Lowestoft in olden times

by Francis Davy Longe

I will first give you the number of different persons mentioned as belonging to these different trades and occupations. You will not be surprised to learn that the most numerous class were the “mariners,” as they were called in the earlier years; and afterwards “sailor,” and then “seamen.” Only one person appears as a “fisher.” This class numbered 77. The next largest class you will be surprised to hear were the tailors, of whom there were thirty-nine. Then came labourers 39, butchers 20, smiths 13, carpenters, joiners, and sawyers 12, masons 12, weavers 12, shoe makers, cordwainers, and cobblers 11, shipwrights 10, coopers 10, millers 11, brewers 6, bakers 4, tanners 4, knackers 2, ropemakers 4, drapers 2, chimney sweeper 1, glovers 3, tinkers 2, carters 2, husbandmen 2, gunners 1, neatherds 2, shearers 2, hokemaker 1, currier 1, glazier 1, dyer 1, hostler 1, fisher 1, fletcher 1, innkeeper 1, hatter 1, ploughwright 1, wheelwright 1 and 2 towers. There was a pewterer and a goldsmith, and we have 12 persons entered as “gentleman” or “gent,” and nine persons are described as “merchant.” Four persons are named as “minister” only two of whom were ministers of the parish. One person only is described as schoolmaster—Mr. Stephen Phillip, of Annott’s School, and one person as a “good school dame.” One person is described as a “surgeon,” and one as a “proctor.” Lastly there are 30 names of “servants” who apparently died in their masters’ houses in the town. Many of these were females, apparently domestic servants. The male servants were probably employed in services connected with their masters’ occupation.

Now, if we look a little closely into these lists, and combine the information they furnish with what we can glean from other sources, we can bring the old town very much to life again, and in some matters should be able to tell them a good deal more about themselves than they knew.

The Vicars.

To commence with the Church; we find that the “minister” of the parish, during the first 16 years of our period, was Mr. Nayshe. He was not the Vicar. The Vicar was Mr. Thomas Downing, who was also the Rector of Besthorpe, near Attleborough, in Norfolk. He was allowed to hold the Vicarage of Lowestoft (as stated in the register) to make up for the small income of Besthorpe—a most scandalous arrangement surely—a populous town deprived of its proper clergyman for the sake of improving the income of the rector of a small country parish far away in another county. The arrangement, however, was made in the Roman Catholic days of Queen Mary; three years before Queen Elisabeth had re-established the Protestant religion in the country. The Bishop of Norwich, who allowed it (he did not nuke the appointment himself), was the notorious John Hopton, described as a most sanguinary persecutor of the Protestants. Witness the burning of three men at Beccles as recorded on the tablet on the Meeting House in the road leading from the Station to the Market Place; and of many others in the Norwich Diocese. It was probably a happy thing for Lowestoft that Bishop Hopton did not make this appointment. It was said that when Elizabeth came to the throne Bishop Hopton died from terror of her taking vengeance on him for his cruelty to her co-religionists. What Mr. Nayshe’s views were, we know not, but he appears to have been a good Protestant during the 13 years of his ministry under Elizabeth. He must have been the first minister of the parish for many hundred years who was a married man. He lost his first wife soon after coming here, and then married, apparently, a Lowestoft lady. He was succeeded in 1574, by Mr. William Bentley, who was duly appointed vicar by the new Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Parkhurst. He also married twice; his second wife being the widow of Mr. John Arnold. He held the living to the last day of our period, when he apparently fell a victim to the terrible epidemic of that year. The entry of his burial appears in the register in large letters—“Mr. Willyam Bentlye, Pastor,” one of the 55 of our old townspeople who were buried in the month of August in this year.

There are two other persons described as “ministers.” They could hardly be Protestant Nonconformists in these early days. The first dissenting chapel in Lowestoft was not built till quite a hundred years after (1695). These “ministers” out of office were not improbably clergymen who were too much attached to the old religion to accept appointments under the new regime.

I think we may pay Mr. Philip, Mr. Allen’s successor as Registrar, the compliment of mentioning him next. He was not only Parish Clerk and Registrar, but he was also “Mr. Annott his schoolmaster” for 18 years during our period. He was appointed by Mr. Annott himself, and held the office under the deed of endowment after his death. His salary was £16 a year—not a high one for a man required to teach Latin and grammar to 40 boys, and to receive no other payment beyond twenty pence for each new boy. From the entry in the register of the burial of an old lady described as a “good school dame,” we may infer that there was at least one dame’s school in the town besides Mr. Philip’s high-class academy.

The number of persons entered in the register as merchants and gentlemen, and the number keeping servants, both male and female, is evidence of there being a good proportionate number of “bettermost folk” residing in our town. Although probably of a less importance to the town than the merchants and tradesmen, the fact of its being frequented by a considerable number of persons of independent means and of a social position to justify their being entered with the title of “Mr.” or with the description of “gentleman,” is very noticeable, and would seem to imply that even in these ancient days Lowestoft had acquired some reputation as a health resort, or as a pleasant retreat for gentlemen of no occupation. We find 14 or more names of persons of this class entered in the register—Fenn, Ruston, Karwell, Bramton, Bright, Paine, Kene, Rowse, Fooks (“gentleman soldier”) Brigge Beaching (“a gentleman from Sussex”) Mason Scrasse (“a gentleman soldier from Sussex”) Bentlye, Walker. I am inclined to think that some of these were lodgers. The persons mentioned as merchants bore the names of Mighells, Green, Grudgefield, French, Annot, Wilde, Cooke, Burgess, and Coldam. We know, however, that several other persons whose names appear without any description were engaged in business as merchants, and occupied high positions in the town at this period.

The Fish Trade.

From other information it appears that several of these merchants, if not all, were engaged in the fish trade and were owners of fish houses, at the bottom of the cliff, still represented by buildings occupying the same sites.

At a meeting of the inhabitants in the year 1596, called to consider a proposal to take some of the rents of the Town Lands to defray the expense incurred in litigation with Yarmouth about the herring fishery, it was stated that out of 200 persons who reaped advantages from this fishery, many were unable to contribute towards the above expense, and that if the fishery was not supported, the town would inevitably be ruined. It appeared that before this meeting, the inhabitants (probably the merchants referred to above), had already subscribed £120. This statement is at once evidence of the importance of the herring trade to Lowestoft at this period, and at the same time limits the number of merchants, fishermen, and other persons employed in it, to 200. Assuming this number mainly represented heads of families, we should have some 900 persons or about half the population of the town dependent on the herring fishery. Some of these merchants doubtless owned ships, but it appears from other information that the number of fishing boats then belonging to Lowestoft must have been very few, probably 20 at the outside. We find it stated, some 100 years after, in a petition to Charles II., that the number of Lowestoft ships engaged in all the several voyages in the year was 25. Previous to Elizabeth’s reign, Lowestoft used to send several ships to Iceland in the spring to catch ling and codfish. You have already heard that as many as 14 ships were employed in the time of Henry VIII. in this fishery. The dissolution of monasteries and the neglect of the rules as to fasting, introduced by Protestantism, appears to have affected the trade in salted codfish very seriously, and we find it stated that in 1566 the number of Lowestoft Boats going to Iceland was reduced from 14 to 1.