Samuel Willett, 1831-1902
Sam Willett was born at Fulking in Sussex in 1831. When he left the Free School at Henfield, his father Edward – who worked as a shoemaker and grocer at Edburton – taught him bootmaking, but he subsequently learned the craft of baking, and was set up as the village baker in Cuckfield probably by the mid-1850s1; at the time of the 1861 census his occupation was given as “Baker…employing 1 boy”.
His obituary in the Mid-Sussex Times, 10th June 1902, gave this account:
Not caring much for cobbling Mr Willett went to Ditchling to learn baking. After a time, owing to his health breaking down, he had to return home. His ability to write music becoming known to the late Mr. Ambrose Dumsday, Bandmaster of the Cuckfield Old Band, he invited him to join the Band, which he did, and played the tenor trombone. This was in 1850.
The Band was composed of eight members, and they practised once a week at what was then known as the Talbot Tap. Finding the walk from Fulking to Cuckfield too long and tiring a journey [10 miles each way, a 3 hour walk], Mr. Willett had serious thoughts of leaving the Band. Mr Dumsday [also landlord of the Talbot], loathe to lose his services, looked about to see if he could get him something to do in Cuckfield, the result being that Mr Willett took over the baker’s business carried on by a man named Taylor, and by sheer hard work and perseverance got a good deal of patronage.2
As well as the trombone, Sam Willett played the cello in the church band, and was well known as a fiddler for local dances. He came to the attention of Lucy Broadwood, and after she sent him a copy of her father’s Sussex Songs in 1890, he supplied her with over 30 songs. One of these was ‘John Appleby’, which he had heard sung by Kentish hop-pickers.
Sam Willett died at Cuckfield on 5th June 1902, at the age of 71.
- When Willett’s bakery was auctioned after his death, the advertisement referred to an “Old-
established baking & corn business carried on by the Deceased for upwards of 45 years”.
Mid Sussex Times, 15 July 1902, p4. ↩︎ - Quoted from Andy Revell and Malcolm Davison, Cuckfield Connections, 1902: Cuckfield Baker Samuel Willett – music, smugglers and dishonest nightwatchmen https://www.cuckfieldconnections.org.uk/post/1902-cuckfield-baker-samuel-willett-music-smugglers-and-dishonest-nightwatchmen ↩︎
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