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Harry Watson Bursary

About Harry Watson

Harry Watson was elected to Norwich City Council in 1982 and served as Deputy Leader for many years. He was Lord Mayor of Norwich between 1997-1998, a Trustee of the Town Close Estate Charity, Director of the Norfolk and Norwich Heritage Trust and Chairman of the Norwich Preservation Trust. He was also a key figure in the Salvation Army and a member of the Cathedral Council, the Christian Socialist Movement and Chairman of the Norwich Church Novi Sad Group. A well-respected Councillor, Harry worked tirelessly for the city of Norwich and was a passionate advocate for its heritage resources.

When Harry died on 9 May 2004 after a long illness, tributes poured in for the popular and hard-working Harry. More than 500 of his friends and colleagues crowded into the Norwich Citadel for his memorial service.

About the Harry Watson Bursary

As a fitting tribute to Harry‘s memory, and endorsed by his family and close colleagues, the Harry Watson Heritage Education Bursary has been established by the Norwich HEART. The Bursary provides annual grants for research on aspects of the history of the city or for the undertaking of specific heritage projects.

The Bursary is managed by Norwich HEART and administered by the School of History at the University of East Anglia. Funding for the Bursary is provided on an annual basis by HEART, Norwich City Council and the Town Close Charity. The first Bursary was granted in 2006.

To learn more about the Bursary or to find out how to make an application contact Nick Williams or Michael Loveday at HEART - , or call 01603 305575.

Beneficiaries

The Bursary has already supported several pieces of research into Norwich‘s history, three of which are outlined below:

Joseph Henley‘s MA in History of Medicine

For his dissertation Joseph researched and wrote "A Study of Anguish‘s Children‘s Hospital."

The research is primarily concerned with the analysis of a seventeenth-century children‘s hospital, opened in Norwich in 1621. An ex-mayor named Thomas Anguish bequeathed to the corporation a part of the houses and lands that he held in the parish of St. Edmund, by way of his will dated 22 June 1617. His will stipulated that the grounds should be used to set up and found a children‘s hospital, for the sick poor children of Norwich. The dissertation determines why, at that time and in that place, there was such a call for the social reform of the young.

Click here to view the dissertation. Please note the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, nor any information derived therefrom, may by published without the author‘s prior consent.

Melissa Gaudoin‘s MA in History

For her dissertation Melissa wrote "The Green Spaces and Culture of Late Medieval Norwich: Municipal, Ecclesiastical and Medical".

The aim of this thesis is to determine how extensive the open green spaces of late medieval and early modern Norwich were. Melissa also seeks to discover the ways in which gardens and meadows were utilized and viewed by the different sections of the population of Norwich: the religious and the lay, the lower classes and the gentry, the men and the women, and to compare the reality of the gardens of Norwich, as revealed through archaeological excavation, contemporary pictorial representations and written records from the city, with the descriptions and depictions of the ideal garden produced by writers, illustrators and artists.

Kate Tremain‘s MA in Early Modern History

For her dissertation Kate wrote "Stationers and the inception of the Enlightenment in Norwich 1660-1720."

The dissertation looks at booksellers, bookbinders, publishers, newspaper proprietors and printers commercially active in Norwich from the Restoration until 1720. (Collectively those involved in the making of and sale of printed matter are referred to as stationers). Kate seeks to place these artisans and traders in their cultural, economic and civic context and attempts to place them within the broader context of national, political and religious imperatives and social movements which may have coloured or shaped their experience. The study seeks to look specifically at the stationers‘ contribution to the dissemination of ‘enlightenment values‘ and to compare this Norwich group‘s profile with their contemporaries in other urban centres. It has often been assumed that stationers were one of the means of disseminating the Enlightenment and the dissertation attempts to test this assumption.

Click here to view the dissertation and appendices. Please note the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that no quotation from the thesis, nor any information derived therefrom, may by published without the author‘s prior consent.

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