File BL/CS 2/1/24 - Thomas Dawbarn to Philip Case: has sent 20 guineas: alteration of the market from Downham to Swaffham is a great diminution to him as the greater part of the butter is carried thither; thinks the scheme will never answer the sanguine expectations of the projectors.

Born c 1712 in Great Fransham, and died on 11 April 1792 in King's Lynn. He was the son of Thomas Case and Hester Freeman.
The most successful attorney in King's Lynn in the eighteenth century. The son of a farmer at Fransham, he set up his practice on completion of his articles in 1733, became a freeman of King's Lynn by the end of the year, was elevated to the council on the same day, and married into a local gentry family in the following year. His outstanding abilities soon brought him a large clientele. While still in his twenties he was acting for the second viscount Townshend and Sir John Turner of Warham, and was deputy clerk of the peace. By mid-career he was acting as 'man of business' to many of the landed families of north-west Norfolk, not only as an attorney but often as land agent and steward of their manors - being described as 'the greatest and cleverest court keeper in England' in 1768. He became comptroller of customs at King's Lynn in 1754, and clerk of the peace in 1760.
Throughout his life he purchased property, eventually accumulating estates at Stradsett, Crimplesham and Fincham, Gayton Thorpe and East Walton, Grimston, and Gaywood, Mintlyn and Bawsey. Although he had manor houses at Stradsett and Gaywood, he continued to live at King's Lynn, where he was mayor in 1745, 1764, 1777, and 1786. He had three daughters - Pleasance and Hester who married Thomas Bagge and Samuel Browne, both prominent Lynn merchants, and Sarah, the only one to survive him, who married Anthony Hamond of Westacre. He died worth approximately £100,000 in land and investments.