Lowestoft in olden times

by Francis Davy Longe

Such was Lowestoft in its infancy—a small agricultural village of less importance than Carlton or Mutford or Kessingland. We shall now lose sight of her for some 300 years. When she again appears in the records of the past she will appear as a town of some importance to the country, and as a rival of Yarmouth in the herring trade.

Etymology of “Lowestoft.”

In conclusion, I will say a few words about the name. In the facsimile copy of Domesday it is Lothu Wistoft. In the grant of the privileges of “Ancient Demesne” by Elizabeth, which recites a certificate from Chancery that the parish was in demesne of the Crown in the time of William the Conqueror the name is spelt “Lothn-wistoft.” Either spelling affords good evidence of the origin of the word, and leaves little room for doubting its etymology. Lothu-wistoft or Lothn-wistoft was the “toft” by Loth-wis or Lothen-wis, or Lothing-wis, “wis” being the same word as “ouse,” a word used in Saxon times as an equivalent for “lake,” as in Wisbech, stagnant or slow moving water, as distinguished from a quick running river. The place was probably at first only called “toft,” a very common word in Saxon times, denoting a small homestead, and not uncommonly found in existing names—as “Toft Monks,” “Stowlangtoft,” &c. “Loth-wis” or “Lothn-wis” was equivalent to “Lothing Lake,” the piece of water which played the important part of separating Lothing, or Lothingland, from the rest of the county of Suffolk. The abbreviation of this long word into a shorter form was inevitable, and as early as 1327 we find it appearing in the Subsidy Rolls as “Lowystofth.” The forms it took after this time are multitudinous, but the later abbreviations and corruptions, due to vulgar pronunciations and bad spelling, are no guide whatever to its original etymology Lothing or Lothingland, Lothingaland, Loddingland, Luddingland—was the “ing” or property of Loth, Lod, or Lud, probably a Danish captain, to whom this district was given by the Danish conquerors of East Anglia after it had been settled in townships by the Angles (compare Kessingland, &c.)

LECTURE II.

Part I.—Lowestoft in the 14th Century.—Rise and Fall of Yarmouth.

Part II.—Rise of Lowestoft.—Parliamentary War with Yarmouth.

Part III.—The Lay Subsidies.

Part I.—Lowestoft in the 14th Century.

Lowestoft lies hid in oblivion for some 300 years after her appearance in Domesday. During this time great changes had taken place in the country at large as well as in Lowestoft. A new regime had been established, under which Saxon and Angle, Dane and Norman, had been welded into one nation, and laws and institutions were in force, which are familiar features in our present legal and political system. Although still 500 years from the present time, England, in Edward III.’s reign, was much more like the England of to-day than the country described in Domesday. Foreign trade had sprung up. Wheat and wool were grown in large quantities and exported from Yarmouth and other ports. The penny was no longer the only silver coin, and gold coins of several different sizes and values were in circulation. Last, and not least, the herring fishery was being carried on to a very large extent on this coast, and was an object of national and international importance.

It is in the middle of Edward III.’s reign that Lowestoft appears for the second time in our national records. But she is no longer the insignificant agricultural village of Domesday. She is evidently a rising little town, in the modern sense of the word, carrying on a sea trade of some importance in fish and other light merchandise. She had ceased for some years to be “Royal demesne,” and was now the property of the King’s cousin—John, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond—to whom the manor of Gorleston and the rest of the Royal estates in this neighbourhood had been given by the King’s grandfather, Edward I.