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Local poacher Frederick Rolfe, author of 'I Walked By NIght'
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Frederick Rolfe's gun returned to Bungay Frederick Rolfe was a well known poacher who lived in the area during the early 1900's. Originally living in Kings Lynn, he was both poacher and gamekeeper and called himself, King of the Norfolk Poachers. He was encouraged to write his memoirs by Lilias Rider Haggard (daughter of Sir Henry Rider Haggard) and it was first published in 1935. Entitled 'I Walked by Night' the book is very explicit about how things were in those days - for example he states how young lads faced a very hard life from as young as 14 when they had to leave school to work in the fields.
Rolfe's view was that as he had never seen a pheasant with someone's name reserved on it then he was entitled to it just as much as anyone else. In fact he felt that all wild things were there for everyone's benefit. Rolfe gave his .410 shot gun to Mr John Baldry before he died. The gun would fold in half for easy storage in the huge inside pockets of his poachers jacket and the stock was hollowed out to make it lighter. John Baldry gave the gun to his son Alfred Baldry and, on his death, it was passed to Alfred's son Andrew. It was always Alfred's intention to return the gun to the town but he was a busy man and he left it to Andrew to do this for him.
Andrew and his mother presented the gun to Chris Reeve, the curator of the museum on Wednesday 12th March along with another 16 bore ladies gun, one of a pair that had once been owned by Mrs Robert Sprake and given to Mr John Baldry when his was stolen. Mr Baldry also presented a huge padlock that was once to be found on the common gate between the little common (now Clays car park and the big common. Andrews father, Alfred had found this in some bushes having been thrown there by the common steward, Dick Cook. The lock still worked and the huge key has the word 'Common' stamped into it.
Mr Reeve was extremely pleased with this collection and, although the common lock will be on show the guns had to be handed over to the local police in order to discharge them and make them safe under legislation.
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