Obituary for HENRY JAMES WATERS



Taken from Eastern Evening News of 26/1/1938.

We regret to record the death of Mr Henry James Waters which occurred at his home, "Woodside", Thorpe Road, Norwich late last night. He had been confined to his room for the past four days but nothing serious was anticipated and the end came so suddenly that at his death, only his housekeeper and a maid were with him. Mr Waters was one of the original members of Norfolk County Council and he had the distinction of serving on it uninterruptedly until the end. The County Council came into being in 1888 so that Mr Waters was within a few months of completing 50 years of membership. His debating quality, coupled with the warmth of his personality and the shrewdness of his business outlook, ensured him always a respectful hearing.

EARLY DAYS


His father was a working foreman on a brickyard at Freethorpe, and his mother, to eke out the income necessary in those days to live in a four-roomed cottage, did dress-making in addition to carrying on the housework. By rigid economy and a little earned by pig-keeping £20 a year was saved till at the end of 20 years the father, with £400 in hand, was able to take over the brick business from his employer.
That was in 1861 by which time young Henry, by a personal effort that can better be imagined than described had become a pupil-teacher in the British School at Yarmouth. His only prepatory education for that career had been obtained at a dame school. He had been set to work in the spring following his tenth birthday, and it was his summer earnings that enabled him to attend classes at Yarmouth during the winter and so come under the notice of a master, by whose advice he entered on the teaching career. That way of life he had soon to discontinue, for in the early autumn of 1862 his father died. Thereupon his mother called him to the management of the brick-making business.
In 1871 he married Miss Amelia Jeary of Martham, in whom he found a devoted wife and helper. By her he had three sons and two daughters. One of the daughters, Mrs Ethel Cannell, died in childbirth.

"A RADICAL FARMER"


While still a youth he had begun to develop tendencies mildly to be described as Radical. His open sympathy with the labourers in the seventies bred friction between him and the landlord of the brickyard and led to his removal in 1880 to Panxworth, where he set up as tenant farmer. On the expiry of his lease in 1888 he removed to Witton Hall. There he remained only two years, for his landlord gave him notice at the end of the first year and declined to tell him why. It was during the early part of this Witton tenancy that the first County Council election was held and Mr Waters put up as candidate. By influential and rigid Churchmen he was strongly opposed as a dangerous kind of politician. School buildings were refused to him, even Nonconformist premises were denied him which seems strange, for there never was a Nonconformist more sincerely such at heart and his electoral meetings had to be held in barns. The election gave him the largest majority then recorded (498) and never again did he require to fight for his seat.

AUCTIONEER AND VALUER


Later Mr Waters considerably strengthened his status by founding the auctioneering and valuation business of Messrs. H. J. Waters & Son. His son, then about 16 years of age, was a partner from the start. A fortnightly mart was commenced at Loddon and soon afterwards a weekly mart at Acle. Both of these fixtures still flourish and from them have sprung many general sales in the neighbourhood. Progress in these directions was so marked and such was the multiplicity of Michaelmas valuations that in 1907 Mr Waters was able to retire from farming and to reside in Norwich in order that his attention might be better concentrated on his new profession.
In County Council affairs, Mr Waters was not entrusted with any large share of work during his first three years. He used to remark that the chairman of that day (Mr R. T. Gurdon later Lord Cranworth) showed a disposition to keep him very strictly in order. When at the end of six yearsÕ service he had decided to retire from the Acle division on the ground that he was no longer resident therein and therefore not sufficiently in touch with the electors, the chairman asked him if he would accept an aldermancy, saying, "You know I profoundly disagree with you on many points. Yet I should be sorry if you dropped out." It was thus that Mr Waters became an Alderman.
From the reminiscent articles which Mr Waters himself contributed to these columns some years ago it is easy to understand that Council work was his one relaxation from business though perhaps relaxation was not a strictly applicable way of putting it, for Council work in his case was a very serious form of work. He was seldom absent from the meetings.

70 YEARS A LOCAL PREACHER


The deliberation and the lucidity of Mr Waters' speaking style may be attributed primarily, no doubt, to the natural orderliness of his mental habit, but secondarily something must be laid to the account of his long practice in the pulpit. He was a member of the Primitive Methodist connexion for 75 years. As far back as 1863, when he was but 17 years of age, he had begun to feature as a lay preacher in village pulpits, a practice he continued long after he had passed his jubilee in that service. As a county magistrate Mr Waters sat at the Blofield Court which has jurisdiction over that part of the county where he was born and had so many associations.