8.—Mr. Edward Wild was elected leader of the Conservative party in Norwich in place of Mr. H. S. Patteson, resigned.
11.—A great sale of shire horses, the property of the Prince of Wales, was conducted at Wolferton by Messrs. Sexton, Grimwade, and Beck. Fifty-four lots averaged £224 7s. 9d., and the sale realised £12,117. The three-year-old filly, Sea Breeze, was bought by Sir Blundell Maple for 1,150 guineas.
22.—A shocking boat disaster occurred at Wells-next-the-Sea. Five members of the coastguard were drowned through the capsizing of their boat, and five men of the crew of the gig of H.M.S. torpedo boat Alarm, Sub-Lieutenant William Lowther, lost their lives through a like mishap. The second disaster, which was discovered when search was being made for the missing coastguard, was the indirect outcome of the first; for when the coastguard boat did not arrive in response to the Alarm’s signals to take off stores intended for use at the Wells coastguard station, it was decided on board the Alarm to launch the gig and execute the commission.
22.—Mr. Arthur F. Gentry, borough accountant of Colchester, was appointed City Accountant of Norwich, at the salary of £400 per annum.
—At a meeting of the Norwich Town Council, it was decided that the Norwich City Waterworks Bill, 1898, be referred to the Law and Parliamentary Committee with the object of obtaining powers in the Bill for the Corporation to purchase the Waterworks. The Bill, which was promoted by the City of Norwich Waterworks Company for raising additional capital and for obtaining powers to make additional works, came before a Select Committee of the House of Commons on March 15th. The committee stipulated that the proposed new capital should be reduced from £100,000 to £60,000, and the borrowing powers to £15,000, which with the unused capital and stock would give the company £90,000. On October 18th the Law and Parliamentary Committee reported that having regard to the importance and magnitude of the acquisition of the undertaking by the Corporation, and the limited time within which steps must be taken to promote a Bill in the next session of Parliament, they recommended that further action be delayed until next year. The recommendation was adopted.
24.—A party of members of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society visited Tasburgh for the purpose of viewing a site known as the Chapel Piece, where a quantity of ancient human remains had been unearthed. “There is little doubt that the site was used as a burial-ground by the inhabitants of the Roman station over the river upon the adjacent hill, in the enclosure of which the present church of Tasburgh stands.”
25.—Dr. Nansen, the Arctic explorer, delivered at St. Andrew’s Hall, Norwich, his lecture entitled “Across the Polar Region.”
MARCH.
5.—Died at his residence, South Kensington, Mr. Edmund Tattersall, head of the well-known firm of horse auctioneers. Mr. Tattersall was born at Sculthorpe, neap Fakenham, in 1816, and at an early age went to London to assist his uncle, whom he succeeded as sole partner in 1858.
12.—The freehold of the old Norfolk Hotel, Norwich, it was announced, had been purchased for £9,500, by a syndicate who proposed to erect upon the site a modern theatre to be called “The Norwich Opera House and Theatre of Varieties,” at an estimated cost of between £25,000 and £30,000. On the 19th particulars were published of another new theatre to be erected upon a site south of Prince of Wales Road. Plans of both the proposed theatres were prepared and were approved by the Corporation. In due course the foundations of the first-named theatre were laid, after which the work came to an abrupt termination.