Lowestoft in olden times

Other Trades Connected with the Fisheries.

Other Trades.

Besides these trades connected with our fishing and shipping business, there are several others, which show that Lowestoft was much resorted to as a shopping town by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood.  In these trades we must observe the enormous number of tailors—no less than 39.  Lowestoft tailors probably met the requirements of the inhabitants of all the Lothingland parishes, and other parishes near.  Doubtless they had got a reputation for a better cut than the tailors of either Yarmouth or Beccles; or was a trade in ready-made clothes carried on here?  These men, were of course, all journeymen tailors.  The materials were probably supplied by some of the merchants mentioned, from Norwich or elsewhere.  The persons mentioned as shoemakers, cordwainers, and cobblers (11) are comparatively few.  These names represented the same trade with different pretensions.  The presence of a tanner and currier implies that their was a sufficient demand for leather to maintain these two wholesale trades.  The tanners may have also found employment in tanning fishing nets—as at the present day.  No less than 12 weavers are mentioned; they were probably introduced from Norwich, which was at this time the principal seat of the woollen and linen manufacture in the kingdom.  The clothes of some at least of our townspeople were not only made up by Lowestoft tailors, but of Lowestoft cloth and Lowestoft homespun.  Other trades are mentioned connected with the supply of wearing apparel, viz.: drapers, glovers, hatters, and dyers.

The person described as a Proctor must have been a local lawyer, affiliated to Doctors’ Commons, and endowed with some special authority in the matter of wills.  Only one person’s name appears in our period described as a surgeon.  He died in 1585, one of those terrible years when Lowestoft was visited by the plague or some infectious disease, to which he apparently fell a victim.  We only notice the name of one chymney-sweeper.  There may have been more.  But as we shall see further on, chimneys were only now coming into fashion and were as yet only to be found in the newer or best houses.

Lowestoft as a Market Town.

Lowestoft had been a market town for more than a hundred years, but it does not appear that the market was ever much of a success.  There was no large population like that of Yarmouth requiring a large supply of provisions and vegetables in addition to the produce of the townspeople’s own gardens and the neighbouring farms.  Nor could a place with only half the environment of an ordinary inland town be a convenient centre for the sale of general agricultural produce, particularly with another large market at Beccles.

Population.

While furnishing information as to the character of the town, the register supplies us with trustworthy evidence of its size and population in Elizabeth’s time.  A comparison of the numbers of marriages, christenings, and burials for the two periods of 21 years comprising our period, shows no evidence of increase during Elizabeth’s reign, while a comparison of the entries in this period with the corresponding entries for the 21 years, 1754–1774, shows that there was no material increase in the population after a lapse of some 200 years.

Dutch Refugees.

We cannot pass from this part of our subject without noticing an interesting episode in the history of the town which belongs to this period.  About the year 1571 the resident population of Lowestoft was temporarily enlarged by the hospitable reception of a number of “Dutch Folk,” as they are called in the register.  These were refugees from the Low Countries, who sought shelter in this country, at the invitation of Elizabeth, from the ruthless persecution of the Duke of Alva.  Thousands of these Protestant refugees were admitted into English towns—some 4,000 into Norwich.  Swinden gives us a copy of a letter of Elizabeth written in 1568 to Yarmouth, asking them to admit 30 Dutch families to the privileges of their town.  Whether a similar letter was written to Lowestoft we know not, but it is evident from the register that quite as large a number as this must have found asylum here, and made it their home for some three or four years.  Marriages, christenings, and burials of “Dutch Folk” appear frequently in the register during these years, and the fact that among the burials for one year (1573) no less than 10 Dutch names appear, shews that there were a considerable number then living here.  Among the names are some that seem to belong to families of rank.  They left about the year 1574, when Alva had been recalled; and when the terror of his executions had been replaced by a patriotic eagerness to take part in the war which was soon to result in the Freedom of the Netherlands.

The remains of ancient houses or other buildings which have survived the process of rebuilding in our town are very few, but there is one house at least, representing the houses of Elizabeth’s time which retains very much of its original character.  This is the house known as the “South Flint House,” at the top of Wilde’s score which bears the initials W. M. and the date 1586 over the front door.  The front of this house is built of square flints, much more expensive work than the alternate layers of cobbles and bricks with which the other walls were made.  The ground floor appears to have originally consisted of one large room, with a fireplace and chimney in the centre, corresponding with that described by Holinshed as the hall where the “good-man” dined and dressed his meat (except that the fire was not against a “reredos” at the side wall).  The two rooms above this are evidently much the same as they were at first, having each a stone fireplace with W. M.  The house has been enlarged since with the addition of a wing.

Part II.—Lowestoft and Yarmouth at the End of the 16th Century.

Two hundred years had passed since the termination of the Parliamentary contest about the grant of Edward the III’s. Charter.  Lowestoft had not only established her right to exist, but was becoming an old town, and the events of the old contest had become matters of ancient history.

During these two hundred years Yarmouth had retained and even increased her trade, and had recovered her population, though her progress had been much retarded by the persistent action of the sea in blocking up her harbour.

The very existence of Yarmouth depended on her harbour.  Her anomalous privilege of taking tolls from ships anchored in the North Sea could be no substitute for a harbour.  This she knew well, and within two years of her obtaining her Charter, on the ground that her harbour was blocked up, she commenced opening another mouth.

Meanwhile with the assistance of the Dutch and French fishermen the Free Fair at Yarmouth was going on as merrily as ever, and the Barons of the Cinque Ports still paid their annual visit to take part in its management.  Even in the Armada year their visit was not withheld, as appears from the following amusing account of the termination of their journey, when coming to Yarmouth in the autumn of that year.

It appears that for some years previously fish merchants from other towns in the Eastern counties had been in the habit of visiting these roads in the autumn season and filling their “Ketches” with herrings from the foreign fishing boats.  It was against these men that the Yarmouth bailiffs now directed their attacks.

We hear of their proceedings from “The Complaint of the Ketchmen against Yarmouth” submitted to the Privy Council in 1595, signed by the bailiffs and inhabitants of Ipswich, Southwold, Manningtree, Dunwich, Colchester, and Aldborough.

It appears that the Yarmouth Bailiffs had not only sent their officers into the roads off Lowestoft to require the foreign fishermen to carry their fish into Yarmouth, but that they had taken active measures against the buyers, and had carried off “seven men’s goods which they have brought thither to be sold and have committed the owners thereof to prison and constrained them to buy their goods again.”

“That by the statutes and charters aforesaid any man may sell or buy herrings in the road called Kirkley Road, without the lawful let or hindrance of the town of Yarmouth; and if any proclamation be made by the said men of Yarmouth, or any other of the subjects of this realm to the contrary, the same, in our opinion, is unlawful, whether it be within or without this time of the Fair.”

Chas. Drew; Ja. Bargrave; Fr. Bacon.

Why the Act of Parliament, advised by the judges, was not introduced, or, if introduced, was not passed, we are not told.  Probably the influence of Yarmouth in the House of Commons was very different at this time from what it was when the “Commons” supported Lowestoft against the Crown in the times of Edward and Richard.

The death of Elizabeth, and the succession of James I., gave Yarmouth an opportunity to procure a new charter from the Crown, which contained provisions for removing the doubts that had been raised as to the whereabouts and extent of Kirkley Road.

It contained a new grant of Kirkley Road, and actually revived the obsolete “leuca,” as a measure of 2 miles, so as to make the new grant include “Lestoff” Road, and the whole stretch of Roads, “from Winterton Ness to Easton Ness, containing in length 14 leuks or thereabouts, and in breadth into the sea 7 leuks from every part of the shore within those places.”

Part I.—In the Time of Charles I.

At the beginning of the 17th century the decay of our fisheries, and the consequent loss of sailors, on whose services the country depended for the protection of our shores, coupled with the warning which the Spaniards had given us, had caused a sense of national danger, which was realised by many besides ministers of the Crown.  During his imprisonment of 13 years in the Tower of London, poor Sir Walter Raleigh wrote a pamphlet, which he presented to James I., in which he complained bitterly of our shame in allowing the Dutch and the French to get the command of our home fisheries.  He says that

“While the English were sending their ships into the North Seas to catch whales, the Dutch were catching the herrings and codfish in our own seas; that in 1603 the Dutch fishermen sold £1,759,000 worth of herrings, and employed 2,000 busses and 50,000 men.”

Among other pamphlets written to rouse the nation and the government to take active measures for curing this evil, a powerful appeal appeared from an anonymous writer, entitled “England’s way to win wealth and to employ ships and manners.  By Tobias, Gentleman, Fisherman and Mariner,” dated 1614.  Speaking of the Dutch fishermen, he says—

“Also to Yarmouth do they daily (i.e. during the season), come into the haven up to the Key, all the most part of the great fleet of Hollanders, that go in sword-pinks, Holland toads, crab skuits, walnut shells, and great and small yeurs, 100 and 200 sail at a time together, and all the herrings they do bring they sell for ready money to Yarmouth men; and also the Frenchmen of Picardy and Normandy some hundred sail of them at a time, do come hither, and all the herrings they catch they do sell to the Yarmouth herring-mongers for ready gold.”

“To this town belong some 20 Iceland Barks, which they do send for cod and ling, and some 150 sail of North Sea boats.  They make a shift to live; but if they had the use of busses and also barrel fish they would excel all England and Holland; for they be the only fishermen for the North Seas, and also the best for the handling of fish that are in this land.”

He also gives an account of the trade as carried on at Lowestoft at this time, which you will be surprised to hear spoken of as a “decayed town.”

“To the north of Swold Haven (Southwold), three leagues are Kirkley and Layestof, decayed towns.  They have 6 or 7 North Sea boats; but they of Layestof make benefit yearly of buying herrings of the Hollanders; for likewise these Hollanders are hosted with the Layestof men, as they are with the Yarmouthians.”

The government of Elizabeth had adopted various measures (with one of which you are already well acquainted) for encouraging the employment of English ships and sailors in the fishing trade, and the general commerce of the country.  But the English could not successfully compete with the Dutch fishermen even off our own shores.  Charles took stronger measures to get these fisheries into the hands of Englishmen.  He determined to issue a prohibition against the subjects of foreign countries fishing in what he claimed to be British seas, without a license from the English government.  In order to be able to enforce such an offensive measure he took steps for providing a more powerful navy than the country had ever before possessed.  Unfortunately he had already quarreled with his Parliament, and he had to obtain the money required by demands authorised only by his Royal Prerogative.  However popular the measure would have been, if it had been carried out by constitutional means, the imposition upon the whole country, without the consent of Parliament, of the tax called “ship money,” was the fatal proceeding which brought on the Civil War.  He succeeded however at first, and at once issued his prohibition which the Dutch refused to submit to, and in 1536, Hume tells us—

The effect of this attack upon the Dutch and French fishing in what was called the British seas was felt by Yarmouth and Lowestoft immediately.  No more could their merchants rely upon their foreign visitors for their supply of herrings.  If they were to retain their trade in herrings they must now catch them themselves or have their supplies limited to the produce of the English fishermen from southern ports.

Lowestoft in The Civil War.

Both towns had submitted, with the other maritime towns of Norfolk and Suffolk to the demands for ship money with which this fleet had been provided, but when the demand for more ships and more money was made in the following years, the loyalty of both towns must have been sorely tried.

The events which followed upon the King’s renewal of his demand for ship-money throughout the kingdom, form the saddest chapters in the history of our country.  We have only to notice those in which our two towns were concerned.

We have unfortunately no local records of the measures taken by our old townspeople, or by their cavalier visitors for converting the little town into a royalist stronghold; but it appears that in the early part of the year 1643, while Cromwell was at Cambridge, busy in establishing there the Head quarters of the East Anglian Association, he received information of “a great confederacy among the malignants of a town called Lowestoft, being a place of great consequence.”  It is said that the information was given him by a man who brought fish to Cambridge; doubtless a Yarmouth man.  Cromwell, with his usual energy, started off at once to nip this “malignant” movement in the bud.

We have a full account of what took place from a letter written at the time by Mr. J. Cory, a Norwich man.  Cromwell started with 5 troops of horse, which he increased at Norwich, with 80 volunteer dragoons, under Captain Fountain and Captain Rich, and arranged with the Yarmouth people to meet him at Lowestoft with an additional force of foot volunteers and 5 pieces of ordnance.  With this formidable force he appeared at Lowestoft on the March.  He found

The story of this incident has naturally been considerably improved.  In a petition to the judges, drawn up some 20 years afterwards, the proceedings of Cromwell and his soldiers were represented as “taking and plundering the town, imprisoning many of their principal inhabitants, and causing others to fly beyond the sea.”  The plundering seems to have been confined to the quartering of the soldiers for two nights without payment.  Tradition only tells of one case, illustrative of any other plundering, viz.: that of the blacksmith, Frarey, who Mr. Suckling tells us—“was completely stripped of all his goods and obliged to keep his horse in the parlour of his house to prevent it being carried off by the soldiers.”  The “stripping of all his goods by the soldiers” consisted probably in their using his iron and tools to shoe their horses, without payment.  Why, if bent on further plunder they did not take the trouble of looking into his parlour, the story does not explain.  The “many of the principal inhabitants taken prisoners” were the four persons mentioned by Mr. Rouse.  The others who “had to fly beyond the sea” were apparently a few of our sea warriors who had served in the King’s navy, and who took advantage of the civil war to start a career of privateering from a Dutch port.  We shall hear of their proceedings shortly.

Hostilities between Yarmouth and Lowestoft.

“The Inhabitants of Yarmouth had already suffered very much by losses at sea, their ships, vessels, and goods being frequently taken and carried away by “rovers and pirates” at sea, and others in hostility against the Parliament, whereby the town was greatly impoverished.”

Out of the 23 Yarmouth ships sent to catch cod in Iceland in 1644, 20 were sunk by the “pirates.”  To protect their fishermen, Yarmouth, in 1645, obtained three men of war from the Parliament.  These ships captured several of the pirate ships, among the crew of which they found several Lowestoft men.  These captures brought a letter from Ostend signed by Captain Allen and 11 other Englishmen, including two or three more Lowestoft names, threatening Yarmouth with reprisals if these men were not liberated.  The hostilities carried on by these “Ostend pirates” against the Yarmouth fishing boats could not have much advanced the cause of the King.  We do not, however, hear of any lives being taken in the encounters, but the loss inflicted upon the Yarmouth and other fishermen must have been very severe, if the following statement in Captain Allen’s letter was anything more than bluster.

Removal of Memorial Brasses from the Church.

In 1644 our church suffered some illusage from the Protestant fervour of the Parliament.  The story, as told by the Vicar, Mr. Jacob Rouse, is as follows—

“In the same year after, on the 22nd of June, there came one Jessope with a commission from the Earl of Manchester to take away from gravestones all inscriptions on which he found “orate pro anima;”  A wretched commissioner not able to read or find out that which his commission informed him to remove, hee took up in our church so much brasses as he sould to Mr. Josiah Wild for five shillings, which was afterwards contrary to my knowledge, run into the litle bell that hangs in the town house.  Thear wearr taken up in the middle ally, twelve peeces, belonging to the twelve severall generations of the Jettors; in the chancell, one belonging to Bishop Scroope; the words were “Richardus Scroope Episcopus Dromorocensis et hujus ecclesiæ vicarius, hic jacet, qui obiit 10 may anno 1364.”  There was also by this Jessop taken up in the vicar’s chancell, one the north side of the church, a fair peece of brasse with this inscription “Hic jacet Johannes Goodknapp hujus ecclesiæ vicarius qui obiit 4 Decembris anno dni 1442.”

The vicar’s spelling is bad for this time, and his account is curiously inaccurate.  Bishop Scroope’s Christian name was Thomas, not Richard, and he died in 1491, not 1364.  The Jettors were an old Lowestoft family, and we have seen their names in the Subsidy Rolls for 1524, in which John Jettor, senr., of that date, appears as possessed of £10 worth of “movabyll goods.”  The existence of brasses in the Parish Church commemorating 12 generations of this family before 1644 was very improbable.  No such name as John Goodknapp appears in the list of vicars in the Diocesan Register.

It appears that the “litle bell,” which was cast from the brasses taken from the church, was in use as the chapel bell in Gillingwater’s time at the end of the last century.  It was re-cast when the chapel was converted into the Town Hall; in the tower of which it still hangs, and sounds the hours for the Town Clock.

There appears to have been a considerable increase in the number of ships sent from both towns to the cod fishery off Iceland, and to the herring fishery in the North Sea.  During the years 1641 and 1649, the Yarmouth cod fishing reached its greatest height.  The ships destroyed by the “pirates” in 1644 were soon replaced, and the accounts shew that no less than 33 barks were sent to the Iceland fishery in 1648, besides 182 boats employed in the herring fishery.  According to Gillingwater, as many as 30 ships were employed by Lowestoft in the same fisheries at this one.  If this was the case, the Lowestoft fishermen must have made a great advance since the days of Elizabeth, when we were told by Mr. Mighells that their ships going to Iceland had been reduced to one.

Gillingwater gives a full account of the cod fishery, as carried on by the Lowestoft fishermen, and tells us that in his time—

“There was a trench still visible upon the Denes, a little to the north of Lowestoft, in which stood the blubber coppers where they used to boil the livers of the fish when they returned home from the voyage.”

The Great Fire of 1644.

It was in 1644, the year after Cromwell’s visit, that Lowestoft suffered the greatest calamity with which the town was ever afflicted, before or since.  On the 10th March in that year, we are told, by Mr. Rous,—

“There happened in this towne a most violent and dreadful fire which consumed and burnt down soe many houses above and beneath the cliffe, as could not be rebuilt according to the judgement of knowing artificers who viewed it for above ten thousand pounds.”

Value of Moveable Goods.

The value of the “goods” lost by the fire is put at £3,066.  This amount of property was owned by some 60 out of the three or four hundred householders which the town contained.  The loss of Mr. Josiah Wilde was put at £280; the loss of Mr. Robert Bits at £370.  As the small sum of £2 is given as the value of the goods lost by some of the smaller sufferers, we must regard the valuation of goods destroyed as sufficiently trustworthy to give an idea of the value of the stock in trade and furniture possessed by the merchants and tradesmen of the town at this period.  A comparison of this valuation with the £790 returned as the value of the “movabyll goods” possessed by our townspeople in 1524, shews how largely the wealth of our merchants had increased since that time, notwithstanding the decay of their fisheries, and the other adverse circumstances against which they had been struggling, and how great had been the increase in the furniture and other commodities of life, which was noticed by Holinshed as commencing in Elizabeth’s time.

But even so the inhabitants generally must have been very poor and badly housed compared with the present day.

Putting 400 as the number of houses having an aggregate value in 1642 of £412 we should have an average annual value of about £1 per house.  The number of houses now in the parish (of course apart from Kirkley), is 4,867 and the rateable value £77,680, giving an average value of about £16 per house, or 16 times that of 1642.  This very great increase of value represents in the main the difference in the character of the dwellings in which our ancestors lived, and of those required by an advanced civilization.  Writing in 1790 Gillingwater gives the following description of the town at that time:—

Third and Last Contest with Yarmouth about their Charter.—Conclusion.

It was while our merchants were suffering from their losses caused by the great fire, that the Yarmouth people made a third effort to enforce the privileges of their ancient charters now confirmed and strengthened by the charter of James I.  It appears that for some years before 1659, they had sent boats into the roads off Lowestoft to exact harbour dues from fishing boats, but in this year they took a much stronger measure.  They had in their harbour a large ship, probably the Queen’s ship which we have before heard of as used for war-like purposes.  They fitted out this ship as a “man of war” and sent her to ride in the roads off Lowestoft.  The ship was formally “commissioned” by the Yarmouth bailiffs under the command of Thomas Allen, a namesake of the Lowestoft champion, to prevent the Western fishermen and other strangers selling their fish to the Lowestoft merchants in the roads; with power to seize their ships, etc.  The “man of war” was sufficiently formidable to terrorise the strangers, but not the Lowestoft men, who having well armed themselves for the encounter, went out in their boats to attack it.  According to the statement of the Yarmouth bailiffs—

The King did attend the hearing of the case, but he did not gratify the expectations of our old townspeople by deciding it in their favour at once.

The case was heard by the Privy Council on several days before the King, the Duke of York, and many great officers of state and noblemen.  As when the case was brought before the Star Chamber in Elizabeth’s time, the Privy Council attempted to get the matter settled by referring it to the law authorities.  But these learned persons found themselves equally unable to settle the dispute on legal grounds, and it was accordingly referred to the House of Lords.  After the suit had been for upwards of two years under discussion by these various authorities, the House of Lords gave their decision, which was simply a repetition of the decision of the judges in Elizabeth’s time, but it was supplemented by an order to the Sheriffs of Norfolk and Suffolk, to measure the distance of seven miles from the “Crane Key” at Yarmouth, along the shore towards Lowestoft, and to place there a new post to mark the limits, “within which the Bailiffs and Corporation of Yarmouth are to enjoy their full privileges and immunities, as the said statute of the 31st, Edward III., and their charter do afford them, and no further.”

Proceedings at Yarmouth about the Measurement of the Seven Miles.

A long altercation then took place between the Suffolk gentlemen and the Under Sheriff of Norfolk.  Mr. Roger Smith took the bold course of denying that the House of Lords had “the power to take away another man’s rights,” and professed to be quite unable to satisfy himself at what point the measurement should commence, etc.  At length having firmly maintained his position till dinner, he left the Suffolk gentlemen and dined with the Bailiffs.

Having waited till Mr. Smith had finished his dinner, the Suffolk gentlemen again requested him to join in the measurement, but now he was not only obdurate but returned “unhandsome answers.”  Accordingly at the request of the Lowestoft men, the Suffolk Justices and the Under Sheriff engaged two surveyors and undertook to make the measurement without him.  They commenced at the “Crane Key” about 4 o’clock in the afternoon “pursued by multitudes with much insolence and disturbance.”  They rode along the shore under the cliff watching the surveyors laying their chain and completed their task about half an hour before sunset.  Having marked the place for the new post, a few yards nearer Yarmouth than that of the “ancient” post, (that put up in Elizabeth’s time) they went on to Lowestoft and stayed there for the night.

The following day was spent in great rejoicing at Lowestoft.  The High Sheriff of Suffolk had now joined the party, and they were entertained by the town at the Swan Hotel.

Mr. Roger Smith having been detained in custody for about a fortnight petitioned to be released on the ground that as long as he was in prison the King’s taxes could not be collected.  He was brought to the Bar of the House of Lords and ordered to make instant submission upon his knees at the bar of that house, before their lordships, in the words following.—

“I do humbly beg your Lordships’ pardon, and express very hearty sorrow for not executing your Lordships’ order, and for any unadvised words uttered by me, which might have any reflection on your Lordships’ judgement and order concerning the matter in difference between the towns of Lowestoft and Yarmouth.”

It was further ordered that he should make the same humble submission before the people on the “Crane Key” at Yarmouth.  On these conditions he was released.  Doubtless both acts of penance were duly performed.

Although the ghost of the old charter was not finally laid by the result of the contest, it was the last time that the expensive process of an appeal to the Crown, or to Parliament, was resorted to for settling the disputes which it gave rise to between the two towns.  The expenses of this protracted suit, defrayed by Lowestoft, amounted to £600, not a very large sum compared with modern experiences.

But at this time the trade appears to have been again in a depressed state owing to the Dutch war.  According to a statement in their petition to Parliament in 1670, one half of the fishing adventurers of the town had given up the business and their fishermen were lamentably impoverished.