Hamond of Westacre

HMN 1/1-11 Title Deeds

HMN 2/1-7 Estate and Family

HMN 1-93 Estate

HMN 1-35 Family

HMN4/36-444 Anthony Hamond (1742-1822) and Sarah his wife

HMN 5/1-262 Later Hamonds and the Chaworth-Musters

HMN 6/1-383 Anthony Hamond (d.1991), personal

HMN 7/1-341 Anthony Hamond (d.1991), manuscript collections

<p>Many title deeds and estate papers passed to the Birkbeck family on their purchase of the Westacre Estate in 1898 and are in the Birkbeck of Westacre Collection in the Norfolk Record Office.</p>

Received by the Norfolk Record Office on 21 August 1975 and at other dates between 1964 and 1989 (MS 33586).

Norfolk Record Office 1996

Anthony Hamond: Personal Papers and Manuscript Collections

Beside purchasing and otherwise collecting archive material, Anthony Hamond acted as agent for the Norfolk Record Society in locating Norfolk records for deposit by the Society in the Norwich Central Library and its archival successor from 1963 the Norfolk Record Office. Some of these records stayed with his own papers and their original provenance was in due course forgotten. Most of these have been removed and returned to the collections from which they came, but an unidentifiable residue probably remains.

The material listed in this section is arranged by provenance as far as possible. The following table shows how AH acquired it so far as this is known.

7/1-160 formerly of Canon Lee Warner

7/172 (?) purchased Myers by Daniel Gurney and given to AH

7/174-185 from Peter Le Neve's collections; related material among Frere MSS in Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society Collection in Norfolk Record Office

7/186-7 from Lord Winterton's papers; purchased Alan Keene 1942

7/188 no. 79 in Gurney's sale (Sotheby 20/3/1936)

7/194 given to AH by W.B. Rix

7/195 from Moulton Collection; purchased Alan Keene

7/216 purchased at auction 1958, probably of effects of Mr. Marriott of Foster, Calvert and Marriott the Norwich solicitors

7/217 purchased Leonard Hyman (? 1959)

7/218-227 no. 219 purchased Myers 1956; the rest probably purchased at sales following the Townshend auctions of 1911 and 1924 except nos. 220-222 which seem to be from Peter Le Neve's collections and the next

7/224/1, 2 purchased Dobell probably 1941

7/229-242 purchased Dobell probably 1942

7/253-255 possibly Hare of Stow Bardolph documents

7/256 rescued in 1958 from a timber merchant at Brandon who was going to burn it

7/280 given to AH. by Eric Puddy

7/283 purchased E.W. Hooper

7/284 given to AH by Ratcliffe Pope the Fakenham solicitor

7/289-92 purchased Heraldry Today 1983

7/295 purchased Stanley Crowe 1959

7/296 purchased by Bryan Hall from the Kimberley Library sale 1947 and by AH from Hall 1958

7/299 purchased Heraldry Today 1983

7/300 purchased Heraldry Today 1982

7/301 Phillipps Collection

7/308 probably from one of the Gurney sales of the early 20th century

7/313 purchased Bryan Hall 1958

The Hamonds were a gentry family settled at South Wootton by the early 17th century and granted arms in 1698, whose rise into prominence in the County was marked by the purchase by Richard Hamond (1709-1776) of the Westacre Estate, with the newly-built High House, from the impoverished Spelman family in 1761. They remained at High House until 1898, dispersing thereafter to Westacre Abbey, Twyford Hall, Morston and elsewhere. The nephew and heir of the purchaser was Anthony Hamond (1742-1822), Sheriff of Norfolk 1792-3, whose soubriquet 'Rabbitskins' was earned through rabbit farming and perhaps his willingness to prosecute for petty theft. His son Philip (1782-1824) outlived his father for only two years but Philip's son Anthony (1805-1869) took a leading role in the County both as a Liberal politician and an agriculturalist. Later members of the family included Charles Annesley Hamond (1856-1914) the naturalist and Anthony Hamond (d.1991, referred to in this list as AH) who gave both the family papers and his own genealogical and antiquarian collections to the Record Office. AH and his kinswoman Rachel Daubeney annotated the collection and added their own papers, and the History of Parliament Trust sorted much of the family correspondence in 1954.