FORGOTTEN LETTERS YIELD UP HALESWORTH HISTORY
Book launch of “The Lincolne Letters”, extracts from the letters of the Lincolne family, the owners of the shop which was to be Coe’s and then house Boots.
‘Uncle Billy’s Box’ sat overlooked in a Southwold flat for decades. An old 1st World War ammunition box, due to be discarded as part of a decluttering exercise, it was opened in 2015. Inside lay over 200 letters exchanged among members of the Lincolne family who came to Halesworth in 1816 to run what was to be Halesworth’s biggest store, a drapery and grocery business on the Market Place.
Luckily Helen Wolvey, a descendant of the Lincolne family, was intrigued. As she opened the thin, folded sheets of paper, some of them almost 250 years old, she realised she was now in possession of a treasure. She has spent the last six years teasing out the difficult handwriting to uncover the stories they reveal.
Now, with co-author David Wollweber, she has brought the story of the Lincolne family in Halesworth back to life in a book due to be published this month by the Halesworth & District Museum. As leading citizens of the town and strong Congregational Church members, the Lincolnes were well placed to observe the comings and goings, the ups and downs of the town’s life before and during Victoria’s reign. Indeed, the young Queen’s coronation, as celebrated in Halesworth with a dinner of cold roast beef and plum pudding for 1200 poor people served up on tables along the length of the Thoroughfare, is one of the events vividly recorded by Mrs Lincolne. The fund-raising for the new Congregational Church in Quay Street (now the URC) and its grand opening, battles with the Rector over the church bells at St Mary’s, letters home from boarding school in Beccles and much more about life in the town are brought to life, alongside comments on national politics and events and some heart-warming and sometimes tragic records of life, courtship, marriage and death in the family.
Chair of the Halesworth Museum Trustees, Pauline Wilcock, is excited by the forthcoming publication. “It’s quite thrilling for a small museum like ours to be given the opportunity to publish what is by a long stretch the most lively and far-reaching account of the town’s life in past times we have come across. I’m sure readers will be as surprised as I was to find how vividly the lives of the Lincolnes and the life of Halesworth leap off the page.”
‘The Lincolne Letters’ will be launched as part of the Two Rivers Book Festival on Saturday September 11th. Local drama group, Circle 67, will be giving two performances of a short play based on the family and their letters, with introductions by Helen Wolvey and David Wollweber. These will be staged in the United Reformed Church, Quay Street at 11.30am and again at 7.30pm. Tickets will be available on the door at £6 (for Friends of the Halesworth Museum £3).
“Historical perspectives on the Lincolne Letters”
Dave Wollweber will also be giving a free talk on the historical perspective of the letters at The Cut as part of the Heritage Open Days event on Saturday 18th September at 10am. This will cover events such as Coronations, the 1832 Reform Act, Corn Laws, Penny Post, Trade in Halesworth, Non Conformism in the Town as well as a bit of gossip!
Copies of the book will be available on both occasions and also at the Museum and the Halesworth Bookshop.
