Mr Francis Norman Bocock (1853 - 1932)

I have today written to the Newmarket Journal. The letter is self-explanatory.

Dear Editor,

Mr F.N. Bocock was mentioned in your '100 years ago' column.

Francis Norman Bocock (1853 - 1932) was my wife's great grandfather. He was born at Ashley but, by 1910, he had been living for many years at Cropley Grove, Lidgate. He was a Newmarket magistrate, a member of the old Newmarket Board of Guardians and of the old Moulton Rural District Council, both of which he chaired.

Mr Bocock was a farmer and a butcher and headed the old established firm, started by his grandfather David Bocock (1801 - 1879), of Messrs. D. Bocock and Sons, butchers and graziers, of Newmarket and Ashley. He was also in partnership with a brother, Arthur Robert Bocock, and carried on a retail business at 137 Brompton Road, London. Mr Bocock was for many years a member of the Royal Agricultural Society and of the Smithfield Club and he judged livestock at the Smithfield Shows. Arthur Robert Bocock's only son was Arthur Norman Bocock (1892 - 1962), who was also a Newmarket magistrate and a leading light in the Suffolk Sheep Society who also judged animals at the Smithfield and Royal Shows.

Mr F.N. Bocock's first wife, my wife's great grandmother, was Eliza Cooke (1855 - 1897), whose father, Charles Cooke (1811 - 1869), kept The Reindeer at Saxon Street. Eliza's mother was Margaret (Peggy) Tetsall (1819 - 1874), whose people farmed at Woodditton.

Attached is a picture of F.N. Bocock as taken by Henry Isaac Jarman of Bury St. Edmunds.

Yours sincerely,

Geoffrey Woollard.