28.—Died at Lynn, Mr. Benjamin Smith, aged 93. “He was a man of rather eccentric habits. His gravestone had been placed in the churchyard of St. Margaret’s nearly ten years before his death, having only a blank for his age and day of decease. In his personal habits he was frugal almost to parsimony, but his benevolence was only bound by his means. He entirely rebuilt St. James’s almshouses for 12 widows, and an abode for the Reader; and erected and partly endowed another almshouse (called the Wesleyan almshouse) for six poor women.”
1830.
JANUARY.
1.—Died at Yarmouth, the Rev. H. R. Bowles, one of the ministers of the Unitarian chapel in that town. He was master of the Yarmouth Academy, and formerly an actor on the Norwich stage.
5.—Died at his house in St, Stephen’s, aged 86, Mr. James Keymer, city surgeon, and for upwards of fifty years surgeon and apothecary to the Norwich Bethel. He was known as “the father” of the Norfolk
and Norwich Benevolent Medical Society (established in 1786), and “in his capacity of accoucheur introduced no less than 8,000 children into the world, and repeatedly attended three and four generations in succession.”
5.—At the Norwich Consistory Court, the suit, Meachen v. Carter, was tried. The parties lived at East Dereham, and the dispute arose about the use of a pew in the church. The defendant was proceeded against for “quarrelling, chiding, and brawling in church,” and the court, in giving judgment, declared him excommunicate, directed him to be imprisoned for three days, and condemned him in costs.
10.—During a severe storm from the N.N.E., the streets of Cley-next-the-Sea were inundated in places to the depth of six or eight feet, and several families were rescued from the upper windows of the houses. Many vessels were wrecked along the coast.
11.—The Relief Committee of the Norwich Court of Guardians determined to erect two looms in the Workhouse for the employment of persons who might apply for relief on the ground of not being able to obtain work. From these looms, at a subsequent date, work was deliberately cut and destroyed. On the 12th the riotous conduct of the weavers necessitated the calling out of the 7th Dragoon Guards; and on the 13th Mr. John Wright, one of the principal master manufacturers, had vitriol thrown into his face in St. Faith’s Lane. Mr. Wright, who was dreadfully injured, discharged a pistol at his assailant, who escaped. The Corporation offered a reward for the apprehension and conviction of the miscreant. Richard Nockolds, who was executed for arson on April 9th, 1831, confessed to the perpetration of the outrage. The distress continued throughout the winter, and on February 6th a meeting was held at the Guildhall, at which a relief fund was started, and nearly £3,000 raised. At the Norfolk Quarter Sessions, on March 10th, Lord Suffield, in his charge to the Grand Jury, suggested means for the alleviation of public distress. Mr. Cobbett came down to Norwich and lectured at Ranelagh Gardens on March 12th and 13th, on “The State of the Country.” Half-a-crown admission was charged, and “he pocketed about £50, which, all things considered, was about as much as he could well expect.” A common hall was held on March 17th, “to consider the unprecedently distressed situation of the country,” and Parliament was petitioned on the subject. Mr. W. J. Utten Browne, in the course of the proceedings, described Mr. Cobbett as “one whose name it was pollution to pronounce, and who had crawled up from the very dregs of the people to a slimy popularity.” In the report of this meeting the term “Liberal,” as used in a political sense, appeared for the first time. On May 15th the welcome announcement was made that some of the principal houses in Norwich had brought gros de Naples and other silks to such a state of perfection that they had a decided preference in the market, and that so numerous were the orders that scarcely a loom in this important branch of the weaving trade was unemployed.
16.—A great meeting of freeholders of the county was held at the Shirehall, Norwich, presided over by the High Sheriff (Mr. Andrew Fountaine), at which a petition was adopted for presentation to Parliament, praying for the repeal of the malt duties. (Meetings for the same end were held in all parts of the county.)