Lowestoft in olden times

by Francis Davy Longe

In 1281 Yarmouth was fined £1,000 for doing divers trespasses and damages to the Cinque Ports upon the south coast as far as Shoreham, Portsmouth and other places.

In 1303 we find Yarmouth sending ships to join the Royal fleet which was to escort Edward I. to Flanders. Having put the King ashore the Yarmouth and the Cinque Ports men, being well equipped for fight take the opportunity of paying off old scores by engaging in a furious battle in which 25 Yarmouth ships were burnt. According to another account 37 Yarmouth ships were greatly damaged and £15,000 worth of loss inflicted.

We have other evidence of Yarmouth’s naval power in the reign of Edward III. In 1337 Yarmouth supplies Edward III. with 20 “men of war” (as they were called) to carry the King’s ambassadors to Hainault. On their return they did a little privateering business on their own account and took two Flemish ships laden with provisions for Scotland, and killed the Bishop of Glasgow who was unfortunately on board one of them.

In 1340 Yarmouth contributed 52 ships to the Fleet with which Edward won the battle of the Swin against France off Sluys in Holland. The admiral of this fleet was John Perebrown, a Yarmouth man, whose name appears some 15 times in the lists of Bailiffs. Edward was particularly proud of this victory. He had a new gold coinage issued to commemorate it, the first nobles struck, bearing an effigy of himself sitting in the middle of a ship, with a shield on his left arm bearing the arms of England and France.

In 1342 Edward came himself to Yarmouth and sailed with a fleet of 20 Yarmouth ships to the coast of Brittany, where he was engaged in laying siege to the town of Vannes. Having landed the king the Yarmouth ships are attacked by the French fleet, and being worsted (doubtless by a superior force) they take to flight leaving the king in the lurch. The king having managed, with the assistance of the Pope, to make a truce with France, comes home and at once summons all the owners as well as the captains and the crews of the Yarmouth ships to “answer for their contemptibly deserting him, leaving other our faithful subjects there with us in danger of our lives.”

The names of the ships and of all their owners and captains, are entered in the Kings’ writ of summons [31] and they are required to attend with all the sailors at Westminster. We do not hear of their being punished. They probably were able to satisfy the King that on this occasion discretion was the better part of valour, and we find them fighting for the King again 5 years afterwards. This was in 1347 when he was engaged in the celebrated siege of Calais.

On this occasion Yarmouth contributed no less than 43 ships to the Royal fleet and 1075 mariners, a larger number of ships and men than even London supplied.

The importance of Yarmouth at this time and the magnitude of it’s fleet relative to that of other towns is shown by the fact that the total number of ships which the Cinque Ports themselves were required to supply was 57.

According to a statement in the petition of the town to Henry VII., Yarmouth had at this time 80 ships with forestages and 170 ships without. The larger ships were apparently about the size of a 100 ton ship of the present day.

These records are interesting in themselves, and are important episodes in our national history. I have quoted them for the purpose of showing the magnitude and importance of Yarmouth at this time. A town which could fit out 43 ships for the King’s Navy and man them with 1075 sailors at their own cost, (for the King only paid for the maintenance of the sailors while in his service), must have been both wealthy and populous. She had acquired her wealth and naval power almost entirely from the herring fishery, and from the large extent to which her own population was engaged in it. But the trade carried on by her merchants during the autumn season with the fish catchers and fish buyers from other towns at home and abroad contributed largely to the wealth of the town. It appears from a return which has been preserved of the amount taken for the murage tax, (a small charge on ships and merchandise added to the harbour dues towards the expense of building the town wall) that the amount received in the year 1343 during the weeks comprising the herring season was £54 6s. out of a total sum of £66 7s. 11d. collected during the twelve months. The entries show the large number of foreign vessels coming to the Autumn Fair. In five days in September in this year, 60 foreign ships entered the harbour, of which 10 were from Lombardy. [32]