HALESWORTH

 

AN ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY

 

Denis Bellamy

&

Ruth Downing

 

 

2006

 

(2nd Edition)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“But social history does not merely provide the required link between economic and political history. It has also its own positive value and peculiar concern. Its scope may be defined as the daily life of the inhabitants of the land in past ages: this includes the human as well as the economic relation of different classes to one another, the character of family and household life, the conditions of labour and of leisure, the attitude of man to nature, the culture of each age as it arose out of these general conditions of life, and took ever-changing forms in religion, literature and music, architecture, learning and thought”.

 

C.M. Trevelyan (1944)

 

 

 

 

 

 


Summary and Aims.. 7

Preface.. 9

1 Introduction.. 13

1.1Cultural ecology. 13

1.2  Giving. 15

1.3 Taking. 16

1.4 Towards a new history. 17

2 People of the Blyth.. 23

2.1 Topography. 23

2.1.1 Blything Hundred. 24

2.1.2 Communications. 25

2.2 Halesworth and the ‘nook’ communities. 29

2.2.1 Parish boundaries. 34

2.3 Social structure. 37

2.3.1 Lordship. 37

2.3.2 Neighbourliness. 39

2.3.3 Fraternity. 39

2.3.4 Kinship. 40

2.3.5 Economic networks. 40

2.3.6 Land ownership. 41

3 The ‘sea’ of rurality.. 43

3.1  Course of urbanisation. 43

3.2  The ‘Chediston Story’ 47

3.2.1  The people. 49

3.3  The romance of rurality. 52

3.4  Past  in the Present 54

 

4 Manufacturers.. 57

4.1 Needs and wants. 57

4.1.1 Food and drink. 57

4.1.2 Clothing. 58

4.1.3  Housing. 60

4.2 Trading networks. 62

4.2.1 The high-trust culture. 63

4.3 Money from hemp. 65

4.3.1 James Aldred; manufacturing draper 71

4.4 Money from malt 73

4.4.1 East Anglia and malting. 73

4.5  Botanical riches. 75

4.5.1 Badeleys and Woodcocks. 76

4.5.2 William Jackson Hooker 77

4.6 Barley business. 82

4.6.1  Malting at Halesworth. 88

4.6.2 The malting infrastructure. 90

4.6.3 Patrick Stead. 91

4.7  Trading on a restless coast 94

4.7.1 ‘Murder of Southwold’ 96

4.7.2  Malting; an historical milestone. 97

4.8 Other manufacturing businesses. 99

4.8.1 A truly local newspaper 103

4.8.2 Mass production. 105

4.8.3 An educational model 108

5 Retailers.. 113

5.1 The retail network. 113

5.2 A spatial  economy. 116

5.3  The retail community. 117

5.4  Occupations and status. 122

5.5  A seller’s market 125

5.6 Community directories. 129

5.6.1 Historical trends. 130

5.6.2 Use of directories for research. 131

5.6.3  Halesworth in directories. 132

5.7 Ebb and flow of traders through directories. 134

5.7.1 Population dynamics of householders. 137

5.7.2 Retail establishments: 1838-2005. 140

5.7.3 No 1 The Thoroughfare. 143

5.8 A microcosm of consumerism.. 145

Chapter 6  Peopling the Townscape.. 149

6.1  Families. 149

6.1.1 Aldreds, Nurseys and Crisps. 149

6.2  The social pyramid. 152

6.3  1851- A turning point 159

6.4  Population. 160

6.5  Economic change. 161

6.6  People of the Census. 162

6.7  Education. 167

6.8  Charity. 172

6..9  Medical care. 176

6.10  The Bon Marche comes to town. 178

6.10.1 Clothes with groceries. 178

6.10.2 The road to Roes. 182

6.10.3 Origins of the Lincolne family. 188

6.10.4  Department stores. 189

6.10.5 The Roe family. 191

6.11 The Sheriffe family: landed proprietors and investors. 194

6.12  Butchers and bakers. 198

6.12.1 Samuel Kemp. 199

6.13  A spiritual background. 202

6.14  Independents in action. 204

6.14.1 The Pound Street Chapels. 205

6.14.2 A personal view of Roe & Co. 207

6.14.3 The Ellis family. 211

6.15  The force of individuality. 212

6.15.1 A resource to feed the imagination. 215

6.16  Chediston Street’s legacy. 215

7  A Conservation Culture.. 223

7.1 A consuming society. 223

7.1.1 Consumerism and recreation. 225

7.1.2 Point of inflection. 227

7.1.3 Real growth. 229

7.1.4 Supermarket wars. 236

7.2   Symbols in the environment 238

7.2.1 In-coming. 238

7.2.2 Townscapes as interactive museums. 240

7.3  Partnership for sustainability. 242

7.3.1 Citizen stakeholders. 244

7.3.2 Planning by inclusion. 246

7.4  Post-industrial business. 248

7.5  A new culture partially revealed. 249

Postscript.. 255

Bibliography.. 259

Acknowlegements.. 261

 


Summary and Aims

 

 

This booklet is a local history of urbanisation as an introduction to the topic of ‘cultural ecology’.  Cultural ecology is a subject for living in an overcrowded world.  It is defined as the sum of all social processes resulting from technological innovations, by which nature and people are organised for production in a society based on ecological principles.  In this context it is a tribute to local cleverness and power by which a steady stream of Halesworth entrepreneurs singled out a small market town in their quest for a better life. In hindsight it was from this time we clearly all became part of nature in relation to our devastating ecological impact upon the biology of land and sea.  However, since the first humans began forest clearance, all local human gatherings became ecological societies, but this truth has only just broken through into human forward thinking in relation to the impending catastrophe that faces the whole of humanity through human-induced climate change. In this respect, ‘Halesworth; an ecological society’ is a text of its time.  The aims are:

 

·        to bring together information already available on the history of Halesworth, and place it in the context of the 19th century development in retailing that ushered in an ‘age of plenty’;

 

 

 


 

 


 

Preface

 

 

History used to be only about the political arena of wars and the roles of famous leaders and thinkers.  This national emphasis has changed, and since about the middle of the last century, people described as social historians have begun to look more closely at the experiences of "ordinary people" and everyday life.  Recently, this view has been embedded in the concept of social history being a continuation of a process of human evolution.  Evolution is seen as a phenomenon of continuous change in which, during the last two million years, we humans have imposed our will on the environment as an outcome of our characteristic social nature.  In this perspective we can see that for the last two centuries we have been living in societies dominated by applied ecology.  According to this idea, the history of every society, such as the increased prosperity of a concentration of people in towns like Halesworth, has been a continuous process of resolving the ecological problems of organising nature and people for production.  These problems have been resolved by meeting social needs that require the transformation of natural resources into goods and services.  ‘Ecology’ is thus defined as a social concept where economic, ethnic, and gender conflicts, amongst others, lie at the core of planet Earth’s serious, and some say terminal, environmental problems.  This is the reason why we have undertaken to place the local history of Halesworth in this broad context of ecological societies.

 

The concept of ‘ecological societies’ has great potential value and benefit for anyone interested in people of the past who inhabited the houses and walked the streets of their hometown.  This approach to local history was given a boost by the coming of the new millennium, when it was realised there was a link between the now distant past and the immediate future. A common feeling was that a community with a solid history has a stable platform upon which to become involved with future socio-economic developments, particularly in relation to conservation of the built environment.  Every building is part of a rich and complicated tapestry of life.  However, such is the speed of change, that in a fraction of a lifetime, old buildings, open spaces and curious nooks and crannies can be replaced with cash-generating placeless development.  A good grounding in social history contributes to a community’s adversarial strength in putting a case for conservation.

 

When this "new" social history began to emerge in the 1960s, it was at first very much analytical; scholars began to ask specific questions.  How much social mobility was there and why? What were the experiences of racial minorities, immigrants, and women in British society? How did workers respond to the industrial setting? How did migrants respond to the new industrial cities?   But social historians also looked at the institutions used by ordinary folk; in the City People study of nineteenth century New York, the roles of the department store, metropolitan daily newspaper, vaudeville house, and baseball park, were considered critical to the emergence of a common urban culture by the many diverse people who inhabited the city.

 

This was history written "from the bottom up" becoming respectable.  Instead of the traditional academic approach from "top-down," social history has increasingly broadened to characterise the large mass of those who appear only dimly on the pages of standard histories. At the same time, social history has now fragmented into a number of discrete sub fields including ‘family’, ‘women and gender’, ‘cities and suburbs’, ‘immigration’, ‘racial minorities’, ‘childhood’, ‘ageing’, ‘agricultural life’, and ‘workers’.

 

Since social history focuses on experiences that touch the lives of everyone or their ancestors, it is of immediate interest to most people. It provides them with a sense of where they came from and how they came to be where they are. There is a knowledge gap to be filled for the creation of a sense of continuity with the past in a rapidly changing world.  This is especially true for children, raised in an age of atomic and neutron bombs, ‘global villages’, television, VCRs, videogames, PCs, instant food, and moon travel.  There is a gap in understanding the lives of their parents and grandparents, whose childhoods included none of these contributions to modern civilization. 

 

In an age where ‘sustainable development is a global catchword to the future, and ‘conservation’ is a widespread behaviour to preserve heritage assets, social history provides the context and explanation necessary to move into the future. It encourages the inclusion of all peoples of a community, not just elites or founders. While the latter are important, their roles are often exaggerated.  A broader coverage of all groups and organizations permits a more accurate and complete record; it also encourages a wider participation in the process of feedback and updating. This process of inclusivity is greatly aided by the spread of computer literacy and links between families through the Internet.  Social history then, is a key to the greater democratization of local history and local historical organizations; broader participation also means more resources including members, volunteers, contributions, new ideas and viewpoints.  Democratic participation in compiling and extending local history into the immediate present offers the participants attractive possibilities of nostalgia, and at the same time the opportunity to explain how and why their lives have changed, and how in many respects they have remained constant. Many social historians are first and foremost people talking about their own patch. Their work is deeply rooted in a local context and their studies depend heavily on, and contribute to, knowledge of place.

 

Perhaps the most exciting approach used by social and local historians is oral history, an effort that is now largely restricted to the twentieth century. Oral history is valuable in a number of ways. It fills in gaps that other sources cannot; it personalizes history; and it involves people (both interviewee and interviewer) who can broaden the base of a local historical organization.

 

We began to gather information about Halesworth’s past in the context of social history as a resource for communities planning their future.  The town really chose us for this project in that we both have long ancestral links with Blything and Halesworth itself.  We have drawn on the work of other local researchers, notably Nesta Evans, Michael Fordham, Michael and Sheila Gooch, and Ivan Sparkes, and have incorporated some reminiscences and new materials of local people, such as the Newby family.  Our novel contribution is to use our combined experiences as an academic and a local genealogist who have collaborated for many years on international projects in environmental education. This has enabled us to place Halesworth in the context of social ecology, to show how people of the past, and their links through kinship and neighbourliness, have contributed to changing urban society with new cultural expressions.  This story is in no way definitive, but we hope it offers a picture of a developing community in broad brush strokes in which the accomplishments and trials and tribulations of individuals and families is entwined with a broader national stream of world development. It is offered as a basis for others to add to and refine.  The scope is defined in the town’s brochure produced to celebrate the Festival of Britain in 1951:

 

Many personalities during the centuries have played their parts in the life of this small community. They have flitted across its life like actors in a stage play, and books could be written concerning their work. Humour, pathos, and honest endeavour have mingled and the story is unending. Their names are legion and the results of their efforts with us to day. We can give to all credit for their work and say with the poet:

 

" Something attempted, something done,

To earn the night's repose,"

 

 

 

 

Finally, the project is a celebration of Suffolk’s contribution to the ‘age of plenty’.  This began at a time when William Etheridge of Fressingfield emerged in 1749 from the closed community of High Suffolk’s woodworkers to design the ‘Mathematical Bridge’ across the Cam to the President’s Lodge of Queen’s College, Cambridge. William had previously been foreman to James King, master carpenter during the building of London’s first Westminster Bridge.  He then went on as a master carpenter to design a road bridge over the Thames at Walton and the new harbour installations at Ramsgate.  He was one of the last engineers of the ‘age of wood’.  William is the fifth great uncle of Ruth Downing.  A new industrial iron age was initiated in Peasenhall in the 1820s when James Smyth, the village blacksmith, established a factory for the mass production of the first commercially successful horse-drawn seed drill.  James was the son of James Smyth the Elder of Sweffling and Hannah Kemp of Rendham.  Hannah Kemp’s father is the fourth great grandfather of Denis Bellamy.

 

DB & RD: 2006


 


1 Introduction

 

 

“CHARLES BARDWELL (1779-1833): Bardwell was a linen & woollen draper and silk mercer who occupied Thomas Bayfield’s premises (Market Place) between 1823 and 1833.  In 1829 the value of Bardwell’s property was assessed at £14, meaning that he was supposed to take one apprentice from Bulcamp (workhouse).  In 1831-33 Bardwell contributed a £1 each year towards the cost of ‘Watching and Lighting the Town of Halesworth’. …….Owing to illness in May 1833 he asked Mr Fyson of Yarmouth to purchase for him in London a variety of fashionable silks, printed muslins and dresses etc.”

 

“ELIZABETH SCRAGGS: Elizabeth Scraggs was a dyer living and working in Chediston St between 1827 and 1844.   In 1817 she married James Scraggs of Halesworth……..In the Returns of Paupers James is listed as having a wife and four children to support.  Between 1836 and 1838 their house in Chapell Yard Chediston St was valued at only £1”

 

The Hemp Industry in the Halesworth Area 1790-1850; M Fordham (2004)

 

 

1.1Cultural ecology

 

The main components of history are not things but people.  This was the ‘discovery’ of George Ewart Evans, who pioneered the study of the British oral tradition and thereby revealed and archived the sociality of Suffolk’s rural life.  In so doing he democratised the study of history, and projected it into an ecological dimension by revealing ordinary people’s living relationships with natural resources.  Cultural ecology was actually first presented as a mental picture by C.M. Trevelyan, ‘father’ of British social history.  Since then, the term ‘cultural ecology’ has expanded from the realm of the historian to cover the topic-web necessary to link social activities with the origins of the natural resources that make them possible.  Culture is used in the sense of a set of ideas, beliefs and knowledge, which unite society in a shared course of action.

 

George Ewart Evans also worked at a time when there was a revalidation of the historical artefacts of agriculture, such as implements and buildings.  There came a shift in emphasis within museology from viewing them as the cultural heritage of crafts-people who made them.  Before, they were seen as inert scientific specimens, now they are enormously charged objects that stand as symbols of power relationships.  Key concepts of social history are ‘kinship’, that is to say, how different cultures interpret biological relationships, and ‘reciprocity’, the idea that societies are bound together by the exchange of gifts, meaning favours and services as well as material objects and money.  Giving and taking are now central concepts of economic development as the international community moves uncertainly towards global legislation for a sustainable future.  In this context there is an increasing historical emphasis on the ‘policy community’. Public policy is now the crucial way in which society is kept together and connected.   Members of the conservation movement can be envisaged as a policy community that emerged after the adoption of the World Conservation Strategy in the 1980s.  Historians can now study a whole raft of policy documents on sustainable development and conservation of resources, and then look at how local officials interpret them and local recipients, as stakeholders, respond to their transcriptions.

 

George Ewart Evans was situated deep in Suffolk during the 1950s when mechanisation was taking over every aspect of rural life, and shattering the racial and cultural unit that had defined English people since the time of Chaucer.  However, in the face of change, his message was the paradox of sociality, namely that the mass of people keeps a continuity, which is ever changing; yet forever remaining the same.  An important aspect of this dynamic social continuity is the recurring hopes and aspirations of individuals, which depend directly or indirectly, on local natural resources.  These environmental connections provide the drive for family betterment that maintains statistical inequalities in family fortunes.  From generation through generation, mechanisms that convert natural resources to wealth also bring about inequalities in its systems of distribution.  The existence of this socio-economic phenomenon during the first half of the 19th century is evident in the above quotations describing the relative wealth of two Halesworth families, the Bardwells and Scraggs.  A hundred years later the Bardwells and Scraggs were long gone, but the prosperity gap between Chediston Street and Market Place remained and had actually increased.  In fact it is a theme of Michael Fordham’s work that the ups and downs of poverty have always provided an undulating baseline to Halesworth’s rise to modern prosperity, and it was in Chediston Street that its depths seemed always to be plumbed (Fig 1.1).

 

Fig 1.1 Past times in Chediston Street.

 

 

The relative situation of Charles Bardwell and Elizabeth Scraggs actually identifies a point in time and space where the ‘birth of plenty’ sprang alive in Halesworth.  This was an era when people of small market towns throughout the land were responding to a rapidly growing national economy.   The birth of plenty actually opened up an era where the two main pillars of cultural ecology were revealed as ‘giving’ and ‘taking’.  These actions are really two sides of the coin of world development, represented by the need to balance the conservation of natural resources with their rate of exploitation. 

 

‘Giving’ has a long history, which extends deep into the Christian concept of ‘charity’ as an expression of care for all living things, human love, and the giving of knowledge and resources.  This revolutionary idea, which was rediscovered by Wordsworth and Tolstoy, had been brought to the centre of Christianity by Francis of Assisi six centuries earlier.  It is as a concept that is most liberal and sympathetic in the modern mood of sustainability; the love of nature; the love of animals; non-violence, the sense of social compassion and, above all, the spiritual dangers of prosperity and property.  The Franciscan idea of giving permeated the communities of Blything, for we find that local people throughout the medieval period made bequests to the Franciscan friars who had their local base in Dunwich. It has been taken up by the post-modern conservation movement and expressed as ‘giving space to nature’.

 

‘Taking’ is also deeply rooted in human nature, where it is expressed through the satisfaction of the needs and wants of people for natural resources to survive and better themselves. These days, the taking of natural resources is represented by the forces of rampant consumerism, which have complex sources of origins in the Dark Ages, when the ultimate prize of life was the possession of worldly goods. 

 

The Bardwells and the Scraggs of early 19th century Halesworth lived barely a hundred yards apart, yet there was a great economic chasm separating the shopkeepers and property owners who resided in the Market Place from the artisans of Chediston Street, where two thirds of the properties were valued at under £2 per annum. Bardwell’s transient existence in Bayfield’s premises is also typical of the short life of many Halesworth businesses that seldom survived across one generation.   In this respect, there was a coming and going and a rising and falling of families in their roles as shopkeepers, craftsfolk and artisans, most of whom first appeared in the town as colonists, seizing upon new opportunities for the exploitation of Halesworth’s potential as a manufacturing and retail centre.  Very few families became natives.  For example in the space of a few years the property rented by Charles Bardwell in the Market Place had passed through three families, Durban, Woodcock and Baas.  In this sense, Halesworth was, as it remains today, a dynamic microcosm of retail culture, and a model for evaluating factors that have contributed to its shifting sociality and continuity.   This dynamism has, for two centuries, been expressed by the turnover and spread of families engaged in the commerce of mass production linked with consumerism, a process that now threatens the survival of all family retailers. 

 

1.2  Giving

 

Any society has to make some provision for the very young and the very old, for the sick and the disabled. In primitive societies it falls largely to the family to make such provision, and in medieval Britain the Church shared with the family and the craft guilds the responsibility for doing so. From the 16th century, the increased importance of economic causes of distress and the declining authority of the Church resulted in the trans­ference of this burden to the community as a whole. The factory system, which destroyed the home as an economic unit and the parish as an instrument of government, ushered in an era of cyclical unemployment and urbanization, with concomitant new problems of sanitation and new dangers to community health. Thus the social forces, which encouraged the glorification of self-help, also promoted a notable extension of state legislation concerned with social security.

The origin of such legislation lies with the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII.  Until then the almshouses and hospitals of the Church had dispensed charity to those who did not benefit from what protection the craft guilds could guarantee to their sick and aged members, or to their families left destitute by the death of the breadwinner. Bread giving was in fact a major charitable tradition in Halesworth.  The Reformation itself coincided with a variety of circumstances that increased the numbers incapable of supporting themselves by their own efforts. In a loosely knit society with primitive communications, re-employ­ment could not keep in step with unemployment during the economic up­heaval accompanying the expansion of foreign trade, the beginnings of capitalist farming and an influx of precious metals from the New World. The lists of town paupers highlight the scale and how it was clustered in areas like Chediston St and Pound St.   Relief, however, was directed not at the population at large, but at the poor and disabled.  The method employed was to place responsibility on the parishes, which were helped by a poor rate levied on its working inhabitants.  The building of the great poorhouse at Bulcamp was the dread, not only of Halesworth’s poor, but also clouded the lives of those of villagers for miles around.

In the Halesworth of the 1851 census, the needs for charity were focused on unskilled and casual workers struggling with low wages, the fear of accidents and diseases, and the dread of slipping into that 'sunken sixth' of the workforce so close to the criminal underworld, which Dickens wrote about.  However, even in that period, there was a resurgence of private charity and a resentment of state paternalism.   To many merchants, particularly those who had risen from little or nothing, paternalism was an anathema.   Paternalism produced the poor laws, but this generalised form of relief was no more acceptable to the town merchants than indiscriminate monastic almsgiving had been. They set an example by contributing more than half of the vast sums of money provided for private charities, which were, in the long run, probably more effective than state aid for the poor. Nevertheless, an increase of vagrants, beggars and petty criminals forced itself on the attention of the authorities, which responded with hard labour in Ipswich prison. 

The original administrative unit for Halesworth was the ancient pre-Norman unit of the Blything Hundred.  The assimila­tion of Poor Law and Sanitation within a single framework, followed by the transformation of the Local Government Board into the Ministry of Health, defines the emergence of an essentially modern outlook on the functions of government.  This is an outlook that transcends the traditional conflicting claims of social justice and social privilege. It focuses on the satisfaction of basic human needs as the yardstick of good government.  An expanding knowledge of the nature of human needs, also discloses vistas of unrealised possibilities for rational co-operation between human beings.  The latest expression of human needs is ‘sustainable development’, with its requirement for local and global cooperation to protect the goods of environment for future generations.

A modern overview of ‘giving’ demonstrates that the medieval concept of charity is equated with what is now organised as the machinery of social security.  However, people in the modern world are still embedded in a complex system of giving, which involves government agencies, insurance companies and charitable trusts.  We are surrounded by a network of cultural organisations set up to provide safeguards not only against poverty, sickness or accident, but also to protect local and global green/built heritage assets. Halesworth’s charity shops indicate how the desire to give can permeate a community.

 

1.3 Taking

 

Commerce, that is the buying and selling of things, is one of the oldest human social activities.  Historically it covers a vast range of scale, from the open stalls in Halesworth’s medieval market place, selling homegrown produce and hand-made wares, to the shelves of the Rainbow supermarket brimming with choice, occupying several acres.  Yet the same human qualities appear at all these levels; the choices to be made between two or more people vending the same objects, the different techniques of buyer and seller, the urge to make a keen profit, or snap up a bargain, and the bustle of the market place as a social milieu. The Bardwells and Scraggs also highlight the other activity of towns, namely making things.  Both families were connected with the linen trade, Bardwell as seller and the Scraggs as dyers of locally made hempen cloth.  The two groups, retailers and manufacturers, have been an integral part of Halesworth’s economy down to the present day.  It is convenient to class them together as ‘traders’, who mediate between the taking of natural resources and the selling of goods made from them to meet the needs and wants of their family customers.

 

In a national context, specialised traders had first emerged as townsfolk in the 13th century.  Their aim was to satisfy an increasing and never ending demand for goods and service by people in the town’s immediate surroundings and within the town itself.  These were needs that could not be met by the traditional intermittent retail outlets of fairs, markets and itinerant hawkers.  In the last quarter of the 18th century, there was a massive expansion in the number of small shopkeepers listed in Halesworth’s trade directories, which from the early 1820s was associated with a widespread shift from the self-sufficiency of rural families towards a dependence on what has been called the ‘shopocracy’.  This phenomenon, described as the ‘birth of plenty’, was driven by an ‘economic engine’ powered by the coming together during the 18th century of four basic factors;

 

 

 

 

These were the necessary conditions for the 19th century revolutions in manufacturing and retailing, which forced Halesworth from a Suffolk backwater into the mainstream of East Anglian trade with the Metropolis.

 

Specialisation of labour was the transmission drive that increased the prosperity of artisans, and channelled power from manufacturers to the dynamics of the retail trade.  The retail machine was fuelled by the rising purchasing power of families who were able to partake of the increased availability of cheap, mass-produced goods.  Bankers emerged as individuals and partnerships from amongst those who had made good in trade, and lawyers appeared to address the legal matters associated with increased numbers of property owners, manufacturers and traders.  Halesworth was a Mecca for these two new categories of middle class specialists, who established themselves in brick-built mansions midst the timber-framed houses.    

 

Evidence for the growing social diversity of market towns, and their underlying family dynamics, comes not only from the numerous trade directories that were published at this time, but is also quantified in census records, wills, newspapers and parish books. This information also illustrates the following important features of business development:

 

 

1.4 Towards a new history

 

In relation to the above issues connected to the changing human condition within nature, ‘Halesworth’ takes a view that the prosperity of the town ebbed and flowed when it did because of its topographic history and who decided to live there.  This views history as an unbroken tradition carried forward by a succession of people building on the contributions of previous generations.  On the other hand, there was also a coming together of people in the late medieval period, which generated a new sense of community, based on a novel understanding of the needs they shared and increased knowledge of the available means for satisfying them.  This perspective views history as a process of ecological transformation. 

 

Both propositions highlight the need to define a subject that integrates the march of humanity with occasional changes in environmental awareness, to explain how culture has come to its present state from within a local ecological infrastructure.  Halesworth, and hundreds of towns like it, are ‘images’ of commercial communities that help towards this understanding.  The helpful characteristics are:

 

·         the communities are small enough to function as historical models with many different levels of understanding;

·         and they exemplify many different types of disruptive events, which differ in size, chronological breadth and capacity to produce long-lasting effects. 

 

In both respects, these small town models have a bearing on the need to explain history as a blend of stable structures and discontinuities.

 

The main task of the ‘old history’ is one of tracing a line of tradition to discover how continuities are maintained between generations, and how a single historical pattern is formed and preserved.  The task of the new history of cultural ecology is to define transformations that serve as new foundations or the rebuilding of old ones in relation to the availability of natural resources.  The historical continuities are the momentum of the retail trade and population growth.  The discontinuities are changes in the perception and use of natural resources (exploiting resources) and changing attitudes to charity (conserving resources).  This holistic knowledge framework is set out as a mind map in Fig 1.2. 

 

In summary, ‘Halesworth’ deals with historical causality within the town as a long-established retail community, which in the mid 18th century became linked with national discontinuities in the utilisation and scientific study of natural resources.  The account is built upon two top-level concepts of ‘exploiting resources’ and ‘conserving resources’.  Exploiting resources encapsulates ideas about human production, and ‘conserving resources’ deals with ideas about nature’s production’ in relation to people being a part of local and global ecosystems.   Halesworth’s conservation culture began to merge with, and influence, the long-established retail culture, which had been based on the relentless exploitation of natural resources.  At any one time culture is the outcome of the interactions between the two activities, and at the present time cultural ecology is having something of an upper hand in the way Halesworthians perceive their town and its future.  This conceptual framework of ‘Halesworth’ is presented in Fig 1.3.  The second level concepts in this mind map define its chapters.

Figure 1.2  A map of cultural ecology defined by its general concepts and levels

 

 


Figure 1.3 ‘Halesworth’ topic map

 

 

1.5 Citizen historians

 

Questions about being a community in both past and present are fundamentally about its physical basis, and how people defined its boundaries. Answering them involves gathering information about the local terrain as part of a wider social whole. People interacting with terrain as a place to settle have added the human dimension to create a 'landscape'. Their comings and goings to partake of its resources have put down countless physical and biological markers of human development, and also created a notional layer to the landscape. The notional layer is often based on descriptions and opinions of people who have selected certain physical, biological and cultural elements to conceptualise and communicate 'the spirit of the place' through literature and art.

 

'Halesworth’ is an exemplar to show people how they can begin to visualise, and value their community's past, as part of its present system of economic development. Indeed, community appraisal first began with visual appraisal. It was Ralph Jeffrey, inspired by a book by De Wolfe written in 1964 on Italian towns, who was one of the first to advocate a formal system of environmental appraisal

 

De Wolfe advocated that this should start with people making a 'visual enquiry' to establish the local 'spirit of the place' by posing leading questions centred on

 

 

The Halesworth Conservation Area was first designated in 1970 and amended and enlarged in 1979 and 1997.  The latest development is the publication in February, 2006 of Waveney District Council’s Character Appraisal and Management Proposals/Strategy.  This describes the conservation area and its designated buildings, with some aims of management and suggestions for amending the boundaries and listing more buildings.

 

Actually, there are as many ways of evaluating a community as there are people in it, the particular problems that bug them, and the passions that excite them. However, a community appraisal based on its landscape fits the requirements of producing a neighbourhood knowledge system in its broadest context. It involves the presentation of an environmental ethic, supported with knowledge of the historical, economic, and ecological basis of community life. This is the foundation for environmental value judgements required to launch projects to change things for the better. It involves promoting an understanding of processes and skills by which this can be done by participating citizens. Community appraisal should therefore equip people to answer, and act upon, the following questions;

 

 

Seen in this context, the practical objective of ‘Halesworth’ is to spur people to get involved with their community’s past in the present by collecting information, writing stories about their lives, and generally opening their eyes to the variety of cultural detail that surrounds them. The aim is to set them thinking about their future society, and how it should be expressed physically and economically in the rest of the millennium.

 

Regarding cultural change, the following checklist of questions has been found useful:

 

 

With the addition of an occasional 'where?' to incorporate the spatial component, the authors have found this checklist particularly useful when applied to the various social dimensions of the history of Halesworth.  From answers to these questions would come the measurement of change, but full answers are not yet available for historical analysts in many cases.  Nevertheless, the remembering of the questions in relation to the availability of information has produced a provisional quantitative history of the town.  This traces its preindustrial economy through the industrial phase, which peaked in the 19th century to the present post-industrial society looking for ways to move into a ‘sustainable future’. 

 

Sustainability is not a scientific concept but a social idea. In this connection, it is not really a unifying concept for planning, but is more a ‘generator of problems’, which will only be solved by the community moving into a new cultural mode (Fig 1.4).  To get there requires novel community organisations by which the town’s stakeholders can control their local authority representatives so that the collective will is carried out.  The great economic events of industrialism happened mostly when the fate of communities was in the hands of narrowly based local councils or cliques and ad hoc bodies like the Turnpike Trusts and Navigation Commissioners.  Since the Reform Acts at the end of the 19th century there has been a move towards regionalism, which is still in progress.  A small outcome, that had a large local impact, was the commandeering of Halesworth’s ancient market rights by the District Council.  A small, but significant sign of the growth of communitarianism is that in response to local demand they have recently been returned.

 

Fig 1.4  The Halesworth historical model of social ecology

 

 

 


 

 


2 People of the Blyth

 

 

The stream ripples and glances over its brown bed, warmed with sunbeams; by its bank the green flags wave and rustle, and all about the meadows shine in pure gold of buttercups.  The hawthorn hedges are a mass of gleaming blossom, which scents the breeze.  There above rises the heath, yellow mantled with gorse and beyond, if I walk for an hour or two, I shall come out upon the sandy cliffs of Suffolk, and look over the northern sea.

George Gissing: ‘The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft’

 

 

 

2.1 Topography

 

In these three sentences George Gissing summarises the essence of Halesworth’s setting as envisaged from the Town Bridge, where the northern tributary of the River Blyth finally cuts its way free of Suffolk’s great western Clay Plateau to seek the coast at Southwold. This relatively small river runs due east from Halesworth to join the main channel of the Blyth just outside the town, to continue through a broad expanse of drained marshy pasture bordered by the low sandy hills of Blyford and Wenhaston.  At Blythburgh the valley becomes a tidal marsh with broad mudflats, and the river eventually enters the sea at Southwold Quay. 

 

Fig. 2.1 Topographic diagram of Blything Hundred.

 

 

The development of Halesworth in modern times cannot be understood without reference to the topography of this part of Suffolk, particularly the river valleys, which cut the land into east-west segments.  In this connection, the town is part of a larger pattern of human settlement that from the earliest of times has been dominated by the complex drainage system of the River Blyth (Fig 2.1). 

2.1.1 Blything Hundred

In fact, Halesworth’s topographic situation is reflected in its ancient political position towards the centre of the Blything Hundred, about 10 miles from the coast. The Hundred is an ancient sub-division of the county occupying precisely seven veins of the Blyth that have carved a broad arc into the glacial plateau clays of High Suffolk. This clay plateau is at its highest (about 55 metres) and flattest along a part of the western watershed, which separates the parishes of Ubbeston (Blything Hundred) and Laxfield (Hoxne Hundred). As inhabitants of the Hundred, Halesworth families have an historical continuity with the Saxon people, or tribe, that had its capital at Blythburgh.  In this connection, 'Blything' is equated with 'people of the Blyth', a designation that may well go further back in time to a coastal sub-division of land held by the Iron Age Iceni. Blythburgh is the site of the Hundred's 'moot hall' and first came to historical prominence as the religious centre of a branch of the important Wuffinga kingship centred on Sutton Hoo.  This royal connection is evident from the Christian burial at Blythburgh of King Ana in 654.  It is recorded as having a market in 1086 and in this respect its community had a functional significance equal to the other Domesday economic centres of Suffolk, which were at Kelsale, Dunwich, Ipswich, Stowmarket, Eye, Hoxne, Bungay, and Beccles.

 

Blything Hundred is a well-defined territory, stretching from the Hundred River at Kessingland south to another Hundred River, which separates Thorpeness from Aldeburgh.  Although the old ways and skills of the Blything may no longer be part of daily life, traditions of the earlier people of the river valleys are still embedded within the ancient topographical features of plateau, river and stream, which give the lands a powerful sanctity.  In general, the Hundred boundary follows the contours that define the Blyth watershed, but at some places it is marked by streams (becks), which are also parish boundaries. The western valleys of the Blyth descend from the fringe of the sparsely populated plateau settlements on the boundary, and are characterised by having relatively steep, jagged, water-eroded sides, through which minor roads follow narrow gullies. In relation to their size, relatively small watercourses occupy these gullies, an indication that they were cut by the flows of much larger volumes of water in the past. Some of these gullies (locally named 'gulls') probably represent old melt-water channels of the last glaciation. In this respect, the Blyth river system delineates a late glacial landscape, with the land divided into several water-cut ridges running from west to east.  Although this coastal area was no doubt attractive to the first post-glacial settlers, the corrugated ice-melt terrain has always been a barrier to long distance north-south communication through its settlements.

 

Towards the coast beyond Halesworth, streams cut through sands and gravels (the Sandlings), which some believe were deposited from a south-running ancestor of the River Rhine.  The outlets of all the rivers, from Kessingland to Aldeburgh, are partially blocked by sand and shingle bars, and at the coast they are separated from one another by soft cliffs undergoing rapid erosion.   Safe havens are at a premium for coastal trade.  Occasional woods, copses, small fields and tree lined hedgerows, considerably enhance the local character of an intensively used landscape, which, in the 11th century, was the most densely peopled region in England, with Suffolk having more than four hundred of its churches and the main patterns of county settlement already set out. 

 

Historically, Halesworth seems not to have had an important political position in the communities of the East Anglian coastal belt.  It is just one of many irregular-shaped parishes that are tightly packed within the Blyth watershed (Fig 2.2).  Although there are archaeological signs of occupation in the town going back to Palaeolithic times, there is no evidence for Halesworth having been a major settlement in pre-Roman, Roman or Saxon periods.  However, the site of the present church within an ovoid precinct could denote an early Christian enclosure. A circular or curvilinear boundary is a feature of early Christian church/chapel sites in Britain’s Celtic West.  Also, in this context, a short distance to the southwest is the settlement of Walpole; the prefix ‘WAL’ coupled with ‘PWL’ (lake) may denote a British (Welsh) settlement surviving in what became a predominantly Anglo-Saxon area.  The Norman overlords did not fortify Halesworth, and their local administrative centre for this part of the Shire was just outside the Blything Hundred, at Carlton.  

 

Fig 2.2 Parishes of Blything Hundred: pre 1855

 

2.1.2 Communications

From early times, it appears that the settlement of Halesworth became important as a stopover point in an old communication network extending from east to west across the clay plateau to the coast.  The community lies on a branch off the main highway that follows the Waveney valley from Bury to Yarmouth.   This branch turns off towards Halesworth at the market town of Harleston.  As a minor route it crosses the Waveney to traverse the great flat, open spaces of the glacial plateau at Metfield, where it enters the Hundred, and then follows the northern-most tributary of the Blyth down to Halesworth.  After crossing Town Bridge north of the church and market place, the road turns along the northern sandy edge of the main valley of the Blyth through Blyford to Southwold, a rare haven on the North Sea coastal shipping route between Yarmouth and Ipswich.  This particular road from Harleston to Southwold, is evident on the earliest route map of the area (dotted line; Fig 2.3). It has lateral branches at Halesworth, which go north to Bungay, and south, via Walpole and Peasenhall, to Yoxford. 

 

The remarkable thing about Kirby’s road map, compared with modern maps is the large proportion of villages that stand in isolation off the main roads.  This is reflection of the poor quality of communications and the self-sufficiency of the communities. A statute of 1555 made the parish responsible for highways and this continued until about 1663. It was then that an Act of Parliament decreed that ‘Turnpike Trusts’ should be set up. Until then, surfaces were not too important because roads were only used by packhorses and pedestrians during the summer.  In 1706 Parliament created the first turnpike trust, a scheme by which local business people could charge a toll for using a road, applying the money received to maintain the road. After 1750 there was a ‘mania’ for turnpikes.  Just over eight hundred acts were passed in the twenty years after 1751, and by 1830 there were some 1,100 trusts, created by around 4,000 separate acts, administering more than 56,000 miles of road. Whereas the first turnpikes had been in the counties close to London, trusts after 1750 were set up mainly in the Midlands, and after 1790 were concentrated in the north of England, reflecting the changing pattern of economic growth. Many of the trusts were fraudulently administered, and the Turnpike Act of 1822 required trusts to keep accounts. Nevertheless, it has been estimated that, by the 1830s, the turnpikes were investing about £1.5 million a year in the United Kingdom road system.

 

Fig. 2.3  Kirby’s road map of 1736

 

 

The improved roads allowed a significant increase of haulage traffic, passenger coaches, and a national postal service. Local landowners, merchants, parish officials and farmers were persuaded to become involved because it was to their benefit in an expanding economy to have improved communications. Most of the western Blything catchment is dominated by clay soils, which means that the Blyth river system has always been prone to saturation and flashy river responses.   Before hard road surfaces were introduced, winter brought local upland travel to a virtual standstill.  The Blyth valley marshes to the east of Halesworth were a major impediment in all seasons.   Before the marshes to the east of the town were drained for grazing, the modern way south from the town to the main London highway was through Walpole to Yoxford.  In those times, Bramfield was reached by a local ‘common lane’, from church to church.  This lane was then just a minor parochial link between the two places.  The situation only changed with the creation of the Bungay/ Halesworth/ Darsham turnpike, which, after passing through Halesworth, turned left at the top of Pound St (London Rd.) to Bramfield.   From Bramfield it continued along a track called Beech Lane, which had been improved by the trust for wheeled traffic to access the main coastal turnpike from Yarmouth to Ipswich at Darsham. (Fig 2.4).  It is thought that the flint-walled house at the junction with the A12 was built for the toll keeper.  There was probably another tollbooth in Bramfield to catch traffic to Halesworth that converged laterally on the crossroads in the centre of the village.

 

Fig. 2.4 Turnpike roads in North East Suffolk

 

 

The economic stimulus given to trade by the turnpike movement cannot be underestimated.  For example, Arthur Young the national advocate for improved agriculture, with the interests of the countryside always at heart, rejoiced to note that when a good turnpike road was made it opened out new markets.   New ideas circulated through the come-and-go of more frequent travel, and rents in the district soon rose with the improvement of agriculture. On the other hand, he saw and deplored the beginning of that 'rural exodus', which has been going on ever since, at a pace, which matches the speed of improved communications. In his Farmer's Letters (ed, 1771) he wrote:

 

To find fault with good roads would have the appearance of paradox and absurdity; but it is nevertheless a fact that giving the power of expeditious travelling depopulates the Kingdom. Young men and women in the country villages fix their eyes on London as the last stage of their hope. They enter into service in the country for little else but to raise money enough to go to London, which was no such easy matter when a stage coach was four or five days in creeping an hundred miles.  The fare and the expenses ran high. But now! A country fellow, one hundred miles from London, jumps on a coach box in the morning, and for eight or ten shillings gets to town by night, which makes a material difference; besides rendering the going up and down so easy, the numbers who have seen London are increased tenfold, and of course ten times the boasts are sounded in the ears of country fools to induce them to quit their healthy clean fields for a region of dirt, stink and noise.

 

However, without improving communications neither the in­dustrial nor the agricultural revolution could have taken place.


Fig. 2.5 Settlement of Halesworth in relation to the 50 ft contour of the upper valley of the River Blyth, and its crossing points.

 

 

The picture of Halesworth as an out-of-the-way focus for pedestrian and horse-borne travel was actually reinforced by the granting of a market in the 13th century.  This weekly market determined its local inward-looking mercantile function for the next five centuries.  The road connection with Southwold provided its life-blood, which was trade with the coastal shipping route between Newcastle and London.  The peculiar historical situation of Halesworth, off to one side of the main east-west routes into East Anglia, also accounts for the fact that, today, in order to reach the town from the main road network, the traveller either takes a winding dog-leg route across the clay plateau from Harleston, or, if coming from the south, has to make a sharp turn to the west off a relatively uninhabited stretch of the A12 at Darsham.

The position of the settlement of Halesworth at the junction of the east-west and north south communications through Blything has been critical to its history and economic development.  The key to understanding the town’s strategic position is the 50 ft contour on which St Mary’s church and the market place, as the first point of settlement, are positioned.   This is illustrated diagrammatically in Fig 2.5.  The 50ft contour delineates the flood plain of the river at this point, and highlights the fact that the largest flows of water descend from the clay plateau via the southern valley.  The roads along both the north and south valleys immediately to the east and west of Halesworth more or less follow the line of the 50 ft contour.  As stated above, the main north south route from Yoxford to Bungay crossed the Southern Blyth at Walpole Bridge.  Bramfield (Mells) Bridge marks the site of an ancient crossing of the river by the common lane that ran from Halesworth church to Bramfield.  As pointed out above, the modern road to the bridge appears to have been a later development of a Turnpike Trust to speed Halesworth traffic to the main London Turnpike at Darsham. 

Routes from the northwest, northeast, and north, focus on Halesworth’s Town Bridge below the church.  This bridge marks the narrowest point of the flood plain for crossing the Blyth, and the road from Harleston takes this route from the church, down The Thoroughfare to the northern bank, where it rises steeply again from the bridge up to the 50 ft contour.  The approach to the bridge via the Thoroughfare was constructed over marshy ground.   In this respect, it was reported in the 1951 Festival of Britain brochure for the town, that during excavations in The Thoroughfare, when pipes for a sewer were being laid, huge quantities of peat were brought to the surface.  The town’s marshy heritage is still evident in that the river is prone to flash flooding.  The last major flood episode occurred on 12th October 1993, when the river overflowed its banks and extended from the bridge some 200 metres up the road to the south, flooding the car park, the park, and properties on either side of The Thoroughfare. For most of its existence, Halesworth was confined to the narrow strip of land between the church and river and most of its medieval thatched buildings were packed tightly along The Thoroughfare down to the Town Bridge.   It is here that most of its remaining timber-framed houses are found.

2.2 Halesworth and the ‘nook’ communities

 

Halesworth is one of the smaller parishes of the Blything hundred and is characterised for the most part by an angular boundary, which follows hedges and ditches between fields.  Only its southern edge is marked by a natural feature, where the parish boundary is delineated by the meanderings of the southern Blyth (Figs. 2.6-2.7). 

Fig 2.6  Parish boundary of Halesworth (shaded) in the 19th century.

Parish boundaries are the outcome of more than a thousand years of socio-economic history.  They came after the primary process of English settlement, which was followed by adjustments from time to time by the exchange of land with neighbours.  In modern times, boundaries were changed radically in response to urbanisation and the coming of the railways.  For example, Halesworth’s boundary was altered after the northern route of the railway had cut off small irregular portions of the parish from its main body.  The last major alteration to Halesworth’s boundaries was in 1934 and this more or less gave the parish its present form (Fig 2.7).

 

Fig 2.7  The position of Halesworth parish (modern boundary) in relation to river, roads and farms.

 

WL = wetland; BCL= Bramfield common lane

 

Counteracting the forces of change was the need for geographical cohesion on the part of the community.   A sense of place was maintained year on year by the ceremony of beating the bounds.  This was the annual perambulation, led by the churchwardens, of young and old along an established route that circumnavigated the parish.  Beating the bounds originated before the days of maps, and involved a procession from one prominent feature to another, i.e. an ancient tree, a stream or a hilltop.

 

 

 

 

Fig 2.8 Compartmentation of outlying titheable lands (modified from Warner, 1987)

 

Shaded area tithable to Halesworth

 

When the first map of Halesworth was made in the mid 18th century, a detached portion of Halesworth was embedded in the northern parish of Spexhall (Fig. 2.8-2.9-210).  Subsequent adjustments of this anomaly between Halesworth and Spexhall accounts for the narrow northern extension of the parish parallel to Stone Street, the main road to Bungay.  However, to understand the origins of the parochial territory of Halesworth that subsequently conditioned its economic development requires examining its condition and that of its northern neighbours at the time of  King William’s Domesday Survey.

 


Fig 2.9  Halesworth in Spexhall (1842)

 

 

The fields of Halesworth’s northern extension are rectangular and appear to have been planned with their common axis running north to south (Fig 2.9), more or less following the line of Stone St. which predates them.

 

Nearer to the centre of Halesworth, the boundary forms a projection, which contains the homestead of Hill Farm (Fig. 2.10).  This ‘bulge’ is evidence of some kind of land deal in the past that took place between Halesworth and Holton.  It could have been that Holton received a finger of land from Halesworth or that Hill Farm was carved out of Holton.  There are no documented clues as what actually happened.

 

Generally, it can be inferred from the way parish boundaries sometimes zigzag across the land that negotiations over the enclosure of common land to make private fields, and/or, the consolidation of estates on boundaries, which actually extended one village and reduced another, was commonplace at the most distant points from the centre of the village.  All of this might or might not be written down as a description of who owned which fields.  Mapping was a relatively late process in community history and it not only fossilized community memory of where one village ended and another began, but also signified ancient deals in real estate, some of which have been traced back to Saxon charters.
Fig. 2.10 Parish boundary of Halesworth in relation to the Holton and Wissett 1842

 

 

The Domesday Survey tells that most of Halesworth was then in the hands of a powerful Norman baron, Earl Hugh.  He was pressing his claim on the remainder of the village, which was contested by another of King William’s henchmen, Earl Alan. 

 

The following Domesday entry for Halesworth is substantial and describes three estates with manorial status. That is to say there were three lords with competing interests in land and people.

 

Aelfric held Halesworth TRE as a manor with 2 carucates of land. Then 4 villans, now 5.  Then 7 borders, now 10.  Then as now 2 slaves. Then as now 2 ploughs in demesne. Then 3 ploughs belonging to the men, now 2.  Then woodland for 300 pigs, now for 100.  Then as now 4 acres of meadow. 1 mill, 1 horse. Then as now 6 head of cattle.  Now 10 pigs.  18 sheep.  Then it was worth 30 (s). now 40(s). 

 

In the same vill Ulf the priest held 40 acres of land as one manor.  2 borders. 1 plough in demesne.   Woodland for 6 pigs. 4 acres of meadow.  14 sheep. 2 goats.  It is worth 5s.

 

To this manor have been joined 4 free men with 60 acres of land. 2 borders. 2 ploughs in demesne.  It is worth 10s.  And Bigod de Loges holds these 3 estates from Earl Hugh. 

 

It is one league long and another broad.  It renders 7 ½ d in geld. Count Alan claims the land of the aforsaid priest and those of 4 men through his predecessor and his own seisin and the Hundred testifies (for him).

 

Earl Hugh also had interests in four parishes adjacent to Halesworth, holding Bramfield as one manor, with properties in Walpole, Thorington, Wenhaston and Wissett.  There is no Domesday entry for Spexhall and its eastern neighbour, Westhall.  Omissions of villages that were later described as long-established communities are unusual, but not unknown in Suffolk.   This simply adds to the air of mystery surrounding the origins of Halesworth, not least because 19th century Halesworth shared a fragmented northern boundary with Wissett, Spexhall and Westhall. 

 

It has been said that the landscape of Suffolk is still essentially a Saxon one. The description of Domesday Halesworth as being one league long and another broad, fits with the relative dimensions of the 19th century parish.  A clue to the settlement’s connection with Spexhall could be Halesworth’s ownership of Domesday woodland that could provide pannage for 300 pigs.  This is a substantial amount of land that was probably sited on unoccupied claylands to the north of the town.  Another large area of pannage was included in the survey of Wissett, again amounting to 300 pigs. These figures are not accurate counts of actual animals but were taken by the King’s surveyors to represent orders of magnitude for comparative purposes.  In the 1839 Tithe Apportionment, two blocks of fields belonging to Halesworth were embedded in Spexhall, and there was also a part of Spexhall that was titheable in Westhall. These arrangements indicate that this flat, and still relatively uninhabited landscape, which is part of the watershed between the Blyth, Wangford Brook and Waveney, was pre-Conquest wood pasture, with common land rights held by villages to the south.  Subsequently, the block of land straddling Stone Street, a supposed Roman road, became shared between the three communities, each having specified amounts of common land, and these commons were subsequently enclosed to give the parochial boundaries as shown in the Tithe Maps. The virtual snapshot of the northern edge of Blything in 1086 illuminates the process of clearing and settlement of upland forest.  The process had long been a feature of the spread of the English, as families moved west, exploring Suffolk’s network of streams to access the heavy clay cornlands.

2.2.1 Lands at the edges

The parish touched most people's lives through its role as a form of local government and as a significant landscape feature, which defined a circuit of territory to which local people may have felt an allegiance. Evidence for the social meaning of boundaries is found in acts of boundary marking and related perambulation ceremonies and through written records, sometimes involving maps. In the primary definition a premium was placed on local knowledge, especially of the older parishioners. Acts of boundary recording could enhance a sense of parish consciousness and community.

 

The peculiar arrangement of Halesworth’s northern parish boundary as it was mapped in the early 19th century, in relation to Wissett and Holton, with the detached portion of Halesworth embedded in Spexhall, requires some explanation.  The fact that Spexhall church appears to have originated to serve a chapelry of Wissett, suggests that Spexhall was actually a post-Conquest community created on the eastern plateau lands of Wissett.  Wissett’s pannage for 300 pigs reinforces the idea that there was a large tract of woodland available to the parish that was probably the plateau land upon which Spexhall was eventually established as an independent parish, where it shared common rights with Halesworth and Westhall.

 

 


Fig. 2.11 Plateau-edge parishes of Brampton, Westhall and Sotherton

 

 

There are also intriguing arial relationships between the lands situated at the edges of several parishes immediately to the north of Halesworth.  Uncertainties of ownership in these flat lands with no obvious physical markers, seem to have existed where Halesworth impinged on the territory of the three north-eastern parishes of Brampton, Westhall and Sotherton, to the east of Stone St.  These three parishes are situated on the edge of the clay plateau with their communities focused in three small valleys with unnamed streams feeding the River Blyth beyond Wangford at Wolsey’s Bridge (Fig 2.11).  If their churches are taken as the main points of settlement, it is clear that the 75 ft contour is a key to the original suitability of these valleys for their first communities.  From the churches, the parish lands rise up the valleys to the west, where, in the case of Westhall, the boundary is for the most part aligned north to south, parallel to Stone Street, from which it was separated by about half a mile of territory belonging to Halesworth and Spexhall.  The northern boundaries of Westhall and Brampton coincide with Blything’s Hundred boundary, as did Halesworth’s detached northern block of land. 

 

Sotherton is the smallest of the three villages and abuts onto Holton and Blyford. The contiguity and shapes of their 19th century boundaries (Fig. 2.12) is strongly suggestive that they were originally one community, with a western nook, or valley, which became a separate village.  Sotherton or ‘south community’, which is mentioned in Domesday, is a candidate for an early division of Brampton.   Westhall has to be ‘west’ of something, and indeed, it forms the western boundary of Brampton.  The name ‘Brampton’ is common throughout England and has been equated with ‘burnt place’ i.e. a community laid waste by fire.  This is a clue to a point in time when a disaster overcame Brampton in Suffolk, after which three new nuclear villages, Brampton, Sotherton and Westhall were created out of the one territory. Regarding their origins, in 1086 Brampton had about three times the farming activity of Sotherton, which from its holding of 100 hogs was probably largely a woodland area.  The actual dimensions of Sotherton were given as 1 league long by half a league wide.  Brampton’s size was not recorded.

 

Fig 2.12 The ‘nuclear’ communities of Wissett and Brampton

 

 

Warner, in his booklet, ‘Seven Wonders from Westhall’ has mapped the probable 14th century distribution of woodland in the three parishes (Fig 2.13).  His map shows a southern block straddling the boundary between Westhall and Sotherton.  This pattern of distribution, taken together with the relatively large area of common land in Westhall that was probably derived from woodland, indicates that Westhall was a post-Conquest creation by the division of Sotherton and its settlement from Brampton.  Its relatively large area of common land was probably a legacy from its origins as a block of wood pasture.  From an examination of the plan and Romanesque features of Westhall church, Warner favours a late 11th century origin for its foundation as a stone-built chapel, which was subsequently embellished with an apse with a well-carved ‘Norman’ chancel arch and portal in the next century.

 

What have these ancient topographic features of the communities north of the town to do with the development of Halesworth?  First there is an etymological unity with the name 'hal or hall' used to describe an out of the way place.  The name Halesworth (various early spellings are Halesuuorda, Haleurda, Healesuurda) may have originated as a local description of 'the farming community (urda) of the nook (hale)'. Hal or hall is common to the cluster of Spexhall, Westhall, Titshall (an isolated wood in Brampton), Spexhall and Ilketshall.  In line with this, there is evidence that these communities spread out from small well-watered valleys at the northern edge of Blything Hundred, up onto the intractable wooded clayland of the high plateau.  This plateau between the Blyth and Waveney catchments was probably an impediment to north-south communication from the earliest times.  In this respect, Stone Street is regarded as a local engineering initiative of the Romans to drive a route across the impenetrable claylands between Halesworth and Bungay.  This was probably in order to connect the Romano-British farms of Blything with military installations on the Yare and Waveney.  There is still something of a mystery about the so-called Roman Roads in and around Blything.  Quite often, as in the case of Stone St, the straight bits connect up bendy bits.  Where there are gaps, the maps often show a dotted line as if the intermediate section had been destroyed, but without archaeological evidence for the assumption.  A more reasonable conclusion is that the bendy bits were in existence as a network of local community tracks before the arrival of the legionary task force, whose job was to connect up with the next local network on a straight line across a stretch of impenetrable terrain.  After all, these roads were probably required for the long-distance movement of agricultural supplies rather than for the rapid deployment of military assets.

 


Fig 2.13 Disposition of parishes to the east of Stone St in relation to 14th century woodland

 

(modified from Warner, 1996)

 

Finally, the shape of Halesworth probably developed, and was restricted, as the result of competition between the ‘nook’ communities for the empty claylands.  In this connection, Brampton may be regarded as a prototype of Halesworth, with its church sited above a stream crossed by a minor road.  At Domesday it was about twice the size of Halesworth and like Halesworth its lord successfully petitioned Henry III for a market and fair (1251), as did the lord of Sotherton (1226).  The latter rights were later transferred to the secondary community of Westhall.  This signalled the beginning of the decline of Sotherton relative to Westhall, and by the 17th century it was only half the size of its northern neighbour. At this time (1674) Brampton had 20 households, Westhall had 46, and Sotherton had 21. In contrast, Halesworth had 226 households at this time, and the retail revolution, which boosted the population of Halesworth, had bypassed its northern neighbours, and even the coming of the railway did not significantly enhance their agrarian economies.  In contrast to Halesworth, they remain to this day as sparsely populated, out of the way places, and rare examples of extreme rurality.

 

 

2.3 Social structure

2.3.1 Lordship

We see society as a grouping that holds individuals together and cements relationships between them.  In England and the Anglicised areas of eastern and south Wales, the basic unit of society was the lordship and the manor.  The manor, comprised 'demesne' lands, 'anciently and time out of mind' reserved to the lord's use, freehold ten­ancies and 'customary' land. Freeholders enjoyed a secure title, the rights to sell, lease and bequeath their land, and the protection of the common law. They held around a fifth of the land in many areas, and still more in some. The lord's demesne had formerly been cultivated by serf labour. By 1500, it was usually leased out to tenants for periods of years or ‘lives’ in return for an initial 'entry fine' and an annual rent negotiated at the time of the granting of tenancy. Customary lands, in contrast, passed by 'admission' and 'surrender' in the manor court, on terms, which were subject to the 'custom of the manor'. In the central Middle Ages, such land had been held by unfree serfs or 'villeins' - 'at the will of the lord and according to the customs of the manor' — in return for the perfor­mance of labour services on the demesne and the payment of various customary dues. By 1500 serfdom was largely, though not entirely, extinct as a legal status. Some customary tenants remained tenants at will, holding property from year to year, with no legal rights beyond that of harvesting a growing crop if required to relinquish their tenancy. Most, however, were 'copyholders', holding land by virtue of a copy of the entry on the manor court roll recording their admission to the tenancy. Their common designation covered a bewildering profusion of actual terms and condi­tions, which varied according to the customs of individual manors. All copyholders paid an entry fine and an annual rent. But some manors accorded rights of inheritance, while others granted land only for years or lives. On some, entry fines or rents had become fixed. On others they remained 'arbitrary' and renegotiable when the current tenancy expired. The extent of the proprietary rights enjoyed by such tenants thus differed greatly. A copyholder of inheritance, with a fixed fine and rent, was vir­tually as secure as a freeholder. Others might be much more exposed to the estate-management policies of their landlords — though rarely to the extent that was prevalent in Scotland. The rents and obligations owed by tenants were as variegated as their forms of tenure. For freeholders they were negligible, involving only a small payment in 'recognition' of a lord's jurisdiction and the obligation of 'suit' at his court. English leaseholders paid money rents based on an assessment of the current value of the land. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries leases were generally long and their terms were gen­erous.

 

By the late Middle Ages, Halesworth’s manorial structure was evident in three manors, Halesworth Manor itself, which comprised a large proportion of the urbanised centre, Dame Margery’s Manor, which consisted of only a few tens of acres and was probably taken out of Halesworth Manor and subsequently merged back into it, and Rectory Manor.  The latter comprised most of the newly urbanised land to the north of the river.  Its lord was the Rector of Halesworth and its revenues went to the Church. This may have originated in the 40 acres of land held by Ulf the priest at Domesday.  It appears that most of the parish was, from early times, freehold land.

 

The records of the transactions of the court of Rectory Manor from the 18th and 19th centuries have survived, from which it can be seen that its system of fines and admissions was a financial and administrative burden to the tradesmen of Halesworth north of the Thoroughfare.  An example of what they had to contend with may be seen in the following extract of the minutes of the manorial court held in 1734.  It records the transfer of a tenancy from John Hawks to Thomas Brown for which the latter had to pay a fee to the Lord of the Rectory Manor, even though the Manor did not own the property.  It also records that this particular manorial tenancy had been transferred to John Hawks from Nathaniel Short.  The actual passage of the tenancy to Thomas Brown involved Edmund Brown, a tailor, who was granted the legal right to transfer the premises to Thomas Brown.

 

A general Court Baron there hold for the said Manor the thirteenth day of June in the year of our lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty-four before Thomas Betts Esq. Steward there.

 

Homage; John Schimming and James Woolnough sworn.

 

At this Court comes here into court John Hawks in his proper person, and doth surrender into the hands of the Lord of the said Manor, by the said steward, by Thomas Rodd, all that copyhold messuage or tenement situate and lying and being in Halesworth late in the tenure and occupation of Nathaniel Short, together with a curtilage to the same- belonging to which premises the said John Hawks was admitted tenant to him and his heirs at a Court here held for the said Manor the nineteenth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twenty-four upon the surrender of Robert Bartrup- to the use of Edmund Brown of Halesworth in the County of Suffolk, Taylor- and of his heirs and assigns for ever, who being present here in court in his proper person- puts himself in Favour with the Lord and prays to be admitted Tenant to the premises so surrendered as aforesaid. To which said Edmund Brown the Lord of this Manor by his said steward- doth grant and therof deliver seizin by Thomas Rodd to hold those premises with the appurtenances unto the said Thomas Brown, his heirs and assigns of the Lord at the will of the Lord- according to the custom of the said Manor by the rents and customs and services thereoftofore due and of right accustomed, and he pays to the Lord his fine and is admitted Tenant.

 

The manorial system of Halesworth lasted well into the 20th century. As late as 1939, Kelly’s Suffolk Directory states that  “William Ram Esq. is lord of the manors of Halesworth and Dame Margery’s (about 250 acres) and the Rector is lord of the Rectory manor (about 40 acres).  The land is held by a number of owners”

 

2.3.2 Neighbourliness

'Neighbourliness' was another keyword of sixteenth-century social relations, expressing a critically important social ideal. The relation­ship which it defined was based upon residential proximity, interaction of a regular kind, and a degree of consensus regarding proper conduct among residents within local communities.  Communities were, as one contemporary put it, 'the first societies after propagation of families wherein people are united ... in ... the mutual comforts of neigh­bourhood and intercourse one with another'. Such focused interaction and consensus were created partly by institutions, not least, as we have seen above, those of lordship. The sense of collective identity of rural communities was derived in part from the inhabitants' common relationship to a lord, and it was further elaborated in the formulation of local custom. Custom, it has been said, 'presupposes a group or community within which it is practised'. Moreover, it helped to constitute such groups, expressing a ‘community of interest’ among neighbours, defining their relationships not only to the lord but also to one another, and con­tributing to the formulation of a sense of place and of an individual’s identity within that place.

 

All this was evident in the ways in which the institutions of lordship and tenancy were also institutions of self-regulation within the tenurial communities to which most people still belonged. It was perhaps most visible nationally in the organisation of common-field agriculture. In this system each tenant held parcels of land scattered in strips across great open fields, while further enjoying access to certain collective 'use rights' - to common pasture on the fields after harvest and on areas of permanent common grazing land, or to the resources of food, fuel and materials provided by the woods, common and 'waste'. The system had many variants within the common need for the cooperative organisation of husbandry.  From the time of the first records of land use, the open-field system was not dominant in Suffolk.  Some authorities believe this implies very early enclosure.  Others take its absence as evidence of continuity from the Saxon settlement; in other words open field agriculture was never fully adopted.

 

2.3.3 Fraternity

Lordship and neighbourhood were also of relevance to town society. Lesser towns were often 'seigneurial boroughs' governed by seigneurial courts and owing their fee farm to their lord. Neighbourhood was as characteristic of urban streets and parishes as of rural communities. Towns, however, were also distinguished by their relative independence and distinctive institutions. Urban autonomy had developed from the basic right to hold markets and to possess institutions of self-government by a process of slow accretion. Inevitably, it varied in its extent. But it could produce a strong sense of civic independence, especially if a town had achieved the accolade of incorporation, which conferred legal iden­tity as a corporate body. 

 

Within that collective identity, the urban community was comprised of a variety of component groups. Its core members of these brotherhoods were the citizens or burgesses, who possessed the ‘freedom’ of the place, and the members of the craft fellowships.  The latter were companies or guilds, which had evolved from loose associations of men with a common occu­pation into 'organised communities with exclusive rights', controlling the affairs of particular trades. These two categories overlapped. Citizenship was the prerequisite for full participation in the economic and political life of the town. It could be acquired by various means — including pat­rimony, marriage, purchase or 'redemption' and apprenticeship.  ‘Citizenship’, however, was usually contingent upon membership of a guild. Variations in the size of citizen communities tended to depend upon whether the franchise was available only to independent masters, or was extended also to journeymen who had completed their apprenticeship. All in all, the guilds promoted a powerful spirit of fraternity and mutual responsibility, which reflected medieval ideals of association. Such values were shared by the rulers of the towns, whose exercise of authority was informed by notions of stewardship and obligation to the wider community, and who sought to harmonise the economic interests of potentially hostile groups in the general interests of 'amity, love and quietness'. Nor were they alien to the poor. Late-medieval urban society, it has been said: ‘while undoubtedly stratified, resembled a trifle rather than a cake: its layers were blurred and the sherry of accepted values soaked through them'.

 

2.3.4 Kinship

Throughout discussion of local economic institutions and relation­ships a particular idiom recurs in the terminology of the records: one of 'kindness', 'friendship' and 'fraternity'. Neighbours were enjoined to live in 'kindly intercourse' and 'friendly unity', and guild members to be 'brothers', 'sisters' and 'friends'. This was in fact an idiom of kinship, invoking the affective bonds of family relationships. Forms of economic association thus overlapped conceptually with those of kinship, and this fact inevitably raises the question of the significance of kinship in the economic relations of the time.  In one respect, kinship was of fundamental significance in transmitting property between the generations, and facilitating the entry of the young into independent adulthood. But what of the broader roles of kinship, and in particular those of the net­works of kinfolk, which extended beyond the nuclear family household?

 

Throughout Britain, bonds of kinship also had a significant role in the 'social uplands' of the aristocracy and gentry. In provincial society, both intermarriage among the landed families of a county or region, and the establishment of cadet branches, created series of overlapping networks of connection, which were bound together not only by neighbourhood, but also by blood. Such net­works could involve extensive mutual co-operation.  This can be seen in the acquisition, management and defence of property, where a trusted core of 'friends' within the gentry community acted as patrons, go-betweens, executors, arbitrators, witnesses, trustees and, if necessary, armed supporters.

 

Urban kinship could provide a bond of solidarity in both political and economic affairs. Leading citizens were frequently closely interlinked by blood and marriage. In trade, relatives provided an 'operational extended family' of trusted individuals with shared commercial interests, who provided credit, advice, support and contacts. Much the same could be said of the leading members of the church, and professions such as the law. Thus to get on in Halesworth, membership of one ‘party’ or another was a great advantage and incomers had to break through the barriers of kinship.

 

2.3.5 Economic networks

The particularity of happenings in Halesworth derived in part from the distinctiveness of its customs, institutions, expectations and patterns of relationships.  But it was also shaped by the manner in which they were linked into larger worlds.

 

For analytical purposes, four overlapping spheres of commercial activity may be distinguished. The most basic of these involved the intensive small-scale dealing, which took place among the inhabitants of an immediate locality. In rural society this commonly involved a kind of quasi-commercial extension of neighbourliness, well documented in those numerous minor transactions - often involving credit - which are recorded in wills and inventories. In the towns too, a good deal of the busi­ness of small tradesmen was conducted with fellow townspeople within what remained highly localised markets.  As in the countryside, Halesworth’s urban inventories and court records indicate that many of these trans­actions were conducted on credit or 'trust', in a manner that created a complex web of economic interdependence among known individuals extending up, down and across local societies, which were more diverse but no less intimate than their rural counterparts.

 

In all likelihood most small husbandmen and tradesmen conducted the greater part of their commercial dealings within such contexts. A second sphere of activity, however, was that comprising rural/urban and inter-urban trade at the level of the district, 'country' or sub-region. Despite their elements of autonomy, rural and urban economies were in no sense separate spheres.   It is helpful to think not of town and country, but rather of interconnected socio-economic areas that were centred on a town.  All towns depended on the countryside for supplies of food and raw materials and for much of their custom. Country-dwellers needed the towns as trading forums for their produce and as suppliers of specialist manufactures and services. More­over, similar reciprocities existed between urban economies, or rather between those town-centred socio-economic areas. In both instances, the vital unit of analysis is that of the country town and its hinterland, or 'market area'.

 

All market towns were essentially part of the countryside, which they served and from which they gained most of their living. They varied nonetheless in both their size and their significance in the structuring of commercial activity within their 'countries'. The smallest have been aptly described as 'market villages' i.e. villages with an overlay of urban activities, and as 'foci in time', briefly galvanised into activity on their market days. Nevertheless, they performed a vital role in binding the settlements around them into larger economic units. Regular use of those markets for the exchange of small surpluses provided them with several points of entry into the larger economy of the district. Moreover, such periodic influx from surrounding villages meant that even small towns were able to sustain a range of specialist activities somewhat greater than that represented in the average rural settlement. In a survey of occupa­tions in the Babergh Hundred of Suffolk in 1522, for example, the twenty-seven villages had between two and fourteen male occupations each. The small towns of Boxford, Nayland, Lavenham and Long Melford, however, had between eighteen and twenty-seven. Sudbury, the most significant market town of the district, had forty-nine.  Sudbury provides an example of what have been termed 'district market towns': places with a more extensive role in articulating the pat­terns of exchange of an area. Some simply provided more services than any rival. Some had developed a degree of specialisation in addition to their general trading functions.  This is the pattern that singled out Halesworth from this time.

2.3.6 Land ownership

The tithe system from time im­memorial had caused much friction between church and congregation. The harvest song—

 

' We've cheated the parson, we'll cheat him again, For why should the Vicar have one in ten?'

 

expressed an anti-tithe sentiment as old as Anglo-Saxon England.

 

The tithe was levied from the tenant farmer, very often in kind: the tenth sucking pig went to the parson's table; the tenth sheaf was carried off to his tithe barn. Long before the Reformation it had been a cause of friction and bitterness, Chaucer had praised the good parson who did not 'cursen for his tithes,' that is, excommunicate the recalcitrant tithe-payer.  The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 laid this ancient grievance between the rural laity and their priests to rest. It stopped payment in kind. Tithes were commuted for a rent-charge on land. In 1891 it was made payable by the landowner, no longer by the tenant farmer except perhaps indirectly through his rent. The squires, who were socially and politically allied to the parsons, did not object to paying tithe as strongly as their tenants. The Commutation Acts gave temporary peace to the country­side. It was only later, when after 1918 so many cultivating farmers bought their own land and having become landowners found themselves directly chargeable with tithe, that a fresh agitation arose leading to fresh concessions at the expense of the Church.

 

At the time of the legal process of Tithe Apportionment in Halesworth, nine people owned most of Halesworth’s agricultural land (Table 2.1).  George Parkyns of Chediston Hall was one of the town's greatest landowners.  He was also by far the greatest landowner in Chediston, where he exercised his role as lord of the manor from his imposing mansion of Chediston Hall.

 

Table 2.1 Halesworth land holdings in Tithe Apportionment: 1839

 

Owner

Size

Farm

Occupier

Size (acres)

Charles Woolby

196.2.18

 

Charlotte Hart

196.2.18

John Crabtree

34.3.14

 

Himself

7.0.27

 

 

 

William Woodyard

27.2.27

James Johnson

105.0.39

 

Himself

105.0.39

George Parkyns

192.2.23

Chediston Hall

Various occupiers

6.2.36

 

 

 

 

0.2.36

 

 

 

 

124.1.18

 

 

 

 

60.3.13

Jacob Pattison

12.2.03

 

Stephen Newson

12.2.03

George Suggate

3.3.14

 

Rev. Blois Samuel Turner

3.3.14

Harley Archer

17.0.03

 

James Crickmer

17.0.03

Anne Cole

87.1.35

 

William George

65.3.15

 

 

 

James Punchard

21.2.20

Rev. Jeremy Day

123.1.21

Day’s Farm

Martin George

123.1.21

Other land owned

81.1.24

 

25.0.05

 

 

 

 

3.2.14

 

 

 

 

0.3.24

 

 

 

 

51.3.21

 

Isaac Butcher

22.0.04

 

Himself

22.0.04

 

Such was the hold that the territory of Blything had on its people through the socializing of its primary production and routeways that had been carved out of a primeval ecology of wet valleys and upland forest.  This provided a rich heritage of natural resources that Halesworth gathered from its rural neighbours.

 

 

 

 


3 The ‘sea’ of rurality

 

Every world-economy is a sort of jigsaw puzzle, juxtaposition of zones interconnected, but at different levels.  On the ground, at least three different areas or categories can be distinguished: a narrow core, a fairly developed middle zone, and a vast periphery.  The qualities and characteristics of the type of society, economy, technology, culture and political order necessarily alter as one moves from one zone to another.  This is an explanation of very wide application….

 

F. Braudel (1979)

 

 

3.1  Course of urbanisation

 

A potted history of European economic development would have it that as the peasants cleared the land; as people became more numerous, they harnessed the power of wheel and windmill; communications were established between regions once completely foreign to each other; barriers came down.  Countless towns sprang up or revived wherever there was a crossroads of trade, and the creation of these urban islands were undoubtedly the crucial factor that launched the competitive capitalist European economy. Between 1250 and 1350 Europe was suddenly covered with towns, which were the major pieces of an expanding international economic jigsaw.  Rural production and exchange was dominant and rurality was the norm for Halesworth’s vast periphery of Hundred and County, within which its new urban economies were developing.  Halesworth’s tradesfolk consolidated their urban future within Blything Hundred by virtue of its roads to the river crossing, its market, its workshops and the money that accumulated through buying and selling goods from town and country within half a mile radius from the parish church. Its market place ensured its food supply, as peasants came regularly to town with their produce. Its market stalls offered an outlet for the growing family surpluses of the surrounding lordly domains and for the huge amounts of produce emanating from the ‘lordship-zone’, which came from the payment of manorial dues in kind.

 

After about 1150, Europe moved beyond direct agricul­tural consumption of peasant rurality and family self-sufficiency, to the stage of indirect agricultural consumption created by the exchange of surplus rural production in urban markets.  At the same time, towns attracted all the skilled crafts, creating for themselves a focused monopoly, through guilds and apprenticeships, of the manufacture and marketing of industrial products (Fig 3.1).  Only later would this kind of pre-industry move back into the countryside.  In short, economic life, especially after the thirteenth century, began to take precedence over the earlier agrarian functions of the towns.  Towns became retail islands in a sea of rurality.  Their influence spread over a very wide area as the crucial move was made from a domestic to a market economy.  In other words, the towns were beginning to tower above their rural surroundings and to look beyond their immediate horizons. This was a great economic leap forward, the first in the series that created European society and launched it on its successful capitalist career. There is only one event even remotely comparable to this: the creation by the first European settlers in America of the many transit-towns, linked to each other by road and by the requirements of commerce, communication, and defence.

 

The guild system was the socio-economic high point of medieval urban commercialism.  The Guild Hall was a central point of business and local politics.  Its importance was expressed in silver plate and pomp and circumstance, particularly in a town like Halesworth, where there was no mayoralty.  The trade guilds had an enormous amount of power, membership being required for social, economic, or political advancement. Some of the most important guilds had legal enforcement rights, and could forbid traders or artisans to operate within their jurisdiction on penalty of confiscation of their wares and tools. Several, such as the ‘Fishmongers’ and ‘Glovers’, could, on their own authority, search private homes to seize inferior goods. Farmers were not permitted to form a guild for fear of price fixing food, the mainstay of the whole economic edifice.

 

 

 

Fig 3.1  The economic course of urbanisation

 

 

For those who wish to commune with this idea of the Halesworth closed-guild fraternity, the ‘woolshop’ and the ‘paper-shop’ next door now occupy part of the main structure of the town’s old Guild Hall in the Thoroughfare.  When its main wooden frame was erected, probably in the second half of the 15th century, its very size would have dominated the town’s main street.  The building has been much altered since then.  There are fragmentary records of the activities of three guilds that used the building: the 'Guild of St John the Baptist', the 'Guild of St Loye and the ‘Guild of St Anthony'.  The former was the guild of tailors, and St Loye or St Eloi is the patron saint of blacksmiths.  St Anthony represents the grocery fraternary.  Each guild, had a location in the parish church, the prominence of its altar being related to the guild’s wealth.  The Guild of Blacksmiths seemed to be Halesworth’s richest fraternity, which appears to have occupied the South Chapel, now the Lady Chapel dedicated to St Loye.  This raises the question of whether Halesworth’s Blacksmith’s Guild was serving a wider company of smiths with their premises in the surrounding villages.  Another aspect of guild history is that by the Tudor period the system was debased by the Crown, and had become largely ceremonial and a source of Crown revenues.  It was common for honorary memberships, called the ‘Freedom of the Company’, to be awarded to town notables, and it may be that the chapel in St Mary’s Church represented the hub of local worthies who formed ‘a late medieval church party’ to counterbalance the power of the town’s three manorial lordships.

 

The guilds heralded the approach of capitalism in industry as distinct from commerce. The movement of people to the towns and the natural increase of population made the older established craftsman look to his rights and view with jealousy the increasing number of entrants into the crafts. In their hey-day the guilds had been largely classless bodies. A youth served his apprenticeship, perhaps remained for a year or two as a journey­man, and then set up shop for himself as a master craftsman. Even before 1400, this routine had ceased to work smoothly. There were complaints that the guilds were raising entry fees and in various ways restricting admission to the craft. Frequent disputes between masters and journeymen over such matters as hours and wages showed the existence of a clash of interest. The journeymen reacted to the new conditions by forming guilds of their own. These yeomen or journeymen guilds foreshadowed the modern trade union. At first, the older guilds tried to suppress them, and were aided in this by the municipal authorities and the State itself. Indeed an Act passed in 1548 resembles in many ways the famous pre-trade union Combination Law of 1799. It recites that journeyman guilds:

 

"have made confederacies and promises and have sworn mutual oaths, not only that they should not meddle one with another's work and perform and finish that another hath begun, but also to constitute and appoint how much work they should do in a day and what hours and times they shall work, contrary to the laws and statutes of the realm."

 

Sometimes the masters compromised by assigning certain functions to the journeymen guilds, which, made them in effect subordinate parts of the craft guild itself. The significance of the yeomen guilds is that they mark the beginnings of the capitalist system in industry. Under the craft guild system the market was generally a local one, and division of labour between crafts was based on the production of finished commodities. A single craft stood between the raw material and the consumer. The weaver obtained his yarn from the housewife, the traditional spinner or spinster, and made cloth, which he sold, to the consumer. This simple state of affairs could not be permanent.

 

The guild system, which was closely intertwined with the Church, was dismantled at the Reformation, but the master/learner relationship continued, and is recorded in the lists of Halesworth’s apprenticships.  A list of masters with apprentices dating from the turn of the 18th century is presented in Table 3.1.

 

Table 3.1 List of Halesworth masters with apprenticship indentures 1793-1840 (SRO:124/G5/1)

 


Archer, Harley         tailor                        1800

Archer, Harley         tailor                        1820

Berry, Joseph           shoemaker                               1815

Botham, Benj.          tailor                        1837

Bush, Henry             tailor                        1793

Calver, John             glover                      1814

Card, William           bricklayer                 1801

Carles, Wm.             shoemaker                               1833

Carr, Isaac                                cordwainer                               1826

Carr, Isaac                                shoemaker                               1821

Chapman, John        shoemaker                               1817

Collett, Henry          tailor                        1809

Croft, Daniel            shoemaker                               1818

Cross, Sam               shoemaker                               1823

Cross, William         currier                      1812

Cullingford, James    whitesmith                               1826

Easterson, Thomas  whitesmith                               1822

Estaugh, Wm           cordwainer                               1798

Jeffreson, Charles     glover                      1822

Johnson, Sarah         dressmaker               1836

Kindred, George       tailor                        1839

Mayhew, James        farmer                      1832       

Newson, Sam.           shoemaker                               1818

Read, Jacob              basketmaker             1812

Robinson, William   tailor                        1826

Robinson, William   taylor                       1813

Rose, Edmund          carpenter                 1820

Rose, James              blacksmith                               1840

Rounce, Thom.        plumber                    1840

Sawing, John            cordwainer                               1832

Sawing, John            shoemaker                               1833

Sawing, John            shoemaker               1839

Sawing, John            shoemaker                               1837

Smith, George          blacksmith                               1840

Smith, Nelson          wheelwright              1836

Sones, Zachariah      baker                        1832

Spall, David              bootmaker                               1836

Taylor, Wm             carpenter                 1819

Took, Robt.             baker                        1837

Wilson, George        shoemaker                               1841

Woodyard, Charles   bricklayer                 1838

Wright, Benj.           tailor                        1800

Wright, John            tailor                        1832


 

It is not known whether this is a comprehensive list, but it probably represents a random sample of trades that were active in Halesworth at the time.  If so, then there was a dominance of shoemakers (a quarter of the total) and tailors taking apprentices (a fifth of the total).  This is not surprising when it is remembered that the purchase of shoes and clothes were a major reason why countryfolk came to town.

 

There were two forces at work creating a more complicated economic system. First, there was the widening market. So long as trade was confined to the town it was easy for the craftsman to keep in touch with his customers. A wider market made this difficult, if not impossible. The final consumer of his goods might be in another town or another country. The craftsman could not hope to keep in touch with him or to carry through the whole transaction himself. By himself he would be unable to finance the complete transaction from the buying of the raw material to the selling of finished goods, because this would involve laying out money over a lengthy period of time. In other words, the time had come when there was room for someone with capital and knowledge of the market to act as intermediary between producer and consumer.

 

Another circumstance operated to the same end.  Division of labour tended to disintegrate the processes of production. The making of a single commodity came to be split up into several processes, each being occupied by a single craft. Thus we find distinct crafts of bleachers, weavers, dyers and drapers in Halesworth’s hempen cloth industry. The production of cloth thus became the work of a group of separate crafts, many of which never came into direct contact with the consumer or each other. This involved successive sales of partly finished goods to the next person in the process chain.  This stage of industrial development furnished the basis for the capitalistic control of Halesworth’s industry. On the one hand, the subdivision of processes made the craftsmen more expert at their jobs, but it also created the necessity for some sort of co-ordination between the crafts.  It was at this point that the capitalist merchant-employers, like James Aldred of Halesworth, came on the scene. He combined the functions of merchant and employer. He purchased the raw material, gave it out to the craftsmen, and then sold the finished article.  The craftsmen were in fact his employees.

 

Situated at the edge of the industrial age, Halesworth was a world of its own, protected by its privileges, an aggressive world and an active force for unequal exchange.  A key question is, can the prominent role of a town be accounted for by its having been able to expand and develop in an already-structured rural world, rather than in a vacuum like the towns of the New World (and possibly the Greek city-states)?  In other words, did it have resources available to work on, at the expense of which it could grow?  Regarding small English market towns like Halesworth, their very sieve-like social structure is evidence that they were ‘filtered out of the countryside’.  The Halesworth parish boundary was porous in all directions to the town’s consumers and its producers who served their needs.  The topographic boundary was hardly noticeable. This social dynamic is first brought to life in a 16th century description of the town.  There were at least two farmsteads close to the church, with access from Pound St and the Market Place directly onto their fields.  The backs of the houses on Chediston St and the Thoroughfare looked over closes that had been reclaimed by drainage from riverine fen. Indeed it may be said that the ‘townsfolk’ were ‘countryfolk’ who had a taste for property development and trade.

 

Through their interactions with land and property they are examples of the embryonic consumer society, which has since driven world development. The universal trait of people to want to better themselves has led to most cultures in the developed world taking the Halesworth route from sustainable self-sufficiency to rampant consumerism. On the way, the consumer movement produces local features in the landscape that, as well as being landmarks of craft and art, may also be considered as symbols of the win-at-all-cost ethic, a form of behaviour that in the long run proves unsustainable. People become rich because they are already fairly rich. However, entrepreneurs grow old, technology reveals its inefficiencies, and wealth is passed to children who spend, rather than invest.

 

In this respect, local consumerism may be summarised in relation to four stages in the growth of personal economic independence:

 

- being able to survive;

- being comfortable;

- being able to make an impression;

- being well-known for 'being well-known'.

 

Halesworth’s basic rural penumbra has continued well into the 21st century and the ‘walls’ of dense housing estates that now block out the countryside to the north and south of the town only came with the last decades of the 20th century expansion of its population, which was driven by central government, rather than the investment of local individuals.  Yet, it is still possible to walk east from the church and within less than five minutes be contained within the rural scenery of wet riverside pasture, embedded in a dominant wetland ecology, that has changed little in three centuries.  The following section is an exploration of the rural/urban interface as far as it reflects the boundary between producers and consumers, starting with the 1841 Tithe Apportionment of Chediston, a village that is representative of the rural/urban interactions of countryfolk and townsfolk at this time.

 

3.2  The ‘Chediston Story’

 

Unlike Halesworth with its ever-shifting tortuous boundaries, Chediston seems to have retained its pre-Conquest social topography down the centuries.  It is a somewhat rectangular parish, with a long axis stretching two miles from Halesworth’s Chediston Street to the west up the valley on either side of the northern Blyth.  Its angular shape, which follows the east west orientation of the Blyth tributaries, has prompted speculation about its origins as an Iron Age tribal estate with boundaries marked by streams and watersheds.  Its breadth, of about half a mile, is marked by two ancient boundary stones, symbolic ‘gate posts’ to an important valley route, pioneered by Mesolithic peoples, to the lands of the upper Blyth at Metfield.  Both stones are rare glacial erratics. ‘Ched’s Stone’ is situated on the northern parish boundary, which runs parallel to the northern watershed of the Blyth.  ‘Rhoca’s Stone’ (Rock Stone Manor) stands opposite, by the Cookley parish boundary to the south.  The eastern boundary of Chediston runs with that of Halesworth, more or less between the valleys of the northern and southern Blyth.

 

Fig 3.2 Chediston Hall

 

 

The first description of the parish in modern times is given in White's Directory for 1844, which lists the population as 433 ‘souls’ within a parish consisting of 2378 acres of land, of which nearly two-thirds were arable on a rich loamy soil.    The manor and a great part of the parish were then owned by George Parkyns, who had purchased the Chediston Hall estate, and the lordship from the Plumer family in 1833. 

 

Walter Plumer seems to have taken an interest in the manorial lands of Chediston in the 1730s.  In addition to purchasing the lordship of Chediston manor, in 1739 he also purchased the Manor of Halesworth from Thomas Betts. At this time the Plumer family seems to have had property in Newmarket, but their ancestral home was in Hertfordshire.  In any event they were absentee landlords, and Chediston was just another real estate asset.   After Walter’s death the property passed to his brother William.  William died in 1767 and his son, also named William, succeeded.  For most of the 18th century the Hall seems to have been rented to the Beales and Baas families. 

 

The first Beales of Chediston was recorded in a church memorial dated 1787.  The first memorial to a Baas appears in 1806.  The last Baas to rent the property was Robert, a member of the Yarmouth branch of the family, who took up the tenancy in 1811. The last of the Plumers, Jane, the wife of William the Younger, died in 1831 and Chediston Hall was bought by George Parkyns two years later.  After the sale Robert Baas moved out to Halesworth.   The property was described as ‘a large and elegant mansion in the Tudor style, ornamented with towers, turrets, pinnacles, and an embattled pediment, standing on a bold elevation to the north of the river, facing south’ (Fig 3.2).  This raises the question as to when this property was built.  The style is a Tudor/Gothic hybrid with elements that place it in the third quarter of the 18th century.  This was when William Plummer the Younger was active, and appears to have been the period when the Baas family first appeared in Chediston.  In other words the hall was built to rent.

 

In White’s 1844 directory George Parkyns was listed at Chediston Hall.  The entry mentions that all the mature timber in the park had been recently cut down, and new plantations had been made by Parkyns as part of a scheme to enlarge and beautify the Hall’s surroundings.   The park actually extended into the northwestern quarter of Halesworth.  George Parkyns was also impropriator of Chediston’s St Mary’s rectory, from which he received £230 a year, as a commutation of tithes chargeable on those estates in the parish that did not belong to him.   He also received arbitrary fines from copyholders of the manor; the manorial system was still operating profitably here.

 

The living of the Church of St. Mary was a vicarage, valued at £6. 7s. 6d., and was united with Halesworth rectory in the patronage of Mrs. E. Badeley, and incumbency of the Rev. J. C. Badeley, with an old parsonage house and 50 acres of glebe. This completes an account of those at the top of Chediston’s wealth pyramid.

 

The bottom of the village’s social pyramid rested on the Town Estate, consisting of a farm of 30 acres, which was let for £26 a-year.  This property had been vested in village feoffees since the reign of Henry VII for repairs of the church and other charges imposed on the parishioners.     There was much giving in the parish.  The Almshouses for five poor families were a gift from Henry Claxton, in 1575, and had been rebuilt in 1832.  Attached to them was a piece of land let for 20s a year. The poor parishioners had an annuity of 20s. out of land at Cookley, left by the Rev. Thomas Sagar, and about £17 a-year from Henry Smith's Charity for distributions of bread.

 

The ownership of land is revealed in the Tithe Apportionment of 1840 (Fig 3.3).  At this time, there were 22 landowners and about a half of them owned more than 40 acres.  George Parkyns was by far the greatest of the landlords with an estate of 1000 acres, which was about two and a half times more than John Birkett who was next in the landowning hierarchy with 379 acres.  Not only did Parkyns own almost a half of Chediston’s agricultural land, but he also ran the biggest farm, of about 400 acres.  John Birkett did not live in the parish and his land was let to four tenants.  The next level of farming, carried out by ‘yeomen’, was represented by five families, Read, Archer, Fiske, Tallent and the Robinson brothers, with enterprises ranging in size from 144 to 182 acres.

 

 Land of less than an acre was usually categorised as house with gardens or yards.  This description actually defined a total of 3.6 acres owned by George Parkyns, which probably indicates his importance as the squire with socio-economic control over most of the villagers. 

 

Parkyns bought out the Plumer interest, but it is not known how the Plumers came to own so much of Chediston’s land.  They were probably occupying fields and cottages that from time out of mind had been attached to its main manor.  It is likely that the demesne was located where Chediston Hall and its park were sited.  Although the Plumer/Parkyns property made up a large proportion of the parish, the question should be put in terms of when, to what extent, and how, did the rest of the manorial lands change from copyhold to freehold.  From the unified timber styles of the farmhouses set out up the valley in a regular sequence on either side of Chediston Beck, it can be assumed that its farms were planned around the late Tudor period.  Hedgerow dating indicates that many of their field systems are between 500 and 700 years old.   Unfortunately, the manorial rolls for Chediston have not survived to answer questions about the history of land distribution. All we can say is that by the 1840s the lives of the four hundred or so inhabitants of the village were, because they were tenants, in the hands of twenty-two people.  The histogram of landownership points up the social dominance of the Parkyns and the Birketts (Fig 3.3).

 

 

 

Fig 3.3 Distribution of land as recorded in the Chediston tithe apportionment of 1840

 

3.2.1  The people

In 1851 the population of Chediston was represented by 89 households.  A summary of the major categories of people in the village derived from the census is set out in Table 3.2   Most of the households were headed by farm labourers, who worked for the eighteen farmers of the parish, at an average ratio of 4 labourers per farmer.  There was a strong element of self-sufficiency in the village, with the needs of the inhabitants for house maintenance, beer, clothes, shoes and groceries being met by village retailers.  The agricultural production was mostly wheat and barley.  The only industrial enterprise was a substantial milling business towards the head of the valley, employing three men.

 

Table 3.2  Categories of people listed in the 1851 census

 

Designation

No.

Comments

Gentlemen

1

 

Farmers

20

1 retired; 1 also a miller; 1 also a wheelwright; 1 also a grocer

Farm labourers

80

4 were paupers

Farm bailifs

2

 

Thatchers

2

1 retired

Millers

3

working for a farmer who was also a miller

Publicans

1

 

Carpenters

2

 

Tailors

1

 

Shoemakers

3

 

Milliners and hat makers

1

 

School teachers

2

 

Nurses

1

 

Curates

1

 

House servants

31

 

Grooms

3

 

Coachman

1

 

Dressmakers

3

 

Tea dealer

1

 

Annuitants

1

 

Boys

57

10 years and under

Girls

60

10 years and under

Scholars

23

5 of these were over 10 years

Persons not born in Suffolk

16

 

Paupers

15

7 living in the Almshouse

 

There were just over a hundred young children in the community, of which around 20% were scholars.  Their need for education was met by a parochial school staffed by two teachers.

 

Table 3.2  Farmers listed in the 1851 census

 

Red House

Read Thomas

Head

Mar

32

 

farmer 197acres  6men  5boys

Suffolk Wilby

 

 

 

Matthews John

Head

U

62

 

farmer 120 acres   2men 2boys

 

 

 

Fisher John

Head

Mar

33

 

farmer 295 acres   9 men

 

 

 

Gibson William

Head

Mar

57

 

farmer 59 acres  2men 2boys

 

 

Cottage Farm

Balls James

Head

Mar

58

 

farmer 82 acres    3 men

 

 

 

Balls Robert

Head

Mar

31

 

farmer 12 acres  & wheelwright

 

 

 

Burrows James

Head

Mar

53

 

farmer 16 acres & grocer

 

 

 

Ingate Charles

Head

Mar

47

 

farmer 140 acres   4 men 1 boy

 

 

 

Sones John

Head

Mar

76

 

farmer 55 acres  1 man

 

 

 

Bishop Thomas

Head

Wdr

67

 

Est. agent  farmer 90acres

 

 

Turner Thomas

Head

Mar

37

 

farmer 56 acres    2 men

 

 

 

Sones Mary

Head

Widow

 

36

farmer 68 acres  1 man

 

 

 

Robinson George

Head

Wdr

60

 

farmer 250 acres  7men  2boys

 

 

 

Woolnough George

Head

Mar

36

 

farmer 60 acres  1 man

 

 

 

Archer Harley

Head

Wdr

72

 

farmer 190 acres  3men 1 boy

 

 

 

Seaman Mary

Head

Widow

 

52

farmer 135 acres  4 men 1boy

 

 

 

Read Samuel

Head

Mar

83

 

farmer 27 acres  1 man

 

 

 

Burrows Charles

Head

Mar

62

 

farmer 26 acres  1 man

 

 

Leaving aside two widows, who were each running their deceased husband’s farm, 40% of the farmers in the 1851 census were born in Chediston.  During the passing of 15 years that had elapsed between the Tithe Apportionment and the 1851 census, many farming families had disappeared and only six turned up in the census with same surnames as those of farmers in the Apportionment.   This high rate of turnover of farms was borne out by the lists of farmers in Whites directories for both Chediston and Halesworth (Table 3.3).  These phenomena are indicators of the tenuous connection of families to the land. 

 

Table 3.3  Farmers of Chediston and Halesworth in White's Directories for 1844 and 1855

Chediston 1844

Halesworth 1844

Chediston 1855

Halesworth 1855

Archer, Harley

Butcher, Isaac

Balls, James

Cole, John

Bishop, Corbyn Johnathan

George, William

Balls, John*

George, Martin

Bishop, Thomas

Haward, Robert

Balls, Robert

George, William

Blaxhill, Samuel

Johnson, J Exors

Beckett, J.*

Hart, C

Booth, William

Ling, William

Bishop, Thomas

Johnson, James

Denny,  John

Punchard, Thomas

Bryant, Thomas

Punchard, James

Fisher, John

Smith, John

Burrows, Charles

Punchard, Thomas

Fryett, Lydia

Webb, John Julius

Burrows, James

Woodgate, William jnr

Gibson, William

Woodyard, William

Crabtree, John*

 

Ingate, Charles

 

Gibson, William

 

Ingate, Charles jnr

 

Ingate, Charles

 

Read, Samuel

 

Ingate, William

 

Read, Thomas

 

Ingate, John

 

Robinson, George

 

Mathews, John

 

Seamans, James

 

Read, Samuel

 

Sones, John

 

Read, T. Cracknell*

 

Winter, Robert

 

Read, Thomas

 

Woolnough, James

 

Robinson, George

 

 

 

Soanes, John

 

 

 

Seamans, Mary

 

 

 

Turner, Nesling*

 

 

 

Woolnough, George

 

  * Not in the 1851 census

 

The distribution of land between farms in 1851 followed the same pattern at the time of the Tithe Apportionment (Fig 3.4).  At the top of the new 1851 social hierarchy was Thomas Rant, gentlemen, who had replaced George Parkyns at Chediston Hall.  His family consisted of his wife, his sister and three young children.  Thomas was born five miles away in Mendham and his father seems to have brought money into the area that originated in a family business in Norwich.   This enabled his son to live as a gentleman, particularly as Parkyns seems to have retained most of his land in trust. If the Rants farmed at all, they did not operate on the Parkyns scale.  Their domestic needs were serviced by seven house servants (equivalent to about 25% of all the servants of the parish).  It may well be that the Rants actually rented the Hall because George Parkyns’ Trustees retained his former role as impropriator of the rectory and lord of the manor, and thereby continued to collect the appropriate annual dues in Parkyns name.  The Trustees were still described as lords of the manor and chief landowners in Kelly's 1896 Directory.  Thus, Parkyns ghost continued to dominate Chediston’s rurality through many generations of tenant farmers and cottagers.

 

From the 1850s, Chediston’s population began to decline and at the end of the century it had fallen by about 16%.  There was little or no development in the village except for the erection of a Primitive Methodist chapel 1863.  Indeed, the Directory descriptions of the village remained the same until the 1920s, by which time the population was only 60% of its peak in the 1850s.  The only noteworthy events seemed to have been the restoration of the church in 1895, and a new bell added to the church peal in 1911.  Chediston Hall survived the war in the hands of the military, only to be completely demolished in the 1950's and its park ploughed up.

 

Fig 3.4 Farmers listed in the 1851 census for Chediston and the size of their farms

 

 

The visual character of a village is expressed in the lie of the land, and its compartmentation into fields and building plots.  This in turn is a topographical pattern generated by the wealth of individuals and their determination to make an impact.  At the start of the 19th century, just 22 people owned Chediston’s 2378 acres. From this point, the fine detail of who and how the land was held sets a scenario for all the local players in the early Victorian parish power game. It summarises three social inputs to the average village economy, directed respectively by 'capitalist developers', 'owner-occupier workers', and the freehold clergy (Fig 3.5).   From the Tithe Apportionment of 1840 we can define the next economic layer of owner-occupier farmers, the larger tenant farmers and salaried professional farm managers, who were dependent on an estate-owning capitalist. Then there were tradesmen such as millers, blacksmiths and innkeepers, and finally the great pool of labourers for hire.

 

Fig 3.5 The 'players' in the rural parish 'power game'

 

Chediston's owner-occupier farmers, represented by the likes of the Bishops (80 acres), Suggates (116 acres) and Robinsons (200 acres), ran enterprises that depended to a considerable degree upon family labour, with a low capital input.  'Yeoman' is how they would have described themselves in earlier decades, a designation which usually referred to owner-occupier farmers who got their whole living from the land.  There is no evidence of any capitalist developers i.e. absentee landowners who improved their farms then let them out to enterprising tenants.  Although no records exist to throw light on the financial base of the Chediston yeoman, it is known that from early times that peasant and small farmers gradually came under the control of the financier.   Borrowing and lending were not new phenomena in the 19th century. The very structure of agriculture was based on waiting between sowing and reaping, and, therefore, credit trans­actions were common even in medieval times. All sorts of devices were used to circumvent the legal prohibition of usury. There were the great financial dealings of kings and nobles, monasteries, bishops and the papacy, which strike the eye at once.  Even a cursory glance at the life of a medieval manor or borough shows credit transactions springing spontaneously from the ordinary necessities of humble people, who may curse the lender but who cannot dispense with loans. In the towns there were always individuals who specialized in finance, but throughout the country districts money lending was simply a by-employment of the larger yeoman farmers, the parson or the innkeeper.

 

Down the road in Halesworth, in contrast to Chediston, the urban power game was played out between merchants and shopkeepers and their craftsmen. Though in general craftsmen generally worked at home or in their own workshops and with their own tools, they were dependent for employment on the merchant who paid them on a piece work basis.  There were of course many intermediate steps and many variations in the development of this system.  For example, a small dealer or merchant might get his raw materials on credit from a larger dealer, or the larger dealer such as a maltster, might work on a credit system with London merchants.  But the general principle was the same.   The merchant controlled the direction of the commercial side of this industry, and he was ultimately in control of production as well.

 

3.3  The romance of rurality

 

It is all too easy, when contemplating historical personages, to stick to the notional attachments to place, which give them a romantic air. The reality was that they were often powerful, and ruthless players in the social game.

 

Nothing will bridge the gulf which stretches between the Victorian farmer and his labourers except the discovery of a personal account written about what it was really like to spend from January to the middle of March, dawn to dusk, bush draining a huge expanse of clay land. So far, Chediston has not, nor has any other village as far as we know, yielded a literate labourer witness. The gleanings of George Ewart Evans in Norfolk, and Alan Jobson in Suffolk, both taken from oral reminiscences collected in the 1960s and 70s, of those born at the end of the last century, provide us with filtered fragments which just about reach a generation long gone.

 

Luckily, in Rider Haggard we have an East Anglian farmer who documented the social gap, although he was not able to fill the void. He lived on the clayey drift edge, just across the Waveney border in Norfolk, a landscape not so different from Chediston. The journal he wrote for the year 1898 chronicles his daily observations of what it was like to be a tenant farmer on 350 acres. He admired the skills and strength of his hired workers, their stoicism and their character, but with all his imagination as a novelist he could not get into their situation. Perhaps there is nothing to say except the bald facts of their labouring, which Haggard really admits when he says 'such toilers betray not the least delight at the termination of their long ill-paid labour'. Indeed, why should they be keen to articulate the 'poverty, pain, and the infinite unrecorded tragedies of humble lives'.

 

Haggard employed fifteen men on his farm and gives meticulous descriptions of their many skills, such as dyke-drawing, the toughest of all the winter jobs. This is an account reminding one that, ploughing apart, most of Britain's landscape was fashioned by men with spades. Haggard's labourers worked a twelve-hour day in summer and every daylight hour in winter, and without holidays. Minimal though their education was, it taught them that there are places in the world besides their own parish, and made them aspiring and restless. More and more of them disappear, making for the army, the colonies, the Lowestoft fishing smacks, anywhere preferable to a farm. It grieved him. Published as 'A Farmer's Year', Haggard's journal praises agriculture as man's natural activity, the noblest of tasks, and he cites its improved conditions. Now and then, he joined in the labouring, although this he found separated him further from the workers than if he had merely sat on his horse and made notes. Whatever he saw, felt, or did, is written down with total candour, and the outcome is that he revealed what many farmers today would recognise as the lost soul of British agriculture. How else could we possibly interpret the following-

 

"It is curious how extraordinarily susceptible some of us are to the influences of weather, and even to those of the different seasons. I do not think that these affect the dwellers in towns so much, for, their existence being more artificial, the ties which bind them to Nature are loosened; but with folk who live in the country and study it, it is otherwise. Every impulse of the seasons throbs through them, and month-by-month, even when they are unconscious of it, their minds reflect something of the tone and colour of the pageant of the passing day. After all, why should it not be so, seeing that our bodies are built up of the products of the earth, and that in them are to be found many, if not all, of the elements that go to make the worlds, or at any rate our world, and every fruit and thing it bears? The wonder is not that we are so much in tune with Nature's laws and phases, but that we can ever escape or quell their mastery. This is where the brain and the will of man come in."

 

Indeed, it is 'the brain and will of man' that have produced the technician in an air-conditioned capsule, pulling a multi-furrow plough across an empty landscape as fast as the wind. The paradox is that the soul of agriculture has gone the way of Rider Haggard's hired ploughman, who behind striving horses, "wrapped in his thick cape against the sleet, wrestled the complaining plough beneath his hands'. The soul of agriculture is the spiritual enthusiasm of articulate landowners and urban critics of the rural scene. It is difficult to discern in the general picture of the countryside. This is created by brain and will, with the broader brush strokes of jobs and incomes. In this respect, Haggard's ‘isolated existence of town folk’ has now spread to villages, where even a child's journey to school involves being encapsulated from the elements. The speed of this change is remarkable. People farming today, who started out milking individual cows into a pail from a wooden stool, have ended up being told what to do by their internet agronomist and a computerised combine harvester. Everything about farms is seen to be dangerous- children are worried about poisonous flowers, won't get their feet dirty, and daren't stroke the sheep or pat the cows. Farmers have changed from being 'dear Farmer Giles' to a wicked sub-set of society that poisons the land, and whose animals you've got to let out from behind bars.

 

The turning point for Chediston, as in most other parts of rural Suffolk came in the 1960s.  The typical ‘80 acre farmsteads’ came on the market with the retirement of the pre-War generation who had just about been converted from horse to tractor.  At that time most of Chediston’s farms were mixing dairying with arable, and kept pigs and chickens.  Farms were amalgamated and the 800 acre farm became the norm.  Redundant homesteads were sold off to dentists, doctors and computer programmers. In the urge for higher productivity, land was drained and hedges removed.  Livestock that could not be intensified was removed from the balance sheet.  Animals no longer diversified the farming scene.  The last of Chediston’s dairy herds was sold off in 1997.  Although pigs remain, they are produced unseen in intensive enclosed prefabs.  Barns are being converted into houses and the land of the retired 1960s generation is being farmed by contractors, who can descend on the fields to complete harvesting, ploughing or sowing in less than a day.  There has also been a decided shift towards farmers functioning as landscape and wildlife managers, for which environmental goods the government pays out money that was formerly attached as a subsidy to increase the output of agricultural products.

 

 

3.4  Past  in the Present

 

Historically, Chediston is part of a long-enduring basic unit of rural settlement. No human group can live, and above all survive, to reproduce itself, unless it contains at least four or five hundred individuals. Until a hundred years ago that meant a village, or several neighbouring villages, in touch with each other, formed both a social community based on kinship, and an area distinguished by cultivation, land-clearance, roads, paths and dwellings. This has been described as a 'cultural clearing' - which for the first migrants encountering Suffolk's coastal topography, meant an open space literally hacked out of the forest.

 

Within the charmed circle of these thousands of small units, history passed in slow motion, lives repeated themselves from one generation to the next; the landscape obstinately remained the same, or very nearly so. Pre-industrial Chediston is reflected in its tithe map as a patchwork of ploughed fields, meadows, gardens, orchards and hemp-plots; herds grazed in the wet valley bottoms; and everywhere there were the same implements: pick, shovel, plough, and mill, all manufactured and maintained by the blacksmith's forge and wheelwright's shop.

 

At the level above these little communities, linking them together whenever they were less than completely self-sufficient, came the smallest possible economic unit: a complex consisting of a small market town, perhaps the site of a fair, with a cluster of dependent villages around it. Each village had to be close enough to the town for it to be possible to walk to and from market in a day. But the actual dimensions of the unit would equally depend on the available means of transport, the density of settlement, and the fertility of the area in question. The more scattered the population, and the more barren the soil, the greater the distances travelled.

 

With respect to Victorian Chediston, this represents the extreme rurality of agrarian production from which Halesworth’s colonists were escaping.  Now, we have a social movement in the opposite direction. Modern life is too close for comfort.  Our diaries are overloaded; our commuter trains are packed; our heads are fit to burst with media-delivered trivia.  Once taken for granted, space in all its forms, physical mental, and spiritual have become a precious commodity.  There is widespread desire to escape from the over-crowded spaces produced by urbanism, and the term ‘emptiness’ has been used as a rural equivalent to the lodestone of wilderness.  An ‘emptiness’ is the end point of extreme rurality, where it is possible to walk all day through arable fields as fertile as modern industrial agriculture can get, yet, as in a desert, we never make social contact with another person, and the skylark is a rarity. 

 


The field paths, bridleways and minor roads of the vacant uplands along the old boundary of Blything Hundred are such an emptiness.  The flat claylands are vibrant with the secret life of surging monocultures, but the inward looking walker is alone with the big skies in surroundings from which all traces of its past navigators have been obliterated.

 

“Now far out in the yawning emptiness we stopped to watch the sun go down and saw the earth’s shadow flung out against the eastern sky.  Then the moon rose, floating into view like a second sun and flooding the land with an unearthly glow.  This must be the quietest place on earth… Even the wind had died and the sharp night air was cold and clean.  Standing in that profound silence I cupped my hands behind my ears. But all I could hear was the beating of my heart”.

 

This could have been an experience in the desertified Nasera Orok, the sacred Black Rock of the Masai overlooking the Serengeti plains.  Actually it was an out-of-car experience on the Hundred boundary of Blything at churchless Linstead Magna, an upland emptiness that has always existed there.


 

 


4 Manufacturers

 

 

“Wool and woollen cloth represented the bulk of English exports in the last centuries of the Middle Ages and the rise in the proportion of woollen cloth to raw wool in export figures can be taken as an index of the increasing weight of manufacturing in the economy.  The transition from a stage characterised by massive exports of indigenous raw materials to a stage increasingly characterised by manufactured goods made from raw materials is a typical step on the road to economic development”.

 

C.M. Cipolla, 1976

 

4.1 Needs and wants

 

The increased consumption of goods and services is ultimately what economic growth is about. Economic growth cannot affect our spiritual welfare. It can be diverted to purposes which are damaging to others, such as the construction and use of weapons, or which are positive in the long run but have no immediate effect on welfare, such as investment. This leaves increased consumption as the only end for which economic growth is much use, at least to the people who are involved.

 

After 1815, relatively little was spent on weapons and war. Other forms of government expenditure also remained low. Investment, which rose as a proportion of income until the mid-nineteenth century, was stable thereafter. By a combination of their own volition and the actions of the outside world, the British people spent most of their extra income from economic growth on consumption. The basis of consumption for most people in this period was food, drink and clothing. Although the middle classes didn't stint themselves on food, they still had much more disposable income than other purchasers. In the eighteenth century, their consumption of semi-durables like china was an important component of demand. The proliferation of cheap Staffordshire pottery in the early nineteenth century shows that these tastes extended down to the working class when they could afford to indulge them. Clothing was the most important semi-durable, although with the reduction in the cost of material, the actual proportion spent on it may not have changed much. Of equal or greater importance than semi-durables as an item of consumption was housing, spending on which was growing rapidly throughout the period. The substantial detached villa of the middle-class Victorian family must have been much more expensive than the neat Georgian terrace.

 

4.1.1 Food and drink

In poor societies, people inevitably spend much of their income on food. For poorer members of the working class in the early part of the period, this proportion was around three-quarters. Much of this expenditure went on bread, and it was a measure of English wealth as compared with the Continent that the English mainly ate wheaten bread, made as white as possible by milling out the husk. This was more expensive but offered a higher protein content than rye bread. More important to the consumer, it was digestible. When bread was the main item of diet, an excess of fibre, the Holy Grail of modern diet, was as unpleasant as its absence can be deleterious. By contrast, in Scotland, originally a much poorer country, oats had been and remained an important part of the diet, their persistence in the menu showing the importance of custom as well as income in dietary habits. Although bread was the mainstay of the working-class diet in the eighteenth century, tropical luxuries were penetrating working-class homes, as they were middle-class consumption. Consumption of sugar and tea in particular was burgeoning. The relative wealth of Britain at this time, and access to cheap supplies of these commodities from the cleared colonial upland forests, fixed an enduring taste for them in this country, which was marked by the rise of the grocery trade.  The first record of a grocer in Halesworth, who probably vended dry goods, is in the Parish Register for 1680, but long before this the guild of grocers had been one of Halesworth’s important medieval craft fraternities.

 

As income increased, diet diversified.  Although food and drink still dominated working-class budgets, food alone accounted for over 50 per cent of working-class spending by the end of the nineteenth century. Tea and sugar consump­tion also went on rising throughout the century. Contrary to the fears of contemporaries worried about its effect on the health of the nation, tea is simply a mild stimulant. However, most foodstuffs were not bought for health but to provide variety, although they might bring nutritional benefits. Meat, milk and butter consumption all rose steeply in the later nineteenth century. Not shown in the statistics, but often referred to in accounts of working-class life, were tinned salmon and pineapple. The fish canning industry was one of the first developments of Victorian mass production adding value to cheap perishable, seasonal mass-catches, such as pilchards.  There is substantial oral evidence that much of the benefit of this diversification went to working males in the family, who were thought to need meat in particular. The continued heavy spending on food has been represented as an adherence to traditional patterns of consumption, but a moment's thought shows that diversifying a diet consisting largely of bread and potatoes would be anyone's priority in the same position. This diversification could only be achieved by buying more expensive foodstuffs such as meat. It was human nature rather than tradition that accounted for the continued predominance of spending on food in family budgets. In 1851 there were three butcher’s shops in Halesworth that seem to have possessed their own integral abattoirs. This situation may be contrasted with Prime’s open stalls in the Market Place, and adjacent abattoir, in the 16th century.

 

Fig 4.1  Advertisement in the Halesworth Times (18th December. 1855)

 

 

Alcohol consumption rose until the 1870s, to a level of 270 pints of beer and 1.5 gallons of spirits per person, per year; most was consumed by adult males.  Beer was by far the bigger market in volume, but spirits and wines come close with regards alcohol consumption (Fig 4.1).  In the 1870s, a change in taste happened. The rising real wages of the next twenty years were not marked by any further rise in alcohol consumption, and in the 1900s it declined. At its peak in 1876, it took 15 per cent of consumers' expenditure.  It was on the back of this growing national habit that Halesworth’s brewers became bankers and entrepreneurs.

 

4.1.2 Clothing

The making of cloth, like the growing of food, is one of the earliest economic activities of human societies. At a primitive economic level, the raw materials are pro­duced in the ordinary course of farming, and the same labour which handles the wool, flax or hemp also tills the fields. For many centuries there was therefore a very intimate connection between the making of clothes and the growing of food. Moreover, so long as the tool employed, distaff, spinning wheel or loom, was simple and could be worked by hand, the industry remained dis­persed in the countryside. There was no great advantage in its urban concentration. In the Middle Ages, the woollen industry was carried on in most counties of England; and as early as the reigns of Henry I and II there were weavers' guilds in London, Oxford, Lincoln, Nottingham, York and Huntingdon. Most villages had at least one weaver, and every cottage had a distaff. Spinning was an occupation that employed the leisure hours of women of all ages and classes.

 

The cloth used by the masses for clothing in these early days was coarse. At quite an early date some districts, like the West Country and Yorkshire, were specializing in weaving, possibly because of their suitability for sheep rearing and to the number of streams which supplied abundant water for the main processes of cloth-making. By the fifteenth century the woollen industry was so important that export of cloth, handled by a national corporation called the Merchant Adventurers, had become the chief item in England's foreign trade. In 1355 between five and six thousand cloths were exported; at the end of the fifteenth century the Mer­chant Adventurers alone were shipping abroad annually some 60,000 cloths; in 1509, 84,789; and in 1547, 122,354.  By the middle of the sixteenth century, the value of England's total exports in normal years stood perhaps at some £75,000 per annum. Woollens of one sort or another accounted for over 80 percent of all exports, with raw wool down to a mere 6 percent. Most of the English trade was still limited to Europe. The English mercantile marine was as yet of small consequence, perhaps about 50,000 tons, and much of the country's foreign trade, even when handled by English merchants, was carried by foreign vessels, many of which used the East Anglian ports of Lynn, Yarmouth, Southwold, Aldeburgh, Woodbridge and Ipswich. 

 

New fashions influenced and were influenced by the clothing indus­tries. In the seventeenth century Lancashire was laying the foundations of the cotton industry. At first, raw cotton from Cyprus, Smyrna and the Levant was spun, and a coarse cloth called fustian, half cotton and half linen, was made. Before 1700 the various East India companies and the interloper traders were pouring Indian cottons and silks into Europe, and there was hardly a country that did not view with alarm the decay of its native woollen industry. English pamphlets were loud in their denunciations of the foreign trash.

 

"Cotton is as fine and soft as Wool, it may be spun as small or as large, it may be Milled and Drest, it may be Dyed and Stained, and when the English merchant shall send over Cloth-Weavers and Dyers, and Throwsters, as well as Silk, I question not but we shall have Cotton-Cloth and Knaves enough to make it a Fashion and Fools enough to wear it," said one writer.

 

Nevertheless the new cotton goods caught on. The extent of the popularity may be seen from the inventory of a Preston draper in 1688. There were for sale white calico buckram at under a shilling a yard; white calico, printed and glazed calico at 1s. 1d.; brown calico at 10d.; black, blue, and "coloured" calico at l d.; broad glazed calico at 1s.; stained calico at 1s. 2d. and 1s.; narrow flowered calico at 9d.; and, finally, coloured calico at 1s. 7d.  In the 1660s to 1680s six drapers were operating in Halesworth, no doubt vending these materials.

 

The calico-printing industry, fostered by the importation of plain calicoes from the East, was a significant development of the closing years of the seventeenth century. Hitherto, designs had been executed by hand and were accordingly expensive. Now elaborate designs could be printed  by wood blocks cheaply. Women's clothes became brighter. About 1690 the woollen manufacturers began to agitate against the use of Indian goods, and so strong was their influence that in 1701 an Act was passed forbidding "the use and wear, in any form, of Indian and Chinese silks, and of Indian printed or painted calicoes and striped or checked cottons." This, it will be noticed, did not prevent the importation of plain calicoes and the printing of them in England. The printing industry naturally took full advantage of this Act, so much so that in 1707 the woollen manufacturers were complaining of its competition as:

 

 

 

 

 "more prejudicial to us than the importation of painted calicoes was before the passing of that Act. For whereas then the calicoes painted in India were most used by the richer sort of people whilst the poor continued to wear and use our woollen goods, the calicoes now painted in England are so very cheap and so much the fashion that persons of all qualities and degrees clothe them­selves and furnish their houses in a great measure with them".

 

Printed calicoes were used for frocks, aprons, quilts, and other articles purchased by the rural housewife. In the interests of the ancient woollen industry, Parliament imposed excise duties on printed linens and at double the rate on printed calicoes. From time to time, these duties were increased, and though this checked the sale of such articles, the woollen manufacturers were still dissatisfied. In the depression of 1719 the agitation was renewed on an extensive scale. This culminated in the Act of 1721 that prohibited the use and wear of any kind of calico, except calicoes dyed blue, which were probably used for aprons and smock frocks.  However, there was no stopping the producers of cotton cloth, and under the stimulus of an expanding market and power production, the chief change in dress material during the industrial revolution was the substitution of cotton for wool and linen.  The drapers of Halesworth played their part in disseminating both home-produced and imported cloths as well as ready-made outfits (Fig. 4.2).

 

Fig. 4.2 Advertisement in the Halesworth Times (18th December. 1855)

 

 

4.1.3  Housing

William Harrison, a parson, in 1577 recorded the improvement in household conditions that had taken place since his father's day, ' not among the nobility and gentry only but likewise of the lowest sort in most places of our south country.'

 

' Our fathers [he writes] yea and we ourselves have lien full oft upon straw pallets, covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain or hop harlots and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster. If it were so that our fathers or the good man of the house had a mattress or flockbed and thereto a sack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town that peradventure lay seldom in a bed of down or whole feathers. Pillows were thought meet only for women in childbed. As for servants, if they had any sheet above them, it was well, for seldom had they any under their bodies, to keep them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canvas of the pallet and razed their hardened hides.'

 

Straw on the floor and straw in the bedding bred fleas, and some fleas carried plague.

Harrison also notes that chimneys have become general even in cottages, whereas ' in the village where I remain," old men recalled that in ' their young days ' under the two Kings Harry,

 

' there were not above two or three chimneys if so many, in uplandish towns, the religious houses and manor places of their lords always excepted, but each one made his fire against a reredoss in the hall where he dined and dressed his meat.'

 

The increasing use of coal, siphoned off the east coast trade from Newcastle to London, instead of wood for the domestic hearth coal made it more dis­agreeable not to have chimneys, and the increasing use of bricks made it easier to build them, even if the walls of the house were of some other material.  Harrison also records a change during his own lifetime 'of treen [wooden] platters into pewter, and of wooden spoons into silver or tin.' The age of forks was not yet come; where knife and spoon would not avail, even Queen Elizabeth picked up the chicken bone deftly in her long fingers. Until her reign ' a man should hardly find four pieces of pewter in a farmer's house.' Of china there was as yet none. Wooden household utensils, such as butter moulders, continued to be used for centuries to come.  Until relatively recent times the home brew continued to be made with an assortment of  specialised wooden aids, which are captured in the following account by old Reuben Noy of Westleton, as related by Alan Jobson.

 

" All the things thet wur used in brewin' wur made o' wood, an' wunnerful clean and smooth they wur. They cum fro' the coopers, barrels, tubs, pail, tongs or rack, wedges, spickets and fawsets, even the funnels (' tunnels' we called 'em) ; an' thur wur the wilsh made o' osiers. Thet wur like a little wicker bottle, an' wur used tew strain off the hops from the beer when thet wur runned off. We used tew buy them from owd Daines o' Dennington, same as used tew make the skeps and baskets in his little shop near the church."

 

Common houses and cottages were still of timber, or of ' half-timber ' with clay and rubble between the wooden up­rights and crossbeams, and a thatched roof.  An idea of the character of Halesworth in the age of wood may be glimpsed in the old photograph of such a house and bakery that once stood at the bottom of Station Rd, next to the Oriental Public House  (Fig. 4.3).  This property was destroyed by fire in the 1930s.  Its latter day retail history as a bakery can be traced from the 1844 to 1929 as follows:

 

 

Mills’ bakery represents the archetypal house of Halesworth’s age of wood, when carpenter architects were erecting timber-framed houses throughout the county.  Halesworth’s survivors of this 16th century building boom are scattered along The Thoroughfare.  Notably they contain the business premises at Nos, 4, 5, and 6 (possibly originally one building), Nos 12-16,  Nos 38, 42, and of course the Angel Hotel.  The highest concentration of 16th century buildings is in Market Place, where the town’s oldest domestic structure is to be found.  The latter is part of a ‘hall and cross wing’ house with evidence of some 14th century fabric (Nos 4-5).


Fig. 4.3. Nathan Mills’ Bakery, Station Road 

 

 

Brick was replacing wood in Suffolk by the end of the 17th century.    It is from this time that the designation ‘Red House’ became commonplace to emphasise the novel feature of the first brick-built houses in town and country.  There were two properties so named in Halesworth, ‘Red House’ close to the junction of Bridge St and Quay St and another ‘Red House Farm’, on the boundary with Walpole. These have not been dated, but it is probable that they were constructed in the mid-18th century.  The large-scale use of bricks to rebuild properties in the Thoroughfare awaited the growth of local brick making on an industrial scale.  Designations, such as ‘Tilehouse’, indicate that thatch was giving way to new ways of roofing. 

 

4.2 Trading networks

 

In the first half of the 16th century, the population of East Anglia gained from the initiation of a golden age for English exports, later boosted by the chaotic devaluations of the pound, which Henry VIII debased to finance his extravagant military expenditure in France.  Economic development of Halesworth hinged on the east coast trading networks of prosperity emanating from the London-Antwerp mercantile axis. This fact explains the tendency during that period for eastern England to be the richer and more active area of the economy, sucking in people, goods, and trade from other parts of the nation. However, many provincial traders found themselves unable to compete against the increasingly rich and powerful London merchants. The commerce of the old and important west-coast port of Bristol declined, and a similar fate even befell such long-established Eastern ports as Hull and Boston.  Some were able to develop other types of trade, and in this respect, Southwold was ideally placed to serve the coastal maritime traffic to a local purpose, importing coal from Newcastle, and exporting cereal grains to meet the demands of the rapidly growing London economy. The development of the road from Harleston to Southwold via Halesworth was a measure of the importance of Southwold in the regional economy.

 

Elements of continuity with the past were numerous and significant, and yet in more than one sense, as early as the middle of the sixteenth century, England looked very different from what it had been a century earlier. There was more concern with property and the first descriptions, of ‘who owned what’ in central Halesworth date from this time.  Literacy, to take one indicator of development, was rapidly spreading among the population, and society as well as the economy was undergoing a process of substantial change.  The fact of the matter is that the period 1550-1650 was characterised by England's entry into a new stage in economic development, a stage in which other manufactures besides woollens began to play a major role in the economy.  These new sectors had begun to expand and to achieve a steadily increasing importance in the economy from about the middle of the 16th century.   The shift from one type of economy to another occurred gradually, and even at the end of the 17th century, woollen textiles still accounted for about 48 percent of exports. However, change was evident in the increased production of iron, lead, armament, and new types of cloth, glass, and silk. The rural blast furnaces of England and Wales produced some 5,000 tons of iron per annum around 1550 and 18,000 tons per annum around 1600.  The output of lead reached 3,200 tons in about 1580, and that was not all. Joshua Gee mentions that:

 

 “the manufacture of Linnen was settlled in several parts of the Kingdom.... Also the manufacture of Copper and Brass were set on Foot, which are brought to great Perfection and now in a great Measuere supply the Nation with Coppers, Kettles and all Sorts of Copper and Brass ware. The making of Sail cloth was began and carried on to great Perfection; also Sword Blades, Sciffars and a great many Toys made of Steel which formerly we used to have from France”.

 

The following, a remarkable summary of a century of British achievement, was written in the Edinburgh Review of 1813:

 

"The lower orders . . . have still less good fortune (than the higher and more instructed orders of society) to reckon on. In the whole history of the species there was nothing at all comparable to the improvement of England within the last century; never anywhere was there such an increase of wealth and luxury-so many admirable inventions in the arts-so many works of learning and ingenuity-such a progress in cultivation-such an enlargement of commerce -and yet, in that century, the number of paupers in England had increased fourfold, and is now rated at one-tenth of her whole population, and notwithstanding the enormous sums that are levied and given privately for their relief, and the multitudes that are drained off by the waste of war, the peace of the country is perpetually threatened by the outrages of famishing multitudes".

 

This was by way of a provisional progress report on an unprecedented mixture of industry and charity that was the British Industrial Revolution.  By the time of the 1851 census a well-defined phase of economic development was complete. Steam-power and machinery were victorious. The technique of big-scale manufacture was in large measure understood, and appropriate specialists to carry forward both trade and industry were rapidly being produced through educational reforms. Negotiation rather than violence came to workers' minds to take issue with employers. The farm labourer had become stoical about the workhouse as the probable home of his declining years; the resentment of the displaced hand-loom weavers was passing with their final extinction; the country boys were "off to Philadelphia" instead of their nearest town.   The country, measured by days' journeys, had grown nine-tenths smaller and safer.

 

4.2.1 The high-trust culture

Of importance to this discussion is the highly individualistic culture, which prevailed in Halesworth for much of the period. Philosophers and political economists of the national scene, like John Stuart Mill and Thomas Malthus, as well as the later well-known populists like Samuel Smiles, promulgated a philosophy of self-dependence as the key to improved economic and social betterment.  They believed that personal success ought to be measured by a common standard, regardless of means, and that those who succeeded in life did so because of their hard work, thrift and ingenuity, while the poor suffered as a result of personal fecklessness. In simple terms, it was the individual's responsibility to pull himself up 'by the bootstraps' and exploit the opportunities available, rather than rely on others, or the state, for succour. Self-help was the key, encouraging those without adequate resources to believe that they could emulate outstanding individuals like Richard Arkwright, the twelfth son of a barber, who, by the time he died in 1792, owned large landed estates and had been knighted for his services to industry after a career as a successful industrial innovator.

 

One must treat much of this ‘get on your bike’ proselytising about the benefits of self-help with great caution, because while it is true to say that the myth of the self-made man and the ideology of self-help were deep-rooted in British public opinion, there were actually very few recorded cases of working class entrepreneurs in this period.  In Suffolk there were only two native self-made entrepreneur engineers, Richard Garrett of Leiston and James Smyth of Peasenhall, both pioneers in the mass production of agricultural machinery.   It was the very few successes that produced Smiles generalisations about the importance of self-help. Therefore, it is important to stress the contribution made by the lower middle classes to the growth of a business community at this time, because having started off with relatively modest capital resources most of these men were probably 'architects of their own fortunes'.  Halesworth has several examples of people falling into this class.  It is also important to stress that the belief in self-help was further compromised by economic reality.  Extensive local social networks for the mobilisation of finance, talent, or information were utilised as an essential aid to management. These networks were primarily based on what has been described as a 'high-trust culture', which sustained the finely spread business structure prevailing at that time, and within the regional context especially, elite groups of businessmen collaborated extensively to reduce the transaction costs arising from the high levels of business uncertainty. Religious groupings were especially successful in building up networks, particularly the Quakers and other non-conformists, who utilised their common bonds to build a mutually supportive financial infrastructure in the North East Suffolk linen industry.  Religion, however, was by no means the only bonding agent at work from the mid-eighteenth century, because it was 'the region' that took on a crucial importance as an integrated unit.  It provided not only the key factors of production and vital technical and commercial information, but also forged a community of interests. This regional dynamic was to become the abiding characteristic of Britain's first phase of industrialisation, and for businessmen struggling with market uncertainties and deficient knowledge, it provided and encapsulated a 'high-trust culture', which would minimise transaction costs external to the firm. In this context, the self-help philosophy had an important negative influence on business development at this time, largely because it placed so much emphasis on the individual as the key to success.  This often led to a managerial constraint on business growth, through too much reliance on one man as an arbiter and decision maker.  The ultimate failures of Smyths and Garretts are good examples of the original entrepreneurial force petering out in their founder’s descendants.

 

Halesworth was an epitome of this age of personal adventure with regard to individuals and their extensive regional networks.  In particular, the importance of personal capital and the high trust culture are features that characterised the careers of Halesworth's local self-help hero, the industrious Scot, Patrick Stead, and William Jackson Hooker, a refined and well-born dilettante scientist.  They dominated Quay Street, which was the town's new centre of ideas on how to make lots of fast money.  

 

But the character of a place cannot be gathered from its exceptional figures. It is revealed in the lives of the typical and the humdrum that inhabited Chediston St, the Market Place and The Thoroughfare.  These people are exemplified by Halesworth's manufacturers and traders, competent, self-assured and complacent, who were content with an order of things, which allowed them to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market.  A third social group was the urban artisans for whom work was a monotonous round of disciplined toil.  Then there were the tenant farmers enfranchised in 1832, but as tenants-at-will, they were often the political vassals of their landlord in the 'big house'.  Such was the power of the Plumers and then the Parkyns of Chediston.  Finally, there was the labourer of the farm, who was politically voiceless and socially isolated.  It has been said that this kind of social mix was a British civilization that had strength without grace.  People worked hard and saved hard. They passed on the technique and the products of the new industrialism to other countries; they exported their capital, and a considerable fraction of their population, so that a big contribution to boost a world economy was made. On a national scale, the Great Exhibition of 1851 showed a solidity of achievement, which could not be mistaken.  Up in Halesworth, the goings on in Quay Street were making a small, but significant contribution to this national whole, which was centred on London.  However, at the terminus of the scale of prosperity were the paupers of Chediston Street, where Halesworth displayed more than its fair share of family misery. 

 

The continual rise in the population made it indeed impossible to provide work for everyone. Agriculture had absorbed all the hands it required, and many traditional kinds of rural occupation were disappearing. Great national industries, like cloth, were migrating back out of the country districts to which they had moved in the later Middle Ages and Tudor times, to the rapidly growing new industrial towns. The village was becoming more purely agricultural; it was ceasing to manufacture goods for the general market, and, moreover, was manufacturing fewer goods for itself.  In this sense, the story of Halesworth as an economic island extends into the sea of village life that surrounded it.  With the improvement of roads and communications, first the lady of the manor, then the farmer's wife and lastly the cottager learnt to buy in the town many articles that used to be made in the village or on the estate. The ' village shop ' was now often set up with goods from the cities or from overseas. The self-sufficing, self-clothing village, became more and more a thing of the past.  This was a beginning of a process that dragged on to the last quarter of the 20th century.   One by one the craftsmen began to disappear; the harness maker, the manufacturer of agricultural implements, the tailor, the miller, the furniture maker, the weaver, sometimes even the carpenter and builder slipped away, till, at the end of the second World War, the village blacksmith was in some places the only craftsman left, eking out a declining business in horseshoes by mending the punctured bicycle tyres of tourists.  Young lads, who in the 1930s were apprenticed to village craftsmen, such as harness makers, after the War found themselves in charge of tractors.

 

This time was also the birth of a mythical countryside fostered by those confined to the sparse greenery of urban streets.  In the face of change, the life of the village children, let loose to play in the hedges, heaths and thickets, was conflated as being entirely wholesome and sweet.  This was the first whiff of nostalgia for the countryside and its biodiversity as first depicted by Bewick, Wordsworth and Cobbet, who were actually people with boyhoods that were connected with the realities of a previous generation. William Howitt, George Borrow and other writers actually shared the life of the common people in lane, field and cottage during the 'twenties and 'thirties, and as successful popular authors they left a largely false impression of much widely diffused rural health and happiness.   It is ironic that Halesworth's contribution to local economic and national intellectual development came from two contrasting aspects of its local natural resources, the intensive production of barley, and the scientific wealth of its untrammeled hedgerows and meadows.  Both views were actually in opposition.  In this respect, William Hooker and Patrick Stead, both temporary residents of the town, exemplify the two pillars of cultural ecology, the 'biological' and 'industrial', which are now starkly revealed as being in need of an economic bridge to conserve the world’s green heritage assets.

 

4.3 Money from hemp

 

The production and weaving of hemp linen fibre has a very long history in Blything Hundred.  The first indication that these were widespread activities in medieval times comes from a taxation list of 1342.  In this year the laity were made liable for a ninth part of all tithable products.  This one-off Royal tax to pay for a war against the French was collected from each parish, and those Blything parishes returning a tax on flax and hemp are shown in Fig. 4.4. 

 


Fig. 4.4  Parishes of the Blything Hundred taxed on hemp and flax in 1342

 

 

About 45% of the communities were growing hemp or flax; the record does not distinguish between the two materials.  It is significant that down to the 18th century about two thirds of these parishes were recorded from wills and inventories as having linen weavers.   The latter evidence, collected and analysed by the local historian Nesta Evans for the entire county, emphasises the importance of North Suffolk in the production of linen cloth (Fig. 4.5.).  Taking the county as a whole, about 60% of the villages had weavers. The total mapped area contains 82% of the villages in Suffolk where weavers made wills.  In the area enclosed by the black line, about eight out of ten of the villages had weavers.

 

Elsewhere in England, where records are more abundant, it was the wool-manufacturing sector that was the first to show the effects of the boom in exports. But in economics, waves travel far when the expanding sector is a key one in the economy. English woollen shortcloth exports tripled between 1500 and 1550, and much arable land was turned over to sheep pasture.  As the favourable economics of textile production spread through East Anglia, those places such as the Blyth valley, where there was an old tradition of growing hemp, saw an expansion of the local manufacture of Suffolk linen made from hemp fibre.   Small fields were given over to hemp production, retting pits (to separate the fibres) were dug where there was a clay subsoil, and meadows were designated for the drying and bleaching of locally woven cloth.  Although the evidence is patchy it seems that the production of Suffolk hempen cloth reached a peak in the 18th century following duties of around 50% imposed on French linen cloth.

 


Fig. 4.5   Distribution of linen weavers in North East Suffolk (adapted from the Historical Atlas of Suffolk)

 

 

Halesworth was well placed to participate in satisfying an intensification of the demand for home produced linen, and local families, who were prominent in town life during the 16th century, emerged in the 18th century hemp trade as weavers and drapers.  Thomas Cox remarked on the impact of the hempen linen on Halesworth as a cottage industry around 1730:

 

‘The town is populous, and the Market good.  There is plenty of linen yarn, which the women of the county spin, partly for the use of families, and partly for sale.  Good commodity for trade’

 

The prosperity from trade in linen cloth is highlighted in two house inventories of the time, referring to Richard Wincop, a Halesworth grocer (1726), and Nathaniel Briggs.  Briggs was a Blyford farmer, and probably a part-time producer of dressed hemp, who possessed 140 skeins of fine yarn at the time his death.

 

The brothers, Anthony and Henry Sones were late examples of this phase of development, who established businesses in Halesworth as weavers and dressers of cloth, during the last quarter of the 18th century. Local people were still investing in hemp during the first decade of the 19th century, but these enterprises did not fulfil their apparent promise.  The momentum really came from the more favourable economics of the previous century.  The number of weavers and drapers operating between 1800-30 (Table 4.1) could not be sustained.  By the 1840s the retail trade was in decline and there are examples of weavers who were on workhouse relief.  A few were taking up other livelihoods, and yet others were migrating to find work. 

 

There were many factors leading to the decline in demand for locally produced hemp.  One that has so far received little attention is that in the early development of the East Coast herring fishery the nets were hand-made from linen or hemp, but from the 1820s factory-made nets came in, which tended to be bigger. In terms of value added to the fibre, a hemp net was often worth more than the boat. A second revolution was the changeover to cotton nets from the 1860s.  This resulted in nets that were lighter allowing the boats to carry more nets.  Their net trains increased to 70 or 80. This meant that when a boat was lying with its nets 'shot' they extended about two miles from the boat.
Table 4.1  Persons engaged in the hemp trade:1800-30 (Fordham, 2004)

 

Place

Draper

Rope/twine

Cloth maker

Sailmaker

Beccles

Garrod & Banks

Henry Hindes

 

 

 

Sarah Delf

 

 

 

 

John Mayhew

 

 

 

Bungay

George Bardwell

 

Richard Smith

 

 

Paul Bowen

 

 

 

 

Nathaniel Minns

 

 

 

Eye

William Hutchinson

 

 

 

 

John Naylor

 

 

 

 

Edward Sparkball

 

 

 

Halesworth

James Aldred

 

James Aldred

 

 

Thomas Bardwell

 

John Paxman

 

 

Edward Hewitt

 

Henry Sones

 

 

Daniel Gobbett

 

Joseph Felmingham

 

 

John Hatcher

 

Henry Scarle

 

 

Charles Bardwell

 

Moses Moore

 

 

Thomas Bayfield

 

James Bishop

 

 

 

 

James Clark

 

 

 

 

Samuel Baker

 

 

 

 

Thomas Butler

 

Lowestoft

John Chaston

 

 

Edward Brewster

 

Daniel Delf

 

 

James Tilmouth

 

Edward Seamon

 

 

Bracket Tilmouth snr

 

 

 

 

Bracket Tilmouth jnr

 

From all accounts the East Anglian hemp business began to fail in the last quarter of the 17th century, the decline first becoming obvious in West Suffolk.  The pace of this decline accelerated in relation to the increased production of cheaper mass-produced cotton cloth from water-powered mills in the north of England. There was also growing competition from cheaper and better quality linen imports from Ireland.   With regard to sackcloth and rope fibre, this was produced more cheaply from jute in the factories of Yorkshire and Scotland.  The hempen cloth producers of Bungay turned to silk weaving, but the Halesworth enterprises were on a smaller scale and were not adaptable to the changing economics of hemp.

 

According to Fordham, during the period of terminal decline between 1830 and 1842 the Halesworth hemp craft involved nine weavers, two hecklers, four dyers, two rope makers and two twine spinners.  Ten years later, none of these occupations were listed in the 1851 census.  However, the Halesworth hemp business continued for a while in the form of a manufactory for sacks, rope and twine run by Robert Peachey, and after his death in 1863, by his wife.

 

The only evidence to estimate the scale of family business in the Blyth valleys on the raw material side is to be found in the Tithe Apportionment (1839) for Bleach Farm, Wissett.   Eight fields (about 7 acres) are described as ‘hempland’ Most of these were less than an acre and the largest was only about 2 acres.  This use of small enclosures for growing hemp was typical of many Blything farms.  Four more fields between 2 and 7 acres were designated at Wissett for the laying out of cloth for bleaching (total of 17 acres).  In the 1820s this farm (84 acres) was leased to John Aldred.  As a young man John appears to have entered the linen trade as a weaver.   From his will of 1827, in addition to renting Bleach Farm, he also owned four properties for rent in Halesworth. 

 

 

Bleaching was a slow and laborious natural process until the discovery of chlorine at the end of the 18th century (Fig. 4.6.).  The method followed was to boil the cloth with ashes and then with sour milk.  Thereafter it was exposed for long periods to sunlight until the required whiteness was obtained.  Bleaching therefore tended to become a highly specialised rural business involving considerable outlay of capital and employment of large numbers of seasonal part time wage earners.

 

Fig. 4.6 Working in a bleachfield

 

 

Aldred’s hemp/linen enterprise was clearly an adjunct to a traditional ‘eighty-acre’ Suffolk arable farm, with some property dealing on the side.  It is likely that his Halesworth operations as property developer were made possible by additional income from the hemp business. His accumulated assets were passed on to his sons.  One, James, was probably the Halesworth linen weaver, with looms and a drapery in Chediston Street.  James also had a farm at Sotherton.  Another son Robert, who was the main legatee of his father’s will, and farmed in Wissett on a big scale, appears to have abandoned his father’s interest in hemp.  He eventually gave up the lease on Bleach Farm, sold his property in Wissett, and moved to Norwich.

 

The growing of hemp seems to have been very much the speciality of a few farmers.  It was not simply a matter of sowing and reaping.  The farmer had to cultivate seasonal ties with labourers to operate the retting pits, which required know-how above the average.  Bleachers were also specialist part timers.  Then there was the administrative effort on the part of the farmer to make long-term contracts with a nearby weaver.  All of these factors probably limited the number of farmers engaged in hemp production and kept the average acreage committed per farm to a minimum

 

It is not known for certain how large the Halesworth hemp production system was at its peak in relation to that of the Waveney valley region.  In particular, we have hardly any information about the situation during the early 17th century, when the outlook appears to have been most favourable for investment.  With regards the growing and processing of hemp in other Blything parishes, in addition to Wissett, out of twelve other contiguous parishes, nine had hemp designations in their field names included in the Tithe Apportionments, two had no such designations, and one had no named fields (Table 4.2).  Four of these parishes had paid a hemp and flax tax in 1345. On the whole the evidence, such as it is, favours relatively small-scale operations satisfying a local market for cheap and durable cloth for farmers and their labourers.  This scale may be contrasted with the account of Suffolk hempen sailcloth in the Victoria County History. This has much to say about the production of cloth for sails, and to make sacks for transporting coal and grain, but little about hempen clothing.  Sailcloth was exported in large quantities through Ipswich.  This material appears to have been produced in the villages of West Suffolk during Elizabethan times.  However, by the 18th century the large-scale manufacture of sailcloth had moved to towns north of the Wash. The reputed ‘sail loft’ in the Swan public house may be taken as evidence that Halesworth played a small part in sail-making, probably in association with the needs of the local community of bargees.

 


Table 4.2 Fields in 12 villages* with respect to ‘hemp’ designations in the Tithe Apportionment

 

Village

Field No.

Name

Field size (a)

Total hempland

Cookley

255

Hempland

0.475

 

 

22

Hempland

0.331

 

 

388

Hempland

0.662

 

 

 

 

 

1.463

Chediston

170

Hempland

0.919

 

 

222

Hempland

0.619

 

 

375

Retting  Field

5.906

 

 

436

Retting Pit

6.738

 

 

116

Rotten Pit Meadow

10.532

 

 

 

 

 

1.538

Linstead Magna

210

Hempland

0.413

 

 

183

Hempland

0.750

 

 

 

 

 

1.163

Linstead Parva

8

Hempland

0.219

 

 

104

Hempland

0.494

 

 

84

Hempland

0.633

 

 

3

Part of Hempland

0.325

 

 

57

Hempland

0.944

 

 

100

Hempland

0.463

 

 

 

 

 

3.408

Heveningham

215

Hempland Meadow

4.406

 

 

236

Hempland

1.219

 

 

 

 

 

5.625

Peasenhall

79

Hempland

0.481

 

 

 

 

 

0.481

Cratfield

91

Hempland

0.213

 

 

128

Hemplands

0.588

 

 

432

Hempland

0.800

 

 

227a

Hempland

1.088

 

 

602

Hempland

0.363

 

 

205

House & Hempland

0.438

 

 

377

Hempland

0.213

 

 

618

Hempland

0.313

 

 

310

Hempland

0.756

 

 

373

Hempland

0.213

 

 

540

Hempland

0.706

 

 

78

Hempland

0.413

 

 

333

Hempland

0.438

 

 

227

Bleach

0.638

 

 

 

 

 

6.542

Sibton

268

Hemplands

0.268

 

 

 

 

 

0.268

Ubbeston

91

Hempland

1.70

 

Wissett

 

 

 

1.70

*Huntingfield & Withersdale:- No fields named designated for Hemp.  Walpole:- None of fields had names.

 


4.3.1 James Aldred; manufacturing draper

With respect to the decline of the Halesworth hemp trade, it is particularly interesting to study the Aldred family in relation to the trajectory of James Aldred’s Halesworth weaving/drapery business. 

 

James’ place of birth is not known, but it appears from his age at death that he was born in 1778. Baptisms of his siblings begin in Wissett with Rachel, daughter of John and Mary Aldred (nee Nighton) in 1786. The actual baptisms of this family recorded for Wissett are:

 

Rachel              21.05.1786
Charlotte           22.07.1787  *
Robert              17.08 1788
Harriot              7.03.1790
Edward             12.01.1794    buried 25.05.1794
Robert              9.10.1794

 

The other village connected with the Aldreds at this time is Stratton St Mary in Norfolk.  This comes to light through the marriage in Wisset of a James Aldred to Mary Aldred of Wissett.  Their marriage indicates a union of cousins and suggests ancestral connections of the Stratton St Mary Aldreds with Wissett kinfolk.  In the 1836 White's Directory for Stratton St Mary, a James Aldred was a corn miller.  This only adds to the mystery of James Aldred’s birth. He was a contemporary of his namesake the miller, and was associated with the birthplace of his father John. Rachel was probably the second child of the aforementioned weaver John.  There is an eight year gap between the birth of Rachel and her brother James, and this may be connected with the family origins in Stratton St Mary.

 

Shortly after her son Robert’s birth, Mary Aldred (nee Nighton) died, for on 2.10.1810 the Wissett Register records John Aldred, widower, marrying Jemima Clarke, a widow.  A reciprocal connection between the Aldreds and Clarkes is evident from the marriage the previous day of John Clarke of Halesworth, Jemima’s son, to Charlotte* Aldred, John’s daughter. 

John Aldred was buried in Wisset, age 74, 30.01.1829 and Jemima Aldred was also buried in the village, age 67, 19.06.1833.  In John Aldred's  will of 1829 one of his executors was John Clarke of Halesworth, baker, probably his son in law. 

 

As a second generation entrepreneur, the turning point in James Aldred’s fortunes seems to have been around 1827 when, from the Halesworth Manorial Court records, he borrowed £500 from Joseph Mayhew, a dissenting minister living in Wissett.  This seems to have been an over-optimistic investment in marketing.  He advertised his new enterprise in the Ipswich Journal of 1827 as a grocery, drapery, hosiery and haberdashery.  Another advert in 1830 was for James Aldred’s ‘Real Suffolk Hemp Cloth Manufactory’.  Reading between the lines it seems that he was having to reduce his prices, and in order to move stock, and had to share his profits with agents in Ipswich, Norwich, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Beccles, Benhall, Stradbroke and Peasenhall. At the end of the decade his adverts proclaimed that he had moved to new premises in Halesworth Market Place and was promoting himself as a woollen draper and silk mercer, as well as a dealer in linen cloth manufactured in his own workshop. With regards his own production, he again stressed that he was selling hemp cloth at very reduced prices.  Furthermore, he no longer had his network of local agents, and also appeared to have had difficulty in renting his old shop in Chediston St (‘the rent is very low’).  The writing was well and truly on the wall for the extinction of Suffolk hempen linen when Thomas Leavold, a prominent Ipswich draper, kin of James Aldred and one of his former agents, declared that ‘he had a great assortment of Irish linens and sheeting as sound and strong as Suffolk Hemp for sale’. 

The Leavolds appear to have originated in Beccles.  The following baptisms are the register of Beccles Independent Church.

William** and Sarah Leavold       -  Sarah                         12.9.1786
-  William Henry*            2.8.1792     
-  Thomas                      10.2.1795

*James and Sarah Aldred named their second son William Henry

**The executors of James Aldred's will were William Leavold (father or brother?) of Beccles and Thomas (brother?) Leavold of Ipswich)   

 

Hemp and linen manufacturers were up against mass production   Although hemp and flax fibres were more difficult to handle by machines than cotton, these technical problems were eventually conquered.  By mid century, flax and hemp mills were producing great economies of scale (Fig. 4.7) and James Aldred in his small collection of sheds and buildings off Chediston St was helpless against the production might of far distant factories.

 

Fig. 4.7. Interior of a flax mill in the 1850s

 

 

After James Aldred’s death in 1846, his executors were unable to sell the property in Chediston St, which was maintained by his wife as a grocery and drapery until she died in 1849.  In the 1850s the shop and property was in the hands of Daniel Croft a master shoemaker, and had been adapted to house two additional families and seven lodgers.

 

It is clear from the above potted biographies of two generations of the Aldred family of entrepreneurs that the production and marketing of hempen cloth was not to be relied on to earn a living, let alone establish a commercial dynasty.  This would also have been the verdict of the weavers, dyers and hecklers of Chediston St, who were classed as resident paupers in 1830.  Nevertheless, at first sight things appeared to be looking up for a fresh economic cycle in the town, a pointer in this direction being the conversion of James Aldred’s old premises to house a new wave of immigrants.  However, these were economic migrants from the countryside, fleeing from agricultural unemployment in search of non-existent jobs.  Halesworth, like its hinterland was suffering an economic depression that was widespread through East Anglia.

 

Although the Aldreds abandoned the hemp trade, after James Aldred’s death, one of his sons William Henry took over his father’s drapery shop at the corner of the Thoroughfare and the Market Place.  He went on to become the second of Halesworth’s self-made ‘millionaires’.  This story is told in Chapter 5. 

 

 

 

 

 

4.4 Money from malt

 

There was another Halesworth business cycle beginning at the time that the hempen cloth trade was in decline, and this was based on barley, the Suffolk clayland’s greatest botanical asset of primary productivity.  Production of barley by eleven contiguous Blything parishes in the 1840s is given in (Table 4.3).  As now, the most profitable return for barley was as a source of malt for the brewing industry, and much of Halesworth’s 19th century development is taken up with the successful commercial realisation of this potential.

 

Table 4.3 Comparative productivity of barley of parishes (totals per parish taken from their Tithe Apportionments of the 1840s)

 

Village

Barley (bushels; 1 bushel = 8 gall dry measure)

Peasenhall

947

Cratfield

874

Heveningham

808

Walpole

52

Huntingfield

906

Linstead Parva

410

Linstead Magna

668

Withersdale

393

Cookley

682

Ubbeston

533

Chediston

410

 

In a national perspective the development of the malting industry was largely a product of rising demand for beer consequent upon the unpre­cedented increase in population after 1750, supplemented by more efficient transport and progressive urbanisation of consumers.  During the eighteenth century, agriculture was the greatest prime mover of the national economy.  In such an economy, where a successful harvest was so important, the brewing industry had a far greater significance than in the industrialised England of our own days, where barley is also a major source of food for intensive livestock production. 

 

In European history, barley has always been the first mainstay of alcoholic fermentation.  Barley grain is germinated in the dark so that the seed’s store of starch is converted to sugars suitable for yeast fermentation to yield beer.  This process of controlled germination is called malting.   In this perspective, malting experienced the application of mass production very early in the Industrial Revolution to a process that until the 18th century had been a small-scale cottage affair serving the demand of a small circle of neighbours.

 

4.4.1 East Anglia and malting

During the 16th to mid 19th centuries, malting developed from a domestic process centred on the retail production of beer for ale houses in villages and market towns, to the concentrated mass production systems of town and city breweries, which satisfied the needs of urban consumers.  Family brewing, which for millennia had been a mainstay to make the drinking of water a safe, palatable and pleasurable experience, became all but extinct. 

 

The revolution in processing the primary raw material that made possible the entire process of industrialisation of brewing can be studied with reference to two centuries in the socio-economic history of Halesworth.  Locally grown barley provided the raw material, and the national economic driver for the development of the town was the increased demand of London breweries for East Anglian malt. The basic idea was that the mass malting of barley close to farms that grew it, added local value to the crop.  To get what they wanted the London brewers had to fashion their own commercial links with these provincial producers, and penetrate new farming areas with the spearheads of direct demand.  Crisp Brown, a well-known Norwich maltster and merchant in his own right, wrote to Whitbread, his London employer, in 1812:

 

I find so much competition in our Market for fine barley that I have this week hired a Premises at Ranworth, where I shall meet the farmers every Monday, it is an excellent district for quality and quantity, and I expect frequently to purchase a good deal, the delivery being so very convenient for the Farmers in the neighbourhood of Blofield and South Walsham. I assure you I think myself very fortunate in serving such an excellent situation.

 

By such means did the development of urban demand and industrial efficiency in the brewing industry make themselves felt in the agricultural economy of Eastern England, where most of English malt was made.  Indeed, Suffolk was its greatest producer of malt at the turn of the 18th century (Fig. 4.8).

 

Fig. 4.8. Malt production (bushels) in Eastern England 1801-2

 


4.5  Botanical riches

 

For more than a century, the processing of locally grown barley to serve the brewing industry was the dominant industrial activity in Halesworth.  The timelines of the six main Halesworth enterprises that processed these botanical riches are summarised in Table 4.4. 

 

Table 4.4  The major maltings in Halesworth 1750 to 1890

 

Woodcock’s Bridge St Brewery

Prest’s Quay St Maltings

Prime,s Bungay Rd Maltings and Brewery

George’s River Side Maltings

Knight’s Angel Yard Maltings

Parry’s Station Yard Maltings

1770

Built for John Woodcock

 

 

 

C 1750

Built for Thomas Knights

 

1792

Development of Creek Side Quay

 

 

 

 

 

1809

Bought by Dawson Turner and William Hooker

1801

Built for Messrs Prest, London corn factors.

Managed by Hammond Ringwood

 

 

 

 

1821

Sold to Patrick Stead & John Robinson*, and enlarged.

1819

Bought by Ringwood after Prest’s bankruptcy

 

 

 

 

1837

Enlarged with new malthouse and kilns

1839

Sold to Patrick Stead and enlarged

1839?

Built for Edward Prime?

 

 

 

 

 

 

1845?

Built for Thompson George

1845?

Owned by William Atmer

 

1850

Sold to Truman Hanbury

Managed by Robert Burleigh

1850

Sold to Truman Hanbury

Managed by Robert Burleigh

 

?

Sold to Messrs Croft & Flick

 

 

1883

Managed by James Parry

1883

Managed by James Parry

1866

New malthouse built

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1890

Built by James Parry

·          Also owned maltings in South Norfolk and East Suffolk

 

The two people associated with this trade who stand out, as having risen above the confines of their provincial environment are William Jackson Hooker and Patrick Stead.  The former used his position as managing director of the Bridge St Brewery as a base from which to launch an outstanding career as a professional botanist of national note. His life was devoted to promoting the botanical riches of global biodiversity.  Stead, in contrast, used his excellent managerial skills, coupled with exceptional inventiveness and drive, to generate above average wealth from controlling the biochemistry of germination, which he dispensed with great generosity for the long-standing benefit of his adopted townsfolk.  Neither Hooker nor Stead were self-made in the sense that they both started life with sufficient family resources to take advantage of local and national networks.  This enabled them, with luck and timeliness in their favour, to seize opportunities not available to most people.   They in fact came together in an unlikely conjunction in 1821, when Hooker’s share of the Bridge Street business was up for sale consequent upon his appointment to the Regius Chair of Botany at Glasgow University.  Stead bought the concern as an addition to his growing collection of maltings scattered through South Norfolk and North East Suffolk.

 

4.5.1 Badeleys and Woodcocks

There are questions still remaining as to the origins of the Bridge St Brewery, but the story seems to begin with the Badeley’s of Walpole.  They were one of the founding families of Halesworth’s malting fortunes, who in the 1750s had property interests in Halesworth and were in business exporting barley, wheat and malt and importing coal.  In 1765, Samuel Badeley the younger described himself as a wholesale brewer.  It is possible that it was the Badeleys who built the Bridge St Brewery and a residence for the manager, known as Brewery House, in the 1760s. It was about this time that the Woodcocks, father and son, arrived in Halesworth from Harleston, where they were drapers, with a farming enterprise in Pulham Market.  They settled in a property called The Mansion House in the Market Place, which they purchased from John Durban. When it went to auction on 1799 it was described in the Ipswich Journal of 13th July 1799 with:-

 

"vestibule, good stairs, breakfast Dining and drawing rooms 20 x 18 feet each, kitchen, offices, cellar, shop. 6 chambers and closets, 3 garrets, chaise house, stable, garden etc. situated in the centre of Halesworth, a suitable dwelling for a merchant or banker with a large family, for many years in the occupation of John D'Urban".

 

In any event, it was by way of the Bridge Street brewing enterprise that Badeley went into partnership with John Woodcock the younger. By the end of the century Badeley and Woodcock were Halesworth bankers, and it was this precarious financial arrangement that brought the pair to bankruptcy in 1799. 

 

The Halesworth Trade Directory of 1793 lists John Woodcock as a maltster and brewer.  In his will of 25 Nov 1802 (he died Dec 1801) there is mention of his interests as a common brewer, liquor merchant and farmer.  According to Rachel Lawrence’s research, the Woodcocks in this period lived in a mansion off the old Bungay Rd (site now occupied by Magnolia House in Station Rd).  She drew this conclusion from a perusal of the deeds.  However, in the 2006 description of this property given in the Council’s appraisal of the town’s conservation area, Magnolia House is described as having been built after 1841 for a parson.  So it is not at all clear where John Woodcock lived at the time of his death.  On the other hand, Michael and Sheila Gooch believe that he occupied Red House in Bridge Street. 

 

Red House was one of Woodcock’s properties, copyhold of Rectory Manor, a spacious dwelling in Bridge St, to the east of the Congregational Church, in the grounds of which there was the source of the brewery’s water supply. The latter makes it likely that Badeley or Woodcock as part of the Bridge Street Brewery development built Red House.  This property eventually came up for sale in 1811, together with a farm in Pulham Market (the genealogical homeland of the Woodcocks), a freehold dwelling at Southwold, and lands with growing crops in Halesworth. 

 

In 1803, the two Turner brothers and Samuel Paget, another Yarmouth financier, bought the Bridge Street Brewery, along with some public houses and an associated villa called the "Brewery House" from Woodcock’s executors.  We do not know whether Woodcock had lived in Brewery House or Red House. 

 

The Rectory Manor Court Book for 1852 states that the ‘Red House’, together with a stable, chaise-house and outbuildings, then unoccupied, was purchased by the 15 directors of the Halesworth Savings Bank, one of whom was Patrick Stead. 

 

The Court Book records that in 1809 the same partnership paid £28,000 for copyhold property that had been surrendered to Elizabeth Woodcock from John Woodcock the younger.  It is from several copyhold transfers during this time that it seems that Rectory Manor had many pockets of land in the Quay St/Bungay Rd area which consisted of closes and pightles with named messuages, such as the King’s Head and Nag’s Head public houses.

The Red House, having had the role of a temperance hotel, was demolished when the eastern bypass and roundabout were constructed. 

 

4.5.2 William Jackson Hooker

The life of William Jackson Hooker is a sharp commentary on the complex social mix that comprised England’s ‘high trust culture’ at the turn of the 18th century.  Financiers, intellectuals, retailers and artisans lived together, cheek and jowl, up and down England in small towns like Halesworth, yet maintained independent streams of wealth, intellect and mobility.  Biological science was largely in the hands of gifted amateurs, usually in receipt of sufficient wealth from a previous generation of entrepreneurs to indulge their personal interests in collecting, travelling and writing.  Such was the life of William Hooker, who’s brief contact with Halesworth, reveals much about the role of inheritance, luck and opportunism that set careers in motion from small beginnings to the very heights of the English scientific establishment.  Attitudes to science were changing.  In particular there was a growing need for well-trained specialists to research the worlds natural resources upon which the British industrial revolution was coming to depend.  By the time William Hooker’s son had followed his father into the directorship of Kew Gardens, botanical science was part of a professional scientific establishment, and the age of the amateur contributor was rapidly fading.

 

William Hooker was born in Norwich July 6th 1785. He was educated at the local grammar school and later at Starston Hall, where he learned estate management.  His uncle and godfather, William Jackson of Kent, left him a considerable fortune, allowing the young man time to pursue a single-minded idiosyncratic interest in botany.  It may be said that his scientific career really began when, during his ramblings through the Norfolk countryside, he discovered a moss, which appeared to be unknown to science.  The national expert on mosses and algae was the Yarmouth banker, brewer, botanist and antiquary, Dawson Turner, and it was Turner who confirmed that it was indeed a new species, which was subsequently named Buxbaumia aphylla.  Hooker’s domestic and professional life was from then on closely tied to that of Turner and his family. 

 

Dawson Turner was born at Great Yarmouth on 18 October 1775 to the brewer-banker James Turner and Elizabeth Cotman, the only daughter of John Cotman, mayor of Yarmouth. He received his early education at the public grammar school and afterwards privately by Reverend Robert Forby, a botanist of some ability, from who it is believed that Turner might have acquired his penchant for botany. He entered Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1793, only to leave a year later maybe in part because his father was ill.  His father died that same year. Following in his father's footsteps, he joined the family’s Yarmouth Bank in 1796. During the same year, Turner married Mary Palgrave by whom he had 11 children. The fortune left to him by his father gave Turner the opportunity to pursue his foremost interests, botany, more specifically cryptogamic botany, and also the study of antiquities. At this time the scientific establishment was composed of gifted amateurs with independent means or rich patrons.  As part of this national network of experts, Norwich was an important regional centre for research in natural history.

 

Turner devoted most of his leisure time to botanical tours. In 1799 for instance he made an extensive progress through the western counties in England and on his return published a catalogue of the rare plants collected on the expedition. In the following years he visited and collected in Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Turner was most notably interested in mosses, lichens, and algae, describing in publications four new species of lichens between 1802 and 1804. Between 1797 and 1803 he was elected a fellow of the Linnaean Society, the Imperial Academy, the Royal Society, and the Society of Antiquaries.  His earliest papers reveal that he was a field-oriented person. Living by the sea, he was able to carry out observations on the seaweeds of the shore year-round, and thus in 1800 he contributed one of the first-ever studies on the life history of seaweeds. Turner published numerous works on the subject of botany including, The Botanist's Guide through England and Wales and the Natural History of Fuci. He also contributed several articles to the Transactions of the Linnaean Society and formed large specimen collections, predominantly of seaweeds. At the turn of the century, when he was producing his monograph on British seaweeds, he asked William Hooker to prepare the drawings for the first two volumes.  These were published in 1802 entitled Synopsis of the British Fuci.  This was the year when Turner was elected a member of the Royal Society. 

 

As a result of Hooker’s discovery of Buxbaumia aphylla, and a growing friendship with Turner, Hooker was elected a Fellow of the Linnaean Society in 1806, at the age of twenty-one. Over a thirteen-year period, starting in 1806, he became practically a member of the Turner family, staying in the family home at "Bank House" Yarmouth and eventually completing 234 plates of the total of 258 plates in the Fuci , the last volume of which was published in 1819.  In 1812 the Turners persuaded the Norwich artist John Sell Cotman to settle in Yarmouth, and they arranged for him to tutor their daughters in draftsmanship and water colouring. Turner had the means to serve as the lifelong patron to Cotman and essentially had a "cottage industry" under his roof. Drawings and etchings by his wife and six daughters enriched his publications. In the summer of 1814 Turner travelled with his wife and two of his daughters (Maria and Elizabeth) along with Hooker to Paris. This was the first time English citizens were allowed to set foot on French soil because of the preceding years of the Napoleonic wars. The party was able to visit the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle and to attend meetings of the "Academie des sciences". Also at those meetings were such celebrated scientists of the time as Lamarck, de Jussieu, Alexander von Humboldt, and Labillardière. 

 

At about this time, Halesworth was brought into William Hooker’s vision through Dawson Turner’s links with the town as a financier, with a branch of his bank in The Thoroughfare managed by his brother James.  James was probably also managing the Bridge St Brewery, which had been bought by the Yarmouth partnership in1803.  By 1809 it appeared to Dawson Turner that his friend William Hooker was in need of a business arrangement to stabilise his domestic situation and he and his partners agreed to offer Hooker a quarter share in their Halesworth business.  The offer was made on Hooker’s return from an expedition he made to Iceland on behalf of Sir Joseph Banks, who at that time was associated with the embryonic Kew Gardens.  An important feature of the partnership was that Hooker was to move to Halesworth and superintend the day to day running of the brewery.  It was clear to Hooker that his godfather’s legacy was not going to be sufficient to maintain his independence, and, investing most of his inheritance to the venture, he took up residence in Brewery House in November 1809. His special relationship with Dawson Turner grew closer when he married Turner's eldest daughter, Maria, in 1815.  The couple set up home in Brewery House where two boys, William Dawson, Joseph Dalton and two daughters, Maria and Elizabeth were born.

 

From his base in Halesworth, Hooker continued networking through the Linnaean Society, and in particular he appears to have cultivated a good relationship with Sir Joseph Banks.  Banks had been the first director of Kew Botanical Garden since 1772.   He obviously thought highly of Hooker’s scientific abilities when he sponsored him in the expedition to Iceland, all expenses paid.  After the expedition he even offered him unpublished notes from his own expedition in 1722, as almost all of Hooker's collections and notes had been destroyed in a shipboard fire from which he had barely escaped with his life. With Joseph Banks' support, William Hooker was able to realise his true vocation by obtaining the Regius Chair of Botany at Glasgow University.  He left Halesworth for Glasgow in 1821.

 

His departure coincided with the sale of the Bridge St. Brewery enterprise, and this is documented in a series of notices in the Ipswich Journal in February and March 1821.  The property in Halesworth was probably his quarter share in the Yarmouth partnership and is summarised in the newspaper entry for February 3, 1821.  The sale notice states that the beer brewery and public houses were for sale ‘in consequence of the death of the resident partner’.  The partner was probably James Turner the banker, who died in Halesworth aged 33, and was buried on January 7th 1820.  In other words, when Hooker left for Glasgow, there would be no member of the Yarmouth partnership left in Halesworth who could take up the business.

 

In detail the sale consisted of 15 public houses, with another 3 on lease, the brewery, a counting house from which the business was conducted, and a nearly new maltings.   There was also a ‘genteel dwelling house, with gardens, vinery etc. adjoining the premises’ (probably present day Hooker House).  On March 3rd it was announced that the inns and public houses, together with a piece of upland pasture (Linstead), and a malthouse with two cottages adjoining (in the Angel Yard) were to be auctioned on 14th March.  At the same time there was to be sold ‘a comfortable and very excellent family residence with large-well appointed garden, hot house and vinery’.  This is very likely to be the property referred to above as a ‘gentile dwelling house’.  W. J. Hooker was in occupation and on March 10th the Ipswich Journal carried the following description of it.

 

A comfortable and very excellent FAMILY RESIDENCE, substantially brick-built and sash fronted; comprising a neat vestibule, staircase with area, mahogany hand rail, handsome drawing-room, dining-room and breakfast room, 4 principal bed-rooms and dressing-rooms, water closet, servants room, housemaid’s closet and attics, a second staircase, capital kitchen, butler’s pantry, store room, cook’s pantry, wash house, in which there is a new lead pump, a forcing pump with pipes to supply the upper floors, excellent cellarage, usual domestic offices. Large pleasure and kitchen gardens, walled round and planted with choice wall and standard fruit trees, abundantly cropped with every description of seasonable vegetation, good green house, communicating with the dining room and vinery 

 

The Premises are in a complete state of repair, having been lately re-built and improved at considerable expense, are fitted up with much neatness, judiciously arranged, and well connected, containing ample accommodation for a highly respectable family, now in the occupation of W.J. Hooker, Esq. who will give immediate possession.

 

We learn several important things from this description.  First the house was very large; second, it had been recently rebuilt; third, important architectural features were singled out that were probably part of the rebuild.  These included the main staircase with a mahogany rail, a neat vestibule and the front with its sash windows.  These are features that can be located in present day Hooker house, and taken together, they indicated a building date circa 1810. The gentle pitched overhanging roof, the railed first floor rear veranda, the elongated ‘floor to ceiling’ rectangular windows, white-brick façade, the rectangular brick pillars, and the iron balustrade of the central staircase with its mahogany rail, epitomise a stripped down version of the grand Regency style. The source of the money for this makeover for the newly-weds may well have been Maria Turner’s dowry.

 

Other Hooker property that was listed for sale on 19th March 1821 consisted of livestock, implements and furnishings of a farm at Holton.

 

We owe to William Hooker’s youngest son, Joseph, a glimpse of family events in Halesworth, Yarmouth and Norwich on the eve of the family’s departure to Glasgow.  These are his earliest recollections.  He was four years old when the family left Brewery House and his reminiscences are preserved in an autobiographical fragment, set down late in his life.

 

“I was born [he writes] June 30, 1817, at Halesworth, Suffolk, being the second child and son of William Jackson Hooker and Maria, nee Turner, of Great Yarmouth. My brother was older than myself and my parents had subsequently three daughters. I was named Joseph after my Grandfather Hooker, and Dalton after my godfather, the Rev. James Dalton, M.A., F.L.S., Rector of Croft, Yorkshire, a student of carices and mosses and discoverer of Scheuchzeria in England.

 

My memory reverts to a very early age-when only three years old to my father's house at Halesworth, and incidents connected therewith, amongst others the gardener, in mowing a damp meadow behind the house, slicing the frogs with his scythe, and my brother running along the top of the garden wall to my mother's alarm. He died in 1840. Curiously enough I have no recollection of a magnificent dog, a Newfoundland I believe, that my father kept, and which was notorious for its thefts from the butchers' shops of the town.

 

My Grandfather Hooker's house in Magdalen Street, Norwich, I remember even better, where my grandmother used to show me the glazed drawers of his insect cabinet. On leaving Halesworth for Glasgow, my father sold his insects to Mr. Sparshall of that city, a well known collector.  The collection is now in the Norwich Museum. Also I well remember his little garden and greenhouse of succulent plants, and on seeing a Coccinella on a post, repeating to it the stave:

 

Bishop Bishop Barnabee

When will your marriage be?

If it be to-morrow's day,

Take your wings and fly away.

 

Of my Grandfather Turner's house in Yarmouth, I remember being carried there in my nurse's arms early in 1821, on the eve of my mother taking myself, brother and sisters to Glasgow, where my father, who had taken up his Professorship in the previous summer, was awaiting us. My grandfather occupied the house of Gurney's Bank, of which he was a resident Director. I remember distinctly the railings before the Bank, its drawing-room, and my aunts' seizing me from my nurse, dancing with me round the room, and striking the harp to amuse me. Also I remember the walls of the room being covered with pictures of which my grandfather had a small but very choice collection. This collection was sold after my grandfather's death in 1858. Some of the pictures, notably the Titian, a Hobbema and, I think, a Greuze and one or more Cotmans are in the Wallace Collection.

 

Of the journey from Yarmouth to Glasgow by post horses I have a distinct recollection, during which my mother caught ague in crossing the Fens, with which she was troubled for many years. Of incidents I can only remember my brother running to eat a cake of white soap, mistaking it for an apple. I also distinctly remember the picturesque place, Inn of Beattock Bridge, in Dumfriesshire, but why I cannot tell.

 

My next memory is the arrival in Glasgow by night, and going into lodgings (No. 1, Bath Street) which my father had taken pending his obtaining possession of a new house which he had purchased in West Bath Street (No. 17), in which lodgings I found my Grandfather and Grandmother Hooker, who had accompanied or followed my father to Glasgow with a mass of furniture from the Halesworth and Norwich houses, on some bedding from which I slept, for the first night, on the floor.”

 

Mea Allen in her book on the Hooker family published in 1967 refers to Joseph’s birthplace as ‘Brewery House’.  She has a photograph of it taken in 1930 by Prof. F.W. Oliver when he attended a gathering to unveil a plaque to the Hookers in the parish church.  The caption states:

 

“The window of the room in which Joseph Dalton Hooker was born is the upstairs one second to the right”

 

Other important information from the particulars of the 1821 sale, are that the maltings seem to have been a recent development, and there was a counting house, which was described as an integral part of the commercial complex.  The latter is probably the ‘manager’s house’ mentioned in Pevsner’s ‘The Buildings of England: Suffolk’, 1961; rev. 1975’, where in the entry for Halesworth is the following description of the maltings opposite the Congregational Church:

 

“The continuation of Thoroughfare is Bridge Street, and from this, past the bridge, QUAY STREET turns off, where opposite the CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH of 1836 is THE MALTINGS, a very picturesque group of buildings round a courtyard.  The little quay at the back still exists under a wide archway (On a keystone adjoining Creek Side the date 1792. DoE).  The manager’s pretty house also faces the courtyard”.

 

The heart of this collection of buildings was probably the Badeley/Woodcock brewer.  The ‘pretty’ manager’s house referred to by Pevsner could have been the courtyard house, known as ‘Creek Side’.  The site of the courtyard, Creek Side, and quay is now occupied by a close of private houses.

 

Regarding the winding up of the Yarmouth partnership’s interests in Halesworth, in 1821 the Rectory Manor minutes record that £850 was paid by the Rev Lombe Athill to Samuel Paget, Dawson Turner, Charlotte Turner and William Jackson Hooker, brewers and co-partners for the absolute purchase of copyhold hereditaments (2 messuages, one stable and a pightle of land called Taynt Close).  The premises had been transferred to James Paget from Samuel Badeley in 1811 and this was probably one of the last remnants of the co-partnership’s commercial involvement in Quay St.

 

4.5.3 Botanical imperialism

William Hooker’s move into academia coincided with a shift in his father-in-law’s interests.  After 1820, Dawson Turner seems to have directed his attention to the study of antiquities.  He gave the whole of his herbarium to his son-in-law, with possibly his most notable antiquarian contribution the Acount of a Tour in Normandy, undertaken chiefly for the purpose of investigating the Architectural Antiquities of the Duchy.  His daughters illustrated this publication.

 

Many of his family's drawings supplemented the nearly 8,000 volumes that comprised Turner's extensive personal library. The library was a leading interest throughout his life, and he continued to collect books nearly to the end. He was also an avid collector of manuscripts.  His collection included the literary and scientific correspondence of many prominent men such as, Sir Isaac Newton, John Pinkerton, and Henry Baker, as well as some 25,000 autographed letters. He continued to work as a banker in Yarmouth until 1851 when, after his wife had died, he married a woman, whom his family did not approve, causing him to move to London. In 1855 Turner's health began to fail and he died in London on 21 June 1858.

 

During this time, William Hooker seems to have detached himself completely from his East Anglian roots.  During the twenty-one years of his tenure at Glasgow, he not only revitalised the botany department but also developed the city's botanical gardens. When his son Joseph was six years old, he would accompany his father to the university almost every day and attend his lectures. Although he was immensely popular as a professor, William Hooker found that his income was not sufficient to support his growing family. 

 

The opportunity to move upwards, financially and scientifically, came in 1841 when there was a vacancy for the directorship of Kew Botanical Gardens.  For some years the Gardens had been in something of a managerial crises, and in 1838, one year after Victoria came to the throne, the decline was so serious that the Treasury appointed a full-scale commission to enquire into the state of the Gardens. The committee, headed by Dr John Lindley, was strongly critical of the current management and recommended that Kew 'should either be at once taken for public purposes, gradually made worthy of the country, and converted into a powerful means of promoting national science, or it should be abandoned'. The report had clear ideas, too, about Kew's wider role:

 

A national garden ought to be the centre round which all minor establishments of the same nature should be arranged . . . receiving their supplies and aiding the Mother Country in everything that is useful in the vegetable kingdom. Medicine, commerce, agriculture, horticulture, and many valuable branches of manufacture would benefit from the adoption of such a system... Government would be able to obtain authentic and official information on points connected with the founding of new colonies; it would afford the plants these required.

 

This is in tune with a general Victorian sentiment that examination systems and scientific endeavours should be aimed at providing specialists to further Britain’s command of the world’s natural resources.  At first the government resisted Lindley's report but eventually it gave in to public and scientific pressure. In 1841 Kew was put under the control of the Commissioner of Woods and Forests.  It was by exercising his many connections and influences that in 1841 William Hooker, who by that time had received a knighthood, took over the management of Kew and was appointed as Director.  It seems that this happened after complex and protracted machinations to secure the position, and deny his serious competitor John Lindley that honour. Under Hooker’s energetic leadership Kew began to flourish again, and the linking of science, public interest and colonial expansion recommended in Lindley’s report (and implicit in Kew since its beginning) was made official policy. The scientific expertise was strengthened and the Gardens expanded up to nearly 200 acres. They were thrown open to the public, and to the insatiably curious Victorians became one of the most popular pleasure resorts in London.

 

Kew was suddenly at the hub of all kinds of botanical enterprise. It was again sending out plant collectors and helping to familiarize ordinary gardeners with the new plants they brought back. It advised and staffed a growing network of botanical gardens in the colonies. At home it was the scene of an almost continuous botanical spectacle of global biodiversity: giant cacti, aroids, water lilies and orchids such as Cattleya skinneri, six feet high and bearing 1,500 flowers.

 

Botanical illustration flourished once more at Kew, not least because Hooker was himself an enthusiastic and proficient artist, an innate skill that he had successfully developed in his early rambles in Norfolk, and honed in Brewery House as a scientific illustrator for his father in law.  Since 1834 he had been editor and principal illustrator of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, an illustrated journal started by William Curtis in 1787, and intended for 'such ladies, gentlemen and gardeners, as wish to become scientifically acquainted with the plants they cultivate'.  From the beginning of W.J. Hooker's directorship, Curtis's Botanical Magazine has maintained a relationship of varying degrees of closeness with Kew. In 1984 it was relaunched as the Kew Magazine, with the intention of paying special attention to plant ecology and conservation. Throughout these two centuries the tradition of using original coloured paintings as illustrations has been maintained, and the magazine has been a showcase for most of the finest botanical artists associated with Kew over these years.

 

William Jackson Hooker was a singularly social creature who cultivated many important friendships and maintained life-long correspondences with many of them.  Over the years he was able to use his considerable charm and tact to expand the garden by acquiring many of the surrounding royal grounds, as well as initiate the construction of several glasshouses, including the famous Palm House, and organize the garden's beds in a more logical and scientific manner. He was also largely responsible for opening a greater portion of the garden for public viewing. He maintained his position as director until his death in 1865, at which time his son, by then Sir Joseph Hooker, took over as Director.  Joseph had gained an independent reputation as a field botanist and plant illustrator that was equal to, or even higher than that of his father.  He made a significant impact upon the study of the embryo science of plant biogeography in his travels through India and the Himalaya, and his collections, particularly of Rhododendrons, have enriched temperate gardens the world over.  There was no thought of conservation at this time.  His expeditions pillaged literally tons of living material on porter’s trains a hundred strong at times.  Seven loads of a single orchid species were taken from their habitat in this way.  Very few of these cargoes of living material survived the journey back to England.  This was indeed an age when Earth seemed a vast unexplored storehouse filled with limitless natural resources, ready for the taking.   It is interesting now to contemplate this lost world through Joseph’s evocative drawings and his exciting accounts of his perilous journeys through an exotic Indian sub-continent, and at the same time remember the long-lasting impact made on his young mind by the wet pastures on the banks of the Blyth behind Brewery House.

 

 4.6 Barley business

 

In the 18th century most of total malt exports of England and Wales went through the Norfolk ports of Yarmouth, Lynn, Wells, Blakeney and Cley.  In the period 1738 to 1780 Norfolk’s production ranged from 96 to 79% of the total.  Of these ports, Yarmouth’s malt exports were by far the greatest (about 50% of Norfolk’s production), most of which was sent to Holland.  The key to Yarmouth’s success was that it was at the head of the comprehensive Broadlands network of waterways, the arms of which reached deep into Norfolk’s upland cereal farms. 

 

Unfortunately, comparable figures for malt exports are not available for Suffolk, but it is known that the ports of Aldeburgh, Dunwich, Walberswick, Southwold and Woodbridge were all involved with grain exports, although in contrast to the Norfolk shipments, as much wheat as barley and malt was being sent coastwise, invariably to London.  If Halesworth was to become involved in the mass-production and export of malt, it had to have improved direct communications with its local port of Southwold.  As it happened, the main investment of money and know-how in Halesworth came from Yarmouth, via the Lacon family business, which had pioneered the combined development of malting with brewing and banking in Yarmouth and Norwich.  The family also controlled the local consumption of beer, for by the 1780s the Lacons of Yarmouth had nineteen public houses valued among their assets, being among the first to invest in the ‘tied trade’.

 

Southwold is the nearest port to Halesworth, and from the earliest of times Halesworth merchants dealing with bulk products, such as lime, coal, timber and grain, had to rely on road transport by horse-drawn wagons to reach the ships involved with coastal trade between Suffolk’s ports and London.  As far as Halesworth is concerned, this meant using the quays of Southwold Harbour at the mouth of the Blyth, or the Reydon and Wolsey Bridge quays, which were linked to the sea through Southwold harbour by way of Buss Creek (Fig. 4.9) The most important factor for the economic development of Halesworth was therefore an efficient link with these quays.

 

Fig. 4.9 Wolsey Bridge and Reydon quays (from Hodskinson’s map of 1783)

 

 

At the start of the 18th century the Reydon quays were owned by the ancient Platers family of Sotterley, and in the 17th century a London branch of the family ran a fleet of sloops, schooners and sailing barges on the Thames and along the coastal waters.  The first record of development at the quays is the improvements made by Sir John Platers of Sotterley round about 1740.  The first local merchant to use them intensively was William Lenny, a yeoman farmer of Sotherton.  Lenny dealt in timber, the production of burnt lime, and grain exports.  He had granaries at Reydon and traded from Reydon with Yarmouth and London.  At this time, the townsfolk of Southwold and the Reydon merchants were very much concerned with the natural processes of wind and tide that were blocking the mouth of the Blyth with shingle and silt.  Efforts were made in 1741 to raise capital to improve the situation with harbour works.  This was of great interest to those using the Reydon quays, which were the traditional outlet for local merchants in adjacent parishes, such as Wangford, who also dealt in grain and timber.  Miles Barne, who bought the Sotterley estates from the Platers, together with William Lenny, backed plans to stabilise Southwold Harbour, and Lenny supervised the construction of a new South Pier in 1751.  On Lenny’s death in the 1790s, a local family, the Barfoots, took over his interests in Reydon.  It was probably the Barfoots, together with the Reeves of Wangford, who led the merchant interest in backing an idea to canalise the Blyth and link Halesworth directly with Southwold Harbour. Having a water link with Halesworth would stimulate trade with farmers and villagers in the hinterland of the Blyth catchment.   This project would also boost the development of large-scale malting as the most profitable use to which locally grown barley could be put.  Indeed, Robert Reeve of Wangford was a prime mover in tapping into Blything’s barley production for the beginnings of large-scale malting and brewing in Halesworth during the 1750s.  At the same time it was to the malting properties of barley, that Blything farmers turned their attention, encouraged by London brewers anxious to maximise the efficiency and quality of their raw materials.

 

There is no doubt that trade in locally produced barley provided the economic spine for the development of Halesworth.  This is summarised in the following time-line (Table 4.5).  It is a sequence of events that turned Halesworth from a small, relatively impoverished closed and divided manorial community, straddling an important bridging point on the road from Harleston to the port of Southwold, into a thriving 19th century market town, replete with many fine brick built middle class residences and commercial premises.

 

Table 4.5 Timeline of the development of brewing and malting in Halesworth (based on research of Michael Fordham)

 


1568-77

In the Halesworth Tax List of 1568 John Pryme held lands to the value of  £1, while Robert Pryme had goods to the value of £7.  In 1577 John Pryme’s property included a cottage and house next to the Angel Inn, butcher’s stalls in the market and six and a half acres of land, mostly in Chediston St.  Robert’s property included the Angel tenement and 21 acres of land. 

 

1580

John Pryme the elder was a churchwarden and another John Pryme lived at the Angel Inn. 

 

1606

Mr Pryme was at the Lyon Inn and Robert Pryme at the Angel; both men were probably retail or victualling brewers. 

 

1607

John Browne is described as a common brewer late of the White Hart.

 

1619

There were 10 brewers, innkeepers and victuallers in the town.

 

1629,

John Prime the younger died leaving his property to his daughter Alice.  His will mentions an inventory of the attached  brewhouse, namely one copper and guld set (tub for fermenting), one mash vat, one wort vat, and underbecke or spout, a cooler and two forms.

 

1620

There were 6 inns and taverns in Halesworth including the Angel, Lyon, Kings Arms and White Hart.  There were two common brewers, George Meeke and Thomas Thurston.  Thomas Thurston, brewer in his will left his wife £50 and his eldest son £20.

 

1638

Francis Rushmere, widow bequeathed to her son ‘a pair of mill stones, one brewing tub, three shallow tubs, four beer vessels, a half barrel and a copper couldron’.

 

1647

John Wigg brewer

 

1651

Manor of Halesworth Minute Book:  Nathaniel Chilston and Walter Winston were chosen as ale founders and tasters for the Town of Halesworth.  They were provided with ‘One Winchester quart and one pint of pewter, a set of weights ranging from a quarter of an once to eight pounds, a book of directions for officers, one brand to mark the measure and a pair of brass scales’.

 

1654

Thomas Woodward maltster (Halesworth?)

 

1664

Robert Rufhurst brewer

 

1686

Thomas Gooch brewer also owner of the Beer Hall

1695

 John Jefferson, maltster (Halesworth ?)

 

1705

Inventory of William Barfoot, alehouse keeper and brewer.  The inventory of his possessions made after his death in 1705 provides a description of his ale-house. It was small containing hall and parlour with two chambers above, and only the hall and hall chamber were heated. There was also a garrett in the roof, a buttery and wash house in a backhouse behind the ground floor rooms, and a cellar possibly below the hall. The beer was drunk in the hall as it contained one table two stools and fourteen chairs. The beer was provided in pewter tankards and pots, ranging in size from a half-pint to a quart. In the backhouse rooms were the brewing vessels. These were a ‘tyn boiler and cover, one iron pott, two old tubbs, three keelers, two empty half barrells and four empty barrells.’ In the cellar were ‘two barrells of beer one decayed.’ The value of the whole inventory was £29 9s 0d, Ranked according to wealth, ale-house brewers were just above poor labourers and widows (whose inventories ranged in value from £15-£20). They were of similar status to shoemakers (£32) but well below farmers (£79-£400) and merchants (£181-£443).  William Barfoot may have been related to Robert Barfoot a Reydon merchant.  In the 1770s Robert was working lime kilns and importing coal for domestic use from his quay at Wolsey Bridge.  He lived at Kiln Farm, Reydon, which was linked by lanes and tracks to the communities of Henham and Wangford.  In 1775 he shipped 9,800 quarters of grain to London, of which half of this was barley or malt.

 

1730

Samuel Pallant brewer

 

1731 John Moor maltster, Daniel Scholding maltster.

 

1735
The initiation of Thomas Knight’s brewery and malting enterprise at the ‘Angel’ and ‘Angel Yard’.

 

1735

John Skimming brewer, owned the George

 

1735

Thomas Knights maltster and brewer

 

1740s

Crisps of Wangford. Yeoman farmers.  John Crisp (dissenter of the Independent Church, later ‘Congregationalist’, died 1778) of Elms Farm.  John and his brother William married daughters of  the Rector of Wrentham, John Steffe.  Widow of Rector, acting on the last wishes of her husband, transferred to the Independent Church with her family.  John Crisp exported barley to London on a substantial scale.  Had 6 sons and 1 daughter.  John’s son, Steffe, sold Elms Farm and maltings to Lord Rous.  They were then tenanted by Robert Reeve.                                                                                                                                                     

 

1748

Inventory of Phillip Knights beer brewer, also innholder of the White Lion (uncle of Thomas Knights of the Angel/Angel Yard alehouse, brewery and store.

 

1749

John Skimming brewer owned the Red Cow

 

1758

Robert Reeve of Wangford married a daughter of Richard Smith, timber merchant of Sotherton.  Moved to Halesworth in the 1750s where he became established as brewer and maltster. 

 

1759

Robert Reeve took lease of maltings in Pound Pightle (Soap House Hill Maltings; ‘Elephant House’ built on part of site in 1855).  With his son James he bought up property in Halesworth and they owned a network of about 30 public houses in and around Halesworth.  Lived in house on west side of the market place and tenanted the brewery ‘The Halesworth Brewery’, behind this property.  Owned the White Hart and Castle pubs.  Another son, Benjamin remained in Wangford, where he took over his uncle’s maltings (who was a bachelor also named Benjamin), where he became a successful maltster and farmer (250 acres).

 

1761 

‘Halesworth Navigation’ opened

 

Norwich Mercury; Halesworth, July 23rd 1761:  This day we had the pleasure of receiving into our Bason a keel from Southwold, laden with coals and drawing three Feet of water.  We can assure the Publick that the Works for our facilitating the Navigation of our River are constructed and finished with the Greatest Art, and as they afford the most pleasing probability of a particular Benefit to the Town, so do they no less promise to the Country around us a more extensive influence, especially as the Tolls imposed on the several kinds of Merchandise conveyed up and down the Blyth, are low beyond expectation.  It would be unpardonable ingratitude in us, not to take the earliest Opportunity of acknowledging our Obligation to those Gentlemen, who actuated by generous Zeal for this undertaking, nor feared to bring them the Torrent of Malice, Predjudice and Interest to bring about to General Benefit.  The Barge was attended from the Town Lock up to the Bason by a numerous concourse of People, assembled not more to satisfy their curiosity at the Novelty of the Sight, than to join in the General Joy and Triumph of the Occasion.

 

1770

Bridge St Brewery built for John Woodcock : this was probably the start of the Bridge St maltings, a complex referred to by Pevsner as being at ‘Creek Side’. (‘The Buildings of England: Suffolk’)

 

1781 

James Turner of Yarmouth (1743-94) m Elizabeth Cotman.  In conjunction with ? Gurney founded the ‘Yarmouth and Suffolk Bank’. 

 

1782 

Creation of Gurney and Turners ‘Halesworth and Suffolk’ Bank

 

1792

Date on a keystone of the Ceek Side Maltings- opposite the Congregational Chapel (referred to in Pevsner’s ‘The Buildings of England: Suffolk’)

 

1793

 John Woodcock (wealthy draper family of Harleston) married daughter of John Garneys, Yoxford surgeon and man-midwife.  Listed as brewer and maltster in Halesworth Directory; premises in Bridge St. (according to Mea Allen he lived in Magnolia House, Station Road).

 

1794

 John Woodcock and Samuel Badeley of Walpole set up in partnership established the ‘Halesworth Bank’.

 

 1794

Universal British Directory  Halesworth;  The nearest sea port is Southwold, distance 9 miles, from which place there is a newly cut canal and barges go down three or four times a week with corn etc for the London market.  A London coach comes every other day to The Angel and another every other day to the Three Tuns.  The London carrier sets out every Wednesday from the Kings Arms.  Thomas Adamson carrier sets out for Norwich every Friday and returns on Saturday.

 

 

 

1799

 Woodcock and Badeley’s business was bankrupt.

 

Circa 1800

Messrs Prest a London firm of corn factors built granaries and maltings in Quay St.

 

1809

Woodcock and Badeley’s Bridge St maltings bought by Samuel Paget, Dawson Turner, and James Turner.  One of Dawson’s daughters, Maria, married William Jackson Hooker.  Hooker managed Bridge St maltings until 1820.

 

1819

Messrs Prest went bankrupt

 

1819

Hammond Ringwood purchased Prest’s property

 

1824

Bridge St maltings bought by maltster Patrick Stead age 36 of Yarmouth. Fordham says that John Robinson was also involved.  Stead moved his maltings HQ to Halesworth circa 1837. What was Stead doing in Yarmouth?  Patrick Stead was of Scottish descent, born in Stead’s Place Leith Walk in 1788.  Educated at Perth Academy.  Trained in merchants office in London and became connected with the brewing business of Truman Hanbury & Co in the grain procurement department.

 

1830

Pigot’s Directory: Great quantities of hemp are grown in the neighbourhood and the spinning of yarn with the manufacture of it into cloth gives employment to many of the inhabitants.  The malting business is carried on here very extensively and a good business is done in corn on the market days.

 

1837

George and Thomson George, Halesworth farming family, trading in corn, coal, lime and malt, built, or enlarged a maltings, down the Angel Pathway, which had access to the Blyth Navigation at the new Reach.  Thomson owned three wherries and supplied Trumans.

 

1839

Stead purchased Ringwoods maltings etc on his retirement.

 

1839

Edward Prime owned a brewery and malthouse in Bungay Rd. 

1844

Whites Directory; part of entry for Halesworth: ‘This river has been navigable up to the town for barges of from 20 to 30 tons burthen of which there are a dozen belonging to the merchants here employed in carrying out corn, malt etc and bringing in coal and timber etc.  Here is a large iron foundry and agricultural implement manufactury and a number of malting houses.  Mr P Stead has lately obtained a patent for making malt by a new process and has erected a large kiln in the form of a tower 50 ft high divided into five storeys and heated by steam pipes and a hot air blast.  The green malt is first placed on the top floor and is moved a storey lower every day and the heat of each floor increasing as it descends.  It is dried off and ready for the market on the fourth or fifth day.  There is also a contrivance for regulating the temperature of the ‘steep’ as well as the drying floors.

Maltsters

William Atmer, Bridge St

Thomson George, Bridge St

Edward Prime, Bungay Rd

Reeve and Cracknell, Market Place

J. Alf Riches, Bungay Rd

Samuel Self, Chediston St

Patrick Stead, Quay St.

1850

Stead sold out to London based Truman Hanbury brewery.

 

1855

Halesworth Directory: Here is a large iron and brass foundry and agricultural implement manufactury established in 1803 and now belonging to Messrs T Easterson and Son who employ a considerable number of hands in the manufacture of ploughs, thrashing machines, turnip cutters, chaff engines, iron fencing and gates etc.  Here is also Mr Samuel Brown’s large coach and harness manufacture chiefly for the London market and employing about 60 hands.  Here are likewise several large malting houses and an extensive brick, tile and drainpipe manufacture.  Great quantities of hemp were formerly grown in the neighbourhood and many of the inhabitants were employed in the manufacture of Suffolk hempen cloth, but the trade was discontinued many years ago.  It once gave employment to about a thousand hands in the town and neighbourhood.

 

Maltsters

William Atmer, Bridge St

Thomson George, Bridge St

Samuel Self, Chediston St

Strathern and Paul (Prince of Wales, Brewery?), Bungay Rd

 

1855

The railway between Yarmouth and London reached Halesworth

 

1879

Suffolk Directory 1879; The trade of the town consists chiefly of corn and malting which is carried on very extensively by Mr R. W. Burleigh and Messrs Croft and Flick and Mr Strathern.  Many thousand quarters are annually sent to London by rail and the River Blyth by means of small craft to the port of  Southwold.  Here are also the carriage works of Messrs S. Smith and Co. employing 70 hands and the breweries of Messrs Croft and Flick and Mr Strathern.

 

Circa 1890

Building of the Station Yard Maltings by Mr James Parry one of Truman’s agents in charge of the Quay Maltings.  The buildings were erected by Wallace Ellis of Wenhaston at a time when more than 45 tons of malt were produced in the town each week. (the maltings were taken over by Crisp Maltings Ltd of Great Ryburgh in Norfolk about 1968, and closed in September 1980). 

 

1898

New Cut Maltings built behind the Prince of Wales Brewery by F. Kendall-Chapman.

 

1896 

Kellys Directory; trade of the town consists chiefly of corn and malting which is carried on very extensively by Mr James Parry, Mr Frank Kendall-Chapman and the Colchester Brewing Company Ltd.  Many thousand quarters are annualy sent to London by rail.

 

1929

Kelly’s Directory; The trade of the town consists chiefly of corn and malting which is carried on very exensively by Messrs James Parry and Sons, and Watney, Combe, Reid and Co Ltd.  Many thousand quarters are annual sent to London by rail.

 

 


4.6.1  Malting at Halesworth

The River Blyth was opened to navigation to Southwold in 1761, and the increase in water-borne trade to and from Halesworth via Southwold may be assessed from the River Tolls for the period 1765-1849.  During this interval the total harbour dues paid at Southwold increased about six-fold (Fig. 4.10), which may be taken as an index of the rising prosperity of the port’s hinterland.  These tolls reflect direct trade with Halesworth, which increased around two fold. During this same interval the returns from Harbour Dues at Southwold increased by about the same proportion, indicating that both places were participating in a general increase in local prosperity.  Halesworth traffic via the Blyth Navigation would have contributed to the Southwold dues because goods had to be trans-shipped to and from sea-going vessels at the Southwold quays.  However, when the trade figures are examined in more detail it is found that the river tolls, as a percentage of harbour dues, increased from between 20-25% in the last quarter of the 18th century, to peak at just over 40% in the period 1840-44 (Fig. 4.11).  Furthermore, the biggest rise in river traffic occurred between 1820-44, compared with Harbour traffic, which saw its greatest rate of increase between 1805-29. From this analysis it can be concluded that the growth of Halesworth’s economy was taking an independent course from that of Southwold.

 

Fig. 4.10 Comparison of Southwold harbour dues with tolls paid on R. Blyth (amounts in 4-year intervals)

 

 

Southwold’s prosperity during this time can be indexed by the exports of grain and the imports of coal (Fig. 4.12).  Taking coal imports, which, as the major energy source for the Blything economy, may be regarded as a general measure of the region’s economic well being, it appears that the depression that coincided with the termination of the linen of trade was lifted around 1840.  For the next eight years the Southwold coal trade increased between 30 to 40%.  This was also the case for grain exports.  The enhanced trade in both commodities only came to an end in 1855, which was the year when the railway between Yarmouth and London eventually reached Halesworth and rapidly commandeered the water-borne traffic.
Fig. 4.11 Tolls paid on R. Blyth as percentage of dues paid at Southwold Harbour (4-year intervals)

 

 

Fig. 4.12  Trade in grain and coal through the port of Southwold (1830-1866)

 

 

Unfortunately the records do not say how much of the grain exports through Southwold were in the form of malt.  Nevertheless, it is possible to separate out the trade figures for Southwold from those of Halesworth, the latter being a measure of water-borne traffic between Halesworth and Southwold (Table 4.6).  The important conclusion is that between 1810 and 1840 there was a shift of trade in both corn and coal from Southwold to Halesworth.  Overall, there was not an increase in the total trade in these commodities but, presumably, a trend away from using Southwold, probably due to a decline in the use of road transport to and from the quays at Reydon and Southwold in favour of the wherry quays at Halesworth.

 

Table 4.6  Comparison of trade in corn and coal between Southwold and Halesworth.

 

Dates

Southwold corn exports

Southwold coal imports

Halesworth corn exports

Halesworth coal imports

Halesworth trade in corn (%Southwold)

Halesworth trade in coal (%Southwold)

1810

2011

 

380

 

18.9

 

1819

 

2976

 

2236

 

75.1

1820

3041

 

898

 

29.5

 

1830

 

3421

 

3694

 

10.8

1831

877

 

1268

 

144

 

1840

 

1811

 

3608

 

199

 

4.6.2 The malting infrastructure

The first stage in 18th century malting was the steeping of barley in a cistern of water, to begin germination. Innkeepers who were malting and brewing for themselves might use quite small utensils, which they managed single-handed. However, in the industrial maltings many quarters of barley would be run into the large cisterns from a barley loft above.  When the barley had been immersed, the light grains would be left floating on the water, to be skimmed off for use as animal food—escaping the duty, which was laid, on the volume of grain in the next stage of manufacture. After the requisite time (usually three days, or four days and three nights) the water was drained off and the barley left in the cistern for half a day to raise a little heat in the grain. It was then placed in a square wooden receptacle—the 'couch'—for twenty or thirty hours, at which stage it was customarily measured by the excise officers, being at the point where maximum swelling of the grain was achieved. From the couch, the grain was spread out more thinly upon the 'floor', the layer being less than a foot deep on average, but thickening at the edges where most draught occurred. Here the grain lay while germination proceeded regularly, being turned with wide shovels to prevent the sprouting rootlets from matting together and allowing all parts of the 'floor' to profit equally from exposure to air. The manipulation of the ventilators to keep the floor 'coming on' in a smooth regular progress was one of the maltster's most subtle arts. The whole process took from twelve to fifteen days, and needed to be carefully regulated, with just the right amount of air, heat and light to encourage the best growth, yet prevent mould. The London porter brewers wished the shoot—the acrospire—to proceed nearly along to the end of the grain, just without penetrating beyond it.  They considered the maximum sugar content to be obtained if the germination was halted by drying out the malt when it had preceded just this far. Some of the new malt houses were designed for working large quantities of grains at one time in several cisterns, possessing several 'couches', and several growing 'floors'.

 

The final process of malting was drying the germinated grain upon the kiln.  This was the stage of manufacture at which most of the differences were given to the various types of malt. The pale malts kept the colour of the grain because they were dried slowly over a gentle heat. For others, the colour might be graded from pale to amber to brown by varying the degree of heat involved. The tapering flues of the malt kilns gave as characteristic an appearance to the malting towns as did the oasts to a Kentish hop-village. Their general similarity in appearance reflected a similarity of function.

 

The overwhelming importance of malting to Halesworth’s 19th century economy is indicated by the number of families involved in the trade (Table 4.7).

 

Table 4.7 Halesworth persons in business as maltsters and brewers

 


Atmer, William, Bridge St

Badeley, Samuel

Cotman. Elizabeth

Crisp, John

Flick,

Garneys, John

George, George

George, Thomson

George, Thomson, Bridge St

Gurney

Hooker, William Jackson

Kendall-Chapman, Frank

Knight, Thomas

Paget, Samuel

Parry, James

Prime, Edward, Bungay Rd

Reeve and Cracknell, Market Place

Reeve, Robert

Riches, J, Bungay Rd

Ringwood, Hammond

Selfe, Samuel, Chediston St

Smith, Richard

Stead, Patrick

Stead, Patrick, Quay St.

Strathern, Fairley B.

Turner, Dawson

Turner, James

Woodcock, John


 

4.6.3 Patrick Stead

Patrick Stead began his Halesworth enterprise in 1821 at the age of 36 with his manager John Robinson, another Scotsman.  His plan was to develop theBridge St. brewery and maltings, which he had purchased at the Hooker sale in the same year.   Pigot’s 1830 Halesworth Directory lists John Joseph Robinson as a maltster, so it appears that Stead had put Robinson in charge of the Halesworth operation, and had shifted the enterprise from brewing to malting.  There are no further references to John Robinson in the Halesworth scene. 

 

Before purchasing the Halesworth property Stead already had a commercial base in Yarmouth South Town where he was a major East Anglian maltster and dealer in barley.  He seems to have arrived in Yarmouth from London to build upon his experience and networking gathered as the purchasing agent for the massive Truman Brewery.  The Bridge St enterprise provided Stead with an opportunity to apply his comprehensive knowledge of the East Anglian malt trade, and wealth he had already accumulated, to develop a malting business integrated with the Blyth Navigation as his export facility.  He immediately set about making improvements and enlarging the malting floors at Bridge Street to incorporate his own ideas for improving its productivity.

 

In 1837 he began building a new malting complex to the east of the Bridge St Brewery and the following year he purchased the Quay Maltings from Hammond Ringwood, a few yards to the east along the Holton Road.  He then developed the enlarged site, incorporating his own patented ideas, to create the largest malting establishment in the town, of which the centrepiece was a large multi-story tower designed for pneumatic malting. The two most common methods of malting are the traditional floor malting method, where grain is literally spread across the floor to germinate. Talk about a new method of pneumatic malting was in the air, where the environment is strictly controlled inside tanks or drums.  As developed and patented by Patrick Stead, moist air of a definite temperature is drawn through the germinating grains; therefore ensuring greater temperature and moisture uniformity, and expulsion of carbon dioxide formed during germination. The grain is turned from time to time and sprinkled with water to maintain moisture requirements.  The time was ripe to capitalise on new ideas because the lethargy in the malting trade, and in all matters relating to malting processes, induced by two centuries of restrictive legislation, was being gradually shaken off by the malting industry under new laws. For many years, nearly all improvements in malting processes originated abroad, as numberless Acts of Parliament fettered every process and the use of every implement requisite in an English malt-house. The removal of these legislative restrictions gave an opportunity for improved methods, which promised to open up a considerable field for engineering work, and to develop a very backward art by the application of scientific principles. Stead was one of the first to apply a material change that malting had never before experienced.  The failure of his Halesworth pneumatic system did not deter his energies and by 1839 half of the Harbour revenues of Southwold were paid by Stead’s exports of malt and grain and imports of coal and lime.  As later developed by the French maltsters of Troyes, towards the end of the century the pneumatic process system was eventually widely adopted by British malsters.  A great feature that boosted productivity is the continuous manufacture of malt throughout the year instead of for a seasonal period of five to eight months.

 

Stead had transferred his home and commercial headquarters from Yarmouth to Halesworth in 1838.  This seems to have involved modifying the Hookers former residence because the Halesworth Vestry Minutes for January 1840 state:

 

 “ The assessment for the new dwelling house of Mr P Stead fixed for the present (it not being completed) at the sum of £20”.

 

This may be taken to mean that he set to work to rebuild Brewery House.  However, although there is little doubt that Patrick Stead lived in Brewery House (alias the present day Hooker House), apart from the vestry minute, there is no definitive evidence as to what he actually did to change the property described in Hooker’s sale. As it stands today, Hooker House, apart from the rebuild of the eastern portion associated with war damage and the construction of the bypass, can be equated with the 1821 sale description. It may be that the eastern end was the portion that Stead modified.  In any event, he lived there for a total of 35 years, from whence he retired to Scotland. 

 

The layout of the area in 1883 is presented in Fig 4.13.

 

Fig 4.13 Map of ‘Woodcock’ maltings based on the 1883 O.S Edn.

 

 

S.H = Patrick Stead’s House; C.S. = Creek Side (accountants house); Cr = The Creek; C.C. Congregational Chapel

 

 

Table 4.8   1841 Halesworth census District 12  Patrick Stead’s Neighbourhood

(Occupations in pairs of census form)

 

New Court 1

New Court 2

Taylor

Washerwoman

Servant

Agricultural labourer

Independent means

Wherryman

Agricultural labourer

Washerwoman

Taylor

Agricultural labourer

Braziers apprentice

Agricultural labourer

Pauper

 

Butcher (Seaman)

 

Pauper

 

Agricultural labourer

 

New Court 3

Bridge St 1

Agricultural labourer

Independent

Pauper

Farm labourer

Shoemaker

Coachbuilder

Sadler

Curate

Bricklayer

Articled clerk

Agricultural labourer

?

Servant

?

Coach painter

Blacksmith apprentice

Baker

Independent

Miller’s journeyman

Independent

 

Clergyman (Lombe Athill)

 

?

 

House servant

 

House servant

 

Independent

 

Basket maker

 

?

Bridge St 2

Bridge St 3

Dressmaker

Linen draper

Butcher (Kemp)

Servant

Innkeeper

Straw hat maker

Ostler

Butcher journeyman

Servant

Articled clerk

Grocer

Staymaker

Grocer’s apprentice

Staymaker

Servant

Bookseller

Servant

Shop maid

Butcher

Shop maid

Butcher journeyman

Printer/binder (Day)

Servant

Servant

Butcher journeyman

Servant

 

Fire Office Agent

Bridge St 4

Bridge St 5

Carpenter journeyman

Maltser

Dressmaker

Foundryman

Baker’s apprentice

Agricultural labourer

Independent

Corn merchant (Patrick Stead; 50 years old)

Milliner

House servant

Milliner

House servant

Dressmaker’s apprentice

House servant

Dressmaker’s apprentice

Agent

Dressmaker;s apprentice

Accountant

Dressmaker’s apprentice

Bricklayer

Independent (Elizabeth Badeley)

 

Independent (Charlotte Badeley)

 

Independent (Maria Badeley)

 

Independent (Maria Tuthills)

 

House servant

 

House servant

 

House servant

 

?

 

Bridge St 6

Bridge St 7

Whitesmith

Builder

House servant

Draper’s assistant

Tailor

Carpenter’s apprentice

Tailor’s apprentice

Grocer’s apprentice

Tailor’s apprentice

Brewer

Carpenter journeyman

Independent

Grocer

Servant

Independent

Maltster

Servant

Agricultural labourer

Servant

 

Pauper

 

Bricklayer

 

Innkeeper

 

Bridge St 8

Bridge St 9

Independent

Carpenter

Servant

Carpenter

Grocer

Agricultural labourer

Carpenter journeyman

Servant

Horse keeper

Pauper

Shoemaker

Miller

Agricultural labourer

Washerwoman

Fruiterer

Washerwoman

Servant

Drapers assistant?

Weaver

Wheelwright

Carpenter journeyman

Scarles Yard

 

Wherryman

 

Sawyer journeyman

 

Quay St

 

Wine merchant

 

Servant

 

Servant

 

From the 1841 census it is possible to define the neighbourhood around Stead’s residence.  In particular the social mix of Bridge St and Quay Street may be defined in terms of the occupations of his neighbours (Table 4.8).  In this survey it can be seen that in this microcosm of Halesworth he was surrounded by a cross section of the town’s inhabitants from paupers to clergymen with a few people of independent means. We can only assume that living amongst many townsfolk less fortunate than himself was a major influence on his decision to bequeath the residue of his estate to establish a hospital for the benefit of the community (see below).

 

It is worth noting that an ‘agent’ and an ‘accountant’ are listed as living next to Stead’s home.  The house of the former was probably an addition made by Stead between Brewery House and the maltings. Until recent times this is where the office of the maltings was situated.  The accountant probably lived in Creekside, which was the ‘counting house’ in Hooker’s day.  This arrangement for housing the key managerial staff was continued after Patrick Stead sold up, as will be seen below.

 

 

4.7  Trading on a restless coast

 

When Patrick Stead arrived on the Halesworth trading scene, the key to profit was exporting and importing through the port of Southwold.  This meant accommodating business plans to the dynamic planetary forces of southerly moving tides, which are responsible for the destruction of vulnerable communities all along the East Anglian coast.  These tides also carry a southerly drift of materials to create sandbanks and low-lying promontories (nesses) at other places.  David Higgins expressed the remarkable coming together of physical and human geography on the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk as follows.  

 

“The coastline of East Anglia has always been restless with the sea acting like some frenetic sculptor, constantly reshaping its previous creations in the seemingly endless pursuit of perfection”.

 

The southern end of this cyclical pattern in Suffolk has been dramatic erosion at Dunwich and Aldeburgh with a concomitant extension of the great shingle bank of Orford Ness.  A positive aspect for coastal shipping is that the marine currents have collected eroded materials into a series of substantial offshore banks, which, while being a scourge to mariners in bad weather, enclose the only relatively safe anchorages between the Tyne and the Thames, the famous Yarmouth and Lowestoft Roads.  However, for East Anglian ports in general, the process is entirely negative because the shifting banks, by creating shallow sand bars across the mouths of relatively small rivers, restrict access to harbours in unpredictable ways, the channels often changing month to month according to the force of the outward flow of fresh water from the river catchments.  Smaller inlets that had been important from very early times have been blocked.  One such, Frostenden ’harbour’ at Covehithe, is now a fresh water lagoon (Covehithe Broad).

 

During the Middle Ages the port of Dunwich was the major commercial hub of Blything, with seemingly endless disputes as far inland as Blythburgh, on trade dues and rights of wreck.   Dunwich had the upper hand in these confrontations because it was situated strategically at the confluence of both the Blyth and Minsmere Rivers.  All this changed when coastal erosion began to destroy Dunwich’s cliff-top site, and silt up its harbour.  To compensate for this, new channels were cut through the shingle bank to the north between Dunwich and Southwold.  The dominance of Dunwich may be said to have ended when, in 1590, the Blyth was finally diverted by a ‘New Cut’ through the shingle bank at the point where the Blyth turned south at Walberswick.   Up to this time it seems that Walberwick was more important than its northern neighbour Southwold.  For example, between 1509-47 Walberwick had 17 trading vessels compared with 10 for Dunwich and 7 for Southwold.  Now, the dice of maritime forces had fallen in Southwold’s favour because the shingle bank suitable for making the New Cut actually belonged to Southwold, and from 1590 Southwold became the major coastal settlement commanding both sides of the new mouth of the Blyth.   Southwold’s ownership of the river, as it were, was subsequently commemorated in the annual community ceremony of ‘beating the bounds’, which in 1836 was recorded in the following Corporation minutes. 

 

‘The procession left the Council Chamber about noon; passed over East Green, went down the score to the Cliff on which the two-gun battery formerly stood; over the beach to the edge of the sea, and thus along to the piers…and….the jetty within the haven, and there entered the barges and crossed over the South Pier, and coming to the west end of it, then walked at the back of the beach for about twenty yards to the south-west of the said pier, near to a house built by Colonel Barne of Dunwich, on a place called ‘Ferry Knowle’ ;  and then to the bank of the river, near the cut recently made by the Commissioners of the harbor, which runs towards the Dunwich creek, and there again taking to the barges proceeded up the river Blyth….and landed at the north-west of Black-Shore quay, where a very numerous party of men, women and children were regaled with a barrel of strong ale and plum buns’.

 

An important economic consequence of the New Cut for Southwold was that the town gained control of dues for unloading and trans-shipping all commodities passing to and from Blything.  Eventually the Borough became the Harbour Authority (the first Harbour Act was passed in 1745). 

 

Unfortunately, the early records of Southwold’s trade have been lost.  Transcripts of the Walberswick Church Account have survived, which show that this community also prospered after the formation of the New Cut.  The village was involved in shipbuilding (an 18 gun ship was launched in 1654) and, along with Southwold, was an important player in the Icelandic cod and ling fishery, and also contributed a good share of vessels to the annual East Anglian North Sea herring fleet. No doubt both communities were involved with exporting locally produced goods, such as wool, cheese and butter to London, but records are not available.   However, from the time of the Southwold New Cut, there began a battle with tide and river to maintain Southwold’s harbour free from the natural forces of silting and blockage by offshore banks.  In this respect, there have been many attempts over the years to design efficient harbour works to ensure the continuous commercial use of Southwold’s quays.

 

Another local ‘improvement project’, which involved landowners reclaiming marshes, sometimes by seizure of land, to create grazing pasture by embanking the tidal saltings, exacerbated the blockage of Southwold Harbour by beach drift.  Ironically, an early developer was Southwold Corporation, who in 1547 sold the church plate to wall the Corporation Marsh.  They continued to be involved in reclamation of saltings over the next three centuries.  In 1847 the Church Accounts show they borrowed money for this purpose, and in 1850 the corporation enclosed Haven Beach Marshes.  By 1845 between four and five square miles of salt marsh had been reclaimed.  The outcome of this kind of widespread activity was the separation of the Blyth from its flood plain.  Enclosure of the marshes essentially prevented the deposition of river-borne silt, which was formerly spread over a vast area of saltings.  Enclosure also reduced the scour through Southwold Harbour, which had been powered by the wide estuary of the Blyth emptying between the harbour piers at each turn of the tide.  After reclamation of the wetlands, the river’s total load of suspended material was dropped where river and sea met at the harbour entrance. 

 

It was into this uncertain trade outlet that water-borne traffic using the newly created Blyth navigation channel from Halesworth to Southwold had to be inserted.  In fact, the inefficiency of Southwold’s harbour works was quickly revealed as a serious problem limiting the growth of Halesworth’s prosperity.  This became a major local issue when Patrick Stead’s malt exports via the Blyth Navigation came up against the forces, natural and human, that were responsible for restricting the use of the harbour.

 

4.7.1 ‘Murder of Southwold’

In 1836, five years after his arrival in Halesworth, Patrick Stead became a Blyth River Commissioner, with a strong motivation to obtain direct access of his own premises to the New Reach of the Blyth Navigation, and also to ensure his exports of malt to London moved smoothly through Southwold Harbour. In the first four years after his arrival the dues collected by the River Commissioners indicate that there was a doubling of Halesworth’s water-borne trade.  How much of this was due to the expansion of Stead’s trade is not known, but it became increasingly clear that the inefficient cleansing of Southwold Harbour was reducing his potential profits.  Things came to a head in 1839, when the grain carrier merchant vessel ‘Lord Exmouth’, loaded with Stead’s barley bound for Cardiff, was trapped by the silt bar from January until April.  As a result of this situation, which in this case spoiled the cargo, Stead gave up exporting grain in 1840.  Armed with a professional survey stating that the harbour was short of several hundred thousand gallons of water passing back and forth between the piers twice a day, Stead pressed urgently for modifications to cleanse the harbour. 

 

The issues for all sides, landowners, harbour commissioners and merchants were aired at a public enquiry in Southwold’s Town Hall in August 1839.  Stead put the case for the merchants in relation to them being liable to additional expenses for damage, inconvenience, and detention of vessels, which shipowners constantly experienced.  There were anecdotes of coaches being driven over the Walberswick ferry and cargo ships having to be hauled over the Soutwold bar with huge capstans.  There were comparisons of dues, in which the cost of using Southwold came out higher than other East Anglian ports, particularly Aldeburgh, where no fees were paid.  Southwold had the lowest tonnage for exports of corn and malt, and the import of coal.  In fact, exports were half of those through Aldeburgh and one tenth of those through Yarmouth.   Stead estimated that exports through Southwold were two thirds of their potential with an average loss of £3. 5s per ton on cargoes.  He pointed out that farmers delivered to ports specified by merchants who arranged the vessels, and their captains added dues to freight which the merchants had to pay. These arrangements contributed to Southwold’s neglect.  He was to pursue this issue of the bar unsuccessfully with the Harbour Commissioners over most of his time in Halesworth. 

 

Roy Clark, author of Black Sailed Traders, tells this story succinctly by putting the following words into Stead’s mouth as he imagined him passing over the bridge at Blythburgh, and viewing the reclaimed saltings to the east:

 

“Look you there, man, that’s what caused us all our misery, what broke the trade of Halesworth, and ruined Southwold.  Those banks you see yonder were all put up by greedy, soul-less men who cared not a jot for what happened to the rest of us.  Look well at them and remember; they stand as a monument to all those who turned Southwold into the port that was murdered”.

 

Clark also put the hydrodynamics of the problem in a nutshell;

 

 “All right thinking persons know how important these saltings were.  The saltings were to the harbour what a cistern is to a lavatory pan; they should not be encroached upon”.

 

In April 1849 Truman Partners, the London Brewery with which Patrick Stead did most of his dealings in malt, as part of their policy to command all major inputs to their business, made him an offer of £18,000 for his property in Halesworth and his shares in the Blyth Navigation. This was accepted and in 1851 one of their agents R.W. Burleigh took over as resident controller of the Halesworth maltings.  Stead retired to Scotland where he died at the age of 81 in 1869.  Eventually, after the death of his wife in 1875, the Trustees of the parish of Halesworth received the sum of £26,000, being the residue of her husband’s bequest to build and endow a hospital for the benefit of local residents.  Under the ownership of Trumans, the Stead maltings continued as a source of employment in the town well into the 20th century, but with production firmly integrated with the railway system. The Patrick Stead Hospital is still serving the local population today.

 

However, Stead remains an enigma.  The financial success of his commercial deeds has arguably had a more profound influence on Halesworth than any other of the town’s long stream of entrepreneurs, yet he is a shadowy figure on the margins of the town’s history. Compared with the Hooker family, there is no archive of his life to illuminate his character and add substance to the bare facts outlined above.

 

The occupation of Patrick Stead’s house by Robert Burleigh can be followed decade by decade through the census returns.  He was described as living in Quay Street in White's 1855. The entry described him as an ale and porter merchant, malster and corn and coal merchant.  The census information is as follows.

 

·         Burleigh was living as maltster and corn merchant at 15 Quay Street in 1861 age 46 with wife Hannah and large family. A governess and 5 servants.

·         Next-door lived Josiah Walker clerk and corn merchant. The census started from the 'Wherry' end of Quay Street so he came before Burleigh. The property was probably Creekside.

·         He was still living at 15 Quay Street in 1871 with wife Hannah and two children, governess and 4 servants.  He was described as maltster, corn and coal merchant employing 39 persons.

·         Next-door was, Alfred Stagoll age 33 with wife and 3 children.  He was described as clerk to maltster, corn merchant.  This reinforces the idea that since Patrick Stead’s time Creekside was traditionally occupied by the clerk to the maltings.

·         In 1881 Robert Burleigh was again to be found at 15 Quay Street; merchant with 36 hands, born at Sible Hedingham, Essex.  Alfred Stagoll was still his clerk, born in Leiston.

·         In the next two censuses 15 Quay Street was occupied by a maltster, James Parry, born Wangford.  In 1891 he had 3 children 4 servants.                                  

4.7.2  Malting; an historical milestone

As an early candidate for industrialisation, the story of brewing is an important commentary on the questions: when did the eighteenth-century world die; when does modern history begin? Certainly there are some aspects of the twentieth-century industrial scene of mass production and mass consumption that have their parallel in the story of the brewing industry during the eighteenth century. In a sense, the period 1700-1830 saw the emergence of a modern structure of production, with its attendant developments in procurement of malted barley grain and the merchanting and distribution of beer.  In this chain of mass production, the brewer became the farmer’s most important customer.  These developments had begun before the eighteenth century, but national statistics for beer and malt only become available for the first time in the first half of the 18th century, so the process can only be charted from then. That century saw the innovations of porter brewing, exact measurement of ingredients, steam-power, and mechanical processing, all inventions upon which a few enterprising ‘ale house brewers' became industrialists of a different order to any the brewing industry (or the economy as a whole) had seen in previous centuries. 

 

The career of Patrick Stead can be paralleled by that of other East Anglian maltsters.  One such was Robert Sheriffe of Diss.  Robert was the brother of  Rev. Thomas Sheriffe of Uggeshall.  From the middle of the 16th century the Sheriffe family was prominent in the commercial life of the Norfolk market town of Diss, and its members subsequently made their mark as substantial property owners in the neighbourhood. In Diss, they owned land in Cock Street and this is where Thomas Sheriffe (III) became associated with the Lower Brewery, which was situated in the north-east corner of Cock Street Green, now Fair Green. The brewery was a very large business with several tied public houses in the neighbourhood.  In his will of 1748 Thomas states that he was in partnership as a brewer with Benjamin Coggeshall of Ipswich, and that it was his wish that if possible his wife Abigail should continue in partnership with Coggeshall until his son Thomas (IV) should be able to take it over when he became of age.  Benjamin was probably a relative of William Coggeshall from Stratford St Mary who pioneered large scale brewing in Diss at the beginning of the century.  When William died in 1714 he estimated that his brewing stock or stock in trade was estimated to be worth at least £1,000.  Although it is not known where the Coggeshall brewery and maltings were situated, in view of Thomas Sheriffe’s later connection with Benjamin Coggeshall, it is likely that their partnership was a development of William Coggeshall’s business.

 

Although it was the intention of Thomas Sheriffe (IV)’s father that his son should follow in his father’s footsteps as a brewer, he developed his own business in Bungay. Abigail, his mother, continued with the Diss brewery and in August 1783 there is a draft lease for the brewery, which names the lessors as Abigail Sheriffe and her kinsman Robert Layman.  A draft bond for the business in 1793, five years after Abigail’s death, bears the names of Robert Layman and Benjamin Wiseman (Abigail’s grandson).  The Universal British Directory of 1793 lists a Diss brewery of Wiseman and Layman. A lease of 1802 indicates that this couple were still brewers with tied public houses.  Abigail’s will does not mention the brewery so it is not known who actually owned Thomas (III)’s  business at this time.

 

What is certain is that the Lower Brewery and maltings eventually came back under the control of the Sheriffes sometime between 1802 and 1840.  The evidence is that it was sold as a provision of the will of Robert Sheriffe of Diss, the younger unmarried brother of Thomas Sheriffe (V), Rector of Uggeshall.  It is clear from Robert’s will that he was extremely rich.  In addition to the Lower Brewery with its associated maltings and a granary, he owned 44 inns and public houses, two farms, a couple of mansions in Diss, several parcels of land in the county, and the estate and manor of Henstead Hall.  He had purchased Henstead Hall and surrounding farmland in 1834 and he held his first manorial court there on the 19 December 1834. Robert died on May 9th 1840 age 75, after which most of his property was sold by auction at the King’s Head in Diss, and the proceeds passed to his nephew Rev. Thomas Sheriffe (VI) who was by that time Rector of Henstead.  Robert also bequeathed Henstead Hall and its pleasure grounds to Thomas (VI), so at a stroke the latter became one of the richest clergymen of Suffolk.  Thomas (VI)’s father Thomas (V) of Uggeshall held the advowson of Henstead Church, and it was by this means that Thomas (VI) had been appointed Rector of Henstead.  There followed a move from Henstead Rectory to Henstead Hall.  His father bequeathed him the advowson in 1842. Thomas (VI) remained Rector of Henstead, residing in Henstead Hall until his death in 1861.

 

The personal wealth of Robert Sheriffe highlights an important feature of the economic development of rural East Anglia at this time, which was driven by the demand for malt, produced from locally grown barley.  It is interesting that the Sheriffes, like Patrick Stead became involved with the canalisation of a local waterway, the Waveney at Bungay. 

 

As has already been narrated, control of the trade in barley and malt was also the source of considerable wealth for those few in the supply chain who could capitalise on the increasing demand for locally brewed beer.  Thus did the Lacon quaker family of Yarmouth and Patrick Stead of Halesworth rise to become the millionaires of their day, and it seems that Robert Sheriffe of Diss was of the same ilk.  An outward sign of the wealth of these 18th century ‘malting barons’ was a Regency town house built of expensive white Suffolk bricks.  In Halesworth, Stead’s Quay Street mansion (now known as Hooker House), and in Diss Robert Sheriffe’s Mount Street mansion, still stand as indicators of this time of plenty for those who made good through the industrialisation of brewing. They had central control over the purchase of barley and a tight grip on sales through the innovation of ‘tied pubs’, which obliged the tenant of a public house to buy beer only from the brewery that owned the property. These industrialists are a far cry from the old beer-house brewers, such as Raynolde Shuckforth of Diss, who in his will of 1599 left a brewing house in Kenninghall with its copper, three vats and a cooler, worth about £6, to his eldest son.

 

The year 1830 is a useful date at which to close this phase of economic development.  In that year, the ending of the heavy beer duty and the restrictive licensing of public houses set for a time new commercial conditions in which the industry was operating. A national railway network was soon to break down traditional geographical barriers to economic development, particularly the marketing limits previously set by the high cost of transporting raw materials overland by horse-drawn wagons. London names, such as Truman, soon became eclipsed by the meteoric rise of firms, which, for example rapidly urbanised the Midland village of Burton on Trent.  In the second half of the 19th century the great innovation in the eighteenth century, black beer porter, was also eclipsed by lighter ales.  The latter were the result of new technological innovations, which were first made at the end of the eighteenth century. 

 

On the other hand, these widespread developments went along with innovations in malting, which quickly became one of the most closely controlled of any industry.  The timing, sequence, and even the details of each process of the manufacture of malt were prescribed and inspected by revenue officers.   It is not coincidental that this regulation inspired a trade association to look after the maltsters, the ‘Association of Maltsters in the United Kingdom’, which was organised with equal care.  A primary aim of the association was to confer with government intent on regulating the trade in alcoholic drinks.

 

The eighteenth-century world was passing by 1830, although it was still a generation before the biochemistry of fermentation was fully revealed, and brewers could at last gain precise control over the secrets of their ancient art. The immediate reactions to free trade in beer were to induce a further profound change in the business environment of brewing. With the foundation of the temperance movement, which ironically established an outpost at ‘Red House’ in the heart of Halesworth’s brewing community, new social forces were released, and new political groupings with a modern air began. They all look back to 1830, and exemplify Halesworth as a starting-point of the modern manufacturing economy.

 

4.8 Other manufacturing businesses

 

There is an attraction for the social historian to research only the success stories of business, but these are exceptions that prove the rule that most potential entrepreneurs fail to make the grade.  Halesworth has many examples of false starts and stories of initial success that faltered at the next generation, particularly in manufacturing (Table 4.9).  This was particularly the case with new operations based on technological innovations in production systems. Printing is a good example of Halesworth’s failure to capture an expanding market, which was a national success story only a few miles to the north at Bungay. The business was printing, which in terms of new technology was rapidly becoming automated at the start of the 19th century. Technology may be defined as a spectrum of ideas at one end and techniques and things at the other, with design in the middle as an operation that turns ideas into plans to make things.  If we add the profit spur of business to make more things faster, then the history of the printing press, which issues a standardized mass-produced merchandise, is as good as any other industry to illustrate the entrepreneurial progress of industrialism.

 

Ideas to improve printing were turned into production systems at a fair rate during the first half of the 19th century.  A breakthrough was made in 1804, when the third Earl of Stanhope replaced the wooden screw press, virtually unchanged since Gutenberg's time, with an iron framed lever press.   Stanhope also introduced stereotyping, which made the saving of pages of type for reprinting a commercial proposition.

 

Table  4.9 Some Halesworth manufacturers; 1851 and 1881 census returns for Halesworth

 

1851 enterprise

1851 business

1881 enterprise

1881 business

Brickmaking

Robert Smith.

178 Pound St.; 12 men and 9 boys

Coach building

Sarah Smith:  coachmaker  .
30 men  10 boys

Iron founding

Thomas Easterson: 32, Thorofare; 11 men and boys

Boot and shoemaking

Walter Ives:  leather merchant
25 men 16 boys 8 woman 3 girls

Malting

Patrick Stead.

15 Bridge St; 31 men

Leather merchant

John Haward: leather seller
2 men 4 boys 4 girls

Bookseller & printer

Thomas Tippell: 16 Thoroughfare 3 men

Malting

Robert Burleigh: merchant
38 hands

Bookseller & printer

John Day: 44 Bridge St

Brewing

George C. Croft: brewer merchant
24 men

Printer

George Rackham: 41 Bridge St

Builder

Frederick Woodyard: builder
9 men 1 boy

Bookmaker

John Sawing: 67 Market Place; master bookmaker 4 men 1 boy

Bookseller & printer

William Gale: 15 Throughfare

 

 

Bookseller & printer

Peter Canova: 1 man 2 boys

 

Pages of type for future reprints were preserved using plaster or metal matrices from which a stereotype could be cast, instead of having to reset the text.   Frederich Koenig's steam printing machine with rollers was adopted by the London Times in 1820, and raised the output of a printing press from 300 to 1100 copies an hour.  A few years later in 1822, the letter-founding machine, invented by Dr William Church and a forerunner of the linotype machine, raised the number of letters that could be cast daily from 3,000 / 7,000 to 12,000 / 20,000.  By 1827 the ‘New Press ‘ of  Applegath and Cowper enabled The Times to produce 5000 copies an hour from a single machine. Prior to this, rows of Stanhope presses had been used.  In 1840 the American Richard March Hoe developed a revolving perfecting press, which could turn out 20,000 impressions an hour.  The mass manufacture of paper from wood pulp was accomplished in the same year and within a decade industrial production had spread everywhere. The outward appearance and 'feel' of paper was altered and it became much cheaper to produce, which was particularly advantageous to the newspaper trade.  Hoe developed the first version of a rotary press in 1846.  He found a way to fit the type around the cylinder, which was inked by automated rollers, while four smaller rollers brought the sheets of paper in contact with it. This raised the number of impressions that could be taken from 22,000 to 24,000 an hour.   By the middle of the century Claude Genoux and Nicholas Serriere improved the system for making page moulds on papier mache ‘flongs’, as they came to be called. A flong prepared from flat type could be curved to permit moulding of the cylindrical type needed for a rotary press.  At about the same time, James Gordon Bennett in his New York Herald developed a method using a metal plate impression of the type rather than the type itself.  By the 1860s William Bullock perfected a method of feeding paper into a machine continuously instead of by sheets. He also incorporated Bennett's metal plate system and the use of stereotypes, shaped to fit the rollers, instead of hand set type.

 

There were printers in Halesworth in the early 1800's, and possibly before, who could potentially take up these innovations.  There is also evidence in Halesworth highlighting the power of mass printing.  A great controversy raged in the town in the autumn of 1808 on the morals of the contemporary stage, which was fought out with pamphlets printed by the two rival printers. W. Harper for those against the stage, and Thomas Tippell taking the other side. The Nonconformist minister in the town, the Rev. John Dennant, preached against the stage morals, and he was answered in a pamphlet written by a physician of the town. Others joined in the fray, and for a few weeks the two printers were kept busy in publishing the pamphlets in prose and verse that were issued by the two sides. The pamphlets, which have been called the Halesworth Theatre Tracts, are, it is claimed, unique in their completeness.

It is highly probable that the printers in the town were not of a sufficiently literary turn of mind to start a newspaper, and at that time there was a stamp duty on publications of that description. The Suffolk Chronicle, a weekly paper, was started about 1811, but without doubt small printers had little enthusiasm for starting a paper while the duty was payable.

 

In the middle of this remarkable period of international innovation there were 3 printers living in Halesworth.  According to the 1851 census, Thomas Tippell, at 16 Thoroughfare, had the largest establishment.  As a printer and bookseller he employed three men.  He was also a coal merchant employing another three men.  His son James was an assistant printer.  George Rackham is listed as a chemist and printer at 41 Bridge St.  His wife was a milliner.  Rackham printed ‘The Halesworth Times and East Suffolk Advertiser’, with a circulation which included all towns from Lowestoft to Saxmundham, and Southwold to Framlingham. This was the first ‘Penny Newspaper’ in Suffolk.  It circulated throughout the County and also in Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex. Through the century it has recorded the ebb and flow of life in the district, reflecting its character in times of hardship and prosperity, and peace and war. The first edition appeared on July 17th 1855, and during the first six months of publication it was about half the size of the 1950s editions.  The two outside pages were printed locally containing advertisements and items of local and district news (printed in very small type), and the two inside pages, printed in London, contained an summary of the national and international news. The first issue of 1856 saw the paper enlarged to twice the size, and this continued until 1868, when the second enlargement took place.

 

John Day was also a printer and bookseller, at 44 Bridge St.  He was living there with his father in law, the butcher James Freeman.  There are three other references to print workers in the 1851 census; Jeremiah Goodwin, a printer lodging in Mill Hill St, Charles More an apprentice printer, and Charles Godfrey, a printer’s errand boy.

 

Apart from Rackham’s newspaper, we have no information as to what else was being produced by the town’s printers in the 1850s, but it is likely that they all offered a printing service of paper bags, bill heads and circulars to local traders.  With respect to technology, most of them were probably using pre-Stanhope presses.  It is clear that there was no local demand that could occupy a printer full time.  Not only did the printers have other occupations, but they also functioned as stationers with sidelines in library furnishings for the wealthier inhabitants of the town and its surroundings.  Regarding John Day, his business also involved selling accessories such as writing desks and work boxes (Fig. 4.14).  George Rackham was advertising ‘Pawsey’s, Fulcher’s, Renshaw’s and Marchall’s ladies pocket books and diaries, gentlemen’s pocket and desk memorandas, pocket books, almanacs etc. of every description’. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 4.14 Supplement to The Halesworth Times January 1856

By the time of the 1881 census the earlier printing establishment had been replaced by two small-scale businesses, William Gale, a Londoner from Hackney, and Peter Canova, born the son of a Halesworth jeweller, who employed 1 man and 2 boys.  Gale appears to have taken over Thomas Tippell’s establishment in The Thoroughfare. Later he went on to become the publisher of the Halesworth Times.

 

Meanwhile, printing technology went on improving.  On the final page of the collection of summaries of major events of the year for the quarter century from the Great Exhibition (1851 to 1875), published by The Times, there appears the follow­ing advertisement of the new Walter Printing Press:

 

"This volume of 598 pages has been set in type by four lads, working at two composing machines, in ten days of eight hours, at the rate of 2,150 lines per day. It has been printed from stereotype plates, in perfected sheets, each con­taining 128 pages, at the rate of 12,000 per hour on the Walter Press."

 

What can have been the thought of an elderly Halesworth com­positor who read these words; or of his trade union; or of firms with obsolescent presses?   Halesworth seems to have been left behind in this technology race, and it is interesting to compare the town with Bungay regarding factors in the development of large-scale printing in up-and-coming towns of these times.  Printing in Bungay appears to have been given an early start by an individual, Charles Brightly, who set up business in 1795.  For Suffolk as a whole this was a period of industrial pioneering.  Nearly all the large manufacturing concerns that have lasted to the present day were established within ten years of that date. Brightly was one of the pioneers of the stereotyping process, and in 1809 he published a small book explaining his methods. John R. Childs joined him in his business in 1805, and the firm became one of the largest printers and publishers of periodical literature in the kingdom. Messrs. Childs & Son were among the first to introduce the practice of bringing out large works in sixpenny parts, one of the books so published being Barclay's Dictionary. A picturesque tradition survives at Bungay of how Mr. Childs traversed the country in a chaise to solicit orders for his publications, armed for self-defence with a pair of pistols.  By the turn of the century the business was sufficiently large and well known to attract Lawrence Johnson from Hull as an apprentice.   After serving an apprenticeship of seven years he emerged as a master type founder and the printing office was progressive enough for him to gain experience necessary to branch out on his own.  He induced his parents to go with him to the United States, where they arrived in 1819, and purchased a farm in Cayuga County, New York.  Afterwards he went to New York City, where he entered a printing office as a compositor. In 1820 his attention was directed to stereotyping, and after obtaining some knowledge of it in the employ of Messrs. B. and J. Collins in New York, he removed to Philadelphia, where he established a successful stereotype foundry.  In 1833 he purchased the Philadelphia type foundry, which, under his management, became one of the largest in the country. One of his last acts, in conjunction with other type founders of Philadelphia, was to procure from Congress a modification of the copyright law to afford protection to engravers, letter cutters, and designers. 

 

The Childs business in Bungay was not small and had from its earliest days concentrated on new techniques, becoming the earliest firm to install a composing machine. The business was well known to London printers.  In addition to their printing works Messrs. Childs & Son employed at one time as many as 60 or 70 engravers on metal, who did the work in their own homes at Bungay. In 1855, when the firm had come to be mainly occupied in printing for London and other publisher across the country, their stock of stereotype plates was said to weigh above 300 tons. The company was sufficiently well known for it to have been selected to print the first commercial edition of Alice in Wonderland.  Macmillan & Co. published Lewis Carrol’s book on commission in July 1865, in an edition of 2000 printed by the Oxford University Press, the copies to be bound in red cloth gilt. Only 50 copies had been bound when Carroll heard from his illustrator Tenniel that he was dissatisfied with the way the pictures came out. The book was withdrawn, and recipients of presentation copies asked to return them. The rejected copies were presented to children’s hospitals and institutions.  In November 1865, Childs published the second edition of 4000 copies.   In 1876, Mr. C. Childs, the son of Mr. J. R. Childs, died, and in the following year the business was taken over by the London firm of Messrs. Clay & Taylor and became a limited company in 1890.  Currently, Clays is one of the country's biggest British printing factories, employing over 500 people at the Bungay Works. 

 

Childs’ early start is probably only one factor in Bungay’s success.   The factors militating against Halesworth’s printers are not known.  It is interesting that the 1851 census lists a master bookmaker (i.e. a bookbinder), in the Market Place employing four men and a boy.  So the nucleus of skills to build a printing publishing centre was present.  Nevertheless it was left to Arthur Stebbings, a Lowestoft printer, to exploit the local demand for an annual information pack about the town.  He published the first edition in 1887 as the Directory to Halesworth & Southwold Almanac.  Stebbings, of 56 and 57 High St and Dagmar House beside the Railway Station, was Lowestoft’s premier printer and stationer, with a machine works.  He published the Lowestoft Journal, which he claimed had a circulation of thousands more than any other paper.   His Halesworth Almanac was later taken over by Gales, which became the only Halesworth printing business to survive into the 20th century. The almanac, known as Gale’s Almanack, which, like Rackham’s Halesworth Times, continued to be published annually until 1953, and is a mine of community information for local historians.  Of course, history has shown that most success stories do, in the fullness of time, come to nothing, which makes businesses like Clays of Bungay even more remarkable in their tenacity to stay in a particular place.

4.8.1 A truly local newspaper

The centenary of the birth of the Halesworth Times was celebrated in its issue of July 20th 1955.  Under the headline ‘A Century Reached’ the article records how it all started.   George Rackham, the first editor came to Halesworth from London where in 1836 he was a sub-editor of Kidd's London Journal, which afterwards became the "Illustrated London News." He evidently had some knowledge of the practical side of the printing craft, and there is reason to believe that he procured Harpers printing business in Quay Street, which was then in the hands of Samuel Roper, who died in 1842.  Roper was only 32, and his wife carried on the business for a time. Where the printing office was actually situated is a matter for conjecture; it is believed it was at the rear of the premises occupied by a Mr. Alan Richardson. At the time under review, there was a milliner's shop in Chapel Terrace, Quay Street, run by a lady named Miss Caroline Cook. What makes it possible that the printing works was there is the fact that George Rackham married Miss Cook. Both were members of the Congregational Church in Quay Street, Rackham having been made a deacon in 1850.  He later became secretary of the Church. From the records available it is clear that the paper was printed at the Quay Street premises until 1861.

 

At its launching in 1855, the following is an extract from the leading article:

 

"We beg to state that the Halesworth Times will be by no means the organ of a party; it will be catholic in its views and impartial in its discussions; measures, not men, principles, not persons, will be the basis upon which this journal will be conducted. 'Let truth and falsehood grapple,' said Milton, 'who ever knew the truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter.' "


In January 1861, the publisher's imprint was altered from "George Rackham, at his office in Quay Street," to "Charles More, at his office, Mill Hill Street, Halesworth." Apparently Rackham found his editorial and other commitments too much to carry on the printing as well. He was also engaged in the sale of proprietary medicines, both for cattle and people. It is difficult to determine the site of the "Mill Hill Street" printing office, but it was only a brief lodging place, for on March 15th, 1861, the following notice appeared:

 

' 'It will be seen on reference to our imprint that the "Halesworth Times" has this week changed hands, and will in future be printed at the old and well established printing establishment of Mr. James Tippell, of Thoroughfare, Halesworth. It is now nearly six years since we first launched our little bark upon the dangerous and troubled waters of speculation. It has not been plain sailing, we can assure our readers; we have had to make our way against head winds and tides that have strained our canvas to the utmost, with shoals and quicksands and hidden rocks, and too often breakers ahead—but with truth for our compass, impartiality for our helmsman, and a steady reliance upon providence, notwithstanding the adverse gales we have had to encounter during the last twelve months, we can now look back with no small degree of pride and satisfaction at the dangers we have passed, and with the cheerful anticipation of a future successful and prosperous. The principles with which we started we shall firmly and resolutely adhere to; the organ of no sect or party, actuated by broad, catholic and comprehensive views, we shall endeavour to make the Halesworth Times an epitome of all that transpires in the moral, political and intellectual world."


James Tippell’s role as publisher was short, for on May 19th, 1868, the following appeared in the paper’s advertisement columns.

 

"First class Penny Paper. IMPORTANT NOTICE.

 

Permanent enlargement of the Halesworth Times in the present month. This paper, which is the oldest penny paper in the county, will also be the largest, and will contain 28 columns of closely printed matter of all the current news of the week, original leading articles, etc., etc. The Proprietor  (then Mr. W. P. Gale) intends sparing no expense to make it a first class family paper, and a machine adapted for steam power, and specially devised for the Halesworth Times, is now being built by Messrs. Bremner, the celebrated printers' engineers."

 

The actual date of enlargement was on May 26th, 1868, and the serial number of the paper was 664. On the assumption that 52 copies had been published yearly, this number should have been 669, which shows that only five weeks had been missed during the first 13 years.

 

Without doubt, before the purchase of the printing machine referred to, the paper was printed on a hand press, and in this event about two minutes would be taken up in rolling with ink and getting a copy, that is for both front and back pages which would be printed separately. Again, the smallness of the type used must have made composition extremely difficult for the eyes, especially when lighting by oil or gas. Every solitary letter had to be picked out of the case by hand, and after printing had to be put back again into its proper place


Although the paper had been published by different proprietors and had changed hands on three occasions, George Rackham was still the editor.
  There is a record that after the retirement of George Rackham as editor, O. G. Rackham, probably a son, acted in that capacity. He died, however, in 1899 at the comparatively early age of 51, and was buried at Stoke Newington. 

 

Although Rackham was editor of the paper until 1880, the publisher and proprietor was William Pickin Gale, and he had been so since the year 1866. It appears that he came to Halesworth about the year 1862 from Mildenhall, when he was 29 years of age. Presumably he came into the printing and stationery business carried on by James Tippell, a son of the former owner of the business, Thomas Tippell.  In 1868 William Gale acquired the whole business, and in the running of the paper, he received help from various local people. He remained proprietor until his death in 1912, a period of 46 years, during which time there had been no change in the price.  When he assumed ownership of the paper, he invested in machinery, which was “adapted for steam power”.  But it was not used, and the paper was cranked out by hand week after week and year after year. This was a formidable task, for a large amount of work was entailed. To continue this was no mean achievement.  Had Halesworth been more progressive, with industries which could have adapted themselves to the rapid changes in the industrial world that were taking place, it is possible that power would have been used on the paper. True there were industries in the town, but they were dying industries for the reason that the changing ideas were not fully comprehended, or the proprietors had not sufficient capital to keep up with the rapid pace of technical innovation.


When William Gale died in 1912 the paper was being printed each week on a large flatbed machine turned by hand.   He was succeeded by his son, W. C. Gale, who bought an electric motor for running the printing press, but this also was never used, and the hand-cranking of the machine and the type-setting by hand continued relentlessly until he sold out in 1933, so ending a father-and-son ownership of nearly 70 years.

When the undertaking changed hands in 1933, J. S. P, Denny, who was on the staff of the Southwold Press, became proprietor. Within a year the old manual press, which took at least four men to work, was scrapped and replaced with a power-driven flatbed machine.  In 1935 hand setting of type gave way to machine setting on a ‘Typograph’.   After the installation of the  ‘Typograph’, almost immediately, the size and form of the paper was changed and remained in that form up to the 1950s. Two pages, printed and supplied by a London publishing firm, were discontinued, and the paper was produced entirely in Halesworth. It was in 1935 that the largest edition ever was published. This coincided with the staging of the Suffolk Show at Halesworth, and the Halesworth Times that week became a 12-page newspaper.  In 1945 an amalgamation resulted in the Halesworth Press, Ltd., being formed, the directors of which were Mr., Denny and Mr. H. L. Fairweather.  Within a few years modern Linotypes—typesetting machines as used by the national newspapers of the day - were installed.

4.8.2 Mass production

Another craft skill that failed to take off in Halesworth, despite reaching factory scale within one generation, was shoemaking.  Mechanisation of the assembly of shoes evolved slowly, step-by-step, often in the face of fierce opposition. In the 1850s, a total of 45 persons comprised the town’s shoemaking trade (Table 4.10).  Only one of these craftsmen appeared to be in business with employees.  This was Nathaniel Shore who was listed with 2 men.  The trade seemed to run in several families.  In one of these households, Jebus the head of the Cullingfords, was a master shoemaker, his son James was a journeyman shoemaker and his daughter Caroline was a shoebinder. Shoebinding was quite often a job for women.  As a one man business an individual completed the making of a shoe from the cutting out of the leather for the soles and the uppers, to

the adding of the final touches which gave his work individuality.  A shoe today is the product of many individuals; on a man's welted shoe there may be as many as a hundred and fifty separate operations, each one requiring a different machine and operator for its completion.

 

Table 4.10 Persons in the shoemaking trade: Halesworth 1851 census

 

Designation

 

Master shoemaker

12

Shoemaker

16

Journeyman shoemaker

10

Shoemaker’s apprentice

2

Shoemaker’s assistant

1

Bootmaker

1

Bootmaker’s apprentice

1

Shoebinder

1

Pauper shoemaker

1

 

A boost to innovations came towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars to help overcome the serious shortage of footwear for troops abroad.   In response, Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, produced a range of machines with an output of 400 pairs of boots per day. The soles and uppers were united by nails "dropped with unerring accuracy into place and driven at one blow, the machine making its own nails". With the end of the war, however, the machines were dismantled and eventually destroyed by a fire.  For a number of years nothing more was heard of mechanisation, but in 1841 Elias Howe, an American, invented a machine for sewing upper leather, and this quickly gained popularity. Among the users of this machine was Lyman Blake, also an American, who conceived the idea of developing Howe's machine to enable it to sew sole leather. By 1858 Blake had produced the first model of his machine, which by enabling the sole and upper to be united by sewing, completely revolutionised the shoemaking industry.

 

Despite bitter anti-machinery strikes and riots on a national scale, mechanisation continued to make progress, and in 1872, Charles Goodyear introduced a group of machines, which enabled footwear to be made on the same principle as that employed by the "hand-sewn" craftsman.  This development in the making of shoes by machinery gave the industry new impetus; no longer was machine-made footwear looked upon as crude, uncomfortable, and only to be considered because of its cheapness.

 

These innovations were followed by heel attaching machines, sole edge trimming machines, polishing machines, etc., until practically the only important operation which could not be performed mechanically was that of "lasting", i.e. the stretching and securing in position of the shoe upper materials of the "last". This is the foot-shaped form on which practically all shoes are made, but around 1890 machines for even this difficult operation were on the market.  So it was that by the 1870’s that Halesworth appeared to offer an opportunity for establishing a factory for the mass production of shoes.  The entrepreneur was Walter Ives from Laxfield, who began work in Halesworth as a leather dresser.  In the 1881 census Ives’ bootmaking establishment in Bridge St was employing 44 people representing six stages of the assembly line.  This was the same number that represented Halesworth’s total shoecraft base in 1851. 

 

An obvious question is; how was the raw material side of Ives’ business organised?  John Hayward was described as a leather merchant in the 1881 census with a staff of 10.  This enterprise was probably concerned with the conversion of skins to leather, but there is no evidence of the volume of trade.  The position of the town at the head of the vast tract of Blyth cattle marshes makes it reasonable to assume that Halesworth was a natural focus for hides derived from beasts that were slaughtered to supply local butchers, and could also draw upon animals from numerous dairy herds of the upper valleys. A similar geographical conjunction of livestock rearing and entrepreneurial initiative gave rise to Clarke’s of Street, a small village in Somerset, on the edge of the Somerset Levels, marshes that had been drained for cattle rearing.  Clarkes is still in business on the same site, Ives’ efforts were terminated in the second generation.  His son Charles Samuel continued Ives’ factory into the next century.  Charles being childless, there were no grandchildren to continue a shoemaking dynasty, and the business was not attractive to other investors.

 

A similar process was taking over the craft of Halesworth’s smiths.  The industrialisation of blacksmith’s skills was already underway by the 1850s in the hands of Easterson & Son, iron and brass founders and implement makers (Fig. 4.15).  Easterson’s workforce listed in the 1851 census was 11 men and boys.  Metalworking was one of the first crafts to be absorbed into the process of mass production, and two Blything companies producing farm implements and machinery on an international scale were Garretts of Leiston and Smyths of Peasenhall.  Both enterprises began in the 18th century through the ideas and determination of two village blacksmiths. 

 


Fig. 4.15 Advertisement from the Halesworth Times, December 18th 1855

 

 

At the same time as these assembly lines were being created in Suffolk to produce ploughs and seed drills, the role of village blacksmiths in the production of smaller metal goods was being undermined by mass production in the Midlands.  The town ironmonger had arrived who retailed everything from bar iron and nails to electroplated silver teapots and cutlery.  Such was the stock of Burgess’ Halesworth warehouse (Fig. 4.16).

 

The other mass production system in Halesworth in the mid-century was Samuel Smith’s East Suffolk Carriage Works.  Samuel was previously the foreman of Thomas Brown’s coachworks in the town, and after the demise of his employer he took over the business. In an advert he placed in the Halesworth Times for December 1855 he begs:

 

‘…most respectfully to inform the Nobility, Clergy and Gentry, and the Inhabitants of Halesworth and its vicinity, that he is carrying on the above business in all its branches, and most earnestly solicits a continuation of the patronage so liberally conferred upon his predecessor; assuring them that it will be his anxious study by first rate workmanship and reasonable charges to merit their confidence and support’.

 

He was prepared to make ‘carriages of every description, of the most approved London style, made to order’.

 

There was a favourable response and Smith’s company developed by 1881 to employ blacksmiths, joiner body makers, trimmers and painters.  Samuel seems to have died in the interim and the business was left in the hands of Sarah, his wife, with a works manager in charge of the process of assembly.  It continued to prosper and in 1885 the Halesworth Almanack stated it was employing a hundred men.

 

Like Clays printing works in Bungay, coachbuilding in Halesworth had the critical mass necessary to impart export know-how via its qualified apprentices.  John Hammond Etheridge was born in Halesworth in 1846 and was apprenticed to the East Suffolk Carriage Works, where he was employed for about 50 years.  Some of his family experience rubbed off on his sons.  John, his eldest son, born in 1869, emigrated to South Africa, where he was involved in the 'siege of Kimberley' during the Boer war. He settled in Eldoret Kenya, where he established ' The Excelsior Carriage Works'.  The second son, James Edward born in1871, emigrated to New Zealand in 1903, and became a coach and motor body builder.

 

Fig. 4.16  Advertisement from the Halesworth Times, December 18th 1855

 

 

All this commercial activity is a measure of Halesworth’s attempts to break out of its isolated and seemingly unfavourable inland situation away from ports and the main road linking Yarmouth and London.  The town’s economic success began at the end of Suffolk’s ‘age of wood’.   Local carpenter architects, who for a thousand years or more had been responsible for Halesworth’s timber-framed buildings, were no more.  Bricklayers were now meeting the demands for infrastructure to support the town’s expanding economy.  One of the earliest mass demands for bricks was to build maltings and the quays, locks and bridges associated with the Blyth Navigation, but we really know next to nothing about the details of this new phase of investment.  A rare document from the Building Committee charged with erecting the workhouse at Bulcamp tells of contracts to a John Borrett and James Pepper of Halesworth to supply the many tens of thousands of bricks required for the job.  At a cost of around £11000 the workhouse must have been the largest building ever constructed in this part of Suffolk.  This all took place in the 1760s.   During the next century, Robert Smith’s brickworks at Church Farm appears to have been established in response to the local demand for bricks associated with the rebuilding of a substantial part of Halesworth’s retail centre during the first half of the19th century.  There was also another enterprise on the Mells brickfields, which was also involved in this activity and was notable for its white/grey bricks used in the construction of the town’s first middle class terraces and villas.

 

4.8.3 An educational model

The work of all these Halesworth innovators carrying forward the outlook and the ambitions of their age, burst into flame during the 19th century. Standing back and taking a national view, if we ask why the spinning of cotton was transferred from the hand-wheel to the machine, why the steam engine supplanted water-power, why Adam Smith attacked the authoritative regulation of economic effort, the answer is that material progress was confined by methods no longer adequate to an expanding economic unity and a growing population. In East Anglia the local woodlands had been stripped of timber, there were customers unsatisfied, markets only half-exploited, would-be workers only partially employed.  New methods, ingenious ideas and novel departures of organisation came to people like Walter Ives, not merely because people needed shoes made by machines, but because an individual wanted them manufactured that way, and customers were well enough off to purchase them and accept the changes the new methods brought. The truth of this is established by the fact that the actual origin of par­ticular inventions is often a matter of dispute. Why is it difficult to establish Arkwright's claim as an inventor? What were the relations of Lewis Paul to the later textile innovators? Why did Dudley's secret of the use of coal for smelting die with him, and remain an enigma till Abraham Darby revived it fifty years later? Why were patents disliked in the eighteenth century? Why did the Society of Arts offer rewards to stimulate the devising of new machines? New inventions were, so to speak, in the air: the environment was favourable to industrial progress. The inventions, the improved communications, the amplifying of the financial system, in fact all the achievements of the Halesworth investors, innovators and manufacturers represent one movement. They were mutual determinants and all worked together for the national economic good.

 

The industrial revolution came to Halesworth as a series of improve­ments rather than a series of startling innovations, and these improvements were of more than one kind. Initially there was a good spread of industry through the town although malting soon came to the fore.  The elaboration of mass production at any level necessitated the recruitment, and in some cases the special training, of the workers.  There had to be new ways of allocating the workers' in­dustrial functions, the successive conquest of processes, and parts of processes, by machinery.  An appropriate industrial discipline had to be devised for the factory as well as of the factory itself.  Adequate marketing arrangements had to be elaborated and there had to be a restless search for new markets.  Sarah Smith the coachmaker, as much as Patrick Stead had to follow these basic rules in her contributions for the town’s age of plenty.

 

Fig. 4.17 Halesworth model of manufacturing in the 19th century

 

 

 

 

This brief summary of 19th century Halesworth as a manufacturing centre gives an idea of the increasing scale of its businesses.  According to Fordham, towards the end of the century, enterprises employing ten or more persons accounted for about a quarter of the town’s jobs.  However, the surface of this topic has only been scratched.  Part of the problem is the absence of records.  Sufficient is known to indicate Halesworth is a good educational model for charting the principles governing the rise of industry and the organisation of its processes of mass production, but we can

 

only wonder at the quantity of information about day to day business activities and financial accounts that must have been lost over the years. 

 

The topic framework described above and summarised in Fig. 4.17 is also useful for researching the outstanding question of industrialisation.  Why, in the long string of market towns along the Suffolk coast, were some successful in meeting the opportunities of mass production and others were not?  Halesworth shows that it was often down to the random interactions between individuals and the town economy, but does this prove the rule?

 

The true character of the new industrialism is not easily described. Was the Suffolk, which issued from the in­dustrial revolution, the society of Charles Dickens, or of the classical economists, or the tyranny painted by the anti-Capitalists, or the futile activity of consumerism seen by Thomas Carlyle? The historian has to rely on the voices that were articulate, but limited to census records, advertisements and legal documents in this period, and they all sang different songs. To some people in these (and any) decades, Halesworth was obviously going to the dogs—the well-off and the badly-off may be expected at any time to agree on this. To others, especially to those who were able to force their way up the new avenues to wealth, the opposite was true.  Seen from a distance, the expanding industries went from strength to strength but looked at closely, there were ups and downs. Whatever the tones of the picture presented as a portrait of the town’s new industrialism, they will be composed from the varying colours of contemporary views, intermingled with the knowledge gained from sub­sequent experience and the wider national context of trade and politics. In a sense the history of technology in the years from the 1780s to 1860s is the history of a continuing industrial revolution, which every new generation saw in different terms.  But technical innovations, however important they were in multiplying industrial output, did not make up the whole story.  The social order, which had been transmitted from the past and re-formulated in terms of 18th century philosophy, was transformed under the influence of coal, iron, cotton, steam, and ideas of growth and progress.  To the people of Blything shopping in Burgess’ warehouse, it must have seemed as if England was fitted to be the emporium of worldwide commerce.  However, the centre was shifting even then, and a trip to Dyers would have revealed cheap cotton dresses made from cloth imported from India and colour-printed in Lancashire; a trade movement that has relentlessly led to the present day, when the Far East clothes the whole of Europe.   

 

If the marriage between capitalism and manufacturing technology produces such dynamism and such rapid progress in the creation of family wealth, why should we be cautious about the present day effects of this union and anxious for the future? We now see that the answer to this question explains the 'failure of success'. At the beginning of the industrial revolution humankind was still dwarfed by the forces of nature. It was possible to see the natural resources of the world as unlimited and capable of recovering from even the heaviest onslaughts that human beings could muster. This became evident in the mahogany and rosewood furnishings sold by a wide range of Halesworth’s retailers.  Today this imbalance of power is reversed. Human­kind, learning from the British experience, has the power to plunder from almost any environment and to destroy the very foundations of our life: the soil, the seas, lakes and rivers, the forests and natural habitats of countless species, and even the atmosphere. Despite the fact that we now have obtained advanced and accurate knowledge of this destruction, we are powerless to act on the information because we lack initiatives that are related to collective interests and collective responsibility for sustaining our planet. Instead, major institutions are founded on capitalist imperatives that recognize only the major constraints and short-term opportunities of the capitalist system, in particular the view that profit is supreme. In this system there are no brakes, and very few means of slowing down destruction. It will continue to expand on the basis of profitable exploitation until the resources, such as Suffolk’s oak woods, have disappeared or the environment has been destroyed. One is, therefore, unlikely to see such a curriculum introduced coherently into the higher education system.  Only small fragments of such a cultural curriculum will find viable niches.

 

These fundamental impediments arise because education, contrary to the views of many environmentalists, is not going to be the motor of major social and environmental change.  If we want to see a radical curriculum, then education has to be part of the larger alternative social and economic system referred to above. Such a system is not likely to be brought about by the efforts of educators and idealists alone. A minority of educationalists feel that it is more likely to proceed from the actions of the mass of people, confronted with the increasing inadequacies and contradictions of the capitalist economic system. But precisely how these actions are to come about and how they are to be encouraged must, of course, constitute one of the more important items in the radical environmental curriculum itself.  It is here that socio-economic models of the Halesworth kind provide the starting point from a time when the relationships between people and environmental resources were relatively simple, to today when orang-utans are on the verge of extinction because of the world’s insatiable demand for tropical wood.  Africa’s primates are on the verge of extinction because ‘bush meat’ is economically attractive to the families who are on the economic fringes.  In this scenario conservation will only be adopted locally when the ‘age of plenty’ becomes widespread on the continent.


 


 

5 Retailers

 

 

 The adjective 'Victorian' was apparently coined exactly half way through the nineteenth century by an almost forgotten writer, Edwin Paxton Hood, who set out in his The Age and its Architects (1851) to relate the conditions of his own time to the whole 'development of the ages'.  In a chapter called 'the Victorian Commonwealth'  he began by describing it as 'the most wonderful picture on the face of the earth' and recorded as a 'fact' the observa­tion 'perhaps on no other spot of ground has heaven ever grouped so bright a constellation of its best mercies'. He rounded off the comment with an appropriate biblical text, 'He hath not done so with any people'. The 'fact' and its trimmings may properly be taken as evidence of enhanced national self-consciousness on the eve of the greatest period of Victorian prosperity.

Asa Briggs, 1958

 

 

5.1 The retail network

 

In the history of human settlement, once the needs of family and local community were met, it is a logical aspect of human behaviour that a cultivator of land would attempt to trade his goods for different goods produced elsewhere. Thus markets were formed. These early efforts to swap goods developed into more formal gatherings. When a producer who had a surplus could not find another producer with suitable products to exchange, he may have allowed others to owe him goods. Thus, early credit terms would have been developed. This would have led to symbolic representations of such debts in the form of valuable items (such as gemstones or beads), and eventually money.  But was this really the by-product of a drift towards the legitimising of market forces and the pursuit of personal gain?  It has been argued that for retailers and periodic markets there was no sudden transition from a medieval paternalistic economy to a mercantilist economy driven by market forces and competitive individualism. In fact, the same tensions between communal ideals of social justice, and giving way to market forces, were as apparent in the literary output of medieval England as in post-Reformation times. The progression of images of literature and art do not suggest any radical shift in market mentalities in the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, perhaps more subtle and complex developments in retail market attitudes can be discerned throughout the twelfth to seventeenth centuries, rooted in the changing shape of marketing and consumption patterns.  That is to say, over time, producers would have seen value in deliberately over-producing in order to profit from selling these goods. Merchants would also have begun to appear. They would travel from village to village, purchasing these goods and selling them for a profit, often in a different village. Halesworth had pedlars up to the 19th century who were itinerant merchants operating on a small scale.  Over time, both of these groups, producers and merchants, would regularly take their goods to one selling place in the centre of the community. Thus, regular markets appeared.  Eventually, markets would become permanent fixtures as collections of shops. These shops along with the logistics required to get the goods to them, were the start of the retail trade.  Although advantageous in many respects, this removed the mobility that a pedlar or travelling merchant may still have enjoyed.

 

Thus the ‘retail trade’ is really rooted in the history of two groups, the pedlars and producers. Pedlars tended to be opportunistic in their choice of stock and customer. They would purchase any goods that they thought they could sell for a profit. Producers were specialists and interested in selling goods that they had produced.  This division continues to this day, with some shops specializing in specific areas, reflecting their origins as outlets for producers, although their stock is usually bought from a wholesaler. Others, known as general stores, provide a broad mix. 

 

Excavations reveal that shops in ancient Rome and its outlying towns like Herculaneum and Pompei, were, in many respects, much like small shops are today, so it is most likely that retailer chains existed then.  Images of trade and markets are found throughout the literature and art of medieval and early modern England.  Charters and their privileges are firm evidence of the character of buying and selling in the 12th and 13th centuries.  The starting point, as in Halesworth in 1223, was the granting of a charter authorising a weekly market.  In some places this process was coupled with a week-long annual fair. A further development was that the burgesses (freemen, often merchants and artisans) were entitled to trade with the rest of the country as a privilege.  Much of Halesworth’s food and other provisions would have come from the immediate neighbourhood, being sold by the producers themselves in the lord’s market place beside the church. Even in the medieval period it is likely that some goods did come from further afield, for example wine from France, leather from Ireland, and salt from the west coast all filtered into Suffolk’s market towns.  Merchants, who either sold them direct or passed them on to craftsmen to weave cloth or make shoes, would have handled such imports. Aquavitae (later to be known as whisky) and beer would have been made in the town and sold directly.

 

Although medieval markets and fairs would not be very different from those of the 21st century, there would have been no shops, and people would have been as likely to acquire whatever goods they needed by barter. Nevertheless despite its distance from the great cities and trade routes of Europe, Halesworth in the 13th century, with its chartered market, was part of a thriving European world of commerce and Christianity.

 

Table 5.1 Fees for traders at Halesworth market in the 18th century

 

Space allocation

Lord’s fee

Stalls with customers in common 

3d

Single pot stall    

1s

Double pot stall  

2s

Single stall tilted 

1s

Single stall not tilted

1s

Double stall tilted (i.e. covered)

3s

Pig carts, each 

2d

Poundage money, per head 

4d

Four wheel carrier 

4s

Two wheel carrier

3s

Sheep and lambs, per score 

2d

Sheep and lambs in pens, per score 

3d

1 horse

4d

Sacks and hampers, each

1d

 

For anyone interested in the history of retailing, Halesworth conforms to the above model.  Its weekly market is a survivor of the spate of Royal handouts of charters in the 13th century.  Richard de Argentein, who had been one of the witnesses to Magna Carta, was absentee lord of the manor at the time. Richard was sheriff for Essex and Hertfordshire, and also for the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon, and was constituted Governor of the castle of Hertford.  He gave Henry III two palfreys for licence to hold a weekly market at his manor of "Halswode", and an annual fair on the eve, day, and morrow after the feast of St. Luke, on October the 18th. Market traders paid a fee to the manor according the space that was allocated to them, a simple arrangement that has continued through the ages (Table 5.1). 

 

It was not until the 19th century that the retail shop usurped the function of the market place.  The commercial traveller with his samples took the place of the itinerant merchant with his wagonload of goods.  People began to specialise in particular classes of goods and to use every device to attract the attention of passers by.  For some shopkeepers, it made sense to obtain extra stock and open up an additional shop, most probably operated by another family member. This would recover business from pedlars, create new business, and the greater volume would allow the shopkeeper to strike a better deal with suppliers. Although families would have mostly run retail chains, as some chains grew they would have needed to employ people from outside their family. This was an important factor as there would have been a limit to the number of trusted non-family members available to help run the chain. Another, even more definite limiting factor, was the distance the furthest shop would have been from the original shop. The greater the distance, the more time and effort would have been needed to effectively manage outpost shops and to service them with goods. There was, therefore, a natural barrier to expansion. That was the case until transport and communications became faster and more reliable. When this at last happened towards the end of the 19th century, chains became much bigger and more widespread.

 

The large shop with many departments, first found in Paris at the start of the 19th century, was copied in British towns.  Halesworth’s Bon Marche appeared in the second half of the century.  Many of these businesses became more structured and formalized, leading to the retail chains that we see today.  However, it was not until the end of the 19th century that retail chains made contact with customers in Halesworth.

 

Although specialist shops are still with us, over time, the general store has increasingly taken on specialist products. Customers have found this to be more convenient than having to visit many shops - thus the term "Convenience Store" has also been applied to these shops. As the popularity of general stores has grown, so has their size. This, combined with the advent of self-service, has lead to the Supermarket, or Superstore. This sequence is illustrated in Halesworth.  The first grocery chain to reach Halesworth was the International Tea Company, which advertised in 1904.  In 1923 it had changed its name to the International Stores.   There was also a branch in Saxmundham, which employed carters who visited villages and farms to collect and deliver orders.  Between the wars the Co-op national chain, which originated in Rochdale, arrived in town.  It was actually an offshoot of the Beccles branch, and occupied premises in Rectory St. next to Tooks’ grocery store in Bridge St (Fig 5.1), a shop run by a local family.  The exact status of the Halesworth Co-op at this time is uncertain. Unlike Tooks it did not advertise goods in the local papers.  The only newspaper reference is for 1937, when it advertised that tickets to visit the Beccles shop to view the furniture department and a mannequin parade could be obtained from the Co-op ‘office’ in Rectory St.   Following the death of Mr. Took in 1945 the Co-op expanded into his former shop.  It remained in Rectory Street until moving to new premises on the site of the old livestock market, where it was rebranded as the Rainbow Supermarket.  The library now occupies the site of the Co-op’s former premises.  From the end of the Second World War until the 1960s it appears that Halesworth’s shoppers had the choice of three large grocery concerns, the Co-op, the International Stores (site now occupied by the SPAR convenience store) and the grocery department of Roe’s Bon Marche in the Market Place.  Their co-coexistence seems to have been due to the strong family loyalties on the part of shoppers rather than price competition. For example, those townsfolk who grew up with the situation say that many women ‘would not be seen dead in the Co-op’.

 

Fig 5.1 Tooks’ grocery store at the corner of Bridge St and Rectory St (circa 1920)

 

 

 

5.2 A spatial  economy

 

Commercial development has been a process of geographical expansion.  In fact, geographical space, as a source of explanation, affects all historical realities.  These realities are all spatially defined phenomena such as sovereign states, societies, cultures and economies.  A small town economy like that of Halesworth is an expression of family needs, which focus a market for goods and services in a localised area.  The economic zone is effectively defined by the space containing the families that are drawn to its market and shops in order to buy and sell.

 

Fig 5.2 Halesworth economic zone in 17th century

 

 

L=Lowestoft; S=Southwold; B=Blythburgh; D=Dunwich; Sa=Saxmundham;F=Framlingham; De=Debenham; M=Mendelsham; E=Eye; H=Harleston.

 

A town economy therefore has a social boundary, and the line that defines it gives it an identity just as coastlines do the sea.  This boundary lies where other similar ones begin.  The frontier is hazy because buyers and sellers on the boundary have options of orientating towards more than one economic centre.  The easier it is for people to access a particular market place the less they are likely to travel to others. Based on the its proximity to other thriving markets in North East Suffolk and the Waveney Valley, it is possible to estimate the size of Halesworth's economic zone in the 17th century (Fig 5.2), which extended deep into the western parts of the Blything Hundred.

 

Because they are hubs of an economic system, towns are also elements of a world-economy, which always has an urban centre of gravity, a city, as the logistic heart of its activity.  News, merchandise, capital, credit, people, instructions and correspondence all flow into and out of the city from far and wide.  Its successful merchants lay down the business law, sometimes becoming extraordinarily wealthy in the process.   Towns lie at varying and respectful distances from the centre, directing the flow of business toward it, redistributing or passing on the goods it sends to its inhabitants, living off its credit or suffering its rule.  Thus metropolises come to be accompanied by a train of subordinate communities that have been expressed as an 'archipelago of towns'.  So it was with Suffolk's overgrown villages like Halesworth, which were orientated for the most part by coastal maritime trade towards the English world economy of London.

 

The financial roots of Halesworth's retail trade go back almost 800 years.  Until the eleventh century there were practically no financial mechanisms in England to facilitate the transformation of savings into investment.  From the eleventh century onwards there was a remarkable development in European business techniques.  The list of innovations is long, such as the organisations of markets and fairs, the appearance and spread of trading manuals, the evolution of new techniques of accounting, the cheque, the endorsement, and insurance.  From the eleventh to the sixteenth century, Italy was the birthplace of most of these innovations. England responded to this economic momentum relatively late.  In a national context it was Edward I who first took advantage of the new international monetary system, borrowing money from the Ricciardi family, bankers of the independent Italian town of Lucca, to finance his war with the Princes of Wales.  This happened in the 1270s. 

 

It appears that Halesworth, with its market granted in 1223, was one of the earliest manifestations of the economic development of Suffolk after the turbulence of the English baronial wars, which only ended in the reign of Edward’s father, Henry III.  The wars of the 12th century were symptomatic of the prevailing primitive social structure.  Society was more or less divided into those who prayed, those who fought and those who laboured.  Fighting and praying were the only respectable activities.   The founding of markets in the 13th century was a political peace dividend; a response to the fact that during the reign of Henry III Europe began to move beyond direct agricultural consumption, i.e. self sufficiency, to the stage of indirect agricultural consumption, which was created by the determined marketing of surplus farm production.  A town with a market began to attract all the skilled crafts, creating for itself a monopoly of the manufacture and marketing of their products.  At the root of the growth of towns was a massive migratory movement.  Towns grew because their populations grew, not by increased fertility or survival, but because of an influx of people from the countryside. 

 

5.3  The retail community

 

By the end of the 15th century Halesworth was creating an economic surplus and stimulating the transfer of such surplus from savers to producers, when and where the latter could invest such resources more productively.  This financial process can be first glimpsed in the 15th century Calendar of Close Rolls (Table 5.2).

 

Table 5.2 References to Halesworth townsfolk in the Calendar of Close Rolls/Patent Rolls

 

1429

Joan Reve Parish chaplain

A Thomas Clement persued Robert Fitzrauf, Gentleman, of Keteryngham Norfolk, a debt of 5 marks.

1431

Robert Sampson tailor.

1439

Robert Meke yeoman, a debt at 40s.

1445

Robert Randolf, chapman, a debt to a mercer of London

of £7 4s.

1449

John Deynes of Halesworth a cutler, a debt of 40s to a

bladesmith of London.

1452

Richard Symonds tailor

1456 

A pardon to John Edderych, bocher, (butcher) broke into close and houses of Michael Strowlyour at Cookley and took 13s and a piece of woollen cloth valued at 5s.

1457

The will of Nicholas Dunmore, a barker.

1461?

Robert Sewale mercer & Robert Randolf draper.

1481

Henry Warner, Halesworth, tailor; general pardon with others from Spexhall charged with murder.

 

This list gives some of the occupations typical of an urban centre, such as cutler, draper and several tailors, the latter implying that a large proportion of families in the town’s economic zone were rich enough to instruct others to clothe them.  Dress was in fact an unsettling social influence.  In particular it encouraged rivalry and ostentation.  Even before 1400 there were complaints that extravagance in dress was tending to upset generally accepted class distinctions.  The Sumptuary Laws were an attempt by London to check the forces that were creating a new type of society.  The livery, which had been the badge of common interests among members of a guild, now emphasised difference in wealth and economic status.  Only the more prosperous townsfolk could afford it.

 

The wealth of Halesworth’s townsfolk at this time can be assessed from the steady rate of production of wills during the 15th, and on into the 16th century (Fig 5.3). 

 

Fig 5.3 Will-making in Halesworth 1419-1525

 

 

As urban wealth increased so did the efforts of government to take a proportion of it in taxes (Table 5.3; Fig 5.4).  As always, few people were rich; most were poor.

 

Table 5.3  Halesworth entry in the tax list of 1524

 

Alman John in goodes £1

Deryk Elizabeth in goodes £1

Fowlyng Thomas in goodes £10

Appulby Thomas in goodes £4

Deryk Henry in goodes £7

Fuller Robert in goodes £1

Arnold John in goodes £1

Kokar Robert, in wages £1

Fysk Johanna in goodes £1

Balle William, in wages £1

Kolsale Thomas in goodes £1

Fysk John mercer in goodes £10

Barett Robert in goodes £1           

Koo Edmund in goodes £1               

Fysk John the elder in goodes £13: 6: 8

Bedford Peter in goodes £1

Kurtes Robert, in wages £1

Garerd Richard in goodes £1      

Bontyng Christofer in goodes £1

*Launce John in goodes £40  (2.0.0)

Garerd Robert in goodes £1

Bradlee Christofer in goodes £5

Neve John in goodes £1)

Goodale Nicholas in goodes £1   

Bryghte Thomas in goodes £4    

Newell Robert, in wages £1 

Goodale William in goodes £1    

Buk John in goodes £5

Norman William in goodes £2  

Heynde Henry in goodes £4

Clerk Robert pynner in goodes £1

Edmondes William in goodes £1

Hunt William in goodes £1

Cooke John, in wages £1 

Feitham John in landes be yer £5

*John Hugh in goodes £80 (4.0.0)                          

Couper Thomas in goodes £2

Flyk Henry in goodes £1                                                              

Kersey Bendes in goodes £1        

Crowe Richard in goodes £ 1        

Flyk John in goodes £10

Knyght Robert in goodes £10

Rechardes John in goodes £1      

Pye Thomas in goodes £1

*Norton Walter in goodes £20  (1.0.0)          

Russell Thomas in wages £1

Saunderson John in goodes £2

Palmer William in goodes £1     

 

Sadborn Edmund in goodes £4

Sawmson William in goodes £5

Payn Thomas in goodes £1           

Pek Maryon in goodes £10         

Sepens Richard in goodes £1

Wallard Robert in goodes £1      

Pek Richard in goodes £12

Srayth Roger in goodes £ 10

Walpoole John thonger in goodes £1

Davy John in goodes £7

*Tower Thomas in goodes £20  (1.0.0)    

Walpoole William in goodes £1  

Welton Thomas in goodes £1

Wrighte Richard in goodes £1    

Wrythok John in goodes £5

Wurlych John in goodes £ 13:6:8

 

 

Summa hujus ville - £13.2.6: * = the four highest taxpayers

 

Fig 5.4  Distribution of  the 1533 tax for Halesworth between 64 inhabitants.

 

 

It is likely that most of these people lived in the town, and suggests a 16th century population for the parish of between 70-100 primary families. This conclusion is supported by lists of communicants of St Mary's parish church made in the 1580s.  The lists contain a maximum of around 80 surnames of those who took communion on important saint’s days, and probably represent most families of the parish.  

 

It was in the 16th century that the first 'maps' of Halesworth were produced.  These were essentially descriptions of the town's principal inhabitants and the houses and land they possessed. These documents have been transcribed to produce virtual maps by matching the descriptions of properties and their relative positions with properties on a modern map.  These virtual maps indicate that the general layout of the modern centre of Halesworth from the church to Bridge St has changed little over the centuries. One of these produced as part of a local Workers Educational Association local studies project is presented in Figs 5.5/5.6 and Table 5.4.  A general conclusion is that the town’s land was being used less intensively in the 16th century.  Altogether there were 74 properties, most of which were described as having houses or cottages. 

 

Four people were in possession of 38% of the properties; John Sone (5); John Browne (6); Thomas Feltham (7) and John Launce (10).  There were two capital messuages (Sir Walter Norton and Thomas Feltham).  Five women held properties; Alice Knight, widow, Cecilia Feltham, Margaret Kelsal, Woman Everrage and Joan Smyth.

Fig 5.5 Conceptual map of north central of Halesworth in 1577

 

 

Fig 5.6 Conceptual map of south central of Halesworth 1577

 

 

 


Table 5.4  Persons listed with property in the 1557 survey of Halesworth (M. Coleman)

 


1

Barfote Thomas: messuage

2

Browne Robert: 2 cottages

3

Knight Alice: ‘Wists’ tenement

4

Henry Robert: messuage

5

Knight Alice: 2 cottages

6

Pryme Thomas Snr: messuage and various parcels of land and garden

7

Pryme Thomas: messuage

8

Smyth Joane: messuage

9

Launce John: ‘Growts’ messuage

10

Launce John: ‘Bell Hangers’ tenement

11

Feltham Cecilia: ‘Spycers’ / Cecilia Feltham & John Launce: Mereas or Moores/John Launce: garden

12

Launce John: cottage

13

Peacock Robert: messuage

14

Launce John: tenement

15

Launce John: ‘Oversowthes’ tenement

16

Pryme Thomas: tenement

17

Launce John: messuage

18

Launce John: two pieces of land

19

Woodward Nicholas: messuage

20

Woodward Nicholas: cottage

21

Woodward Nicholas: land built upon

22

Woodward Nicholas: ‘Prymes’ messuage

23

Cryspe Nicholas: messuage

24

Cryspe Nicholas: ‘Brytans’ messuage

25

Browne John: messuage

26

Halesworth Town: messuage

27

Browne John: messuage

28a

Browne John: ‘Hassards Yard’

28b

Browne John: land

29a

Cryspe Nicholas: ‘Le Hope’: garden formerly meadow

29b

Browne John: ‘Le Hope’ meadow

30a

Browne John: yard

30b

Buntings Fen

31a

Pryme John: garden

31b

Pryme John: cottage

32

Pryme John: messuage

33

Pryme Robert: tenement

34

Smyth Joan: cottage

35

Sone Richard: messuage

36a

Sone Richard: messuage

36b

Sone Richard: ‘The Hennecroft’ close

37

Sone Richard: cottage

38

Scarle James: cottage

39

Scarlet James: cottage

40

Browning Gregory: Maister Adames’ tenement

41

Norton Sir Walter: capital messuage ( once two houses)

42

Norton Sir Walter: tenement with two pightles

43

Knights Widow Anne: messuage and Fayer Close

44

Gace Thomas: messuage (next to this a yard then the Pound

45

Thomas Feltham: messuage

46

Halesworth Town: ‘The Almeshouse’

47

Shipdam Thomas: house and stable (slaughterhouse)

48

Feltham Thomas: ponds, dovecote & garden

49

Feltham Thomas: tenement

50

Feltham Thomas: ‘Palmers’ tenement

51

Feltham Thomas: ‘Towers’ tenement & ’Hunts’ tenement (ruin)

52a

Feltham Thomas: 2 pieces of land

52b

Kelsale Margaret: garden

53

Feltham Thomas: ‘Walpoles’ capital messuage (grange) garden for vegetables and a pond

54

Bucle Robert:messuage

55a

Bucle Robert: messuage

55b

Bucle Robert: tenement

55c

Willyson John: tenement

56

Launce John: ‘Borellys’ messuage

57

Launce John: tenement

58

Launce John: Crosse House

59

Pryme John: Market Place, butchers and land for stalls

60

Everrage Woman: messuage

61

Kelsale Margaret: tenement

62

Shipdam Thomas: messuage

63

Shipdam Thomas: 3 cottages

64

Halesworth Town: messuage

65

The Chaunter-House

66

Sone Richard: site of the Manor of Halesworth


 

 

From the 16th century onwards, Halesworth as a local retail centre gained in strength.  Of the cluster of six markets of Blything, all within four miles of each other, that had received their charters during the 13th century, only Halesworth's was still in use in the 17th century, and has survived on the same spot until the present day. 

 

On average in the 16th century, four-fifths of the population of England was tilling the land, but a gradually increasing proportion were engaged in trade or industry, in both town and country.  The number of small employers and tradesmen was on the increase. The 1674 hearth tax returns for Halesworth provide an indication of above average prosperity because half of the 226 households were paying tax. The average number of families per house was only about 1.4, another indicator of a wealthy group of traders who could afford to keep themselves to themselves. 

 


5.4  Occupations and status

 

A cross section of the occupations of Halesworth folk during most of the second half of the 17th century may be obtained from St Mary’s parish registers.  During that period, men (dying as heads of household, and listed as husbands or fathers of wives and children buried or baptised) were designated by occupation or status.  For example, during the 65 years between 1661and 1726 a total of 100 different designations, most of which were occupations, were listed in the burial register (Table 5.5). There was great variability from year to year with regards the number of persons so designated (Fig 5.7). For example, in 1658 a total of 18 designations were listed whereas in the following year there were only 2.

 

Table 5.5 Occupations of men in St Mary’s burial registers: 1653-1726.

 

 


 

alehouse keeper

almsman

apothecary

apparitor

ashman

attorney

bailiff

baker

barber

basketmaker

blacksmith

brasser

brazier

brewer

bricklayer

brickstriker

butcher

candler

carpenter

carter

chairmaker

chandler

chirugeon

clerk

clerk & sexton

cobbler

cooper

cordwainer

cryer

currier

cutter of tobacco

dancing master

doctor in physic

draper

farmer

feltmaker

fingerbread maker

flaxdresser

gardener

gent

glazier

glover

grocer

Haberdasher of hats

hat dresser

hatmaker

hatter

hewer of clapboard

husbandman

in linen

innholder

innkeeper

Justice of the .Peace.

joiner

knacker

lab

locksmith

mason

metalman

miller

milliner

oatmeal maker

pail maker

physician

pipemaker

ploughwright

plumber

post

potash maker

rabbit man

rush chair maker

saddletree maker

sadler

sawer

schoolmaster

sea soldier

senex

senior tanner

sergeant-at-law

servant

sexton

shoemaker

soap boiler

soldier

stuff weaver

surgeon

tailor

tanner

tapster

thatcher

thatcher/mason

tobacconist

tumer

watchmaker

weaver

wheelmaker

wheelwright

woollen draper

writing master

yeoman


Fig 5.7 Frequency of individuals in burial register with designations of status


 

 

 

A comparison of the annual number of designations of occupation or status, with the annual number of burials indicates that, although the same general trends were followed in both time series, the custom of designation was not consistent from year to year.  This was particularly evident towards the end of the period under examination (Fig 5.8).  In some cases the lack of consistency coincided with a change in the handwriting of the registrar. The custom of designating men by occupation or status lapsed during the first quarter of the 18th century. 

 

Fig 5.8 Comparison of annual number of designations of occupations/status with the annual number of burials (1653-1726).




 

The fact that several hundred burials have an occupation/status category ascribed to them makes this data set suitable for comparing the relative numbers of families, defined by having the same surname, associated with each category.  A convenient cumulative population index, for making such comparisons within Halesworth’s social pyramid is obtained by adding up the number of different family surnames in each occupation/status category over the period 1653-1726.  Comparisons of this cumulative surname index between categories, where each surname included is defined as ‘one family’, provides an approximation of the minimum number of ‘breadwinners’ falling into each category.  For example, there were 24 references in the burial register to ‘wheelwrights’, which were distributed between the families of Aldred (6), Aldridge (1), Hazel (4), Knights (4), Pantry (1), Reese (1), Reeve (5) and Whincop (2).  This gives a surname index of 8 for the wheelwrights.  Indices for most of the categories are presented in Table 5.6.  

 

Table 5.6 Number of family surnames in various trades (burial registers for St Mary’s parish church 1661-1726)

 


Apothecary

8

Attorney

2

Bailiff

2

Baker

9

Barber

12

Basketmaker

2

Blacksmith

11

Brazier

4

Brewer

5

Bricklayer

2

Butcher

13

Candler

1

Carpenter

15

Carter

1

Surgeon

5

Cobler

5

Cooper

10

Cordwainer

2

Currier

6

Doctor in physic/

physician

5

Draper

9

Farmer/yeoman

3

Feltmaker

3

Flaxdresser

2

Gardener

6

Gentleman

19

Glazier

5

Glover

14

Grocer

8

Hats

7

Husbandman

8

Innkeeper

14

Joiner

5

Knacker

5

Labourer

60

Locksmith

5

Mason

8

Miller

4

Oatmeal maker

3

Pailmaker

2

Pipemaker

4

Sadler

12

Sawer

16

Shoolmaster

3

Shoemaker

32

Tailor

24

Tanner

15

Thatcher

4

Tobacconist

4

Turner

3

Weaver

12

Wheelwright

9


 

Comparing the indices for labourers and schoolmasters may make a quick check on the reliability of this approach.  This yields a ratio of 180 labourers to each teacher, which seems a reasonable order of magnitude.  It is a pretty rough and ready method because, on the one hand the index probably underestimates the number of actual families involved at particular times, while on the other hand it overestimates the real situation, because deaths and recruitment of families were inevitably taking place during the three decades covered by the registers.  For example, the burial and baptismal registers taken together tell us that three families of Aldreds, represented by John, Samuel and William, were employed as masons. However, these three families contributed only one surname to the mason index.   The Aldred surname was also represented in the blacksmith index, by the families of Phillip and Thomas.  Phillip died in 1659 and Thomas in 1674, and no more Aldreds had been recruited into this category by 1726. 

 

Nevertheless, taking the figures for comparative purposes only, there is no doubt that labourers made up the greatest proportion of men at the bottom of Halesworth’s social pyramid (just under a fifth of the total surnames).  Probably most of them worked on the land surrounding the township, and they outnumbered their employers, the farmers, yeomen and husbandmen, by about 6:1.  Upper class townspeople, who described themselves as ‘gentlemen’, amounted to around 4% of the surnames in this category, and at the top were the Bedingfields, represented at the very apex by the Rt Hon. Henry, Kt, who at that time was lord of the Manor of Halesworth.

 

Those who provided basic foodstuffs, the grocers, butchers, bakers, oatmeal makers, millers and gardeners made up about 10% of all designations.  There appeared to be only one family making candlesticks, and it is represented in the index by Browne, the ‘candler’, who died in 1566. The medical establishment was well represented by apothecaries, surgeons and physicians (4%).  Barbers (12%) also functioned as a kind of paramedic, particularly with regards bloodletting.  There were as many barbers as butchers. The age of wood was still dominant with regards occupations such as cooper, joiner, sawyer, turner, wheelwright, carpenter and pailmaker (13%).  However, buildings were increasingly being constructed of bricks (bricklayer/mason), although thatchers were still required for roofing them.  Metalworking was moving from the blacksmiths to specialists such as braziers, locksmiths and watchmakers.  Pipemakers and tobacconists were in business for the growing number of smokers, which was being taken up as an adjunct to male social gatherings in the several inns.  With respect to special manufacturing, there appears to have been a concentration of jobs linked with leather working such as currier, glover, knacker, shoemaker, tanner and cordwainer (getting on for 20%).  Another group of specialist jobs were associated with the cloth trade; weaver, draper, flaxdresser and tailor (about 10%).  In all of these activities Halesworth seems to have generated sufficient legal transactions for two attorneys.

 

Any belief that in 17th century England everyone was solely engaged in agriculture, in a subsistence economy with little economic specialization, is undermined by many local studies involving this kind of analysis of the occupational structure. Also, by the late sixteenth century the market in land was fully developed. This may be studied by concentrating on a decade of manorial activity.  A typical finding is that, of the parcels of copyhold property surrendered to the lord of the manor, around 50% of these would be expected to be sales of copyhold estates for cash, and a number of others would be surrenders at the end of mortgage terms or leases. About a half, would be transfers by inheritance between kin.  Such research has shown that this was not a simple 'peasant' society with families holding on to ancestral plots for generation after generation. Rather there was a rapid turnover of family holdings, where only about 10% would be held by the same family (female links included) two generations earlier. This massive shift in land tenure can be seen even in short periods in the records of Halesworth’s Rectory Manor. Property in the manor was very mobile and there seems to have been no strong attempt to 'keep the family name on the land'.

 

5.5  A seller’s market

 

At the time of the first count of all its inhabitants in 1801 the actual population of Halesworth was about 1,600 individuals.  The average national ratio of persons per inhabited house was 5.6, and this would equate to Halesworth having about 280 households at the turn of the 18th century. It indicates that the population had increased approximately three fold in two hundred years. In the larger picture this may be compared with the United Nation's estimate that it took 150 years for the preindustrial population of Europe and Russia to double between 1650 and 1800.  During the next century the rate of increase in Halesworth's population from 1821-31 actually amounted to a doubling every 50 years. Of course this rate was not maintained.  It was not a biological increase, but a response of immigrants towards the town as a thriving economic centre, and therefore a magnet for those in search of economic betterment.  The route to prosperity was paved by economic developments in the previous seven centuries.  The particular boost to Halesworth's fortunes in the 18th century were notably the events, national and local, that led up to the canalisation of the Blyth from Halesworth to Southwold in the 1780s.  This highly significant engineering feat to construct the ‘Blyth Navigation’ was initiated by a collection of local investors, many of whom were not natives of the town. 

 


In summary, at the beginning of the 19th century, Halesworth represented England at the core of the world economy, the country where there was a dissemination of business techniques through London whereby wage labour was penetrating the countryside, and where urban activity was soon to be spread to every area of British life.  One of the first signs of the beginning of a seller’s market was the appearance of mass advertising.

 

The Halesworth Times And East Suffolk Advertiser was first published by George Rackham of Quay St in July 1855.  It was a weekly publication costing one penny, containing 24 columns of close print, comprising important domestic and foreign news of the week, with a full page of advertising.  In five issues taken at random for the months of July-December 1855, a total of 25 businesses were advertised. About half of these appeared once only, and a quarter were published in three or more issues (Table 5.7).  An innovative approach to the relatively new but rapidly growing advertising industry was the presentation of Joseph Dyer, who captured the spirit of the times by picturing the railway; the latest means of connecting Blything families with the products of Empire. The dialogue by which he talked up and promoted his wares has a very modern ring about it (Fig 5.9).  He and his wife are listed at 5 Thoroughfare in the 1851 census, aged 22 and 24 respectively.  They were both born in Liverpool, which raises the interesting question of what fired them to set up business in Halesworth.  In any case, Joseph was too dynamic for small town retailing and we next hear of him in Norwich in the 1860s, where he appears to have taken over a larger outfitting depot, Womacks, from where he offered a mail order service to his old Halesworth customers, based on a range of several thousand ready-made items.  By all accounts Joseph Dyer was a prototype of a new kind of retailing world that was developing alongside the industrial manufacture and mass marketing of old and new kinds of clothing.  At about the same time that Dyer moved to Norwich, a branch of Riches and Skoyles, another outfitting depot, moved into the Thoroughfare at ‘White Hart Corner’.  Possibly this translocation triggered Dyer to move onwards and upwards.

 

Table 5.7  Local advertisers in five random issues of the Halesworth Times and East Suffolk Advertiser: July-December (1855)

 

Aldred William H (oil and lamps)

Botham B W (clothing and cheap warehouse grocery)

Bowles Alfred (dancing and drilling)

Brown Samuel (grocery and provisions, bacon curer)

Burgess N (ironmongery, furnishing ironmongery, paints and polishes)

Burleigh R W (manure, beer, coal, malt, and hops)

Davy Thomas P (drapery)

Day, John (bookseller)

Dyer J (clothier)

Easterson Messrs  (iron founding, and maker and supplier of agricultural machinery)

Ellis W (watch and clock maker, silversmith, jeweller and supplier of spectacles )

Fisher E (tailor)

Foreman John (wholesale and retail grocer and fruiterer)

Freeman, George P. (livestock auctioneer)

Harvey J B (classical, mathematical and commercial academy)

Haward Robert (insurance)

London John F (clothing wharehouse and outfitter)

Rackham George (publisher, bookseller, health foods and patent medicines)

Smith Samuel (coachbuilder)

Strathern F B (wine and spirit and porter merchant)

Taylor G. G., Kings Arms Inn and Commercial Hotel (accommodation , wine and spirit merchant)

Upton William (property auctioneer/appraiser, animal manure works, bone grinder, implement hire)

Wade Denney (brewer)

Wigg Mrs (boots, shoes and bonnet-renovator)

Wigg N (watch and clock maker)

 


Fig 5.9  Advert for Joseph Dyer’s ‘Clothing and Out-fitting Depot’ (Dec 18th 1855)

 

 

From the wording of the adverts we can learn much about the dynamics and character of an expanding local retail trade.  For example, there were two people advertising their services as coachbuilders.  Samuel Smith of Halesworth stated that he was late foreman to Thomas Brown, also of Halesworth.  The other coachbuilder advertising his business was J J Webb.  He had transferred Thomas Brown’s Halesworth business to Yoxford, presumably on Brown’s decease, from where he was in partnership with Mrs. Brown. 

 

F .B. Strathern had recently taken over the wine and spirit business of Farr and Leman and had opened the vaults formerly in the hands of Mr. F Haward.  E. Fisher, nine years a Halesworth tailor, informs his friends that he is about to move into premises formerly occupied by N Burgess ironmonger, opposite the White Hart Inn.  Here is revealed a bustling group of people ‘on the make’.

 

George Rackham was trying to capitalise on the new age of chemical science.  Although he was the publisher of the Halesworth Times, he was also making his own patent medicines and health foods, such as an improved lemon-flavoured Seidlitz Powder for relieving bile, indigestion, nausea, heartburn etc., and supplying his own special baking powder, an offshoot of new food technology that was being applied to staple foods. He claimed his powder (probably sodium bicarbonate) produced dough that was superior to fermented bread, particularly for those liable to constipation.  Rackham also sold famous national patent medicines, such as Page and Woodcock’s ‘wind pills’, and Professor Morton’s ‘cough balls’.  Rackham was soon to face competition, for in December, H Pedgrift opened up as a chemist.  He stocked ‘every assortment of English and foreign perfumery, horse, cattle and patent medicines of every description’. There were seasonal sales, as for example when B W Botham sold off his summer stock of shawls, mantles, dresses, bonnets, and ribbons at cost price, ‘owing to the lateness of the season’.  There were also more opportunistic salesmen.  From an advert of Thomas P Davy, we are told that he had bought the entire stock of drapery from George Elliot of Ipswich, valued at £468 6s 8d, and intended to sell it off at Norwich House, Thoroughfare.  The scale of this event must have been overwhelming to the likes of the Bothams, and of Halesworthians in general.  To take only one category, Davy’s monster sale included 500 pairs of children’s and women’s boots and shoes commencing at 2d a pair.  Many of the advertisers go into great detail regarding their stock.  For instance, John London lists the new stock of his warehouse, as furs, gloves, scarves, cravats, mufflers, shirts, collars, handkerchiefs, and general hosiery: silk and alpaca wool, umbrellas, travelling bags, cases and portmanteaus.  He commanded national agencies for ‘a special elastic stocking and knee cap’, and Ford’s ‘Eureka’ shirts.  R. W. Burleigh is an interesting example of a multiple warehouse vendor, supplying wheat-manure, Peruvian guano, stout, porter, ales, fresh malt and hops. He also sold Sunderland coal from the Navigation wharf.  In contrast, Denny Wade was a specialist brewer, advertising four grades of his own production, from his best beer at 1s 4d, down to a fourth table-grade at 6d per gallon.  ‘The Advertiser’ had little to say about the butcher and baker, which most inhabitants would of necessity visit every day.  But even at this basic level, the grocer Samuel Brown, as part of an increasingly expanded, globalised grocery and provision trade, was seeking strenuously to purchase at the best markets a supply of every article.  This particularly included former luxuries, demanded for family consumption, ‘of dairies of good butter and genuine fine teas, coffees and spices’.

 

Farmers were served by George P Freeman, livestock auctioneer, and Messrs Easterson and Son, iron founders.  The latter were making their own improved ploughs, chaff cutters and engines for coupling to horse-drives.  The firm also sold weighing machines, field rollers, horse-hoes, corn mills, feeding troughs, and hurdles.  In addition, the firm undertook work in cast iron and wrought iron.  Also, they were agents for a variety of patent agricultural machinery, a portent that small-scale ironworkers were on the way out.  Freeman’s auction market dealt, large-scale, in horses, cattle, sheep and pigs.  On August 1st he disposed of 41 horses, 78 cattle, 2000 sheep and 100 pigs, most of which were probably walked to town from neighbouring farms.

 

There were some things it seems that Halesworth could not supply, such as teeth, for which readers were invited to visit Mr. Neep, surgeon dentist of  Norwich.  If they needed pianos, the place to go was Suggate’s gigantic ‘Music Warehouse’ at Lowestoft.  To fill the gap in things of the mind, we learn that Mrs. Corbyn of Beccles, professor of the pianoforte and singing, would be visiting the people of Halesworth after Michaelmas for the purposes of giving instruction. 

 

The other source for information about the Halesworth retail trade is the Ipswich Journal.  This has a longer history of publication.  For instance, the issue of Jan 10th 1851 contains information about the pending auction, in June, of the business effects of George Godbold, a Halesworth cabinetmaker and upholsterer.  It included:-

 

“The entire and valuable stock of cabinet and upholstery furniture of the latest manufacture and newest design, together with the unmanufactured stock and furniture and general effects throughout the dwelling house.  Excellent pony, luggage and dog carts etc.

 

Capital pony, carts and harness and miscellaneous property in and about the spacious showroom, shops and premises situate in The Thoroughfare, Halesworth.

 

Comprising excellent carved mahogany four post French and half tester bedsteads; feather beds and bedding; splendid French polished mahogany wardrobe; a large assortment of birchwood and neatly painted chamber tables and chairs, modern mahogany chests of drawers; handsome chimney box, tray and other glasses in gilt and mahogany frames; tastefully constructed and finely grained mahogany dining and Loo card and Pembroke tables; neatly fitted mahogany escritoire, elegant Pickwick hall and easy chairs; costly rosewood and mahogany estriole and other couches, fully-sized mahogany sofa, Spanish mahogany sideboard and chiffoniers; sets of horsehair seated, fancy, drawing room, reclining and Dover chairs; mahogany whatnots and ornamental stands, rosewood and mahogany writing desks and music stools, wainscote napkin press; upwards of 1100 pieces of paper hangings, about 250 yds Kidderminster, Venetian, patent felt and other carpets of good quality, 12 handsome Brussels rugs, 100 yds painted floorcloth, a quantity of cocoanut, Manila, dyed wood and other matting and mats, several pieces of drab moreens, chintz, richly figured damask, patent felt and painted table cloths, a quantity of bed ticking, hair seating and black Holland gimp, fringes, tassels, loops, miscellaneous effects in the trade.

 

The unmanufactured stock etc embraces about 600 ft of Spanish and Honduras mahogany, a quantity of Wainscot, Walnut tree, Beech and deal plank and board; 230 ft of veneers; 6 work benches, cupboards and nests of drawers, several pairs of bed sides and rounds, a valuable assortment of ironmongery, packing cases and other useful articles.

 

The stable and outdoor offices include a very superior chestnut pony, 6 year old, cob-sized dog cart and harness, furniture truck, grindstone, wheelchaff engine, corn chest and numerous effects, particularised in the catalogues to be obtained of Mr Joseph Farrow, Bungay, and Mr Nathaniel Burgen, Halesworth, the Trustees, at the Principle inns in Beccles, Bungay, Harleston and Saxmundham, and of the Auctioneers, Howlett and Lenny, Wissett near Halesworth.  Jan 29th-30th”

 

Taken together with other information from the Halesworth Times, the local newspapers not only provide a window into trade, but also throw light on domestic consumption, and highlight the globalisation of Halesworth’s commercial footprint, which, already in the mid-Victorian period, extended the town’s wants from the tea, coffee, spice and rubber plantations of the far East, to the guano ‘mines’ on Pacific Islands off the coast of Peru, and the primeval mahogany forests of the tropics.

 

5.6 Community directories

 

In Britain, the first recognisable community directories emerged during the seventeenth century, meeting a growing demand for accurate information about trade and industry for the purposes of travelling salesmen. They also met another important growing demand for information on local history and social structure.  In the latter context they provided a 'Whos Who?' to sustain the local social hierarchies based on wealth in property and land. From this point of view they were by no means comprehensive since they set out to record the "principal inhabitants" of a community, those in trade, and others affluent enough to be recognised as the important people in the community, such as the gentry or clerics, professionals etc. The labouring men and women in a community rarely figure in these publications. 

 

Directories were compiled by publishers for profit.  They appeared at almost random intervals during the late 18th and 19th centuries, and there must always be a question mark over who was included or excluded.  We shall never know the precise relationship between an entry in the Directory, say of a business, and the payment to the author of the Directory of a subscription to finance the publication. If someone refused to pay, did his or her business disappear from the list?  There is no certainty, therefore, that the information they contain is either comprehensive or accurate.  Such information has to be crosschecked with other local sources, such as Parish Registers or the census returns; to establish as far as possible what the real situation was at the time the Directory was compiled.

 

Nevertheless, directories are an invaluable primary source for historians. They provide first hand data about local communities, their infrastructure and the individuals inhabiting those communities. Published more frequently than the census, directories can also help fill in any missing gaps.

 

A later development was the emergence of larger-scale directories during the late eighteenth century. These covered substantial parts of the country. Such ambitious publications were costly to produce, requiring the collection of data by a large number of local agents. Consequently, the production of these national and provincial directories was increasingly concentrated into the hands of a few large companies.

 

By the early nineteenth century, methods of compilation had become highly organised. In part, this reflected the growing links between directories and the Post Office. Many postal officials, such as Frederick Kelly, turned their hand to directory publishing as a means of both aiding their work and making some extra money. Information was collected by letter carriers, who circulated forms during their postal rounds, and also delivered the finished directory on commission.

 

5.6.1 Historical trends

 

Trends in the number of directories published in England and Wales show considerable fluctuation over time.

 

·         The period 1760 to 1850 was one of sustained, if rather erratic, growth for directories. This was driven by increased trade, urbanisation and transport improvements.

·         The 1850s saw some consolidation within the industry leading to an initial decline, followed by a period of relative stability.

·         From around 1870 far more directories started to be published again, with particularly rapid growth after 1880.

·         The heyday of the trade directory was the early twentieth century, when over 250 were published each year, apart from a dip during World War I.

 

The peak year for directory publications was 1936, with around 320 directories appearing. This sustained growth stemmed from continuing urbanisation and the increasing importance of retail and service activities in the British economy.  During World War II, however, the publication of directories declined sharply to less than 100 per year. Despite a slight recovery after 1945, they never again approached pre-war levels. Many of the publishers had gone out of business during the war years.  After World War II trade directories also faced growing competition from telephone directories, particularly for business and commercial use. The 1950s, in many ways, marked the end of large-scale directory production and usage.

 

Some of the key features likely to be found in many directories are:

 

·         descriptions of cities, parishes, towns and villages. These may include geographical, historical and statistical details

·         information about local facilities, institutions and associations

·         listings for private residents, traders, trades and professions

·         details of important people in the community

·         advertisements

 

The early directories were speculative ventures and tended to concentrate on towns and their immediate surroundings. There was a growing demand from the late 18th century onwards because of the rapid expansion of commerce carried forward by an increasing number of tradesmen, many of whom were becoming more specialised and forging business links.  By the Victorian period most towns, cities and regions had publications listing most local tradespeople, professionals and public office holders together with details of transport services, newspaper circulations and potted local histories. By the later 19th century, directories were produced by commercial publishers attempting a national coverage.  Some, such as Kelly and Pigot, went on to become household names.

 

Early directories appear to have followed two paths of development:

 

·         Some early directories were speculative ventures. These were established by entrepreneurial publishers in response to the expansion of trade.

 

·         Other directories evolved from the lists of traders kept by the earliest registry offices. This type of directory was particularly common in provincial towns.

 

Directory publishers during this early period came from all lines of work, which gave them access to information about names and addresses. Some typical examples of publishers include:

 

·         registry officers

·         printers

·         house agents

·         auctioneers

·         policemen.

 

The ways in which publishers collected data also varied considerably. Some obtained information by personal canvassing and combined the results with existing listings.  Other publishers simply asked people to send in their names together with a small payment if they wanted to be included in the directory.

 

5.6.2 Use of directories for research

 

Directories are also a major source for research into economic activities such as manufacturing and retailing. They provide data about:

 

·         the expansion or decline of individual firms and particular areas

·         types of business, locations and ownership patterns

·         commercial relationships between local communities

·         occupations that have since disappeared or changed beyond all recognition.

 

Directories offer the opportunity to research aspects of social mobility, such as the fashionable status of certain areas in cities or towns, immigrant communities in the nineteenth century, and information about local administration, charities and public services.  However it is important to know whether or not the information in a directory is accurate, whether it offers a good representation of the economic and social structure of an area, and how its coverage compares with other directories of a similar date.

 

The content of a 19th century directory throwing light on the pattern of Halesworth retailing is best illustrated by William White's 'History Gazetteer and Directory of Suffolk', which was first published in 1844.  Its stated purpose was to provide an up to date general survey of the county.  It included histories, and statistical/topographical descriptions of the hundreds and liberties (administrative divisions) with current information describing their extent, population, agriculture, manufactures, markets, fairs, trade, and commerce.  Social well being was set out in terms of charities and public institutions, including churches and chapels, their annual value and the patrons and incumbents of the benefices, the lords of the manors, and owners of the soil and tithes. The poor law unions and county court districts were defined.  Each community was described with addresses of the inhabitants, the railway trains, steam packets, coaches and carriers, and the seats of nobility and gentry, magistrates, and public officers, and a variety of other agricultural statistical and biographical information.  All of this was contained in one A2 volume, about two inches thick.  William White was the author of similar works for Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and many other counties.  The Directory was priced at 14s in calf binding or 12s 6d in boards. The primary information was provided by local 'literary and official gentlemen of the county' and was compiled in Sheffield by White and his assistants.  This massive publishing exercise was financed by around 3500 pre-publication subscribers. 

 

At the other extreme is Stebbings directory for Halesworth published in 1877.  This was the product of a local publisher in Lowestoft solely for the townsfolk and includes many private individuals, artisans and their addresses.

 

Regarding the value of White's and similar directories with a commercial orientation as reliable sources of information about the economic structure of communities, there are questions to be answered regarding their production: -

 

What was the system by which individuals were selected for inclusion in a directory?

What proportion of the population was represented in a directory?

Can directories be used to quantify the sociality of economic development with respect to:

 

·         the life of businesses;

·         the mobility of individuals;

·         consumerism, patterns and changes;

·         distribution of wealth.

·         occupations

 

Answers to these questions are difficult to obtain because in most cases the directory is the only evidence available.

5.6.3  Halesworth in directories

 

From the Halesworth entry in White's directory for 1844 we learn of two large industrial activities comprising an iron foundry/agricultural implement manufacturers, and several malting houses. Regarding the presence of enterprising individuals, the following list shows the variety and numbers of jobs, trades and professions (Table 5.8). 

 

Table 5.8 Occupations listed in White's directory for Halesworth (1844)

 


postmaster, 1


cork cutter, 1

chief constable, 1

thatcher, 1

lodging house owner, 1

solicitors, 2

chimney sweep, 3

excise officer, 2

bankers clerks, 6

wherryman,

solicitors clerks, 2

collector of navigation tolls, 1

well-sinker, 1

jeweller/tea dealer, 1

musical instrument maker, 1

hawkers, 2

carriers, 2

tailor, 1

wine merchant, 1

foreman, 1

builder, 1

shopman, 1

overlookers, 2

gardeners,  2

police officers,  3

tanner, 1

trunk maker, 1

painter, 1

whiting manufacturer, 1

coach painter,  1

soda water manufacturer, 1

rat catcher, 1

plant dealer, 1

brewers, 4

bailiff, 1

greengrocer, 1

attorneys, 3

fire and life officers, 10

inn/tavern keepers, 14 

teachers, auctioneer, 11

bakers, 10

basket makers, 5

beerhouse keepers, 8

fishmonger, 1

blacksmiths, 6

booksellers/printers, 3

boot/shoemakers, 17

brazier/tinners, 3

bricklayers,  5

brickmakers, 3

butchers, 10

cabinet makers, 3

chemist/druggists, 3

coach brokers, 2

coach maker, 1

coal merchants, 4

coopers, 3

corn/flour dealers,  5

corn merchants, 2

corn millers, 3

curriers,  2

dyers, 3

farmers, 8

farriers, 2

furniture/clothes brokers,  3

glass/china dealers, 3

glovers, 2

grocer/drapers, 9

gun makers, 2

hairdressers, 4

hatter, 1

ironmongers, 4

joiner/builders, 9

lime burners,  2

maltsters, 7

milliners, 6

painter/plumber/glaziers, 4

saddlers, 5

shopkeepers, 8

rope and sack manufacturer, 1

straw hat makers, 9

surgeons,  4

tailors, 13

timber merchant, 1

toy and fancy warehouses, 2

watchmakers, 5

wheelwright, 1

whitesmiths, 3


 

 

Half a century later, the following people were entered in the 1912 directory (Table 5.9).

 

Table 5.9  Occupations listed in Kelly's directory for Halesworth (1912)


agricultural manure merchant, 1

ale, wine and spirits stores, 1

apartment owner, 1

assessor/tax collector, 1

asst. overseer, 1

auctioneers, 3

baker/confectioners, 2

bakers, 3

bankers, 7

beer retailer, 1

beer retailer/grocer,1

berlin wool warehouse, 1

bill poster, 1

blacksmith, 1

boot/shoe repairers, 3

boot/shoemakers, 4

bootmaker, 1

brewers/maltsters, 1

bricklayers, 2

builders, 4

butchers, 4

carpenter/ wheelwright, 1

chemist, 1

chimney sweep, 1

china, glass and earthenware dealer, 1

clothiers, 2

coach/carriage builder, 1

coal dealers, 2

coal, corn, paper and rag merchant, 1

confectioner, 1

cooper, 1

corn, seed and coal merchant, 1

cutlery grinder, 1

cycle agents, 3

dairymen, 2

dealer in antique furniture, 1

dentist drug stores, 1

draper/furnisher, 1

drapers, 3

drapers/general provisions, 1

dressmakers, 5

fancy repository, 1

farm bailiff,  1

farmers, 4

fishmongers, 3

fruiterers, 2

general carter, 1

girls school owner, 1

grocers, 3

hairdresser,  1

hairdresser/fancy repository, 1

harness makers, 2

horse/cattle practitioner, 1

hotel owners, 7

inland revenue officer, 1

insurance agents, 7

ironmongers, 2

jewellers,  1

jobbing gardener, 1

Jobmasters,  2

laundress, 1

maltster, 1

maltsters/general merchants, 1

miller, 1

milliner,  shopkeeper/cabinet maker, 1

mineral water manufacturers, 1

motor engineers, 1

painter, 1

photographer, 1

plumber/decorators, 2

plumber/painter, 1

police officers, 2

pork butchers, 5

printer/stationer, 1

provisions dealer, 1

publicans, 8

publisher, 41

registrar, 1

sack, tarpaulin, flag and tent makers, 1

school attendance officer, 1

seedsman/greengrocer, 1

shoeing smith, 1

shoeing/tyre smith, 1

shopkeepers, 4

solicitors, 5

station masters, 2

stationer, 1

stone mason, 1

surgeons, 5

tailors, 3

timber merchant, 1

tinplate worker, 1

tobacconist, 2

tobacconist/hairdresser, 1

town crier, 1

upholsterer, 1

vet, 1

watch repairer, 1

watchmakers, 2

wheelwright, 1


The 1912 directory has about 10% more occupations than the one published in 1844.  However, taking the two directories together, a total of 189 distinct occupations are listed, and of these, only 34 (18%) are common to both lists.  Many of the descriptions in both directories were assigned to one individual only.  In 1844 these occupations that were distinct to one person amounted to about a third of the entries, whereas in 1912 two thirds of the entries were in this category. In the half century that had elapsed between the publication of these two directories some common occupations such as straw-hat maker and part-time fire and life insurance officers had become extinct, and new occupations associated with technological change, such as ‘cycle agent’ and ‘photographer’, had come to the town.  However, some of the changes were fortuitous, as was the presence of a musical instrument maker in the 1844 directory, and the girl's school owner in 1912.  On the whole, the differences seem to reflect a turnover of individuals rather than a fundamental difference in the supply of goods and services.  Nevertheless, the comparison does reveal a move away from small family concerns towards fewer and larger enterprises, which were associated with large-scale specialised production.  This is particularly evident in the smaller numbers of bakers, tailors, and boot and shoemakers in the directory for 1912.

 

By 1912 the existing retail patterns of Halesworth were for the most part the result of past decisions by innumerable individuals or groups, and those decisions included many more factors than simply those related to where to locate a new enterprise.  In an ideal world the decision to invest in a new business enterprise would be taken after a thorough appraisal of the numerous elements that combine to render the project viable. In practice the majority of such decisions are probably taken without such a complete appraisal.  The vast majority of new enterprises set up during the 19th century were quite small, and lacked the resources necessary to conduct any detailed analysis of locations; the location decisions were therefore necessarily of the 'hit or miss' variety. Nevertheless, such new businesses commonly enter the field of some already established local speciality product, or one for which existing local demand is manifestly large, so that the location has some internal rationale.

 

For small town business in general, the normal 'location question' historically posed to investors ('What is the best location in which to manufacture or market this product?') is inverted, to become 'What is the product I can best make or sell in this location?’ which is equally rational and cost effective. In the world of mass-production, which grew much more competitive from 1844 to 1912, not all new business enterprises would survive. Then, as now, many would fail because their location decision was inappropriate or the initial financial investment was inadequate. Others would survive, although at below optimal levels. A few would be expected to grow in stature within their communities, their regions and their nations, and no doubt thereby confirm the superior wisdom (or good fortune) of their founders.  Evidence from the trade directories supports the idea that this was the small-scale scenario in 19th century Halesworth, with inevitably a rapid turnover of family businesses.

 

5.7 Ebb and flow of traders through directories

 

The above comparisons made between directories published at different times can be developed as a method to quantify the instability of family enterprises.  Families in trade may be defined in relation to their surnames, and an analysis of changes in surnames between directories will provide a good approximation of the rate of flow of businesses through the town.  This approach has been developed by comparing a sequence of pairs of Halesworth directories that were published between 1783-1892 (Tables 5.10 and 5.11).  The following paragraphs describe a method of charting the coming and going of traders.  Those who only want to read the conclusions are advised to go to subsection 5.7.1.

 

Up to 1844 the average gains and losses of surnames per year of those in trade both increased, with gains exceeding losses.  During the period 1844-55, both the rates of loss and gain of surnames decreased, with the losses slightly exceeding the gains. After 1855 both rates increased up to 1883, but rates of loss continued to exceed the rates of gain.  Between 1883-92, the average rates of gains and losses decreased by about 50%, with losses exceeding gains (Fig 5.10). 

 

 

Table 5.10 Comparisons of surnames in pairs of Halesworth directories (1793-1892)

 

Comparison of years

Years

Total entries (1)

Lost

Gained

In both

In both  as percentage of (1)

Lost as percentage of (1)

Gained as percentage of (1)

1793-1830

37

202

48

131

23

11.4

23.8

64.9

1830-1844

14

282

55

127

100

35.5

19.5

45.0

1844-1855

10

311

104

83

124

39.9

33.4

26.7

1855-1879

24

301

121

97

83

27.6

40.2

32.2

1879-1883

4

224

46

38

140

62.5

20.5

16.9

1883-1892

9

231

68

53

110

47.6

29.4

22.9

 

 Table 5.11  Rates of change of surnames

 

Interval

Mid point

Average loss/yr

Average gain/yr

1773-1830

1811

1.3

3.5

1830-1844

1837

3.93

9.07

1844-1855

1849

10.4

8.3

1855-1879

1867

5.04

4.04

1879-1883

1881

11.5

9.5

1883-1892

1888

7.6

5.9

 

Fig 5.10   Comparison of rates of gains and losses of surnames

 

 

Over the entire period of the study, between 1783-1892, the pattern of change in surnames of those in trade was characterised by there being a decline in the proportion of new surnames added in each interval between publications.  There was also a rise in the proportional losses of surnames from paired directories, which reached a peak between 1855-79 (Fig 5.11).  At this time, the Halesworth directories were more or less in a steady state, with gains, losses and carry-overs all being around a third of the total surnames in pairs of directories added together.  The time of the peak in losses between directories was preceded by a maximum in the total number of surnames for each pair of directories.  The latter occurred between 1844-55 (Fig 5.12).  Between 1773-1892 there was around a ten-fold variability in the average rate of loss of surnames between paired directories (1.3-11.5/yr).  The variability in gains was less (3.5-9.5/yr).  However, the average rates of loss and gain over the entire period were about the same (6.6 and 6.7 names of persons in trade per year). 

 

 

 

 

Fig 5.11  Changes in surnames: paired comparisons of losses and gains as a proportion of those occurring in both directories (1855-79)

 

 

Fig 5.12  Total number of surnames 1783-1892

 

 

In order to examine these conclusions in relation to the bigger socio-economic picture it is necessary to turn to the Halesworth population censuses.  These ten-year surveys show that the population began to increase exponentially at the start of the 19th century, attaining its fastest rate of growth between 1811 and 1821 (addition of about 36 people per decade; Fig 5.13).

 

During the next decade the rate of population growth decreased, and came to an abrupt end, at a level of about 2660 persons, in the mid 1840s.  The population then began to fall, and apart from a small upturn in 1881, it continued to decline until the end of the century, at which time there had been a 16% decrease in the number of inhabitants from its mid-century level (a loss of 419 people, or 8 persons/decade).  These changes in population and directory surnames of those in trade are summarised in Table 5.12. There were no changes in parish boundaries that could play a significant part in the process.

 

 


Fig 5.13  Change in population of Halesworth (1801-1904)

 

 

Table 5.12  Timeline of population dynamics of Halesworth through the 19th century.

 

Population dynamic

Year

First evidence of burst in population growth

1811

Surname gain = its largest proportion of total surnames*

1811

1st maximum population growth

1825

1st maximum of surname gain

1837

Termination of population growth

1845

1st maximum of surname loss

1849

Beginning of decline in population

1850

Maximum surnames in directory

1850

Minimum of surname gain

1867

2nd maximum of population growth

1881

2nd maximum of surname gain

1881

2nd maximum of surname loss

1881

Surname loss = its largest proportion of total surnames*

1881

* in both directories added together

 

5.7.1 Population dynamics of householders

 

To summarise, a study of Halesworth’s trade directories has shown:

 

·   that most traders may be classed as colonists;

·   the incoming specialist traders reflected national trends in the development of new technologies;

·   the rise and fall of the number of traders more or less followed the trends in population;

·   initially, as the town’s population increased, more traders arrived and no doubt took over existing private houses, which then became live-over shops; even today, customers entering the ‘Ancient House’ and the Toy shop are immediately very much aware of moving within the original timber compartmentation of medieval town houses;

·   the number of new traders declined because the number of premises suitable for trade became saturated;

 

·   at any time it was probably vacant shops that controlled the inflow of new shopkeepers;

·   businesses were short lived and were seldom passed on to the next generation.

 

Fig 5.14  Birth categories of heads of households recorded in three census returns

 

Category 1: Born in Halesworth                             Category 2: Others born in Suffolk

Category 3: Others born in Blything                      Category 4: Born outside Suffolk

Category 5: Total heads of household

 

The above dynamic flux between native-born tradespeople of Halesworth and those who came to the town as colonists was generally true for the population as a whole.  In 1851 only about a third of the heads of household were born in Halesworth.  By 1901 the total number of householders had actually declined by about 6%, yet from 1851 to 1901 the number of native heads of households remained well below that of colonists (Fig 5.14).  Most of the colonists were born in Suffolk, of which just less than a half came from within the Blything Hundred.  Over the whole period there was a trend for householders to come from a wider area, and by the 1901 census people born outside the county had risen by about 40%.  However the majority of the householders were still Suffolk born. 

 

Over the half century between 1851 and 1901 a large turnover of householders would be expected as people died or moved away.  The question as to how many were replaced by natives may be answered by first counting the householders present in 1901 who had the same surnames as those in 1851, and then finding out how many of these had been born in the town.

 

In 1851 the number of householders was 571.  By 1901, out of a total population of 537 heads of household, there were 273 who had the same surnames as those present in 1851.  This means that in 1901 around half of the 1851 heads were no longer present and had been replaced by people with different surnames, many of which were common to all communities.  Of the 273 people present in 1901 with the same surnames as those present in 1851, only 123 had been born in Halesworth.  This indicates that, as a minimum, about three quarters of the 1901 population were colonists.  Since the population size had hardly changed since 1851, the conclusion is that during the second half of the 19th century, migrants were replacing native householders at a rate of about 10 per year.  Looking back to 1851, only 107 out of the town’s 292 householders had the same names as those present in 1901, which suggests that this high rate of replacement of Halesworth’s property owners with incomers was a long-standing historical feature of the town’s population.  On the whole, it appears that few families can be said to be truly native to the town.  The rule was that, generation-by-generation, people came and went, but remained attached to their family’s roots in the county.

 

5.8 History of retail premises

 

Since the middle of the 19th century retail businesses in small towns have always faced increasing challenges as they strive to attract new shoppers and retain customer loyalty.  ‘Big box’ retailers lure customers with extensive product diversity and competitive prices made possible by the economies of scale in manufacturing and purchasing. Yet the central business area of market towns, which in Halesworth has meant The Thoroughfare and Market Place, has historically been the hub of civic life.  Essential goods and services were offered in a walkable setting between church and river. Shoppers conducted their business and in so doing the social networks and economic vitality of a community were established and strengthened. 

 

‘Main Street’ districts have been good places for socialising in towns and cities.  Yet, since the early 1980s commentators on the retail trade have lamented the loss of these places that give towns their character and provide a sense of identity for residents. At the start of the 21st century many communities, recognising the loss of the centres that bridged economic and community life, are making attempts at revival. Needs for physical improvements are many, as business communities reckon with the physical decline brought on by years of inadequate maintenance and the need to separate pedestrian shoppers and traffic. 

 

Fig 5.15 Portion of the Halesworth tithe map of 1839 (numbers refer to the Tithe Apportionment)

 


Building facades, streets, pavements, and infrastructure need attention, all of which are being addressed by the process of pedestrianisation of main streets so as to draw consumers away from supermarket car parks.  In all of this, Halesworth has followed national trends, the major response being to bypass the medieval centre by constructing a semi ring road through the wet pasture lands immediately to the east of the settlement, and linking this with the road to Harleston through a new housing estate to the south of the church.  The small ancient core of Halesworth as a market settlement still remains within the boundary of the new roads.  This can be confirmed from the earliest map, the Tithe Apportionment map of 1839, to which the main retail premises of today can be aligned (Fig 5.15).  Each premises on both sides of the Thoroughfare was but a small frontage of a large irregular plot extending deep into closes between the road and the river. 

 

Table 5.13  Retail occupation of properties in central Halesworth in 1979, which occupied plots, numbered on the Tithe Map for The Thoroughfare and Market Place

 

Ref.

Occupier

Ref

Occupier

Ref

Occupier

Ref

Occupier

558

butcher

538

Printing and clothing

228

newspapers

208-5

Ladies clothing, drapers, furniture

557

dentist

529

Newspaper

227

draper

204

Tobacconists gents hairdresser

556

toys

529

solicitor

223-4

bank

202

Mens clothing

555-9

Private house

525

auctioneers

221

sweetshop

200

electricity

554

Ladies/mens clothing

518

hotel

219

Bike shop

410

Takeaway meals

553

books

515

accountant

218-7

bank

390

Pet supplies

552

electrical goods/services

510

bank

216

Ladies clothes

374

Car repairs

548

laundry/dry cleaning

238

baking

215

chemist

371

Car sales

547

public house

237

Private house

214

solicitors

368

butchers

543

solicitor

235

Private house

213

Ironmonger/hardware

405

toilets

541

Convenience store

234

Trade union

212

painter

407

Wines and beer

540

accountant

233

greengrocer

211

bakery

 

 

539

jewellers

229

furniture

210

Wool/knitting supplies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.8.1 Retail establishments: 1838-2005

In 1979 a project organised by the Workers Educational Association attempted to relate the positions of modern shops in the Thoroughfare and Market Place to the sites of properties numbered on the Tithe Map.  These two roads have most of the town’s retail establishments.  A total of 51 premises were so identified (Table 5.12).  There was a good match of position showing that the general layout of properties had changed little in seven decades.   Most of the family businesses represented one of their kind, and apart from banks and solicitors there was virtually no competition for services

 

The authors repeated this survey in 2005 using a modern map (Figs 5.16 and 5.17).  A total of 79 shops, businesses and private houses were identified in The Thoroughfare and Market Place, all of which occupied sites originally delineated on the Tithe Map.  There had been some changes in ownership and type of business since 1979, notably a garage and car showroom in the Market Place had been replaced by three private houses, but the range of goods and services on offer were mostly the same (Table 5.13 and 5.14).

 

Halesworth is not unusual in these respects.  Retailing is an uncertain business.  A change in the ownership of firms has always been a regular feature.  Regarding the national level in the retail sector,  rumours constantly abound of mergers and acquisitions. For larger organisations this may cause issues surrounding branding: consumers may not recognise the new brand or trust the product making start-up something of a lottery.  However, a new factor which is likely to affect the rates of change in ownership is internet shopping.  No retail sector has been hit harder by internet shopping than the consumer electricals market. Millions of electrical items are bought online where customers can find and compare market information quickly, easily and reliably. As a result, traders with imagination and courage will thrive in the internet age, while those less able will be removed by consumers going elsewhere.

 

Fig 5.16 Retail establishments in Thoroughfare December 2005

 

 

 

The new factors affecting small town retailers, which did not affect Halesworth shopkeepers until the last decade, are concerned with meeting the need to keep up with consumer sensitivities in a number of key areas:

 

·         Health issues – irradiated and genetic modification of foods. Use of dangerous chemicals, for example the use of phthalates in plastics and cosmetics.

 


Fig 5.17 Retail establishments in Market Place December 2005

 

 

 

Table 5.14  Key to Figs 5.15 and 5.16

 

Ref

Name

Description

 1

C A Palmer & Son

butchers

 2

Childrens Society

charity shop

 3

Patricks

greengrocers

 4

Country Kitchen

delicatessen

 5

Halesworth Toy Shop

toys

 6

Warner’s Wine Bar

restaurant

 7

Flick and Son

estate agent & auctioneers

 8

Camplings

launderers & dry cleaners

 9

The White Hart

public house

10

Durrants

estate agents & auctioneers

11

Spar

convenience store

12

Focus Organics

clothing & gifts

13

Focus Organics

delicatessen etc

14

Denson Jewellers

jewellers

15

Hair and Beauty House

hairdresser

16

Forbouys

newsagents

17

Maggie’s Discounts

haberdashery and wool

18

HRG Shoe Repairs

leather goods

19

Cross and Ram

solicitors

20

James Hayward

second hand books

21

The Angel

hotel

22

Juler Tooke

accountant

23

Bank House

private residence

24

Barclays

bank

25

Ad Shop

printing services

25a

Studio

picture  framing

26

Allen’s Butchers

butchers

27

Galaxy Travel

travel agents

27a

Galaxy Travel

travel agents

28

Kai King

Chinese takaway

29

Gooderham

architect

30

Ipswich Building Society

building society

31

Hair by Roger

women’s hairdresser

32

Nolleys Pet Shop

pet foods etc

33

HSBC

bank

34

Social Club

 

35

Private House

 

36

Private House

 

37

Private House

 

38

Empty shop

 

39

Morton Partnership Ltd   Arcadia House

consulting structural engineers

40

Sign of the Fish

Christian  bookshop

41

Instanbul Kebab House

Turkish takeaway

42

The Morton Partnership Ltd  

consulting structural engineers

43

Public Conveniences

 

44

Wine Shop  &  Masonic Lodge

licensed victualler     freemasonry

45

Jacksons

bakery

46

Timberwheel cottage

private house

47

Private house

 

48

Private house

 

49

Burmal Racing

bookmaker

50

Edware Jones Investments

accountant

51

Moss Pharmacy

chemist

51a

Moss Pharmacy

chemist

51b

Raj Puth

Balti resaurant

52

Pinkys

restaurant

53

Homemake Cake Shop

bakery

54

D.C.Patrick

newsagent

55

Halesworth Bookshop

books

55a

Halesworth Carpet Centres Ltd

carpets and rugs

56

Lloyds Bank

bank

56a

Lloyds Bank

bank

57

Fox’s Cards & Balloons

cards and gifts

58

Sweeney’s

gents hair stylist

59

Decorum

pine furniture gifts

60

HSBC Bank

bank

60a

HSBC Bank

bank

61

P J  W Thompson

ophthalmic optician

62

Melons

greengrocer

63

Norton Peskett

solicitors

64

Coopers (Gt Yarmouth Ltd )   &  Post Office

ironmongers & builder’s merchants

65

Reshape

mens hairdresser

65a

Remnants

haberdashers

66

The Farmhouse Bakery

bakery

67

Halesworth Stationers

Stationary etc.

68

Buds and Blooms

florists

69

Edwards Restaurant

restaurant

70

Acacia Tree

furniture and gifts

71

Abbotts

estate agents

72

Camelot Shoes

shoes

73

Norwich and Peterborough

building society

74

Anglia Photos and Sports

cameras etc. & sports goods & clothing                                 

75

Raceway Services

bookmaker

76

Wotsits

miscellaneous goods

 

5.8.2 No 1 The Thoroughfare

Another approach to continuity and change is to follow the history of a particular property. In 2005, the authors were permitted to examine a package of deeds and related documents belonging to the Palmer family, who were then in business as butchers at 1 Thoroughfare, a listed property by the river, immediately to the south-east of Town Bridge.  The deeds of entitlement covered the period 1723-2003.  From 1723 to 1875 the premises were held as copyhold of the Manor of Halesworth, which held most of the land south of the river. Between 1723 and 1848, a period of 125 years, there were 9 copyhold tenants, who each occupied the premises, on average, for about 14 years.  The first mention of the property being a butchery was in 1875, when a mortgage was taken out by William Seamans.  During the period, 1875-1913 there were 4 owners of the property, giving an average occupancy of about 9 years.

 

There were no documents for the interval 1914 to 1953.  Then, in 1954 the owner was George Woods. After his death, his widow continued the butchery.  She married William Harry Spindler in 1963, and the couple continued in business until 1970, when the Palmers bought the property. The papers covering just over two centuries of the property’s history are listed in Table 5.15.

 

 

Table 5.15  Papers referring to the Halesworth property No1 Thoroughfare

 

Date

Descriptions

1822

Deed of entitlement: 1 Thoroughfare Manor of Halesworth

 

1723: Mary Edwards

 

1742: Mary Edwards daughter of Mary Edwards

 

1775: Robert Woolnough

 

1778: Edward Carman

 

1798: Edward Carman son of Edward Carman

 

1808: Nathaniel Carman uncle of Edward Carman

 

1820: Robert Watson

 

1822: Elizabeth Watson wife of Robert Watson

1848

Indenture: Joseph Moses Brown

13.10.1848

Manor of Halesworth: Joseph Moses Brown copyhold tenant

21.10.1848

Will of Joseph Moses Brown: George Collet tenant

04.04.1865

Lease of premises: Mrs Mary Brown widow to George Seamans for period of 5 yrs from 11.10.1864

11.10.1865

Manor of Halesworth discharge: Sophie Spink widow discharges interest in property of Joseph Moses Brown

18.05.1875

Mortgage between Wiliam Seamans butcher and George Seamans and Jane Allen of Frostenden

03.05.1875

Bargain and sale of copyhold premises:: Mr Allington Carman to William Seamans in trust for Mr George Seamans

04.05.1875

Admission of William Seamans to the Manor of Halesworth

12.05.1875

Enfranchisement of two messuages, shop and heridits: Frederick Crofts Esq and others to Mr William Seamans

1875

Abstract of the title to certain copyholds of the Manor of Halesworth late of Mr J. Moses Seamans

1875

Aditional abstract of the above

08.10.1888

Conveyance of the butcher's shop and premises: Exrs of late George Seamans to George R Haward

1888

Abstract of title: of Mr George Seamans freehold messuage of premises

29.09.1891

Fire insurance of G R Haward

03.02.1899

Mortgage: Mr Ripps Masssingham to Mr N A Watson on shop

02.02.1899

Conveyance: from Mr George Haward and another to Mr Ripps Massingham

1905

Abstract of title to Mr. R. Masssingham

07.11.1905

Sale of butcher's business: Exec of Ripps Massingham

28.11.1905

Mrs. Helen M. A. Watson to Mr. Antony E. Runnacles rep. Of R Massingham recoverance of premises

1.12.1905

Mortgage. Mr. Philip D. Chapman and Mrs. Helen M. A. Watson. Conveyance of Mr. A.E. Runnacles and another

 to Mr Philip D. Chapman

19.08.1913

rep. of  R. Massingham,  recoverance of premises

07.09.1954

Memorandum agreement: between George Woods and the Council

08.09.1954

Counterpart agreemen:t for works on The Thoroughfare

01.11.1946

Insurance premium: Cross & Ram to George Woods

10.08.1955

Vesting assent: re G Amos Woods deceased; George Woods signed

1962

Abstract of will: of George Woods

03.04.1962

Assent for 1 The Thorofare: in Mrs Kathleen Teresa Woods

24.06.1963

Marriage certificate: of K T Woods, widow to William Harry Spindler

25.09.1967

Conveyance: Mrs K T Spindler to George Woods

25.05.1970

Register: of building of special historical or architectural interest

10.09.1970

Conveyance of property: Mrs K T Spindler and George Woods

 

Although the first mention of an owner of the premises being a butcher was in 1875, the 1851 census lists a Joseph M Brown as a butcher and head of the first household censused in the Thoroughfare. This person is probably the Joseph Moses Brown who, according to the Palmer papers, was admitted a copyhold tenant of 1 Thoroughfare in 1848.  A will of the latter person was mentioned in one of the Palmer papers dated 21.10.1848, which also states that George Collett was his tenant.  In the 1851 census, a George T Collett is listed head of household at 2 Thoroughfare, and classed as a cabinetmaker journeyman, so it is likely that the Browns also owned this property (Table 5.16). 

 

Table 5.16 Entry in the 1851 census for numbers 1 & 2 Thoroughfare

 

1

Thoroughfare

Joseph M Brown

Head

m

56

 

Butcher: master employing 2 men

Suffolk Clare

 

Thoroughfare

Mary

Wife

m

 

57

 

Hadleigh

 

Thoroughfare

Mary Ann

d

u

 

29

book-keeper

Halesworth

 

Thoroughfare

Lucy

d

u

 

25

 

Halesworth

 

Thoroughfare

Charles James

servant

u

22

 

butcher journeyman

Halesworth

 

Thoroughfare

Thomas Rivetts

servant

u

32

 

butcher journeyman

Pettistree

 

Thoroughfare

Maryann Bullock

servant

u

 

20

house servant

Wrentham

2

Thoroughfare

George T Collett

Head

m

36

 

cabinet maker journeyman

Newington Surrey

 

Thoroughfare

Mary

Wife

m

 

42

tea dealer

Dicklebourgh Norfolk

 

Thoroughfare

Betsey

d

u

 

18

assistant in shop

Cookley

 

Thoroughfare

Ann

d

u

 

10

scholar

Halesworth

Both families were not natives of Halesworth.  Joseph Brown was deceased by 1865 when the butchery was leased to George Seamans, who subsequently took up the copyhold.

 

5.9 A microcosm of consumerism

 

The combination of the processes of becoming a retailer of goods and the personal motivations of customers who purchase them, raises the question; Does desire to buy have to come first?  In other words, is consumerism ‘natural’?  Early Halesworthians clearly had a preference for land over consumerism, and many traditional societies used economic surplus for religious investment, rather than spending it on personal-consumerist display.  If clothing is bought why do some buy better but traditional clothing, rather than purchasing novel consumerist fashions.  The coincidental uptake of each of these options challenges the assumption that consumerism is a natural phenomenon.

 

A reasonable shorthand definition of modern consumerism involves:

 

·   a serious commitment to the acquisition, display, and enjoyment of goods and commercial services, which are clearly not necessary to subsistence however generously defined;

·   participation in the process by social groups outside the upper classes.

 

Consumerism has a long history.  Looking back in time to China under the Tang and Sung, and again under the Ming dynasties, this ancient civilisation frequently displayed symptoms of socially expansive consumerism in the cities, with style-setters among women and business families outside the aristocracy. Chinese consumer styles would even have impact elsewhere, as in European imitations of Chinese women's headgear in the later Middle Ages. 

 

Why did modern Western consumerism first emerge? Without going into great detail, the conclusive finding that Western consumerism began in its basic modern shape during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with appropriate changes both in commercial apparatus and in individual motivation, is one of the real discoveries of recent social history. We can fuss about exactly when it first happened, but the basic pattern seems clear, and with it an understanding that consumerism preceded, rather than followed from industrialization, though it would later be enhanced by it.

 

Causation, however, is more elusive. Vital to world history is an appreciation of how much access to goods from other regions, such as sugar, helped stimulate broader consumer demand and the apparatus needed to sustain and enhance this demand. Likewise, rising prosperity for many, though not all, was a vital precondition. On a world scale, the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries are crucial periods in the development of consumerism.

 

The triteness and hedonism of consumerism have made it an inviting target to a variety of critics. These criticisms include:

 

·   religious objections, on grounds of inappropriate priorities;

·   social objections, based on a sense that society has an established (often racial) hierarchy, which consumerism threatens to overturn by allowing unworthy people to look and act just like their betters;

·   and age-based objections to the consumer leadership of the young.

 

Also fairly standard are attacks on women as particularly vulnerable to consumerism's encouragement of public display to the detriment of financial prudence and respectable family behaviour. Consumerism has often also been attacked as foreign. Even umbrellas were protested against in eighteenth-century England as being effetely French.  While in many societies resistance seems to lessen after a while (Western Europe after World War II, for instance), some anxiety or guilt about consumerism may persist in less explicit forms, even in the United States. And new movements against consumerism, based on religion, environmentalism, antiglobalism or other factors, remain an important part of world history even today. There is no inevitable trend toward unqualified acceptance.

 

Consumerism arrives in different societies in different ways and encounters different traditional contexts through which its reception is shaped. Certainly the timing of consumerism varies from place to place. Levels of prosperity and poverty vary, which in turn diversely affect the path consumerism takes. Different rates of urbanization are also important variables.

 

Consumerism involves materialism and acquisitiveness, and it tends to redefine emotions such as envy towards these qualities. However consumerism has also been involved in the emergence of greater individuality.  This may or may not be a good thing, but is not simply being greedy. In many societies, within and without the West, consumerism has often seemed quite liberating from traditional social constraints, which has been one of its key attractions for youth, women, and the less well off. And, more vaguely, it seems to provide a way for people to feel connected to wider global meanings, to transcend the parochial and become part of a larger, if trendy, movement.

 

Today, consumerism is firmly associated with supermarkets, and in this connection consumerism became visible in Halesworth in the form of the Rainbow superstore, which opened in 1984.  This was a branch of the National Co-operative Society that developed from Took’s grocery store in Bridge St (Fig 5.16).  The concensus of local people is that the Coop arrived in Halesworth, via the Beccles Branch, in the mid 1930s. Nationally the Cooperative Movement itself came from the banding together of groups of people for mutual assistance in trade, manufacture, the supply of credit, housing, or other services. The original principles of the Movement were laid down in 1844 by the Rochdale Pioneers, under the influence of Robert Owen, and by Charles Fourier in France. It was in the 1960s that Co-op stores began to be transformed into the first generation of supermarkets.

 

The Halesworth Co-op transferred from its relatively small site at the top of the Bridge St, now occupied by the library, to a new building with a car park and petrol station occupying the former livestock market at the edge of town.  The comparison of retail outlets in the town between 1979 and 2005 indicates that this particular supermarket development has equilibrated with lively and diverse street shopping.  However, the damage created by the placing of supermarkets in and around market towns was officially recognised over a decade ago.  Supermarkets are doing well.   Tesco recently announced half-yearly-profits for 2005 amounting to some £800 million pounds. For those who read the profits statement closely, a significant fact is that a great share of these massively improved profits come from non-food sales like clothing, electrical goods, CDs and videos and in some stores, medicines from in-house pharmacies. The damage done by supermarkets to small food retailers like butchers, grocers, fishmongers and the like is already monumental. But if supermarkets continue to push their way into more non-food operations, the present generation of retailers of clothes, shoes and white goods will be the last. The issues were supposedly thrashed out in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the seemingly unmitigated might of supermarket chains was challenged by John Gummer, during Margaret Thatcher's regime.  In 1993 the Conservative Government responded by introducing Planning Policy Guidance Note 13 on Transport (PPG13), which required the consideration of locally accessible shops in planning decisions.  A response of several supermarket chains has been to concentrate on smaller branches in town centres on the unproven, and unlikely assumption that supermarket shoppers will, after filling their shopping trolleys, then go on to patronise local retailers.  In-town stores now form a growth core of the supermarkets.  They have plenty of experience from around the country in negotiating their way through planning permission, with PR campaigns in the local press, planning experts and expensive lawyers. The PPG's did much to curb the excesses of out-of-town retail development, but it appears that more measures are now needed to reconsider insensitive development in old town centres.  Pressure from smaller retailers in 2006 provoked yet another national inquiry into unfair practices.  This, like all previous investigations, is bound to fail unless people, en masse, turn away from the variety of cheap goods daily available on supermarket shelves.

 

The needs of a vociferous minority are exemplified by Halesworth, where the planning process for yet another supermarket has been activated.  For a town like Halesworth, with its rich history of family retailing, two supermarkets sited within a few hundred yards of each other could bring the 'trolley wars' to the heart of a relatively small town and sever it from its past.  It is ironic that this would take place at a time when the town council has just regained control of the town's ancient market rights from the district council.  Supermarkets rely on their firepower, nuisance value, and the fact that the council would be wary to issue an enforcement order, in case it lost an appeal and costs were awarded against them.  On paper, there are grounds for local authorities to refuse permission for a new supermarket, but they may be reluctant to do so. After all, the resources at the disposal of the big supermarkets are many times greater than those of the local council. There has also been some sharp practice. In Stockport, Manchester, a Tesco was built much bigger than originally planned. Tesco then applied to the council for retrospective planning permission for the extra floor space, which it insisted was only for storage. But over two hundred local traders signed a petition urging the council to serve an enforcement notice, meaning the store will go back to its original size. The extra space was the equivalent of 19 independent shops!

There are many examples of East Anglian towns, which illustrate the harm done by local supermarkets.  Main streets become places where no one walks.  If the developers of a second supermarket have their way, at best the likelihood is that Halesworth will become a town of charity shops, instead of the great variety of local family concerns, which have given local people an excellent friendly service, and provided a social focus for many years.

 

However, lest we forget the historical context of retailing, the following quotations from Glyde’s Suffolk in the Nineteenth Century, proves the past we glorify was not pleasurable for most who patronised the family shops.

 

“Man aged 42 earnt 9s. a week, wife 9d., boy of twelve 2s., boy of eleven 1s.; ditto eight 1s., gal of six nothing, same by a boy of four, total 13s. 9d.”

 

And this is how the earnings passed into the pockets of retailers: 

 

“Bread 9s., potatoes 1s., rent 1s. 2d., tea 2d., sugar 3 ½d., soap 3d., blue ½d., thread, etc., 2d., candles 3d., salt ½d ., coal and wood 9d., butter 4 ½d., cheese 3d.”

 


 


Chapter 6  Peopling the Townscape

 

 

'…. any landscape is likely to contain all manner of ideological representations so that a description of its appearance must also logically be "thickened" into an interpretation of its meaning'

(Baker, 1992).

 

 

6.1  Families

 

The word "family" did not even enter the English language until the fifteenth century, and then it was used to denote a household with servants. Today, family is most often used to refer to a particular set of people related by blood or marriage. But just who counts as family varies widely and may not be limited by ties of marriage, biology, or adoption. Other definitions emphasize sentiments of love and activities of care giving, especially across generations. But families may be sites of violence and neglect, while nurturing, including the care of children, also takes place in other contexts. Finally, the word "family" evokes images of households, of people living together and pooling resources. But those who call one another family do not always live in the same household or share material goods. And members of some households do not pool resources.  Whether focusing on kinship, sentiments, or households, most scholars agree that throughout history, family arrangements have always been diverse and changing. The plural word, "families," suggests this variety, whereas the widely used, monolithic terminology, "the family," incorrectly implies that there is one natural form—a fixed, bounded unit of father, mother, and children. This moralizing ideology persists, but there is ample evidence that families are social, not biological groupings and that their composition, size, boundaries, sentiments, and material activities vary by culture and change along with economic and social conditions. 

 

The first time we can come to grips with Halesworth’s families is in the17th century through the parish registers.  The lists of surnames and occupations have already provided an overview of the town’s growing economy.  This analysis can be taken to the family level by studying the fate of individuals sharing the most frequently occurring surnames.  At this time these were individuals sharing the names Aldred, Crisp and Nursey.

 

6.1.1 Aldreds, Nurseys and Crisps

 

Between 1653 and 1723 a total of 48 Aldreds are listed in the burial register.  Seven married Aldreds enter the registers in the 1650s.  Thomas a butcher, Simon a tailor, John a knacker and Thomas and Phillip, both blacksmiths, all died between 1657 and 1674.  During this same interval the burial registers tell of the deaths of John Aldred, an infant (1656), Elizabeth (1657), Mary 1674) and Ann (1674), daughters of Thomas Aldred, probably the butcher (1657), and Phillip Aldred, a singleman (1657).  In this period also are recorded the deaths of two Aldred wives; Joane (1659), wife of John Aldred, a tapster, and Alice wife of a Richard Aldred (1674: no occupation listed).

 

In the next decade the burial register records the deaths of the children of another Aldred family headed by John, a mason.  The deceased children were Mary (1680) and Robert (1683).  We also learn of the family of a Henry Aldred through the death of his daughter Hannah (1687).  Henry is probably the sawyer, who buried his wife named Hannah in 1692.  In 1888, Robert Aldred, wheelwright, loses his wife, Elizabeth (1688), his daughter, also named Elizabeth, and a son, Thomas. In the same year John the mason buries another daughter, Sarah (1688).  This interval, 1688-93, coincides with a five-fold rise in the deaths of the Halesworth Aldreds, all of whom were children or wives. It brings to the fore another John Aldred, currier, with the death of his son William (1689).  Another William, son of a John Aldred described as a bricklayer, is also buried in 1689.  This John’s wife is named Mary and in 1691 the couple bury another son John.  It appears that mason and bricklayer can be synonymous, particularly as John and Mary lose yet another son Peter in 1693, when John is described once again as a mason. Therefore we can say that this particular John is probably the ‘mason’ who lost his daughter Mary and son Robert in 1680 and 1683.  John and Mary Aldred buried yet another son John in 1693, when the father’s designation changes back to ‘bricklayer’.

 

In 1694 a Robert Keble Aldred, described as a wheelwright, buries his daughter Elizabeth.   This family loses five children over the next seven years; Robert Keble (1698); George (1699); Barnabas (1703); George (1704); and Joyce (1711).  Subsequently, we learn of the deaths of two children of plain Robert Aldred with no trade designation; John (1717); Robert (1719).  His wife Lydia died in 1724.

 

At this time it seems we have a second generation of Aldreds, with the appearance of Samuel a mason and Thomas, wife probably Ann.  Thomas was a wheelwright, possibly continuing in his father’s trade.  

 

Unfortunately, their baptismal records cannot amplify the population dynamics of the Aldreds.  The register is not decipherable until 1699.  However, it does reveal that eight children of Aldreds were christened between 1699-1723. Five of these baptisms were to wheelwrights; four of them taking place in 1703.  This register also records another Aldred occupation of shoemaker (1703).

 

Between 1653 and 1723 there are 32 deaths of Nurseys listed in the burial register.  Of these, two thirds are infants/children. The occupations of their fathers are described as, cooper (William), innkeeper (Henry and George), butcher (William and Henry) and saddler (George).  Another family of Nurseys is indicated by the death of Elizabeth, wife of John in 1680, but this entry has no trade designation for her husband.  Of the 17 Nursey children who were buried between 1684 and 1721, nine of them had a father named George, usually designated as an innkeeper, and five were the children of William Nursey, butcher, and his wife Ann.

 

Regarding baptisms, between 1699 and 1703 the register lists 15 Nursey christenings, of which 7 fathers were described as innkeeper (one of these was also a butcher).  There was one saddler and the rest were butchers.

 

Between 1653 and 1723 there are 34 deaths of Crisps listed in the burial register.  Of these about half are children. The occupations of the Crisps are more diverse than for the Nurseys; 7 different jobs compared with only 4 for Nurseys.  These jobs are, tailor (Simon), thatcher (Thomas, George and Henry), tapster/innkeeper (John), glover, (Thomas), labourer (Robert and Henry) cryer (Robert, town cryer?), and blacksmith (John).  It is notable that Thomas Crisp, a thatcher who died in 1695, was age 96. There were five baptisms of Crisps between 1699 and 1702 of which five are described as children of a labourer.

 

The pattern of deaths for all three families over this period is presented in Fig 6.1, where the burials are grouped in 5-year intervals. There is great year on year variability, which is reflected in the five-year summed intervals.  On the whole, the peaks and troughs of mortality were not synchronised.  For example, the highest death rate of Aldreds occurred from 1689 to 93, whereas the maximum for Nursey burials was from 1699 to 1703. The only period when all families experienced a high death rate was between 1653-58.  When the population at large is considered a pattern of mortality emerged which seemed to affect the whole town (Fig 6.2).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig 6.1 Burials of Aldreds, Nurseys and Crisps ( 5-year intervals: 1653-1723)

 

 

Between 1653-1726 there were five peaks in the burial curve when the death rate rose above 40 per year.  This happened in 1657-58, 1666, 1674, 1680-81, 1688 and 1720.  The maxima between 1657 to 1688 occurred at roughly eight-year intervals.  The time interval between the peak in 1688 and that in 1720 was a multiple of eight.  This pattern is indicative of a disease process that certainly affected children who made up the bulk of entries in the burial register.

 

Fig 6.2 Year by year burials 1653-1726

 

 

The differences in mortality between families that happened between these times of population stress are indicative of the differential effects of environmental, family structure and disease resistance.  But things were set to improve, and we are on firmer ground regarding national statistics in the 18th century.  The death rate fell in two great waves: the first was from 1730 to 1760, and the second from 1780 to 1810, and, while this fall was applicable to all age groups, it was greatest for children.  In the later eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth, child mortality rates declined. The middle and upper classes could avail themselves more easily than the working classes of improved housing, sanitation and medical care; the survival rate among their children up to 15 years of age was 83 per cent in 1871.  In the population at large, while it was much improved on the rough estimate of 50 per cent a century earlier, it was still only 63 per cent. It seems likely that the social class differential had widened in the course of the nine­teenth century. For instance, in 1830 79 per cent of the children of clergymen in the diocese of Canterbury survived their first 15 years, in 1871 85 per cent did so.  Protection and welfare of children came to the forefront when the family was larger, and the proportion of young people in the population greater, than ever before or since. The growing concern for the welfare of children may be satisfactorily related to the falling mortality rates at the end of the eighteenth century than to the falling birth rate at the end of the nineteenth.  Charles Booth referred to the 'remarkable increase' in the number of children under 15 years of age to every 100 men aged 25 to 65, between 1851 and 1881: there were 179 in 1851, 181 in 1861, 185 in 1871 and 190 in 1881. Dependent (with no jobs) children under the age of 15 years were increasing more rapidly than population: by 127 per cent compared with 11-9 per cent between 1851 and 1861, by 15-8 per cent compared with 13-1 per cent between 1861 and 1871, and by no less than 18-7 per cent compared with 14-5 per cent between 1871 and 1881. In the latter decade, of course, the welfare provisions themselves were causing a greater number to be without an occupation. The proportion of children (both dependent and occupied) under 15 years in the total population increased steadily: 35-4 per cent in 1851, 35-7 per cent in 1861, 36-1 per cent in 1871 and 36-6 per cent in 1881. By 1881 the young were never so abundant and never so protected. The declining birth rate came after extensive measures for child welfare, and not before - when the cost of welfare, particularly to the middle-class family, proved to be extremely onerous.

 

6.2  The social pyramid

 

In Suffolk at the end of the 18th century it was the dominance of family ties that made for both order and continuity. In the countryside, land belonged to families rather than to individuals and was held 'in trust' from generation to generation.  Decisions relating to its ownership were usually made in terms of family 'interest', with complex legal instruments of family control. In the towns, business organization also was often associated with family partnerships—there was no limited liability and no national capital market—and commercial initiative frequently depended on loans from brothers, cousins or the nearest Independent minister. The road to individual advancement usually led not through the workshop as in the nine­teenth century, or through the school as in the twentieth, but past the altar.  For a man to marry his master's daughter, or better still his widow, was a recognized avenue to success. Halesworth’s legal and medical professions were buttressed by marriages between families in both categories.  Even the unsuccessful at a humbler level were dependent on family both for livelihood and security, and most often on heredity for occupation. Kinship ties were conceived of as an intricate network of responsibilities within extended families that had lived together, circling a relatively small tract of countryside generation after generation.  This network upheld, trades, professions, 'domestic industry' and small-scale farming, while in the political arena, family 'connection' counted for more than party.

 

Money gravitated to those that already possessed it and was gathered through the associated family connections that enabled children to progress through the ranks of people of similar background.  For example, Robert Gostlin White, born to a Freeman surgeon of Yarmouth in 1767, became a Freeman by birth and so gained access to customary privileges and social connections of the town’s freemen. He was taken on as a clerk in the Halesworth office of Peter Jermyn, an attorney, from whence he rapidly advanced in status and wealth by collecting posts of legal secretary to a string of Suffolk’s new civic and commercial transport enterprises (Table 6.1).

 

 

Table 6.1 Curriculum vitae of Robert Gostlin White

 

Year

Post

1792

Clerk to Blyth Navigation Commissioners

1793

Temporary Deputy to Rectory Manor

1799

Clerk to Yoxford to Aldeburgh Turnpike Trust

1801

Clerk to Guardians of Poor for Blything Hundred

1805

Clerk to Commissioners of Southwold Haven

1808

Solicitor for Maltsters Committee

1810

Clerk to Minsmere Drainage Board

1814

Clerk to Ipswich to Yarmouth Turnpike

 

In 1802 he was able to purchase Halesworth’s Mansion House, one of its few ‘capital messuages’.  He died in 1829, leaving a large fortune accumulated during forty years as a solicitor to an average market town.

 

Society, however, was something more than a vast cluster of families, some born to property, others to poverty. It had its ranks and orders and its necessary degrees of subordination and authority. They were rarely called in question. Good order was deemed the foundation of all good things, of 'politeness' as well as ‘peace’.  Social relationships, when they were talked about, were conceived in moral as well as in social terms. It was the ‘Great Architect of the Universe’ who had 'distributed men into different ranks, and at the same time united them into one society, in such sort as men are united'. By Divine decree, rather than by human contrivance, the poor, the greater part of society, were placed under 'the superin­tendence and patronage of the Rich'. In turn, the rich were charged by 'natural Providence, as much as by revealed appointment, with the care of the Poor'.  Adam Smith, the economist, was specific in his definition.  'Society', he wrote, 'may subsist among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility without any mutual love or affection, if only they refrain from doing injury to each other.' The pursuit of the general interest of all was encouraged, not hampered, by the division between rich and poor. ‘A prosperous merchant, in augmenting his own private fortune, will enjoy the agreeable reflection that he is likewise increasing the riches and power of his country and giving bread to thousands of his industrious countrymen.'

 

There were various ways of classifying and sub-dividing the different ranks and orders, which together made up the community. Many of them were complicated, for the English social system emphasized minute social distinctions and nuances of status rather than broad composite groupings. This was expressed as a massive social pyramid.   At the peak of it were the 'great'.  To belong to the ranks of the great it was still necessary to be a great proprietor. Those great proprietors who were entitled to use armorial bearings, the nearest approach to a nobility in England, were not separated from other non-titled proprietors by any thick walls of caste: they were not a noblesse, as in France. A small group of them, however, were renowned nationally for the extent of their ownership and commitments, and the pull of their 'influence'. Frequent intermarriage, it has been said, gave them the semblance more of tribes than of families. Many of the landed estates were kingdoms in miniature and their town houses were as magnificent as their rural mansions. During the course of the eighteenth century they had extended and consolidated their position. Below them came substantial proprietors, often with great local influence and preoccupations, and the gentry, a characteristic but imprecise English social group, whose ownership of land pro­vided them with their main title to power and prestige. The gentry maintained estates in a style appropriate to their social position, and were at the same time proud of their independence and conscious of their corporate existence as the backbone of the local 'landed interest'.

 

In addition there were independent ‘yeoman’ families, owning their own farmstead and a hundred or so acres of land, although in many parts of the country they had been a declining group for generations. The yeomen, unlike the great proprietors and many of the gentry, farmed their own land. For the most part, the land held by substantial landowners was farmed by tenants, some of them substantial men themselves.

 

It was a distinctive feature of this eighteenth century English society that it gave an honoured place, not only to the landowner but also to lawyers and merchants, and it permitted wealth to increase in both town and country.  Lawyers were in a particularly strong position because they not only dealt with increasing demand for their services in property sales and bankruptcies¸ but also for the legal control of the numerous bodies that were spawned to govern turnpike trusts, drainage boards and harbour works.  In the world of trade and commerce itself there were natural gradations and degrees of authority. A group of substantial merchant magnates, princes of wealth, drawing their riches from all parts of the world, was easily distinguishable from the 'middling sort' of folk, local factors and agents, engaged in domestic trade, men who 'though highly useful in their stations, are by no means entitled to the honours of higher rank'. They continued to improve their fortunes, and some of them their prestige as the century went by. Their life project was to accumulate the few hundred pounds surplus that would permit them to describe themselves as ‘gentleman’.

 

Below the merchant princes and the 'middle sort' came the artisans, 'who labour hard but feel no want', skilled men with subtle degrees of 'superiority' and 'inferiority'.  These were 'the country people', a loose term, including many folk who had always been poor, many who were socially displaced in the course of the century, and many whose standard of living fluctuated sharply in 'good' and 'lean' years; 'the Poor, that fare hard', particularly when they were out of work; and 'the Miserable, that really pinch and suffer want'.

 

It is important not to consider all these groups below the 'middling sort' as one homogeneous mass because the term 'lower orders' consisted of  'the most skilled and the most prudent workmen with the most ignorant and imprudent labourers and paupers'. Properly speaking, it was the last two groups described above who made up Adam Smith's 'common people', the base of an economic social pyramid which few contemporaries believed could or should be converted into a cube. Rich and poor were always 'with us', and no government, however enlightened, could tamper effectively with inequality by supplying to the poor 'those necessaries which it had pleased the Divine Providence for a while to withhold from them'.  As a background to the unequal growth of Halesworth’s wealth we should remember that England in the early 1800s was in distress.  Outwardly, the country was a model of political and social stability but in terms of the inner workings of the masses it was rife with unemployment, hunger, anger and radicalism.  There was rick burning in the countryside and machine wrecking in the new industrial towns. In Laxfield and Cratfield a violent outburst against threshing machines occurred in March 1822, which was rapidly brought under control by ‘the firm and conciliatory measures adopted by the inhabitants…’  Elsewhere, the Suffolk and Norfolk yeomanry was called out.  Napoleon’s war was grinding on and times at home were hard, although the only signs that Halesworth was a part of the national scene are its fragmentary lists of paupers.  The construction of Peter Jermyn’s town house in its urban park and Hooker’s white brick mansion with its exotic garden hot house, were measures of the gap between minority fantasy and mass reality.  The local masses remain inarticulate but their attitude is represented by Henry Howard of Mendham, the only rioter who had his views recorded:

 

‘ a hardened old fellow, who behaved with great insolence to the magistrate and prosecutor, declaring that he had done nothing but what was proper and justifiable, and that the general sense of the country was in favour of putting a final stop to machinery of every kind.’

 

The supporting scaffold of the social pyramid was deference to those at a higher level, which grew as the century developed. No better example of the local workings of the late Victorian national pyramid was an event that occurred at Halesworth on 23rd of September, 1898.  On that day there was a gathering of


townsfolk at the railway station to celebrate the ‘homecoming’ of the Earl of Stradbroke after his honeymoon. This event was reported in the Halesworth Almanack for 1899 as follows.

 

Undoubtly the event of the year in the vicinity of Halesworth has been the marriage of the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Stradbroke to Miss Keith Fraser, which took place at St. Paul's,Knightsbridge on Saturday the 23rd of July, 1898.

 

There was a very large and fashionable company present, including Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, the Princess Victoria of Wales,the Princess Christian,and the Princess Marie of Greece. The home-coming of the Earl  and his bride was an occasion which will long be remembered by all who took part in the hearty welcome which was accorded  to the newly married pair. Arriving at Halesworth Station on  Thursday afternoon, September 23rd, an influential deputation  representing the Town met his Lordship. The Rector as their  spokesman, voiced the feeling of the inhabitants in a congratulatory speech, to which the noble Earl happily responded.    A large number of members of the Henham  Hunt, mounted, escorted his Lordship home, and on arrival at the  Hall a guard of honour of the  Southwold Artillery awaited him.   

 

The decorations at Halesworth station and in the town were on a very elaborate scale, and triumphal arches were erected at frequent intervals along the road, and in the park. The festivities which followed lasted for nearly a week and included the Henham Cottage Garden Show, dinners to the tenantry, labourers on the estates and the school children of Henham, Wangford and Uggeshall, concluding with a large garden party to which the elite of the neighbourhood were invited. A very large number of costly and handsome presents were received by the Bride and Bridegroom, included amongst which were a Clock from the town of Halesworth, a silver salver from the tenantry and a pair of candelabra from the Blything Guardians and District Councillors. The entire proceedings were an eloquent testimony to the respect  and esteem in which his Lordship is held, all classes uniting  in wishing him and  his bride " Long life and happiness."

 

Almost every sentence defines a long-established social framework, which had a just over a decade to run its course before it began to dissolve in the social reconstruction that occurred in response to the cross-class human slaughter of the first World War.  For at least two millennia, each man had his station and each station its peculiar responsibilities. The celebration and expensive gifting by those at the top of the Halesworth pyramid are even more remarkable, when it is considered that the earl had never had a direct connection with the town as a landowner.  Before the railway, in his comings and goings to the metropolis from his Henham estate, his coach and horses would have by-passed Halesworth on the main Yarmouth to London road.

 

At beginning of the century the top-folk of Haleworth were listed in two trade directories for the 1830s (Tables 6.2)

 

Table 6.2 Local notables listed in directories for Halesworth: 1830 & 1839 (nobility, gentry and clergy)

 

1830

 

1839 (Pigot’s Suffolk)

 

Name

Residence

Name

Residence

Atthill, Rev Lombe,

Halesworth

Atthill Rev. Lombe

Bridge st Halesworth

Baas Robert Esq,

Chediston Hall

Badeley Mrs. Elizabeth

Market pl, Halesworth

Badeley, Rev Joseph

Halesworth

Badeley Rev.Joseph

Rectory Halesworth

Baldry, Miss Charlotte,

Halesworth

Baker Mrs. Lydia

Mill hill Halesworth

Bence, Col Henry Bence,

Thorington Hall

Bence Colonel

Thorington hall

Burch, Rev Rous,

Sibton

Cole Rev. William Graham

Walpole

Collett Rev Anthony

Heveningham

Cookley Rev.William Bond

Cookley

Crabtree John, gent

Halesworth

Crutwell Rev.

Spexall

Crutwell, Rev Richard gent

Spexhall

Dennant Rev. John

Pound st Halesworth

Dennant, Rev John

Halesworth

Huntingfield the Right Hon. Lord

Heaveningham Hall

Dresser, Bridget

Halesworth

Lemon George, esq.

Brampton

Huntingfield, Lord

Heveningham Hall

Lemon Rev.-, Thomas

Brampton

Mayhew Rev Jas. Wm.

Halesworth

Mason J Rev.

Bramfield

Reeve, Mrs Frances

Halesworth

Mayhew Rev. Jas. Wm.

top of Pound st Halesworth

Revans Miss Elizabeth

Halesworth

Nunn Rev.Thomas,

Mill st Halesworth

Revans Mrs Mary

Halesworth

Owen Rev. Henry

Heveningham

Robinson Mrs Margaret

Halesworth

Parkyns George, esq.

Chediston hall

Sayer Robert esq

Sibton

Reeve Richard, esq.

Mill st Halesworth

Smith Mrs Margaret

Halesworth

Reeve Robt. Richd.esq.

Holton hall

Stradbroke Hon Earl of

Henham Hall

Robinson Mrs. Mary

Bridge st Halesworth

Thompson the Misses

Halesworth

Ross Rev.,

Holton road Halesworth

Tuthill Miss Hannah

Halesworth

Thompson Misses L & S

Holton Road Halesworth

 

 

Turner Rev. Samuel Blois

Pound St. Halesworth

 

 

Tuthill Miss

Holton road Halesworth

 

 

Worship Rev. William R.

Holton Halesworth

 

These twenty or so people were probably self-selected for entry to ensure their names would be in the same editorial category as the nobility.  This distinguished them from the bulk of the town’s traders.  However, they were not all residents of the town, particularly the two local nobles; a peer, the Earl of Stradbroke, and a baronet Lord Huntingfield.  Both families had risen to the social apex relatively recently.  The Rous clan, a longstanding local family of landowners, had been elevated to the peerage in 1830.  A baronet is the holder of a species of knighthood known as a baronetcy. The title was introduced by James I of England in 1611 to raise funds. It is an hereditary honour, but it does not amount to a peerage.  The baronetcy of Huntingfield in the Irish peerage was given to Joshua Vanneck of Heveningham Hall in 1796.  Joshua was the grandson of Cornelius Vanneck, a Dutch merchant who had emigrated to London in 1718, and settled in Putney. The family received the baronetcy of Putney in 1751, and consequent upon their move to Suffolk it was merged with the title of Huntingfield in 1791.

 

At this time, a first glance at the Blything countryside would have revealed the presence not of farms but of 'estates', large and small, 'family seats' each with its hall or its manor house, its garden, its parkland, its 'acres'. Such estates were symbols of prestige rather than productive units in the modern sense of the word. The pride of the Vannecks was a neoclassical mansion within a park landscaped by Capability Brown, which was a ‘must be visited’ on the itinerary of travellers to Suffolk.  Projecting a substantial finger of land into North West Halesworth was the thousand-acre estate of the Parkyns of Chediston, with its prominent game coverts.   Agriculture was a way of life and a recreation as well as a means of livelihood, for landed proprietors and villagers alike. To recapture that way of living we must go back not only to the social round of the country houses but to country revels, ‘Plough Monday’, ‘Harvest Home’, and village cricket.  

 

We must understand also the strains and conflicts within the village com­munity, the increasingly sharp social divisions, the enormous power of the local squire-J.P.  Top-down responsibilities were, of course, not always met, for every charitable action there were many callous and brutal ones, but the concept of social order itself often blossomed out in works of corporate as well as private philanthropy. The eighteenth century was rightly proud of its 'improvement' in manners, and its ripening sense of social duty. For the care of the sick, the aged, prisoners, foundlings and poor children, new institutions were created during the course of the century, particularly after 1750.

 

Table 6.3  Magistrates for Blything Division (Halesworth and Saxmundham; Kelly’s Suffolk Directory 1879)

 

Sir John Ralph Blois bart
Sir William Rose K.C.B
Thomas Rant esq
Col. W. B. Long
Col. H. C. Bagot Chester
Col. Theilusson
Charles Hugh
Berners esq
Frederick Barne esq
Henry Alexander 
Starkie Bence esq
John William Brooke esq
Thomas Lomax esq


John Leman Ewen esq
H. M. Doughty esq
W. Parry Crook esq
The Rev. C. W. Roberts
Rev.William Charles Edgell

     Clerk, Willett Ram esq.

 

 

The dominance of landowners over townsfolk is till evident towards the end of the 19th century.  It is highlighted in the list of magistrates for the Blything Division in Kelly’s Suffolk Directory for 1879 (Table 6.3).  These people, most of whom were landed proprietors, were responsible for law and order in both Halesworth and Saxmundham, and it may be said that it was the social heritage of a rural magistracy that dominated the behavioural norms of the towns.

 

Some of their activities and judgements may be found in the local newspapers of the day, such as the following typical accounts of proceedings of Halesworth Petty Sessions in 1871. 

 

Halesworth Petty Sessions

Wednesday, February 15th 1871

Before H.A.S.Bence, Esq., (chairman), Rev. Henry Owen,

and T. Rant and A. Purvis, Esqrs.

 

1 Pitch and Toss.

 

Robert and James Hurren, of Chediston, labourers, were charged with having unlawfully played pitch and toss, in the parish above named, on Sunday the 5th of February.

 

Both defendants pleaded guilty.

 

Inspector Taylor said a large concourse of lads were in the habit of assembling near the church at Chediston on Sundays to the great annoyance of females and others.  They made remarks as the females were getting over styles which were of a very disgusting character.  He had occasion to caution them several times - the defendants he believed were among the number. By means of a glass he saw the defendants playing pitch and toss, and he ascertained who they were, and took out the present proceedings against them.

 

Mr. Smyth, the churchwarden, said the nuisance had now become most serious. He had some months ago placed up a written notice, which for a time had a good effect. But the young men had recommenced the practice, and he was therefore determined to put a stop to it. He believed the elder defendant was the ringleader.  It was customary as soon as the service commenced for many of those lads to rush up the gallery stairs, making as much noise as they could so that the clergyman was frequently obliged to stop.

 

Mr. Rant (Chediston Hall) said the nuisance had become unbearable.

 

Mr. Fisher gave the defendants good characters as labourers, but could not justify their conduct on this occasion.

 

The father of the young men said he could not take their parts, but he thought it a great pity that things had been allowed to go on so long inside the church; they then no doubt thought they could do as they liked outside. The clergyman should have pulled them up before.

 

The Bench said the statement of the father was no justification, and it only shewed that the defendants now they were caught ought to be severely punished as a warning to others. It was not to be borne that people going to church or chapel should be insulted by a lot of ignorant idle fellows.

 

Sentenced each to 14 days imprisonment in the Ipswich House of Correction

 

2 Stealing Hay

 

Frederick Robinson, of Holton, was charged with having on the 11th day of February last, at Westhall, feloniously stolen a quantity of hay, value 6d. the property of the Rev. H. A. Goodwin.

 

The prosecutor said the prisoner had been working at his with another man for many weeks. The prisoner was really employed by his brother. On the 11th February he was at work at prosecutor’s as usual. From information received prosecutor went to a shed near his premises. The shed was a public shed belonging to the parish. Went about half-past 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and found prisoner’s pony there. There was very little hay on the floor under the pony’s feet. The hay was good for nothing then. Prisoner’s cart was in the shed. There was an empty sack and some straw at the bottom of the cart. There was another cart in the shed belonging to another man. That cart was tipped up at the back and had in it a quantity of hay (produced) dry and good. In consequence of this discovery prosecutor proceeded to Holton.  He leaves work usually about 5 o’clock. Met prisoner’s brother walking along the road, and about 200 yards behind him prisoner was walking by the side of his pony and cart. 

 

Witness made a remark about the hill being slippery. Saw a sack in the cart. Witness put his hand upon it, and asked what it contained. Prisoner said it was some hay he had brought for his pony, and that the pony would not eat it. Witness opened the sack and took a piece out, claiming it as his hay. Asked him if he would give him the piece taken out of the sack. Prisoner assented. Witness then told prisoner he could take the remainder of the hay home if he pleased. Or at his peril, or words to that effect. Prisoner said he could carry it back told him he could do as he pleased about that. He did return with it. Benjamin Burgess received the hay from the prisoner. Witnes said to prisoner “ is this the reward of my many acts of kindness to you and your family?” Prisoner said it was the first time he had done such a thing. Witness then told Burgess to go with him to the shed where Aldred’s cart was, and found that the hay he had previously seen in it was gone.  He and Burgess then went to the stack to compare the hay (now produced) with that of the bulk, and there could be no doubt its being the same. On Monday prisoner came to work as usual. Prosecutor expressed his surprise and then went off. Prisoner made no further remarks. Aldred has neither pony nor donkey. The hay could not be seen in Aldred’s cart unless the shafts were let down.

 

Henry Burgess said that as man to prosecutor, he had custody of the hay found in Robinson’s cart. The hay belonged to the master. Compared it with the stack and had no doubt that the hay belonged to his master. Prisoner said some hay he took from the stack, and some he brought with him. He said it was the first time, and that he took the hay away because he did not like to have it spoiled.

 

Prisoner pleaded guilty.

 

Prosecutor asked that the punishment should be mitigated as much as possible.

 

Sentenced to one month’s imprisonment with hard labour, in the Ipswich House of Correction.

 

The landed proprietors were of varying resources, background and lineage, but all were insistent with respect to the need to display their good fortune. Lesser folk often prided themselves on the splendour of their homes and the beauty of their gardens, often newly planned. The site of the house was usually chosen on aesthetic grounds, 'to command the prospect' and to mingle delights of landscape and mimic the refinements of aristocratic taste. Much investment during the eighteenth and nineteenth-century went not into canals or factories, but into 'display' of this kind, lesser landed proprietors vying with their more affluent neighbours and building Georgian houses amid well-wooded parkland. The term 'improvement' itself was employed on occasion to cover such expenditure. These norms of domestic living continued into the smaller establishments of richer townsfolk in the next century. Such was the investment of lawyer Jermyn, in his vast garden, which extended down to the river behind his town house, that was later occupied by John Crabtree, another rich lawyer.  Thus, the upper end of Halesworth’s Pound St and its continuation as Walpole Rd, as well as the outer reaches of the town in Mill St and Holton Rd, gained a sprinkling of detached brick built mansions and their garden trees.  In Table 5.1, we see that the Rev. Mayhew made it clear that his establishment was at the ‘top’ of Pound St., probably to make it clear that he did not have artisans and paupers, who dominated the older rows and cottages at the bottom end, as neighbours.   We should remember that the conspicuous consumption of proprietors of all degrees were often dependent upon mortgages.  This contrasted sharply with the frugality of manufac­turers. 'An Estate's a pond', Defoe had written, 'but trade's a spring.'

 

6.3  1851- A turning point

 

If a Roman of the Empire could be transported forward in time to the beginning of the 18th century, he would have found himself in a society, which he could, without too great difficulty, have learned to comprehend. He would soon have learned his way among the sedan chairs, the patched-up beauties and the flaring torches of London streets at night.  This image of cultural continuity that characterised the thinking classes of the preindustrial world was broken between 1780 and 1850.  Ancient classical texts and values, which had given continuity to an essential rural culture of Britain through invasions and dynastic cycles, were no longer valid for survival in the contemporary world.  In the course of three generations, the Industrial Revolution had become a dramatic watershed in Halesworth's history. By 1850, the past for the average inhabitant of the town was not merely past - it was dead, and we read about Halesworth's new world in its trade directories and advertising copy of its local newspaper. 

 

Whilst the social hierarchy crumbled rapidly after 1918, Defoe’s ‘spring of trade’ had begun to flow copiously in Halesworth about a century earlier.  In the first edition of the Halesworth Times, published on Tuesday, July 17th 1855, there appeared the following article.

 

It would puzzle we think, the ‘oldest inhabitant’ to name a period in the history of our busy little town when the spirit of improvement and progress was so abundantly manifest as at the present time.  The very handsome façade, now in process of completion at the Bank of Messrs Gurney is not only a credit to the architects employed, but is quite an ornament to the place.

 

We may also mention by way of commendation the new shop fronts that several of our enterprising tradesmen have erected in various parts of the town.  Now that we have railway communication with the metropolis twice a day we trust this spirit of progress will be more fully developed; and it would afford us the greatest pleasure to feel our town was a model of neatness and good taste.

 

The day we hope is not distant when the present pebble pavement, so eminently conducive for finding out the pungent parts of ones corns- will give place to the more metropolitan looking flagstone: a little sacrifice on the part of owners and occupiers would speedily effect the much desired object.

 

The splendid weather and benefits offered by the Railway Company have been the means of inducing the pic-nic-partying and holiday-making folk to don their best attire and avail themselves of the privilege- by means of cheap excursion trains- of inhaling the delicious life-giving breezes of the ‘wide and open sea’.  The Station on Wednesdays and Fridays presents quite a gala-day appearance; young men and maidens, elderly ladies and antique gentlemen ‘on pleasure bent’, complacently seat themselves behind the iron steed and then

 

“On! On! Through weald and wood and hill,

All turned by agricultural skill

To valued uses”

 

The author then goes on to complain about the cost of rail for the transport of goods and people, and how traffic would increase if the Company would only reduce its tariffs and fares.

 

 

 

Changes for the better could be seen everywhere, and from many viewpoints the mid-19th century is a turning point in Britain’s rise to greatness and the important social developments that accompanied it.  A difference between the first and second halves of the century may be seen with respect to population growth, mortality and fertility, and economic situation of families.  These four expressions of sociality may be explored using Halesworth’s 1851 census and related information.

 

6.4  Population

 

The population explosion of the later eighteenth century meant that by 1800, the population of Britain was growing at over 15 per cent per decade. The mid century was a turning point and after 1850, the growth rate settled down at about 12 per cent per decade, and over the whole nineteenth century, the population grew from eleven million to thirty-seven million. This level of growth is low by comparison with some underdeveloped countries today, but extremely rapid by any previous standard. The rapid population growth had important economic implications.

 

There was a high level of demand throughout the century for food. Until the mid-century, imports were limited for various reasons, and most food was still provided from indigenous resources, keeping food prices relatively high and therefore prevent­ing major improvements in living standards. From the mid-century on, and particularly from the 1870s, new sources of food supply were found in the temperate lands of the Americas and Australia. Just as the British population provided much of the demand for these foodstuffs, British capital went in large quantities to open up the lands, which supplied them. The demand for overseas investment was thus another result of population increase. Throughout the century, another large proportion of investment went into housing for the growing population, and the provision of urban infrastructure, such as roads and sewers. Up to the mid-century, such investment could do little more than keep pace with the population increase, but from then on improvement did take place.

 

The fact that the natural rate of increase was as high in rural areas as in the towns meant that rural labour continued to be in surplus, with a deleterious effect on rural wage levels. As the inhabitants of the countryside became increasingly aware of opportunities elsewhere, migration increased. The population as a whole also became more aware of opportunities abroad, and emigration increased to provide the third pillar for the economic development of newly settled countries, together with land (which they already had in abundance) and capital. The quantity of emigration suggests that throughout the century there was no shortage of labour, and so labour supply is not a problematical subject, although changes in participation rates and the quality of the labour force present features of interest.

 

Since mortality in nineteenth-century Britain was still high, the continued population growth depended on high fertility. So far as is known, fertility did not exhibit striking class differences in the early part of the century, parents from all walks of life had large families. By contrast, mortality was a function of class and geography.  It was correlated with who you were and where you lived. In Manchester in 1842, the average age of death was eighteen; in Bath it was thirty-one. Manchester was more working class, and a larger proportion of the population was grossly overcrowded: both these factors contributed to the high death rate. These averages for urban dwellers masked differences between neighbourhoods.  Farm labourers, in spite of their miserable standard of living, had a relatively low death rate.

 

Measurement of both fertility and mortality becomes easier during this period as civil registration of births and deaths began in 1837 for England and Wales, and 1855 for Scotland. In the 1820s, fertility had declined slightly from its peak levels, but then remained more or less stable until 1850.  By the 1870s fertility began a rapid and continuous fall. This decline was most marked and most rapid in the middle class, i.e. the professions and clerical workers, but it extended to the working class as well. As the decline

 

 

 

got under way, it led to the emergence of striking class differences in fertility. By the Edwardian period, a middle-class wife would be likely to have no more than two children. By contrast, groups like miners and, farm labourers frequently had families of five or more. In spite of these differences, it was the general fact of decline that was most marked. The crude birth rate fell from around thirty-five births per thousand population, at which it had stuck since the 1830s, to under twenty-five by the eve of the First World War. Just as the Third World today with its high fertility is full of children, so was Victorian Britain. By the First World War this state of affairs was coming to an end.

 

Although by the early nineteenth century, mortality was at a slightly lower rate than in the late eighteenth century, there was very little further improvement until the second half of the century. It is likely that the mortality experience of individual groups in the population became rather better, but this was cancelled out by the increasing proportion of people living at risk in the unhealthy towns and cities. Evidence to support the suggestion that mortality lessened for individual groups comes from a comparison between mid-eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century London, which shows it falling from around forty-eight per thousand to around twenty-five. Appalling though the conditions and mortality rates of early nineteenth-century towns were, they were almost certainly better than those of eighteenth-century towns. After 1850 favourable influences outweighed the unfavourable, and crude death rates in Britain fell sharply, from around twenty-two per thousand to around fourteen per thousand just before the First World War. By far the greatest fall occurred in the mortality of children and young people and, from the 1890s, of infants.

 

To summarise, in the course of the first fifty years of the 19th century fifty years a great demographic transition had occurred, which is certainly reflected in the demography of Halesworth. Up to the mid-century, population growth had been close to the pre-industrial pattern, with very high fertility out­weighing high mortality. From then or a bit later, both fertility and mortality fell rapidly, to arrive by 1914 at what we think of as the modern pattern of low levels for both.

 

The major impact on mortality probably came from improvement of the domestic environment and the rising standard of living, which helped to reduce diseases like tuberculosis (TB). TB, or consumption, affected the poor to a much greater extent. Its decline has been particularly associated with increased resistance to disease, due to improvements in diet and housing. The quality of food remained poor for the working class throughout the nineteenth century however, and it seems likely that the main effect of rising incomes was to lessen the impact of crises, such as the unemployment or illness of the breadwinner, on the entire family. It was not so much the normal diet that improved, as the diet at times of crises, thus increasing resistance to TB and other diseases.

 

The decline in fertility is harder to explain. It occurred mainly through limitation within marriage, and was not merely a reversal of the previous change and a return to later marriage. The mechanisms for change seem to have been either abstinence or the age-old standby of coitus interruptus. There was an increase in the availability of artificial methods of preventing conception, but they were not of major importance. What are hard to establish are the motives for change.

 

6.5  Economic change

 

Economic change must provide part of the explanation. Children became increasingly costly to keep as schooling spread and became compulsory in the 1870s. The educational standards required before children could leave were progressively tightened up over the next forty years, thus forcing up the leaving age. Evidence for this as a motive is provided by the fact that parents were not postponing the first birth of a child but, rather, limiting births after families reached a certain size. In the days before compulsory education, working-class parents could be sure that after they had had three or four children, the eldest would be going out to work so they could afford to have more. This was decreasingly the case.

 

 

Complementary to this were the falling prices of consumer goods relative to the price of having a child. When such goods were effectively out of reach of most families, there was no point in foregoing the pleasures of having another child. As consumer goods became more affordable, the incentive to forgo childbearing became stronger. In the 1930s there was a saying, 'A baby or a baby Austin' which, translated back to the 1880s, when pianos rather than cars were the height of desirability, would have gone, 'A baby or a baby grand'; or, for the working class, an upright in the front parlour.

 

J O Banks has put forward a different argument. To him, it was the growing expense of certain necessary items of middle-class expenditure, such as education and domestic servants that led to the fall in fertility for that group in society. In order to maintain their life style, they reduced the number of their children, which brings the non-economic element of status into the argument. To this particular non-economic element could be added others, such as the growing secularisation of many groups in society. How far groups were integrated into society and influenced by its dominant values is also important. Two of the most socially isolated groups in society, miners and farm labourers, experienced the smallest fall in fertility.

 

Equally if not more important is the question of whether women or men, or both together, were the influence behind the transition. For instance, the growth of education in the period, of particular benefit to women because they started from lower levels of literacy, may have made them more aware of the arguments for family limitation, which were being increasingly propagated in the late nineteenth century. These then became a matter for family discus­sion. Much work still remains to be done on this fascinating subject; the arguments put forward are highly tentative because of the difficulty of establishing exactly what values were at work and how they were transmitted.  However, these national trends are behind an analysis of the population dynamics of Halesworth.

 

6.6  People of the Census

 

The 1851 census for Halesworth was carried out systematically using divisions of the town, which more or less follow its historical linear pattern of development.  Historically, the town began to coalesce around St Mary’s church where the market place is situated.  The town spread west along the road to Harleston (Chediston St), north down to the town bridge (The Thoroughfare) and south along the highway to Walpole (Pound St & Walpole Rd.).  A comparison between four of these areas is given in Table 6.4 with respect to some indicators of sociality. The north-south track of the enumerator along The Thoroughfare, through the Market Place and along Pound St to the parish boundary at the end of Walpole Rd, provides a useful transect for a preliminary assessment of differences between these various neighbourhoods.

 

Table 6.4 Variation in sociality between the Halesworth census divisions

 

 

Households

Persons

Born Hswth

Empty houses

Pers/housd

%native

Servants

Serv/house

Thoroughfare

65

356

154

3

5.48

43.3

46

0.7

Market Place

22

96

52

2

4.57

54.1

9

0.4

Pound St

97

392

187

9

4.04

47.7

20

0.2

Walpole Rd

13

64

22

3

4.92

34.3

9

0.7

Chediston St

179

798

341

16

4.45

42.7

28

0.16

 

It can be seen that the Market Place, the oldest part of town, accounted for a very small proportion of the population.  However, it was distinctive with regards the proportion of native-born Halesworthians living there.  More than half of the residents of the Market Place were born in Halesworth compared with only a

 

 

 

third for the population of Walpole Rd.  Pound St stands out from the other three areas with regards persons per household and servants per household; both figures were lower than elsewhere.

 

The figures for ‘servants per household’ require clarification.  It was obvious from the status designations that there were two basic categories of servants, those who were offspring of the family, and those who were hired by affluent families to carry out the household chores.  When this filter is applied to the census, very clear differences are revealed between the different neighbourhoods, which may be regarded as indicators of differences in the distribution of family wealth (Table 6.5 ).  The indicator of wealth is the ratio of servants who were members of the family, to employed servants.  This ratio was highest in Walpole Rd, eight employed servants and no members of the family.  In The Thoroughfare it was 5:1, in the Market place, 2.3:1 and in Pound St 1:2.5.  Based on this index Chediston St was by far the least affluent neighbourhood, with a ratio of 0.32:1.  This is borne out by the percentage of paupers (Table 6.6).

 

Table 6.5  Comparison of frequency of ‘family servants’ and ‘employed servants’

 

 

The Thoroughfare

Market Place

Pound St

Walpole Rd

Chediston St

Family

5

3

12

0

25

Employed

50

7

15

8

8

 

 

During the first decade, the survival rate of boys in Pound St and Chediston St was about 30% less than that of girls (Table 6.6). In The Thoroughfare and Walpole Rd, there was no such sex difference in the mortality of young children.  In the Market Place the survival rate of girls seems to have been lower than that of boys.  Market Place families were exceptional with regards the ratio of widowers to widows, percentage children, ratio of boys to girls and the percentage of old people (Table 5.6).  The lowest percentage of children was found in The Thoroughfare, which also had the lowest percentage of old people.

 

Table 6.6 Variation in sociality between the Halesworth census divisions

 

A

 

Households

Persons

Paupers

Widows

Widowers

Children*

Boys

Girls

Old people**

Thoroughfare

65

356

0

6

5

62

31

31

62

Market Place

22

96

3

3

1

25

16

9

28

Pound St

97

392

13

20

14

78

34

44

74

Walpole Rd

13

64

0

2

1

16

8

8

16

Chediston St***

179

798

32

16

19

181

79

102

142

* age 10 and under: ** age 50 and over: Including ‘courts’

 

B

 

%Paupers

Wdrs/wds

%Children

Boys/girls

%Old people

Thoroughfare

0

0.83

17.5

1.0

17.4

Market Place

3.13

0.33

26.0

1.70

29.1

Pound St

3.32

0.70

19.9

0.77

18.9

Walpole Rd

0

0.50

25.0

1.0

25.0

Chediston St

4.01

1.18

22.7

0.77

18.5

 

Differences were also found in the above vital statistics for the northern neighbourhoods of the town (Table 6.7). For example, Bungay Road was notable for its low percentage of widowers, whereas Quay St had the lowest percentage of widows. Mill Hill had the highest percentage of both widows and older females.  All neighbourhoods had more girls than boys, the biggest differential being in Bungay Road.   Spexhall stands out in its relatively low proportion of natives. 

 

 

Table 6.7 Variation in sociality in North Halesworth (percent population)

 

A Percent population

 

Bridge St

Quay St

Bungay Rd

Mill Hill

Spexhall

Boys

11.4

11.0

10.9

10.5

13.5

Girls

11.8

14.1

13.9

12.0

14.3

Widowers

1.11

1.05

0.38

2.07

2.26

Widows

2.95

0.52

3.38

4.19

3.76

Paupers

2.21

0.52

1.13

2.62

1.50

Old males

6.64

8.90

5.26

8.90

6.77

Old Females

9.23

8.90

5.64

12.0

6.02

Natives

48.3

47.6

37.2

44.0

24.1

Bridge St = Bridge St only (population 271)

Quay St = Quay St; Castle; Hill Farm (population 191)

Bungay Rd = Bungay Rd; Wissett St (population 266)

Mill Hill = Mill Hill; Fenn Farm; Rectory; Mill Hill St; New Court (population 191)

Spexhall = Spexhall; Spexhall Mill Post; Spexhall Broadway Rd; Spexhall Rd (population 133)

 

B

 

Bridge St

Quay St

Bungay Rd

Mill Hill

Spexhall

Households

52

36

50

48

29

Persons/household

5.21

5.31

5.32

4.00

4.51

Servants/household

0.56

0.61

0.22

0.35

0.17

Family servants*

2

1

3

3

0

Empty houses

0

0

5

4

2

*Family members living with family

 

Comparing the ages of widowers and widows, it is clear that young women, under the age of 60 had a higher mortality than men (Figs 6.3 and 6.4: Table 5.8).  Between the ages of 60 and 70 men had a higher mortality than their spouses.  Despite these differences in mortality, more or less the same number of individuals survived as widowers and widows into their seventh decade.  Thereafter the mortality of men exceeded that of their spouses.

 

All these differences are indicative of people responding biologically and socially to the different environments that existed in Halesworth.  However, the information is too diverse to apply standard statistical methods to gauge their absolute significance.  Nevertheless, the numbers of people are large and at the very least the neighbourhood differences provide strong indicators for the town being composed of a jigsaw of social microcosms.

 

Fig 6.3  Age distributions of widowers (blue) and widows (red) in the 1851 census for The Thoroughfare, Market Place, Pound St and Walpole Rd

 

 

 

Out of 31 widows living in south Halesworth, 9 were described as ‘washerwoman/ charwoman’, and 6 were paupers.  In contrast 5 widows were in receipt of an annuity (Table 6.8).  Altogether, 12 widows (average age 61) were carrying on some kind of business.  This may be contrasted with the 21 widowers (average age 60) of whom 16 said they had an occupation.

 

Fig 6.4 Distribution of widowers (blue) and widows (red) in relation to age

 

 

Pound Street and The Thoroughfare had similar numbers of residents, and it is therefore possible to use these two neighbourhoods to make an assessment of the dynamics of the population in terms of the origins of individuals (Table 6.9).  In this respect, both neighbourhoods represented about a hundred natal communities, with an average intake of between 3 to 4 individuals per community.  About a third of these communities had contributed two or more individuals, the remainder being represented by one individual who was born there.  In other words, most of the townsfolk in 1851 were colonists.  The Thoroughfare had a slightly smaller proportion of colonists than Pound Street.

 

Table 6.8 Ages and status of widowers and widows

 

A Thoroughfare

Widowers (5)

Widows (6)

33  (commercial traveller)

42  ( washerwoman)

55  (chemist & druggist) 

55   (land proprietor)

56  (hatter & outfitter)

66   (annuitant)

71  ( innkeeper)                   

67

73  (prop. of houses  & smallholder)

71          

 

42  ( washerwoman)


B Market Place

Widowers (1)

Widows (3)

61 (brewer, malster spirit merchant & farmer)

75  (pork butcher)

 

77  (retired innkeeper)

 

77  (pauper)

 


C Pound Street

Widowers (14)

Widows (20)

38  (baker)

28  (dressmaker)

46  (plumber& glazier) 

32  (charwoman)

46  (ropemaker)

35  (milliner)

52 (brazier & tinman)

43  (annuitant)

55  (bricklayer emp.2 men)

47  (charwoman)

56  (pauper formerly ag.lab)

49  (laundress)

57  (glover)

54  (annuitant)

63  (retired innkeeper)

56  (charwoman)

66  (formerly ag.lab)

65

70  (ag. Lab)

65  (pauper; formerly charwoman)

73 (former ag. Lab)

66  (carrier)

75  (sheriffs bailiff)

66  (pauper; formerly seamstress) 

75 ( retired tailor)                 

68  (pauper)

78  (jobbing butcher)

70

 

72  (formerly washerwoman)

 

76

 

76  (pauper)

 

78  (farmer)

 

88  (pauper)

 

94  (formerly washerwoman)


D Walpole Road

Widowers (1)

Widows (2)

44  (curate of Linstead)          

67  money at interest

 

81  (money invested annuitant)

 

 

Table 6.9 Births in Halesworth (natives) in relation to births in other places (colonists).

 

 

Pound St

The Thoroughfare

Total places of birth

100

116

Total people

392

356

Colonists

292

203

Persons per place

3.92

3.07

Places with two or more births (% total places)

33 (33%)

41 (35.3%)

Places with one birth (% total places)

67 (67.0%)

75 (64.7%)

Births in Halesworth

186

153

Colonists/natives

1.57

1.75

 

Table 6.10 Places ranked in the top six with respect to numbers of births

 

Number of births

Places of birth for inhabitants of Pound St

Places of birth for inhabitants of The Thoroughfare

12

Holton; Wenaston

 

10

The Saints; Walpole

 

9

Cookley

Chediston

8

Chediston; Yarmouth

Walpole;Yarmouth

7

Theberton

The Saints

6

Beccles

Wissett

 

A total of 40 places of birth were ranked with respect to contributing two and three births to the census.  Of these, only two places, Chediston and Walpole, were common to Pound St and The Thoroughfare (Table 6.10).

 

Regarding the origins of heads of household, Walpole Rd had the highest percentage of colonists (about 85%). The lowest percentage of colonists, between 50 and 60 percent were found in Market Place and Chediston St (Table 6.11).

 

 

 

Table 6.11 Percentages of heads of household who were born in Halesworth (natives) and elsewhere (colonists)

 

 

Thoroughfare

Market Place

Pound St

Chediston St

Walpole Rd

Natives

25.9

42.9

34.5

40.4

15.4

Colonists

74.1

57.1

65.5

59.6

84.6

 

6.7  Education

 

A generation after the 1832 Reform Act the middle class could bring some influence to bear on education.  It had representatives in Parlia­ment who had begun to make it understood that the British economy needed an efficient educational system to meet contemporary conditions, and more particu­larly the growth of foreign competition.   In 1851 the educational system was simple in form.  Elementary schools that existed were mainly financed by voluntary societies of a religious nature; secondary education was provided by private proprietary schools or by grammar and other schools on ancient foundations that were often inefficient. There was no central organization con­trolling this rudimentary system, and criticism was growing by the middle of the century, partly because of various structural strains but also because the facts about the schools were now more fully known and this in itself influenced values. As part of the 1851 Census, Horace Mann had compiled a report, 'Education in England and Wales', which revealed the low proportion of children then attending any school.

 

Halesworth had no ancient foundations to support its education.  In 1851 there were 839 children up to 15 years of age in the town.  Almost two thirds of these were classified as scholars, workers or paupers (Table 6.12).  Most of those who were classified by the enumerator were scholars and sometimes they were assigned to a particular type of establishment, such as Dame School, National School, Infant School, Chapel and Sunday School.  About three times more boys were described as scholars than were said to be working.  A larger proportion of girls were classified as scholars (a 4:1 ratio of scholars to child-workers).  

 

Table 6.12 Children up to 15 years old in Halesworth 1851 census

 

Place

Male scholars

Female scholars

Male workers

Female workers

Males not determined

Females not determined

Male paupers

Female paupers

Thoro’fare

27

29

9

8

12

10

0

0

Market Place

8

4

1

2

10

6

0

0

Pound Street

31

37

13

10

17

22

0

0

Walpole Road

3

5

2

2

4

5

0

0

Chediston Street

53

89

19

13

47

44

3

6

Bridge Street

24

17

6

6

14

1

0

0

Quay Street

16

13

2

5

11

25

0

0

Bungay & Wissett Roads

13

12

7

4

23

27

0

0

Mill Hill, New Court & Fenn Farm

15

14

5

5

9

14

0

0

Totals

190

220

64

55

147

154

3

6

 

There were only 9 child paupers (i.e. the family was in receipt of poor relief) in the town.  About 36% of children up to 15 years old were not classified.  Of these about one third were less than five years of age.  Assuming the over fives who were not classified as scholars or working-children were neither at school or at work, it may be concluded that about half of Halesworth’s children were not being educated.  What alarmed investigators of the national scene around this time, and provided powerful arguments in the campaign for compulsory education, were not only the apparent decline in the proportion of children attending school, but a decline also in the proportion at work. The consequence was an increasing proportion of young people in the very margin of society, outcast and neglected. 'And what are these neglected children doing if they are not at school?' asked James McCosh, after reviewing the evidence relating to Manchester, in a paper to the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science in 1867. 'They are idling in the streets and wynds; tumbling about in the gutters; selling matches; running errands; working in tobacco shops, cared for by no man . . . 

 

There were some marked differences in attitudes towards education even within Halesworth’s small compass.  For example, in Bridge St the proportion of scholars to other children was 1.75:1.  In contrast, Bungay and Wissett Roads had the lowest proportion of scholars (ratio 0.37:1).  These differences probably reflect the value placed upon education by parents, whose attitudes were in turn affected by wealth and occupation, but we know next to nothing about any local debate.  Generally speaking the background to public education in the 1850s was arguments about values and priorities.  On the one hand, education was about lighting a fire in a child's mind, filling it with desire and delight and curiosity, and encouraging these human qualities.  On the other hand, the aim was for children to be ‘fit for purpose’, that is to say, edu­cating in order to prepare a workforce that would meet the economic challenges of the new age of industrialism. These two views are in fact still dominating the 21st century debate about the role of education.  Previously, the economic and technical arguments for education had been less powerful than the arguments for scriptural literacy, with the majority believing that the best condition of the working classes was one of ‘unenterprising content­ment, uninstructed reverence, and unrepining submission'. 

 

A third element of controversy was concerned with the poor. Should they be educated?  During the course of the eighteenth century various attempts had been made, particularly in the charity schools, to teach them reading and writing, or sometimes reading by itself. Such efforts were concerned not with refashioning the way of life of the poor, but with keeping them in their due place in society by instruction in the scriptures and the catechism. Despite this limita­tion of purpose, the charity schools were often attacked on the grounds that 'education' threatened 'the great law of subordination': in the last decades of the century, similar arguments were used against the Sunday schools.   We now see that the establishment of Sunday Schools prepared public opinion for a general advance in elementary education.  Defenders of the Sunday School Union, founded in 1785, urged that education produced 'orderly and decent comportment' and deterred children from crime, but their critics complained that they 'refined and innervated, and consequently disqualified the recipients for the duties of a humble station'. A few years later when the good eighteenth-century philanthropist, Hannah More, opened a school for poor children in the Somerset Mendips, she was accused by local farmers of inciting village children to mutiny and disaffection.  'The poor’, declared the wife of the leading local farmer, 'were intended to be servants and slaves: it was pre-ordained that they should be ignorant.' Her husband added the appropriate conclusion. 'If a school were to be set up, it would be all over with property, and if property is not to rule what is to become of us?  It may well be that the attitudes of residents in Wissett and Bungay roads was conditioned by the fact that they were on Halesworth’s agrarian fringe, whilst the residents of the relative new commercial population of Bridge Street were generating urban ideas associated with wealth and non-conformism. It was no accident that the Congregational Church was eventually sited in Bridge Street.

 

In attitudes towards education, Halesworth was not so different from other places.  A similar situation was revealed by the  Manchester Statistical Society and by the Educa­tion Aid Society.  Their enquiries in 1865 showed that among the children of Manchester age between 3 to 12 in their sample, over a half were neither at school nor at work. Compulsory education was a neces­sity by the 1870s, not because children were at work, but because increasingly they were not. 

 

In the 1851 census Halesworth appeared to be well supplied with teachers, with 26 people engaged in its education system.  Many of these were not born in the town.  Three were described as being associated with the town’s National School.  The oldest of these three was George Barham lodging in Wissett Rd, age 19.  The others were William Sands age 16, lodging at 66 Quay St, who was a pupil teacher, and Maria Sparrow age 14.  Another pupil teacher was Emma Hayward, age 15 of Mill Hill.   There were two schoolmasters, John Mansall, age 30, who lived with his family in Mill Hill St, and Samuel Smith of Yarmouth, age 60, who was described as a ‘schoolmaster with no pupils’.  There were four schoolmistresses, Elizabeth Lane of Halesworth, unmarried age 40, in the Market Place, Caroline Wilson a widow age 54 from Cookley, also living in the Market Place, Susan Fellmingham, age 69 unmarried, of St Cross, and Sarah Wade, unmarried age 35 of Halesworth.  It is interesting that the Misses Fellmingham and Wade were living at 166 and 167 Pound St, in a cluster of teachers, which included the above mentioned Samuel Smith at number 164. One or more of the above mistresses may have taught at the National School.  There was also an infant school, represented in the census by the teacher Jane Phillips, age 18 who lodged at 49 Thoroughfare.  We also know from the descriptions of scholars that there was a ‘Dame School’, and Infant School and a National School. These descriptions were only attached to scholars in Chediston Street, which probably reflects a whim of a particular enumerator. 

 

Only 13 children were classed as being educated at home.   Education in the home was also evident from the presence of four governesses.  Two of these were living in the households of employees of Gurneys Bank.  Mary Lendall was teaching the children of Andrew Johnston, manager of the bank, and a magistrate, at 31 Thoroughfare.  Delia Woods, the daughter of his clerk, William Woods of 71 Quay St, was also described as a governess, and her sister Jane was ‘a teacher at home’ instructing the youngest daughter, Ellen. There were two other governesses, Maria Becksmith, who described herself as a ‘British School Governess’, age 24, lodging in Mill Hill St, unmarried from London and Susanna Dryden at 38, Bridge St.

 

Table 6.13   Private schools described in the 1851 census

 

66

Market Place

George Wilson

Head

m

57

 

master shoemaker

Lambeth Surrey

 

Market Place

Caroline

w

 

 

54

schoolmistress

Cookley

 

Market Place

Ellen

d

u

 

19

teacher

Walpole

 

Market Place

Mary Ann

d

 

 

16

 

Halesworth

 

Market Place

Walter

gs

 

6

 

scholar

Ipswich

 

Market Place

Louisa Hodson

 

 

 

6

pupil

London

 

Market Place

Alice Hodson

 

 

 

4

pupil

Lambeth Surrey

 

Market Place

Luke Dickson

visitor

 

63

 

retired draper

Denby Yorks

 

Market Place

Arthur Lewis

visitor

 

4

 

 

Northallerton Yorks

 

Market Place

Alfred Watson

visitor

 

4

 

 

Northallerton Yorks

 

72

Quay St

Sarah Ellworthy

head

widow

 

49

schoolmistress

Darsham

 

Quay St

Harriet Ellworthy

d

u

 

27

teacher 

Westleton

 

Quay St

Maryanne Ellworthy

d

u

 

26

teacher

Westleton

 

Quay St

Lucy Ellworthy

d

 

 

17

teacher

Westleton

 

Quay St

Samuel Ellworthy

s

 

16

 

drapers assistant

Kelsale

 

Quay St

Emma Cowles

 

u

 

22

house servant

Halesworth

 

Quay St

Elizabeth Farrier

pupil

 

 

15

 

Bedfordshire

 

Quay St

Sarah Smith

pupil

 

 

13

 

Linstead

 

Quay St

Julia Read

pupil

 

 

14

 

Laxfield

 

Quay St

Louisa Read

pupil

 

 

13

 

Laxfield

 

Quay St

Mary Mayhew

pupil

 

 

17

 

Halesworth

 

Quay St

Tryphena Mayhew

pupil

 

 

13

 

Halesworth

 

Quay St

Anna Mayhew

pupil

 

 

10

 

Halesworth

 

Quay St

Mary Ann Goddard

pupil

 

 

11

 

Badingham

 

Quay St

Lucy Palmer

pupil

 

 

9

 

Spexhall

 

 

 

 

87+

Castle

Joseph Harvey

head

m

54

 

teacher of maths and classics

Ufford

 

Castle

Harriet Harvey

w

 

 

43

teacher of French music and drawing

Portsea Hants

 

Castle

Mary Harvey

d

 

 

11

scholar at home

Halesworth

 

Castle

Frederick Harvey

s

 

9

 

scholar at home

Halesworth

 

Castle

Clara Harvey

d

 

 

8

 

Halesworth

 

Castle

Julius Harvey

s

 

6

 

 

Halesworth

 

Castle

Rosa Harvey

d

 

 

4

 

Halesworth

 

Castle

Alexander Harvey

s

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

 

Castle

Emma Lenny

 

u

 

18

house servant

Bramfield

 

38

Bridge St

Susannah Dryden

head

u

 

29

governess

Halesworth

 

Bridge St

Emma Driver

pupil

u

 

18

 

Hadleigh

 

Bridge St

Sarah Wellam

pupil

 

 

12

 

Hadleigh

 

Bridge St

Anna Leman

pupil

 

 

6

 

Westhall

 

Bridge St

Sarah Self

pupil

 

 

16

servant

Halesworth

 

From the census returns it is evident that there were four private schools.  Caroline Wilson’s, was a strange establishment in the premises of her husband, a master shoemaker, at 66 Market Place, with two boarders age 6, from London. (Table 6.13)  At 66 Quay St lived Sarah Ellworthy, a widow, who was described as schoolmistress, with three unmarried daughters who were all teachers.  The household contained nine of their boarders, who came from surrounding villages, except one, who was born in Bedfordshire.  Another private school was situated at the home of the above governess Susanna Dryden, with four girl pupils, ranging in age from 6 to 18 years old, one of whom was a servant.  Joseph Harvey’s school was in Castle House, at the eastern end of Quay St. The Harvey family is listed in the census but the school did not have any boarders.  In The Halesworth Times of July 31, 1855, Joseph Harvey’s establishment was described as a classical, mathematical and commercial academy.  The advertisement stated that the pupils received a sound liberal and practical education calculated to fit them for an honourable course through life in whatever position they may hereafter be placed.  French and other modern languages were taught ‘with the correct continental accent and pronunciation’. It added that Mr. Harvey attached great importance to moral and religious culture. Castle House the advert states ‘stands in a very healthy and pleasant position; and the domestic arrangements are on a most liberal scale’.

 

In the second half of the 19th century, three Royal Commissions considered the educational system of the country. In the reports of these commissions may be found the definitions of the educational situation by the ruling class of the time, for the education of its own children and those of the other social classes. The working class had little direct influence on these definitions.

 

Considering the alternative to education, there is no necessary correspondence between falling mortality rates among young people and the growth of suitable employment opportunities for them. There can be little doubt that by the 1870s middle-class children, by surviving in greater numbers, constituted a growing burden on their parents while they were growing up, and an increasing problem to place in acceptable work when their education was completed. It is probable that a social class differential in fertility existed much earlier in the century.  Glass has computed negative correlation coefficients between fertility and status in twenty-eight London boroughs, which were not notably smaller in 1851 than in 1911 or 1931; nevertheless, it is from the seventies that the average size of the middle-class family began its steep decline. The birth-control movement was a symptom of the superabundance of the young in relation to family resources and to the needs of the economy. 'It may be possible to bring ten children into the world, if you only have to rear five, and, while one is "on the way", the last is in the grave, not in the nursery. But if the doctor preserves seven or eight of the ten, and other things remain equal, the burden may become intolerable.'1 But other things did not even remain equal: it was unfortunate for the young that they were most abundant when the economy, whether at the level of professional or of manual employment, offered diminishing opportunities for youth and relative inex­perience.  Charles Booth reflected in 1903:

 

“The great loss of the last twenty years is the weakening of the family ties between parents and children. Children don't look after their old people according to their means. The fault lies in the fact that the tie is broken early. As soon as a boy earns l0s. a week he can obtain board and lodging in some family other than his own, and he goes away because he has in this great liberty”.

 

In the last twenty years of the 19th century; there was a very large and quite abnormal increase in the labour force aged 20-55 years.  .  This 'bulge' had entered the labour market in the late sixties and the seventies, when the birth rate was as high as in the last quarter of the 18th century.  Moreover, in the second half of the nineteenth century the survival rates among older children and adolescents improved much more rapidly than among children aged 0-4 years. While the annual mortality per thousand declined by 11-3 per cent among boys aged 0-4 years (from 71 to 63) between 1841-5 and 1891-1900, the decline among boys aged 5-9 declined by 53-2 per cent (from 9-2 to 4-3), and among boys aged 10-14 by 53-0 per cent (from 5-1 to 2-4). Thus while adoles­cents were a better 'proposition', since they were more likely to live and so justify what was spent on their upbringing and education, the wastage among them was small at the very time that the economy had a diminishing need for their services.

 

This was the prelude to the introduction of compulsory education between 1870 and 1880.  Not only was there a 'bulge' in young people, but also advances in technol­ogy were in any case displacing the young worker. In some industries, too, exten­ded factory legislation greatly diminished his value in the eyes of employers: the administrative complications raised by part-time schooling deterred mine-owners from employing boys under 12 after the Mines Act of 1860; the Factory Acts Extension Act of 1867.  The Workshops Regulation Act of the same year had similar consequences in a wide range of industries, including the metal trades, glass and tobacco manufacture, letterpress printing and bookbinding.

 

Technical changes in many industries were in any case breaking the earlier dependence on juvenile labour: steam power in the lace and pottery industries was being substituted for children's energy and dexterity; the dramatic decline in the proportion of young people engaged in agriculture in the second half of the century has been similarly attributed in part to technical development.  A new class connected with the application of science to agriculture has sprung into being.  Young people were no longer central to the economy; they were moving ever more on to the periphery, into marginal and relatively trivial oc­cupations: street trading, fetching and carrying, and particularly indoor domestic service.

 

The decline in the proportion of young people (under the age of 15) had set in before the compulsory education introduced by the Education Acts of 1870, 1876 and 1880. In 1851 young people under 15 were 6-9 per cent of the occupied population; in 1861 workers of this age were 6-7 per cent of all occupied, in 1871 6-2 per cent, in 1881 they were 4-5 per cent.

 

Perhaps the most remarkable decline in the proportion of employed young people was in the country's major industry, agriculture. This industry was experiencing considerable difficulties at this time and its manpower was contract­ing; but while the total number employed in agriculture declined by 24 per cent between 1851 and 1881, the number of young people under 15 declined by no less than 40 per cent. Under-15s in agriculture were 21 per cent of all young workers in 1851, and 13.7 per cent in 1881. An opposite trend is marked in the case of indoor domestic service: under-15s in this employment were 11.6 per cent of all young workers in 1851, and 19.7 per cent in 1881. In spite of compulsory education, while the employed population increased by 38 per cent between 1851 and 1881, young people employed in indoor domestic service increased over the same period by 55 per cent.

 

 

 

 

But in spite of the growing numbers of young people still employed in certain industries, while the total number of employed people in England and Wales increased by 12-14 per cent between 1861 and 1871, the number of under-15s employed increased by only 2-5 per cent. This is not because a greater proportion was attending school.

 

Since education was first institutionalised to the present day, all too often schools drill children to get good marks rather than awakening in them a wonder of the world.  The current emphasis on league tables means that children go to school in order to get qualifications so that the school doesn't fall down the league table, rather they should be going to school for something interesting, for a first acquaintance with a delight that will last them a lifetime.  Imparting knowledge by drilling is an anti-humane education, an education without curiosity and joy and delight and a wonder of the world.  It has been said that the children of the 1851 Halesworth census were lucky enough to grow up and go to church, at a time when the King James Bible, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and Hymns Ancient and Modern were the three great texts.  Week after week, words were put in front of them, which they didn't have to understand. They had to say them aloud, they had to speak, and this involved a joining-in. And if they were curious about what they meant, they looked them up afterwards. But, oddly enough, that wasn't the most important thing to do with words. The most important thing was simply to say them. It gives a kind of con­fidence.

 

‘It allowed you to feel that you could intone, or recite or sing words which sounded wonderful, and although you didn’t understand them initially, that didn’t matter.. In this way words enjoyment came first and the meaning was worked out afterwards’.

 

 

6.8  Charity

 

By the late eighteenth century the first fully reasoned account of the British economic past had been assembled. It described, and emphatically endorsed, a revolution in human affairs.  This had entailed the transformation of a sluggish, predominantly agricultural economy, characterised by indolence, widespread poverty and the domination of a predatory aristocracy, into a free commercial society, which was based upon the sat­isfaction of reciprocal wants through the mechanism of the market,.  As Adam Smith put it, 'every man . . . lives by exchanging or becomes in some measure a merchant'.  This produced a state of things conducive to a highly developed division of labour, to the rational employment of land, labour and capital, to 'improvement', 'opulence', 'independence' and ultimately the public good.  That good included laws whereby the more affluent were directed to give to the unemployed of their community.

 

This culture of ‘taking and giving’ provided the general course and meaning of economic and social change, as the 18th century writers understood it. In addition, it provided a timeline of gradual transformation. Real beginnings were traced to the changes of the sixteenth century, which consolidated and advanced in the late sixteenth and earlier seventeenth centuries and then markedly accelerated after 1660. Historians established the main themes of change as:

 

·         increased consumption;

·         rising prices;

·         agrarian and agricultural change;

·         urban growth;

·         the expansion of manufactures and commerce;

·         government economic policy;

·         the development of financial institutions;

·         the interconnected emergence of widespread wage-labour and of a commercial and agricultural middle class.

 

They identified the principal mechanisms of change as:

 

·         a developing taste for superfluities and the multiplication of 'wants';

·         the growth of markets, both domestic and overseas;

·         enhancement of the division of labour;

·         competition and the rational employment of accumulated capital 'for the sake of profit'.

 

And finally they isolated the basic motivation of change in the self-interested behaviour of individuals animated, in Hume's words, by 'a spirit of avarice and industry', or engaged, in Adam Smith's gentler phrase, in the 'universal, continual, and uninterrupted effort to better their own condition'. As it happened, it was a history for the most part conceived and written by Scotsmen. Yet it focused attention primarily upon the growing wealth of England.

 

Running alongside this timeline of the accumulation of wealth were surveys of the need for poor relief, which emanated from a law of 1572.  This law empowered local magistrates to survey the poor in their area and impose compulsory taxation for their relief.  It produced an important historical discontinuity.  True, Jesus spoke harshly of the rich and ordered them to perform acts of self-sacrifice and philanthropy, so extreme that few rich Christians have ever taken the command literally; but the recorded sayings of Jesus about riches and poverty are ambiguous. It is not surprising, therefore, that the secular circumstances of Christians have affected their responses to poverty, and that the New Testament has provided texts for both the social revolutionary and his enemies.

 

Funds set aside for the benefit of the less fortunate inhabitants of Halesworth may be traced to the 14th century.  These were invested in ‘The Town Estates’, which consist of certain freehold, and copyhold property vested in and administered by trustees, for the general benefit of the inhabitants of the parish. Most of the land lay in Halesworth and Holton; part being purchased from funds in possession of the townspeople. Some of the old conveyances are still preserved, two of the earliest dating back to 1340 and 1344 in the reign of Edward III.

 

From 1572 there was a gradual modi­fication of perceptions of the problem of poverty. This led to fuller recognition of the problems of 'labour­ing persons not able to live off their labour', a recognition reinforced by investigations of the industrial depressions of the early seventeenth century. Moreover, these studies enhanced awareness of the need for greater regularity in the provision of relief at the level of the parish. In the wake of the economic crisis of the 1590s, the laws were overhauled in a manner intended to clarify responsibilities and to simplify procedures in the inter­ests of their more effective implementation. The poor laws of 1598 and 1601 fixed responsibility for the assessing and raising of rates, the relief of the impotent, the apprenticing of poor children and the setting to work of the able-bodied squarely upon the shoulders of parish church­wardens and 'overseers of the poor'. Parish officers were also empowered to whip vagrants and to return them to their places of origin. Hencefor­ward the system was to be emphatically the responsibility of the parish, with county justices exercising a supervisory role, hearing appeals and when necessary ordering the incarceration of 'incorrigible rogues' in 'houses of correction' (originally envisaged in 1576, but required to be established in every county from 1610).

 

The next half-century saw the gradual implementation of the parochial relief system. In 1600 poor rates were already established in most towns, and thereafter they became increasingly common in rural parishes, their adoption being hastened by the responses of both local and central authorities to the emergency years of the 1620s to the late 1640s. Not infre­quently it involved a degree of foot-dragging by parishioners reluctant to accept the burden of regular local taxation. Yet by 1640, after the ener­getic monitoring of enforcement by Charles I's privy council in the wake of the crisis of 1630-1, the poor rate was an accustomed fact of life in many parishes. By the 1650s the system was operational in perhaps a third of England's 10,000 parishes and well on the way to the near-universal implementation, which was accomplished in the third quarter of the century.  Halesworth’s brick-built Alms Houses by the Church, date from this time.  They originally contained 12 rooms, each room occupied by a widow and yielding no rent. The date, of the original gift by Mr. William Gary, attorney, is unknown but the donor died on July llth, 1686.  This building probably replaced an early one because there are references to  "ye almyshouses" in the Halesworth Manorial Court Roll dated 1478, in the reign of Ed. IV. and again in the Church Communion attendance register for the year 1594.

 

Long before then, however, the surviving account books of parish over­seers reveal what were to become the characteristic features of the system. Those deemed able to contribute to the rate were listed and assessed. The impotent poor were identified and paid weekly pensions. Orphan children were placed in households and subsequently apprenticed. Occasional 'extraordinary' relief payments were made to those of the able-bodied poor, suffering from temporary crises that rendered them unable to sustain their households. In addition, parish officers were frequently made responsible for the administration of private charitable donations to the local poor - involving, for example, the regular dis­tribution of bread or the periodic provision of clothing. Matthew Walter, by will dated 2nd July 1589, gave an annuity of 20/- to the poor of Halesworth out of his estate at Holton, which was to be distributed in bread to poor people on Sundays, at the parish church, after morning service. In 1611, Robert Launce by will dated 13th Aug, gave £60 towards the purchase of a piece of land, ‘the profits thereof to be distributed by feoffees of the town with the Churchwardens and overseers to the poor of Halesworth where most need shall require’. Some made determined efforts of their own to combat the impoverishing conse­quences of scarcity. James and John Keble were also benefactors at this time.  James by will dated 27th Jan.1650, left to trustees a pightle to the intent that the trustees should with the rents yearly, at or before Christmas, distribute bread to the poor of Halesworth.  John Keble by will dated 16th May 1652 left lands in Holton, half the revenue to be used for the relief of widows, and the other half to bind out poor apprentices.  In May 1700 the sums of £60 given by John Phillips, and £30 5s. given by Richard Phillips, were laid out in the purchase of lands in Wenhaston, the money so arising to be expended as follows:-

 

‘The churchwardens and overseers to buy and divide 12 penny loaves every Sunday, and also 12 more penny loaves the first Sunday of each month, with the advice of the minister and chief inhabitants in the Church after morning prayer, amongst such of the poor as should then be present, or have a reasonable excuse for absence, to every one of them a penny loaf. The tomb of the Phillips in Halesworth Churchyard is also to be kept in repair by the Churchwardens’.

 

Emigrants from Halesworth remembered the needs of their birthplace.  The following is a copy of a donation letter from Matthias Manne:-

 

To my loving good  friends, the minister, churchwardens, and overseers of the poor of the towne of Hallisworthe in Suff., some six or eight miles beyond fframlingham. S. Salutem a fonte: I have sent here by this bearer twenty pounds of good and lawful money of England, to yourself, the churchwardens, and overseers of the towne  of  Hallisworthe, where I was borne   and baptized the 26th of Feb., A.D. 1577. My desire is that you would improve it to the best, as the custom is, for  orphauntes and ffatherless children-the profit I would receive myself during my life, but the stock I would have successively continued in the hands of the parson, churchwardens and overseers of the above named towne of  Hallisworthe, by them  to be improved to the best lawful advantage, and the profits thereof to be distributed in bread to the poore of the towne of Hallisworthe uppon each St. Matthias's day unto the world's end.    The first distribution to be made on the first St.  Matthias's  day, next after my departure out of this natural life, and so to continue for ever.     Thus I commit you all to the most high God, whoe present us blameless at his appearing thro' Jesus Christ.-Ipswich, this Two and Twentyth of November, Anno Dmi 1615.   Your loving ffriend, MATTHIAS MANNE."

 

The first references to charity schools come from the legacies of Thomas Neale, who in 1700 gave £60 for the education of poor children, and a yearly rent charge of 10/-towards buying them books. In 1701 Richard Porter left a yearly rent charge of £17 6s. 8d. out of a farm, for a schoolmaster and schoolmistress to teach 20 poor boys and 20 poor girls to read, and the latter also to knit.

These charitable systems continued to operate into the 20th century, as related by J.W. Newby who says:

 

“In my early days, occupants in the old Almshouses and other "poor widows" received gifts of loaves of bread which were handed out to them, or their representatives, at the Parish Church after morning worship on Sundays. Bread also known as St. Thomas's bread was distributed on St. Thomas's Day. The Town Crier with his bell would go out a few days before announcing that those who wished for the gifts should make application on a certain date at the Town Hall and subsequently those who were to receive them would be warned to attend there on Dec. 21st, when distributions were made according to the size of the family”…..In the 19??  “gifts were still made at various periods from these Charities to those who made application, in the form of vouchers, which they may spend for whatever they consider they need. Many used them to buy coal”.

 

The poor-relief system as a whole, then, was designed to meet both the potentially destabilising levels of general impoverishment precipi­tated by short-term economic crises, and the more permanent problem of poverty occasioned by long-term economic and social change. That the system could be afforded at all also demonstrates England's relative wealth: a tax base of 'substantial inhabitants' existed to fund the system on a regular basis, which was augmented by the occasional legacy.

 

'A man's eyes', says Tregarva (one of Charles Kingsley's characters in his novel Yeast, written in the 1890s), discussing poverty, 'can only see what they've learnt to see.' For most of the nineteenth century, Englishmen looked at poverty and found it morally tolerable, because their eyes were trained by evangelical religion and a burgeoning political economy. A preacher could spend his life surrounded by the squalor of a manufacturing town without feeling any twinge of socially radical sentiment, when he believed that many poor people were suffering for their own sins, and that the plight of the rest was the result of spiritual ordinances, which it would be impious to question, and of eco­nomic laws which it was foolish to resist.  Charity could alleviate the suffering caused by these laws, but in any case the poor had only to wait until death for the end of all temporal hardships and distinctions. Many men who believed these things were humane; but pity alone would never provide them with an alternative social theory and practice. Temporal misery was but a short prelude to eternal joy.

 

It was often said that responsibility for this view was formally expressed in the parochial principle, for the vicar was held to be charged with the care not only of his worshipping congregation, but also of everybody in the parish. The Church, said one of George Eliot's clergymen, 'ought to represent the feeling of the com­munity, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father.' Most clergy­men, of course, had to share their territory with other aspirants to spiritual fatherhood; many resented the competition, and some (especially in villages) let it divert them from the task of seeking those people who worshipped nowhere. The fiction that no rival pastor existed nevertheless had a high symbolic importance in the Church of England. The parochial principle was dear to Churchmen, both because it gave the clergy a special position in relation to other ministers, and because it represented the Church as a living part of the whole community, having a mission at once spiritual and social.

 

The ideal community of the above parochial theory belonged to a rural, pre-industrial England. The urban English today still dream of that countryside; and three generations ago, when millions were alive who had known a time when most people lived outside large towns, memory as well as imagination fed this nostalgia. Nowhere was it stronger than in the Church, and nowhere indulged with better reason. For in a stable, hierarchical, rural community, the parish church had an importance that it seldom gained in towns. The Church Pastoral Aid Society, which described its task as 'the maintenance of Curates and Lay-Agents in populous districts’, had as its unspoken aim, the reproduction in an urban environment of the relationship between church and society, which its members believed to have been characteristic of an earlier and happier England. 

 

We can turn to the minute books of St Mary’s Church in Halesworth for a glimpse of the human structure of the system, when on 15th April, 1836, it was reported that the Unappropriated Estate was in debt, and it was decided to reduce salaries of the parish officials. These were:

 

Organist (A. Barber),salary reduced from £25 to £20,

Clerk (B. Buller) had £2 cut from his £12,

Beadle, who was getting £8/8/0, was dropped to £5/5/0, but he received some consolation that he was "to be furnished with a new coat every fourth year as before."

Organ blower (R. Goodwin), was allowed to receive his £3/10/0 as before, and only six shillings were knocked off the six guinea salary

 

Sexton (J. Jarmy) received ?; he was a blacksmith and ironmonger in Chediston Street on premises now demolished.

 

With regard to the Christian unity of Halesworth’s giving community, the Parish Church was renovated in 1858, and in the Halesworth Times of December 7th of that year, it was stated that the total cost of the renovation amounted to £1,000, of which £800 had been received in voluntary subscriptions.  An additional £74 was given on the day of re-opening, so as little as £126 was needed to wipe off the debt. It was also stated that although the Church could only seat 900 people, over 1,000 were present at that Sunday evening service of celebration.

 

6..9  Medical care

 

The eighteenth century is noteworthy for the establishment of hospitals and dispensaries, as well as for the work of these pioneers of public health. Hospitals of medieval times, many of which had been swept away at the time of the Reformation, were houses of refuge for the destitute as well as places of succour for the sick. In the seventeenth century the view gained ground that hospitals should be both places for the cure of the sick, and centres for the study of medicine. This was in keeping with the spirit of "the new humanity" and the methods of experiment and observation characteristic of the scientific movement. Holland led the way. Clinical teaching was established at Leyden University about 1626 and the Dutch system entered Britain through Scotland. In this connection, it was Leyden's system of clinical teaching that inspired the founders of the famous Edinburgh medical school.  The movement for the establishment of a medical faculty at Edinburgh University was initiated by the Royal College of Physicians, which had been chartered in 1681. Edinburgh became a pattern for other centres of medical teaching in and beyond Scotland.

 

As the Industrial Revolution swept over the country, many general hospitals were founded, and in addition special hospitals, such as the lying-in hospitals of Glasgow and Edinburgh, the London Fever Hospital, the Royal Chest Hospital, and the Royal Ear Hospital. At first these hospitals were free to all who needed their services. Later, restrictions involved the charging of fees for admission, and matrons, nurses and porters all collected their sixpence or shilling for every service rendered. This system became a crying scandal, and was not abolished until 1829, when the Royal Free Hospital was founded in London. Thereafter other hospitals had to follow suit. They became free, as had been the in­tention of their philanthropic founders.

 

The rapid and uncontrolled growth of towns multiplied the dangers to health resulting from overcrowding.  It was the cholera epidemic of 1830-2 that alerted townsfolk to the need for the clean up of insanitary living conditions and better health provisions.   One place after another reported the dread disease, and everywhere the poorest and most overcrowded districts in towns and cities were noticeably those most affected.  It was around this time that the Halesworth ‘pest house’ came into being.  This was a town farm situated at the edge of the parish, at the top of Loam Pit Lane, which was organised as an isolation hospital to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.  As it happened it was a little used community facility.  The only record of it being brought into action comes from the following extract from the Halesworth Times, January 23rd 1877.

 

‘Small Pox! This dreaded disease made its appearance in the town a week ago.  Our medical sanitary officer promptly availed himself of the long-disused pest house, so as to isolate the case as much as possible and we sincerely hope his efforts may be crowned with success by the disease spreading no further’.

 

This brings up the question of how it came to pass that Patrick Stead left about half his substantial personal fortune from the malt business to build a state of the art hospital for the town.  First and probably foremost, his marriage was childless.  This brings up the question of his feelings about promoting the indulgence and care of the sick.  This may well have emerged in his mind as a conjunction of the pioneering medical developments in his Scottish homeland, together with his day to day experiences of the medical needs of Halesworth, where he had lived for 30 of his 81 years.  The idea also came at the time of a growing national debate about how best to provide medical and public health services for the growing proportion of vulnerable townsfolk.   Most of this was committee talk, and one could imagine Stead, a man of action with the necessary financial resources, wanting to do something practical and substantial to make a difference to the people of his adopted town. In this respect, like many of his business initiatives, this enterprise was not to be boasted about.  Finally, Halesworth as an outstanding giving community could also have influenced him.  At the time he was disengaging from the town, John Crabtree, a local solicitor, who eventually became one of the trustees of the hospital committee, had erected the Memorial Homes in 1859 in remembrance of his wife.  They were to be occupied by four poor widows, who each had two rooms, and received 5/- per week. This outstanding benefactor to the Town is buried in Halesworth Cemetery.  However, we shall never really understand what motivated Patrick Stead, about 13 years after he had left the town, to write his will on the 19th of November, 1867, leaving a provisional bequest of one thousand pounds in aid of establishing an Infirmary or Hospital in Halesworth.  In detail, he specified that his initiative should be carried forward by a group of townsfolk consisting of the Rector of Halesworth and any three parishioners of the town elected by the parishioners at their annual Parish Meeting.  The Will went on to state,

 

"And in regard to the whole residue and remainder of my Means and Estate heritable as well as moveable, including any bequests or provisions which shall be forfeited by any of my beneficiaries quarrelling about the provisions in their favour or raising litigation thereanent, I direct and appoint my said Trustees to pay the same to the Rector of Halesworth and Parishioners to be appointed as aforesaid in aid of establishing a fund for establishing or maintaining a Hospital in Halesworth." 

 

In other words, there was more to come.  Patrick Stead died in 1872, and finally, after the death of his widow in 1875, the Halesworth trustees of his hospital project received more than £25,000." 

 

It is difficult to underestimate the importance of Stead’s generous bequest because it happened at a time when medical services were only just beginning to develop nationally through philanthropic dispensaries.  As already stated above, these were places where free advice and medicine were provided, and for those unable to attend the dispensary, arrangements were made for visitation at home. These free dispensaries were in fact the forerunners of the modern clinics. The first was opened in Red Lion Square, London, in 1769, "for the relief of the Infant Poor." The well-known General Dispensary followed it in 1770. Before the close of the century many more had been founded, and doctors with ex­perience of such institutions were enthusiastic about their influence for good.  In this climate, Halesworth with its own hospital opened in 1881, was well in advance of many of England’s far larger urban centres.

 

6.10  The Bon Marche comes to town

6.10.1 Clothes with groceries

Human memory in the face of physical change is unreliable.  Even something that happened five years ago has lost its cultural context and requires research to bring it to the fore. The latter point can be no better exemplified than with the three-storey building tucked away in the narrows, where Chediston Street meets the top of Thoroughfare at the Market Place.  This exceptionally large and somewhat overbearing Victorian building in grey brick, with classical motives, was, for about a century occupied by Roe and Company’s Bon Marche department store.   Its origins go back even further to the very beginnings of modern mass retailing.

 

At its peak Roe’s occupied the adjacent property of the Mansion House, also a large although relatively smaller structure, that when it was built around three centuries ago, was the grandest residence in town.  John Prime probably erected this house; the family owned land in this part of Halesworth in the 16th and 17th centuries and some of the early Primes were classed as ‘masons’.  As a private residence, it passed through the hands of a series of town worthies; John Prime, Peter Pullyn, Dr Norford, John Durban, John Woodcock, Robert Gostlin White and Robert Baas; before being converted into an extension of Roe and Co. towards the end of the 19th century.  The commercial history of this microcosm of Halesworth’s townscape, encapsulates the enlargement and collapse of personal goals in the long historical trajectory of Halesworth’s retail development.  The end of Roes came in the 1950s, since when the premises have been in multiple occupancy because the town’s local economy could no longer support such grandiose family enterprises.

 

The socio-economic trail to Roe’s actually begins at the turn of the century with the bankruptcy of John Woodcock, the second generation of an entrepreneurial family, who was introduced in Chapter 3 as one of the prime movers in the birth of Halesworth as a brewing and banking centre.  The Woodcocks came to Halesworth from Pulham Market and Harleston, where they had accumulated wealth as farmers, and drapers.  John Woodcock, following in his father’s footsteps, was also a draper amongst his many other guises, and after his bankruptcy the drapery premises at the Market Place/Thoroughfare junction (No 228 in the Tithe Apportionment) came up for sale in 1802.  It came on the market together with the Woodcock’s dwelling, the Mansion House next door, where John had lived with his father in their early days in Halesworth.  The Mansion House was then described as a capital messuage (No 229).  The Woodcock drapery was a relatively small shop situated between the Mansion House and the Kings Arms (No 227, now occupied by Patricks Newsagents).

 

From the manorial rolls it appears that Thomas Bayfield, woollen dealer, purchased the property in 1803.  Charles Bardwell, also a linen draper, trading in woollens and silks, rented the property, which was copyold to the Manor of Halesworth

 

Thomas Bayfield died in 1844 and his son Charles Augustine was admitted to the manor court on 27.02.1844 by virtue of the last will and testament of his father.  Charles had already taken a different career path to his father, and left home for the life of a village schoolmaster in Ringsfield, where his wife also taught.  In the 1844 Whites Directory, Mrs Elizabeth Bayfield, his widowed mother, remained as a resident of Pound Street. 

 

The Bayfield property was next sold to James Aldred, probably shortly after Thomas Bayfield’s death.  Pigot's trade directory for 1839, lists James Aldred as draper, and hempen cloth manufacturer with premises in Queen St (alias Chediston St).   This is the same James Aldred, who was introduced in Chapter 3, as a member of a Wissett family involved with the growing and weaving of hemp.  James died in 1846, having appointed his wife Sarah, his younger brother Robert Aldred a Wissett farmer, William Leavold of Beccles a merchant, and Thomas Leavold of Ipswich, a draper, executrix and executors of his will.  Sarah was James’ second wife, who he had married in 1819, and the Leavold’s were his wife’s kinfolk. It seems that the families in the county drapery trade stuck together, which is probably a reflection of the local importance of Halesworth as a regional centre of this trade in Suffolk, with intense competition between its many retail establishments.

At the time of his death in 1846, James Aldred was living in the property situated west of the Kings Arms, which he had bought from John Augustine Bayfield.  In the 1841 census the household consisted of:

 

James Aldred                                  age 60        draper

Sarah                                              age50         wife

John                                               age 21        draper

William                                           age 18        assistant draper

James Smith                                    age 18         drapers apprentice

Hannah Judd                                   age 23         female servant

Mary Wright                                   age 40         charwoman      

 

His Chediston Street property consisted of a freehold garden, a weaving shed and a drapery shop.  This was the remains of his hemp manufactury, which was at a low ebb. When he died, part was in the occupation of Benjamin Fuller and part unoccupied, together with the outhouses, yards, gardens.  This was to be sold either by public auction or private contract.  He also owned a farm at Sotherton, which was also to be disposed of.  Provision was made in his will regarding the security of John Bayfield’s mother, because James’ will makes it clear that the sale of this property was subject to the life interest of Mrs Bayfield.  James’ will also makes special provision for his sons John Thomas Aldred and William Henry Aldred of £100 each ‘for the great zeal and attention to my business by which I have been greatly benefited’. The proceeds of the sale of all his properties were to be divided between four children, James Aldred, Mary Foster, John Thomas Aldred and William Henry Aldred.

 

After his father’s death, John Thomas joined his brother-in-law’s drapery/grocery in the Fenland Market Town of March, which was about the same size as Halesworth, but growing because it had become an important rail junction.  He and his sister Mary were censused there in 1851

 

                          March Census 1851    Cambridgeshire
High Street
Edgar Foster                                                40         draper & grocer                              St. Neots  Hunts
Mary Foster                                                   39                                                                   Halesworth
Michael Foster                                             15                                                                   March
Lucy Ann                                                        9          scholar                                             March
Edward Foster                                             6          scholar                                             March
George Foster                                              9mths                                            March
John Thomas Aldred                                  30         co partner/draper & grocer          Halesworth
Thomas Weedon                                        27         assistant                                         Middlesex

 

It was William Henry who carried on the drapery/grocery segment of his father’s business interests, making a fresh start in his father’s old premises at the Market Place/Thoroughfare junction.  In the 1851 census William Henry Aldred, was occupying this property (No 228) as a grocer and draper, with his wife Ellen.  Lodging in the premises were a cook, a house servant a draper’s assistant and three draper’s apprentices (Table 6.14). 

 


Table 6.14  Part of the Halesworth 1851 census showing the properties on the north side of the Thoroughfare as it joins the Market Place.

35

Thoroughfare

Martha F Lincoln

w

m

 

34

grocer draper chandler

Norwich

 

Thoroughfare

Harvey N

s

u

1

 

 

Halesworth

 

Thoroughfare

Mary J Jillings

 

u

 

26

drapers assistant

Cratfield

 

Thoroughfare

Frederick George

 

u

28

 

drapers assistant

Halesworth

 

Thoroughfare

James Taylor

 

u

25

 

grocers assistant

Becces

 

Thoroughfare

Bright Denny

 

u

16

 

grocer and draper apprentice

Sweffling

 

Thoroughfare

Henry Roper

 

u

12

 

grocer and draper apprentice

Halesworth

 

Thoroughfare

Mary Ann Balls

 

u

 

24

house servant

Wenhaston

 

Thoroughfare

Elizabeth Bone

 

u

 

23

housemaid

Brandeston

36

Thoroughfare

William Cullingford

Head

m

58

 

master gunsmith employing 2 men

Walpole

 

Thoroughfare

Catherine

w

m

 

55

 

Uggeshall

 

Thoroughfare

Mary Sillett

 

u

 

27

houseservant

Stradbroke

37

Thoroughfare

Robert Bass

Head

widower

73

 

House proprietor, smallholder

Yarmouth

 

Thoroughfare

Robert B

s

u

43

 

solicitor

Yarmouth

 

Thoroughfare

Ann F

d

u

 

42

 

Yarmouth

 

Thoroughfare

Elizabeth

sister

u

 

82

 

Yarmouth

 

Thoroughfare

Frances

sister

u

 

76

 

Yarmouth

 

Thoroughfare

Maria Aldred

 

u

 

30

cook

Wenhaston

 

Thoroughfare

Emma Cooper

 

u

 

27

housemaid

Wissett

 

Thoroughfare

Elizabeth Woolnough

 

widow

 

42

washerwoman

Cratfield

 

38

Thoroughfare

William Aldred

Head

m

28

 

draper and grocer

Halesworth

 

Thoroughfare

Ellen M

w

 

 

30

 

Denton

 

Thoroughfare

Margaret Brown

 

u

 

23

drapers assistant

Southwold

 

Thoroughfare

Jonathan Palmer

 

u

19

 

drapers apprentice

Spexhall

 

Thoroughfare

Charles Parker

 

 

16

 

drapers apprentice

Burgh St Peter

 

Thoroughfare

Edward Higham

 

u

15

 

drapers apprentice

Bramfield

 

Thoroughfare

Amy Taylor

 

u

 

18

house servant

Rumburgh

39

Thoroughfare

George Taylor

Head

m

42

 

innkeeper

Wyndham Norfolk

 

Thoroughfare

Mary Ann

w

 

 

41

 

Bruisyard

 

Thoroughfare

Frances

d

 

 

4

 

Halesworth

 

Thoroughfare

Sarah Cook

minlaw

widow

 

66

annuitant

Kelsale

 

Thoroughfare

Fanny Hugman

visitor

m

 

42

 

Framlingham

 

Thoroughfare

Mary Mayhew

 

u

 

21

housemaid

Rendham

 

Thoroughfare

Alice Coleman

 

u

 

21

cook

Beccles

 

Thoroughfare

John Taylor

 

u

13

 

waiter

Wissett

 

The 1851 census also shows that there was another drapery/grocery only three doors away from the Aldreds owned by the widow Martha Lincolne.  The Lincolne’s story is told later.  Suffice to say, William Aldred saw the Lincolne enterprise as an opportunity to expand his own business, and bought the premises in 1856.  He then sold his property next to the King’s Arms to John Henry Gostling chemist and druggist, for the sum of £500. The rolls describe this property as:-

 

‘That messuage or tenement formerly of John Woodcock, wherein Thomas Bayfield did formerly inhabit and dwell afterwards in the occupation of James Aldred late of the said William Henry Aldred or his undertenants and now in the occupation of the said John Henry Gostlin’.  With ‘rights of way from street over lands of Kings Arms and use of well or pump belonging to the Kings Arms (to pay a third part of expense of upkeep of the pump)’.

 

In 1861 we find him in a very much enlarged former Lincolne establishment (Table 6.15)

 

Table 6.15  Halesworth Census 1861: 10. Thoroughfare.

 

Name

Age

Designation

Birthplace

W  H  Aldred           

38

grocer/draper

Halesworth

Ellen Aldred

39

wife

Denton

Ellen Aldred

7

daughter/scholar

Halesworth

Gertrude Aldred

2

daughter

Halesworth

Kathrine Andrews

20

governess

Royston Herts

Ellen Moore

22

drapery assistant

Walpole

Maria Stanton

21

drapery assistant

Pulham Nfk

Maria Mathews

18

drapery assistant

Stevenage Herts

Anne Kine

16

drapery assistant

Horham

Benjamin Roe

21

drapery assistant

Thrandeston

Frederick Fuller

18

drapery apprentice

Westhall

Robert Gowing

19

drapery apprentice

Wingfield

George Baker

27

grocer’s assistant

Lyng Nfk

Frederick Lee

21

grocer’s assistant

Bristol Glos

Edward Gooch

17

grocer’s apprentice

Framlingham

Edwin Drake

16

grocer’s apprentice

Walsham le Willows

William Davy

14

grocer’s apprentice

Wilby

Maria Clements

29

cook

Dennington

Ruth Whiting

22

housemaid

Webread

Emma Haward

25

nursery maid

Halesworth

Ellen Haward

24

house maid

Halesworth

 

It is possible to map the changes in ownership of Aldred’s original smaller Thoroughfare property and those adjacent to it, towards Chediston Street.  In the central portion of the Halesworth Tithe Map of 1839 the plots are marked with numbers, which refer to their ownership at this time.  A comparison of the property layout in 1839 at the junction of The Thoroughfare with Chediston Street has been compared with that in a modern map (Fig 6.5A & B) and the census descriptions of 1841-61 (Table 6.16).

 

Fig 6.5  Comparison of premises in Market Place/Thoroughfare in the Tithe Map (A) with a modern map (B)

 

In map A; Numbers refer to plots in the Tithe Apportionment.  In map B: numbers refer to to the Tithe Map plots (e.g. –9 =  229; -8 = 228).  MP = Market Place; MG = Memorial Garden; C = Church.

 

The sequence of buildings; Mansion House, James Aldred’s and the ‘Kings Arms’ in 2005 are depicted in Fig 6.6.

 

Table 6.16  Enumerator’s designations (East to West) into Thoroughfare from Market Place in relation to plot numbers in the Tithe Map and Apportionment

 

1841: year & occupiers

Lincolne

Bunyan

Cullingford

Baas

James Aldred

Kings Arms

Tithe map number

234

233

232

229

228

227

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1851: year & occupiers

Lincolne

Lincolne

Cullingford

Bass

WilliamAldred

Taylor (Kings Arms

Tithe Map number

234

233

232

229

228

 227

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1861: year & occupiers

Aldred

Aldred

Aldred

Bass

Bass

Kings Arms

Tithe Map number

234

233

232

229

228

227

 

 

Fig 6.6   Disposition of the Mansion House, James Aldred’s Thoroughfare property, and the former Kings Arms (Nov 2005)

 

 

 6.10.2 The road to Roes

The first part of the property trail from Lincolnes shop to Roes ‘Bon Marche’ can be followed through the following timeline summarised from the Abstract of Title of William Henry Aldred (SRO ref LXIX 182/B/2), and other associated materials in the Cross & Ram archive held in the Lowestoft County Record Office (Table 6.7.).


 

 

1816 (29th October)

 

William Lincolne snr. bought a property known as ‘Hatchers’ from John Howard for sum of £975.  The Deeds of Hatchers begin with death of John Aldred, copyholder of the Manor of Halesworth, in March 1772.  The relationship of this Aldred, if any, with the Wisset Aldreds and William Henry is not clear.  The property received its name from the next copyholder, John Hatcher. 

 

Hatchers was where William Lincolne started his business of grocer, draper and tallow chandler i.e. the plot referred to as 234 in the Tithe Apportionment.  At the time of this purchase he had just arrived in Halesworth age 25 from Essex with two young sons.

 

1831 (4th July)

 

William Lincolne snr. bought a property knowns as ‘Wyards’ from William Henchman Pedgrift for sum of £700. The deeds of Wyards begin with admittance of Mary Wyard to the Manor of Halesworth in 1794.

1839

 

William Lincolne was listed as grocer, draper and tallow chandler in Pigot’s Halesworth Trade Directory. As a measure of the importance of Halesworth as a local centre of the grocery/drapery trade, and the keen competition in this business area, there were 10 drapers listed in the town at that time, eight of them incorporating a grocery business.  Lincolne was also described as an agent to the Yorkshire Fire and Insurance Office in Robsons Suffolk Directory for 1839. 

 

1841

 

Agreement between William Lincolne of Manchester and surveyors for the sale of a piece of land in Common Street, leading to Chediston Street.  This transaction probably refers to William Lincoln jnr., who would then have been age 25.  Around this time he is described as a warehouseman of Manchester.

 

William Lincolne snr. was present in Halesworth with his family in the 1841 census (Table 6.17A).  The relative position of the Lincolne premises in relation to its neighbours is shown in Table 6.17B.

 

Table 6.17  Halesworth Census 1841

(A) The Household of William Lincolne (No 234 Tithe Apportionment)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Born in Suffolk

William Lincoln h          age  50             grocer                                       No
Mary         "                  w                     age  49                                                             No
Napier       "                  s           age 18              druggist app.                             Yes
Elizabeth   "                   d         age 15                                                                          Yes
Henry        "                  s           age 13                                                                          Yes
Lucilla       "                  d                      age 9                                                                Yes
Marianne   "                  d          age  7                                                               Yes
William Haward                       age 27              draper 's  asst                            Yes
Eliza Mumford                          age 23              female servant                          Yes
Mary Ann Grey                         age 19              female servant                          Yes

 

 

(B) Market Place/Thoroughfare junction premises in a west to east sequence

 

Pt235

Pt235

234

233

232

229

228

227

Bedwell

Dowsing

Lincolne

Bunyan

Cullingford

Baas

Aldred

Kings Arms

tailor

watchmaker

grocer & draper

harness-maker

gunsmith

banker

Grocer & draper

 

 

1843 (24th November)

 

Conditional surrender made between J Harriet Sheriffe (of Southwold) and William Lincolne snr. for the sum of £1200 on security of Lincolne’s properties of ‘Wyards’ and ‘Hatchers’.  This is an important financial arrangement because it raises the question as to the purpose of the money raised through what was essentially a mortgage on the two properties.  William Lincolne snr. appeared to have possessed the personal finance to purchase Wyards and Hatchers, because the manorial rolls make it clear that these properties were not encumbered by any third party loans.  In the year he bought Wyards William had just arrived in Halesworth, age 25, from Witham in Essex with two infant sons. Barely three years previously he had married Mary Napier, a resident of central London. Their third child was baptised in Halesworth two years after he purchased Wyards.  Yet he was able to command almost a thousand pounds to set himself up in business and develop a substantial enterprise.  Was he backed with a legacy or a dowry?

 

 1847  (22nd May)

 

Death of William Lincolne snr., owner of the drapery and chandlery business listed at 35 Thoroughfare in the 1851 census (Table 5.2 above), and referenced to plots in the Tithe Apportionment, numbers 232, 233, 234 (Table 5.4 above).  In William’s will his son John was given the option of purchasing the property providing he leased it to the trustees of the estate, namely William Lincolne jnr, (the eldest son), Mary Lincolne (wife) and William Prentice of Stowmarket.  This is a rather strange arrangement.  It indicates that William jnr. was well provided for and that John was wealthy enough to take up the option. The fact that in the will, William jnr. was referred to as a warehouseman in Manchester and John was a soda water manufacturer in Cambridge bears this out, in that they both seem have left Halesworth before their father died and had successfully set up in businesses on their own account.

 

1851

 

Although in the 1851 census (Table 5.2) John Lincolne’s wife Martha was present in the Halesworth property with their one-year old son Harvey Napier, her husband had not yet taken up the option set out in his father’s will. In fact he did not purchase the family property until three years later.  It seems Martha was supervising the business whilst her husband John was in charge of their Cambridge mineral water enterprise.  The inference is that the executors, his elder brother William and William Prentice, a merchant in Stowmarket, continued to carry on the business after William snr. died, but at a distance. Widow Mary Lincolne disappears from the scene around this time. It is likely that the family was anxious to dispose of its Halesworth enterprise because of the large mortgage it was carrying.  Again this turn of events raises the question of what Harriet Sheriffe’s loan was actually used for.  In passing, their mineral water business is an interesting development because the Somerfield family moved from High Wickham to Halesworth to establish a non-alcoholic drinks enterprise on the corner of Market Place and Chediston St., just across the road from where the Lincolne’s premises was situated.  Somerfield’s was subsequently occupied by Prime and Cole’s garage.

 

 

1854 (13th March)

 

Sale made between William Lincolne of Manchester, warehouseman and William Prentice the elder of Stowmarket (the trustees of William Lincolne snr.) and John Lincolne of Cambridge for the Halesworth property, which was subject to £1050 remaining on the loan payable to Harriet Sheriffe.

 

1854 (23 November)

 

John Lincolne admitted to the court of the Manor of Halesworth with respect to the copyhold of the above property.

 

John Lincolne then entered into the sale of the property to William Henry Aldred for the sum of £1350 (£1050 was still outstanding on the loan payable to Harriet Sheriffe).  William Aldred paid £300 to John Lincolne for the absolute purchase of the property, subject to him taking responsibility for paying £1050 to Harriet Sheriffe.  John Lincolne was to hold the property in trust to William Aldred until Sheriffe’s financial interest was taken care of.

 

1856 (25th July)

 

John Lincolne surrendered the property into the hands of the lord of the Manor of Halesworth to be held in trust for William Henry Aldred, subject to payment of £1050 to Harriet Sheriffe.

 

1856 (2nd August)

 

William Henry Aldred appeared before manorial court with respect to the above surrender, seeking to be admitted copyhold tenant of the property held in trust for him, and permission was granted.

 

1856 (4th August)

 

William Henry Aldred paid £220 to J Crabtree, bailiff of the court, for absolute enfranchisment and manumising of the copyhold property ‘for quiet enjoyment free from incumberence’.

 

1856 (11th August)

 

William Henry Aldred presented to the court ‘a grant bargain sale and release’ to Harriet Sheriffe for the sum of £1050 with interest.

 

1856 (25th August)

 

Acknowledgement of satisfaction and discharge by J Harriet Sheriffe with respect to conditional surrender made to William Lincolne snr.

 

1859 (1st February)

 

William Henry Aldred paid Harriet Sheriffe £1057 18s and 10d for the discharge of all principal and interest on the security.

 

Essentially, this sequence of legal manoeuvrings was to transfer the mortgage, owed to Harriet Sheriffe, a Southwold moneylender, on the Lincolne premises to William Henry Aldred.  He thereby came to own an establishment which, judged by the 17 staff who were resident at the time of the 1861 census, had grown considerably from what it had been in William Lincolne’s time ten years earlier (Table 6.3).   The business was described in Harrods 1864 directory as ‘W. H. Aldred; linen & woollen draper, silk mercer, wholesale family grocer & candle manufacturer’.  The inference is that site was occupied by the building that we see there today.  This is a very large three-storey block, fronted with white brick, standing prominently on the north side of the road to Chediston at the junction of the Thoroughfare and Chediston Street, facing the Market Place. It abuts directly upon the street commanding a frontage of 86 feet.  This prominent commercial building, vast by any previous criteria of Halesworth’s retail culture, still towers above its neighbours.  The Aldred archive contains no evidence of its construction and we can only assume that it was built by William Lincolne snr. with the loan of £1200 that he obtained from Harriet Sheriffe.  He seems to have arrived in Halesworth with personal capital sufficient to purchase Wyards and Hatchers, which comprised the site on which the new store was built.  In terms of style the building is a simple version of the classical façade, derived from the style of Italian palazzos, which was favoured by town planners of seaside resorts and mass-produced middle class urban terraces of the 1830-40s.  It has an outstanding frontage and it’s a pity that the cramped position does not allow pedestrians to stand back for a better view (Fig 6.7; 6.8). 

 

Fig 6.7 The former Halesworth Bon Marche (Nov 2005)

 

 

In the 1851 census the Lincolne business had housed five live-in shop assistants.  This may be regarded as a half way stage towards the arrangements eventually seen when the store was in the hands of William Aldred.  The situation in 1851 probably reflects an initial phase of construction at the western end, with the shop premises on the ground floor, living quarters for the Lincoln’s on the first floor, and staff bedrooms on the top floor.  At this time, Cullingford’s gunmaker’s premises still existed, situated between Lincolne’s and the Mansion House.  The next phase was the replacement of Cullingford’s with an extension of the western façade in a similar style.  This housed the drapery and grocery departments on the ground floor, a storeroom on the second floor and the staff quarters on the top floor.  The extension actually occupied two thirds of the site formerly described as ‘Wyards and Hatchers’.  The west end now became the dwelling house and in a survey carried out in 1902 it had an entrance hall, dining room, sitting room and staircase on the ground floor, a front bedroom, two dressing rooms, a nursery, fitting room, and a staircase which led to a long passage landing running the length of the building with access to seven bedrooms. Altogether the property provided accommodation for 21 people.

 

It is interesting to speculate on the reasons why the sons of William Lincolne snr. did not wish to carry on his business.  John, who moved to Cambridge, may have become interested in the mineral water business by interaction with the brewery and mineral water factory, which were operating on the other side of the Market Place.  William jnr’s move to warehousing in Manchester may reflect his experience with the chandlery and wholesale sides of his father’s enterprise.

 

Fig 6.8  Roe & Co: Proposed new shop fascia (circa 1960)

 

 

There is no doubt that James William Aldred obtained Lincolne’s premises at a bargain price.  William Lincolne’s untimely death when he was about to develop his business with the building loan from Harriet Sheriffe cut short his aspirations to establish a grocery drapery dynasty in Halesworth.  From the grave he tried to set the scene for a family arrangement whereby his two sons William and John would share the profits as the business developed.  However, this was not to be, probably because his sons had left Halesworth and established successful businesses of their own that were already moving in different directions.  The will makes it clear that there were other sources of money to support the family arising from William snr.’s business portfolio, and the debt to Harriet Sheriffe was a financial burden that neither John nor his brother wanted to clear.  By paying only £300 to John Lincolne for the business it seems that William Aldred obtained a property worth at least £3000 and he had also obtained the freehold from the Manor of Halesworth   Essentially the deal involved the seamless transfer of the Sheriffe mortgage to Aldred, which he was able to pay off out of profits within three years. 

 


William Henry Aldred died in 1885.  The executors of his will were his wife Ellen Maria of Seafield House, Kirkley, his brother John Thomas Aldred of Ravenscroft, Farquher Road, Upper Norwood, Surrey, and his son-in-law The Reverend Charles Courtenay

He left everything to his wife, and after her death to two daughters, Ellen Louisa Courtenay, wife of Rev. Charles Courtenay, of Upper Armley, Yorkshire and Gertrude Sarah Davis, wife of Rev. Edward Davis of Budleigh Salterton, Devon.  The gross Personal Estate amounted to  £20, 522.18s.11d and the net personal Estate was £20, 217 .1s 0d        

 

There is no doubt that William had accumulated a considerable fortune from trading in Halesworth.  This can be measured against the value of around £20 an acre for good quality Suffolk farmland at this time. It is interesting to make a comparison with another second-generation local entrepreneur, James Smyth, head of the Peasenhall engineering works founded by his father.  Smyth died in 1880 leaving a personal estate with a gross value of  £34,053. 14s.11d.  James Smyth’s father, also named James, had started life as the local village blacksmith and went on to found the firm of agricultural engineers that made the village of Peasenhall famous throughout the world for the manufacture of the Smyth patented horse-drawn drill.  The personal fortunes of each man would amount to around £2 million in current terms.  With respect to William Aldred, he was the second millionaire produced by the Halesworth Victorian commercial environment, the first being Patrick Stead, merchant and maltster.  Although he was worth less than Stead, William Aldred was the first native Halesworthian to reach these heights of prosperity.  He took early retirement in his 50s, moving to a newly built villa on the Esplanade at Lowestoft, where we find him listed in Kelly’s Directory for 1883.  This made way for one of his employees, Benjamin Roe who had been left in charge of the Halesworth store to make a move towards purchasing the premises as a going concern.

6.10.3 Origins of the Lincolne family

Local records of Lincolns begin in the Chediston Baptismal Register, with the following children born to a Stephen and Sarah Lincoln:  

 

Stephen                                 21.08.1785
William                  19.10.1789 
Sarah                                      23.04.1793 
John                                       28.03.1797
Martha                                   5.04.1799
Samuel                                   13.11.1801
Mary                                      7.10.1802

The surname was spelled without the terminal (e)


With respect to the Lincolne business in Halesworth, which was contemporary with the above Lincolns, the Baptism Register of the Independent church records this family with reference to the children of William and Mary Lincolne who baptised the following children:

Mary                                                      28.02.1818
Frances                                                  9.01.1820
John                                                       16.04.1821
Napier*                                                  21.07.1823
Elizabeth Sarah                                     17.02.1826

Henry Harvey                                       5.10.1827
Matilda                                  14.08.1829
Lucilla  Stanley                                     13.01.1832
Marianne Harriet                                  18.01.1834

* Mary Napier married William Lincolne 29.12.1813 at St Bride Fleet St London


Two other sons were born to the above couple before they arrived in Halesworth.  They are recorded in the list of Witham Independent Baptisms for the county of Essex.

 

William and Mary Lincolne  -   William     18.09.1815

                                               -   Abraham   23.10.1816

 

So far there is no evidence of any connection between the Chediston Lincolns and their Halesworth Lincolne contemporaries.  There were also Lincolns in Cookley and other nearby villages so it seems that the arrival of the Essex Lincolnes was a coincidence, and not due to cross-county kinship ties between Lincolns and Lincolnes.

 

There was a contemporary marriage between a John Aldred and Sarah Lincoln who was probably one of the Chediston Lincolns.  This took place in Halesworth  2.11.1813.  However, there is no evidence of any connection of the bridegroom with the Aldred family of Chediston St and the Thoroughfare.  To add to this puzzle is the fact that, in 1769, a person named John Aldred was admitted to a property in the Thoroughfare, that eventually came into the hands of James Aldred by way of William Lincolne, being one of the properties upon which the new store had been built (Table 6.7).  Again there is no evidence for a kinship link.

 

Regarding the fate of William and Mary Lincolne’s other children, the Beccles and Bungay Weekly, 10th October 1865, page 4 relates that:-

‘On July 31st at the Cathedral Hong Kong, Edmund Sharp Esq., solicitor, to Lucilla Stanley Boardman, fifth daughter of the late Mr William Lincolne of Halesworth.’


Frances Lincolne married Jonathan Corbin Bishop in Halesworth in 1840. They and their children went to Australia. He died 14th July 1906 and she 7th June 1903 in Goodwood, South Australia.  It is probable that Abraham Lincolne also went to Australia too because an artist of that name appears to have painted, in Australia, pictures of Halesworth.  One Internet site said of him –

 

"Abraham Lincolne was a local resident and amateur artist, sketching in the Kiama district between 1840-44 whilst employed as superintendent of the Woodstock Mills at Jamberoo, and produced highly detailed pencil drawings of properties and landscapes at both Kiama and Jamberoo. He left Illawarra in 1844 and eventually settled in Victoria." 

 

Abraham’s dates are given as 1815-1884, which would fit with the birth of William Lincolne’s second son.

 

6.10.4  Department stores

To put the Linclolne/Aldred enterprise into context, it was in this period that department stores originated in the European retail sector for women’s drapery, at a time when shopping for a variety of ready made goods was more difficult. It was not until the start of the nineteenth century that a form of mass-produced clothing developed. It was of a simple basic style, mainly for ordinary men and women and unsuitable for the high fashion market of the upper classes. These goods could not compete with high class tailoring, and it was not until the 1850s that standards of manufacture began to gradually improve as the century wore on. The only acceptable ready-made items for the wealthy were free size garments like mantles, cloaks and shawls. There was still a local demand for bespoke tailoring and the Knights family of London Road are an example of a small family tailor that continued to operate in Halesworth into modern times.

 

Until the 1850s all sewn clothes were entirely stitched by hand. In Britain London firms produced partly made clothes and these were sold on to country dressmakers and drapers. The partially completed bodices or partly made clothes were then completed locally to ensure a good fashion fit. Dressmakers or the customer herself usually did this. From early Victorian times this was very common, and during William Aldred’s lifetime it evolved into the skirt being fully made and the matching bodice fabric being sold for individual styling. Short notice mourning clothes were made and sold in this manner since the 1860s and led the way for the concept of ready-made women's garments. 

 

Although sewing could be a sweat trade, it was parcelled out in Halesworth to self-employed seamstresses.  It was also considered a gentle art and a skilled refinement for women. The customer or her maid was often quite experienced at making up garments. The mid 19th century mass marketing of the domestic sewing machine by Singer successfully introduced the concept of hire purchase. Then the introduction of paper patterns helped make home dressmaking more successful.  At the same time, the acceptance of better fitting, ready made goods, combined with easier travel for all classes, eventually led to the development of drapery departments in multiple stores.

 

The reasons for the commonly found association of groceries with drapery is not at all clear.  Groceries were based on the sale of tea, coffee, preserved meats, salt, sugar and biscuits.  These were all ‘dry goods’ that were either imported, or available in a form that could be moved around the country from specialised producers to retail outlets.  With the demise of local weaving, the stock of drapers was also imported via a network of agencies and commercial travellers.  The common basic accounting procedures of maintaining a suitable level of stocks with an appropriate inventory system, may be all there is to the association of the two trades in the same premises.  Regarding the question of why there should be so many grocery/drapery establishments in Halesworth, this may go back to the town developing as a regional market for locally produced hempen cloth, but there is no firm evidence to support this assumption.

 

Now, ordinary people all over the world obtain clothes from a very wide variety of global sources. We shop from the Internet, from mail order, from TV Channels, from the High Street of large towns or a nearby outlet mall a few miles away.  The basic idea for this kind of retailing may be traced back to the beginning of the 19th century when Aristide Boucicaut in 1838 started the Bon Marche (‘good price’) store in Paris.  This establishment evolved into the first department store by 1852, displaying a wide variety of goods in "departments" under one roof at a fixed price, no haggling or bargaining, with a "money-back guarantee" allowing exchanges and refunds, employing up to 4000 with daily sales of $300,000. The department store was thus born, offering a variety of merchandise and services and organized in separate departments.  The idea spread rapidly through Europe and across to North America, and the department store and its restaurant would become anchors of urban retail centres in the 19th century and into the next millennium.

 

This is why the emergence of Aldred’s prototype department store in Halesworth, very close in time to the beginning of this revolution in shopping, is a local landmark in the history of consumerism, and a key to understanding the modern world, including globalization. Studying consumerism helps connect us to wider issues in historical analysis and global understanding of our use of natural resources.   It is something that every one lives day by day as we fill our plastic bags with goods from the four corners of the Earth. In the context of the broader human experience, consumerism rather than industrialisation is the more surprising development.  Because of its clear detrimental impact on the environment, many would say that it is one aspect of human behaviour, above all others, that demands the most serious effort at historical exploration, explanation and action.

 


6.10.5 The Roe family

Benjamin Roe went to work for William Aldred as a young man from Horham, where he was born.  In the census of 1871 he was managing Aldred’s store, where he is described as a grocer, draper and candlemaker, employing 10 men, 8 women and 8 boys.  Twelve of these employees, who were not born in Halesworth, boarded at the shop. Three of these came from Winchester, Guildford and Lowestoft, and the rest originated in Bungay, Beccles and other Suffolk villages.  A cook and a domestic servant are listed at the property.   In 1874, with a partner Frances William Hall, a draper from Alford in Lincolnshire, he entered into a business partnership with William Aldred for a period of 5 years.  The arrangement was terminated 17th July 1878 and Roe and Hall negotiated the purchase of the business and premises for the sum of £4000 to be paid in annual instalments of £600 plus 5% interest.

 

After William Aldred’s death his trustees maintained the mortgage. In 1897 the principal on the loan amounted to £2000.  On Benjamin Roe’s death in 1903 the business was still, subject to a mortgage of £2000 and valued for estate duty at £3699.  The partnership with Hall had been terminated in 1878.  After his father’s death his son Ernest continued the business.  It is interesting that the business had been started by the Lincolne Independents and was continued by two generations of Roes who were pillars of the local Congregational Church.  The family was prominent in the affairs of the town, and Ernest Roe was chairman of the urban district council for a quarter of a century. 

 

From their already exceptionally large premises, Roe and Co. expanded, into the adjacent Mansion House and increased the variety of goods for sale, including furniture.  An engraving of the establishment in the 1920s shows a horse and carriage and an open-topped limousine in waiting outside the store.  At this time the shop was described as a ‘Bon Marche’.  It was selling groceries, drapery, furniture and oils and petrol.   There was an undertaker’s department and even a glove-cleaning service.  Discounts were advertised for cash purchases.  Such was its novelty that special excursion trains were scheduled from Southwold to Halesworth, which actually promoted the Roe shopping experience.  In this respect, Roe’s had followed a worldwide pattern of retail development, which led to the birth of the privately run department store.  Roes continued its business in Halesworth, latterly under Benjamin’s son Ernest, until the mid 1960s, when the family interests were extinguished. 

 

Consumerism can be seen as a set of institutions and practices, particular kinds of stores, sales gimmicks, and advertisements, even public policies. For decades Roes placed its one page advert displaying its massive range of buildings in the local Almanack.  Advertising is often the easiest initial entry to the study of consumerism, and is why the first studies of eighteenth-century British consumerism focused on shopkeepers and their tactics. But the second aspect of consumerism is a set of personal interests of entrepreneurs like Benjamin Roe, and their orientations, and motivations.  Although difficult to access from our present post-Christian society, this second aspect is what ultimately makes consumerism both intriguing and important. In Benjamin Roe, the unifying cause was Congregationalism, with its emphasis on personal freedom within a social framework of like-minded people pursuing trade.  Regarding the over-riding philosophy, James William Newby, the Halesworth Congregationalist and author put it this way:

 

“As Free Churchmen we claim the right to worship God in our own way, and we further claim that those who feel called to preach have a perfect right to do so.  We assert that there are two realms in which men and women should have absolute freedom – without fear of persecution or intolerance – the realm of religion and of politics; and any society of people or any nation which does not permit this, is bound to fail, sooner or later”.

 

The history of William Henry Aldred, Benjamin Roe and Frederick Hall between 1864 and 1892 is summarised in the following entries in trade directories for Halesworth and Lowestoft  (Table 6.18)

 

 

Table 6.18  Summary of history of Halesworth’s Bon Marche

 

Year

Directory

Entry

1864

Harrods

Halesworth: W  H. Aldred  linen and woollen draper, silk mercer   Market Place; wholesale and family grocer, candle manufacturer    Market Place

1869

Kellys

Halesworth: W.H.Aldred grocer and draper Market Place

1869

Kellys

Lowestoft: Private resident, W. H. Aldred, 1 Esplanade

1872

Kellys

Lowestoft: Private resident, W.H.Aldred, 1 Esplanade

1873

Kellys

Halesworth: W.H. Aldred grocer and draper Market Place

1875

Kellys

Lowestoft: Private resident, W. H. Aldred, Esplanade House

1879

Kellys

Lowestoft: Private resident, W.H. Aldred, Seafield,The Esplanade 

1879

Kellys

Halesworth: Roe and Hall (late Aldred) drapers, grocers and tallow chandler   Market Place

1883

Kellys

Halesworth: Roe and Hall drapers, grocers and tallow chandler   Market Place 

1883

Kellys

Lowestoft: Private resident, W.H. Aldred, Seafield, The Esplanade

1885

 

Death of William Henry Aldred

1888

Kellys

Halesworth: Roe and Hall  drapers, grocers and tallow chandler   Market Place

1892

Kellys

Halesworth: Roe and Hall  drapers, grocers and tallow chandler   Market Place

 

It is possible to follow the origins of the Aldred business and its further development by Benjamin Roe from the collection of deeds deposited in the Lowestoft CRO by the solicitors, Cross and Ram, who acted for Halesworth’s two manors and the property owners of the town (Table 6.19).

 

At the time Ernest Roe died in 1957 the business had been taken over by Edward F. Lee, who continued running it into the early 1960s.  Traditional grocery businesses were then in decline. The main store was sold, The Mansion House continued as a furniture store and the drapery was transferred to the old Kings Arms.  Halesworth’s famous Bon Marche died a slow death, and today, although the component buildings are intact, it is virtually impossible to imagine its glory days when it was Blything’s retail Mecca.

 

Table 6.19 Evidences of title to properties in Halesworth ( Ref 182/B: Lowestoft CRO)

 

The following deeds all relate to premises within the Chediston St/Market Place/Thoroughfare junction. The bundles have been reconstructed using the property descriptions, the names of past owners and/or occupants and the abstracts of title

 

182/B/l    House and shop, Market Place                       1724-1878                                            

 

1724 Messuage 1724

1726 Messuage in the Market Place, Halesworth 1726

1808 Messuage and shop in the Market Place 1808

1813 Dwellinghouse, spacious shop and capital cellars in 1813 the front of the Market Place

1839 Freehold messuage and shop in the Market Place 1839

 

1849 Evidences of title to the property purchased by Thomas John Bird Bedwell of Halesworth, post master from John Lincolne of Halesworth grocer agent for William Lincolne of Manchester, warehouseman, 1849

 

Includes:

1724 Bond for £82.00, 1724 (II)

1746 Bond for performance of covenants, 1746 (VII)

1754 Declaration of Thomas Brooke, mortgagee, 1754 (X)

1762 Final concords, 1762 (XI-X3I)

1767 Receipt for £30 received by Charles Aldrich from Richard Smith, 1767 (XIV) 1813 Particular  and  conditions  of sale,   1813 (XVJJ)

1839 Declaration of James Aldred re execution of the will of William Curtis, 1839 1840 (XXI) Probate copy of the will of William Curtis, 1840 (XXII)

1849 Abstract of title of messuage belonging to William Lincolne, 1849 (XXIV)

1878 Probate copy of the will of John Bird Bedwell, 1878 (XXVII)

 

see also 182/B/4 (27 items)

 

182/B

182/B/2   House, shop, chandlers office and warehouses in 1735-1903

Halesworth and a dwellinghouse, with stable etc, part used as a shop in the Market Place

 

1735 Customary tenement with hempland abutting the                     

common way from Cheston [Chediston] to Halesworth                                                                  

1745 Part of a messuage and privy house                                                  

1761 Piece of land 13p x 62p with a messuage upon it  and a piece of land 32ft x 12ft                                         

1766 Part of a messuage with a yard containing halfr (missing) in Halesworth and part of a messuage with privy house

1767  Piece of land 13p x 62p with a messuage upon it                

and a piece of land 32ft x 12ft                                           

1769 in Halesworth Piece of land 13p x 62p with a messuage upon it and a piece of land 32ft x 12ft

1772 Part of a messuage in Halesworth with a yard containing halfr

1772  Messuage in Halesworth                                                     

1776  Piece of land 13p x 62p with a messuage upon it and a piece of land 32ft x 12ft

1794 Shop, chamber over the shop, kitchen and chamber over the kitchen with part of the courtyard, orchard and cellar and the other undivided half part of the premises

1794 Half part of the tenement, the hall and chamber over the hall, shop next to doorway and chamber over the shop and one part of the cellar, court and orchard and a shop, chamber over the shop, kitchen and chamber over the kitchen and part of the courtyard, orchard and cellar and the other undivided half part of the premises

1813  Messuage in Halesworth with a yard containing halfr and a piece of land 13p x 62p with a messuage upon it and a piece of land 32ft x 12ft

1813  Dwellinghouse and shop in Halesworth                            

1813 Messuage and farm lands in Halesworth and Holton                

1825 Dwellinghouse in the Market Place with stable etc 

1843 Dwellinghouse, shop, chandlers office, warehouses  in Halesworth and dwellinghouse in the Market Place with stable etc, part used as a shop

 

Evidences of title to the property purchased by Benjamin Roe of Halesworth, grocer and tallow chandler and Francis William Hall of Halesworth, draper from William Henry Aldred of Halesworth, grocer, draper and tallow chandler, 1878

 

Includes:

1735 Copy admission of Lydia Betts and Mary Wyard, 1735 (I)

1745 Copy Admission of John Buckenham and Ann his wife, 1745 (H)

1750 Probate copy of the will of John Wills, 1750 (IH)

1761 Copy admission of James Wills, 1761 (IV)

1761 Copy of surrender James Wills to William Farrow, 1761 (V)

1766 Absolute surrender James Willes to Joshua Moore, 1766 (W)

1767 Copy admission of William Kirby, 1767 (IX)

1767 Copy admission of Joshua Moore, 1767 (X)

1769 Copy admission of John Aldred, 1769 (XI)

1769 Observations on the title, 1769 (XII)

 

Assorted receipts, 1769-1822

 

1769 Absolute surrender Joshua Moore to Mrs Ann Reynolds, 1769 (XVI)

1769 Copy admission of Ann Reynolds widow, 1769 (XVIH)

1772 Copy admission of John Hatcher,   1772 (XIX)

1776 Surrender George Reynolds to Mrs Ann Crispe, 1776 (XXII)

1776 Copy admission of Ann Crispe wife of John Crispe, 1776 (XXIII)

1779 Absolute surrender John Crispe and Ann his wife to John Hatcher, 1779 (XXVH)

1779 Copy  admission  of John Hatcher,   1779 (XXIII)

1794 Copy admission of Thomas Pallant,  1794 (XXX)

1796 Copy admission of Lydia King,1796 (XXXI)

1813 Copy admission of John Hatcher the younger, 1813 (XXXII)

1813 Abstracts  of title, 1813 (XXXV), 1855 (LVUI-LX), 1878 (LXVUI), 1891 (LXIX)

 

182/B

 

1813 Absolute surrender John Hatcher senior to John Hatcher junior, 1813 (XXXVI)

1813 Extract from the will of John Hatcher junior, dec, 1813 (XXXVII)

1816 Absolute surrender John Howard to William Lincolne, 1816 (XXXVUJ)

1816 Schedule of title deeds, 1816 (XXXIX)

1816 Copy admission of William Lincolne, 1816 (XL)

1816 Conditional surrender William Lincolne to John Howard, 1816(XLI)

1822 Acknowledgement of satisfaction of conditional surrender William Lincolne to

John Howard, 1822 (XLIH)

1825 Copy admission of William Henchman Pedgrift, 1825 (XLV)

1825 Conditional surrenders William Henchman Pedgrift to John Youngs, 1825 (XLVI-LI)

1830 Absolute surrender William Henchman Pedgrift to William Lincolne,1830 (LII-LIII)

 

Property 4 (New store’ Bon Marche,  built on the site of Properties 1, 2. & 3)

 

1855 Bond for securing £1050, 1855 (LXI)

1855 Admission of John Lincolne, 1855 (LXH)

1856 Absolute surrender John Lincolne to William Henry Aldred, 1856 (LXIII)

1856 Admission of William Henry Aldred, 1856 (LXV)

1878 Deed terminating partnerships, 1878 (LXX)

1897 Assignment  of debts  from  executors  of James Clarke, dec to Messrs Roe and Hall,

1897 Bond for securing £2,000, 1897 (LXXIV)

1903 Letter from Stanford & Broom describing and valuing the premises, 1903 1903 (LXXV) Estate duty on the death of Benjamin Roe, (LXXVI)

 

(This  bundle  of deeds is now stored as 1 box and 4 portfolios  17.11.98) 

 

 

6.11 The Sheriffe family: landed proprietors and investors

 

As shown above, Harriet Sheriffe played a key role as the financial backer of William Lincolne’s Halesworth project to create his dynastic drapery business.  She was the second daughter of Thomas Sheriffe, a super-rich Rector of Uggeshall.   According to the Tithe Apportionment of 1838, in addition to the greater tithes of Uggeshall, Thomas also had a substantial annual income of a £380 rent charge, derived from 43 acres of glebe land.  This considerable income was augmented by his possession of the living of the parish of Sotherton, from which he received an additional £275 a year.  He made a good marriage with the family of Affleck baronets of Dalham, near Newmarket, and successfully continued the Sheriffe family tradition of dealing in real estate. He died possessed of much land and was in negotiation to purchase estates in Peasenhall and Framlingham.  In his various financial dealings Thomas continued in the vein of his forebears, who, since the 17th century had been merchants and property owners in Diss and its surroundings.

 

Thomas Sheriffe became associated with the property boom in Southwold towards the end of the 18th century, when, along with several other local rich clergymen, through the Harbour Act of 1789, he was appointed one of the Harbour Commissioners. As to how Thomas became a member of this very influential urban body we need look no further than his ecclesiastical living of Uggeshall with Sotherton, which was in the gift of the Earl of Stradbroke, Uggeshall’s major landowner.  The Earl was the prime mover in getting Southwold’s Harbour Act accepted by Parliament, and Thomas Sheriffe was one of his bondsmen so to speak, and no doubt thereby he was a staunch supporter of the Earl’s proposals for the commercial development of Southwold. There was another connection between Southwold and Uggeshall at that time in that John Thompson, probably the wealthiest merchant of Southwold, owned farms in Uggeshall and the adjacent parish of Stoven.  Thompson was intent on realising the potential of Southwold as a seaside resort.  He would certainly have come into social if not financial contact with Thomas Sheriffe, his local rector. 

 

Thomas Sheriffe used his links with Southwold as an opportunity to make his own investment in the town, and financed the building of the ‘Centre Cliff Houses’, a terrace of three substantial neo-classical cliff top dwellings, which still exist today to the north of South Green.  These properties were described by Robert Wake, in his book ‘Southwold and its Vicinity’ (1842) as follows: -

 

" Centre Cliff Houses, as they are called, present a very handsome and commanding appearance- not less on account of the gracefulness of the buildings themselves, than of the loveliness with which their enclosed shrubberies and tastefully-arranged and very carefully-tended flower-plots, have contributed to their decoration. These have been erected for the accommodation of lodgers, by the REV. THOMAS SHERIFFE; and consist of fine spacious and handsomely decorated rooms; -the group contributing not slightly to our local beauties.”

 

The lodgers referred to, were upper class families who were beginning to visit Southwold for the summer season.  The first stagecoach between Southwold, Norwich and Yarmouth was inaugurated in 1822.  The central house (known by the name of Centre Cliff) is of a more grand design than the two properties abutting either side (East House and South House).  This indicates that Centre Cliff was built first and the others added later.  According to Bottomley, Sheriffe’s Centre Cliff development was completed in 1829. In this period the town was developing rapidly as a seaside resort and began to spawn appropriate leisure facilities such as a racecourse and a reading room.  As noted above, John Thompson was an important local developer and created the first outdoor bathing pool (Thompson’s Folly).  He also opened The Casino (a subscription reading room) on St Edmund’s Hill in 1800, which by the 1840s had become the joint property of a group of eight shareholders led by the Earl of Stradbroke.  The shareholders included three clergymen, one of whom was Thomas Sheriffe.  Clearly, pressure was growing for the Corporation to release common land for building, and this prompted the formation of what may be described as the town’s first conservation group in 1807.  The group took a lease on a piece of land called ‘St. Edmunds’, or the Gun Hill, for the purposes of preventing the erection of buildings on the southern cliffs.  Its battery of cannons had been disarmed in 1819.  At this time a scattering of fishermen’s cottages around the Green was being demolished to provide building plots for many grand villas and terraces.

 

To all intents and purposes Thomas Sheriffe was an active resident at a time when Southwold metamorphosed from a 18th century front-line naval asset, to a burgeoning 19th century peacetime holiday resort.  Although he maintained his base in Uggeshall’s rectory, Thomas Sheriffe is actually described as a residential member of an 1837 committee of Southwold, established to supervise enlargement of the seating accommodation of the parish church; a response of the town to increased numbers of seasonal visitors and wealthy residents.  In the same year he was listed as a trustee of the newly opened ‘Southwold Medical and Surgical Institution’, which included a dispensary for the relief and assistance of ‘the sick poor, lying-in-women and infirm persons’. 

 

Harriet lived in Uggeshall until the death of her father in 1842, after which she moved to Southwold. She was a major beneficiary in her father’s will, receiving all her father’s real and personal estate.  Out of this she had to pay an annuity to her stepmother, who also received a legacy of £800.  From then on, as a rich money-lending spinster, Harriet played a prominent role in Southwold society. 

 

The diary of James Maggs of Southwold for the period 1818-76 is a mine of information about the inhabitants of the town around this time.  In Feb 1853 he notes:

 

“The sea at intervals has made alarming inroads opposite the Gun Hill and as far to the North as the Long Island Cliff  (including Centre Cliff) scarcely leaving sufficient width for the standing of the bathing machines opposite the houses of Miss Sheriffe.”

 

We find Harriet in the town’s 1851 census listed as an unmarried lady of South Green, age 58, described as ‘land proprietor’. 

 

Her substantial household is listed in the census as: -

 

Harriet Sheriffe                       age 58 yrs                land proprietor                        born Uggeshall
Isaac Buxton                           age 48 yrs                butler                                       born Ashfield
Martha Buxton                       age 49 yrs                housekeeper                            born All Saints
George Danford                      age 50 yrs                coachman                                born Yoxford
Maria Danford                        age 45 yrs                domestic                                  born Peasenhall
Jane Elven                               age 25 yrs                housemaid                               born Cransford
Emily Hotson                         age 28 yrs                lady's maid                              born Southwold
Rachel Reynolds                     age 19 yrs                housemaid                               born Redisham
Ellen Thurston                        age 17 yrs                housemaid                               born All Saints
William Balls                           age 20 yrs                footman                                   born Brampton
William Barber                        age 12 yrs                errand boy                               born Uggeshall

She was still living at South Green in 1861 on a similar scale:-

Harriet Sheriffe  unm              age 67 yrs                lady                                         born Uggeshall
Jane Pratt                                age 35 yrs                cook                                        born Cransford
Charlotte Bokenham               age 36 yrs                ladies maid                              born Southwold
Lydia Goodrum                                      age 20 yrs                general servant                        born Henham
Henry Clarke                          age 38 yrs                butler                                       born Loddon
Alfred Girling                          age 29 yrs                coachman                                born Brampton
David Girling                          age 19 yrs                page                                         born Brampton

 

Sarah Sheriffe, her stepmother, bequeathed most of her estate to Harriet, providing relatively minor legacies of £100 to her son in law Rev. Thomas Sheriffe of Henstead and £500 to his son Thomas Bowen Sheriffe.  Harriet took possession of the Centre Cliff Buildings as part of her father’s estate.  The following provides firm evidence that she was living in Centre Cliff from at least 1855 to the time of her death in 1869. In 1855 Whites Directory she is listed at Centre Cliff. In 1856 she entertained the lifeboat crew at Centre Cliff.  Her will of 1869 states that she was residing at Centre Cliff, which, together with South House and East House was one of her bequests.

 

Before the move to Southwold, she was evidently well established as a local money-lender, when she came into contact with William Lincolne.  There are also indentures that indicate that she was financing property deals as far away as Fressingfield, and her will describes her extensive property dealings with the manor of Saxtead.  However, the days of the private financier were numbered.  Banks were being established in market towns and a branch of the Norwich Crown Bank had appeared in Southwold as early as 1819.

 

The full extent of Harriet Sheriffe’s great wealth is revealed in her will.  She died possessed of the three Centre Cliff Houses and was residing in the middle property.  In total, she left several tens of thousands of pounds, which would place her in today’s millionaire category.  The bulk of her wealth passed to the family of her late nephew, Thomas Bowen Sheriffe of Henstead Hall. The family had coalesced around his widow’s marriage to Heneage Bagot-Chester and the Sheriffe estate of Henstead Hall.  She appointed Bagot-Chester as an executor along with her constant lawyer John Crabtree of Halesworth, who no doubt brought William Lincolne’s financial requirements to her attention.  In fact there was quite a cosy association of Halesworth’s top lawyers with East Suffolk’s bankers and landed gentry.  They were a relatively small group holding the strings of the towns economic development.  For example, Rector Thomas Sheriffe was a trustee of the will of Peter Jermyn, the Halesworth solicitor, and was an associate of the Turner banking brothers of Yarmouth, who had a branch of their bank in the town.  A measure of the rewards that came to these well-heeled market town solicitors, whose wealth grew with the town, is evident in the house and grounds of the Crabtrees, who were Jermyn’s professional successors in Halesworth.  From the Halesworth tithe map, it can be seen that the extensive pleasure grounds of the Crabtree property occupied much of the land east of The Thoroughfare as far as the river.

 

It is interesting to reflect on Harriet’s life in relation to the property rights of women at this time.  During most of the nineteenth century they were dependent upon their marital status. Once women married, their property rights were governed by English common law, which required that their husbands legally absorb the property that women took into a marriage, or acquired subsequently. Furthermore, married women could not make wills or dispose of any property without their husband’s consent. Marital separation, whether initiated by the husband or wife, usually left the women economically destitute, as the law offered them no rights to marital property. Once married, the only legal avenue through which women could reclaim property was widowhood.

 

In contrast, women who never married maintained control over all their property, including their inheritance. These women could own freehold land and had complete control of property disposal.  The rationale of the law was that if husband and wife are "one body" before God, they are "one person" in the law, and the husband represents that person. In recognition of this law, fathers often provided their daughters with dowries to protect them from unscrupulous husbands. Prenuptial marriage settlements provided a means for separate "pin" money to be put in trust for a bride in order to provide her with income. Pin money is an estate, which the wife was to possess for her sole and separate use, and was not subject to the control of her husband. This dowry was the only separate property that married women could own and control in accordance with the law of coverture. We have an example of this in the marriage of one of the Sheriffes of Henstead, where the husband died relatively young and his wife had a personal income from a trust fund that had been set up as part of the marriage settlement.  Her son had to wait until his mother’s death before he could lay his hands on the capital.

 

The lifetime of these people coincided with the growth of banks as local institutions. Most 'country banks' were established from the mid-eighteenth century onward as developments of the existing businesses of local merchants, carriers, brewers or solicitors. Money was required for rural economic expansion, which for the most part in Suffolk meant the replacement of wooden thatched family housing by larger brick-built live-in shops and houses. The investment required was at first met by loans from other property owners, who were eventually replaced by bankers drawn from the same wealthy category.  The Sheriffes of Uggeshall and Southwold were one such family of local financiers who continued this tradition of private financiers into the 19th century.

 

As a rich clergyman involved in speculative property development, Thomas Sheriffe falls into the same category as Rev. Henry Uthoff, Rector of Huntingfield with Cookley, and also absentee incumbent of Aldham (near Hadleigh).  Uthoff was another affluent pluralistic clergyman who invested in Southwold’s property boom.  According to Munn, Uthoff built the large bow-fronted house facing east on to South Green, now called Regency Lodge, in 1828.  Munn says that he also built Park Villa to the west, which was positioned in extensive grounds overlooking the marshes. In any event, Henry Uthoff was clearly a man of financial and social substance, being related to the Vanneck baronets of Heveningham Hall through the female line.  In 1844, his annual rectorial income from Huntingfield and Cookley alone amounted to £800, and in this respect he was ranked as the richest clergyman in the whole of Blything Hundred. Wake states that Uthoff was living in Regency House, Southwold (circa 1842), but in the 1844 Whites Suffolk Directory he appears in Huntingfield, where he died in 1848 age 90, having spent 65 years as its Rector.

 


6.12  Butchers and bakers

 

An alien landing in Halesworth any time between 1750 and 1850 would have observed a world of many shopkeepers, small manufacturers and farmers, maintaining a steady ebb and flow of individuals between town and country. Technological change was making many of the traditional solutions to economic problems less functional. Products were not complicated and consumers had information from a variety of sources about which goods were available and their quality. Halesworthians inhabited a world of microeconomics where each person sought their own self-interest, but was constrained by morality, markets and government.

 

Adam Smith observing the beginnings of this phase of industrialism said:

 

“It is thus that man, who can subsist only in society, was fitted by nature to that situation for which he was made. All the members of human society stand in need of each other's assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries. Where the necessary assistance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the society flourishes and is happy. All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection, and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices”.

 

He argued that humankind was by nature self-interested. This is not to be confused with selfishness. The individual would pursue his or her own self interest, but, at the first level of social constraint, a moral system directed largely by sympathy, would check inappropriate or unjust behaviour. However, Smith argued that our moral sentiments could be corrupted;

 

“This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or at least, to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments”

 

Due to this "corruption" of moral sentiments, the market was then necessary to provide a second level of checks on behaviour. Smith argued that the butcher would not provide you with dinner out of benevolence, but the market was a mechanism by which his self-interest would be channeled into a behaviour pattern that would be consistent with the needs of society. Perhaps one of the best-known quotes from Smith reveals the role of the market directed by self-interest:

 

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantage."

 

The British capitalist system came of age in the century from 1750 to 1850 really as a result of three revolutions. The first was a political revolution: the triumph of liberalism, particularly the doctrine of natural rights, and the view that government should be limited in its function to the protection of individual rights—including property rights. The second revolution was the birth of economic understanding, culminating in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Smith demonstrated that when individuals are left free to pursue their own economic interests, the result is not chaos but a spontaneous order, a market system in which the actions of individuals are coordinated and more wealth is produced than would be the case if government managed the economy. The third revolution was of course the ‘Industrial Revolution’. Technological innovation provided a lever that vastly multiplied humankind’s powers of production. The effect was not only to raise standards of living for everyone, but also to offer the alert and enterprising individual the prospect of earning a fortune unimaginable in earlier times, and with this justification adding the appellation ‘gentleman’ or ‘gentlewoman’ to their name.

 

Halesworth today, immersed as it is in the supermarket era, still has its self-employed butchers and bakers.  Indeed, they remain a force to be reckoned with throughout Europe.  An EC analysis of overlap between different forms of retail distribution for January to October 1998, indicated that although supermarkets, for example, reach out to 97% of all consumers, 60% of supermarket customers also go to the butcher's, 75% to the baker's and 18% to the greengrocer's.  A similar proportion of hypermarket and discount store customers regularly shop at the butcher's, baker's and greengrocer's. Butcher's and baker's shops cater for 60% and 72% of all consumers, and of these, 98% also shop at supermarkets, 78% at hypermarkets and 85% at discount stores.

 

6.12.1 Samuel Kemp

One such Halesworth shopkeeper of Smith’s time, both butcher and baker, was Samuel Kemp, a contemporary of James and William Aldred, who between 1839, when his presence is first recorded, and 1873, two years before he died, a period of 36 years, offered his services to the public at 7 Bridge St.  He was 45 years old in 1839 and he had probably lived there long before his name entered the town directories.  Samuel, and those who occupied 7 Bridge St after his death, may be taken examples to illustrate a thickening of Halesworth’s built environment with two aspects of humanity that link us all with Adam Smith’s analysis of the human condition; namely the roots and branches of our being.  The roots of being consist of our affinity with nature, because of our biological origins, and our affinity with the past, because of our ancestry.  The branches of being are the day-to-day connections made on Halesworth’s streets with family, neighbours, and with people as friends, colleagues or customers.  A ‘roots and branches’ approach to define our place in the world can be the catalyst that fuses everyday life with history and genealogy together at a place to spell ‘belonging’. It allows and encourages “a people-centred approach to history”, instead of being limited to an events-centred approach that concentrates on celebrity; and they do it without sacrificing events-centred history.

 

The first event to begin the story of Samuel Kemp is his baptism in Bruisyard one 16th  November 1794.  He was of country stock, connected by birth with the ancient clan of Suffolk Kemps that can be traced back to before the Norman Conquest.  Through two millennia they had increased in numbers in a relatively small group of villages along the eastern edge of the clay plateau between Dallinghoo and Chediston.  Samuel of Bruisyard married Mary Watling in St Mary’s parish church Halesworth on 26th Jan 1825.  She had been baptised in Spexhall on 26th April 1793.  Marrying at the age of 30 was unusual, and probably indicates and economic constraint on the part of Samuel. He was the youngest son of a family consisting mostly of girls.  Although nothing is known of the wealth of the family in Bruisyard, his grandfather Kemp was of a long line of yeoman farmers.   It is reasonable to assume that he came to Halesworth to seek his fortune in business.  In 1839 he seemed to be still probing a way forward.  Then, he was dealing in groceries and sundries, but five years later he was described as a butcher and confectioner in White’s 1844 directory.  In the 1851 census he is again entered as a butcher, age 54.  This year sees him close to the heights of prosperity.   This is signalled by the Court Rolls of Rectory Manor where we find him admitted on 8th July 1851 with respect to property purchased from the estate of the late Robert Winters for the sum of £125.  The admittance was described as follows:

 

‘One messuage or tenement together with one house at the East end of the aforesaid tenement then late built by Ann Bungay together with the yards to the same belonging as they were divided by metes and bounds and lie between the King’s Highway leading from Wissett to Holton on the part of the North and a piece of land then late of Enoch Reeve on the part of the South one head thereof abutted upon the Copyhold lands of the said manor then late in the occupation of John Cone on the part of the West and the other head thereof abutted upon the lands then late of Henry Johnson on the part of the East with the appurtenances in Halesworth held by the yearly rent of one penny and suit of Court.  And also one piece of land containing by estimation two perches were the same more or less as the same were then inclosed with pales and laid in Halesworth aforesaid’.    

 

 

The tenement was referred to as:

 

That tenement or cottage late of the said Robert Winter deceased divided into 4 dwellings siutate in Halesworth aforesaid together with the yards outbuildings land and appurtenences thereto belonging or appertaining as the same premises were in several occupations of William Genery, Francis Girling, Charles Haward and George Day.  Together with one moiety or half part of the well standing and being partly on the said heriditaments thereinafter bargained and sold and partly on the adjoining premises he the said Samuel Kemp his heirs and assigns paying one half part of the expense of keeping the said well and the going gears therein in repair.

 

 

These cottages and their households appear in the 1851 census (Table 6.20 ).  The house ‘newly built by Ann Bungay’ is presumably the property at 131 Wissett Rd, which according to the census was occupied by Richard Hollingsworth, a sawyer.

 

Table 6.20  Copyhold cottages belonging to Samuel Kemp with their tenants in the 1851 census

 

132

Wissett Rd

 

William Genery

head

m

32

 

bargeman

Blythburgh

 

Wissett Rd

 

Maria Genery

w

 

 

31

 

Needham Norfolk

 

Wissett Rd

 

Sarah Genery

d

 

 

9

scholar

Halesworth

 

Wissett Rd

 

John Genery

s

 

6

 

scholar

Halesworth

 

Wissett Rd

 

Rebecca Genery

mother

widow

 

66

 

Cratfield

133

Wissett Rd

 

Samuel Hollingsworth

head

m

24

 

sawyer

Holton

 

Wissett Rd

 

Harriet Hollingsworth

w

 

 

28

 

All Saints

 

Wissett Rd

 

Samuel Hollingsworth

s

 

2

 

 

Holton

 

Wissett Rd

 

Ephraim Hollingsworth

s

 

10m

 

 

Halesworth

134

Wissett Rd

 

Charles Hayward

head

m

39

 

bargeman

Halesworth

 

Wissett Rd

 

Mary Hayward

w

 

 

39

 

Halesworth

 

Wissett Rd

 

Charlotte Kerrison

visitor

u

 

26

a farmers daughter

Pullham Norfolk

 

Wissett Rd

 

Charles Kerrison

visitor

 

 

1m

 

Halesworth

135

Wissett Rd

 

George Day

head

m

46

 

farm labourer

Yoxford

 

Wissett Rd

 

Jane Day

d

u

 

15

servant

Halesworth

 

Wissett Rd

 

Henry Day

s

 

13

 

child at home

Halesworth

 

Wissett Rd

 

Charles Day

s

 

9

 

scholar

Halesworth

 

Wissett Rd

 

George Day

s

 

5

 

scholar

Halesworth

 

As we shall see from his will, he was also in the process of accumulating capital wealth in property elsewhere, probably from a mixture of his own efforts and inheritance. 

 

In the 1855 White's directory, we find Samuel Kemp still in Bridge Street as a baker confectioner, and butcher.  In Kelly’s directory, fourteen years later, when in his mid 70s, he was still extending his business activities.  He is described as running a servant’s registry office i.e. an employment agency, from the Bridge St premises.  This was a novel business in those days, but one guaranteed success because of the reliance of most households in the town on domestic help.  The last directory reference is in the Harrod’s publication for 1873 where his is still operating the servant’s registry as well as the butchery.  This was the year his wife died.  She was buried in her native village of Spexhall.  Samuel himself died on 31st  October 1875 and was also buried in Spexhall.  John Cady and Charles Cady were Samuel Kemp’s executors, both farmers, one of Kirkley and the other of Reydon.  They were the sons of Samuel Cady of Spexhall.

 

His household effects were valued at under £100 but his real estate was worth considerably more.  The Halesworth property consisted of the four copyhold cottages above, and his copyhold dwelling house, presumably 7 Bridge St.  

 

On the 18th Dec 1875 the court of Rectory Manor began the process of dealing with his copyhold property.

 

At this Court it is presented by the homage that Samuel Kemp who late held certain lands and tenements by Copy of the Court Roll of the said manor died since the last Court seized thereof And because no person comes to this Court to take up or be admitted tenant to the same premises therefore the first proclamation is in due form of law made for want of a tenant.

 

The court took up the case again on 1 Jan 1877 to hear that that the copyhold cottages or tenements had gone to auction and had been bought by George John Clarke, painter, for the sum of £345. There is no mention of the house to the east of the cottages, which was part of Kemp’s original purchase in 1851, being included in the sale. In fact, Clarke owned the adjacent property to the south (this could in fact also be considered as being to the east) of the cottages.  This was probably the house ‘late built by Ann Bungay’ because it shared a well with the cottagers, who at that time of Clarke’s purchase were George Day, Ann Clarke, Frederick Haward, and John Hayward.  It appears that George John Clarke bought the property for his nephew, Frank Clarke a carpenter of Bury St Edmunds.  Frank Clark was admitted to Rectory Manor with respect to the property.  There is no further reference to the Clarkes in the manorial rolls (1854-92). 

 

Eventually, 7 Bridge St was bought by a baker, Charles William Ellis, who moved there from his premises in Pound Street.  Ellis’ shop was first depicted in the Halesworth Almanack at the turn of the century (Fig 6.9).  This is a photograph of a compact dwelling house with an integral shop front, abutting an earlier plain building to the right.  Its appearance is generally characteristic of top quality urban architecture of the late Victorian period.  For want of more precise information it is assumed that it was in fact built by Charles Ellis on the site of Samuel Kemp’s premises. The Ellis family used the picture to advertise their bakery for many years in the Halesworth almanacs.  This in itself is evidence of family pride in the shop as an indicator of the family’s financial worth.

 

Fig 6.9.  7, Bridge St/Rectory St corner at the turn of the 19th century; as it was until the 1940s

 

 

The other properties in Samuel Kemp’s will were four freehold cottages in Darsham, occupied by William Lane, John Evans, Jonas Crisp and George Walker, and two cottages in Holton tenanted by John Scrutton and John Green.  The Darsham properties are of interest in that the Kemps of Rendham and Sweffling, from whom his father was descended, had long-standing family interests in Darsham over the years.  For the nineteenth century and earlier times, property, and in particular land ownership rather than occupation was more fundamental to status especially to the upper strata of society. The social position of a traditional non-business elite was based upon land.  In this context, the Kemp’s distant roots lay in the fixed agricultural area owned by a few wealthy people, who did their best to father sons to carry name and fortune to generations yet to come. Samuel Kemp’s marriage did not produce children and as we have seen, the modest wealth that he had accumulated over a lifetime as a shopkeeper was left to his wife’s distant relatives.  We can just about get an inkling of his sense of lifetime achievement from the first sentence of his will, which runs, “This is the last Will and Testament of me Samuel Kemp of Halesworth in the County of Suffolk Gentleman… “ In his own mind the decision to leave the countryside for the town had taken him beyond the status of both shopkeeper and farmer.

 

6.13  A spiritual background

 

In 1580, when a check was made on all folk taking communion at St Mary’s parish church, we can say that the entire population of Halesworth subscribed to the universal theory of the Church, which was founded upon the following four pillars of Christianity:

 

that Jesus Christ founded a society, which in Scripture is called the Church;

that on the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost came into this Church, according to Christ's promise;

that thereafter there were added to the Church daily by the rite of baptism such as were made disciples, and were brought into the way of salvation;

that Christ appointed twelve Apostles through whom He would rule the Church, and who should minister His Word and the sacraments of His grace.

 

But can we say this with confidence?

 

Up to the 16th century, it was held by the whole body of Christian people that all who desired to be saved ought to enter into this visible society by baptism, and ought to continue in the unity and obedience of this one universal Church. It was held that the Apostles, acting under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, had ordained three orders of ministers-bishops, priests, and deacons-in whom were continued the authority and the powers which Christ had given to themselves. It was always and everywhere held that the government of the Church, and the continuance of the ministry of the Church by ordination, were committed to the chief of these three orders, the episcopate.

 

At the time of the St Mary’s census, just over 40 years had passed since Henry VIII, anxious for a male heir, had ensured the permanent popularity of the English reformation by abolishing the monasteries and sharing the loot with almost everyone.  The division between Roman Catholics and Protestants was thereby created.  He had executed around 60 people for "religious" reasons, among a total of about 130 political executions, before his sickly teenage son, Edward VI, succeeded him.  Shortly after, the first Book of Common Prayer was introduced, written in English, and emphasising a prime requirement for people to participate in the Eucharist.  It also required the Bible to be read (at home) from cover to cover. Fast days were retained for economic reasons, supposedly to help fishermen, but saints' days were not.

 

In these ways the interface with a medieval God Almighty was cut to the bone, and in 1552, the Book of Common Prayer was revised to suit the new established Protestant world. There was to be no more "real presence" at the Eucharist (the "black rubric" permits kneeling, however), no vestments, no signing of the cross at confirmation, no holy oil, no reserved sacrament, and no prayers for the departed.

 

All this spiritual upheaval seems to have been accepted in Blything without social protest.  However, after the death of Henry’s son in 1553, Mary Tudor ("Bloody Mary"), a militant Roman Catholic, become queen. Popular at first, she soon married the hated Philip II of Spain. Persecution of Protestants began and in an effort to put the clock back, Mary appointed new bishops and dismissed all married priests. During her reign, about 300 Protestants are burned, including 5 bishops, 100 priests, and 60 women. An attempt by Cardinal Pole, Mary's archbishop of Canterbury, to restore monasticism failed when, among 1500 surviving monks, nuns, and friars, fewer than 100 were willing to return to celibacy. It is difficult to believe that these tumultuous upheavals did not affect many spiritual convictions, and only four years after Mary’s accession, barely 12 miles from Halesworth, a small, but highly significant crack appeared in the beliefs of Suffolk society with the martyrdom of John Noyes, a Laxfield shoemaker, who spoke against the transubstantiation of bread and wine.  

 

From 1564, when the word "Puritan" appears for the first time, Suffolk saw all the denominations of the church established in its villages.  Baptists were born out of the Radical Reformation, which began during the 16th century.   Not until Cromwell’s Protectorate did the Congregationalists make much progress. About that time the name Independents was first introduced.  In 1658, when the Savoy Synod met in London, over 100 of their churches were represented. With the Restoration came repression for the Independents, partly relieved by the Toleration Act of 1689.  

 

The Presbyterians held the theory of the Divine authority of the ministry, holding that the authority resided in the presbyters, and only acknowledged bishops as being of the same order as presbyters, but appointed, for the sake of discipline, to the exclusive performance of certain functions, and to preside over the rest.

 

The Independents started from the diametrically opposite principle that any number of Christian men might form themselves into a Church (i.e. Congregation), and that such Church had the power to govern itself, to elect its own ministers, there being no difference of order between the ministry and the laity.  The Church was to regulate all questions of discipline or of doctrine with no interference.

 

The first rule of the Congregational Union of England and Wales lays down "as the distinctive principle of Congregational Churches, the scriptural right of every separate Church to maintain perfect independence in the government and administration of its own affairs." Or, as another exponent of its principles says: "The distinctive principle of Congregationalism is that a Church is complete in itself, and that all questions of faith, discipline, and membership are to be settled by its members." The same principle when carried into civil politics was republicanism, and naturally put those who held it into an attitude of antagonism to the authorities of a monarchical state; and we find the sect all through its history acting as a political as well as a religious party.  Brown, a clergyman of the Church of England, was the founder of the sect, and he established the first separated congregation in London about 1568.

 

Methodism dates from 1729, when a group of students at the University of Oxford, England, began to assemble for worship, study, and Christian service. Their fellow students named them the Holy Club and "methodists," a derisive allusion to the methodical manner in which they performed the various practices that their sense of Christian duty and church ritual required. 

 

The leaders of 19th century Congregationalism were proud of having firm roots in middle-class prosperity. 'We regard it as a significant and cheering fact,' said the Rev. E. Jones in 1852, 'that we number in our ranks so large a proportion of the middle classes of this country, the backbone and sinew of its strength and probity, of its intelligence and industry’. Independents were prominent among the people into whose hands the industrial and commercial wealth of England was flowing. A Nonconformist writing of Lancashire in 1869 noted that 'in the more important towns they have collected larger and more influential congregations. In Manchester as a young pastor, Joseph Parker preached in 1858 to a congregation in which, he remembered later, 'every man seemed to be looking at me over the top of a money-bag. These, 'the Congregational millionaires of Cavendish Street Chapel', were unusually rich for their sect; Parker believed that his salary of £425 was higher than any Independent minister had ever before received. But money-bags were common enough equipment for Independents elsewhere; 'as a community,' said a speaker to an assembly of the Congregational Union in 1878, . . . our resources are mainly derived from trading transactions. . . .Three years later the chairman of the Union said that his own people were probably the wealthiest among English Nonconformists. At Wolverhampton in 1891 the secularist lecturer F. W. Foote could raise a laugh by suggesting that the advice 'sell what thou hast, and give to the poor' was not followed by the leading Congregational minister in the town and the rich in his chapel.

 

The princes of Independency gave generously to their churches. Profits from Joshua Wilson's silk, Francis Crossley's carpets, the Wills' tobacco and Titus Salt's alpaca found their way to the architects and builders of new chapels and the ministers who preached in them, and sometimes to Congregational and other evangelists among the poor. King among these princes was the knitting millionaire Samuel Morley. He was a Victorian Christian employer, tough but scrupulous; a proud embodiment of what he called 'the perseverance, the industry, the intelligence, and, I add unhesitatingly, the integrity, which, for the most part, distinguishes the trading and mercantile classes of England’.  He was a Liberal, willing to allow the working classes to take part in politics and expecting them to remain upright and deferential; a campaigner for Nonconformist rights, insisting firmly but without bitterness that a gentleman was a gentleman whether a Churchman or not; and a devout Evangelical quite as anxious to spread gospel truth as to sell clothes.

 

However, by this time, a trend was going against the established church.  Surveys carried out in the 1850s showed that only around 50% of the population attended church regularly.  This had fallen to 30% by the end of the century and coincided with increased leisure activities at weekends, particularly on Sundays.  A national marker appeared in 1896, when the major museums opened on Sunday, and became increasingly ‘the people’s secular church’.

 

6.14  Independents in action

 

Studies of economic development in the 19th century have demonstrated that religion could exert an influence through information and credit networks; and with the Ellis family’s appearance in the Thoroughfare is revealed Halesworth’s strong current of Nonconformism, which helped many a business along within the chapel fraternity. For some families, religion was the primary factor in defining a sense of community, of belonging, and of shared values.  Evidence for the existence of such self-maintaining cultures was strongest in industrial cities of provincial England.  In those flourishing communities, the leading members of the Nonconformist chapels were the local captains of industry, the spearheads of municipal reform and the magnates of the local Liberal party.  Nonconformist families formed an urban governing class, which, through intermarriage, and business and political associations, had national ramifications with regards the growth of British prosperity.  This was in fact a remarkable turn around in the fortunes of the minority urban groups that, as early as the 17th century, defined themselves as ‘independents’.  Although relatively few in number, they impressed Daniel Defoe on his tour through Suffolk as a spiritual force to be reckoned with.  Visiting Southwold in 1722 he commented:

 

“There is but one church in this town, but it is a very large one and well-built, and of impenetrable flint; indeed there is no occasion for its being so large, for staying there on Sabbath-Day, I was surprised to see an extraordinary large church, capable of receiving five or six thousand people, and but twenty-seven in it besides the parson and the clerk; but at the same time the meeting-house of the dissenters was full to the very doors, having, as I guessed from 6 to 800 people in it”.

 

Their local impact through trade was summarised by the journalist/printer, and preacher of Halesworth’s Independent Congregational Church, James W. Newby, local historian who wrote a history of the Congregationalists in Halesworth and its surrounding communities.

 

‘In the reign of William IV, who ascended the throne in 1830, the Congregational Union of England and Wales was formed (May 1831), and Congregationalists took their parts manfully in the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, since which time the day became brighter for our denomination, as in truth for all others, although when Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 many Con­gregationalists seemed to make an apology for living, and it was true that Nonconformists were regarded by some as belonging to a different nation. Many owners of property inserted in their leases a clause to the effect that there should not be built on the land " a beerhouse, Dissenting Chapel, or other nuisance." Yet trade began to revive. In the Eastern Counties nearly every thriving business was founded by some Free Churchman, and this is true also of Yorkshire and Lancashire. These great employers spent much of their money on Chapel buildings.’

 

6.14.1 The Pound Street Chapels

It was in this self-help vein that Congregationalism began in Halesworth when a local private individual, Rusting Moor, resolved in 1793 to build a Meeting House in Pound St.  From this time onwards, several of Halesworth’s Congregational deacons were representatives of the town’s entrepreneurial culture as their church developed from an initial membership of eight men and four women.  One of the most prominent was William Lincolne.  As related above, he came to Halesworth from Witham in 1816, with a family consisting of his wife, two little boys and their nurse, and was admitted to the local Congregational church by ‘transfer’ from the Witham Congregationalists. He was a grandson of the Rev. William Lincolne, who had been a pupil of Dr. Doddridge, one of the most influential teachers in the Congregational training academy at Northampton.  The Rev Lincolne had commenced his ministry at Beccles Independent Church in the middle of the 18th century. He eventually moved to retirement in Bury. 

 

A brief biography of his grandson, William Lincolne the Halesworth draper, was written by one of his sons based on extracts from his father’s diary.  This account indicates that from the commencement of William Lincolne’s period in Halesworth, he instituted family worship at his drapery establishment. In a letter he refers to his open-minded attitude towards his employees. 

 

"You will rejoice to hear that ———— stands proposed to the Church. She entered my family not twelve months since, a gay and thoughtless girl, with plenty of High Church prejudices—an additional testimony to the correctness of my system—never to make dissenting training a pre-requisite to entering my service. If they are not what I wish in this respect, I always say, that my hope and prayer shall be that they may become so, and the Divine Blessing has in several instances attended this course."

 

His arrival in Halesworth more or less coincided with the vigorous Congregational pastorate of the Rev John Dennant, who came to Halesworth from Bicester in Oxfordshire in 1791. Within a decade of his arrival four enlargements of the Pound Street chapel were required to meet the needs of its expanding membership. Eventually, plans for a new chapel in Quay St were made under the chairmanship of William Lincolne, who was one of the benefactors (Table 6.21).  It is a measure of the national success of the local community of Independents that the money was provided from far and wide for this project.

 

 

 

 

 

Table 6.21  Summary accounts of the for building the Quay St Chapel

 

                    Items of Expenditure.

                                              £  s  d

Purchasing ground with taking up, etc.      210  0  0                                   

Contracts for Building                     1163  8  0

Extras                                      126  0  0

Brick Wall                                  139 10  0

Palisades                                    30 16  0

Lawyers Bills                                54  6  8

Sundry other matters including Architect,etc 96  0  0                                        

Paid Bank for interest                       68  7  0

Expenses of Collecting                       50  0  0

                                           1938  7  8

Value of old Chapel                         150  0  0                                                      

                                          £1788  7  8

 

 

 

Funds Raised.

                                                 £  s  d 

Subscriptions received in Essex viz: Witham,

Maldon, Booking. Colchester, etc.               94  1 3  

Norfolk—viz : Norwich, Yarmouth and Harleston   55 13  0

Suffolk—viz : Stowmarket, Ipswich, Beccles,    

Wrentham. Sudbury etc , ...                    154 19 10

Other Places—Bath. Poole, Southampton, etc.     41 16  0

London and its vicinity                        246  8  0

From Persons in Halesworth not of the

Congregation, including £40 from the bank of

Messrs Gurney & Co,and the late David Lloyd Esq.74 17  0

Producing a Bazaar                              83  7 9                       

Collections at opening                         102 11  8

Collections at Anniversary                      31 15  9

Collecting Books and Cards                      68 16  2

Profit  on " Memorials of a beloved friend"     25  0  0

Legacy of Mr. N. L.                             15 12  0

Wm. Lincolne's, Nov. 9                           9  1  9

Ground for Vault                                10  0  0

Subscriptions and Donation among the people

to this time                                    774 7  6

                                              £1788 7  8

 

The number of members at the time of opening the New Chapel was 124 (which did not include some who lived at considerable distances), and the seating capacity was 900. On the opening day, however, the people were counted out at one of the services and 1,500 were present. The total number of members since the Church's formation is 1,377, and the following is a list of Deacons and Deaconesses. The year given is that in when membership is first recorded:—

 

Jabez Cole, Yoxford                             1793        S. W. Hadingham, Halesworth           l858

Wm. Benstead, Wenhaston               1793        Benjamin Roe,                                     1859

James Utting. Chediston    1796        Nathan Chipperfield                           1861

Jno. Haward. Hevenmgham                1802        Walter Henry Ives,                            1861

Thos. Burnett. Halesworth                 1803        Elijah Francis,                                      1861

Wra. Harper. Wenhaston                   1810        John Henry Gostling                          1866

Wm. Lincolne, Halesworth                 1817        Robert E. Haward                               1870

George Edge, Halesworth                   1822        John Sago                                            1873

John George. Wenhaston                   1823        Charles Wm. Ellis                               1879

Robert Aldred. Wissett                       1823        John Cole                                             1881

Wim. George, Wenhaston                  1824        James Bezant. Bramfield                      1885

Gibbon Thompson, Blyford               1830        *F. Lambert, Halesworth                     1892

Samuel Roper, Halesworth                 1838        W. E. Fairweather                               1901

Wm. Stanford, Halesworth                 1840        W. T. Hayward   Holton                      1901

George Haward, Bramfield                  1840        *J. W. Newby, Halesworth 1908

Jno. Lincolne, Halesworth                  1840        W. W. Frost                                        1909

Joseph B.Harvey,Halesworth            1843        *H. L. Fairweather                              1919

Geo. Rackham. Halesworth                 1850        *M. B. Beverley                                  1921

Wm. Howse, Cookley         1850        *J. L. Sampford. Holton                      1925

Samuel Brown, Halesworth                1854        *Chas. Hurst, Halesworth                  1925

 

                              Deaconesses.


*Mrs. F. E. Botwright                          1898

 Mrs. A. Woodyard                             1899

 Mrs. W. G. Groom                               1912

 Mrs. A. Muttitt                                    1924

*Mrs. W. R. Ward                               1903


 

 

John Dennant continued as pastor for 44 years, during which time William Lincolne and then Benjamin Roe, who eventually succeeded to Lincolne’s drapery business, were deacons who took key roles in the development of the town’s commercial community and its relations with the townsfolk. The great size of the church is proportional to the impact made by its congregation on the business life of the town.

 

From the records of the church, it is revealed that in 1857, the minister had a period of anxiety when some of the male members went to him and invoked a special meeting to have the accounts explained to them.  The secretary and treasurer at the time was George Rackham, and as a result of the meeting, special resolutions were carried, one being eulogistic of the secretary's services. Another resolution considered that the offices of secretary and treasurer were too burdensome to be imposed upon one individual and recommended that the two offices be disunited. This was carried and also another that Rackham continue his office of secretary as heretofore. The ultimate result, however, was then of Rackham as secretary, and ultimately as a deacon. He later became a member of a New Congregational Church in the town in 1866, when a split in the Church occurred, and which lasted over a period of ten years. It is on record that he was reinstated when the Church was reunited in 1877. His wife died in 1878, and he lived until 1894.  But let us quote from the Halesworth Times dated March 6th of that year:—


For nearly 20 years, commencing from the year 1850, George Rackham took a prominent part in the political district, fighting vigorously but unsuccessfully, against having a confederated and unconsecrated Chapel at the Cemetery, fighting in the battle against Church Rates, and for the abolition of university tests as well as for the fiscal and other reforms of that period. In 1868, owing to overwork, his health gave way, and an eminent London specialist warned him that nothing but an outdoor vocation would save his life. The death of Mr. Daniel Forman, Clerk to the Blything Guardians, led to the election of Mr. Charles White as his successor, leaving a relieving officership vacant at Wenhaston. Mr. Rackham was elected, his votes being more than the other candidates combined. He held the office until 1893, when he retired, the Guardians giving him a pension. He went back to London and revisited the scenes of his earlier journalistic activities."

6.14.2 A personal view of Roe & Co.

As a Congregationalist, James W. Newby was well placed to commentate on the commercial life of the town. He was the epitome of self-improvement, having left the local Elementary School at the age of 11 to develop his freedom through an innate talent to tell a good story.   He represented the second generation of a family that had come to Halesworth from the country, with a pedigree going back to the yeoman farmers of Sweffling.  In this connection, the Halesworth Newbys were cousins of the Kemps through a marriage between the two families, which took place in Sweffling in 1778.

 

Public service was the Independent’s legacy, and with respect to James Newby, this tradition was carried forward in his children, particularly Derek and Donald.  During the authors’ research into the flow of Halesworth’s retail trade the opportunity was taken to hear about the latter days of Roe’ business from Derek Newby who, as a boy, was employed by the Company.  The following  paragraphs, were written by Derek Newby, and as a personal reminiscence, his account provides a vivid picture of the size and importance of the Company, and highlights how it came about that a significant part of the retail history of Halesworth was terminated with the closure of the ‘Bon Marche’.

 

“Ernest Edwin Roe was born on 18 September 1871 presumably in Halesworth, as according to Ivan G Sparkes his father had moved to Halesworth in the 1850's. He died, peacefully in his sleep on 4th August 1957 in Gothic House, Halesworth to where he had moved from his Market Place premises to be cared for by Miss Grace Woodyard. He was buried in the old part of Halesworth cemetery on the right hand side of the Chapels and in addition to the above details the inscription on his headstone reads "..... who rendered great public service, County Councillor, Chairman of Halesworth Urban District Council for 26 years." I remember his passing quite clearly as this was imminent and early in the morning Miss Woodyard slipped a note through my parent's front door at 38 Thoroughfare, which quite simply said "peacefully at 3 a m this morning".

From the records I have (Gales Almanacs), in 1901 a firm named Roe & Company was trading from premises in Halesworth Market Place as Wholesale and Retail Grocers, Tea Dealers, Provision Merchants, Drapers, Milliners, Dressmakers, and Complete House Furnishers. By 1906 they had added Undertakers to their range of services.

I know that E E Roe had a brother named Stanton who served in the Boer war and whom I clearly remember walked with the aid of a stick. I suspect (but am not sure) that he played a part in the business, as the advertisement published on the front of my Gales Almanac did not show E E Roe as the sole proprietor of Roe & Company until the 1921 edition. This continued until 1931 when records show that it changed then to a limited company. The business had become one of the biggest employers of labour in the town and two other directors’ names were included on all the stationery and letterheads from then on. These were F E Botwright & H W Smith. At one time shop assistants were recruited from all parts of the country and many lived in the spacious accommodation afforded by the three-storied building containing numerous rooms above the shops. At one time there were 17 shop assistants engaged in the grocery departments in addition to three horsemen and four warehousemen working in the cellars accessed by stairs from the shops, but from ground level at the rear. In the drapery, millinery and dressmaking departments a further 23 ladies were employed all under the supervision of Mr Botwright who also carried out the duties of undertaker. Mr Smith supervised and worked in the retail grocery department. Mr A E Woodyard who lived at Gothic House with his maiden daughter Grace, made bespoke coffins for the firm, as well as being an undertaker in his own right. Miss Woodyard also offered lodging accommodation to bank clerks and other professional people working in the town. Mr Roe would have been there as a paying guest. In those days practically every building firm, large or small, competed for the job of burying people, there being very few cremations and nothing like the attendant paraphernalia offered by undertakers today (see my article published in "Team Times" in August 2000). There was a manager/cabinet maker, an upholsterer, and boy (me) engaged in the furnishing department who were also answerable to Mr Botwright. Three lady cashiers/ book-keepers worked in the "counting house" as it was called, and it was from a desk here that E E Roe directed operations and kept a watchful eye on what was going on.

On the domestic side there was a housekeeper, cook and housemaid all living on the premises and these were kept busy, as many of the shop assistants were employed on a full board basis.


I started work in the furnishing department in January 1939 when I was fourteen and two months old. The furniture manager was Mr Archibald Haward a staunch member of the Congregational Church and I was to learn the furniture trade, i.e. how to lay carpets and linoleum, cut loose covers and general upholstery, etc. etc. I was also to run errands for the drapery department. On the first day I started work Mr Haward and the upholsterer were laying carpet in a large house and this necessitated moving a piano. On attempting to do this Mr Hoard had a heart attack and died on the spot. Mr Botwright, another adherent to the Congregational Church and sidesman there, then spent more time in our department until a replacement was found for Mr Haward. Botwright was a fiery, dapper little man with a moustache. He too had a kind streak as on Thursday mornings (early closing day) he gave me two half-crowns and sent me to Beverley's for a 4oz tin of St. Bruno Flake tobacco which was 4/8d, the fourpence change, which was a tidy sum in those days, I was allowed to keep. Both he and his fellow director Mr Smith, always seem to have little say in the overall running of the firm and there was no doubt who the real boss was! Mr Haward was eventually replaced by his brother from the London area. At this time Roe & Co. Ltd were offering to fully furnish a two up and two down cottage for £50. Included in this was lino on all floors, stair carpet, one double bedroom suite, and one single bedroom suite suitable for a small room, one three piece suite and one dining room suite with sideboard, table & four chairs, kitchen table (made to measure on the premises), two fireside chairs and two kitchen chairs, two rugs and two doormats. I enjoyed going out with the upholsterer and laying the lino in these farm cottages and sometimes being sent with the horseman on the country rounds to help with the unloading of items of furniture. The war broke out in the September of that year and our drapery and furnishing departments were immediately inundated with demands for blackout material including heavy curtains, many needing to be made and fixed by us and we were kept very busy for several months before trade in these departments eased off, and soon after I was sixteen I asked Mr Roe if I could transfer to the grocery department as I was becoming bored with less to do in the furniture department in wartime. I think that he was pleased about this as several of his male members of the staff were members of the territorial army and were mobilised soon after war was declared and they were not easily replaced. I quickly adapted.

Either Ernest Roe or his firm owned several cottages in various parts of the town, also some meadows in Halesworth on the western side at the top of London road. Here in the summer months, the horses employed to pull wagons around the villages on weekdays would be walked up the London road each evening by the last horseman back to the shop after the rounds, and put out to graze after their days work. In the winter months they would be fed and watered and spend the night in the stables at the rear of the market place premises. The four wheeled wagons were also housed in this area of the property. The Masonic Hall in the Market Place was also part of the firm's premises and the ground floor (later opened as a wine shop), was used as storage for large quantities of sugar which when I joined the firm in 1939 came in 2cwt sacks and had to be weighed and bagged up into blue 21b bags by the assistants. Loose tea in chests also had to be weighed into 4-ounce packets, but in this case the assistants had learned to make a suitable cone shaped packet from a square sheet of paper. Butter, lard and margarine came in 281b slabs and these items too, had to be weighed into 8oz slabs and wrapped in greaseproof paper.

At one time during the war when sugar was rationed I remember an emergency load of one ton of sugar being delivered in 10 x 2cwt sacks, each taking two fit men to lift them.

Some of the assistants in the grocery departments were supplied with a bicycle and cycled out to the villages to take orders from regular customers. The written orders would then be prepared by the assistants working on the counters and delivered later in the week. The order-taker the next week would then collect the cash when visiting for the order for the following week. Roe & Co ran both grocery and clothing clubs into which people could pay any amount at any time. This enabled customers to buy items of clothing or furniture when they had paid sufficient or nearly sufficient cash in. Amounts varied from sixpence to five shillings a week, but this amount was rare, the average being two shillings or less. Records were kept on cards retained by the customer and the cashiers in the office and country customers who seldom came into Halesworth would pay the order taker when he called. The Club system helped to keep customers loyal to the firm as they were often allowed to have goods in excess of the amount paid in, the firm knowing that the remainder would be paid. During war time the order taker had the additional task of cutting out and collecting the appropriate coupons from the ration books. He then had to reconcile these and his cash in the counting house upon his return. The wagons therefore had regular rounds on each day of the week delivering groceries and other items sold by the firm to householders and shops in the surrounding villages and parts of the town. They would also oblige some other shops in the town who were not competing with them by delivering items for them. People paying into the grocery or Christmas Club would normally use this cash to pay for the many extra items they would need at Yuletide. Ernest was a heavy man with a grey moustache. Being born during Victoria's reign he was a hard business man and expected the maximum from his employees. He gave credit and lent money to many people. He was a bully with a kind streak, but in retrospect he was fair, although he would roar at any of his employees if he thought that they were undercharging or guilty of any waste or anything else to his cost. When the retail grocery orders were prepared for delivery the routine was for one assistant to read the items from the bill or invoice and another to check the items into a box. This way was deemed to be foolproof, but mistakes were occasionally made and if a customer came into the shop and complained of a shortage of any item in their box woe betide the culprit who, if Mr Roe discovered the error, would be made to feel very small indeed. There were few who dared answer him back, but if anyone did he would quieten down.


He never married and devoted himself to his business, the affairs of the Halesworth Congregational Church (now the URC), Halesworth Urban District and the County Council at Ipswich where he represented Halesworth for nearly as long as he was Chairman of Halesworth U D C . County Council meetings were held the first Tuesday in Ipswich every month and he and Mr George Clarke who lived at Blythburgh and represented several villages nearly always to travelled together.

 

Mr Clarke had a car, but when it was his turn Mr Roe hired Mr J H Cole who had garage with hire cars at the top of London Road.

As far as I am aware Major F J Rodwell, a solicitor who served in the First World War, with offices in the Thoroughfare carried out the duties of Clerk to the Council until just after the Second World War when it became necessary for the Council to have a clerk of its own.

My memory goes back to when I was 7 or 8 years old and apart from the above my knowledge of E E Roe's activities in the Church and town is limited. Ivan Sparkes has covered these in Volume 6 of his Halesworth Through The Ages. I do know that he lent money to a lot of people, partly to keep them out of trouble and partly to finance their businesses. In this respect he was a sort of philanthropist. He also allowed people to run up debt with him and seldom pursued them vigorously if they made the smallest effort to pay some off. He also allowed his meadows in London Road to be used for town fetes, etc. and provided his wagons to organisations that entered floats on Carnival and other Joy Days in the town. He would also allow the wagons to be used as platforms for the Liberal and Conservative candidates in the Market Place at the time of General Elections. Little was heard of the Labour party as being serious opposition to the Liberals in these parts until after the war. Ernest Roe never openly displayed his political colours, but there is little doubt that with his background of allegiance to Independence and his association with Free Church people his vote went to the Liberals.


I left the firm in November 1942 being called for service in the RAF and did not exercise my right to resume employment with them. However, I did maintain an interest in what was going on there as I was living with my mother who was still dealing with them after the war, and I spent five years from January 1947 until May 1952 in the offices of a large firm of building contractors who were using the former indoor bowling green attached to the Angel Hotel as their headquarters. Apart from my four and a half years service in the RAF I have lived in or near Halesworth all my life.

 

To my knowledge Messrs Botwright and Smith retired around 1943 or definitely towards the end of the war and at this time Mr Roe would be about 74 himself and obviously needed to ease up. He therefore invited Mr E F (Larry) Lee to become a working director of the firm. Mr Lee would be in his early forties and had not been called into the armed services because, I believe of his age and involvement with the Royal Observer Corps. This was a nationwide organisation with branches across the country, particularly on the east coast because of our proximity to the continent, whose members learned to identify aircraft. They were linked with Anti-Aircraft defences and the idea was for them to alert the authorities when enemy aircraft were approaching so that the appropriate action could be taken. They had air force blue battledress and also wore a beret, something like a Home Guard outfit only with a blue uniform. Most of the members were too old, physically unfit, or engaged in essential work and therefore exempt from service in the Armed Forces. Larry Lee was second man in Barclays Bank where Roe & Co banked so he would know the score, prospect wise!   He had been in the town for several years before the war and was a leading light in the Observer Corps.

Roe and Co Ltd continued to trade with E E Roe at the helm until the early 1950's but he had taken up residence with Miss Woodyard at Gothic House, as his domestic staff had gone and none of the reduced workforce was living in. By the time he died in 1957 Mr Lee had stepped into his shoes in the business and by becoming Chairman of Halesworth U D C and County Councillor for Halesworth. Neither he nor his wife had anything to do with the Congregational Church.

Mr Roe resigned the position of Treasurer at the Church but before he did so he bought a detached house on the Holton Road, which he gave the Church and which became The Manse. Previous Ministers at the Church had lived in 23 Station Road, which was rented accommodation.


Mr Roe's estate was valued at £33,000. and we think that the majority of this went to his late brother's family.

After Mr Roe died Mr Lee took over the entire business, but by the early 1960's it would appear that (and this is pure conjecture although I am sure that it is not far wide of the mark) the grocery business was in decline and Mr Lee who by this time was approaching retirement age himself decided to dispense with that side of the business. He therefore put the large building and the Masonic Hall up for auction, bought the former Kings Arms Hotel and moved the drapery department there and continued to run the furnishing side of the business. He did not seek re-election to the County Council and my brother took his place on that Authority. Mr Lee moved to Sheringham with his wife and came to Halesworth each week. As his staff diminished so did his activities and the business was eventually run down and closed. He had continued to own the only motor hearse in Halesworth with Miss Woodyard and Clifford Woolnough organising funerals as there were very few other people doing them by that time”.

 

6.14.3 The Ellis family

Charles William Ellis was another non-conformist colonist retailer.  He came to Halesworth, probably sometime in the 1860s, from Hingham, a small market town in Norfolk, where there were established communities of Independents and Quakers.  Charles William was a baker and confectioner, who married a Southwold girl and set up his business premises in Pound St.  In his early days in the town he was a leading member of the Methodists, even laying a foundation stone for their new Pound St chapel in 1877, but in 1879 he transferred to the Congregational community, and was appointed a deacon in 1896.  The development of the family fortunes is summarised in Tables 6.22 and 6.23. 

 

Table 6.22 Halesworth census

 

                                    Halesworth Census 1871

Pound Street

Charles William Ellis      31                                             Hingham

Emma Ellis                    29                                 Southwold

Wallace Ellis                   3                                            Halesworth

Gertrude Ellis                  6mths                         Halesworth

 

Table 6.23 Entries of Ellis family in Kelly’s and White’s trade directories

 

Charles William Ellis snr.

 

1896: Kelly’s Directory                        baker and shopkeeper         Pound Street

1873: Harrods Directory                      shopkeeper and baker         PoundStreet

1875: Kelly’s Directory                        baker and shopkeeper         Pound Street

1879: Kelly’s Directory                        baker and shopkeeper         Pound Street

1883: Kelly’s Directory                        baker and shopkeeper         Pound Street

1888: Kelly’s Directory                        baker and shopkeeper         Pound Street

1891-2: White’s Directory                   grocer and baker                  London Road

1900: Kelly’s Directory                        baker and shopkeeper         London Road

1896: Kelly's Directory                        baker and shopkeeper         Pound St

 

Charles William Ellis jnr

 

1896: Kelly's Directory                 baker                            Bridge Street

1900: Kelly’s Directory                        baker                                      Bridge Street

1925: Kelly's Directory                private resident              The Bungalow, Holton Road
1925: Kelly's Directory                baker                            7 Bridge Street 
1925: Kelly's Directory                glass and china dealer    6 Bridge St

 

Bruce Ellis 

1929: Kelly's Directory                baker                            84 London Road

 

P. A. Ellis junior

 

1929: Kelly's Directory                tobacconist                   45 Thoro'fare

 

Charles William snr. died in 1906 in possession of an estate worth £2,740, which consisted mainly of a cluster of 8 properties close to his shop in Pound St.  This puts him towards the top of the Halesworth retail entrepreneurs.

 

Samuel Kemp’s shop at 7 Bridge St was bought for his son, also named Charles William.  As mentioned in the previous section it was probably Charles William jnr. that built a new bakery and confectionary shop on the site of Samuel Kemp’s butchery.  By 1925 he was also in possession of 6 Bridge St next door to the north, which he ran as a glass and china shop.  In this year Charles William jnr. let 6 Bridge St as a butchery, to T. H. Parke of Metfield.  Then in 1927 the lease was transferred to another butcher, Mrs H. L. Cullen of Lowestoft.   

 

The two adjacent properties of 6 and 7 Bridge St are built in the same styles with unique patterns of ornamental brickwork, indicating that the same builder constructed them both.   This supports the idea that Ellis developed the two properties together on the sites of two former establishments, one of which had belonged to Samuel Kemp.  In the 1851 census, 6 Bridge St was occupied by William Sadd, a ‘baker’s man’ and his family. Charles William’s son, Bruce Ellis continued with his grandfather’s bakery in Pound St until 1972.

 

6.15  The force of individuality

 

Despite these success stories of Independent families we must not press the Halesworth model of Congregationalism and business success too far.  The Congregational chapel represented a substantial proportion of the town’s business families, from millers to hatters. On the other side, the communicants of St Mary’s parish church represented the likes of Patrick Stead and the agrarian landowners.  These two religious establishments highlighted the bipolar nature of the town’s prosperity.  The evidence for Halesworth suggests that the Congregationalists were a dominant force, but there is really not sufficient evidence to apportion the town’s wealth between the two religious groups. 

 

On the church side we may cite the life of F. E. Wright, a prominent Halesworth builder.  The Halesworth Times of March 30, 1972 paid tribute to Frederick Ernest Wright on his retirement, at the age of 90, from the Parochial Church Council on which he had served since 1908 being one of the oldest residents of the town. He had also given up the office of people's warden, which he had occupied for 21 years. For a few years he also served on the Urban District Council.

 

During his lifetime Frederick Wright had served the Church of England, first in the parish of Wenhaston, three miles away, where he was born, and for nearly all his years at St. Mary's in the town. For ten years, as a boy, he sang in the choir of St. Peter's. Wenhaston. At one time he was carrying out the duties of churchwarden, serving as treasurer of the Church Council and taking his place in the choir. He played his part in the life of St. Mary's under six incumbents. Regular church attendance was an important matter in his early days so that there were often times when not everybody could get a seat in the church.

 

It was soon after he left Wenhaston School that he was apprenticed to Wallace Ellis who followed the building trade in the village. When he came to Halesworth in 1908, three years before marriage, he set up in business on his own. At one time he employed about 20 men. In conversation with the reporter, Frederick Wright recalled that he once employed a Beccles man named Frederick Cole. For 18 years Mr. Cole cycled from his home at Beccles early every morning to reach the builder's yard at the site now occupied by Ridgeons, at precisely 7.55 a.m. In the evening he covered the same course in the homeward direction.

 

Reflecting on his work, Wright said his firm built the first six houses ordered by the Urban District Council.  They were put up in 1921 on a piece of land off the old Bungay Road up from the railway station. Over the years he had erected "a good number" of houses in the town and neighbouring country parishes on behalf of private clients. He converted the old boys' school, a short distance from his home, into a children's home. Now the property consists of tenements.

 

He looked back on many changes during the remarkably long period he had been in business in the Suffolk town. During the town’s growth it had gained a variety of new industries and had lost others. He recalled the closure of four maltings, a carriage works, two boot factories and two breweries.

 

During the 1914-18 war Frederick Wright was in the British Red Cross Society for a time. As part of the war effort Countess of Stradbroke threw open her home, Henham Hall, for use as a hospital.

 

"We used to meet the hospital trains at Halesworth Station and take the casualties by motor ambulance to Henham Hall.  They came direct from France. The journey did not take long. He remembered seeing soldiers ‘with mud on their boots’, just as they had come from the trenches”.

 

The outbreak of war had meant the end of his business. "I had to shut up because they took all my men." he said. After his service at Henham he was drafted to Ipswich to engage in aircraft construction and he lived on the spot "We did the building at Portman Road, where the football ground is now," he explained.

 

For a long time Freemasonry had been one of the interests of Mr. Wright. One of the oldest members of the Prudence Lodge, Halesworth, he went through the chair twice, in 1937 and l943. He got provincial honours in 1953.  He also belonged to the Masonic Chapter and had occupied the Chair. A member of the local Court of Foresters, Mr. Wright was listed as the second oldest on the books.

 

 

 

 

Fig 6.10  Number of industries in relation to number of different denominations (chapels) in early 19th century market towns

 

 

In all his civic activities Frederick Wright was typical of generations of Halesworth’s businessmen.  He fits into a pattern revealed by several national studies of large numbers of 19th century urban communities, which have revealed that both religion and class are the main determinants of being successful in business.  For example, one wide-ranging statistical study showed that given that a person was a member of the town elite, other things being equal, membership of the Church of England markedly reduced the chances of being a businessman.  Conversely being Jewish or a member of the Church of Scotland increased the chances. However, Nonconformists showed a weaker tendency towards business, although this was only at the 10% level of significance. Church of England membership, attending Oxford or Cambridge Universities, and being in the elite, reduced the likelihood of being a businessman by slightly more than the religious affiliation. By contrast, attending public school, although a negative influence, was smaller and less statistically significant. 

 

This type of study, but restricted to a county scale, was carried out for Suffolk by a local historian Gwen Dyke in the 1950s (Fig 6.10).  With respect to the towns she selected for her project, a scatter diagram of industries against different non-conformist denominations is wide, but it does indicate a general trend for the two parameters to be positively related.   Of particular interest is the cluster of 7 towns with a low number of industries in relation to the number of denominations.  The existence of such towns demonstrates that spiritual independence was not always the drive for economic betterment. 

 

In Dykes’ study, Halesworth and Woodbridge were two outstanding towns with a particularly high number of industries in relation to their denominational diversity.  Were they exceptions to the general rule?  In which case Halesworth has other strong factors in favour of its high level of business activity.  Sticking to the general dimension of religious freedom, the level of non-conformity is not the only factor in Halesworth’s favour.  Going back in time, in the 1767 national Census of Papists, Halesworth returned a relatively substantial number of Catholics, all prospering in trade, a saddler, a draper, three shoemakers and a tailor, all of them born in the parish, and some were still in houses the family had occupied in the Hearth Tax of 1674.  The Census was undertaken at the request of the House of Lords as a result of press agitation over the perceived laxity of the Anglican bishops in tolerating the presence of Papists within the parishes of their dioceses.  Protection of the Halesworth Catholics was probably down to the Bedingfield family, who, although not dominant in the town, were not constrained in their patronage by any overbearing resident gentry.  In fact, historically, the level of central control in Halesworth had always been relatively low.  Throughout the medieval period three competing manors had regulated the town’s business life.  By the 18th century this had been reduced to two.  The ‘Manor of Halesworth’ passed through the hands of a succession of absentee lords who regarded it as a personal business asset.  ‘Rectory Manor’ was also subject to a changing series of lords because it was an important church asset, managed by successive Rectors of Halesworth, who controlled the allocation of land to the north of the river.  Both manorial organizations seemed to have taken a flexible approach to the distribution and sale of copyholds, and this was probably an important factor in attracting new businesses to the town.  To this we may add the random appearance of exceptional individuals like Robert Reeve, brewer, and Patrick Stead, maltster, who in any place would be likely to give a lasting boost to the local business environment.  As a general principle we can say that it is probable that each town developed in its own peculiar way, and that non-conformist freedom was just one of many factors influencing its economic development in the 19th century.

 

6.15.1 A resource to feed the imagination

Finally, there is the problem of putting changes of the retail community into an historical context.  Halesworth was sited at a convenient inland river crossing, which a thousand years later determined the 18th century financial investment that connected a minor bridging point with the sea. Dating from this time, the physical remains of its maltings symbolise the processes surrounding the introduction of sea-borne capitalism into the countryside.  The premises of the bankers that colonised the town still dwarf most of the vernacular buildings.  Environments are not passive; they perform, they have effects; they extend the local to the national and beyond.  Through the stream of culture carried by the likes of Frederick Wright, Halesworth is a resource to feed the imagination of those who follow its roads and footpaths and attempt to resurrect people in whose footsteps they tread.  The culture stream of the mind carries important universal messages of power, deprivation, grief and goodness.   It is in this sense that the authors took up their task of compilation and research; one of us to enhance her local birthright, and the other to reach back to a community that was lived and worked by his relatives down to the present day.   Being thereby selected by Halesworth we have brought our own subjectivities, histories and geographies to the town, and it is our combined viewing of it that gives it its significance, or indeed its irrelevance, to others.  However, the hope is that this personal quest may influence some of those who shop unseeing in Market Place and Thoroughfare, to attach themselves to the locale through their own personal thread of cultural ecology, and create a landscape of the mind.  The lack of this cultural thread is well understood by every colonist, particularly those arriving in Halesworth as part of the process of counter-urbanisation, where rural life is preferred to town and city living. 

 

6.16  Chediston Street’s legacy

 

The British industrial revolution was well and truly embedded in Halesworth’s culture by the middle of the nineteenth century, by which time half the population of the country lived in urban areas, where less than half of them had been born.  A large proportion of this townward movement of countryfolk to Halesworth ended up in the tightly packed rows and yards of Chediston Street.  The classic description of the outcome of this national high-speed investment in urbanisation is that written by a contemporary social reformer, J. P. Kay, who describes the settlement of Irish immigrants along the banks of the river Medlock in Manchester.

 

" A portion of low, swampy ground, liable to be fre­quently inundated, and to constant exhalation, is included between a high bank over which the Oxford Road passes, and a bend of the river Medlock, where its course is im­peded by weirs. This unhealthy spot lies so low that the chimneys of its houses, some of them three stories high, are little above the level of the road. About two hundred of these habitations are crowded together in an extremely narrow space, and are inhabited by the lowest Irish. Most of these houses have also cellars, whose floor is scarcely elevated above the level of the water flowing in the Medlock. The soughs are destroyed or out of repair; and these narrow abodes are in consequence always damp, and on the slightest rise in the river, which is a frequent occurrence, are flooded to the depth of several inches. This district has been fre­quently the haunt of hordes of thieves and desperadoes who defied the law, and is always inhabited by a class re­sembling savages in their appetites and habits. It is sur­rounded on every side by some of the largest factories of the town, whose chimneys vomit forth dense clouds of smoke, which hangs heavily over this insalubrious region."   

 

Here we have the main features of the picture of 19th century urbanisation wherever it occurred.  The standard entrepreneurial formula was the availability of cheap land and proximity to industrial activity, allied with a brick-building technology to maximise the packing density of houses and people.  This conjunction of immigrants and a riverine environment had clearly occurred in Chediston Street by the time of the 1851 census.  This ‘barracks of industry’ was revealed at the end of the century in the first large scale Ordnance Survey maps  (Fig 6.11A ), which show a labyrinth of rows of small terrace cottages running down towards the Blyth, the whole overshadowed by the massive imprint of the Halesworth Brewery. However, very few, if any of the inhabitants of Chediston St worked there.   Smoke-polluted air, and the absence of sunlight and fresh air were not only to be found in the expanding cities.  At this time, the statutory definition of overcrowding was such that a family of four adults and eight children could live in a four-roomed house, and yet not be regarded as being in need of re-housing.

 

Fig 6.11  Chediston Street: 1904-1975

 

A 1904

Yards listed in the 1851 census: Ba = Baker’s; Co = Collett’s; Cl = Clarke’s; Me = Melan’s; Pr = Prime’s; CoL = Collett’s Lower; Ch = Chappell’s; Ne = Newson’s

 

B 1975

 

When Chediston Street was first developed for mass housing, probably sometime in the first two decades of the 19th century, immigrants were at the mercy of the speculative builder, who could build whatever type of house gave him the biggest profit.  The builder, or builders, left their mark in Chediston Street in its ‘Yards’.  These were characteristic of this part of town, and consisted of irregular groups of small dwellings, off the main road to Harleston, separated from each other by a narrow alley or a long wall.   The miseries of day to day living in Chediston Street were largely the result of this unrestricted private enterprise, which is partly revealed in the names of the yards.  These names could have reflected the owners of the narrow fields and closes of wet pasture running down to the river that were developed to run up houses, back to back and facing each other across narrow alleys.  It was probably by good fortune, rather than deliberate planning, that sewerage was separated from water supply and the community avoided disease of epidemic proportions.  From the time of its first settlers, Halesworth’s geology seems to have favoured a supply of good deep well water.  This was an important factor in the siting of breweries and a mineral water factory in the town.  It also greatly lessened surface contamination from cesspools and dung heaps.  Cross contamination had wreaked havoc through England’s city dwellers in the great cholera epidemic of 1830-2. 

 

A significant landscape element in the 1904 map of the Chediston St community is the large area marked ‘Allotment Gardens’.  Allotments started as a rural 'dole' in the early 16th century. They were usually charitable allocations to those people who, after the enclosure of the village open fields, ended up with virtually nothing.  The allotments of Chediston St are an indicator that Halesworth had aligned itself with the Victorian allotment movement, albeit probably as an afterthought on the part of the Urban District Council.  The relatively large patch of land so designated shows that the town’s leading liberals and property owners were moved to provide a counterweight to the town’s pressures of population growth and urbanisation. Generally, the allotment movement brought the culture of the urban labouring poor more closely into line with the mainstream values of respectable mid-Victorian England.   A major argument for the provision of allotments in the 19th century was that if the labouring population had some property, then they would see sanctity in the property of other classes. Also, it was no doubt thought good for the labourers' moral well being that they should be gardening in their leisure hours. The liberal-minded citizens encouraged allotments because they were a compensation for low wages.  They enabled more independence and were a partial antidote to the cramped and unhealthy existence. Some heated politics revolved around the provision of allotments at the end of the 19th century, with the occasional election of 'allotment candidates'.

 

Provision of land for allotments had become a public duty, but prejudice against applying public enterprise to solve the need for the proper housing of immigrant workers died slowly. On a national scale, public authorities provided only 5% of new working-class houses built between 1890 and 1914.  Halesworth’s first council houses were not erected until 1920s, on Bungay Rd to the north of the station.   A London-based working men’s housing association reached Halesworth at around the same time, where it was responsible for erecting a small estate at Mount Pleasant- a name that proclaimed freedom at last from the jerry builders of the damp valleys. 

 

Although slum clearance was first initiated with the Housing Act of 1875, it only began in earnest in the second decade after World War 2, when, as part of national policy, the Borough Council began to thin out Chediston Street’s congested yards, and started building new homes on higher land with a suburban allowance of space.  Comparison of the layout of Chediston Street in 1904 with 1975 (Fig 6.11 A B) shows clearly that the rows had all but disappeared and properties with a good allowance of internal space and gardens had been built on the site of the allotments.

 

An interesting aspect of the 19th century expansion of Chediston Street is that an uncontrolled, or improperly controlled, outgrowth of a small market town had become the home, not of an ethnic minority as in the Medlock community of Manchester, but of the representative citizen drawn from nearby villages. The proportion of colonists in the Chediston Street community was about the same as that for the town as a whole i.e. around two thirds.  There are no statistical differences in status and occupations between the families of Chediston Street and its yards, nor with the other areas of the town.  In all parts of the town the neighbourhoods comprised a mixed population of labourers, small craftsmen, and journeymen with a good scattering of paupers.  Nevertheless, it seems that by reputation at least, the neighbourhood was a place apart, to be avoided if one had the choice.  Regarding the social impact of ‘demon drink’, the neighbourhood was served by six public houses, but even so it was not over-provided when one considers that the town, at one time or another, had a total of around thirty pubs in a radius of about half a mile from the Town Bridge.  However, Halesworth’s only 19th century murder took place there, which was particularly notorious because the victim was one of the town’s constables (P.C. Ebenezer Tye killed by John Docker on Nov. 25th. 1862) and therefore created a perception of a lawless community. 

 

Quite soon after it was developed, Chediston Street seems to have become a community adrift from the church, and its Mission Room stands today as a reminder that the community was once regarded as a Godless outpost in need of salvation.  It appears that an undenominational Gospel Mission had been established in Chediston Street as an early response to a perceived need for focused evangelism.  This initiative was hijacked by the parish in 1898, when the influential god-fearing families of Cross and Ram presented the Rector of Halesworth with a Mission Room in Prime’s Yard for regular services and lectures.  This urgent effort to place a spearhead of the Church into the heart of an indifferent congregation, just a few hundred yards from St Mary’s Church, is the origin of the present building.  The residents of Chediston St also attracted the attention of the Salvation Army. Derek Newby recalls that between the wars, the Salvation Army, had a Corps in the town, and held meetings in a second ‘tin tabernacle’ next to the Mission Room.  Up until the Second World War they also had open-air meetings on Sunday evenings on the corner of Rectory Street and would seek offerings from those en-route to both chapel and church!

 

After 1851, the positions of the yards were not noted in subsequent censuses, and were never marked on a map, so they have to be located from the perambulation of the recording officer who carried out the 1851 census.  From this census it is possible to tabulate the relative positions of the yards and their households in relation to the main spine of Chediston St (Table 6.24).  The population was virtually the same in 1901, but the Yards were not designated.  To get an idea of their positions in the landscape, the 1851 distribution has been transferred to the 1904 map by following in the recorder’s footsteps and noting the positions of key features, such as Rectory Lane, the public houses and entrances off the main road (Fig A).   This map gives an approximate picture of the design of these yard features, which are not found anywhere else in Halesworth.

 

Table 6.24   Distribution of Chediston St household’s in 1851 census

 

Group

Chediston St

Baker's

Collett's

Parson's Lne

Chilver's

Clarks's

Mellan's

Primes'

Chappell's

Newson's

Almshs

1

3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3

3(+1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

 

13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

 

 

3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

 

 

 

 

3(+1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

8

5(+1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9

 

 

 

 

 

17(+2)

 

 

 

 

 

10

7(+1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

 

12

4(+1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13

 

 

4(+2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10(+1)

 

 

 

16

6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3(+1)

 

 

 

18

34(+1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

 

 

20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5

 

21

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

23

26(+2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

24

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14

25

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

26

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

 

 

 

 

27

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

 

 

 

Group =  Block’s of households listed consecutively by enumerator

Total households = 166; including 3 households in Parson’s Lane, excluding the Almshouses

(+) = empty houses

 

Table 6.25   Persons designated as paupers in Chediston St: 1851 Census

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

9

ChSt

Collett’s Yd

Joseph Pryor

head

married

77

 

pauper whitesmith

Peasenhall

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Sarah Pryor

w

 

 

75

 

Rendlesham

10

ChSt

Collett’s Yd

Thomas Goodwin

head

widower

80

 

pauper late schoolmaster

St Andrews

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Robert Goodwin

s

u

49

 

worker at the church

Halesworth

11

ChSt

Collets Yd

John Paxman

head

w

61

 

late weaver blind

Halesworth

12

ChSt

Collets Yd

David Barnes

head

m

55

 

ag lab

Cratfield

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Mary Barnes

w

 

 

30

 

Chediston

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

George Barnes

s

 

17

 

ag lab

Cookley

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

John Barnes

s

 

2

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Elizabeth Barnes

d

 

 

1

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

John Clark

? in law

widower

79

 

ag lab pauper

Chediston

13

ChSt

Collett’s Yd

Sarah Mills

head

widow

 

84

pauper

Metfield

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Louisa Mills

g daughter

 

7

infant school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Maria Mills

g daughter

 

4

infant school

Halesworth

14

ChSt

Collett’s Yd

Sarah Mills

head

widow

 

76

pauper

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Sarah Butcher

lodger

widow

 

67

needlewoman

Earl Soham

15

ChSt

Collets Yd

Samuel Best

head

m

70

 

previously an engineer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Ann Best

w

 

 

67

 

London

16

ChSt

Collets Yd

Mathilda Collett

head

u

 

38

flag maker

Newington Surrey

17

ChSt

Collets Yd

Samuel Baker

head

m

52

 

late sackmaker? Journeyman

Wenhaston

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Harriet Baker

w

 

 

45

 

Blythburgh

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

William Baker

s

 

17

 

journeyman butcher

Blythburgh

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Frederick Baker

s

 

15

 

errand boy

Halesworth

18

ChSt

Collets Yd

Thomas Clark

head

m

52

 

journeyman painter

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Ann Clark

w

 

 

53

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Thomas Clark

s

u

24

 

porter

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

William Clark

s

 

17

 

shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Elizabeth Clark

d

u

 

10

at the National School

Halesworth

19

ChSt

Collets Yd

Robert Woolnough

head

m

56

 

ag lab

Henham

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Harriet Woolnough

w

 

 

35

 

 

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Harriet Kersey

d in law

 

 

10

at the National School

Wangford

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Ann Kersey

m in law

widow

 

72

 

Darsham

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Samuel Kersey

uncle

widower

77

 

ag lab

Rendham

20

ChSt

Collets Yd

Elizabeth Harnsey

head

u

 

28

needlewoman

Holton

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Elizabeth Harnsey

d

 

 

8

national school

Wenhaston

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Alice Harnsey

d

 

 

5

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Maria Harnsey

d

 

 

3

infant school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Collets Yd

Mary Ann Harnsey

sister

u

 

23

needlewoman

Cookley

21

ChSt

 

Ambrose Chilvers

head

m

50

 

grocer and draper

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Chilvers

w

 

 

57

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Ann Chilvers

d

u

 

19

dressmaker's apprentice

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

William Chilvers

s

u

17

 

solicitors agent

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Harriet Buller

m in law

u

 

84

 

Halesworth

25

ChSt

 

William Palmer

head

m

71

 

innkeeper

Ersham Norfolk

 

ChSt

 

Ann Palmer

w

 

 

70

 

Lammas Norfolk

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann Palmer

d

u

 

14

Sunday school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

John Alexander

bro in law

widower

77

 

journeyman tailor

Lammas Norfolk

 

ChSt

 

Robert Larter

lodger

widower

49

 

ag lab

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Thomas Martin

lodger

u

42

 

ag lab

Bramfield

 

ChSt

 

James Hubbard

lodger

m

35

 

master sawyer

Tivetshall

 

ChSt

 

John Clear

lodger

u

24

 

journeyman sawyer

Aldeburgh

26

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

Mary Smith

head

u

 

64

charwoman

Sibton

27

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

George Smith

head

m

33

 

malster journeyman

Redisham

 

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

Elizabeth Smith

w

 

 

32

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

Emma Smith

d

 

 

3

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

Lucy Smith

d

 

 

1

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

Rosanna Easterson

sister

 

 

8

infant scholar

Halesworth

28

ChSt

Chilver’s Yard

Lucy Gower

head

unmarried

 

47

pauper

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

Charlotte Gower

d

u

 

19

house servant

Cookley

 

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

Mary Lea

lodger

widow

 

77

 

Linstead

 

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

Caroline Betts

visitor

 

 

13

 

Cookley

 

ChSt

Chilvers Yard

1 house uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

 

29

ChSt

 

William Cullingford

head

m

75

 

wherry man

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Cullingford

w

 

 

74

 

Henham

30

ChSt

 

David Sonagg

head

widower

70

 

master gardener

Hempnall Norfolk

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Sonagg

w

 

 

70

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

David Sonagg

g son

 

15

 

national scholar

London

31

ChSt

 

Robert Taylor

head

widower

60

 

journeyman tallow chandler

Heveningham

 

ChSt

 

Robert Taylor

 

u

35

 

journeyman tallow chandler

Heveningham

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Brown

 

widow

 

66

housekeeper

Kelsale

32

ChSt

 

Thomas Quinten

head

m

58

 

master currier

Whitechapel Mdx

 

ChSt

 

Mary Quinten

w

 

 

59

 

Halesworth

33

ChSt

 

Isaac Mills

head

m

45

 

innkeeper

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

Mary Mills

w

 

 

40

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

William Mills

s

u

19

 

attorneys clerk

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Louisa Mills

d

u

 

19

servant at home

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Emma Mills

d

 

 

12

servant at home

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Robert Edward Mills

s

 

6

 

infant school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ellen Mills

d

 

 

4

infant school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Maria Mills

d

 

 

6m

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

1 house uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

 

34

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Zachariah Sones

head

m

35

 

master bricklayer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Hepzhibah Sones

w

 

 

32

 

Huntingfield

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Hepzhibah Sones

d

 

 

11

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Maria Ann Sones

d

 

 

9

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Isabella Sones

d

 

 

6

scholar

Halesworth

35

ChSt

Clarke’s Yard

Elizabeth Bird

head

widow

 

52

laundress pauper

Westhall

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Hannah Bird

d

u

 

38

workwoman pauper

Westhall

 

ChSt

Clarke’s Yard

Mary Ann Bird

grandau

 

 

13

pauper

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

Clarke’s Yard

Harriet Bird

grandsn

 

 

9

pauper

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

Clarke’s Yard

James Bird

grandsn

 

2

 

pauper

Bulcamp House

36

ChSt

Clarks Yard

William Jessop

head

m

28

 

ag lab

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Mary Jessop

w

m

 

25

 

County Galway Ireland

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Harry Jessop

s

 

infant

 

Leeds Yorks

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

William Jessop

s

 

14 d

 

 

Halesworth

37

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Jeremiah Roberts

head

widower

68

 

ag lab

Westhall

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Samuel Mantis

lodger

 

68

 

ag lab

Holton

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Mary Ann Stevens

 

u

 

29

house servant

Westhall

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Sarah Stevens

 

 

 

8

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

James Stevens

 

 

5

 

 

Halesworth

38

ChSt

Clarks Yard

John Colmands

head

m

30

 

journeyman bricklayer

Darsham

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Mary Ann Colmands

w

 

 

21

 

Wenaston

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Harry Caster

father

 

40

 

waterman

Halesworth

39

ChSt

Clarks Yard

John Ducker

head

widower

37

 

ag lab

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

2 houses uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

40

ChSt

Clarks Yard

James Edwards

head

m

31

 

journeyman blacksmith

Harleston

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Sarah Ann Edwards

w

 

 

27

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

James Edwards

s

 

5

 

dameschool

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Hannah Edwards

d

 

 

3

dameschool

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Betsey Edwards

d

 

 

1

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

2 houses uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

41

ChSt

Clark’es Yard

William Hart

head

 

73

 

ag lab pauper

Heveningham

 

ChSt

Clarke’s Yard

James Hart

son

unmarried

28

 

ag lab pauper

Chediston

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Sophia Hart

 

u

 

77

 

Chediston

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Lydia Hart

d

u

 

31

houseservant

Chediston

42

ChSt

Clarks Yard

James Tuby

head

m

51

 

journeyman bricklayer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Martha Tuby

w

 

 

45

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

William Tuby

s

 

13

 

errand boy

Halesworth

43

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Daniel Croft

head

m

26

 

journeyman shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Hepzhibah Croft

w

 

 

21

 

Wenaston

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Wiliam Croft

s

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

44

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Mary Carver

head

widow

 

71

charwoman pauper

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarke’s Yard

Samuel Ducker

grandsn

 

15

 

pauper

Halesworth

45

ChSt

Clarks Yard

James Ade

head

m

31

 

waterman

Holton

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Mary Ann Ade

w

 

 

29

 

Wissett

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Jemima Ade

d

 

 

11

national school

Halesworth

46

ChSt

Clarke’s Yard

James Edwards?

head

widower

66

 

pauper

Cookley

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

?

s

u

23

 

cattle drover

Darsham

47

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Wales?

head

 

35

 

chimney sweep

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Maria

w

 

 

35

 

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Eliza

d

 

 

14

 

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Benjamin

s

 

12

 

 

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

James

s

 

7

 

National School

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Harriet

d

 

 

5

National School

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Jacob

 

 

3

 

National School

 

48

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Thomas Sawyer

head

m

36

 

coal porter

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Betsey

w

 

 

30

 

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Betsey

d

 

 

11

Sunday school

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

John

s

 

6

 

infant school

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

George

s

 

4

 

infant school

 

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Frances

d

 

 

1

 

 

     48

ChSt

Clarke’s Yard

? Clark

grandfh

 

96

 

pauper late sawyer

Southwold

 

ChSt

Clarke’s Yard

Elizabeth

grandmo

 

 

91

pauper

Halesworth

49

ChSt

Clarks Yard

James Sones

head

m

22

 

master glover

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Amy Sones

w

 

 

20

 

Laxfield

50

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Mary Woolnough

head

widow

 

79

midwife

Laxfield

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Mary Ann Woolnough

gd

 

 

15

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

James

gs

 

5

 

national school

Chediston

 

ChSt

Clarks Yard

Mary

gd

 

 

7

national school

Chediston

51

ChSt

 

Jebus Cullingford

head

m

64

 

master shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann Cullingford

w

 

 

61

 

Wenaston

 

ChSt

 

James Cullingford

s

u

29

 

journeyman shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Caroline Cullingford

d

u

 

24

shoebinder

Halesworth

52

ChSt

 

Elisha Bensley

head

m

41

 

journeyman malster

Holton

 

ChSt

 

Mary Bensley

w

 

 

30

 

Grundisburgh

 

ChSt

 

Peter Bensley

s

 

15

 

baker's assitant

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann Bensley

d

 

 

9

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Bensley

d

 

 

7

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

James Bensley

s

 

6

 

national school

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

 

Martha Bensley

d

 

 

2

national school

Halesworth

53

ChSt

 

William Rayner

head

m

32

 

drover

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann

w

 

 

27

 

Bramfield

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann Mills

niece

 

 

5

dameschool

Wenaston

54

ChSt

 

Samuel Sparrow

head

m

38

 

umbrella maker

Attleborough Norfolk

 

ChSt

 

Charlotte

w

 

 

51

 

Norwich

55

ChSt

 

Samuel Cullingford

head

m

26

 

fishmonger

Darsham

 

ChSt

 

Mary Cullinford

w

 

 

31

 

Wenaston

 

ChSt

 

John

s

 

8

 

national school

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

 

Robert

s

 

5

 

national school

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

 

Charles

s

 

1

 

 

Bulcamp House

56

ChSt

 

Charles Mitchel

head

m

24

 

journeyman taylor

St Giles in Field Mdx

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Mitchel

w

 

 

32

 

Westminster

57

ChST

 

Robert Nicholson

head

m

68

 

shopkeeper

Essex?

 

ChSt

 

C Nicholson

w

 

 

71

 

Hingham Norfolk

58

ChSt

Mellons Yard

Martha Taylor

head

u

 

81

nurse

Syleham

 

ChSt

Mellons Yard

Elizabeth Taylor

d

u

 

51

nurse

St Michaels

 

ChSt

Mellons Yard

Martha Hall

gd

u

 

19

dressmaker

Chediston

 

ChSt

Mellons Yard

Charlotte Hilton

gd

 

 

4

 

South Walsham

59

ChSt

Mellons Yard

Hezekiah Johnston

head

m

23

 

chimney sweep

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Mellons Yard

Melady Johnston

w

 

 

29

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Mellons Yard

Mary Miller Carter

d in law

 

 

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Mellons Yard

Medlady Johnston

d

 

 

4

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Mellons Yard

Samuel Johnston

s

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

60

ChSt

 

James Miller

head

m

70

 

master baker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Miller

w

 

 

67

 

Cratfield

61

ChSt

 

William Clarke ?

head

 

51

 

coal porter

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Jane Clarke

w

 

 

46

 

 

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann Archer

d in law

 

 

12

scholar

 

 

ChSt

 

James Clarke

s

 

1m

 

 

 

62

ChSt

 

Henry Lockwood

head

married

30

 

shoemaker pauper

 

 

ChSt

 

Sarah

w

 

 

27

 

 

 

ChSt

 

Richard

s

 

2

 

 

 

63

ChSt

 

Peter Took

head

m

50

 

express carrier

 

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Took

w

 

 

56

 

 

 

ChSt

 

James Foulsham

gs

 

15

 

scholar

London

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Croft

gd

 

 

10

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

John Haward

lodger

widower

62

 

coal porter

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

John Balfe

lodger

m

25

 

journeyman coachmaker

Stonham Aspel

 

ChSt

 

William Burrell

lodger

u

19

 

ag lab

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

1 house uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

 

64

ChSt

Lower Colletts Yd

Sarah Deliston

head

w

 

81

late washerwoman pauper

Sutton

65

ChSt

Lower Colletts Yd

Elizabeth Lyons

head

w

 

44

mat maker

North Cove

 

ChSt

Lower Colletts Yd

Samuel Lyons

s

 

18

 

journeyman brushmaker

Spexhall

 

ChSt

Lower Colletts Yd

Henry Lyons

s

 

16

 

 

Spexhall

 

ChSt

Lower Colletts Yd

Emily Lyons

d

 

 

12

 

Spexhall

 

ChSt

Lower Colletts Yd

Maria Lyons

d

 

 

8

 

Spexhall

 

ChSt

Lower Colletts Yd

2 houses uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

66

ChSt

Colletts Yard

William Archer

head

m

38

 

journeyman butcher

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Colletts Yard

Harriet Archer

w

 

 

37

 

Holton

 

ChSt

Colletts Yard

Alfred Archer

s

 

13

 

national  school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Colletts Yard

Mary Ann Archer

d

 

 

11

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Colletts Yard

Maria Archer

d

 

 

8

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Colletts Yard

William Archer

s

 

6

 

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Colletts Yard

Harry Archer

s

 

4

 

national school

Halesworth

67

ChSt

Colletts Yard

Stephen Walne

head

m

32

 

ag lab

Sibton

 

ChSt

Colletts Yard

Emily Walne

w

 

 

33

 

Wenaston

68

ChSt

 

James Barber

head

m

48

 

journeyman gardener

Southwold

 

ChSt

 

Maria Barber

w

 

 

42

 

Halesworth

69

ChSt

Primes Yard

Daniel Walladge

head

m

28

 

ag lab

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Mary Ann Walladge

w

 

 

24

 

Walpole

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Henry Walladge

s

 

3

 

infant school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

George Walladge

s

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

1 house uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

 

70

ChSt

Prime’s Yard

James Chilves

head

married

69

 

ag lab pauper

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Sarah Ann Chilves

w

 

 

65

 

Huntingfield

71

ChSt

Primes Yard

Samuel Newson

head

m

36

 

journeyman bricklayer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Harriet Newson

w

 

 

37

 

Wissett

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Eliza Newson

d

 

 

13

servant at home

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Thomas Newson

s

 

12

 

servant at home

 

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Sarah Newson

d

 

 

10

national school

 

72

ChSt

Primes Yard

John Walladge

head

m

61

 

ag lab

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Elizabeth Walladge

w

 

 

63

 

Saxmundham

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Samuel Walladge

s

u

20

 

coal porter

Halesworth

73

ChSt

Primes Yard

John Bales

head

m

36

 

journeyman shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Elizabeth Bales

w

 

 

36

 

Fressingfield

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Harriet Bales

d

 

 

11

national school

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

William Bales

s

 

8

 

infant school

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Samual Bales

s

 

6

 

infant school

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

John Bales

 

 

7m

 

 

Halesworth

74

ChSt

Primes Yard

Robert Mills

head

widower

50

 

ag lab

Cookley

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Robert Mills

 

 

11

 

errand boy

Halesworth

75

ChSt

Prime’s Yard

William Alexander

head

married

74

 

thatcher pauper

Mendham

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Lydia Alexander

w

 

 

72

 

Fressingfield

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Benjamin Alexander

s

 

33

 

ag lab

Holton

76

ChSt

Primes Yard

Robert Edmunds

head

m

53

 

ag lab

Badingham

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Mary Edmunds

w

 

 

50

 

Wangford

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Caroline Edmunds

d

u

 

20

servant at home

Sibton

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Elizabeth Edmunds

d

 

 

10

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

John Edmunds

s

 

5

 

 

Halesworth

77

ChSt

Prime’s Yard

Hannah Bird

head

Wife?

 

41

pauper

Wrentham

 

ChSt

Prime’s Yard

Eliza Bird

daughter

 

 

13

pauper

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Prime’s Yard

James Bird

son

 

10

 

pauper

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Prime’s Yard

Louisa Bird

daughter

 

 

8

pauper

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Prime’s Yard

Maria Bird

daughter

 

 

6

pauper

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Prime’s Yard

Charlotte Bird

daughter

 

 

4

pauper

Halesworth

78

ChSt

Primes Yard

John Winter

h

m

37

 

ag lab

Chediston

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Jane Winter

w

 

 

30

 

Cratfield

 

ChSt

Primes Yard

Harriet Winter

d

 

 

10

servant at home

Chediston

79

ChSt

 

James Spore

h

m

48

 

grocer

Chediston

 

ChSt

 

Mary Spore

w

 

 

50

 

Bramfield

 

ChSt

 

Mary Spore

d

u

 

21

servant at home

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Eliza Spore

d

u

 

17

dressmaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

John Spore

s

 

12

 

scholar

Halesworth

80

ChSt

 

William Woolnough

h

m

48

 

colt breaker

Huntingfield

 

ChSt

 

Maria Woolnough

w

 

 

34

 

Wenaston

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Woolnough

d

u

 

10

national school

Wissett

 

ChSt

 

Charlotte Woolnough

d

u

 

10

national school

Wissett

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Woolnough

d

 

 

6

dame school

Wissett

 

ChSt

 

William Woolnough

s

 

3

 

dame school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Rebecca Woolnough

d

 

 

9m

 

Halesworth

81

ChSt

 

Sidney Smith

h

m

52

 

veterinary surgeon

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Jemima Smith

w

 

 

52

 

Hallingbury Essex

 

ChSt

 

William Smith

s

 

17

 

assistant at home

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Daniel Gosling

u

 

66

 

houseservant

Worlingworth

 

ChSt

 

John Winter

u

 

30

 

ag lab

Chediston

82

ChSt

 

Robert Baker

h

m

35

 

master baker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Eliza Baker

w

 

 

34

 

Leiston

 

ChSt

 

William Baker

s

 

7

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

George Robert Baker

s

 

2

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Aley Baker

 

 

14

 

house servant

Halesworth

83

ChSt

 

Samuel Self

h

m

44

 

master malster

Holton

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Self

w

 

 

46

 

Heveningham

84

ChSt

 

Thomas Coates

h

m

60

 

? carrier

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Rachel Coates

w

 

 

50

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann Coates

d

u

 

29

servant at home

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

John Coates

s

 

26

 

? carrier

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Martha Coates

d

 

 

21

house servant

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Eliza Coates

d

 

 

12

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Frederick?

gs

 

5

 

scholar

Halesworth

85

ChSt

? Yard

Alfred Kidd

h

m

22

 

journeyman cabinetmaker

? Norfolk

 

ChSt

? Yard

Harriet Kidd

w

 

 

26

 

Walpole

 

ChSt

? Yard

? Cooper

lodger

u

21

 

journeyman cabinetmaker

Butley

 

ChSt

? Yard

William Kidd

visitor

u

24

 

journeyman painter

? Norfolk

86

ChSt

? Yard

William Mills

h

m

39

 

ag lab

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

Maria Mills

w

 

 

38

 

Laxfield

 

ChSt

? Yard

William Mills

s

 

12

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

Richard Mills

s

 

10

 

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

Lucy Mills

d

 

 

8

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

Maria Mills

d

 

 

5

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

Sarah Mills

d

 

 

3

dame school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

Frederick Mills

s

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

Thomas Mills

s

 

1m

 

 

Halesworth

87

ChSt

? Yard

Mary Callings

h

u

 

53

washerwoman

Tarbury Norfolk

 

ChSt

? Yard

Mary Ann Callings

d

 

 

15

houseservant

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

James Callings

s

 

14

 

houseservant

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

William Callings

s

 

12

 

errand boy

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

Eliza Callings

d

 

 

10

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

? Yard

1 house uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

 

88

ChSt

 

Rebecca Heffer

head

unmarried

 

84

pauper

Huntingfield

 

ChSt

 

George Nunn

gs

u

19

 

gardener

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

Caroline Nunn

gd

 

 

18

houseservant

Cookley

89

ChSt

 

Samuel Newson

h

m

40

 

journeyman shoemaker

Rumburgh

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Newson

w

 

 

42

 

Chediston

 

ChSt

 

William Newson

s

u

17

 

journeyman ironfounder

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Eliza Newson

d

 

 

13

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Lydia Newson

d

 

 

10

 

Halesworth

90

ChSt

 

Philip Gooding

h

m

47

 

master glover

Linstead

 

ChSt

 

Charlotte Gooding

w

 

 

44

 

Laxfield

 

ChSt

 

Charlotte Gooding

d

u

 

22

glovemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

James Gooding

s

u

19

 

sheppard

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Emma Gooding

d

u

 

17

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

George Gooding

s

 

14

 

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Gooding

d

 

 

11

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Amy Gooding

d

 

 

9

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Eliza Gooding

d

 

 

6

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mathilda Gooding

d

 

 

2

scholar

Halesworth

91

ChSt

 

James Cullingford

head

u

57

 

master gardener

Wissett

 

ChSt

 

Letitia Casey

 

u

 

53

housekeeper

Barham

 

ChSt

 

1 house uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

 

92

ChSt

 

William Robert Gray

h

m

40

 

inland revenue officer

Edinburgh Scotland

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Gray

w

 

 

36

 

Chatham Kent

 

ChSt

 

Isabella Gray

d

 

 

15

scholar

Gillingham Kent

 

ChSt

 

Agnes Gray

d

 

 

10

scholar

Gillingham Kent

 

ChSt

 

Theresa Gray

d

 

 

7

scholar

London

93

ChSt

 

James Butler

head

m

58

 

sawyer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Jemima Butler

w

 

 

66

 

Holton

94

ChSt

 

Thomas Callings

head

m

68

 

sawyer

Kelsale

 

ChSt

 

Mary Callings

w

 

 

70

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Lydia Masterson

lodger

u

 

34

 

Halesworth

95

ChSt

 

George Webb

head

widower

68

 

late journeyman tanner

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Caroline Webb

d

u

 

31

straw hat maker

Halesworth

96

ChSt

 

Emma Foreman

head

widow

 

85

pauper

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Charles Foreman

s

u

41

 

waterman

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Susan Foreman

d in law

u

 

41

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Emma Foreman

gd

 

 

2

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Charles Foreman

gs

 

1m

 

 

Halesworth

97

ChSt

 

William Gipson

head

m

26

 

journeyman carpenter

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Eliza Cole Gipson

w

 

 

21

dressmaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Eliza Cole Gipson

d

 

 

4

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Ellen Louisa Gipson

d

 

 

1m

 

Halesworth

98

ChSt

 

Thomas Foreman

head

m

55

 

waterman

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Ann Foreman

w

 

 

64

 

Walpole

 

ChSt

 

Henry Upson

s in law

m

24

 

journeyman cabinetmaker

Walpole

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Upson

w

 

 

26

dressmaker

Halesworth

99

ChSt

 

William Mills

head

m

52

 

journeyman glover

Wenaston

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Mills

w

 

 

58

 

Chediston

 

ChSt

 

Georgiana Mills

neice

 

 

3

 

Halesworth

100

ChSt

 

Samuel Hablet

head

m

31

 

journeyman brickmaker

Weybred

 

ChSt

 

Harriet Hablet

w

 

 

31

 

Weybred

 

ChSt

 

George Hablet

s

 

11

 

assistant to father

Weybred

 

ChSt

 

Jane Hablet

d

 

 

9

scholar

Weybred

 

ChSt

 

Mariah Hablet

d

 

 

6

scholar

Weybred

 

ChSt

 

Harriet Hablet

d

 

 

4

 

Withersdale

 

ChSt

 

Samuel Hablet

s

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

101

ChSt

 

James Kemp

head

m

25

 

journeyman brickmaker

Leiston

 

ChSt

 

Lydia Kemp

w

 

 

25

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Kemp

d

 

 

7

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Kemp

d

 

 

4

infant school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

James Kemp

s

 

2

 

infant school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Hannah Kemp

d

 

 

1

 

Halesworth

102

ChSt

 

John Reid

head

 m

34

 

journeyman blacksmith

Chediston

 

ChSt

 

Maria Reid

w

 

 

23

 

Thorpe Norfolk

 

ChSt

 

Annet Marcia Reid

d

 

 

2

 

Halesworth

103

ChSt

 

Henry Barker

head

m

50

 

ag lab

Ashfield

 

ChSt

 

Charlotte Barker

w

 

 

38

 

Framsden

 

ChSt

 

Hannah Barker

d

 

 

12

house servant

Ashfield

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann

d

 

 

11

house servant

Chediston

 

ChSt

 

Henry Barker

s

 

7

 

 

Chediston

 

ChSt

 

Maria Barker

d

 

 

7m

 

Halesworth

104

ChSt

 

Robert Gardener

head

m

60

 

master shoemaker

Stradbroke

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Gardender

w

 

 

58

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

William Gardener

s

u

24

 

ag lab

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

John Gardener

s

m

22

 

master basketmaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Catherine Gardener

d in law

 

 

20

dressmaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Gardender

d

s

 

20

dressmaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Thomas Gardener

s

 

17

 

journeyman shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Robert Gardener

gs

 

4

 

 

 

 

ChSt

 

James Croft

visitor

 

21

 

master brushmaker

Halesworth

105

ChSt

 

George Samson

head

m

24

 

ag lab

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

Lydia Samson

w

 

 

29

 

Wenaston

 

ChSt

 

Sophia Samson

d

 

 

3

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Robert Samson

s

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

106

ChSt

 

John Cole

head

m

43

 

master shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Cole

w

 

 

40

 

Cratfield

 

ChSt

 

Louisa Cole

d

u

 

23

dressmaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

William Cole

s

 

8

 

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

James Cole

s

u

19

 

journeyman shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Alice Cole

gd

 

 

11m

 

 

107

ChSt

 

George Nunn

head

m

44

 

master gardener

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

Hepzibah Nunn

w

 

 

42

 

Huntingfield

 

ChSt

 

Eliza Nunn

d

u

 

17

 

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

William Nunn

s

u

15

 

grocers porter

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

Oliver Nunn

s

 

14

 

 

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

Louisa Nunn

d

 

 

10

 

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

Clary Nunn

d

 

 

8

scholar

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

Horace Nunn

s

 

6

 

infant school

Cookley

 

ChSt

 

Alice Nunn

d

 

 

4

infant school

Cookley

108

ChSt

 

Benjamin Walne

head

m

65

 

ag lab

Huntinfield

 

ChSt

 

Sarah Walne

w

 

 

63

 

Fressingfield

109

ChSt

 

Willlam Walladge

head

m

31

 

coal porter

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Walladge

w

 

 

33

 

Leiston

 

ChSt

 

Samuel Walladge

s

 

5

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Charles Walladge

s

 

4

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Isaac Walladge

s

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

110

ChSt

 

Sophia Denny

head

widow

 

67

mangler

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

William Johnson

s in law

m

30

 

painter

Harleston

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Johnson

d

m

 

36

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Caroline Johnson

g daughter

 

8

dame school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

William Johnson

g son

 

6

 

dame school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Charles Johnson

g son

 

4

 

dame school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Henry Denny Johnson

g son

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

111

ChSt

 

William Johnson

head

 

53

 

master chimney sweep

Grantham Leic

 

ChSt

 

Maria Johnson

w

 

 

52

 

Huntingfield

 

ChSt

 

Sidney Johnson

s

u

19

 

cabinet makers apprentice

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Harriet Johnson

d

 

 

15

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Philip Johnson

s

 

8

 

scholar

Halesworth

112

ChSt

 

James Taylor

head

m

45

 

master shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Maria Taylor

w

 

 

41

 

Wissett

 

ChSt

 

Eliza Butler

neice

 

 

13

scholar

Sotherton

 

ChSt

 

Harriet Self

lodger

u

 

45

houseservant

Holton

113

ChSt

 

Robert Samson

head

married

73

 

ag lab pauper

All Saints

 

ChSt

 

Sophia Samson

w

 

 

65

 

Bungay

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Samson

gd

 

 

9

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann Samson

gd

 

 

5

dame school

Halesworth

114

ChSt

 

George Garrard

head

m

30

 

master shoemaker

Wissett

 

ChSt

 

Rachel Garrard

w

 

 

30

 

Rendham

 

ChSt

 

Ellen Garrard

d

 

 

10

chapel school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Thomas Garrard

s

 

7

 

chapel school

Woodbridge

 

ChSt

 

Louisa Garrard

d

 

 

5

chapel school

Wangford

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Garrard

d

 

 

3

 

Wangford

115

ChSt

 

Isaac Baker

head

m

60

 

ag lab

Chediston

 

ChSt

 

Sarah

w

 

 

61

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Caroline

d

u

 

18

 

Halesworth

116

ChSt

 

James Smith

head

m

45

 

master carpenter

Peasenhall

 

ChSt

 

Jemima

w

 

 

41

 

Holton

 

ChSt

 

Mathilda Smith

d

u

 

20

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Thomas Smith

s

u

16

 

working with father

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Emma Smith

d

 

 

4

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

1 house uninhabited

 

 

 

 

 

 

117

ChSt

 

Amy Briggs Barber

head

widow

 

78

annuitant

Holton

 

ChSt

 

Charlotte Barber

d

d

 

33

formerly dressmaker

St Margarets

 

ChSt

 

Frederick Barber

g son

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

118

ChSt

 

Robert Hugman

head

m

44

 

master shoemaker

St Nicholas

 

ChSt

 

Ann Hugman

w

 

 

34

 

Bramfield

 

ChSt

 

Emma Hugman

d

 

 

14

apprentice

Earlsham

 

ChSt

 

Walter Hugman

s

 

1

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Robert Hugman

s

 

7m

 

 

Halesworth

119

ChSt

 

Charles Barber

head

m

40

 

master butcher

Walpole

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann

w

 

 

44

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

James Barber

s

 

15

 

journeyman butcher

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

William Barber

s

 

16

 

tailors apprentice

Halesworth

120

ChSt

 

John Gooch

head

m

25

 

master ?

Norwich

 

ChSt

 

Emily Gooch

 

 

 

25

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Gooch

d

 

 

5

scholar

Halesworth

121

ChSt

 

William Chipperfield

head

widower

42

 

journeyman shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

William Chipperfield

s

m

20

 

journeyman shoemaker

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

James Chipperfield

s

u

18

 

tailors apprentice

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Nathaniel Chipperfield

s

 

16

 

shoemakers asstant

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Chipperfield

d

 

 

12

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Mary Ann Chipperfield

d

 

 

7

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Harriet Chipperfield

d

 

 

6

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

 

Elizabeth Chipperfield

mother

widow

 

74

formerly nurse

Wissett

122

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Benjamin Adams

head

m

47

 

journeyman bricklayer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Mary Adams

w

 

 

45

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Benjamin Adams

s

 

23

 

journeyman bricklayer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Fanny Adams

d

u

 

21

fitter of lace and collars

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

James Adams

s

u

19

 

journeyman carpenter

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Robert Adams

s

u

17

 

journeyman bricklayer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Amos Adams

s

u

15

 

labourer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Betsey Adams

d

 

 

13

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

William Adams

s

 

11

 

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Walter Adams

s

 

9

 

scholar

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Mary Adams

d

 

 

5

scholar

Halesworth

123

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Simon English

head

m

60

 

ag lab

Rumburgh

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Charlotte English

w

 

 

47

 

Wenaston

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Emily Bullard

d in law

u

 

19

 

Wenaston

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

George Bullard

s in law

 

16

 

bricklayers labourer

Wenaston

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

John Bullard

s in law

u

14

 

ag lab

Wenaston

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

James Bullard

s in law

 

9

 

pipe makers assistant

Wenaston

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Charlotte Bullard

d in law

 

 

7

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Henry Bullard

g son

 

6

 

 

Halesworth

124

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Titus Adamson

head

widower

76

 

labourer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Sarah Adamson

d

u

 

32

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Robert Adamson

g son

 

12

 

national school

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Fanny Adamson

g daughter

 

5

national school

Halesworth

125

ChSt

Chappels Yard

William Prime

head

m

28

 

journeyman ironfounder

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Sarah Prime

w

 

 

36

 

North Elmham

126

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Elizabeth Harvey

head

u

 

60

schoolmistress

Reydon

127

ChSt

Chappels Yard

William Clark

head

m

43

 

ag lab

Badingham

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Eleanor Clark

w

 

 

47

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Jane Prime

d in law

 

 

22

tailoress

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Charles Prime

s in law

u

20

 

shoemakers apprentice

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Emma Prime

d in law

 

 

11

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Hannah Kemp

visitor

u

 

26

houseservant

Saxmundham

128

ChSt

Chappels Yard

John Easter

head

m

42

 

journeyman blacksmith

Chediston

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Sarah Easter

w

 

 

40

 

St James

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Louisa Easter

d

u

 

18

 

Homersfield

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

John Easter

s

 

15

 

 

Homersfield

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Elizabeth Easter

d

 

 

14

scholar

Wortwell

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Mathilda Easter

d

 

 

11

scholar

Wortwell

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

George Easter

s

 

8

 

scholar

Wortwell

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Charles Easter

s

 

6

 

national school

Wortwell

 

ChSt

Chappels Yard

Sarah Easter

d

 

 

3

 

Halesworth

129

ChSt

Newsons Yard

John Spore

head

widower

77

 

ag lab pauper

Chediston

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Sarah Hurren

g daughter

 

12

scholar

Wenaston

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

James Hurren

g son

 

10

 

scholar

Halesworth

130

ChSt

Newsons Yard

John Blandon

head

m

53

 

master tailor

Framlingham

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Mary Ann Blandon

w

 

 

48

 

Harleston

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Sophia Blandon

d

 

 

13

scholar

Cratfield

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Harriet Blandon

d

 

 

11

scholar nurse girl

Cratfield

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

John Blandon

s

 

8

 

scholar

Cratfield

131

ChSt

Newsons Yard

William Ford

head

m

65

 

ag lab

Bacton

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Elizabeth Ford

w

 

 

49

 

Fressingfield

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

James Folkard

s in law

u

20

 

ag lab

Fressingfield

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Adam Folkard

s in law

 

18

 

journeyman brickmaker

Fressingfield

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Sarah Folkard

d in law

u

 

15

houseservant

Fressingfield

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

William Folkard

s in law

 

12

 

cow boy

Fressingfield

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

John Mouser

s in law

m

28

 

ag lab

Ubbeston

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Maria Mouser

d in law

m

 

27

 

Fressingfield

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Emma Mouser

d in law

 

 

3

 

Bulcamp House

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Mary Friend

g daughter

 

5

 

Cratfield

132

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Mary Day

head

widow

 

41

milk woman

Kelsale

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Emma Day

d

u

 

19

 

Blyford

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

John Day

s

 

15

 

bricklayers boy

Blyford

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

Joseph Day

g son

 

4m

 

 

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

John Upson

lodger

u

68

 

labourer

Halesworth

 

ChSt

Newsons Yard

William Edwards

lodger

u

40

 

labourer

Halesworth

133

ChSt

Newson’s Yd

William Stocks

head

widower

76

 

labourer pauper

Halesworth

1 & 2 = fef no in Chediston St.; 3= yard; 4= family category; 5= statis; 6= age males; 7= age females; 8=occupation; 9=place of birth

 

Regarding the special economic status of those who lived in Chediston St, it is possible to locate those at the bottom of the social pyramid from the 1851 census.  At that time there was a total of 15 families (28 persons) censused in the ‘street’ that were classed as paupers.  Of these, most (24) were to be found living in yards (Table 6.25).   Eleven of them were born in Halesworth and almost half of them were age 65 and over.  A remarkable proportion of the elderly were living into their 80s and 90s, which indicates that health was not a major issue for the yard folk. 

 

There were eight children listed as paupers, all members of two families named Bird, both of which were headed by widows.  Three were the children of the unmarried daughter of Elizabeth Bird (age 52) living in Prime’s Yard. Elizabeth was herself a pauper, but her daughter, Hannah (age 38) is described as a washerwoman. Both were born in Westhall.  Hannah was unmarried and her children had all been born in Bulcamp workhouse.

 

A second Bird family listed in the 1851 census lived in Clarke’s Yard.  Here, another Hannah Bird, a laundress pauper, was head of household and she had five children aged between 2 and 13.

 

Hannah and her husband James, an agricultural labourer, were present in the 1841 census, when they were located in Collett’s Yard and headed by James Bird an agricultural labourer.

 

James Bird       30   (died 1849)
Hannah Bird     30
Ann Bird           6     (died 1845)
Eliza Bird         4
James Bird       1
 

 

Slum ecology, of course, revolves around the supply of settlement space, and in the two Bird families we have the necessary conditions used to define slums from Dickensian times to the present day.  Central to the definition are poverty, overcrowding, poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, and insecurity of tenure.  In this regard, the Bird households symbolise important additional Victorian gender issues of widows and single mothers.  At this time there was one other Bird family in Halesworth, again headed by a widow, at Mill Post.  No occupations were given for this widow, Mary Bird, and Robert her 20-year-old son.

 

Eleven years later, two Bird females were the victims of necessity when they were imprisoned for stealing a few pence worth of turnip tops and turnips.   Sarah and her daughter May, both field workers, are an example of what widowhood and poverty could lead to. 

 

Halesworth Times: Wednesday February 12th 1862

Magistrates
J.W.Brooke chairman, Rev. Henry Owen, Rev, W.C.Edgell, A. Johnston,
T Rant & H.A.S.Bence.

Sarah Bird and May Bird, mother and daughter, were charged with having, on the 7th day of February last at Halesworth, wilfully and maliciously done damage to the property of Mr. William Atmer of Halesworth, by stealing and taking away some turnip tops and turnips, for the value of 6d; his property.

Both prisoners pleaded guilty and excused themselves for committing the offence from being in a state of destitution. They are however old offenders. The Chairman said destitution was no excuse for stealing - the law had provided for the destitute, and want would not palliate offences of that kind. The Bench sentenced each to 14 days imprisonment in Ipswich gaol with hard labour.

 

This was probably the Sarah Bird living in Chediston Street in 1861.  She was unmarried with two children. 

 

Sarah and the two elder children, Mary Ann, age 25 (probably the May Bird who was sentenced with her mother), and James (age 13), were all classed as ‘worker in the fields’. Sarah also had a grandaughter, Isabella (age 2) living in the household, who was probably the daughter of Mary Ann.  

 

Elizabeth Bird who was recorded as a head of household in the 1851 census was still a laundress pauper living in Clarke’s Yard. In the same household were her unmarried daughter Dinah, a washerwoman, age 38, and the three grandchildren who were present in 1851, now classified as paupers.  These children were probably Dinah Bird’s offspring.  The Sarah Bird, who was imprisoned for stealing turnips, was possibly Elizabeth’s other daughter.  Neither men nor marriage figure in these Bird households.

 

We must be careful not to dwell too much on the designation of pauper.  Although in dire straights, they were a minority in the Street and the town.  Also, there were families in the Yards that were coping, if not having some measure of success.  For example, the Adams at 122 Chappell’s Yard was a family of eleven, composed of two adults, born in Halesworth, Benjamin age 47, a journeyman bricklayer and his wife Mary, age 45.  Their nine children were age 5 to 23. Four were classed as scholars, and the others all had jobs; Benjamin (23) was a journeyman bricklayer like is father, Fanny (21) was a fitter of lace and collars, James (19) was a journeyman carpenter, Robert (17) was the second journeyman bricklayer in the family, and Amos (15) was a labourer.  The Adams were typical of many families in Chediston Street that, on the face of it, adapting to the economic realities of life in a mid-19th century market town.

 


The effects of the first long bout of Halesworth’s housing redevelopment, which began in the 1920s was evident in the 1975 O.S, map.   Chediston Street’s Victorian yards had largely reverted to green spaces.  Today, the view along the beck, from the footpath that runs from the end of Chediston St to the river, is truly rural, and has probably changed little from what could be seen by the Birds from the bottom of Clarke’s Yard.

 

 


7  A Conservation Culture

 

 

"Sustainable development" has become a catch-all phrase for forms of economic development, which stress the importance of environmental quality and the conservation of nature's assets. Definitions of sustainable development abound, and some analysts worry that if sustainability eludes formal definition, it cannot serve as a basis for formulating appropriate environmental policy. ……There is also an underlying assumption that sustainability is desirable - it is a policy objective we ought to seek to achieve. In other words, deep questions of ethics and morality are involved in the sustainability debate.

 

R. Kerry Turner Earth Scan: Blueprint 2

 

 

7.1 A consuming society

 

Up to the outbreak of the Second World War, small towns had long played an important role in the economy of rural England. Their initial function was often established by Royal Charter in the 15th or 16th century or, like Halesworth, even earlier. Their prime role was as mercantile centres to serve the needs of their rural locality. There was a close working relationship between businesses and households within a town and in the immediate surrounding countryside. The Royal Charters were an early example of town planning, often establishing a minimum distance of around 7 miles between markets to ensure that they would not compete with each other.  Over the years, these towns developed other functions. They became the base for the administration of local government, they also formed an increasingly important focus for social activity, and the location of charitable institutions such as almshouses, hospitals and schools. Associated with all these developments of a close-knit society, they grew in importance as centres of employment and population.

 

Through the last millennium, Halesworth’s economy was following a fundamental trajectory of economic development.   Named the Bucklin model (Figure 7.1) this represents a scheme based on charting average retail costs against the level of economic development and urbanization. Where the purchasing power of the population is low and diffuse, then periodic markets and fairs will dominate the retail system. As economic development takes hold, purchasing power increases and can be concentrated so that the operating costs of the fixed dealer fall, and the periodic market becomes regular and permanent.  This will first be consolidated in structural terms within a special market place.  Eventually, in operational terms, shops open throughout the week rather than on a specific day or days. A market hall may appear.  Craftsmen-retailers can now establish fixed live-over shops.  With further economic development, the production of consumer goods becomes larger in scale and more standardized; it also becomes concentrated in favoured locations. The small-scale craftsman is thus undercut, though survival is possible by concentration on quality, and the meeting of individual demands. Even so, the specialist retailer, whose expertise is in retail business rather than in the product, becomes dominant.  Further increases in scale bring large retail institutions, the department store for example, into being. All this is necessarily based on the growth in both personal mobility and the nationwide movement of pre-packaged, standardized products. There is no doubt that Figure 7.1 fairly represents the process of change which took place in British retailing, although perhaps a little greater allowance should be made for overlap; periodic markets (e.g. ‘Sunday Markets’) have certainly not disappeared from the retail scene in Britain, although they now tend to be held on land away from urban centres in order to reduce operating costs. What however is much more difficult, is to relate the points at which the graph lines intersect, i.e. the time at which one form of retailing succeeds another as the dominant, to specific historical periods, rather than referring to the very vague concepts of economic development and urbanisation.

 

There are a number of histories of retailing, some dealing with the topic in general, of which the best known is Davis's ‘A history of shopping’ published in 1966, but most deal with specific periods or with special aspects. Unfortunately there is little in the way of clear consensus as to when the critical transformations took place, a problem which is made all the more difficult since they occurred at different times in different places.  London was clearly the leader, and there were also differences in shopping behaviour between social classes.  Different groups shop at different times of day and home visits and delivery services make an appearance.

 

Fig 7.1 Bucklin’s model of the history of retailing

 

 

Most historians of this phenomenon agree that a major transformation pivoted about the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Before that point, shop, workshop and home, were all combined in one, that is, craftsmen-retailers produced goods for sale on the same premises where they lived, often with a number of apprentices. The skills handed on to the apprentices were concerned with the product, not with retailing as a business. Thus the tea merchant bought supplies in bulk from London and was an expert on teas, not someone selling a ready-packed standard product. The cabinet maker constructed and sold furniture usually made to a specific order, he did not simply sell factory manufactured goods. Prices were not fixed, there were no tickets indicating the cost of the goods and 'abatement' could be negotiated; in short, prices were determined by haggling. The streets were unpaved and unlit so that 'shopping' as such, in the modern sense, did not exist; rather, marketing was carried out by those lowest in the social scale, and where high quality goods were concerned, they were brought to the house for inspection. Shops did not advertise, although there were signs for the illiterate. The weekly market and the itinerant trader were the basic mainstays of the system. After the 1820s all these conditions were gradually reversed. Permanent brick-built shops appeared and improvements in glass production meant that they could have lighted windows for display. Specialist non-resident retailers sold goods that were nationally distributed under brand or company names. These goods were offered at fixed prices and there was no abatement. Streets were paved and lit, so that visits to large, well-stocked shops became a pleasure and, indeed, a pastime for the well off. Restaurants and teashops came into being to give the opportunity for rest and further to enhance the enjoyment of shopping. Shops began to publicise themselves and the national producers advertised nationwide the standard goods they were distributing. A wholesale system came into being as an intermediary between producer and retailer. The old weekly market became no more than a possibly busier day for shops, which were open all week, and in many cases 'all hours'. Annual fairs lost all their 'selling' function and became devoted to pleasure. It is true that such a transformation did not affect all types of shops uniformly. Perishable foodstuffs, such as fruit and vegetables, continued to be offered mainly in the open markets and market halls.  Greengrocery was one of the last operations to be located in fixed shops.  Halesworth’s ancient guild of grocers would have dealt with luxury or semi-luxury dry goods, such as tea, coffee and sugar.  The description of changes in retailing, which has just been set out, certainly epitomises the transformation of Halesworth and can be traced through the census returns from 1851. 

 

Some have located a national critical point of inflection in the slow evolution of the retail trade in the epoch of Elizabeth I and the early Stuarts in London.  It was in the capital city that retailing began to come of age and to take seriously the business of wooing the consumer. Something that we nowadays recognize as shopping had begun.  London was highly exceptional, but even so, and, referring back to Figure 7.1, the break was identified between the periodic market and the craftsman-retailer rather than the coming of modern shopping.

 

7.1.1 Consumerism and recreation

Another break, associated with the rise of consumerism, may be seen in the historical development of sport in Western society from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.  This firm trend conveys how sport both shapes and reflects the history of individual nations, and its origins are reflected in the competitive spirit in close-knit social groups. The starting point was the hamlets and villages, which were isolated microcosms of all human behaviour that gave worth and self-sufficiency to human primates.  In particular, the growth of sport and leisure activities began to increase substantially during the late 19th century, at a time when the production of goods shifted away from the home.  As a national culture developed that idealised the purchase of mass-produced commodities, the production of sporting goods became a significant industry. 

 

Sport has been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the Ancient Olympics up to the present century. Behaviours necessary for food and survival became regulated activities done for pleasure or competition on an increasing scale, for example hunting, fishing, and horticulture became the focus for local gatherings of people who shared these passions, and wanted to become the best. The Industrial Revolution and mass production brought increased leisure, which allowed increases in spectator sports, less elitism in sports, and greater accessibility to all classes of society. These trends continued to gather momentum with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity through the cult of personalities. Not only has professionalism helped increase the popularity of sports, but additionally the need to have fun and take a break from a hectic workday or to relieve unwanted stress of mass production, has grown with the other professions that constitute consumerism. 

 

The Western World now exhibits a passion for sport as spectators and participants in contemporary society. Sporting experiences constitute an integral component of life, and buying into it is an integral part of consumerism.  Trying to understand how the people of the past thought about sport and engaged in sporting behaviours before the age of television, endorsements by sports stars, and big-time professional and college athletics, will generate lively classroom discussions in school and university, as instructors and students investigate the role of sport in cultural history. 

 

Suffolk has come a long way from the days when the major competitive activity at village level hinged on the fighting activities of its menfolk.  Alan Jobson referring to the relative fighting qualities of his home village of Westleton captured this era.

 

“We were so renowned in this that visitors in gangs would come from nearby villages to try their weight with ours, and we would fight them home again until they had had enough.  Blood flowing, clothes off piecemeal; until we and they were half naked”

 

The murderous 19th century inter-county activity of ‘camping’, is a significant Suffolk landmark in the development of sport hooliganism. 

 

Almost from the moment that it was codified on the playing fields of major public schools, football developed from the ad hoc arrangements of amateurs at a rate comparable to today’s computer industry.  Within ten years of the rules being first published there was a national league.  Industrial plutocrats saw the game as a vehicle for prestige, so they paid the better talent to turn out for their teams.  Amateurism is gone.  Sport’s sole purpose, allied with consumerism, is to generate cash, or in the case of the Olympics, to regenerate an entire city economy.

 

In an account of the sporting facilities in 20th century Halesworth, Derek Newby highlights a change from the ad-hoc arrangements for townspeople to participate in football, cricket and tennis, to the organisation of funds from central and local government for establishing standard playing facilities of pitches and courts, as a political imperative that yielded votes.  This national movement gathered momentum in the town after the Second World War when concerted efforts were made to transfer activities from the time-honoured ‘grace and favour’ use of pastures grazed by cattle and donkeys at the outskirts of the town, to a permanent sports ground

 

“When the war ended in 1945 Admiral Bruen had left Highfield and the meadow had been sold and the new owner had planted it with apple trees - and somehow (possibly by compulsory purchase) the Bungay Road Playing Field had passed into the ownership of East Suffolk County Council who wanted it for a new school. It is believed that the foundations of the present Middle School were laid before the outbreak of war, but construction was not resumed and the school was not completed until the 1950's.

 

The result of this was that the homecoming footballers and heroes of the 2nd world war had no suitable pitch and for a time played their matches on Fen Farm meadow off School Lane. The surface there was far from satisfactory as it was bumpy with molehills and indents of cattle hoofs, and to complicate matters there is a footpath running through the centre of what was the pitch. The football club continued playing at a variety of venues, sometimes on their opponent's grounds, although the cricket club still used the school field in Bungay Road, having been given permission to do so for some time after the new school was built. There were two grass tennis courts in one corner of the field before the war, but football was seldom played there. Halesworth Tennis Club was reformed after the war and used two hard courts at the top of Dairy Hill owned by Mr E E Roe. These were subsequently sold and the land used for bungalows and the tennis club moved to grass courts in the grounds of "Fairstead" at Spexhall by courtesy of Mrs Rupert Steward. The club was busy fund-raising with a view to buying land and laying their own hard courts. Several enquiries for sites were made including one for the site of the present fire station. The Club was told that this was left to the town and had to remain an open space as a play area for mothers to take their children "forever". Within a year or so the power of big brother at County Hall had again stepped in to take what it wanted from the citizens of Halesworth and half the land was used for the fire station. A substantial tiled shelter had been erected at the cemetery end and now stands derelict. At least half an acre is now unused and overgrown with blackberry bushes. But back to sport! By the beginning of the 1950's Halesworth Tennis Club had raised over £600 towards what they hoped would be their own courts, but before they could find a suitable site a headline, "All over the world to fight but now nowhere to play" appeared in the Halesworth Times and this produced an offer from Mr F Gowing who owned two meadows at the top of Dairy Hill. These both had quite steep slopes to Loampit Lane, but the offer was accepted by the football club. Halesworth Urban District Council. as the local rating authority, then decided that facilities were needed for all sports, and held a public meeting inviting representatives from the sports clubs to attend. The eventual result of this was the formation of The Halesworth Playing Fields Association. The original constitution of this incorporated a clause stating that the committee appointed to run it should comprise of two people from each user club, two members of H U D C and two from the general public. The Town Clerk at the time. Mr I C Clare, was its first secretary. Initially the Tennis Club viewed the project with some suspicion as they were the only potential user club with any capital and it's members were not impressed with what they had seen of public courts in neighbouring towns. Nor were they too happy with the offer on the table which was to part with their £600 to acquire Mr Gowing's land in return for which they would., at some unspecified time in the future, be rewarded with the restricted use of two tennis courts. The Council agreed to contribute to the overall cost each year, but it was up to the Clubs to be responsible for and improve the facilities for their particular club to suit their own requirements. A central cricket square was laid, but the outfield encroached on to the football pitch and there was little room for a separate hockey pitch. It was also difficult to keep children and dog owners off it when it was not being used for cricket. The hockey Club had been formed and was using a field opposite Wenhaston Grange, but the cricket club soon returned to the school grounds, courtesy of the headmaster, and room was made for a hockey pitch on the playing field.

 

The first pavilion, initially to be used by all sports, was a wooden structure built by Mr F G Read, a town councillor and engineer at the United Dairies. For a variety of reasons the combined use did not work very well with the football and cricket members, although the tennis club who had been persuaded to join the combined playing field venture were fairly well satisfied with the two hard courts that had been put down and the terms they had negotiated for their exclusive use of them. Their pavilion accommodation was separate and included facilities for ladies as well as men and these were satisfactory.

 

It is clear that contemporary leisure now drives and consolidates global cohesion, mutual understanding and world development.  It encompasses a whole raft of disparate activities such as adventure and risk-taking, eating fast food, visiting heritage sites and theme parks, downloading pornography, or taking illegal drugs (with or without accompanying clubbing). Many of these activities in turn involve the mass consumption of commercially provided goods and services, which offer the usual dilemmas of choice and freedom, commercial agendas and personal uses. The topics can be points of departure to examine leisure activities critically, and to focus on real-life complexities, including ethical dilemmas and aggressive nationalism. 

 

It is in this wide perspective of social change that the study of the history of sport, recreation and leisure, facilitates a more comprehensive understanding of consumerism. Interconnections between sport and other aspects of culture are reflected in sport and religion; sport and the search for community; sport and modernisation; sport and health reform movements; sport and gender issues; sport and race relations; sport and rural culture; sport and technology; sport and education; sport and politics; and sport and consumerism. The study of the history of sport, recreation, and leisure illuminates most contemporary critical issues in social, cultural, economic, and political history.

7.1.2 Point of inflection

Halesworth’s pride in its achievements as a market town came to a head in the early 1970s.  If one looks to an occasion, it was probably articulated at the annual dinner of the Halesworth Urban District Council, held at the Rifle Hall in October 1970.  The town’s representative on the County Council and chairman of the UDC, Donald Newby responded to a toast  “To the Town of Halesworth” as follows:

 

‘After years in the wilderness we are going ahead.  Our rateable value has doubled in the past six years.  Apart from Felixstowe, a much larger community than us, our population is expanding faster than any other small town in East Suffolk.  This is significant.’

 

When we look closer for the origins of this euphoria we see that it was really fuelled by a recent burst of prosperity and was not really the culmination of a century of continuous economic development.  In truth, the population hardly changed between 1850 and 1950, and in line with this the town’s physical environment was not noticeably different.  Comparisons between the 1883 and 1904 Ordnance Survey maps, which span the economic momentum of early Victorianism, show that the only housing developments had been on the outskirts.  To the east this had involved some houses at the bottom of Loam Pit Lane behind Holton Terrace.  To the north, all that had happened was a few properties had been built on Bungay Road between the level crossing and the Patrick Stead Hospital, and on the north side of Wissett Road next to the Gas Works.  To the south, one of the two mills at the top of Pound Street had gone and a Court House had been erected to the south of the livestock market.  Between 1904 and 1927 the maps show that the second Pound Street mill had disappeared and a water tower had been erected on the site of the other.  There were some gaps in the maze of Chediston Street terraces and a line of Council houses had appeared from the level crossing along the east side of Bungay Road.  A Council school had been built on Wissett Road in 1923 to unite the Pricilla Johnson Infants and Girls School in Rectory Lane (1853) with the boys school in Holton Road (1862). In 1946 it became the Area School.

 

A brochure publicising the town’s celebrations for the Festival of Britain was published in 1951.  Here the passage of half a century was evaluated in low key.  The tone of the report was ‘we could do better’, and the town’s progress (or lack of it) was punctuated by reminiscences of people of the past.  The following selections set the tone.

 

Education.

The second world war arrested the building of the new Secondary Modem School, which is badly needed to meet the requirements of the new Education Act. However 430 children are catered for in the building known as the Area School, but work under considerable handicaps. Never-the-less, up-to-date methods of teaching are employed as far as possible and a full and varied curriculum gives the children a wide and liberal education, vastly different from that of 50 years ago.  The County Authorities are not satisfied with present arrangements and there can be little doubt that in due course a new school will be erected, possibly where already begun, adjacent to the spacious school recreation ground in Bungay Road.

 

Sports.

The sporting life of the town goes back about 50 years, and during that time football, cricket and other games have played their part. It is fitting that in this festival year the efforts, which are being made, are for the purpose of assisting the funds for the provision of adequate fields for the town, which for many years past has been an obvious necessity.

 

Building

During the last fifty years considerable alterations have taken place in Halesworth. The Court House in London Road was built in 1901. The huge building in London Road, until recently used as a Tent manufacturer's factory was built around about that time. But what is remarkable is that Halesworth has extended to the North, South and East. All the houses beyond the Railway Station in Bungay Road on the left hand side to the cross roads and the right hand side past the Hospital have been erected during the last fifty years, including those in the Avenue and Mount Pleasant and Old Station Road, which was all arable land. Towards Holton too, all the houses beyond the cemetery on the left-hand side, and most of those on the right past Castle House, including the Bungalow, have been built during the last fifty years. And now a further suburb is being erected on the Bramfield Road to the South. Considerable alterations are also noted in the Town itself. The houses on the right at the top of Wissett Road were built at the beginning of the century, and 25 years later, a new school was erected behind them, in some senses a pity, because the school with its well-kept gardens is obscured. It deserves to be in a more prominent position. In the Thoroughfare many alterations have taken place. A modern building is occupied by the Midland Bank on what is known as the " Angel Corner." Formerly this was the Post Office. Further along in the Thoro'fare on the left there is a 17th century shop front where undoubtedly harness was made 100 years ago as it is now. Then it was occupied by one John Bunyan (now by Bensly & Gillson.) Opposite the Ancient House (of which notice has been taken) are some magnificent buildings, where formerly were low shops, over one of which was a huge Wellington Boot, occupied by "Bob" Farrington. Past these are smart buildings, including the Electricity Offices, and just over the bridge on the left a modern footwear establishment where 50 years ago, bits of leather and shoemaker's nails were displayed in low windows. The front house and the Boot factory which flourished at that time were destroyed by fire in 1900, which but for Halesworth's intrepid firemen, with their hand-pumped engine, would have destroyed the whole of the left side of Rectory Street. Another disastrous conflagration had occurred in the town eight months previously, when a crescent of shops stood at the place, which is now known as the Church Approach or " The Arboretum." The whole lot went in a night, and it was decided by the powers that were at the time to keep it an open space-a wise decision, for it sets off Halesworth's historic Parish Church in a fitting manner.

 

A new Post Office has been erected of recent date in Wissett Road, and other buildings of recent years are the Modern Dairy near the station, which, with other businesses such as engineering, garages, building and trading houses, helps to absorb some of the labour available, as did the now dormant industries of the last decades. Brewing, boot making, carriage making, have all gone. Great tales are told of those days. The carriage works employed about forty or fifty men and boys; and they made good stuff of which they were proud. Their work was supplied to royalty, and went as far as Johannesburg, and other places of note. It is related that when a Royal Carriage was entrained for London, the men detailed to see the precious cargo safely to the station, after completing their task, would adjourn to the Railway Tavern, where, appropriate celebration of the event was duly observed for the remainder of the day.

 

The Boot factory was also the place where goods of excellent quality were turned out, and no doubt those employed at the Brewery in the Market Place, and the Mineral Water factory nearby, now a garage-would say the same about their products.

 

The market day is on Tuesdays. Now the busiest day in the Town is on alternate Wednesdays, when the fortnightly Cattle Market is held. Here too, extensive alterations and improvements have been effected during recent years.

 

The Urban Council commemorated the fiftieth year of its existence in 1950. Its work over the fifty years constitutes a good record. Water has been laid on in the town during that time, and it has encouraged and sponsored building schemes. A sewage scheme is gradually being extended to the houses-not perhaps as fast as some would like-but things are in hand. -The town is now lighted by electricity, after being well served by gas for a large number of years.

 

7.1.3 Real growth

Many of the above milestones have their origins in developments in the first decade of the century, and the impression is that Halesworth had been in deep slumber between the Wars.  In fact the high time of economic expansion seems to have occurred in the 1960s.  A small promotion brochure produced about this time by the Halesworth and District Business Association actually pinned the process down to events between 1964-69 (Table 7.1). 

 

Table 7.1 Growth of Halesworth (1964-69

 

 

1964

1969

% increase

Population

2340

3050

 

Rateable value

£68,901

£111,607

 

Assets of Halesworth UDC

£534,000

£1,115,000

 

 

New houses were the landmarks of increasing prosperity.  The first phase of new housing had centred on The Avenue and Mount Pleasant in the 1920s and 30s when a few council houses had been erected and an estate of rented accommodation was developed by the London based Workmen’s Housing Association.  The second phase of house building came after the War, and began with fifty houses in the Station Road area.  This was the start of a development which eventually suburbanised all the fields bounded by Wissett Road and Old Bungay Road, an area about the same size as the centre of old Halesworth.  Mains sewage for the town was installed in the 1950s and there is an interesting set of correspondence between the UDC and the Working Men’s Association over the connection of its housing estate to the main drainage system.  The estate had been built in 1932, with the latest metal casements put in alongside medieval garden closets with pails that were emptied by the Council’s night soil collection service.  With the advent of mains sewage the night soil service was to end and eventually the UDC was forced to buy the Housing Association’s properties and pay for their connection to the Station Road drain in 1952.  This was a time of slum clearance and the Council quickly came to grips with Chediston Street’s high density Victorian legacy of damp lanes, closes and overcrowded yards running down to the river.  One of these schemes in 1961 involved the demolition of seven substandard cottages on the south side of the street, which were replaced with a terrace of five roomy bungalows set well back from the pavement.  This phase of building development also changed the landscape to the south of the town with the creation of Churchill Road (1949), Durban Close (1951), Bedingfield Crescent (1951) and Oak Green (1953).  In 1957 the Council Estate at Bramfield Road was initiated with five pairs of bungalows.

 

The third phase of house building occupied the 60s and 70s.  The way in which these new developments eradicate Halesworth’s built heritage and shattered its rurality is illustrated by the small estate on the site of one of the town’s three post mills, on Mill Rd off Wissett Rd. 

 

The Mill Post development is significant in that it converted a unique historic nook of Halesworth, where one of its post mills had once operated, into a residential estate that could be anywhere (Fig 7.2).  Its unique past is recorded in a faded photograph, and an entry in 1845 Whites Directory of Cornelius Schrofield Pedgrift as miller.  He was a copyhold tenant of the Rectory Manor, with manorial property at Mill Hill and Broadway.  Pedgrift was also described as a surgeon, so he was likely to be the owner of the mill that was operated either by a tenant or mill labourer.

 

Fig 7.2  The site of the post mill off School Lane as it was at the turn of the 19th century

 

 

This remarkable bout of post-War house building expanded Halesworth’s housing stock by between 3-400 units (Fig 7.3).  The latest phases of the town’s suburbanisation at the turn of the 20th century has created a maze of roads on the site of the Town Manor, through which winds a kind of bypass for traffic travelling towards Harleston to avoid the Chediston Street narrows.

 

These housing developments chart the growth of Halesworth’s consumer culture, which began nationally when suburban landscapes developed around towns large and small.  These estates established from the 1920s to the 1980s are now among the most significant historic resources of the twentieth century.   They represent the fulfillment of the dream of home ownership and material well-being for a majority of Britains, and are indicators of the rise of a new economy. In them, a distinctive settlement pattern emerged, centred on the single-family house in its individual plot, sited within the large-scale, self-contained subdivision of land with a curvilinear street pattern. It was a landscape in which local government and the free market attempted to blend the attributes of the city and the country into a home environment sought by many.  It has been pointed out, ‘Never before has such a great segment of society been able to partake of this kind of environment, nor will it again in the foreseeable future’.

 

In terms of the supporting infrastructure for Halesworth’s population expansion, the new economic stage was set by the construction of a road bridge over the railway in 1959, which carried a new northern extension off Wissett Rd.  This was named Norwich Road and carried the increased volume of road traffic swiftly on from The Thoroughfare towards Bungay, bypassing the bottleneck at the station level crossing.  The crossing gates were then permanently closed.   The new traffic flow opened up land on either side of Broadway for commercial development, notably by Howard Rotavator Ltd and Andrews and Son’s Halesworth Engineering works.  The Divisional Police Headquarters was established here in a new building.  This was a devolution too far and a few years after it opened it was downgraded to a sub-division in the Lowestoft Policing Area.  Halesworth was at last allocated a Secondary Modern School (450 pupils) in 1958.  Building work had started before 1939 but was halted by the War. When the present sports hall was built there were problems with the old "E" shape foundations (the school was planned to look like the present Bungay Middle School). The museum has an aerial photograph taken in 1947 which shows what they were like. Children who passed the 11+ went to Bungay Grammar School, which became Bungay High when Halesworth Modern became a Middle School in the early 1970's. 

 

Fig 7.3   Houses completed annually under the Rural District Council 1947-74

 

From the UDC’s certificates of completion

 

The old malting empires were virtually extinct by this time, the last to close being Parry’s Maltings in Quay Street (1966) and Watney Combe and Reid at New Cut (1969).  Changes in the surrounding farming scene are indicated by the closure of the Egg Packing Station in 1968.   Small producers on traditional mixed farms were going out of business in the face of ‘industrial’ egg production and Suffolk’s specialisation in large cereal farms.  At this time, only one of the town’s four main maltings remained operational in Station Yard, alongside a relatively new commercial incomer, Morton Knights Ltd, specialists in the manufacture of sportswear.  By the end of the 60s Halesworth’s prosperity was attributed to the town’s new industrial firms, exemplifying engineering, printing, clothing manufacture, farming, radio and TV component assembly, food processing, and building.  There were various firms in the building and construction sector, six garages and one small firm, who built racing motorcars, and of course town centre traders.  There were more than 100 shops and business premises with a traditional reputation for the sale of good clothing and footwear and, in the food field for its butchers and local bakery.  The town’s largest business enterprises were listed as:

 

·         HOWARD (FORGE & FOUNDRY) LTD. A new factory established by the famous Howard Rotovators firm, employing several hundred men and needing labour of all descriptions. Training available.

 

·         LE GRYS BROTHERS (TURKEYS) LTD, HOLTON. A firm of turkey breeders and processors in the adjoining village of Holton, established 25 years, with 150 employees and constantly needing labour. Output: One million turkeys a year.

 

·         HALESWORTH ENGINEERING CO LTD. General and precision engineers, prefabricates and welders seeking skilled labour. Training and day release.

 

·         HALESWORTH  PRESS LTD.  General printers, mainly of national magazines and directories.

 

·         F. ANDREWS & SONS (ENGINEERS) LTD. Manufacturers of precision electric and wound components, employing female labour.

 

·         MORTON KNIGHT LTD. Manufacturers of sports clothing, mainly golf wear used by leading players. Employs female labour.

 

·         EASTERN COUNTIES FARMERS LTD. This farmer-controlled enterprise, one of the earliest in the country, which has its HQ at Ipswich, has a branch at Halesworth, through which all its services in the area are administered. Stocks of farm equipment and spares are maintained here and service repairs carried out.

 

·         COMBEN & WAKELING LTD, Kingsbury House, Kingsbury Circle, London, N W 9, a national building firm, has carried out considerable building development in Halesworth since 1947, having constructed a total of 500 houses in the council and private building sectors.

 

The growth of new factory-scale businesses dates from the mid 1950s.  This is reflected in the Registration Book of the UDC, which gives the names of businesses that had to be inspected by the Council.  When the register was opened in 1955 a total of 35 businesses were listed. Over the next decade 19 additional firms were added (Table 7.2).  At the same time businesses were closing and 20 of them had been deleted by 1970. 

 

Table 7.2 New businesses registered in the UDC Register of  Factories

 

Year

New registrations

1956

2

1958

2

1959

2

1961

2

1962

4

1964

1

1965

1

1966

5

1967

1

1969

1

1970

2

 

Facilities for arts and leisure were signalled by the District Business Association as now being significant civic assets, particularly in relation to tourism

 

Work — some of it by international artists — is exhibited in the summer months at the Art Gallery (Steeple End), converted from Dutch-gabled almshouses and run by a local committee of art lovers. Art exhibitions featuring the work of Norfolk and Suffolk artists are held throughout the year at the Craft Centre (Rectory Street), which caters for all branches of the arts and associated interests such as coins and old books. There are two antique shops. Halesworth is 15 miles from The Maltings, the famous Snape concert hall where leading Aldeburgh Festival events take place in June. Concerts are held at Halesworth in July as part of the Wangford Festival. Tourist landmarks are: Heveningham Hall and Holton Mill which had been taken over by East Suffolk County Council and can be seen from several vantage points.  The area is noted for rough shooting and wild life, including a bird sanctuary at Minsmere. The link with the Norfolk Broads is the border town of Beccles on the River Waveney where there are sailing and freshwater angling clubs. Sea anglers have several beaches; there are sailing clubs at the seaside towns of Southwold and Aldeburgh. 

 

Farm holidays were also promoted, and the Association had compiled a register of farms available.  However, the main aim of its brochure was to show the town’s potential for future development and investment.

 

Although it is anxious for progress, Halesworth seeks only measured development, which will ensure adequate facilities for its existing residents and those who come to live in it or stay for a holiday. Land is available for industrial and housing development and the county council has given some priority to the provision of a relief road, which will by-pass the present rather narrow shopping centre and open up new land for development. …….. There are a number of buildings not in use, including substantially built maltings capable of conversion. Information about Halesworth's general potential, land available, etc, will be readily supplied by the Clerk, Halesworth UDC.

 

It is true to say that a genuine warm welcome was offered by the town for all who wanted to live and work in a small country community, where a high standard of local service continued and where it was possible to live happily away from the strains and stresses of city and commuter life. Finally, there was a plug for the UDC, which ‘has made enormous strides in housing in recent years, having pursued an active policy of encouraging home ownership by arranging generous mortgages’. 

 

Inevitably, the centre of employment was shifting towards the periphery of the town where new technology and light industry became the order of the day, an investment that was kick-started by generous government grants to establish the Bramfield Road estate. All of these developments were connected with the appearance of a working population of commuters, which allowed the new firms to tap a county full of families with cars. Planners responded to the need to accommodate road traffic with a bypass to The Thoroughfare.  This entailed demolishing part of Brewery House (alias Hooker House), the eastern part of which had been badly damaged during the War by blast from an accident to a bomb store at Metfield Aerodrome five miles away.   Construction of this road opened up more opportunities for house building along its southern section, with car parks to the north.  Eventually, the Co-op Store moved  to the site of the old livestock market, and became the Rainbow Supermarket with its own petrol station and car park. 

 

A significant turning point in the town’s development had actually come at the time of the Queen’s Jubilee in 1978.  The town guide for this year lists the car park and the adjoining town park as the last major undertakings of the Urban District Council before it disappeared with the reorganisation of local government in 1974. 

 

Fig. 7.3  Halesworth 1975

 

Rectangle includes area of 19th century town: solid line follows parish boundary

From 1975, Waveney District Council administered the town with a population of 3,700, from its headquarters in Lowestoft, with a Town Council of 12 elected members.  The other major break with religious history was the move towards the establishment of a team ministry for Halesworth based on the merging of St Mary’s Church with seven adjacent parishes.  There was also a growing ecumenical co-operation with other three denominations of the town. 

 

The general layout of the town’s infrastructure in 1975 is mapped in Fig 7.3, which then still occupied its old Victorian bounds.  In the 70s and 80s many market towns suffered a process of ‘rape-by-bypass’ to achieve a smooth flow of traffic through narrow streets. Halesworth was transformed during this period, first by the construction of Saxons Way, and then by the Angel Link to join it to the southern end of The Thoroughfare.  Saxon Way was driven through a network of old closes and gardens over a new river crossing (Fig 7.5).  The Angel Link involved laying a wide carriageway along a lane that ran from Angel Corner to George’s Old Maltings. In 2006, the consultant to Waveney District Council reported on the adverse impact of the Angel Link development on the town’s built heritage as follows:

 

The Angel Link follows the line of the former Angel Yard and Angel Lane.  It required the demolition of the Corn Hall (originally a maltings and finally a dairy) and the loss of a bowling green to the carriageway and car parks.  Its construction has had a substantial impact on the historic urban grain of the area, opening up the rear yards and gardens at the southern end of The Thoroughfare with views of the sides of buildings and leaving others isolated.

 

In particular this massive development involved the demolition of cottages and commercial premises on Angel Corner (Fig 7.6) thrusting a massive plain gable end into the view of people walking up The Thoroughfare to the Market Place.

 

The major justification for the The Angel Link was to take traffic from the west smoothly through the town.  In this respect, it can be argued that this objective has now been met more effectively by Roman Way, the ‘Chediston St bypass’ constructed at the start of the millennium.

 

Fig 7.5 Construction of Saxon Way: river crossing with Hooker House at the far right.

 

 

 The management proposals strategy for Halesworth’s built heritage puts forward specific opportunities for enhancement within the conservation area, which covers most of the old town. Notably it says that the area, particularly the perimeter streets ‘are looking tired, patched and worn’ and an audit of their condition is recommended as the basis for a programme of enhancement. It also points again to the places where the historic grain has been diluted, such as the gaps in the building line of Chediston St.  This requires a restatement of the old building line.  There are also opportunities for repair and enhancement of the forecourts of the Methodist Chapel and Rifle Hall in London Rd.  A major new approach to interpretation of the town’s history is suggested to coincide with the redevelopment of the Ridgeons builder’s yard where the quay and river could be made features of  the scheme.

 

Fig 7.6 Angel Corner: shop and cottages, and entrance to Angel Yard (circa 1950)

 

 

7.1.4 Supermarket wars

The end of Roe’s department store in the 1950s was a warning of the impending extinction of a traditional retail economy that was integrated with the local population of town and country.  Retail closure was a commonplace event throughout the land in the 1960s as the medium-sized 'dinosaur' establishments, hatched and grown by local 19th century entrepreneurs, fell to the new retail species of a post war economy and society.  The turn of the small shops to be overcome came at the end of the century.

 

What was being lost to those shopping in small market towns is condensed in a reminiscence of Margaret Chipperfield of Halesworth talking to the local historian Ivan Sparkes about the end of Roe & Company:

 

“The Drapery Department was very long so the goods could be displayed with effect.  There was that wonderful smell which nearly all new materials and linens possess. I bought some very good tweed there for 60p per yard in 1950. Up a spiralling staircase and the Ladies Cothes and the Millinery Department was reached.  The present Restaurant and Health Food Shop were used for furniture and carpets.  There was a saving scheme at Sunday School and one I believe at the Women's Guild, for goods from "Roe's".  Mother saved on these, where she regarded 'clubs' with horror. 

 

An important factor precipitating the decline of a shopping culture that had evolved as an integral part of an indigenous society, was the rapid increase in personal mobility based initially on trains, then buses, followed by the private car.  All these forms of high-speed travel undermined the traditional functions of market towns by severing local bonds with place. This was a drawn-out process that took about two decades to produce a new retail culture.  In Halesworth the change was punctuated by the loss of the cinema, public houses and even the telephone exchange. Its decline as a centre for the local farming community during the 80s and 90s may be charted through the closure of the livestock market, the MAFF farming advisory service, the Egg Marketing Board’s packing centre, Potters, the major farmer’s supplies company, and the dairy.  Its substantial postal sorting office was closed in 1993.  It had been established in a prefabricated building in 1948, designed to last ten years!  The public counter moved into Cooper’s store, part of a countywide hardware retail chain.   Halesworth was not exceptional in the loss or scaling down of its facilities, and by the 1990s many small market towns had become "dysfunctional" as key organisations of rural society were dismantled.  Despite most of these changes happening during the last quarter of the 20th century, people’s memories are short.   The majority of local people who lived through the terminal decline of the Bon Marche would be hard put to date its extinction. 

 

Since then, Halesworth had become part of the national statistics, which are stark reminders of the speed of change.  Between 1997 and 2002 specialist stores like butchers, bakers and fishmongers shut at the rate of 50 per week.  Now, general stores are closing at the rate of one per day. Twenty traditional, non-chain, pubs are closing each month. Between 1992 and 2002, Britain lost one third of its bank-branch network - leaving nearly 1000 communities across the UK with no access to a local bank. In the place of real local shops has come a near-identical package of chain stores replicating on the high street of larger towns, such as Lowestoft. As a result, the individual character of many centres of even the larger towns is evaporating. Retail spaces once filled with independent butchers, newsagents, tobacconists, pubs, bookshops, greengrocers and family-owned general stores are becoming occupied by supermarket retailers, fast-food chains, and global fashion outlets. Many town centres that have undergone substantial regeneration have even lost the distinctive facades of their high streets, as local building materials have been swapped in favour of identical glass, steel, and concrete storefronts that provide the ideal degree of sterility to house a string of big, cloned, town retailers. It's a phenomenon that affects people whether they are rich or poor, as Nick Foulkes pointed out, writing in the London Evening Standard,

 

"The homogenisation of our high streets is a crime against our culture. The smart ones get the international clones - Ralph Lauren, DKNY, Starbucks and Gap; while those lower down the socio-economic hierarchy end up with Nando's, McDonald's, Blockbuster and Ladbrokes."

 

The assault on the character of town centres has been aided by planning and regeneration decisions that have drawn shoppers away from the high street and created a retail infrastructure hostile to small, independent businesses.   The most recent stage in this ‘warfare’ was the determination of supermarkets to deregulate community pharmacies in their own favour.  Tesco even argued that they should be allowed to have an in-store pharmacy because they constituted, themselves, a community.

 

In the context of the above series of catastrophic national changes, Halesworth has so far come off relatively lightly. Ruth Downing, a regular Halesworth shopper since the 1950s expressed her pride in the town in a letter to the East Anglian Daily Times in 2004.

 

The article in last Friday's EADT written by Mrs Sally Hobson that Halesworth needs another supermarket  is absolute nonsense!  It is certainly not dormant but a very busy thriving unspoiled


country town and caters for almost every need. It has an adequate supermarket which often has special offers, three good butchers, fish shop, two delicatessens, two greengrocers, small grocers, two bakers, a wine shop and plenty of places to eat and drink.

It has four churches of different faiths, a hospital and surgery, two dentists, two opticians, a chemist, a new library, two schools, a new theatre, a stationers, a good bookshop and a second-hand one. There are two carpet shops, furniture shops, a shoe shop, a jewellers, two electrical shops, a gun shop, antique shop, china shop and two charity shops.  The town is also served by a dry cleaners and a laundrette, a needlecraft shop, a toyshop, and a pet shop, a beauty parlour, seven ladies and two men's hairdressers, and a travel centre. There is a choice of estate agents and solicitors. There are clubs for football, tennis, badminton bowls, hockey, skate board park etc. and a young and old  peoples' centre.  For the public who enjoy walking there is the largest Millennium green in the country  (40 acres). There are four garages and a petrol station at the existing supermarket. A market is held every Wednesday and there is a farmer's market once a month. Two industrial sites provide plenty of employment.

If one needs clothes there is a frequent bus service to Norwich and the railway station for travelling to Lowestoft, Ipswich and London, which is expected to, made hourly in the future. There is to be an information centre for the history of the Hooker family who lived in the town.  Can I say more?

Halesworth is a nice old Suffolk country town and already stretched for car parking and we do not want it spoiled by even more traffic.

I have lived near Halesworth for the past seventy-five years and find that now it is much more vibrant that it ever was in the past.

We do NOT want or NEED another supermarket.                                    

 

However, the battle of minds over land behind the Thoroughfare earmarked for another supermarket goes on.

 

The national context of the decline in market towns is actually an unstoppable post War global process initiated by increases in wealth, mobility and consumerism.  This change is driven by the idea of an endlessly increasing economy fuelled by unlimited natural resources.  These resources were showing signs of exhaustion by the end of the Millennium.

 

7.2   Symbols in the environment

7.2.1 In-coming

Ronald Blythe’s beautiful portrait of a Suffolk village struggling to cope with an age of mechanisation was published in 1969.  To a large extent this picture was already verging on the mythical, and portrayed life a few years before the first trickle of rat-race refugees began to finally submerge the old folk and their ways.  When ‘Akenfield’ was revisited by Craig Taylor in 2005-6 he discovered the people were speaking Estuary English and the local boys preferred to stay in their bedrooms playing ‘Grand Theft Auto, anxious to avoid jobs on the land that had etched themselves onto and deformed their ancestors.

 

Nevertheless, for those who want to leave the city for the countryside, Blything Hundred has the distinction of being one of the few places left in modern England to illustrate extreme rurality.  Indeed, Halesworth itself, despite its recent increase in new housing and its business parks, can be said to be half a village with a hybrid society of commuters and the indigenous employed.  In this respect, it has, nestling within its present culture, a social tendency to use rurality in order to resist colonisation.  This is really a small-scale expression of national identity, which in Wales during the interwar years was expressed through the promotion of education on 'rural lore' and rural issues generally.  Rurality was seen as a tool for national revival and as a means to resist Anglicisation.  In Scotland, too, the resis­tance of groups such as ‘Settler Watch’ and ‘Scottish Watch’, to the in-migration of English 'white settlers' to rural areas, can be interpreted in part as a concern about potential loss of local identity.  Resistance to change in small market towns echoes much of this imagery of national identity.

 

Fig 7.7 The Thoroughfare 2005

 

 

 

To all intents and purposes Halesworth in the first years of the 21st century appears to be the epitome of Englishness (Fig 7.7).  Yet those who have the choice to come willingly to Halesworth are of course not directly tied to ideas of national identity, but rather are on the quest for the ‘rural idyll’. This process was quantified in a case study of migration in the late 1980s to six villages in the north­west and southwest of England (Table 7.4).  The studies revealed the 'physical' and 'social' features of their (rural) destination emphasised by the migrants in interviews. These are almost all features of the rural idyll.  Similar views and associations have been described elsewhere in Britain, and, if one were to scrape the surface of Halesworth ever so slightly, they would surely emerge there today.

 

Table 7.4    Key 'physical' and 'social' features of the destination reached by urban-to-rural migrants

 

Physical features

 

·          The area was more open and less crowded; one no longer felt hemmed-in by houses. There was a more human scale to things.

·          It was a quieter and more tranquil area, with reduced traffic noise and less hustle and bustle.

·          The area was cleaner, with fresh air and an absence of traffic pollution and smog.

·          The aesthetic quality of the area was higher - views, green fields, aspect, beauty. There was stimulating, spiritual scenery.

·          The surroundings were more natural, with an abundance of flora and fauna.

 

 

 

 

Social features

 

·          The area allowed one to escape from the rat race and society in general. This was underpinned by a degree of utopianism.

·          There was a slower pace of life in the area, with more time for people. There was a feeling of being less pressurised, trapped and crowded, and of being able to breathe.

·          The area had more community and identity, a sense of togetherness and less impersonality. The general idea of small is beautiful came across here.

·          It was an area of less crime, fewer social problems and less vandalism. There was a feeling of being safer at night.

·          The area's environment was better for children 's upbringing.

·          There were far fewer non-white people in the area.

·          The area was characterised by social quietude and propriety, with less nightlife and fewer 'sporty' types.

 

However, creative destruction hovers constantly over the rural idyll, threatening to undermine and disrupt it. It is ironic that the recent rapid expansion of Halesworth’s population is the result of the local planner’s and the house-building industry's attempts to engineer the urbananisation of the town by adding new estates in line with government policy.  The problem is that everyone likes the idea of living in the countryside, but few wish to work there in a traditional sense.  Amidst the fields, newcomers suburbanise their ancient parishes by suburbanising their properties.  With cash to burn, they do up old barns, install taped horse fencing to please their children and place a collection of old milk churns and troughed flowers by their Flymowed gateways.  Dotcom entrepreneurs, communicating daily with the Far East, as accountants, lawyers, electronic publishers and software authors, have taken the place of wheelwrights, saddlers and blacksmiths.  They speak a different language, and are less likely to be committed to the local pub or church, than to order their microwaveable evening meals from Tesco Direct. 

 

Geographers in recent years have emphasised the extremely dynamic nature of capitalism’s spaces.  For example, Halesworth’s economies have, over many hundreds of years, been made and remade in a process of 'creative destruction'.  In fact, its townscape today is rapidly and constantly being remade. As a result, space under capitalism becomes stripped of its meaning; it becomes an abstrac­tion, readily emptiable and easily reconfigured when the next opportunity for profit comes along. There is a place for everything, but this place has little permanence because with the next round of economic restructuring and technological change, people, and businesses etc. may well be shifted elsewhere. So we find Halesworth’s gasworks was replaced by a book publisher.  This sense of impermanence is the essence of the concept of  'footloose' capitalism. When this idea is applied to the rural environment we can readily appreciate just how unstable and tenuous the supposedly 'timeless' idyllic representation really is. This commercial ferment potentially exposes Blything, not as a place of commu­nity, kinship and belonging, lost in time, but as an abstract space for maximising profit. 

 

7.2.2 Townscapes as interactive museums

A short walk through the town reveals, as a series of snapshots, the evidence of centuries of change in a built environment, which may be thickened by the comings and goings of individuals and institutions.  It illustrates the ephemeral nature of people and their buildings, but leaves ghostly personalities who, for a fraction of historical time, committed part or all of their lives to streets and buildings that still exist today.  To see the ghostly outline of old ways of living beneath the superficial covering of the contemporary is to become at ease with the present.  To create Halesworth the authors have assembled evidence of the past by burrowing through time to build stories around such moments of recognition.  A riverside meadow below the remains of Chediston Street’s Victorian ‘Yards’, still exposes its ecological connections with primeval marshland, which Mesolithic adventurers of the Blyth avoided as they followed a trail of game through the valley’s wildwood.

 

Three key characteristics of social relations with environment have a special relevance for those seeking to touch the heartbeat of Halesworth:

 

·         first, there is a quest for order, whereby a simplified, structured view of the world can be translated into an ordered arrangement of roads and buildings;

 

·         second, there is an assertion of authority, whereby buildings can be seen as signalling individuals in a struggle for economic betterment, and, for organisations, the power relationships between conflicting interest groups;

 

·         third, there is a view that the larger scale reorganisa­tion of the environment can signify a reconstruction of existing socio-political relations.

 

In all these ways, it is clear that by combining perspectives from architectural history, cultural geography, economic and business history, the built environment itself structures wider social, cultural and economic change, as well as being structured by it.

 

It is an age-old characteristic of humankind that people have to attest their long-standing need to connect with their home environment through its past. Museums filled with vernacular artifacts are testimony to this powerful human need.  Early religions and civilisations were profoundly influenced by the visual geographical particularities that sustained life.  However, on a much smaller scale our day-to-day lives continue to reflect the ways in which previous occupants settled the spaces where we live, shop and work.  Whether it is a bend in the road or the shade of a tree, people of the past have collectively shaped our home environment by means of their investment of time, money and resources.  But the environment also shapes us imaginatively when we walk through it; when we project on to it our aspirations and fantasies of wealth, refuge, well-being, awe, danger, consolation, and even concerns about the way it may change in the future.  Our local environment then, can be perceived as being ‘physical’, ‘iconological’ and ‘ideological’, all at the same time. It can also be seen as a sequence of representations of the processes out of which it has emerged. Therefore, the most important meaning attaching to environment is a cultural one. Halesworth in fact, consists of a collection of cultural artifacts, such as roads, shops and houses.  It is an interactive living museum embodying human values, meanings and symbols, all reflecting a stream of culture that has developed over two millennia within a few square miles of St Mary’s parish church.  This assembly of sights and sounds may be considered objectively as history, but the inventory of dates and descriptions is also a code to a subjective approach for understanding the town as a set of cultural symbols.  To achieve this broader synthesis, other kinds of artifacts, such as legal documents and parish registers, have to be wrapped around the physical world.  This idea of the built environment as an integrated and coded representation of culture, may also include the attachment of ideas expressed in musical notation or in literary form; on celluloid, the television screen or in virtual reality, as well as paintings, photographs, maps and historical documents.  What unites this inclusive view; what extends the symbolic understanding of Halesworth to the form of all environments, is the concept of environment or landscape as an arbitrary space selected because of all its accumulated products of culture; past blended with present.  There is, therefore, a subjective dynamic and interactive system of museology at work within the environment of any community, and it is important to realise that the cultural processes that shape the environment are themselves in  turn also shaped by the environment.  This emphasizes that townscapes are dynamic cultural assets and their preservation can only take place in coexistence with the continuous development of citizen lifestyles and with citizen participation. As economic development proceeds, the important thing is that changes, no matter how small, are recorded as they happen. 


 

7.3  Partnership for sustainability

 

Changes to Halesworth’s society and economy cannot be counteracted by resurrecting its old self-help culture that was built up by individuals, such as Patrick Stead, and William Aldred who commanded local resources to serve local people.  Help to galvanise the citizenry now has to come from central government and the European Community.  So it happened, that, early in 1997, the ‘Halesworth Partnership’ (Waveney District Council, Suffolk County Council, Halesworth Town Council, Halesworth Business Group and representatives of other local groups), was formed to assess the town’s future needs and produce a community derived ‘bottom up’ plan for its ‘regeneration’.  This was not so much galvanised by a desperate need to boost the local economy, but more to do with creating a social plan to involve people, now known to bureaucrats as ‘stake-holders’, more closely in the processes of planning and investment for a sustainable future.

 

Community assessment is a planning tool that emerged in the 1980s.  It is a process of empowering ordinary people to gather, analyse and report information about the needs of the community and the capacities or strengths that are also currently available locally to meet those needs. A community assessment begins by convening a group of citizens, establishing a vision and prioritising the issues that require change. This collaborative effort provides a foundation for a community assessment that includes professionals who have expertise on issues, and others who are likely to be affected by the changes being planned (such as children and parents.) The vision provides a focus for the community assessment - a clear picture of where people want to be in the future.  The changes needed are prioritized in order to select the information that has to be gathered in order to make plans.

 

The Halesworth initiative was a local follow up to securing funds from the EU (Leader II, ERDF) and the Rural Development Commission, and involved commissioning CAG Consultants to help produce the regeneration strategy. The 'Vision for Halesworth' whole day conference, held on Sunday 16th November 1997 in Halesworth, was the first stage in this process. The main aims of the conference were:

 

·         to raise awareness locally about the ‘Regeneration Strategy for Halesworth’;

·         to start to build a "common picture" of current trends, concerns, needs and opportunities in the town;

·         to identify real projects which could be developed and implemented to ensure that Halesworth becomes a vibrant community which meets everyone's needs for a good quality of life;

·         to ensure that the strategy is sustainable;

·         to encourage "networking" and resource-sharing among local groups and agencies;

·         to consider what the next steps should be in progressing the Regeneration Strategy.

 

The conference, consisting of about 60 delegates, first reviewed the past in relation to the recent "landmarks" in the history of both Halesworth and the rest of the World.  This set the context for producing a "mind-map" of the current trends affecting Halesworth.  Ideas for improvements to the town and its services were elicited, after which the conference broke into small groups around topics that participants wanted to discuss in more detail.  A start was made on the preparation of action plans for these topics. The Action Planning Groups agreed to meet again after the conference to finalise their plans, which were fed into a strategy to seek funding for the project proposals. The strategy dealt with the following 15 issues, which had emerged as the most important concerns of members of the conference (Table 7.5)


Table 7.5 Main issues for action that emerged from the Vision for Halesworth conference

 

Focus of issue

Votes*

Youth

54

Transport

36

Meeting places and sports facilities

36

Environment

29

Loss of local services

24

Voluntary organisations and self-help

20

Business rates

13

Communication

13

Housing

12

Shopping

10

Job insecurity

8

Health

6

Tourism

6

Funding

5

The elderly

5

* Every delegate was given 5 sticky dots to place on those trends in the mindmap, which he or she was most concerned about.

 

These issues were tackled by forming project groups, which reflected closely the priorities agreed in the mindmap and a 'planning for real exercise'.  The groups focused on business start up; sport; a community centre; young people; a family resource centre; the natural environment; and communication.

 

Between 2000-4, the project gathered momentum under the title 'Connections'.  Its total cost was £1.1m and had the aim of developing local heritage and cultural associations with improvements in the environment, sustainable transport and local infrastructure/facilities.  The objective was to make Halesworth a more attractive and accessible place to visit, and in which to live and work.

 

The view from Waveney District Council is that the notable initiatives/activities of the Connections project were:-

 

·         Improvements to the town park including new junior and toddler play equipment and skateboard park (youth)

·         Internet café (communications)

·         Themed events (business)

·         Building improvement grant schemes (meeting places)

·         Pedestrian and cycleway facilities (tourism)

·         Station/museum improvements (tourism)

·         Environmental improvements (environment)

 

Although tourism was low on the action list, a strong tourism group was formed after the meeting which resulted in the employment of a person to produce a ‘Town Trail’ booklet. Associated actions were:

 

 

The Partnership was also able to employ an officer (project run by the Waveney District Council) to advise commercial premises on visual improvements (and grants available), which emphasised heritage values.  Despite these community efforts to promote an awareness of local heritage, the Halesworth museum was never funded as part of this work, although it played a key role in providing information and creating the Town Trail.

 

Other improvements were made, such as resurfacing the Station forecourt and the installation of play equipment and skateboard ramps.  The employment of this officer continued into the Connections project.  Also, a project officer for events introduced the ‘Produce Market’ and ‘Halesworth Business Connections’, and the ‘Town Diary’. 

 

Currently there is one project officer, funded by the ‘Four Towns Project’ who spends one day in Halesworth funded by the Town Council.  This project involves an association of Halesworth with Bungay, Beccles and Southwold.

 

The ‘Connections’ scheme provided support to local businesses through organising and sponsoring local events and initially setting up a business group, which now has over 50 members. The Business Group is very active, and through lobbying BT has provided a broadband connection for Halesworth, which has been invaluable to keep the Internet café service operating. It is currently planning an exhibition in Halesworth's twin town Bouchain and now has other Market Towns looking to join the group.

 

The town has also seen a major project take place in the form of the conversion of the former New Cut maltings into a successful arts centre with the help of EEDA, English Heritage and EC Objective 2 Funding.  This centre draws its clientele from the length and breadth of Suffolk.

 

Following on from the success of the Connections programme, the Halesworth and Blyth Valley Partnership has continued to operate successfully and has recently achieved charitable trust status. The Partnership took over IT equipment, previously used by the WEA (Workers Educational Association) Training Centre in the old Almshouses.  However, the Centre will close at the end of 2006 as the IT initiatives have shifted to meet the needs of 17-25 year olds for job skills in learning/business centres using premises and IT facilities of local schools.  The original WEA input was a scheme to benefit the entire community based on a philosophy of life long learning, which, with the growth of home computers, is no longer seen as a funding priority.

 

The Council singled out the most outstanding project from the Connections scheme as the proposed conversion of a former stables behind Roes building into an education, training and visitor centre commemorating William and Joseph Hooker’s links with the town.  Although Kew Gardens approved the project, grant money was not forthcoming and the Beccles and Bungay Journal of February 17th 2006 reported that the renovation of these buildings had eventually emerged as a proposal to create up to eight small business units with a modestly sized meeting room that would be available to tenants, community organisations and outside businesses.  This project has been scheduled for completion in 2007.

7.3.1 Citizen stakeholders

The need to pay for regeneration of the town in this ad hoc way had come about because the entrepreneurial culture of individualism, which had long cultivated the roots of its business community had died.  The 16th November 1997 was actually a milestone and a signpost in the history of Halesworth, denoting a shift to a culture of neighbourhood groups working out strategies of economic development in answer to the question, "What does our community want?"   In the supporting policy statement for its constituents, Waveney District Council attached a high priority to a central planning view that its communities need to commit themselves to regeneration and economic development. By this, it meant promoting the economic regeneration of the District, and the development of new sustainable local economies. 

 

Communities and districts now generally conduct internal assessments as a result of depressed social and economic conditions. Local officials see the community's distressed situation and seek to cope and react to crisis issues raised by local citizens. Many times the prevailing view is that the community lacks vision and does not know where it is going with local officials feeling powerless to do anything about the situation.

 

Some typical questions facing local leaders at both levels are:

 

 

Successful strategic planning, unknown to the Victorian townsfolk, depends on widespread continuing community involvement, which is best handled by forming a resource or support group to make bottom up critical decisions about the planning process. Decisions about whom to involve, type of process to use, where to hold meetings, and how often to hold meetings are important in community-assessment and strategic-planning efforts. Inclusivity is the key word, and the resource group should be diverse, including residents of all ages, elected and appointed officials, and private industry. Anyone left out of the process is not likely to support the conclusions or recommendations of the plan. Public and private involvement is essential, especially if the plan involves spending public funds or seeking grants from local industry.

 

Economic-assessment studies usually focus on the three main areas in the community: ‘social and demographic trends’, ‘economy’, and ‘public infrastructure’. The study also needs to assess the current situations and conditions in the community, and identify important strengths and concerns among local residents. These strengths and concerns identify future conditions and outcomes that local community leaders can consider. The studies can serve as planning documents to enhance the community's economic situation.

 

Community assessment differs from strategic planning in that community assessment identifies major issues without prescribing solutions, and the strategic planning process diagnoses and prescribes solutions. Issues identified using community assessment, however, can form the basis for strategic planning by highlighting the goals and directions for the community. Examples of this might include employment and employee training, cultural arts and tourism, infrastructure development (such as water, fire protection, police/sheriff protection, entertainment, streets and roads, public transportation, health care, and economic and retail development), community beautification programmes and research into local history.  The ‘community plan’ is the repository for these objectives.

 

Bottom-up stakeholder operational assessments provide planning groups, local citizens, development foundations, and local government officials with input and ideas about community trends and needs. Since this also requires broad-based participation from citizens, local leaders should tend to favour planning made up of existing and emerging leaders from all segments of the community. 

 

7.3.2 Planning by inclusion

Planning by inclusion is essential to bring Halesworth's future into a generally accepted global blueprint for green economies, which should ensure that planners adhere to a global framework, where:

 

·         sustainable development is a social concept and readily interpretable as non-declining human welfare over time – this contrasts with a development path that makes people better off today, but makes people tomorrow have a lower "standard of living", is not "sustainable".

·         the conditions for achieving sustainable development include the requirement that future generations should be compensated for damage done by current generations - e.g. through global warming;

·         compensation is best secured by leaving the next generation a stock of capital assets no less than the stock we have now (the "constant capital" requirement). This enables the next generation to achieve the same level of human welfare (at least) as the current generation. If they fail to do this, the responsibility is theirs, since they have inherited the same "productive potential" as was available to the previous generation;

·         the capital in question is both "man-made" (Km) and "natural" (Kn). Natural capital refers to environmental assets;

·         the requirement to keep the total of capital (Km + Kn) constant is consistent with "running down" natural capital. i.e. with environmental degradation - so long as Km and Kn are readily substitutable for each other. Thus, the "constant capital" rule is consistent with removing the Amazon forest so long as the proceeds from this activity are reinvested to build up some other form of capital;

 

This is a blueprint for an ecological society.  The ‘constant capital rule’ requires that environmental assets be valued in the same way as man-made assets, otherwise a community cannot know if it is on a "sustainable development path".  For example, we cannot know if overall capital is constant in the Amazonian forest unless we know the value of the services and functions that we surrender when it is lost. To put it another way: valuation is essential if we are to "trade off" different forms of capital. This is the relevance of the process of valuation; nor is there any escape from it. We "trade off" either explicitly, or implicitly, since all decisions imply valuations.  But careful inspection of the values of natural capital (i.e. looking at what environmental assets do for us) will show that the trade-off  associated with Halesworth’s 19th century industrial development by individuals, was biased in favour of eliminating or degrading those assets in favour of either "consuming" the proceeds (i.e. not reinvesting at all), or investing too readily in man-made assets.

 

The Victorians of Halesworth who delighted in mahogany and rosewood furniture were not in a position to value the tree stock of the far distant tropical forest.  Put very simply, if the "true" value of the environment were known, the belief of green economists is that we would not degrade it as much.  For some environmental assets, termed "critical capital", there is no question of an acceptable trade-off.   Allowance has to be made for the high values of natural capital, for the uncertainty surrounding the functions and benefits of natural capital, and for the fact that, once eliminated, the effects are irreversible.  Then there is a strong case for a precautionary approach in which the bias is automatically towards conserving natural capital. It is in this sense that environmental economics offers a rationale for even greater protection of the environment than is conventionally thought.  Parks and local nature reserves are operational outcomes.

 

The creation of Halesworth’s Millennium Green is an example of the new economic value placed upon what are called ‘green heritage assets’.  This was a community project that came from the Vision conference.  A small group of people with appropriate skills and determination managed to secure funds from the Millennium Commission to purchase a large tract of riverine pasture land stretching from the New Cut about a mile into the Blyth Valley.  A management programme was put in place involving fencing, winter flooding of the pasture and seasonal grazing by cattle, aimed at mimicking a pre-industrial system of livestock fattening.  The Millennium Green is part of the Blyth Valley Environmentally Sensitive Area, and the project receives an annual area payment from Government to maintain a low intensity grazing regime characteristic of the period before chemical fertilizers.  The scheme is staffed by volunteer labourers who regularly participate in working parties to maintain the biological and landscape features of the site in a favourable condition.  The land, which is the largest Millennium Green in the country, is open to the public, and linked to the surrounding network of public rights of way.  One of these is a spur of the National Cycle Way, which is being developed to bring cycle-tourists into Halesworth Town Centre. 

 

The Millennium Green project indicates that the upshot of taking up a sustainable economy is that the measures of economic progress based on gross national product need to be changed, because GNP fails to measure the true "standard of living". It largely ignores environmental assets and treats them as if they have a zero or near-zero price. And if something is under priced, too much of it will be consumed.  The first priority in sustainable development is to construct environmental and economic indicators, like Halesworth’s Green, that show the links between economy, wildlife and the well-being of people.

 

Some of this thinking actually permeates the broader community strategy for the Halesworth partnership. For example, it is evident in the partnerships international milestones of 'global warming', 'pollution', 'the Rio Summit' and 'domination of the car'.   At a local level, "cost-benefit thinking" would greatly enhance the chances of 'conservation' competing with "development" on equal terms.  But it requires long-term professional commitment to make and operate a community plan that would improve the quality of local decision-making, in line with the District Council's sustainable development strategy.

 

Because we live in a time when communities, from the most highly industrialized to the most primitive, are changing rapidly, it may not be possible to find a common denominator for acting out sustainable development.  It was actually in the 1970s that neighbourhood environmentalism, as a simple answer, emerged in terms of reducing consumption.  Societies, world wide, now aspire to middle-class patterns of use of goods and services, though the cultural implications of membership in this class vary greatly from one country to another. In this sense, the fifty or so inhabitants of Halesworth out of its population of around four thousand, who contributed to the Vision of Halesworth, for the most part represent consumers who were in effect acquiescing to continued year on year economic development, whilst softening its impact on the young, the elderly and the environment.

 

However, we cannot mandate ever-expanded production of goods for consumption, hoping that sooner or later everyone will catch up. Each middle-class person requires from 15 to 30 barrels of oil per year, whereas the poor person makes do with one barrel at most, in the form of kerosene, bus fuel, and fertiliser. Will there be enough for everyone to be middle class?   ‘Pessimistic’ geologists and resource experts worry about running out of high-grade ores and oil and gas.  "Optimistic" economists are prone to argue that our technological capacity for inventing substitute materials and different paths of technology is unbounded. Whatever the distant future, right now it seems that there is not enough for everyone in the world to have a high level of consumption. 

 

In the event that we do not choose to reduce consumption, the burden of enlarging the rate of entry of the poor into the middle class would fall to the scientists and technologists, who, it is hoped, will show us how to produce more for less resources. If we cannot steadily maintain a high level of use of our knowledge and ability to make our food and products more cheaply and with less energy, then we force the entire world to face reduced consumption.  Most of the increasing world population will be kept poor and their access to the affluence that most now want will be blocked.

 

7.4  Post-industrial business

 

The other important influence on Halesworth's future development is Britain’s post-industrial economy.  If anyone seriously doubted that we are living in a post-industrial world, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics should disabuse them. There are still a lot of people working in manufacturing, but in terms of the value of their output to the national wealth, it's less than half that of those in financial services.  By 2003, manufacturing's contribution to the economy had declined to just 14.2 percent, and it will have fallen further since then. Our wealth appears to be built increasingly on our ability to move capital around, and live off commissions. At first sight, this seems a highly unpromising basis for continuing national prosperity, especially as the goods we buy nearly all come from overseas. It is as if the world is making a fine living from ‘taking in each other's washing’, a proposal which defies common sense.

 

Fortunately, the analogy is a poor one. The world is getting more global, which means that more companies and countries are specialising in what they are good at, and buying the rest from wherever in the world it is cheapest. In truth, Britain was only a world leader in manufacturing for a few decades in the mid-nineteenth century, but now, technology and communications allow quite sophisticated goods to be produced in parts of the world where labour costs are low. Economies of scale then allow the market leaders to innovate and cut prices. Manufacturing, which once generated as much as 60 percent of the nation's wealth, when Britain was briefly the workshop of the world at the time of the 1851 Great Exhibition, is now less important than the wholesale and retail trades, which now account for 15 percent of the economy.  Agriculture’s share is around 2 percent. Britain's beleaguered manufacturing sector, which is haemorrhaging 7,000 jobs a month, saw its contribution to the economy fall from 21.1 percent to 14.2 percent over the period 1995-2003.  Factories are suffering because their wage and raw material costs are rising fast, but the price they charge has been kept steady because of stiff competition from cheap Asian imports.   Nine out of the ten slowest growing industries are in the manufacturing sector.  On the heavy industry side, coal extraction fell by 79% between 1992 and 2003 and the UK is now a net importer of natural gas.

 

This trend has been hugely beneficial for the UK's financial services industry, which now generates almost a third of our annual national wealth. This is a global industry par excellence and the world has come to London to participate in it. The fabulously-rewarded individuals at the top of the financial tree demand to live somewhere that is cosmopolitan, in a time zone that faces both east and west, where foreigners get a fair deal in commercial law, and where the government gives good tax breaks. On these measures, London is far ahead of other capital cities and is still getting more of a growing market.  The Square Mile is now the beating heart of the country and accounts for almost a third of the economy - twice the contribution from the manufacturing sector.  In 2003 Office for National Statistics reported that banks, insurers, management consultants and other financial services had contributed 30.2 percent of the nation's wealth, or £310.9billion. In 1995, the share was 24 percent.  The United Kingdom is the third largest fund manager in the world, just behind the United States and Japan, with £2.96 billion under management. 

 

We are also good at some new, but rapidly growing activities. Computer services have been, unsurprisingly, the fastest-growing sector of the last decade, which contributed £2.24billion to the economy in 2003 - a 354 percent rise on 1992. Insurance and pension funds rose by 220 percent, while construction was up by 103 percent.   The output from market research and management consultancy firms grew from £4.7billion a year to £11.3billion. The statistics were compiled at the height of the house price boom, so it is not surprising that the UK's single largest industry in 2003 was renting property. Landlords made £77.6 billion that year, or 7.9 percent of the economy.  The creative sector now accounts for 9.2 percent of the economy.  The above increases do not account for inflation, which has averaged 2 percent a year in the period.  It is significant for its future that Halesworth is partaking of this new range of economic activity at both the factory and small retail entrepreneur ends.

 

Without doubt the post-industrial economy more than makes up for the slump in home-produced shoes and jumpers over the same period. In other words, as long as the country is generating the money to buy them, it hardly matters where they are made.  Internet businesses, which have an international market, have sprung up in the surrounding villages.  

 

7.5  A new culture partially revealed

 

Every morning, people leave Halesworth in cars to go to their workplace and are passed by others whose work destination is the place they have just left.  In this dynamic transport shuttle everyone is somehow connected with, and supporting, a transport system based on private cars. Science now indicates that this massive carbon economy has dislodged the biosphere from one of its stable states that has supported human evolution for the past two million years. Climatic change has started to unfold and the world is not a unified community with powers to produce a global technological fix.  Many are beginning to believe that in this scenario, sustainable development, with its adherence to annual year on year increases in spending power, is pointing in the wrong direction. Rather, what is needed is a sustainable economic retreat. This will require global strategies to adjust the relationship between production systems and natural resources to produce rates of waste emission that the biosphere can assimilate.  Ironically, the first response to this is a proposal to manage the dismantling of the coastal defences protecting reclaimed salt marshes.  These were the very defences that ruined Patrick Stead’s export trade.

 

Table 7.6 People and households from 2001 census

 

 

Westhall

Chediston

Halesworth

Area (Ha)

939

1011

447

Males

197

96

2163

Females

184

99

2474

Total population

381

195

4637

Households

162

85

2137

Persons/ha

0.41

0.19

10.4

Persons/household

2.4

2.3

2.2

 

Table 7.7 Age structure of populations in the 2005 census

 

Age range

Westhall*

%

Chediston*

%

Halesworth*

%

0-4

19

5.0

7

3.6

207

4.4

5-15

40

10.5

29

14.9

542

11.7

16-24

37

10.0

7

3.6

39

0.84

25-44

78

20.5

43

22.1

995

21.5

45-64

124

32.5

63

32.3

1132

24.4

65-74

36

9.4

29

14.9

630

13.6

75 and over

47

12.3

17

24.1

738

15.9

* numbers of people in each age category

 

A glimpse of how people are now organised for production is contained in the 2001 National Census.  The main body of information is not yet available, but summaries have been released that provide disturbing glimpses of how people live at the start of the new millennium, and they provide opportunities for comparisons to be made between Halesworth and two of its nearest neighbouring rural communities, Westhall and Chediston.

 

The basic situation is set out in Table 7.8.  An index of rurality is the density of persons per hectare.  Chediston has the smallest index, which is nearly thirty times lower than for Halesworth.  The other significant feature is the number of persons per household.  Although the values for all three parishes are close to each other, Westhall has the highest number of people per house.  This difference, although slight, is evidence for a younger population in Westhall, which is borne out by comparing the age distributions (Table 7.9).  Regarding age distribution, the key figures to compare are the percentages of persons in the ‘16-24’ and ‘75 and over’ categories, which clearly show that Westhall has the’ youngest’ population, and Chediston has the ‘oldest’ population; Halesworth being intermediate.  Chediston also stands out in having the highest percentage of second homes and the lowest number of houses with full amenities.

 

Table 7.8 Accommodation and tenure from 2001 census

 

 

Westhall

Chediston

Halesworth

All dwellings

172

102

2237

Dwellings with residents

162

85

2137

Vacant dwellings

3

5

66

Second home

11

12

36

Detached

94

73

717

Other

57

27

1324

Caravan or temporary structure

25

0

198

Rooms per household

6.3

6.8

5.23

Occupancy rating  -1 or less

10

4

64

Full amenities

143

74

1982

Lowest floor above ground

12

0

115

Owner occupied

128

69

1575

Housing assoc./social landlord

18

6

311

Private landlord/agency

16

10

251

 

Table 7.9  Work and qualifications from the 2005 census

 

All employed people 16-74

Westhall

Chediston

Halesworth

Extractive/manufacturing

64

36

568

Service

115

53

1300

Travel public

5

3

70

Travel private

126

62

1196

Other travel/at home

48

24

602

Av distance to work

24.50

16.43

14.41

 

 

 

 

All people 16-74

 

 

 

Qual/None or Lowest

144

81

1997

Qual/Level 2

57

25

556

Qual/Highest

74

36

597

 

 

 

 

Work/Man./Prof

81

26

528

Work/Intermediate

13

8

197

Work/Small/own account

38

26

272

Work/Low superv/tech

23

10

246

Work/Semi/Routine

43

28

886

Never worked

3

3

51

Not classified

76

41

970

 

 

 

 

 

 

With respect to employment, all three communities have more people employed in service provision than in manufacturing and the extractive industries (Table 7.8).  The ratio of service to manufacturing jobs is highest in Halesworth, but Westhall is not far behind, with ratios of 2.29 and 1.80 respectively.  Westhall also has the highest proportion of people working as managers or in the professions, whereas Halesworth has the lowest. Another important related difference between these two communities is that the workers of Westhall travel further to work than those who live in Halesworth.  A commute of fifty miles or more per day seems to be commonplace for the folk of Westhall.

 

These preliminary summaries of the 2001 census indicate that with increased prosperity and mobility has come a social differentiation between communities.  Westhall appears to have been chosen as a dwelling place by more highly qualified younger people, who prefer it to either Halesworth or Chediston.  Both Westhall and Chediston have no retail amenities and their residents probably rely on Halesworth only for food.   For other requirements Lowestoft is only half an hour away by car or train, and Norwich or Ipswich can be reached by bus or car in about an hour.  This is the retail background in which new 21st century social organisations are developing. The fragmented retail experience mirrors the social culture of obsessive consumption in which it is embedded (Fig 7.8). 

Fig 7.8 Halesworth small-town model of communitarianism

In contrast, Halesworth in 1851 was a small balanced community, which represented the oldest kind of human institution, found absolutely everywhere throughout the world in all kinds of societies. Since the late Palaeolithic more than 100 billion human beings have lived on earth and the majority have spent their entire life as members of very small groups, rarely of more than a few hundred persons.  Their production systems were each composed of few people.  This picture is the starting point for ideas that there is a basic human need for small communities, which is encoded in our genes.  It is in our behavioural makeup that we still orientate towards a group; the small group of the village and the tribe.  Rural communities in the 2001 census are still small, yet Halesworth and its surrounding villages now lack any sense of communal focus or scale of production.  Their fragmented residential, commercial and cultural centres emphasise transportation by car, so that the inhabitants also lack any sense of pedestrian scale. 

Village and town are no longer serving as magnets for both people and ideas. Paradoxically, folk now seem to like isolation. Domestic life has become privatised and atomised, with family members each having their own TV, and following an individual interest. New housing infills are socially sterile. Everything is new clean and neat. Neighbours are usually only glimpsed as they walk to the car. Each house is a small fortress equipped with a barking dog or alarm system. The only visible activity is macho man cutting his lawns.  There are obviously great differences between Halesworth old and new.  Leaving aside the crushing poverty dramatically illuminated by Michael Fordham, we can legitimately ask if its pre-industrial community was really a haven of creativity and neighbourly harmony, which could serve as a planning model for today’s social ills.  Have we really lost a unique combination of unity with social, visual and ecological variety?  Is there an historical small-town target that modern planners should use for social and ecological regeneration?  Planners, since their profession emerged in the late 19th century, have always thought so.

Halesworth’s 19th century society was based on ideas of mutal aid, political and economic decentralisation, human-scaled production and communitarian ideas. These ideas of social ecology as a recipe for human life were first articulated at the end of the 19th century for an improved cooperative economy by the Russian geographer Peter Kropotkin.  The Scottish planner, Patrick Geddes and his pupil Lewis Mumford forcibly developed them in Britain.  Americans have followed this path since the 1990s to restore the integrity of their basic institutions and turn back disturbing trends toward crime, social disorder, and family breakdown. The past decade has been an era of important social reforms: in the schools, in the criminal justice system, in family policy. In states and localities across the U.S.A, citizens have fought for greater emphasis on character, individual responsibility, and virtues and values in the public square. Partly as a result, on a host of "leading social indicators”, such as rates of violent crime, rates of youth crime, levels of teenage pregnancy, and even student test scores, the nation is showing incremental but significant improvements.

Communitarian ideas and policy approaches have been playing a major role in this growing North American movement of cultural and institutional regeneration. Communitarian thinkers are in the forefront of the ‘Character Education Movement’, which is fostering a return to the teaching of good personal conduct and individual responsibility in thousands of schools around the country. Likewise, communitarians have been playing a role in the new community-based approaches to criminal justice, which are showing solid success in restoring neighbourhood order and achieving real reductions in violent crime. In the area of family policy, communitarians have worked for policies to strengthen families and discourage divorce. They have led in devising fresh, incentive-based policies designed to discourage a casual approach to marriage and to promote "children-first" thinking and family stability, while at the same time preserving the rights of women and men.  The need for action has now reached the large politically influential community of the Evangelical Church, where a group of leaders, convinced of the science behind climate change, is trying to persuade its local membership to reduce their domestic carbon emissions.  Communitarianism has become a part of one of the most innovative movements working to renew and revitalize American society.

‘Yesterday’ in Halesworth is a piece of the history of this process, and everyone who lived through the past twenty-four hours holds some of the public evidence that could be put towards learning about the past to better understand the present and shape the future.  The history of Halesworth is in the making; it is not a dead thing to be pulled out and praised or deplored; it is the community that is a custodian of the past, by the recording of the present. To make history part of the community’s social toolkit there has to be a reorientation of history towards ecology.  Social ecology is nothing more than an environmentally orientated study of a community, which explores the relations between ecological infrastructure, politics, community organisations, the economy and culture.  In this context, an Internet version of this document is available for everyone to update.  Thereby, we hope that the practical legacy of ‘Halesworth'  will be a continuously updated cultural history; a living history to promote practical solutions for future interactions between community and environment.

 

In the context of local history, the modern Local Agenda 21, which originated in a global imperative to save Earth's natural resources, is really a platform for townsfolk planning their future development, to create themselves a cultural clearing appropriate to combat the placelessness of the 21st century. In this context, history can offer rich building blocks. History turns us towards folklore, to costume, to dialect, to local proverbs and customs; to the architecture and building materials of houses; to roofs, domestic interiors, furniture, cooking habits- to all the things within a locality that go to make up a way of life; to the various arts of living, of adapting, of balancing needs, and resources, of enjoyment which may not be the same as those in the next village. Looking to the past, we also see that to use these building blocks we have to be motivated by altruism to non-human species, and develop some concept of stewardship for wildlife and landscape. Comparisons of present with past also show things that have been lost, and new economic values that have to be adopted if they are to be replaced.  ‘Community plans’ are now a mandatory part of Local Authority development strategies.  Government guidance says that they should take on board these three historical perspectives, starting with grass-roots involvement of families. Whilst management begins with data collection, analysis and planning, there are usually some things that can be done at once. Not everything can or should be foreseen. It is often best to start by doing, because the test of community development programmes is what people do. Social change flows from individual actions. By changing what they do, people move societies in new directions and themselves change.

 

As well as celebrating its past, a community should also look to its history for lessons about the future; ‘Halesworth’ with its global perspective is a start. Rurality, despite its shortcomings with regards the social services that are readily available in towns, is highly regarded.  However, most countryfolk are adrift in their own part of the great sea of rurality.  Rurality and communitarianism actually go together.  The development of the countryside involves deciding what features should be protected enhanced or introduced: listing the factors limiting action with regards these features; deciding what has to be done to remove the most important limiting factors (this is the action, or management plan). The final stage is to decide what has to be measured, year on year, in order to check that the action plan is effective.  This is the monitoring programme to provide feedback so the plan can be adapted to reality.

 

This recipe for a sustainable future assumes that people will respond and change.  However, the last two centuries since the opening of the age of plenty appears to have an inbuilt momentum that will probably be too difficult to deflect, except as a response to crisis.  Escape from the life of the Bird families of Chediston Street’s Yards has resulted in bigger homes and smaller families.  Children without fathers have become the norm.  Halesworth folk now have endless conveniences; yet never seem to have time.  With the help of ‘Galaxy Travel’ in the Market Place, at a moment’s notice they can travel anywhere in the world, yet most people do not bother to cross the road to meet their neighbours for a chat about what it is like to be alive.  With the help of the ‘Rainbow’ supermarket, people have more food than they can possibly eat; yet this makes them miserable, worrying about being overweight and dying ‘prematurely’ from cancer.  Premature death to the Birds, meant the death of James, the breadwinner, before the age of 40, and the burial of his daughter Ann, age ten.   This comparison of family well-being encapsulates the West’s big problem.  With increased command of the environment, people have become more self-absorbed and more selfish.    Compared with Elizabeth and Hannah Bird, we now have less resilience to urban living.  We expect more; we constantly compare ourselves to a ‘norm’ devised by professional communicators who control the mass media that sets the standards from the style of our kitchens to the shape of our bodies.  We have a vast choice with which to satisfy our wants, and we are now discovering these options bring no real freedom at all.

 


Postscript

 

 

In a review of David Attenborough’s television programme, ‘Are We Changing Planet Earth?’ transmitted on Wednesday 24th May 2006, the Daily Telegraph’s TV critic Stephen Pile wrote:

 

“There was something really momentous about the sight of Sir David Attenborough stating the obvious…. he stared into the camera and said that after due consideration, weighing up all the pros and cons, he had finally reached the Olympian conclusion that global warming is entirely the fault of skin-wrapped, stuff-collecting, pain-in-the-butt humanity. 

 

For years he has sat on the fence, preferring to concentrate on the wonders of our all-chirupping, all-fornicating globe, but a whopping great computer at Exeter, which produced a catastrophic future had finally made up its mind.  It’s all down to schmucks like you and me.

 

Right at the end he said the most alarming thing of all.  The ice caps are melting, the once colourful corals of the Barrier Reef are accusingly white, and such is the desertification of inland China that sand storms are an every day occurrence in Beijing, but “what happens next is up to us”. 

 

Us?  This is the worst possible scenario. We’re stuffed.  Is there really no one else?

 

In other words, every time we flick a switch we are making a contribution, however small, to the bleaching of far distant coral islands, the colours of which were discovered only a few decades ago.  At the same time we are tipping the balance of materials and energy away from the economic development of human communities of the Third World.  These are the fundamental reasons why human settlements are now, for better or worse, ecological societies, each developing with its own global footprint.

 

Murray Bookchin, who has long been a major figure in connecting the process of urbanisation with human evolution, reminds us that the battleground on which the ecological future of the planet will be decided is clearly a social one.  Social ecology of ‘place’ is therefore a growing educational theme that provides the platform for people to ‘think globally and act locally’.  It is an important interface with applied ecology, which is really much, much, more sociological than the application of science to preserve wildlife and wilderness, and unravel the biophysics of planetary systems that maintain life on Earth.  Earth’s ecological problems cannot be solved without resolutely managing social factors, such as attitudes towards waste, economic growth and even the school syllabus.  The issue of industrialism as a wasteful process is central to economic growth.  The idea that things should last, the philosophy of  the pioneer machine builders, James Smyth of Peasenhall and Thomas Easterson of Halesworth,  does not fit the economic model anymore.  Ergonomically designed to be as unobstrusive and as ubiquitous as possible, the gadgets of today tend to chug along until they crash and burn.  Cheap electronics in computers or tractors are not built to be repaired.  There is something shocking in the idea that everything is disposable and that people, like the Ford Tractor Society, do not exist to care for old gadgets anymore.  The point is that they cannot care.  The technological fix is virtually impossible.  Computer driven machines cannot be resurrected. 

 

Social ecology is a continuum of people and non-human nature, and ‘social ecology’ defines an educational scaffold for building a future culture in which communal interest is elevated above personal interest.  Every person in a community plays a part in its ecological change and its impacts elsewhere.  This happens mainly through the day to day sourcing of household goods through the retail trade.  By being involved in these household tasks, individual behaviours and attitudes towards others are part of the unfolding of social evolution.  In the long view of Halesworth’s history, the Victorian travails of Sarah Bird, struggling with life in Chediston Street, are as important as the life of Benjamin D’Urban, also born in Halesworth, who as the first Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, was a civil servant enforcing the exploitation of a large part of Africa for the benefit of British consumers.  

 

Taking the long perspective, we see that people like D’Urban aided and abetted the phenomenon and the uptake of an idea of an ever-expanding market system.  He was part of the elaboration of a hierarchy of class into a system for the selective and inequitable distribution of planetary resources.  We now see that this was wrong, and that the Birds of the community he left behind represented victims of the system. 

 

Sustainable development is about being concerned with the complementarity of mutual aid to correct colonial mistakes, and the essential contribution we have to make is to reduce our urge to  ‘collect stuff’ from a rapidly declining global resource. To make this point, we have chosen Halesworth as the exemplar of an ecological community, but really, we could have chosen any small market town in the United Kingdom to carry an appeal for moral regeneration and socio-economic reconstruction along ecological lines.  The next few decades of Halesworth’s social history will inevitably illuminate a turning point of human evolution.

 

This is just one facet of Halesworth’s rich social heritage that has been revealed in the publications produced by local people during the last twenty-five years.  This year, the district council published a wide-reaching appraisal of the town’s conservation area.  It was the outstanding knowledge base, covering the community’s built and green environments that prompted us to take the town as an educational example of an ecological society. Books, reports and documents like this one, are put on the shelf and may not be revisited for many years.   It strikes us that the next logical step is to find ways of creating an interactive social history database to elicit more information and capture ideas that bubble up from within the community.   Giving people this kind of ownership of their history is a role for IT in the community.

 

Generally the basic principles for a web-based community conservation system for both green and built assets are:-

 

1 There needs to be some kind of forum for grass roots inputs of individuals who can painlessly upload their text and pictures.

 

2 A download facility is required for people to obtain the latest versions of documents and pictures.

 

3 The system needs a local volunteer to manage the updating of information and its dissemination through procedures acceptable to the community and its local authority.

 

4 Technically, the web system needs to be free, uniform, stable and kept up to date with the latest advances in IT. 

 

5 There needs to be a local community database for holding information about buildings and their social history, linked to a ‘live’ management plan for the entire operation, which records the objectives and the practical means by which they are to be reached and checked against performance indicators.

 

Too much effort has been wasted in the past by adopting idiosyncratic IT systems that do not survive beyond the enthusiasm of a local inventor.  To coincide with the publication of our contribution to Halesworth’s history we have incorporated the 'Halesworth Hyperbook', on three popular free commercial servers to give people an idea of what kinds of systems are currently available and how they look and operate.  We want to allow people to share their experiences and opinions about locations, and to do this by sharing both on the web and in situ.

 

Sharing on the web means attaching textual or multimedia annotations to textural narratives and maps of a place, and allowing others to see or amend that content. The name ‘mediascape’ has been coined for this kind of multimedia presentation.

 

Examples of successful text-based collections (and indeed communities) of user-generated content abound on the web, Wikipedia and Flickr to name two popular examples. 

 

Sharing spaces is dramatically augmented by attaching digital multimedia to maps. These ‘mediascapes’ are a powerful new way to connect the notional and physical worlds.  The notion of a path through a space is the key narrative device. The user is able to annotate points on the path with multimedia - text, photos, audio, video - and blog-style commentary. At the heart is a simple model of ‘create, publish and share’ that allows user-generated content to be communicated widely.

 

For the text-based experiment we have chosen ‘Bravenet’ and ‘Wikispaces’ because they are good examples of successful free community networks serving individuals and communities across the world.  In Bravenet people can add comments to a forum, download documents and upload pictures. In Wikispaces, the whole text of ‘Halesworth’ is available for editing and extending. 

 

The mapping model is ‘Sharing Spaces’, where we have created a Halesworth community map (Halesworth Town SCAN) to demonstrate how it is possible to map annotated features of the town and its surroundings on the web, with trails made between them.  The model for Halesworth Town SCAN is Parham Village SCAN, which was produced as a book by the villagers of Parham as the centre piece to their Millennium celebrations.

 

Halesworth Hyperbook  www.halesworth.bravehost.com.

Halesworth Wiki is http://halesworth.wikispaces.com/

Halesworth Town SCAN is http://www.communitywalk.com/map/29515

 

 

 

You can communicate with the authors at anglianangles@aol.com

 


 

 

 


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Acknowlegements

 

We are grateful to the following people who have contributed to the project either through suggestions, discussions, reminiscences or access to private historical materials.  Thanks are also due to the Staff of the Local Record Offices at Lowestoft and Ipswich for their help in accessing Halesworth’s archives.

 


Peter Aldous

Alexander Carr

Michael Fordham

Janet Huckle

Derek Newby

John Palmer

Howard Took

Peggy Woolnough

Roger Woolnough