OCTOBER.
4.—The Yarmouth Town Council, by a majority of 25 to 11, adopted the Public House Closing Act, 1864.
8.—The first sod of the West Norfolk Junction Railway was turned by Miss Ellen Simpson, daughter of Mr. Lightly Simpson, the chairman of the company. Many persons travelled to Heacham to take part in the proceedings. (See January 8th, 1866.)
11.—Died, Captain Becher, “the well-known sportsman and father of steeplechase riders, whose deeds in the pigskin some 30 years back have immortalised him in the annals of that sport.” Captain Becher was born in Norfolk, and was the son of a farmer, “who was very conspicuous as a horseman and the last of the leather breeches school.”
16.—A new screw steamer, the Ontario, 3,200 tons, Captain Brooklin, upon her first voyage, from Shields to Alexandria, laden with coals and iron, struck upon Happisburgh Sand. Three steam tugs and the Caister lifeboat proceeded to her assistance, and her cargo was thrown overboard, but every effort made to get her off proved unavailing. On the 17th the weather became very threatening, and the lifeboat took off 56 coal heavers, but the captain and officers and 86 of the crew determined to remain with the vessel. During the night the storm increased, and the crew, apparently in great distress, sent up rockets and burned blue lights. The Yarmouth lifeboatmen were implored by the ship’s agent, Mr. Butler, to go to the ship, but in vain. They refused to launch the lifeboat unless they were paid from £400 to £500, saying that the steam tugs had begun the work and had better finish it. The Caister lifeboat stood by the vessel, which, by the 20th, had so settled down that it was hopeless to attempt to get her off. On this day 68 of the crew left in a lifeboat belonging to the steamer, but the captain and officers declined to desert her. They were, however, compelled to leave on the 22nd, when she became a total wreck, and was offered for sale. The original value of the Ontario was £120,000.
21.—The church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, was opened after restoration, at the cost of about £6,000. The sermon was preached by the Bishop of Oxford, and at the luncheon held subsequently, under the presidency of the Mayor (Mr. R. Steward), the company included the Bishops of Norwich and Oxford, the Bishop of British Columbia, Lord Sondes (High Steward of the borough), and many other distinguished guests.
NOVEMBER.
9.—Mr. Charles Edward Tuck was elected Mayor, and Mr. Charles Jecks appointed Sheriff of Norwich.
9.—Died at Keswick, near Norwich, in his 90th year, Mr. Hudson Gurney. He was the eldest son of Mr. Richard Gurney, who died at Keswick in 1811. Educated by Dr. Thomas Young, of scientific celebrity, he became connected early in life with the great banking firm of the Gurneys, of which he was for many years senior partner, as well as with the noted London brewery of Barclay and Co., his mother being the daughter and heiress of Mr. David Barclay, of Youngbury, Herts. In 1809 he married Margaret, daughter of Robert Barclay, of Ury, descended from the celebrated Barclay, the Apologist for the Quakers. Mrs. Gurney died at Keswick on December 16th, 1855. In politics Mr. Gurney was, in many respects, decidedly Conservative, though on some points he held opinions more in accordance with the most advanced Liberalism, and, as a perfectly independent member, allied himself to no party in particular. His Parliamentary career commenced in 1812, when he was elected for Shaftesbury; from the year 1816 he represented Newport, Hants., in six successive Parliaments. In 1835 he served the office of High Sheriff for the county of Norfolk. He was a man of high literary attainments, and was vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries, a Fellow of the Royal and Linnæan Societies, vice-president of the Norwich Museum, the Literary Institute, and of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society. As an author his chief production was probably the beautiful poem in English verse under the title of “Cupid and Psyche,” a mythological tale from the “Golden Ass” of Apuleius; in 1801 it had reached a third edition, and was afterwards reprinted in Mr. Davenport’s “Poetical Register.” He also published, for private distribution, in 1843, a translation into English verse of the “Orlando Furioso” of Ludovico Ariosto; and in 1847, in a letter to Mr. Dawson Turner, “Proofs that Norwich, and not Caistor, was the Venta Icenorum.” In his latter years, confined almost entirely to his own residence, “he reversed in his hours the usual custom, amusing himself with his books and writings till four or five o’clock in the morning, and, of course, rising comparatively late in the day.” His estate, real and personal included, was valued at £1,200,000.
—The Lynn Town Council resolved to put an end to the absurd and obnoxious impost known as “the Lady Mayoresses’ Pin Money.” “For many years the custom has prevailed in the town of the constables (who perform no other duties) going round to all the inhabitants in October and November and collecting from all who were foolish enough to pay it a kind of blackmail, under the ridiculous title of the Lady Mayoresses’ Pin Money, pretending that it was legally payable under the charters, and that those who did not pay would be summoned before the magistrates or the County Court. It appears that the custom has grown out of the collection of fines for non-attendance at the Court Leet held annually by the Mayor as Lord of the Manor; but for many generations past no such attendance has been either any use or capable of enforcement. The fines have also completely lapsed, and those who collect the ‘pin money’ are completely ignorant of its origin. The pretence has been that the money was to buy a piece of plate for the Mayoress, but in reality the greater part of it has been appropriated by the collectors themselves, and of the many pounds obtained not more than some fifty shillings annually found its way into the borough fund.”