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| Boudicca (1st century AD) |
|  |  | Boudicca was the powerful flame-haired warrior queen who fearlessly led a brave revolt against the Romans to free her subjects, the Iceni.
The Iceni were a Cetic tribe living in Norfolk and Suffolk. For a while they were prosperous thanks to flourishing trade with the Roman empire and when the Romans invaded Britain in AD 43 King Prasutagus, Boudicca’s husband, became a rich and powerful client of the Romans.
However, after his death in AD59 the Romans took over the Iceni making them a subject population and Boudicca and her two daughters were subjected to grave humiliations. Boudicca led a revolt which lasted for several months in AD60-61. The Boudiccan forces burned and destoyed the three major towns of Londinium (London), Verulamium (St. Albans), and Camulodunum (Colchester), killing many thousands of citizens before sadly being defeated.
Thetford did not exist when the Iceni ruled but the area where the town is today was an important part of their territory. The Iceni had built a hill fort to guard a vital river crossing at the place we now know as Castle Hill and at Gallows Hill there was a very large enclosure believed to have been a kind of religious complex with structures dating from the middle of the 1st century.
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| King Swein Forkbeard (died 1014) |
| |  | The wild Viking King Swein ‘Forkbeard’ of Denmark invaded Britain between 1003-1005 and destroyed many towns including Thetford. At that time Thetford was an important town but it was again sacked and burnt when the Danes returned in 1010. Many of those who suffered from the attacks were probably descendants of Vikings who had settled here in the previous two centuries. In 1013 Swein became King of England.
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| Queen Elizabeth (1533-1603) |
| |  | Queen Elizabeth I reigned for 44 years from 1558 until her death in 1603. During that time she made many tours of her kingdom. In 1578, four years after Thetford received its Charter of Incorporation, the Queen visited the town and was dined and entertained at the home of Sir Edwards Clere. Clere lived at The Place, which is now known as the Nunnery and is the headquarters of the British Trust for Ornithology.
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| |  | Thomas Paine was a radical thinker and a controversial writer whose work was hugely influential in both the American and French Revolutions.
Paine was born in Thetford in 1737. He spent the first 37 years of his life relatively unknown, but when he emigrated from England in 1774 and set up a new life in America he became involved in the colonists’ arguments with the London government. His pamphlet ‘Common Sense’ (1776) is said to have swung American popular opinion in favour of independence, which later led to the American Revolution.
He returned to Europe in 1787, to promote his design for a cast-iron bridge. However, his plans were overtaken by the outbreak of the French Revolution. His pamphlet, ‘Rights of Man’, clearly supported the French cause and called for the royal family to be replaced with a democratic republic.
Paine was accused of writing false statements and encouraging the people of France to rebel and so he was forced to flee from England in 1792. He was given a hero’s welcome in France and served as a deputy in the National Convention. He continued to be outspoken and controversial so he was lucky to escape the guillotine himself!
Paine finally managed to return to America in 1802, but the new country that he had helped to establish had changed. His pamphlet, ‘The Age of Reason’, strongly criticised religious opinion and made him many enemies. He died in New York in 1809, at the age of 72.
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| Charles Burrell (1817-1906) |
| |  | Charles Burrell was born in Thetford in 1817 and inherited his father’s foundry workshop in 1837. In 1848 he manufactured his first portable steam engine and within 20 years he was Thetford’s largest employer, producing a wide-range of award winning agricultural machines and traction engines from his St Nicholas Works. Visit the workshops and see some of the engines at the Charles Burrell Museum.
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| Harry Bensley – The Man in the Iron Mask (1880-1954) |
| |  | Harry Bensley was a local character who met an eccentric American millionaire called John Morgan in a bar and took on a $100,000 bet to walk around the world. The conditions were that he also had to push a pram, wear an iron mask, find a wife without removing the mask, only take £1 in money and then pay his way by selling postcards.
Bensley took almost seven years to cover 30,000 miles through America, Japan, China, India, Persia, Egypt and Turkey with more than 200 women proposing marriage. He finally arrived in Genoa in August 1914 to hear that the bet was off due to the declaration of war. He was given £4,000 consolation money, which he donated to charity. Find out more about him in the Ancient House Museum.
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| Maharajah Duleep Singh (1838-1893) |
| |  | In 1843 Maharajah Duleep Singh became the last ruler of an independent Sikh Punjab and he was only five years old.
After wars with the British the Punjab was annexed and the young Duleep Singh surrendered his sovereign rights and property (including the Koh-j-Noor diamond) to the British Crown in exchange for a pension. He came to live in England where Queen Victoria befriended him.
Duleep Singh bought the Elveden Estate near Thetford in 1863 and led the life of a country gentleman following his sporting interests. Unfortunately, his pension was not enough to support his lifestyle and relations with the Government became strained. He tried to return to India but this was refused and he died in Paris in 1893. He is buried in Elveden Churchyard.
His second son, Prince Frederick, was a keen local historian and lived at Blo Norton Hall. He wrote the book ‘Portraits in Norfolk Houses’ and gave his own portrait collection to Thetford along with a house on White Hart Street that he bought to be used as a town museum, now known as the Ancient House Museum.
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