About us

A warm welcome to the Claimants unity website.

What unprecedented times we live in. We have like other organisations had to follow government advice on holding events. With that in mind, we have cancelled all our events and hope to be able to start a new calendar in the spring of 2023. For those of you who wonder who we are, we are totally separate organisation to the educational trust of Alderman Norman. We can be traced back to the 1830s, in Norwich England. Alderman Norman died in Norwich in May 1724. He had left provision in his will, for descendant boys in his extended family to receive an education.

The management of the legacy by his appointed trustees was not totally in line with his wishes. It appears that the trustees in the early 1830s enjoyed some money for their own purposes. They used some to have slap up meal or two at the expense of the claimants funds. Perhaps they though it would be ok as the role of a trustee has never a been a paid position.

An upset group of descendants got together and formed the unity to check just what the educational foundation were spending money on. Here we are almost 190 years later still having a voice but now enjoying a great working relationship with the educational foundation trustees. We have one of our unity committee, David Nobbs who represents us at trustee level and he takes an active role in the decisions of the foundation.

We are able to pass the views of descendants on to the foundation and have collaborated on several things in recent times. This includes asking for grants to be made to younger children and the payment of any grant to be made as early in August as possible to enable orders to be placed with school uniform suppliers for the academic year starting in September.

We now have the opportunity for those who after leaving school, who take up an apprenticeship or work based learning to apply for grants.

One of our priorities is to find descendant children who can be verified by pedigree. This will allow them to apply for educational grants should their parent or guardian meet the parental income criteria. This is set by the foundation trustees and we do not have any part in the decisions as to if a grant is payable or not. We can only help with the supply of a pedigree and offer any advice in how to make a grant application.

Please see our links to the educational foundation of Alderman John Norman and how to contact us if we can be of help.

Members of the Committee


Important note to all members paying their subscriptions by BACS

Please make sure you quote your Membership No. (not your Pedigree No.) in the Reference section. This can be found on the top left of your subscriptions letter.


Meet the Committee Members

Steve Arber
Chairman
Steve Arber

Andrew Watson
Vice-Chairman
Andrew Watson
Barbara Smith
Registrar
Barbara Smith

Unity Membership Secretary
Jo Chaney
Manda Cockburn
Committee Secretary & Merchandise Organiser
Manda Cockburn
Carl Goodson
Website Coordinator
Carl Goodson

David Nobbs
Representative Trustee
David Nobbs
Committee-member
Treasurer
Steve Arber
Committee-member
Committee Member
Michelle Nobbs

Committee Member
John Chilvers