or were, famous for their goodness and their wealth. The fame of the Quaker-poet conferred quite a literary reputation on the district, and the more so as no one at that time associated Quakerism with literary faculty in any way. Now and then, it is true, the Stricklands talked of a charming young Quaker, who indeed once or twice called at our house to see Susanna when she was staying there; but Allan Ransome—for it is to him I refer—did not pursue literature or poetry to any great extent, and instead preferred to develop the manufacture of agricultural implements—a manufacture which, carried on under the same name, is now one of the chief industries of the busy and thriving town of Ipswich, and employs quite a thousand men. Woodbridge then bore away the palm from the county capital, as the home of literature and poetry and romance. As a town, it is more prettily situated than are most East Anglian villages and towns. The principal thoroughfare, as you rode through it by one of the Yarmouth coaches, that connected it at that time with the Metropolis, was long and narrow. If you turned off to the right you came to the Market-place, where were the leading shops. On your left you reached the Quay and the river, where a few coasters were employed, chiefly in the
coal and corn trade. In our time Woodbridge has done its duty to the State. Dr. Edwin Lankester the well-known coroner for Middlesex, came from Melton, close by, the High Street of which gradually terminates in the Woodbridge thoroughfare; and the lately deceased Lord Hatherley, one of England’s most celebrated lawyers, was educated in that district, and took his wife from the same happy land. The body of the late Lord Hatherley, the great Whig Lord Chancellor, we were told the other day, was interred in the family vault of Great Bearings, Suffolk. His mother was a Woodbridge lady, a Miss Page. Lord Hatherley’s father was the far-famed Liberal Alderman, Sir Matthew Wood, for many years M.P. for the City of London, and Queen Caroline’s trusted friend and counsellor. Lord Hatherley married, in 1830, Charlotte, the only daughter of the late Major Edward Moore, of Great Bealings, Suffolk, but was left a widower in 1878. He devoted much time to religious work, so long as he had the strength to undertake it. He was the author of a work entitled ‘The Continuity of Scripture, as declared by the Testimony of Our Lord and the Evangelists and the Apostles’, which has passed through three or four editions. He was created an Hon. D.C.L. of Oxford in 1851,
was an Hon. Student of Christ Church, Oxford, a Governor of the Charterhouse, and a member of the Fishmongers’ Company, of which his father had at one time been Prime Warden. Major Moore himself was a great authority on Suffolk literature and antiquities, and published more than one book—now very scarce—on the interesting theme.
As to Dr. Lankester, all Woodbridge was scandalized when it was announced that he was articled to a medical man. ‘What, make a doctor of him!’ said the local gossips at the time. ‘They had much better make a butcher of him.’ And not a little were the good people astonished when he came to town, and was signally successful as a medical lecturer, and as an advocate of the sanitary principles which in our day have come to be recognised as essential to the welfare of the State. Dr. Lankester was in great request as a writer on medical subjects in a popular manner, and did undoubtedly much good in his day. A good many genteel people lived in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge, and it had a society to which it can lay no claim at the present time. Edward Fitzgerald, the friend of Thackeray and Carlyle, himself an author of no mean repute, lived close by.
That genteel people should have pitched their
tents in or around Woodbridge is not much to be wondered at, as the neighbourhood was certainly attractive and convenient at the same time. The scenery around is as interesting as any that could be found, at any rate, in that part of England. The drive from Tuddenham to Woodbridge, says Mr. Taylor, in his ‘Ipswich Handbook,’ is perhaps unequalled in Suffolk. On the road you pass through the villages of Little and Great Bealings, and if you are on the look-out for spots which an artist would love to study, you may make a very short detour to Playford. The churches, both of Little and of Great Bealings, are very ancient, and well deserve a visit; but the Woodbridge Road itself passes through some very pretty scenery. Rushmere Heath, in the early summer time, when the gorse is in bloom, is one mass of yellow, in the cleared spaces of which may usually be seen a gipsy encampment. The gibbet once stood on this heath, and in former times it seems to have been the place where executions usually took place. It was here that in 1783 a woman, named Bedingfield, was burnt for murdering her husband. In the early part of this century, when there were many alarms as to a French invasion, and it was the firm belief of the old ladies that one fine morning
Bony would land upon our shores, and carry them all away captive, many were the reviews of soldiers held there by the Duke of Cambridge—whose house has been pointed out to me at Woodbridge—and the Duke of Kent. At that time it was the fashion to exercise the volunteers on a Sunday, a practice which would not be sanctioned in our more religious age. It is a beautiful ride through Kesgrave. Dense plantations abound on both sides, and in May the chorus of nightingales is described as something wonderful. In the word ‘Kesgrave’ we have an allusion to the barrows or tumuli to be seen on Kesgrave Heath. There are several of these erections remaining to this day, and perhaps tradition is warranted in speaking of the spot as the site whereon the Danes and Saxons met in deadly fight. It is certain that the former frequently came up the Deben and the Orwell. At Martlesham you see a creek, richly wooded on both sides, which flows up from the River Deben. It is a striking object at high water, but by no means so striking as the sign of the village public-house—the head of a huge wooden lion painted with the brightest of reds. It was originally the figure-head of a Dutch man-of-war, one of the fleet defeated at the famous battle of Sole Bay. Be
that as it may, no sign is better known than that of Martlesham Red Lion. ‘As red as Martlesham Lion’ is still a common figure of speech throughout East Suffolk, and I am glad to see that in the beautiful East Anglian etchings of Mr. Edwards, a Suffolk lawyer, who turned artist, Martlesham Red Lion has justice done to it at last.
Woodbridge, which the guide-book in 1844 described as a thriving town and port—I question whether it is thriving now—is situated on the western bank of the Deben, about nine miles above the mouth of the river, and about eight miles to the north of Ipswich. In Domesday Book the place is called Udebridge, of which its present name is no doubt a corruption. Mr. William White, whom I have already quoted, says: ‘Fifty years ago only one daily coach and a weekly waggon passed through the town to and from London; but more than twelve conveyances (coaches, omnibuses and carriers’ waggons) now pass daily between the hours of six in the morning and twelve at noon, and persons may travel from Woodbridge to London in a few hours for ten shillings, instead of paying three times that amount, and being thirteen hours on the road, as was formerly the case.’ The railway has now rendered
it possible for people to travel at a quicker speed and at a cheaper rate. In London we have a Woodbridge Street, in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell Green, which points to a connection between the poorer part of the City and the picturesque Suffolk town on the banks of the Deben, and this gives me occasion to speak of Thomas Seckford, Esq., one of the masters of the Court of Requests, and Surveyor of the Court of Wards and Liveries in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was not less distinguished in the profession of the law than in the other polite accomplishments of the age in which he lived, and to his patronage of his servant, Christopher Saxton, the public were indebted for the first set of county maps, which were engraved by his encouragement and at his request. He represented Ipswich in three Parliaments, and died without issue in 1588, aged seventy-two. In Woodbridge his name is perpetuated by a handsome pile of buildings known as the Seckford Almshouses and Schools, to which the property in Clerkenwell is devoted. At the time of his decease that property produced about £112 a year; in 1768 it was said to be of the yearly value of £563. In 1826 an Act of Parliament was obtained to enable the governors of the almshouses to grant building and