Lowestoft in olden times

by Francis Davy Longe

In 1385 the Parliament met at Westminster. The Commons were still staunch in their support of Lowestoft, and the King was again compelled to revoke his ordinance, and to declare that all the charters given to Yarmouth by his grandfather and himself were utterly void.

A New Charter Granted by Richard.

The next year, however, from causes of which we are not informed, we find that a great change took place in the conditions of the contest. In the Parliament of 1386 we find the Commons themselves supporting the cause of Yarmouth, and petitioning the crown to regrant their charter, notwithstanding the persistency with which they had opposed it in previous years. The King of course acceded at once to this petition, and a new charter was granted to Yarmouth, embracing all the provisions of the charter of Edward, and welding more tightly the fetters which were intended to crush the trade of Lowestoft.

This charter has never been revoked and in 1826 it was cited by the Town Clerk of Yarmouth before the committee of the House of Commons, when the Bill for making a harbour at Lowestoft was under consideration.

This game of see-saw between Crown and Parliament with reference to the Yarmouth Charter, was an episode in the struggle which was going on between these Powers during the whole of the 14th century and which forms an important chapter in our constitutional history. The result of the contest as regards the fortunes of the two towns would seem to have been a complete triumph for Yarmouth; involving restrictions on the trade of Lowestoft, which were intended to deprive it of any share in the herring trade, beyond the produce of their own fishing boats. This however was by no means the actual result. The obnoxious charter proved to be perfectly harmless to Lowestoft, if not entirely useless to Yarmouth. It was beyond the power of Yarmouth to enforce it effectually. The statue of Herrings, forbidding the “forestalling” of the Free Fair by buying herrings from ships at sea, applied to the Yarmouth merchants as well as to Lowestoft men. The anomalous right given to the Yarmouth Bailiffs of exacting harbour dues from ships anchored in the sea, at a distance of several miles from their harbour mouth, must have been incapable of enforcement, without a fleet of armed bailiffs. It would appear that Yarmouth made little or no attempt to enforce the provisions of the charter against Lowestoft merchants buying herrings within the 7 leucæ, and contented themselves with claiming harbour dues from the ships which discharged their herrings there. In this claim they had for some years the assistance of the Lowestoft merchants themselves, who undertook to farm the tolls of the town. They paid as much as £26 a year for these tolls in the years 1393–4–6. This blackmail was, however, soon reduced, and in a few years the task of collecting the tolls was left in the hands of the Yarmouth Bailiffs themselves.

In 1400 we find Yarmouth giving up altogether the attempt to enforce their charter, and entering into an agreement with Lowestoft, which gave express sanction to their purchasing herrings from ships lying off their shore. This agreement was entitled “An accord or composition between Yarmouth and Lowestoft that the latter might buy herrings in Kirkley Road upon conditions therein specified.” The Lowestoft merchants were allowed to buy fish from all ships that were not “hosted” to Yarmouth merchants i.e., from ships whose owners had not entered into engagements with Yarmouth merchants to sell their fish to them, or through them, as their agents (an arrangement, very necessary for foreigners in those days); and the Lowestoft merchants might buy also from these ships herrings which the Yarmouth “hosts” did not require for themselves, upon payment of half a mark per last to the hosts, in addition to the price of the fish. This “Composition” was formally sanctioned by the King in Council, and was issued by “Letters patent” in the 2nd. year of Henry IV. As we do not hear of any further litigation between Lowestoft and Yarmouth for 200 years, we may take it that the first contest between the two towns was closed by this agreement, whether this long truce was due to it, or to other causes.

Swinden in his history of Yarmouth ends here his story of “The Contest about Kirkley Road.” He promised another chapter in which he would have had to deal with the renewal of the contest by Yarmouth in the 16th and again in the 17th centuries. This chapter was not written. He probably found a difficulty in treating the later episodes of the story, which must have been a very sore subject between the two towns even when he was writing.

Our interest in it is now purely archæological. The story though somewhat tedious cannot be dispensed with in a history of Lowestoft, any more than the ghost’s story in Hamlet. It is the story of the growth of Lowestoft from a small village into a fishing town of some importance to the country. Her trade was probably growing rapidly during the whole period that the contest lasted. But from the beginning of the 15th century her merchants were free to take their full share in the herring trade, and in any other trade, which the position of the town would enable them to develope; though without a harbour, her merchants, whether as fishing adventurers, or as general merchants, must have had a very limited range for their enterprises.

Part III.—Evidence Furnished by the Lay Subsidies of the Growth of Lowestoft.

Unfortunately the records of the contest between Yarmouth and Lowestoft furnish us with no information as to the actual wealth and population of Lowestoft at this period, and we have no local records to help us in forming an estimate of either. But we are not altogether at a loss for information on these important questions. Among the decayed and fragmentary relics of the old Lay Subsidy Rolls in the Record office, we have a complete detailed return for the 1st of Edward III., and another for the 15th of Henry VIII. If these Rolls do not furnish direct information as to the actual wealth and population of the town, a comparison between them furnishes good evidence of its relative status at these two periods.