TH E JOU RNAL OF B RE CKLAND ST U D IE S (2017)
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The Diary of Frank Norgate (1842–1919) Barbara Pritchard When shooting our young Rooks we bagged one of a bluish grey colour, without any black, (I stuffed it) at Sparham Rectory. The very first entry, 10 May 1858.
The inscription inside the cover of Frank Norgate’s diary, which runs from 1858 to 1902 and comprises more than a thousand pages, is most apt: “What is hit is history. What is missed is mystery.” In literal terms the diary represents countless killings. As an aphorism it reflects the lifestyle of someone who, despite his chronic asthma, wasted no opportunity to meticulously observe, record and share with others his wide-ranging observations and findings of the natural world and man’s creative use of its resources. Norgate penned his first entry in the hefty tome that became Volume 1 when he was 15 years old. The final entry, just before his 60th birthday, left much of Volume 2 blank and presented no obvious reason for the cessation. Entries, however, span his 45 years as an active field naturalist, 25 based in Sparham just north of the Brecks, five at their very heart in Downham (in Suffolk, then distinguished from Santon, just across the Little Ouse in Norfolk), and 15 in Bury St Edmunds from which he explored the southern Brecks. “The vast warrens of the ‘Breck’, the woods and water-meadows of the valley of the Little Ouse, and the neighbouring Fenland between them made an ideal training ground for a naturalist.” 1 Norgate’s obituary in British Birds Vol. Xlll June 1919, judged him “one of Norfolk’s most painstaking and accomplished field naturalists”, asserting “it is a pity that Norgate’s notes and observations have not been placed in permanent book form by him, his extreme modesty making him content to impart his knowledge to others.” This remains the case and still waits to be done, this paper hopefully going some way to gaining recognition for Frank Norgate and the value of his observations, especially regarding Breckland’s ecology and archaeology. They make fascinating reading on many levels and his often tiny ink drawings throughout are both informative and charming. Moreover, the diary is an important historical resource as yet largely untapped and freely accessible at Norfolk Record Office. I first came across the diary in 2014 while transcribing selected pages for The Breckland Society’s Flint in the Brecks project, within the Heritage Landscape Partnership’s Breaking New Ground scheme for The Brecks. With its many flint references, the diary was discovered at Norfolk Record Office (MC 175/12–13, 638X2) by retired archivist and Breckland Society member Kelvin Smith. Revisiting its pages, I wanted to know more about Norgate himself, finding that as the eldest son of Canon Thomas Starling Norgate, Frank lived at Sparham Rectory until 1882 when he married Helen Marian Golding Bird (‘H’ in the diary) 1
Wollaston, A.F.R (1921) regarding Alfred Newton (1829–1907) growing up at Elveden Hall, Suffolk. Life of Alfred Newton: late Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Cambridge University 1866–1907, p.4.
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