Lowestoft in olden times

by Francis Davy Longe

The Register Continued.

To return to our register, the 200 persons said to be dependent on the herring fishery, in 1595, must have included a great many of the persons entered in our list as mariners. They would embrace all classes from the skipper to the cook—sea captains like the Allens and Ashbys, and Utbers of the next century, and fighting Jack Tars, who had helped to man the ships under Howard and Drake, when they drove the Spaniards past Lowestoft in their flight to the north. Many of them would be long-shoremen, gaining a livelihood by fishing near shore, as now, and occasionally finding very profitable employment in connection with the wrecks, which were far more frequent then than now.

Other Trades Connected with the Fisheries.

Besides the merchants and mariners directly engaged in the fisheries, there were several other trades supported more or less by the shipping business. There are as many as ten different names of shipwrights in the register; showing that ship and boat building was carried on at this time in the shipyards under the cliff, notwithstanding the proximity of Yarmouth. The six brewers probably depended largely for the sale of their beer upon the fishing boats and other ships visiting our roads. It appears that there was an enormous quantity of beer taken on board of our fishing boats in these times; so much that we cannot help suspecting that it was used as an inducement to attract men on board. Beer was of course very cheap, not more than a farthing and halfpenny a quart. From an estimate given by some shipowners in 1670 of the quantity of beer required for a fishing boat, it appears that each man was supposed to drink a gallon of beer a day (putting the number of the men at 10). The coopers also were evidently very closely connected with the fishing business. On a later occasion, some hundred years after our period, when Lowestoft had had another bout with Yarmouth about the herring fishery, and the town had a heavy lawyers bill to pay, they decided to defray the expense by a tax on herrings, and a supplementary tax on the brewers and coopers of the town. The butchers, of whom the large number of 20 names appear in the register during our period, probably did a good deal of business in supplying meat to ships. Meat was also very cheap at this time, and was probably eaten far more generally, and in greater quantities, than now. The number of bakers mentioned, 4, is very small, but the 11 millers, though not implying that there were 11 windmills (although probably there were nearly as many—they would be much smaller than our present windmills) implied a large consumption of flour. Lowestoft people doubtless baked at home. The hokemaker, doubtless had a good trade in supplying hooks for sea fishing, as well as for catching fish in the “fresh water.” The tower was a man skilled in “hanging” herrings in the curing-house.

Other Trades.

Besides these trades connected with our fishing and shipping business, there are several others, which show that Lowestoft was much resorted to as a shopping town by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. In these trades we must observe the enormous number of tailors—no less than 39. Lowestoft tailors probably met the requirements of the inhabitants of all the Lothingland parishes, and other parishes near. Doubtless they had got a reputation for a better cut than the tailors of either Yarmouth or Beccles; or was a trade in ready-made clothes carried on here? These men, were of course, all journeymen tailors. The materials were probably supplied by some of the merchants mentioned, from Norwich or elsewhere. The persons mentioned as shoemakers, cordwainers, and cobblers (11) are comparatively few. These names represented the same trade with different pretensions. The presence of a tanner and currier implies that their was a sufficient demand for leather to maintain these two wholesale trades. The tanners may have also found employment in tanning fishing nets—as at the present day. No less than 12 weavers are mentioned; they were probably introduced from Norwich, which was at this time the principal seat of the woollen and linen manufacture in the kingdom. The clothes of some at least of our townspeople were not only made up by Lowestoft tailors, but of Lowestoft cloth and Lowestoft homespun. Other trades are mentioned connected with the supply of wearing apparel, viz.: drapers, glovers, hatters, and dyers.

The building and mechanical trades are represented by the carpenters, joiners, and sawyers, the masons (bricklayers were not distinguished from masons as yet), the smiths, the plough-wrights, and the wheelwrights. These tradesmen probably all found employment among the farmers and squires in the neighbourhood as well as in the town—as also the “knackers” (or harness makers)—the tinkers—and the thatchers (“thacsters” as it was spelt). The houses both in town and country and nearly all our churches were thatched at this time, and reeds were abundant on the side of Lake Lothing.

The presence in our town at this time of two such trades as the goldsmith and the pewterer is very noticeable. The goldsmith was at this time the prince of tradesmen, soon to develop into the banker of after times. His presence certainly implied the existence of several persons in the town or immediate neighbourhood of sufficient means to be the purchasers of gold and silver ornaments, while the presence of the pewterer implied that our town was up to date in the matter of table furniture, and that pewter plates and goblets had been substituted in many of our houses for the wooden trenchers and horn drinking cups of older times. [70]

The fletcher—or maker of bows and arrows—represented a trade soon to become obsolete, except for supplying bows and arrows for the sport of archery, which was very much in fashion at this time and took the place of cricket and football matches of our day. Pistols and arquebuses were already in use as firearms for military purposes, and fowling-pieces were beginning to be used by sportsmen, who could afford to buy them. We have evidence of their having already reached Lowestoft in the entry of a burial of a person who “met his death with a gun.” Bows and arrows, were, however, not altogether discarded for military purposes. In 1569. Elizabeth sent an order to Yarmouth to provide 50 bows and 50 sheaves of arrows, amongst other preparations to be made against the coming war with Spain, or France, or both together, with which England was threatened all through Elizabeth’s reign; and in the reports to the Government of the piratical proceedings of our sea hawks (which we have spoken of before) we hear of a case where they attacked their quarry, not only “by shooting of cannon at them, but by firing at them flights of innumerable arrows.” Bows and arrows were probably still to be found in the houses of farmers and peasants in Lothingland, to be used for sporting as well as fighting purposes. The Queen herself was very fond of hunting, and often shot small deer with the long bow, as well as with the arblast or crossbow.

The person described as a Proctor must have been a local lawyer, affiliated to Doctors’ Commons, and endowed with some special authority in the matter of wills. Only one person’s name appears in our period described as a surgeon. He died in 1585, one of those terrible years when Lowestoft was visited by the plague or some infectious disease, to which he apparently fell a victim. We only notice the name of one chymney-sweeper. There may have been more. But as we shall see further on, chimneys were only now coming into fashion and were as yet only to be found in the newer or best houses.