Official Guide to North Walsham 2023-2024

142 North Walsham Town Guide
Historic Plaques around the Town Centre
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TOWN COUNCIL
& NNCT OFFICES
up to 1600. The union grew to become the
National Union of Agricultural & Allied Workers
with 2,900 branches and 100,000 members.
He had no schooling and was taught to read
by his wife. He became a county councillor in
1906, a Member of Parliament for South Norfolk
by 1920 and was knighted in 1930. Sir George
Edwards, MP, OBE, died on December 7th 1933
and is buried in Fakenham. A special staircase
was built at the rear of the Angel to allow them
to reach the meeting room without going
through the bar. On May 1st 1982 the Union
merged with the Transport & General Workers
Union within which was a new trade group
for the Agricultural and Allied Membership.
In March 2001, Bill Morris, the then General
Secretary of TGWU visited North Walsham to
unveil a plaque in Edwards’ memory.
In 2005 to mark Rotary’s centenary, North
Walsham Rotarians, led by President Derrick
Hankin created a town trail of 11 plaques
identifying places of interest and people of
significance in the history of our town.
The plaques are numbered as they appear on
the map.
1. Angel Hotel, Aylsham Road.
(now Angel Court.)
It was in the back room of the Angel Hotel,
which stood on this site, that George Edwards
founded the Eastern Counties Agricultural
Labourers’ & Smallholders’ Union on July 20th
1906. Born at Marsham in 1850, he began work
as a crow-scarer and in the 1890s was active in
local Union affairs. A General Election in 1906
saw the Tories soundly beaten by the Liberals
and Tory landowners sacked many farmworkers
suspected of having radical views which led to
George Edwards being approached to form a
Union. Over the ensuing months he organized
80 meetings which brought the membership
2. Scarburgh House, Market Street
The Skarburgh (there are several spellings
recorded) family are first recorded in the area as
early as 1447 and by 1572 were well established
land owners. In 1605 Henry was first to be
designated as ‘Henry Scarburgh, Gentleman
of North Walsham’. The family coat of arms is
displayed to this day on the outer wall of the
house. This Henry had four sons, Edmund,
Henry, Samuel and John. Edmund was the
father of Charles Scarburgh born c1616 who
remained in England when his father emigrated