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BBC News
21-04-2025
- General
- BBC News
Thetford gold ring find remembers 'rackety' baronet
A gold mourning ring that was made in memory of a dead baronet has been found in a 20mm (0.7in)-round jewel was discovered by a metal detectorist near Thetford, Norfolk, in Helen Geake was able to connect it to landowner Sir Bassingbourne Gawdy thanks to its inscription. He was a "notable sportsman" who researchers said liked "rackety exploits".The ring is the subject of a treasure inquest and Norwich Castle Museum hopes to acquire it. A coroner at a treasure inquest typically decides whether the discovery is treasure, and therefore whether a museum should have first refusal over Bassingbourne died in a hunting accident in 1723.A baronet was a title in the British aristocracy that was passed down through families. Dr Geake, who is the finds liaison officer for Norfolk, said mourning rings were made to remember a person who had would leave money in their wills for rings to be created and distributed to family and friends in their politician Samuel Pepys wrote about being given one in his 1660s diary. This find was inscribed in Latin B.G. Bart. ob: 10. Oct: 1723. aet: 56, which translates as B.G. Baronet, died 10th October 1723, aged Geake's investigations revealed Sir Bassingbourne lived at West Harling, east of never married and was described as a "notable sportsman" who enjoyed "rackety exploits" by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. "What is also interesting is he was the grandson of the celebrated painter Sir John Gawdy, who was born deaf," Dr Geake said. He and his brother Framlingham, who was also deaf, were the first known deaf people in Britain to be educated through the use of sign language, according to the British Deaf History Society. Dr Geake said the ring would not have been classed as treasure if it had been found a year is because the Treasure Act 1996 categorises a find as treasure if it is at least 300 years old and made at least in part of precious metal, like gold or if the ring had been found in August 2023 - not August 2024 - the detectorist and landowner would not have had to declare it. Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Guardian
08-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Emily Hobhouse's effect on the 1906 election
There will be great rejoicing in Cornwall and beyond at the opening up of the home of the courageous pacifist and human rights activist Emily Hobhouse, who campaigned so nobly against British atrocities on the veldt, in their concentration camps, during the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902 (Anglo-Boer war whistleblower Emily Hobhouse celebrated in Cornish home, 8 April). She was strangely absent from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography but the then editor, Colin Matthew, readily agreed to include her when I suggested it. She is certainly a figure of national importance, whose articles had a profound impact on radical opinion during the 1906 general election. David Lloyd George introduced her to the then Liberal leader Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who spoke of the 'methods of barbarism' used on the veldt. Hobhouse's record of British army barbarities in South Africa shifted national opinion, and I have a card of one of her pictures of the Transvaal in my home (she was also a skilled artist). It is a constant O MorganLabour, House of Lords Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
