17.—Died in St. George Colegate, Norwich, aged 41, Emily, eldest daughter of John Crome, founder of the Norwich Society of Artists. “In her pictures of fish, fruit, and flowers it may be justly said that no one has represented these objects with greater fidelity to nature, combined with a tasteful and picturesque manner of grouping them.”
18.*—“Children who are sickly are taken to a woman living in St. Lawrence, Norwich, for the purpose of being cut for a supposed disease called the spinnage. The infants are on a Monday morning taken to this woman’s, who, for threepence, with a pair of scissors cuts through the lobe of the right ear, then makes a cross with the blood upon the forehead and breast of the child. On the following Monday the same barbarous and superstitious ceremony is performed upon the left ear, and on the succeeding Monday the right ear is again condemned to undergo the same ceremony, and in some cases it is deemed necessary to perform the ridiculous operation nine times.”
MAY.
2.*—“Married lately at St. Peter’s, in London, by the Rev. Thomas Grose, George Henry Borrow, Esq., for many years a resident in Spain, and a native of Norwich, and only surviving son of the late Captain Borrow, to Mrs. Mary Clarke, of Oulton Cottage, in Suffolk.”
3.—Died at Bath, Mr. Thomas Manning, of Orange Grove, Dartford, and formerly of Diss. “An eminent linguist, he accompanied Lord Amherst’s embassy to China, and was considered the best Siamese scholar in Europe, Dr. Morrison and Mr. St. Julien being his only rivals. He was able to speak fluently fifteen languages, and maintained a correspondence with the literati of the world. For months he resided at H’lassa, in the kingdom of Thibet, and was the only Englishman who had ever penetrated to the metropolis of the Lama. There he spoke during his sojourn only Latin, and on his departure received the benediction of the Lama.”
6.—Died, aged 76, Mr. James Sillett, of King Street, Norwich. “As an artist he stood unrivalled in his minute and accurate delineations of fish, fruit, and flowers. From 1781 to 1790 he studied from the figure at the Royal Academy, under Professors Reynolds, Barry, and others, whose lectures he also attended. He began to exhibit at Somerset House in 1796, which he continued at intervals for upwards of 30 years, part of which time he practised as a miniature painter with great success. He afterwards settled in his native city, and gained pre-eminence in his skilful and faithful delineations in oil and water colours. In later days he undertook architectural subjects. In 1815 he was President of the Norwich Artists’ Society, of which he was one of the original members, but, in consequence of disputes arising, he and two other of the original members quitted it. He continued annually to exhibit, although he never afterwards joined the society, which, from want of encouragement, gradually dissolved in a few years.”
7.—A public meeting was held at the Guildhall, Norwich, “to take into consideration the propriety of petitioning Parliament to afford to every part of the United Kingdom the advantage now enjoyed by the Metropolis of not having any post delivery on the Sabbath day.”
9.*—“Married lately at Catfield, by the Rev. J. Prowett, Mr. John Curtiss, aged 85, to Miss Rogers, an agreeable young lady. The morning was ushered in with the ringing of bells and firing of guns. A large barge was prepared for the accommodation of the company to row on the lake in front of his mansion. In the evening an excellent band of music tended to the great amusement of hundreds who assembled on the cheerful occasion, when all the younger ones joined in the rustic dance, which was kept up till a late hour, after which there was a grand display of fireworks.”
13.—Matthew Rackham, over seventy years of age, started from Norwich at four o’clock in the morning and walked to Yarmouth, where he arrived at nine o’clock, and returned to Norwich by six o’clock in the evening, “without experiencing any fatigue, although he had to contend with an adverse wind accompanied with rain during the whole of his journey out.”
18.—Mr. G. V. Brooke took his benefit at Norwich Theatre as Hotspur in “King Henry the Fourth” (Part 1). “The degree of estimation in which this young actor is held was displayed in a general call for him at the end of the piece, a proceeding which is frequently resorted to in London, but which we are not aware of having seen occur here before.”