Sir (William) Norwood East (1872 – 1953)

Sir (William) Norwood East
by Walter Stoneman
bromide print, 24 July 1947
NPG x167334 (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

William Norwood East is referred here as Norwood to distinguish him from his father. His distinguished career is summed up in an obituary from The Times newspaper at the end of this page.

Norwood, the son of William Quartermaine (1822-1906) and Charlotte Isabella (1836-1921) East, was born on Christmas Eve 1872, and was baptised on 22 January 1873 in St Anne’s Church, Aldersgate. His baptismal entry records that his father was the hotel keeper of the Queens Hotel in St Martin le Grand. ‘Norwood’ was his maternal grandmother’s maiden name.

Record of Norwood.s baptism in St Anne’s Church, Aldersgate
Click image to enlarge

Norwood had thirteen siblings.

Norwood’s parents had married on 27 May 1854 in St Luke’s Church in Finsbury. Their marriage entry records that Charlotte Bateman was a minor at the time of her marriage and that her father Richard Bateman was a surgeon. William and his father Samuel East were both recorded as working as stewards on a steam vessel. The 1861 census, that was taken seven years later, records only Charlotte living at 50 Florence Road, Deptford with her four children, Kate aged 5, Samuel aged 3, Thomas aged 2 and 2-month-old Annie. In the ‘Occupation’ column, information was recorded that ‘Husband a Steward in Gen. Stm. Nav. Co. Steamers’ (this was the General Steam Navigation Company that was initially founded in 1824 ). Her husband William was away, boarding in Great Malvern in Worcestershire where his occupation was recorded as being a hotel keeper.

Norwood’s partent’s marriage record in St Luke’s Church in Finsbury
Click image to enlarge

Norwood’s father became the licensee of the Queens Hotel  St Martins le Grand, London EC1 in 1869 and the census that was taken two years later in 1871, records William and Charlotte with their four younger children, Minnie aged 6, Lizzie aged 4, Gertrude aged 3 and 6-week-old Charlotte. Daughter Annie’s whereabouts is uncertain, but Kate was at Dartmouth Row School and sons Samuel, Thomas and James were pupils at Dartmouth Grove School in Lewisham. As already mentioned, Norwood was born the following year.

On 9 December 1875 Norwood’s father William, was admitted into the Freedom of the Worshipful Company of Vintners. The following year he, along with Simeon Charles Hadley, became the Sheriffs of London. This was the same year that Norwood’s brother Thomas joined the Mercantile Marines and their sister Kate married solicitor Arthur Preston Merriman.

On 19 December 1877 Norwood’s mother gave birth to his brother Percy. The following year Norwood’s father leased ‘Garland Grove’ in Woodcote Road, Epsom, from its owner Edgar Walter Garland. The mansion, described as a handsome brick-built residence, was surrounded by about fifty acres of undulating and well-wooded land. It was also known as Woodcote Grove. Norwood’s sister Violet was born in 1879 and on 15 October was baptised in Epsom’s parish church, St Martin of Tours.

Woodcote Grove
Image courtesy of Brian Bouchard © 2012

Norwood was aged 8 when the 1881 census was taken. He and seven of his siblings – Samuel (and Samuel’s wife Elizabeth and daughter Muriel), Amelia, Eliza, Gertrude, Charlotte, Percy, and Violet – were recorded as residing with their parents in the Queens Hotel where 70 members of staff were employed.

The 1891 census records 18-year-old Norwood living with his parents and siblings – Annie, Amelia, Charlotte, Percy, and Violet – in the family home at ‘Garland Grove’, Woodcote Road, Epsom. By 1893 the East family had moved to ‘Longwood’ in Ashley Road, Epsom. It was this address that 25-year-old Norwood was recorded as living at in 1897, when he was registered as a Licentiate [the holder of a certificate of competence to practice a particular profession] in the book entitled List of the Fellows, Members, Extra- Licentiates and Licentiates of the Royal College of Physicians of London.

Norwood’s entry in list of Medicak Students
Click Image to enlarge

On 3 November 1900, in Holy Trinity Church, Bishop’s Road, Paddington, Norwood married 26-year-old Selina, the only daughter of the late Alfred Triggs. At the time of his marriage, Norwood was living at The Grove, Portland, Dorset while his bride, who was known as Linnie, had been living at 133 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington. This was the address of her mother Phoebe Triggs, nee Wiltshire.

Record of Selina’s birth
Click Image to enlarge

Censuses in England have been taken every ten years since 1801 but did not record any names until 1841. The censuses since then give us brief snapshots of where people were living and with whom. Linnie’s life, seen through these snapshots, record that although Linnie had been born in Victoria Street, Edinburgh, her mother Phoebe had been born on Valentine’s Day in 1847 and baptised in St Martin of Tours Church, Epsom. Phoebe was working as an upper housemaid in Belgravia when the 1871 census was taken and became pregnant in May the following year. On 13 November 1872 Phoebe married Alfred Triggs, (a butler according to the marriage certificate) in Edinburgh, Scotland, and it was there on 4 February 1873, that she gave birth to Selina. Alfred Triggs does not appear to have stayed with Linnie and her mother and by 1881, Linnie was living on Epsom Common with her widowed maternal grandmother Louisa Wiltshire and uncles Frank and Robert. She continued to live with them and by 1891, aged 18, she was working as a dressmaker living in Heathcote Road, Epsom.  Her mother Phoebe had worked away from home as a housekeeper and in the 1891 census recorded herself as a widow.

Following the death of Norwood’s father in ‘The Heroes Hotel’ in Waterlooville, Hampshire, the family had his body returned to Epsom and buried on 20 August 1906 in grave A454 in Epsom Cemetery. Norwood’s brother Percy was also buried there on 11 November 1910, and their mother on 4 June 1921. This grave also contains the remains of Percy White East, Kate Marian Merriman, and her daughter Ethel Bertha Merriman. Thomas Quartermaine East, who died in New Zealand, is remembered on the back kerb stone of the grave.

Norwood and Selina only had one child, Joan Norwood East, who was born on 28 May 1908. A month later she was baptised in St James Church in Clapham.

The record for Joan’s baptised in St James Church in Clapham
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The family was living at 2 North Road, Park Hill, Clapham, when the 1911 census was taken. Norwood filled out the form stating that he and Selina had been married for eleven years and that their only daughter Joan was one year old. He also recorded that he was a ‘Medical Officer H.M. Prison Brixton’.

In 1929 Norwood’s mother-in-law Phoebe was recorded on the electoral list as living with him and his wife and daughter Joan at 21 Telford Avenue, Streatham. It was at this address that she died on 7 March that year. Joan later married Dr. John Stuart Knox in the Priory Church, St Bartholomew the Great Church on 27 April 1933 and died on the Isle of Wight in 1981.

By 1939 Norwood and Selina had moved to ‘Rhododendrons’, a large bungalow in Wellingtonia Avenue, Crowthorne, Berkshire.

Norwood’s entry in a UK and Ireland Medical Directories

In 1947, six years before his death, Norwood was knighted for services to the study of criminal psychology. After he died on 30 October 1953, probate valued at £5396 6s 8d was granted to his widow, daughter, and son-in-law John Stuart Knox.

The East family plot, grave A454, in Epsom Cemetery.
It contains William Quartermaine East, Percy White East, Charlotte Isabella East,
Kate Marian Merriman and Ethel Bertha Merriman.
Thomas Quartermaine East who died in New Zealand is remembered on it.
(We have not been able to establish if Norwood was buried or cremated)

The following obituary appeared in The Times on 2 November 1953:

SIR NORWOOD EAST
THE ROLE OF CRIMINAL,PSYCHOLOGY,

Sir Norwood East, formerly a Commissioner of Prisons and director of the Prison Medical Service, and a leading authority on criminal psychology, died at his home at Crowthorne, Berkshire, on Friday at the age of 80.

William Norwood East was born on December 24, 1872, the son of the late W. Quartermaine East, and was educated at King’s College School and King’s College, London. He qualified at Guy’s Hospital in 1897, and while still a young man he entered Her Majesty’s Prison Service as a prison medical officer. He was for many years the senior medical officer at Brixton Prison, and in 1924 was appointed medical inspector of His Majesty’s prisons of England and Wales. Some six years later he was appointed a Commissioner of Prisons and director of the Prison Medical Service. He had also been an inspector under the Inebriate Acts of 18791900, and had served on the departmental committees on the persistent offender and on prison diets. After his retirement he was appointed a lecturer in forensic psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital-a school of the University of London.

East’s contribution to the study of criminal Psychology was marked by his long experience in the Prison Medical Service. He was always more of a “realist” than many other medical and psychological writers on the subject and was often impatient of those who sought to replace the present legal means of dealing with crime by psychological methods of dealing with criminals. He was acutely aware that whereas ” the medical aspects of criminal conduct are concerned with individuals, the legal point of view [is] with the protection of society ”  and he would never have claimed any superiority for the first over the second.

His writings-including The Medical Aspects of Crime (1936) and Society and The Criminal (1949), which was published with the official imprimatur of H.M. Stationery Office were packed with the fruits of first-hand as well as close statistical observation, the observation of one who, apart from his career in the Prison Medical Service, was also one of the assessors who gave his opinion on the sanity or otherwise of murderers after conviction. One of his finest conclusions was that there was more flexibility in the administration of the law than its critics supposed: for example, that though the rules on insanity are behind medical and even popular opinion the interpretation of them by judges is less open to criticism.

Some might find complacency in his judgment that ” experience in the criminal courts proves that the judicial authorities and others concerned with criminal conduct usually arrive at reliable conclusions in regard to the motives and intentions of law-breakers,” but it was based on careful and well documented observation. The basis of his attitude was a conviction that though scientifically carried out psychological investigations could help greatly in explaining various factors associated with social maladjustment, it was dangerous, especially at the present stage of ignorance and inexperience, to base law or a theory of punishment on any psychological and speculative formulae.

In 1900 he married Selina, the only daughter of the late Alfred Triggs, who survives him with one daughter.

Researched and written by Hazel Ballan 2021