' more or less expert witnesses," which they considered