Robert Kett Junior School pupils with (left) Kett historian Adrian Hoare, Kett Committee chair John Wood and Town Mayor Joe Mooney |
Local Hero Wymondham school children remember town’s local hero
There was proof in Wymondham that the town’s most famous historic figure is not forgotten by the rising generation.
A group of children from Robert Kett Junior School, elected members of the school council, walked from school to the town library on 7 December and laid flowers to mark the anniversary of the death of Wymondham's most famous local hero.
In a short ceremony the children put flowers under the plaque commemorating Kett's rebellion in 1549, when Robert Kett with his brother William led a rebellion against land enclosures.
The uprising was eventually put down by the King's armies, but only after several weeks of struggle in which the rebels held the City of Norwich. Robert Kett and his brother were hanged as traitors, but in more modern times their actions have been recognised as a brave bid for social justice and reform.
Local historian and Kett authority Adrian Hoare reminded the children about the reason for the ceremony, Town Mayor Joe Mooney represented the Town Council and John Wood from the Kett ’99 Committee organised the event.
Robert Kett Junior School Headteacher Malcolm Gray said: "We are always very pleased to take part in this ceremony. With our school named after Robert Kett it is important for the children to know about the historic events that took place over 450 years ago, and this helps to bring it all to life for them. Being involved in the annual ceremony means that we too have a special place in the history of our town.”
For more information please contact John Wood on 01953 602051
The Ketts’ part in the rebellion of 1549
The beginning of the story
On 6 and 7 July 1549, at Wymondham’s annual fair, there was heated discussion about the injustices of ‘enclosures’ by local landowners who were fencing off common land for their own use and excluding the local smallholders. The following day groups of discontented people began to pull down fences near Wymondham, then moved to Hethersett on to the land of John Flowerdew. Flowerdew had antagonised Robert Kett, a prosperous Wymondham farmer and businessman and an active member of the Abbey church community, at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1534, and the two men had recently quarrelled over land. Flowerdew paid the mob to return to Wymondham and pull down Kett’s fences.
Surprisingly Kett sympathised with the rebels’ cause and offered to lead them in their protest, starting with the fences that he had erected. They returned to Hethersett and destroyed the remaining enclosures there. Later Kett made a speech and became their unlikely leader.
Kett’s Oak
On 9 July a crowd gathered under an old oak tree on the road between Wymondham and Hethersett. Kett made another rousing speech, saying ‘I refuse not to sacrifice my substance, yea my very life itself, so highly do I esteem the cause in which we are engaged.’ He then set off to lead his followers to Norwich, and the Norfolk Rising or Kett’s Rebellion had begun.
Encampment, attack, battles defeat and retribution
A growing crowd marched to Norwich where they set up an orderly camp on Mousehold Heath, overlooking the city. They were joined by some 15,000 men from all over Norfolk. Throughout the period of the rebellion Kett displayed firm leadership, and acted with restraint and moderation. Refusing to accept that he was a rebel, he petitioned the King, whom he hoped would understand the rightfulness of his cause, but by the standards of Tudor England that was a vain hope.
After rejecting a royal pardon as he believed he was guilty of no crime, on 22 July Kett successfully attacked the city, which he held for nearly six weeks. The rebels defeated a royal army on 1 August. However, final defeat was inevitable, and it came in savage conflict at the battle of Dussindale on 27 August. Three thousand of Kett’s men were killed, and he was captured.
Robert Kett and his brother William, who had supported him throughout the rebellion, were imprisoned in the Tower of London, then tried and found guilty of treason on 29 November. They were taken back to Norwich, Robert was hanged at Norwich Castle and William from the West Tower of Wymondham Abbey on 7 December.
Better understanding in modern times
It took 400 years before Robert Kett was publicly recognised as other than a rebel and a traitor by the Norfolk community. In 1949 a plaque was erected beside the entrance to Norwich castle recording the events of 1549 ‘in reparation and honour to a notable and courageous leader in the long struggle of the common people of England to escape from a servile life into the freedom of just conditions.’
In the same year Kett’s Oak, still alive though now very elderly, was railed off and propped up. It still grows and produces acorns to this day
Fifty years later, in the course of a major ‘Kett 99’ weekend of celebrations in Kett’s home town, a plaque was unveiled on Wymondham Library commemorating Robert and William Kett. It was the first public memorial to the brothers in the town. It reads:
Seeking a fairer society in Norfolk, Robert Kett, supported by his brother William, led a rebellion of more than 15,000 people in 1549. The rising was crushed and over 3,000 died. On 7 December 1549 Robert was hanged for treason at Norwich Castle and William from Wymondham Abbey’s west tower. This plaque was erected in 1999 to remember the man and his struggle for a more just society in Norfolk.’
Annual celebration
On 11 December each year since the Kett 99 celebrations, pupils from Robert Kett Junior School have laid flowers under the town memorial outside Becket’s Chapel, a building which the Ketts would have known well and used regularly. This small public ceremony helps to keep alive the memory of the Ketts for each new generation of Wymondham children.
More information about the Ketts and 1549
Wymondham Heritage Museum has a display and a DVD presentation about Kett’s Rebellion and the Kett family trees.
The Museum can also supply the following books and pamphlets:
‘On the Trail of Robert Kett of Wymondham’ - Adrian and Ann Hoare (1996, 28pp)
‘In search of Robert Kett of Wymondham - a town walk guide with map
‘An Unlikely Rebel – Robert Kett and the Norfolk Rising’- Adrian Hoare (1999, 80pp)
‘The Wymondham Story’ (section on Kett) – Adrian Hoare (2004, 96pp)
‘Wymondham – History of a Norfolk Market Town’ (section on Kett) -
Wymondham Heritage Society (2006, 182pp