ROBERT WHAITES

Elizabeth Richards nee Kiddle (see above) had written in her diary on 2 August 1797 that Mr Robert Whaites, who had bought the Canal House estate for £4,100, was married to another of her cousins - Mary Rudd (Little Melton branch of the Rudd family). This marriage between Robert Whaites Jnr. (of Runhall) to Mary Rudd, took place by Licence at All Saints' Church, Little Melton on 24 January 1786, just days after Robert Whaites' father – Robert Whaites Snr. "a reputable farmer" of Runhall – had died.

Family history probabilities - It seems that this Runhall Whaites family are tied to the Witton Whaites family (about 2 miles from the Norfolk coast at Walcott) as there was certainly a Robert Whaites aged 70 buried at St Margaret's churchyard, Witton, on 22 January 1786. [See Norfolk Genealogy Volume 13, Norfolk Pedigrees No. 207 – Whaites of Ingham and Witton below]

In Robert Whaites Snr of Runhall's 1786 Will, his wife Mary is mentioned, along with son ROBERT WHAITES (bequest of "all messuages, lands, tenements and hereditaments, freehold and copyhold lying and being in Upton, South Walsham, Ranworth and Acle"). Daughter Mary Ann is also mentioned as the wife of CHARLES UTTING - this Charles and Mary Ann Utting of Hoveton St John had a son THOMAS UTTING who was, therefore, the nephew of the Robert and Mary Whaites nee Rudd who purchased the Ashwellthorpe estate in 1797. But I leave the intermingling of the Whaites and Utting families to the family historians.

After Robert Whaites' purchase in 1797, there is no record of him living in Canal House; he made his Will in December 1800 and his nephew "Thomas Utting of Ashwellthorpe, the son of Charles Utting, farmer, of Hoveton St John" was already resident in Ashwellthorpe. Robert Whaites died in 1803 and was buried at St Margaret's churchyard, Witton, on 24 November that year although his Will declared he was a "Farmer of Runhall". His wife Mary nee Rudd (Elizabeth Richards' cousin as above) was still alive and was an Executrix; he left to nephew Thomas Utting of Ashwellthorpe all his lands etc. in Ashwellthorpe, Wreningham, Fulmodeston, Upton, South Walsham and Ranworth with various provisos.