A true champion of Norfolk... and how to solve the housing shortage

Edwin Gooch (1889-1964) was very well known in East Anglia as the president of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers, from 1928 to 1964.

He was probably even better known as the Labour MP for North Norfolk: if younger readers find they need to be reassured on this point then, yes, rural north Norfolk really did have a Labour MP from 1922 to 1931, and then again from 1945 to 1970.

My maternal grandparents both grew up and lived all their lives in the North Norfolk constituency.

We know for a fact, though, that my grandmother did not vote for the Labour candidate in 1922: she was not allowed to.

It is shocking to realise that women like her were not finally permitted to vote until 1928 – when she was 42.

My grandfather had already been graciously allowed to participate in the election of our nation’s parliament, but not before he was 37, in 1918.

Many of Edwin’s constituents were farm-labourers and members of farm-labourers’ families, and this was true of my grandparents too.

My grandfather started work as a bird-scarer at the age of 11, and toiled as a farm worker for 55 years.

He died exhausted, my mother always said. He had risen at times to the position of farm steward, but was often in the position, as a simple labourer, where he was obliged to work every day, wind and shine, rain and snow – because someone had to feed the livestock.

My grandparents, and so my mother too, were also called Gooch.

It is probably not surprising, then, that they liked to think that they might be related in some way to the great man, even though they did not actually know of any close relationship.

Edwin himself was not actually a native of north Norfolk anyway, though he really was a Norfolk boy – he was born and lived all his life in Wymondham.

It is perfectly possible, however, that there was some kind of distant relationship.

The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland shows that, in 1881 there were only 2,610 people in Britain who bore the name of Gooch, and these were mostly located in East Anglia.

The mediaeval form of the name seems to have been Goche.

The earliest mentions come from the 1100s and 1200s, in the region of Kings Lynn – at that time Bishop’s Lynn.

The earliest known Gooches in my mother’s family lived in and around Morston, on the north Norfolk coast, but there was a family tradition that they had originally come from further along the coast to the west.

The Oxford Dictionary says that the most likely origin of the surname lies in the Old French personal name Goce, which was a pet form of Goscelin.

Pleasingly for those of us who are interested in the Norfolk dialect, the Dictionary also supposes that the 'oo' vowel in the modern version of the name, Gooch, came about because of the characteristic of our Norfolk accent whereby, although we pronounce “mown” differently from “moan”, we make “moan” sound the the same as “moon”.

Edwin Gooch’s grandson Simon Gooch has written an excellently researched and extremely interesting biography of his grandfather: Edwin Gooch: Champion of the Farmworkers. It was published in 2020 by Lowestoft-based Poppyland Publishing.

Simon tells us that Edwin was never an agricultural worker himself. But he certainly was a worker: he worked as a printer in Norwich until he became a journalist on the Norwich Mercury in about 1910.

Edwin Gooch, second left, at his father's forge in Fairland St, Wymondham, in around 1905 (Image: Archant)

He was elected Member of Parliament for North Norfolk in 1945, and retained the seat until he died in 1964. He also had the honour of being the chairman of the Labour Party National Executive Committee, from 1955 to 1956.

One of the issues he felt most strongly about was the system of tied cottages which was imposed on farm labourers in Norfolk and elsewhere.

An agricultural labourer’s house came with his job, so if he lost his job, he lost his family home as well. Evictions of families were not uncommon.

Edwin campaigned energetically to get the system abolished; and he once famously declared that “it has been said again and again that the Englishman’s home is his castle. I think we must add to that ‘except in rural England’”.

I don’t believe my own family were ever forcibly evicted but, by the time she was 18, my mother had lived in ten different tied cottages.

All of this was of course during the time when the northern part of our county was still mainly inhabited by Norfolk people born into families like my own who had lived in the area for generations.

Those were the days before the large-scale arrival of refugees from the Home Counties, second homes, and holiday-lets.

I like to imagine that Edwin would have been interested in the Norwegian system of “boplikt”. Boplikt means ‘dwelling duty’ or ‘living obligation’ - in other words, a residency requirement.

In many areas of Norway, particularly in attractive coastal areas akin to north Norfolk, local councils have activated a law which states that no one is allowed to own a property unless they actually live in it themselves.

It also entails a duty for an agricultural property or house to be used for year-round living.

The law can be either personal or impersonal. A personal residency requirement means that a specific person must be resident at the property; an impersonal residency requirement means that a particular building must be used as a year-round residence, without specifying who that resident should be.

This of course means that the value of properties is reduced, which in turn means that it is easier for local people to find somewhere to live, helping to preserve local communities and local cultures and dialects.

In Norway the phenomenon of the ‘black village’ is unknown. There are no villages like Blakeney, with streets where on winter evenings there is not a single house with any lights on.

In 2009, the Norwegian law was strengthened to allow local government authorities to require that even transfers of property within a family are subject to the same year-round residency requirement.

Edwin Gooch took great pride in his family roots, and had keen feelings of solidarity with the farm workers of Norfolk.

He maintained his strong Norfolk accent all his life, and felt no need to pay any attention to anyone who might want to disparage him for the way he spoke.

How wonderful it would now be if it was still possible to hear his Norfolk accent echoing around the House of Commons and, these days, even being broadcast to the nation.