9.—Mr. Frederick Elwin Watson was elected Mayor (for the second time), and Mr. William Butcher appointed Sheriff of Norwich.
21.—The Prince of Wales arrived at Merton Hall, on a visit to Lord and Lady Walsingham.
29.—The building known as the temporary church in the parish of St. Bartholomew, Norwich, was opened by the Bishop of the Diocese. It was intended for the accommodation of 500 persons, and was erected at the cost of £600.
DECEMBER.
14.—The Widow Steavenson, residing in St. Gregory’s parish, Norwich, completed her 101st year. “Several of the parishioners called upon her, congratulated her on the event, and supplied her with all the needful viands and wine to enable her to entertain several old friends. Her daughter, now 77 years old, is a widow, having had to mourn the loss of three husbands, but is on the point of marrying again.” (See January 2nd, 1874.)
24.—Mr. Sidney produced his “farewell pantomime” at Norwich Theatre. It was entitled, “St. George, the Dragon, and the Seven Champions of Christendom.”
31.—The Prince of Wales, on his journey from Gunton to Sandringham, lunched at the County Club, Norwich. The party travelled from Gunton to Norwich in sleighs and closed carriages, and his Royal Highness afterwards proceeded by rail from Thorpe station to Wolferton.
—Died at Merton Hall, the Right Hon. Thomas, Lord Walsingham. He was the eldest son of Thomas, fourth Lord Walsingham, by his wife Lady Elizabeth, fourth daughter of the Hon. and Right Rev. Brownlow North, Bishop of Winchester, and was born July 5th, 1804. On the death of his father, on September 8th, 1839, he succeeded to the barony, and married, on August 6th, 1842, Augusta Louisa, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Frankland Russell, Bart. Of this marriage he had issue a son, the Hon. Thomas de Grey. Lady Walsingham died in 1844, and his lordship married, secondly, on October 25th, 1847, the Horn Emily Elizabeth Julia Thellusson, eldest daughter of John, second Lord Rendlesham, by whom he left issue three sons and three daughters. His lordship was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. in 1824, was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1827, and in 1842 was made LL.D. of his University. Although educated for the law, he devoted himself to agriculture, the improvement of his estate, and of his cattle and sheep. He was a member of the leading agricultural societies and of the Smithfield Club, an excellent landlord, and one who carried out to the fullest extent the motto of his house, “Excitari non hebescere.” His lordship was succeeded in his title and estates by his son, the Hon. Thomas de Grey, M.P. for West Norfolk, who was born in 1843.
—*“The December of 1870 has been no less remarkable for its cold than its heat. In the opening days of the month the temperature was unusually high, and only a fortnight before winter made its appearance in stern reality the thermometer registered in Norwich 55. On the 21st there were four degrees of frost, and on the 23rd the thermometer fell as low as 8.5. On Christmas Eve the cold was so intense that the register on the following morning was as low as 5.5. Christmas Day was the coldest experienced since Christmas Day, 1860, when the cold was more intense by some two or three degrees.” There was a deep fall of snow throughout the county.