[30a] The upper part of this porch forms a room in which is a small, but valuable, collection of books in divinity.
[30b] A subscription has been set on foot, a site purchased, and the promise of a grant from government obtained, for the erection of a school on the principles of the British and Foreign School Society.
[31] The herring fishery was evidently a principal source of emolument to the inhabitants. In the time of the Conqueror the fee farm rent of the manor of Beccles to the king was 60,000 herrings, and in the time of the Confessor 30,000.—Domesday Book.
The grant to the inhabitants at a later period, of the tract of marshes reclaimed from the sea, was perhaps an inadequate compensation for the loss of the fishery. It was stated by a writer at the commencement of the seventeenth century that more wealth was raised out of herrings and other fish in his majesty’s seas by the neighbouring nations in one year, than the king of Spain had from the Indies in four.—Phœnix, i. 222.
[32] There has been a difference of opinion respecting the derivation of the name, which is not likely to be settled. The common notion is, that the first letter is an abbreviation of Bella. Some suppose the first syllable, Bec, to be derived from the name of an abbey in Normandy. A third interpretation may be suggested. Bec de terre, a point of land, was sufficiently descriptive of the spot, while the marshes which lie west, north, and east of the town, remained under water. Bec and eglise might be compounded into Becclys, the ancient orthography. It has been surmised that the town may have owed its origin to its site having “protruded into the ancient river” and served during the Roman, Saxon, and Danish invasions, as a convenient situation for placing a beacon or signal.—Gillingwater’s History of Lowestoft, p. 26. At all events, the Rev. Geo. Crabbe has been led into an error in supposing the name to be derived from the present “beautiful church,” nor does it appear why he prefers “beata” to “bella.” Crabbe’s Life and Works, vol. i. p. 147.
[33] Under him it is said that “the sable clouds of paganism which had overshadowed these parts near two hundred years,” were “dissipated by the glorious rays of the gospel.”—Gardner’s History of Dunwich, Blithburgh, and Southwold, 4to, 1754, pp. 42, 43.
[34] The first rise of any material improvement, in this respect, is to be traced to the labours of the philanthropist Howard. He visited Beccles in the years 1776, 1779, and 1782, and thus describes the arrangements of that comparatively recent period. “Beccles.—A room on the ground floor, called the ward; a chamber for women, called the upper ward; a day-room with a fire-place; and a dungeon seven steps underground. In the ward is a window to the street, which is highly improper; . . . no proper separation of the men and women. Only one court; . . . Licence for beer: (a riotous alehouse)” . . . State of the Prisons, 3rd ed. p. 303.
[35a] Account of the Corporation of Beccles Fen, 1826, p. 4.
[35b] Ibid. p. 14.
[36] Account of the Corporation, p. 14. There is an engraving of the seal in Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of England.