30.—At a meeting held at the King’s Head Inn, Diss, the Rev. William Manning, rector of the parish, made a voluntary commutation of the tithes.
APRIL.
5.—Died at his house in Hereford Street, London, the Right Rev. Henry Bathurst, Lord Bishop of Norwich. His lordship was in the 94th year of his age, and had been Bishop of the diocese for 32 years. He was appointed in 1805 when Bishop Manners Sutton was translated to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The funeral took place on the 14th at Malvern Church, Worcestershire, and a memorial service was held on the same day at Norwich Cathedral. A funeral sermon was preached on the 16th by the Dean of Norwich. The sale of the late Bishop’s effects, by Mr. William Spelman, commenced at the Palace on June 26th, and concluded on July 5th. The stock of wine consisted of 2,650 bottles, and the library of 2,000 volumes.
6.—At the Norfolk Assizes, before Mr. Justice Coltman, John Smith, George Timms, and John Varnham, were indicted for the murder of Hannah Manfield (or Saddler), on the night of the 2nd, or morning of the 3rd of January. The trial commenced at 10.20 in the morning, and concluded at fifteen minutes past midnight, when the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the prisoners were sentenced to death. The sentence on Varnham was commuted on an ample confession by the other prisoners. Large numbers of persons arrived at Norwich on April 22nd, to witness the execution, which, however, had been ordered for the 29th. A full descriptive account of the supposed execution, and of the behaviour of the men on the gallows, with a copy of their confessions and their “last dying words,” was hawked about the streets of the city. The capital sentence was duly carried out on the 29th. The procession issued from the castle doors at noon, headed by a number of javelin men of the High Sheriff’s posse. Smith, who was in the last stage of a rapid decline, was assisted to the scaffold. “After the bolt was drawn and the bodies swung round, a piercing cry of horror rose from the dense mass of people of both sexes. After hanging the usual space of time the bodies were taken down and carried into the interior of the gaol, when all the prisoners were brought forward to view them in the place where they lay.”
7.—North Walsham Steeplechases took place over a four mile course on the estate of Mr. Bidwell, at Swafield. The heavy weight race was won by Lord Suffield’s Metternich (Capt. Lawrenson, 17th Lancers), second Mr. Thompson’s Mungo (owner); and the light weight race by
Mr. Sandiford’s Gulnoire (Mr. Brown); Mr. Hornor’s O’Connell (owner) second. Lord Suffield presided at the race dinner, afterwards held at the King’s Arms Inn, and presented the silver tankard, given and won by himself in the heavy weight race, to Capt. Lawrenson. A large coloured plate, illustrating the start of the eleven horses for the heavy weight race, “with a distant view of the country, from sketches made on the spot by George Fenn, animal portrait painter, Beccles,” was subsequently advertised.
11.—James Greenacre, who on this day was found guilty, at the Central Criminal Court, of the murder of Hannah Brown, in the Edgeware Road, was a Norfolk man, and was born in 1785, at North Runcton, near Lynn. His victim, whose maiden name was Gay, was a Norfolk woman, and was in the service of Lord Wodehouse, at Kimberley Hall, where she remained four years. Greenacre (who was executed on May 2nd) was concerned in the Cato Street Conspiracy.
14.—Sir James Flower closed his hunting season by entertaining his sporting friend’s at the Swan Inn, East Harling. The dinner was of the most sumptuous character, and “a band of fourteen men in scarlet played numerous airs and concerted pieces.”
19.—Mr. G. V. Brooke (then under twenty years of age) made his first appearance at Norwich Theatre as Romeo. “His performance was of that superior kind, exhibiting all the fervour and enthusiasm of youth attempered by that discriminating judgment and illumined by those nice and acute perceptions which belong to the faculties of much maturer years.” He afterwards appeared as Ion, Othello, Rolla, Richard the Third, William Tell, Hamlet, Rosenberg (“Ella Rosenberg”), Macbeth, and Teddy (“Teddy the Tiler”), and concluded his engagement on May 20th. Brooke was re-engaged for two nights’ performances, commencing on August 1st, when he played the part of Walter Tyrrel, in a new drama of that title, and of Frederick Bury (“The Youthful Queen”).
20.—A meeting, presided over by Col. Harvey, was held at the Guildhall, Norwich, when, on the motion of Mr. J. J. Gurney, it was decided to form a District Provident Society, for the promotion of frugal and provident habits among the industrial poor.