John Fenn was born to modest circumstances, enough to pay for school and university and, with other inheritance, to support him as a small country squire. Brought up by his widowed mother in habits of thrift and industry, he shared her views on the importance of education to a ‘Situation in Life’. He was conscious of intellectual curiosity from an early age and developed a strong bent for antiquities, probably encouraged by acquaintance as a schoolboy with Thomas Martin, a senior antiquary and a collector who had recently acquired the ‘Paston Letters’. At Cambridge Fenn worked hard and made friends of similar tastes but rather better connections, especially John Frere, whose sister he married. Established at East Dereham, his zeal expanded into civic duties, bringing him eventually to the High Sheriffalty of Norfolk. It mattered to him as much to become a Fellow of the ‘Antiquarian Society’, and his industry persisted in miscellaneous antiquarian pursuits. He came by the Paston Letters as rewards for cataloguing their new owner's collections. Brother antiquaries and Horace Walpole encouraged him to publish; a good connection arranged for dedication to the King. The consequent knighthood gratified both sides of Fenn's nature but the original manuscripts intended for his sovereign went astray into the library of his patron.