Читать книгу Rogers' Directory of Norwich and Neighbourhood - Edmund Dawson Rogers - Страница 4

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Norwich, a city and county, situate in the centre of the Eastern Division of Norfolk, consists of 35 parishes and 10 hamlets, covers 6,638 acres, is nearly 14 miles in circumference, and contained, in 1851, 15,000 houses and 68,195 inhabitants. The undisputed metropolis of the Eastern Counties, it has communication both by water and rail with the seaports of Yarmouth and Lowestoft, while it is doubly connected with London by the Ipswich and Cambridge lines; and has access to the midland and northern counties, by way of Peterborough. Having thus indicated the locale and dimensions of the “old city,” it is but right that before proceeding further we should give a brief sketch of its history. And this we the more readily do, inasmuch as Norwich has borne a by no means undistinguished part in those great political and social movements which have made England what she is.

We should, however, only trifle with our readers were we to express any opinion upon the origin and paternity of the East Anglian capital, for it would ill become us to pretend to pierce through the obscurity which surrounds the early history of this, as indeed of all other cities. It is certainly but natural to suppose that Norwich gradually rose round a military fortress erected on the site which the present Castle partly occupies; but whether that fortress was raised by some British potentate whose very name is mythical, or was the work of Uffa, the first Saxon king of the eastern counties, and whether, it being destroyed by Sweyn, the present structure was founded by Canute, it would profit us little to discuss. Declining, therefore, these bootless speculations, we find that in the reign of Edward the Confessor, “Northwic” contained 1300 burgesses, boasted of 25 churches, and was already of sufficient importance as to constitute a “hundred;” while in 1085, as appears by the Doomsday Survey, its burgesses had increased in number to over 1500, and its churches to 45. Shortly before this, William the Conqueror had appointed its first Norman governor, Ralph de Guader, or Waher, who, however, marrying the monarch’s niece, Judith, without his consent, and afterwards conspiring against his sovereign, was obliged to flee to Brittany; his bride, after a three-months’ siege in the castle, during which the city suffered much damage, was compelled to capitulate. The office, which included the earldom of Norfolk and some considerable estates, was then conferred on Roger Bigod, the founder of a baronial house illustrious in English history. [2] In the following reign the city rose in importance by the translation, in 1094, of the Bishop’s See from Thetford—where indeed it had barely been fixed a quarter of a century; having, up to 1070, been located at North Elmham, then a place of note, and subsequently a favorite residence of the diocesans. The then bishop, Herbert de Lozinga, for having purchased his preferment of William Rufus, and for other simoniacal practices, was required, after the fashion of the times, to prove his contrition by a substantial atonement. He accordingly purchased a meadow, called Cow Holme, extending from the castle ditches to the river; and in 1096 laid the foundation of a cathedral church, proceeding with such expedition, that in five years he was able to place 60 Benedictine monks in the new priory. About this period many Jews from Normandy settled in the city; popular prejudice, however, was strong against them, and in 1137, on a charge of crucifying a boy in Thorpe wood, large numbers of them were ruthlessly slaughtered. Carrow Abbey, we may here mention, dates its origin from the middle of the 12th century, the site being granted by Stephen for a nunnery, where the daughters of the noble and the affluent were wont to be educated.

A century later, and we find the lay and clerical elements in rancorous hostility. Perpetual animosities between the citizens and the monks rose at last to such a height, that the priory was, in 1234, entirely destroyed; while 38 years subsequently, the cathedral itself was well nigh demolished—an offence for which the city was visited with the terrors of an interdict. The injury, however, was not irreparable, for with a fine of 3000 marks imposed on the principal inhabitants, and with some liberal donations, the edifice was sufficiently restored as in 1278 to be consecrated by Bishop Middleton, in the presence of Edward the First and his queen, Eleanor—the first royal visit of which we have any reliable evidence. A wall was, moreover, raised round the Cathedral precincts—St. Ethelbert’s Gate being erected by the citizens; and this seems for a time to have prevented further dissension. Between the two epochs of contention above-named, arose the first recorded charitable institution in Norwich—Bishop Walter de Suffield founding St. Giles’ (commonly called the Old Man’s) Hospital, for the triple purpose of ensuring masses for his soul’s repose, providing an asylum for superannuated and infirm priests, and furnishing a refuge for 13 aged persons; to the last object only, it is hardly necessary to say, is the building now devoted; and enriched by subsequent benefactions, the hospital accommodates 50 of each sex, who, on admission, must have reached 65 years of age.

Another noticeable feature which must by no means be overlooked while dwelling on this period, is the enclosure of the city, from Conisford or King street to Pockthorpe, by a wall. This important work, a testimony to the increasing prosperity of the city, as well as to the turbulence of the times, was commenced in 1294 and completed in 1320; but it was not till two and twenty years afterwards that, through the munificence of one Richard Spynk, the wall was flanked with 40 towers, furnished with 12 gates, and fortified by a broad ditch. The gates remained up to 1792, and the wall, though now built upon on every side, may yet be traced for almost its entire length, being especially prominent as the southern boundary of Chapel Field, and offers many a study to the antiquarian and the historian.

In 1340 and 1342 Edward the Third held grand tournaments in the city, and in 1348 the heir apparent, the Black Prince, with his mother Philippa, also visited Norwich, and were entertained at a cost of £37 4s. 6d. A more unwelcome visitor quickly followed; for in seven months 37,000 persons are said to have perished by the plague, by which the city was alarmingly depopulated. It was about this time that the Castle began to be used as a county prison, which was authorized by an Act of 14 Edward III., though a military governor continued still to be appointed. In 1381, cotemporaneously with the Wat Tyler rebellion in the south, John de Litester, a dyer, at the head of a large body of the disaffected, pillaged the houses of the wealthy, but was speedily overthrown by the forces of Bishop Spencer. This very warlike ecclesiastic was a fierce enemy of the Lollards, who had acquired a strong hold in the city, and he imprisoned Sir Thomas Erpingham, who had shown a warm sympathy for the reformed doctrines; but in the parliament of 1400 the king directed them to “shake hands and kiss each other in token of friendship.” The reconciliation was apparently sincere, for the baronet became a munificent benefactor to the church. He erected the Erpingham gateway, and rebuilt the monastery of the Black friars, now known as St. Andrew’s Hall. This noble building was not, however, completed until the time of his son Sir Robert, himself a member of the fraternity. On the dissolution of the monasteries by our royal Bluebeard, the property was obtained by the Corporation for the sum of £81, and became devoted to the guilds and other secular purposes.

In 1403, in consideration, as it appears, of a gift of 4000 marks, (for most of our ancient liberties were purchased) Henry IV. conferred municipal institutions on the city, and would also have increased its representatives—for Norwich had returned two members since 1296—to four, had not the citizens represented their inability to meet the increased expense which their services would have occasioned. William Appleyard was the first mayor, and he celebrated his year of office in the fine flint building then just erected, lately used as a Bridewell, and now as a tobacco manufactory. In 1407 the Guildhall was commenced, on the site of a small thatched erection, called a toll-booth, used for collecting the market tolls. Henry V., in 1415, visited the city, and, we are told, left his coronet in pawn for 1000 marks, which he doubtless required for his French wars; but 25 years afterwards Norwich was in sad disgrace at court, for as a rebuke for suing Henry VI. for £100 which they had lent, the charters were suspended. A few years after, however, the city was visited by that unfortunate monarch, and in 1469 by Edward IV., who, writes John Paston, “hath been worshipfully received into Norwich, and had right good cheer and great gifts”—with which he was so well pleased that he speedily paid another visit, when some grand pageants were performed, though interrupted by “heavy and continuous rain.”

But we now come to a catalogue of disasters: the Cathedral was seriously injured by fire, 1463; the fatal plague ravaged the city, 1479; and in 1505 and 1507 there were great fires, in the latter year 718 houses being consumed, which obliged the corporate authorities to prohibit the erection of thatched buildings. In 1517, disputes between the citizens and the monks being again rife, Wolsey came over on a mission of mediation, but it was not till several years afterwards that peace was restored by the settlement of the civil and ecclesiastical boundaries and jurisdictions. We must not forget to notice the burning of the martyr Bilney, after an imprisonment in a dungeon of the Guildhall; and scarcely were the lurid fires of persecution extinguished before a memorable political outbreak exposed the city to the ravages of contending armies, and excited the anxious consideration of the youthful Edward’s ministers. The details of Kett’s rebellion are too well known to require recapitulation; suffice it to say that after obtaining possession of the city and defeating the Marquis of Northampton in an encounter on Palace Plain, the insurgents were dispersed by the Earl of Warwick—Robert Kett being executed at the Castle, and William at Wymondham. To close a paragraph of casualties, persecutions, and tumults, we must record the visitation of the sweating sickness, striking down near 1000 victims in 1551, and of the quartan ague six years later; the conviction of several citizens in 1570, for participation in a plot for assassinating the queen, re-establishing Popery, and expelling the strangers “out of the citye and realme,” of whom four suffered death, and others confinement for life; and the imprisonment in the Castle of certain persons apprehended in Suffolk for “refusing to come to the church in time of sermons and common prayer.”

Turning from these saddening scenes, we note the foundation, in 1557, of Caius College, Cambridge, by a Norwich citizen of that name, (but sometimes spelled Keyes, whence, we suppose, the pronunciation of the word,) physician to three sovereigns of the house of Tudor, and a man of learning. He was one of the first of a long line of distinguished men educated at our Grammar School—an institution of ancient date, but which did not become located in the present venerable structure until the reign of Elizabeth. And this mention of “Good Queen Bess” reminds us of her visit to the old city in 1578, spending a week in all sorts of festivities, pageantries, and amusements, to the unutterable delight of her loyal subjects. Nearly a century was destined to elapse ere Norwich was honored with another sight of royalty; and as there is a back-ground to every picture, so all this rejoicing was followed by the dread calamity of the plague—introduced, indeed, it was supposed, by some of the Queen’s attendants—and which slew five thousand victims.

The succeeding half century is chiefly characterised by ecclesiastical commotions, of which the fact that within little more than 60 years the diocese had twelve bishops, may be taken as one indication. Of these, the first, John Parkhurst, who died about 1575, was favorably disposed towards the church polity of Calvin, and opposed, as far as he could, a passive resistance to the harsh injunctions of his Primate (Parker, a native of Norwich) against the Puritans; Edmund Freke, his successor, deprived many nonconforming ministers of their livings, and imprisoned Robert Brown, the first separatist from the Establishment, and whose ideas of church government are mainly identical with those of the present Congregationalists; a third—Matthew Wren, father of the famous architect, was censured and imprisoned by the Parliament, on a complaint by the people of Ipswich, that he had, in two years, suspended or deprived fifty ministers, and driven 3000 persons, with their manufactures, to Holland, to the prejudice of the trade of the kingdom; Joseph Hall, the last of the twelve, was a man much esteemed for his mild disposition, and for the purity of his style was termed the English Seneca. Though at one time harshly treated by the Roundhead soldiers, he was ultimately restored by the Commons to the full possession of his revenues, and spent the latter part of his life in a quiet retreat at Heigham, (now the Dolphin Inn,) in the church of which parish he was interred, though a passage in his will runs thus—“I do not hold God’s house a meet repository for the bodies of the greatest saints.”—(Neale’s History of the Puritans.) Of the Civil War, the period in which this worthy bishop lived, there is but little to record. Norwich seems from the first to have given an unhesitating support to the Parliament, and was assessed at £53 yearly towards the maintenance of the Earl of Manchester’s forces. That there was, however, a party in the city who leaned to the King’s side, is shown by a tragical occurrence in 1648. John Utting, the mayor, had been complained of for not carrying out the ordinances against images; but upon a poursuivant being sent to require his attendance at the bar of the House to answer the charge, a violent tumult arose; the rioters obtained possession of the military depôt, (whose site the Bethel now occupies,) and 98 barrels of gunpowder being accidentally fired, 200 persons were killed or wounded by the explosion.

Coming down to 1671, we must chronicle the visit of the “Merry Monarch,” with his Queen and brother, who were sumptuously entertained by the Duke of Norfolk, as well as by the civic grandees: an animated description of the city at this period—with its ducal palace, its prosperous manufactures, and the priceless cabinet and botanical gardens of the famous Sir Thomas Browne (whose monument may be seen in St. Peter’s church)—is given by Macaulay. Ten years later, James, Duke of York, paid a second visit; but in 1687 he had, as king, forfeited all popularity by his arbitrary interference with the corporation; and the representative of the house of Howard, riding into the market at the head of 300 knights and gentlemen, amid the acclamations of the citizens, declared for a free parliament. It was the son of this duke, who, taking umbrage at the mayor’s forbidding his comedians entering the city with trumpets, demolished the whole of his ancestral palace, said to be the largest town house in the kingdom out of London, and which, from Christmas to Twelfth-night, was wont to be open to all comers.

Henceforth politics almost disappear, and the remainder of the narrative must be confined to matters of purely local interest, which may be very briefly chronicled. From 1696 to 1698, a mint was established here, and coined about a quarter of a million of money. In 1732 the Market and Charing crosses were taken down; in 1731 the St. George’s Company—incorporated 1416, and the principal of the city guilds—resigned their charters to the corporation. In 1761 a coach was started between Norwich and London, to run the distance in twenty hours, it having hitherto taken two days in summer and three in winter. An inundation in the following year, flooded nearly 300 houses. In 1771 the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital was founded, William Fellowes, Esq., of Shotesham, laying the first stone. In 1776 an act was obtained for making a turnpike to Thetford. In 1785 the first balloon ascent seen in the city took place, Major Money being the adventurous aeronaut. In 1791 the barracks were erected, at a cost of £20,000. In 1824 the first Musical Festival was held, and was conducted by Sir George Smart; its chief promoter was Mr. Edward Taylor, now Gresham Professor. The same year the City Gaol was built, in lieu of an old building on the site of the Public Library—the Shirehall is of about the same date; the Museum was founded in 1825, and in 1828 the Corn Exchange was erected. In 1835, June 16, the last guild-day celebration took place, 800 ladies and gentlemen dining in St. Andrew’s Hall; the late Mr. T. O. Springfield was, in the following January, elected the first mayor under the Municipal Reform Act. In 1837 Dr. Stanley was appointed bishop; this beloved prelate expired in 1849, about two years after the death of the equally beloved and philanthropic Joseph John Gurney. In 1844 the Yarmouth railway was opened, in the following year the Norfolk, and in 1846 the Ipswich and Colchester line. In 1854, the mayor, (then Mr. Samuel Bignold) was knighted by her Majesty, on presenting an address from the Corporation, on the war with Russia. In 1857 the Free Library was opened, and the first stone was also laid of the New Workhouse.

Having thus brought down the political history of the city to the present time, we propose to offer a review of the origin and progress of the manufactures of Norwich, on which its prosperity has so materially depended, and indeed still depends.

As a manufacturing city, Norwich first comes into notice in the reign of Henry I. In 1108 an inundation in Flanders induced many of the sufferers to try their fortunes in England; some of them settled at Worstead, (whence the name “worsted”) and afterwards at Norwich. In the following reign more Flemish emigrants came over; and they introduced the weaving of wool. The weavers, in Henry the Second’s reign, formed themselves into guilds, and obtained charters; but it was not till the time of the third Edward that the next great advance was made. This wise king invited into the kingdom a large number of the countrymen of his consort, Philippa of Hainault, who were skilled in weaving woollen and worsted. They were principally located in the eastern counties; Norwich was fixed as the staple for Norfolk and Suffolk; and an act was passed prohibiting the wearing of any but English cloth—a piece of protectionist policy at which we may smile, but which was no doubt then very commendable. In several following reigns great complaint was made of the “craft and deceit” practised in the making of serges, says, fustians, &c., and wardens were appointed to supervise the “true making thereof.” Trade in these articles seems to have declined about the period of the Reformation, and attention began to be paid to dornecks and coverlets; and in the reign of Mary, the manufacture of “light stuffs”—the same fabric as the Naples fustians, and resembling the bombazines of later years—was introduced. In 1565, however, there was much distress in the city through the decay of the worsted trade, and the corporate body obtained permission to “import” 300 Dutch, but too glad to avoid the persecution of the merciless Alva, who brought with them the art of weaving with a warp of silk or linen, as well as of dyeing and other processes. In five years their numbers increased to 3000, (in London there were nearly 4000) and in 1575 their elders exhibited to the authorities a mixed fabric of silk and worsted, termed bombazine. Religious persecution, however, drove many back to their fatherland, now liberated from the intolerant Spaniard; but Cromwell’s policy of liberty of conscience and unfettered trade, remedied the mischief thus occasioned. In Charles the Second’s reign, the lower west room of the Guildhall (the Criminal Court) was the Cloth Hall, and the chamber over (now Sword-room) was devoted to the sale of wool and yarn. Wool-combing was now a source of great employment, (it was carried on here until 1808,) and the anniversary of its patron saint, Bishop Blaize, was celebrated with much pomp; while the manufacture was so extensive as to be described as “such as England never knew in any age.” Shortly afterwards an additional branch of industry was opened, the French refugees introducing the making of crape, which soon became very popular, and under Sir Robert Walpole’s administration, a public mourning was ordered to be in Norwich crape. About the middle of last century the trade of the city is generally supposed to be at its zenith, its productions being exported to all the continental markets; after this period the increasing use of cotton goods inflicted a heavy blow on the manufacture of woollen fabrics, while even in the latter, Norwich became exposed to the competition of Yorkshire mills, which occupied vantage ground from their proximity to iron and coal mines. In 1776 there were alarming riots on the part of the weavers, owing to lack of employment and the dearness of provisions. The American and French wars supervened in rapid succession—the latter closed most of the foreign markets, and thus inflicted incalculable injury on the city. Broad bombazines, poplins, camlets, fillover and other shawls, have been introduced at different periods since 1780; the bombazines are nearly superseded by paramattas, &c., and bareges, balzarines, &c., in every variety of design, are now manufactured. Of the yarns chiefly used, the wool is mostly from Australia, the silk from China, (though some from India and Italy) and the mohair from Angora; an inferior description is, however, obtained from Asia Minor.

We must not forget to notice the opening of the shoe manufacture in the city, which gives employment to a considerable number of persons of both sexes: nor must we overlook the starch and mustard works of Messrs. Colman.

Appended is a brief statement of the particular branches to which the principal factories are devoted:—Messrs. Middleton and Answorth, and Messrs. Bolingbroke, are famed for their poplins, and for the production of crinoline—the material being horsehair from South America. Messrs. Clabburn, for fillover long shawls, by a patented process, which gained the Paris Exhibition medal. Messrs. Willett and Nephew—paramattas, and many plain and fancy fabrics. Messrs. Grout and Co. (also of Yarmouth and Bungay)—silk crape. Mr. Geary and Mr. Sultzer, cotton fabrics—the latter establishment also carries on the winding of cotton on reels. Messrs. Blake and Mr. Jay—spinning of woollen and mohair yarns. Messrs. Towler and Co., and Messrs. Rowling and Allen—plain and fancy fabrics. Mr. G. Allen—woven silk for gloves. Messrs. Hinde—bareges and paramattas.

Other important departments of trade, too numerous to be enumerated, are also carried on; such as sacking, tobacco, brushes, egg-flour, artificial manures, &c., &c.