13.—The announcement was published that Mr. David Fisher, the actor, who was so well known and highly respected in Norwich and Norfolk, had made a successful début at the Princess’s Theatre, London.
DECEMBER.
1.—In the Vice-Chancellor’s Court application was made in the suit Jermy v. Jermy for the administration of the estate of the late Mr. Jermy, of Stanfield Hall. The only question that arose was about certain timber growing on the estate and fines of copyholds. But a difficulty of a novel character had occurred. Since the murder the mansion had been untenanted. Although many persons were willing to take it they could not procure servants who would live in the house, so great was the superstitious feeling which existed. It was stated that the parties were willing to allow the house to be occupied for two years for nothing, in order to overcome the prejudice. The Vice-Chancellor said that Mrs. Jermy Jermy was entitled to a third of the timber and fines, and he expressed surprise that such prejudices existed against the house.
3.—Died, at her residence on the Castle Meadow, Norwich, in her 85th year, Amelia Opie, widow of John Opie, R.A., and only daughter of Dr. James Alderson. After her marriage with Opie in 1798 her numerous literary productions gained her considerable reputation, and as a novelist she moved in the highest literary circles. Her works included “Father and Daughter,” “Simple Tales,” 4 vols. (1806); “New Tales,” 4 vols. (1818); “Temper, or Domestic Scenes,” 3 vols.; “Tales of the Heart,” 4 vols.; “Detraction Displayed” (moral treatise); “Illustrations of Lying,” “Lays of the Dead,” and other poems. Mrs. Opie was a member of the Society of Friends, and her remains were interred in the Quakers’ Burial Ground, Gildencroft, on December 9th.
17.—The provision of a time-ball connected by electric telegraph with Greenwich Observatory, and exhibited in a prominent position in Norwich Market Place, was, in consequence of the irregularities of the public clocks, advocated in the Norfolk Chronicle on this date.
20.—A meeting of the landowners, farmers, and tradesmen of Harleston and the district was held at the Corn Hall in that town, to consider the desirability of promoting the construction of a railway from Tivetshall station on the Eastern Union line. In 1851 an Act of Incorporation was obtained for making a railway from Tivetshall to Bungay, but from various causes, chiefly from the depression in the railway world, no further steps were at that time taken.
22.—Died, at the house of his son-in-law at Cambridge, aged 69, Mr. Seth William Stevenson, F.S.A., one of the proprietors of the Norfolk Chronicle. He was elected Sheriff of Norwich in 1828, he became alderman in the same year, and in 1832 served the office of Mayor. Literary pursuits, especially of an antiquarian character, engrossed his leisure. In early life Mr. Stevenson made several Continental tours. The year after the battle of Waterloo, he, in company with Capt. Money, visited the scene of the struggle, and afterwards published “A Journal of a Tour through part of France, Flanders and Holland, including a Visit to Paris and a Walk over the Field of Waterloo in the Summer of 1816.” The work was dedicated to the Norwich United Friars Society, of which literary body he was almost the last surviving member. In 1828 appeared the account of a second tour in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. The book to which he devoted no inconsiderable portion of the last ten years of his life was the complete “Dictionary of Roman Coins.”
24*.—“We have received from Mr. Garthon, one of the district surgeons of Norwich, a return in a tabular form showing the extraordinary number of 96 cases of small-pox in Heigham and St. Benedict’s, during the last three months. These arose from the strong prejudice still existing amongst ignorant and poor people against the only preventive—vaccination.”
—The funeral of the Marchioness of Wellesley took place at Costessey Hall, whither the remains had been removed from Hampton Court. “In accordance with the good old charitable practice a dole of bread was given to the poor of Costessey on the occasion of the funeral.”
26.—Mr. Joseph Clarence produced at Norwich Theatre his grand Christmas pantomime, entitled, “Harlequin Prince Bluecap and the King of the Silver Waters, or the Three Kingdoms, Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral.”