Early Modern Lowestoft

Mid-Late 18th Century Urban Status and Identity

The field of study constituting urban history is both complex and wide-ranging, combining a variety of sources and a number of disciplines. Economic and social history may unite in helping to explain and illuminate a community’s existence and function, but integration with historical geography and demographic features is required in order to produce a deeper understanding of the human activity which created that entity. Moreover, once a community has been formed, it requires a governing process in order to operate effectively, and so politics of a local nature become part of any scrutiny of its development – placed wherever possible within the context of what national government allowed or believed was desirable. Nor should the religious practices of a previous era be ignored in attempting to understand the thinking of that time, because Christian beliefs and political creeds were once far more closely linked than it is possible to envisage in our current, post-Christian world. Finally, the later decades of the 20th century and those continuing in the 21st, have seen a feminist agenda applied to the study of history, which has rightly raised awareness of women’s role in society and their contribution to the historical process. 

Consideration of the many different elements combining to produce the area of study that is urban history may perhaps create the danger of fragmentation occurring. And this might well be the case if each separate aspect of a community’s development were pursued in isolation, without any attempt to integrate it with its fellows. But even the most elementary exercise in cross-referencing will enable some kind of synthesis to be made. Family reconstitution of parish registers provides the best means of drawing together the various concomitants and producing a coherent statement of a community’s essence and function, simply because it provides an ideal platform on which to create historical reconstruction. In allowing the researcher to combine demographic features with details of family and neighbourhood relationship, population movement and occupational data, it creates considerable knowledge of the society under review – an understanding which is then enhanced by other documentation available for scrutiny.    

The study of towns in the Early Modern period has sometimes led to the word “urban” meaning different things to different historians. Varying interpretations of the word may be partly the result of academic semantics, but there is also the factor of the varying sizes and diverse economic structure of communities to be considered. The opinion has been expressed that a community requires a population of at least 5,000 in order to be considered urban, the argument being that if identification of a town is pitched too low in terms of population, the study of urban England becomes merely (in Penelope Corfield’s words) “a surrogate for a survey of all English history, and risks losing a distinctive urban flavour”. Thus, the figure of 5,000, while not a totally satisfactory definition of urban in its own right, serves to at least to distinguish between the history of towns as opposed to that of village society. 

However, the proposition is one that does not wholly reflect the Pre-industrial world,

when many communities with less than 5,000 inhabitants were nevertheless urban rather than rural in character. The questions have been asked, “What is a town? How small is small? How big is big?” And the point has been made that no definition is completely satisfactory or all-embracing. Moreover, whereas the Medieval town was well defined within chronological and geographical limits, and the Modern town is instantly recognisable through being large, industrial and expanding, it has been said that the Early Modern town, in being an attempt to bridge the gap, suffers from problems of definition. One attempt to provide this has required that a town should show a concentration of population (albeit modest), possess a market, have a range of non-agrarian occupations and demonstrate a contemporary feeling of being urban.

With the nature of urbanism being a topic of debate among present-day historians, it is wise to consider the opinion of an earlier writer. Gregory King, late 17th century commentator, regarded a settlement of 150-200 houses as constituting a town. Lowestoft had 194 dwellings in its main built-up area in 1618, a total which had grown to about 380 by 1725 (400 or more if subdivisions are included) – numbers which place it comfortably within, and beyond, King’s definition. The town’s population totalled about 1,500 between 1560 and 1670 (it would have been lower than this after the epidemics of 1603 and 1635), rising to around 1,650 by 1700 and to just short of 2,000 by 1750. Such growth may not have been spectacular, but it fits a national pattern and contrasts with what was happening in Northern Europe at the time. Here, especially during the 17th century, many smaller towns saw their populations diminish and the only growth discernible was that which took place in a limited number of large regional centres.

The criterion of a population-size of 5,000, in order for a community to be considered a town, derives from the work of a well-known geographer named Evan Jones. However, it can be argued that the figure has been taken out of context, because it was used in a discussion of urban settlements in the 20th century, not in the 16th, 17th or 18th. The whole of the passage in which the number appears is worth quoting for its flexibility of thinking, for its lack of dogmatism, and for its intuitive sense of the concepts which can foster an understanding of what an urban environment actually is. This is what it says: “In fact, the simple numerical index can be used on a world scale if enough allowance is made to clear possible contradictions among small settlements. Above 5,000 people there is less doubt that we are dealing with something urban, above 10,000 hardly any doubt at all. The recommendation of the U.N. on grading agglomerations by size is acceptable where the population is above 5,000. The difficulties arise at the point where a village is almost a town, or a town nearly indistinguishable from a village. At that point it is better to accept the local definition. A town is what is implied by the local people when they call a locality a town. If this differs from the criterion we use for statistical analysis, it is no less real. It may be much more meaningful than all the scholarly efforts at defining something too rich and varied to be caught by statistics. The latter have their uses, but it would be a pity if the humanity of cities were destroyed by academic niceties. Defining a town, whether in economic or legal terms, or merely by size, does not take us very much further towards understanding the nature of urbanism. It merely suggests some of the concomitants of urbanism without telling us which are universal or which are important. Is there a common factor, and if so, does it lie in the form of a city, or in its function, or in its society? There are almost as many answers to these questions as there are students interested in cities.”

In the case of Lowestoft, its inhabitants during the Pre-industrial Era certainly regarded it as a town and references to its urban identity are to be found in a range of contemporary documents, from manorial records to public petitions. The populace was concentrated into an area of about sixty acres, with a good deal of high-density housing in evidence (especially to the west of the High Street) and with house-sharing being practised to some degree throughout much of the period of study. The dwellings themselves cannot be regarded as wholly urban in type, in that there was none of the multi-storey development, such as that in Chester and York (though there was common use of the roof-space as a second floor). Nor, among the larger houses, do there appear to have been any of the hall-less type identified in Norwich. Most of Lowestoft’s substantial homes were of the hall-parlour-buttery/kitchen variety, a rural type found over much of the Midlands and the Southern half of the country during the post-medieval period. Towards the end of the 17th century, and during the first three decades of the 18th, some surviving probate inventories suggest that the double-pile plan (two rooms deep) was beginning to manifest itself as the type of house built – a factor which shows that at least some of the accommodation was becoming more unequivocally urban in design and showing an influence deriving from London itself (albeit, decades later).

Concentration of houses and people into a relatively small area is definitely an urban feature, and it was probably a major contributory factor to the town’s high mortality rate – noted especially among infants less than a year old. The fact that the population remained stable between 1560 and 1670 (dipping for a while because of two major epidemics), then rose modestly thereafter, was due in some measure to the steady influx of people coming into town from outside. A number of them (the majority) arrived from nearby parishes, others from places further removed, but the pattern of urban recruitment parallels what was happening in other communities. Having the inhabitants living in an environment, of restricted physical size, is one of five characteristics cited as typical of the English pre-industrial town. The other four are as follows: specialist economic function, complex social structure, sophisticated political order and distinctive influence beyond the immediate boundaries.

It would be difficult to argue that Lowestoft had a sophisticated political order – even after the emergence of the Whig and Tory parties during the post-Restoration period. Though the governing instruments of Vestry and Manor Court certainly involved a considerable number of people in local administration, and it certainly shows evidence of the other three features. Its specialist economic interest was maritime in nature, with fishing and fish-processing generating wealth and with seaborne trade also making a valuable contribution to the local economy. But the town was more than mere fishing and trading anchorage; it also had a wide variety of non-maritime occupations. In fact, the number of individual trades and social groupings recorded for the town between 1560 and 1750 stands at 125, which reduces to 106 after the amalgamation of occupations which were synonymous with each other – a number far in excess of what has usually been identified as the norm for English market towns during the Early Modern period. 

The variety and complexity of its socio-occupational structure reflects Lowestoft’s performance of a number of the functions identified as being signs of urbanism: it was the centre for the marketing and distribution of certain commodities; it was a place of both manufacture and consumption; and it provided specialist services in the medical, legal and financial spheres of activity. Much of its economic strength derived from its role as market town for the Half-hundreds of Mutford and Lothingland (joined together as one administrative unit in 1763), which made it the focal point for rural parishes lying to the north, south and west. The hinterland was agriculturally productive and well-populated, making it the kind of area needed to guarantee viability and success for the local market centre. In serving its neighbourhood as the venue for the sale and purchase of goods, Lowestoft’s commercial influence extended over most of the two half-hundreds, and the presence in town of retail shops is further evidence of its urban character. Victualling was another feature of the place, with a substantial number of inns and ale-houses offering their facilities to residents and travellers alike. Lowestoft was a meeting-place of lesser overland routes (ones which were important enough in a local context), while its maritime status as anchorage, landing-place and fishing station fostered links with communities further removed in both England and continental Europe.

With regard to social structure, the town definitely showed some complexity in the way that its population was differentiated. The number of occupations cited two paragraphs above is sufficient to give a broad hint of the fact; and if the local society is arranged into the various levels which existed, then seven gradations can be identified. The progression from top to bottom may be conveniently summarised thus: 1) gentlemen; 2) merchants, yeomen and the professions; 3) substantial tradespeople and retailers, wealthier mariners and fishermen; 4) substantial craftsmen; 5) lesser tradespeople and craftsmen, husbandmen, lesser mariners and fishermen; 6) journeymen and labourers; 7) servants. There were certainly pronounced differences in wealth between one townsman and another, a situation which has been identified by at least two observers as a feature of urban communities. However, such disparity did not necessarily observe the social order given above. For instance, the wealthiest merchants were usually better off than the members of gentry families and certain craftsmen (especially shipwrights and linen weavers) were sometimes more affluent than some of the merchants and tradespeople.

Nor were there the sharp differences in status detected in other communities. The first four levels of society outlined above were those from which churchwardens, overseers of the poor, leet court jurors and manorial officers largely derived, and there seems to have been a blurring of distinction between them concerning election to public duty. The fifth tier was more clearly differentiated, with only limited interest in the process of local government, while the sixth and seventh categories were not involved at all. Further evidence of the fluidity which existed in the upper four levels of society can be seen in the number of men who, towards the end of the 17th century and during the first part of the 18th, either assumed the titles of “Gentleman” or “Mr.” or were accorded such distinction in the parish registers. They had no real claim to such nomenclature, but in assuming it they can perhaps be classed as the kind of “pseudo-gentry” identifiable in English society of the time. In so far as social geography is ascertainable, whereby certain classes of people lived in certain specific areas, all that can be safely said is that most of the merchants and retailers dwelt on the High Street (especially the east side, in the case of the former) and that the side-street area to the west was mainly populated by seafarers and artisans. The town was neither sufficiently large nor populous to show the well-defined occupational areas discovered in some of the larger English towns of the time. 

There was no municipality in Lowestoft until borough status was granted in 1885. During the Early Modern period, its government was both parochial and manorial, a combination which was typical of many market centres of the time. However, it has been pointed out that self-government lay at the very heart of a town’s identity – and whether or not it was established by charter may not have mattered greatly to the people responsible for regulation of their particular community. With both Vestry and Manor Court lying in the control of the upper levels of local society, it may be thought that the administration of affairs was oligarchical in nature – but this was not the case. The number of men involved in governing the community was too large for it to be considered an oligarchy, with between 30% and 40% of all family heads holding some kind of office during a twenty-five year period – a sharing of civic responsibility increasingly recognised as an urban characteristic.

It has been shown by Alan Dyer how, in 16th century Worcester, the ruling plutocracy consisted equally of people who had moved into the city, made money and joined the élite all in one lifetime and those who were the sons and grandsons of immigrants. Lowestoft showed a similar capacity to absorb incomers into its ruling structure, but it retained a “core” of dominant family groups which had been resident in town over a long period. The characteristic noted in some urban centres, whereby important families rarely stayed in a place beyond the third generation, did not apply to Lowestoft. At least eight of its wealthiest and most important families in the 1730s had been living in town from the 1580s or earlier. Their members’ sense of the past, bound by genealogical ties, would have been strong and, while it is hard to prove conclusively that they formed urban dynasties (for want of a better term), they must have exerted considerable influence on the people around them.

They would also, in conjunction with less affluent but equally long-established people, have created a strong sense of community. This is often marked in maritime towns and villages today, particularly ones which have a fishing industry; and pre-industrial Lowestoft had a further focus, other than the sea, on which to create a sense of its own identity. This was its rivalry with Great Yarmouth, a town seen as a threat to Lowestoft’s independence and viability for over 300 years – a dark cloud on the northern horizon seeking to blot out the sun of commercial success by attempting to control not only the local herring fishery but traffic in all seaborne goods. And while Lowestoft may not have had a written account of its history to foster sense of place and civic pride, as Yarmouth had, it certainly possessed a strong notion of its own identity – as may be seen in any of the documentation relating to the long-running dispute between both towns. Eventually, of course, Lowestoft did acquire its own, published, historical record (that written by the expatriate Edmund Gillingwater), but coming as it did at the end of the 18th century it celebrated a place which had changed radically from the one of even a hundred years before.

Given the strong feeling of local identity, especially when combined with Christian conscience, it should come as no surprise to find that relief of poverty was an important consideration for those in authority. Lowestoft had a well-developed and flexible system both for collecting poor-rate and making payments to those in need. As far as can be ascertained from the bare statement of figures in the overseers’ accounts, there seems to have been no difficulty in collecting contributions and some of the disbursements appear to indicate understanding of the recipients’ plight and even some degree of warmth towards them. Surviving documentation dates from 1656-1712, but the need to alleviate distress was of much longer standing. A leet court minute of 1582, which records the imposition of a heavy fine on anyone giving accommodation to immigrant families, shows that the town faced a problem common in the Elizabethan period: that of the indigent rural poor gravitating towards local towns in order to make a better life for themselves.

Another recognised urban feature, particularly associated with the second half of the 16th century, is that of education. Lowestoft had a free grammar school, which was established by private endowment in the year 1570 and which had its existence given official approval and encouragement in the provision of premises administered by local trustees. The presence of schools in market towns, from the 16th century onwards, has been identified as a distinctive feature of such communities, and Lowestoft increased its educational capacity with the addition of at least two petty schools during the second half of the 17th century. One of the factors contributing to the town’s having quite a high rate of literacy among its inhabitants must have been the existence of schools – and it was probably their concentration in towns, rather than in the countryside, which helped to create a higher degree of literacy in urban areas than was to be found in rural ones. Such a differential was not only a feature of England in the Early Modern period, but of Western Europe generally.            

Thus, in the light of all that has been said by way of summary and over-view, Lowestoft’s urban status and identity is established. It may have been neither large in terms of population, nor extensive in area, but it had greater economic, social and topographical complexity than a village and its inhabitants certainly regarded it as a town. So, in all likelihood, did the people who went there to trade in one way or another, to say nothing of the casual visitor. Thomas Baskerville, who visited in 1677, specifically refers to Lowestoft as “a market town”, and Daniel Defoe, in his Tour through the Eastern Counties (1724) also calls it a town – though as a passing reference in comments made concerning the herring disputes with Great Yarmouth. From the third quarter of the 17th century onwards, through until 1750, there was a rise in population from 1,500 inhabitants to 2,000 – an increase of 33% – much of which was probably due to the increase in maritime activity following the town being granted port status in 1679 and becoming even more of a specialist maritime community than it had been before. It was the last two decades of the 17th century which also saw the adoption of the double-pile plan in house-building and the erection of a general-purpose civic headquarters, which incorporated market cross (for corn trading), town meeting-chamber, schoolroom and Anglican chapel-of-ease. 

Alongside the many urban features, however, there definitely existed a strong visual sense of Lowestoft’s affinity with the surrounding countryside. Originally, the settlement had probably been agricultural rather than maritime in nature, and the western edge of the re-located town merged gently with Goose Green and the fields that lay beyond. There was no hard line of demarcation to declare where the built-up area ended and the countryside began. Even the cliff’s terraces were softened with the planting of trees and livestock was pastured on The Denes, so that a late 18th century prospect of the town taken from the beach, or from a boat lying offshore – both created by local artist Richard Powles – conveys something of a rural ambience.

In a sense, the blurring of distinctions reflects the nature of some small towns of the time because, in certain cases, there was little differentiation between them and large villages – a fact which has prompted one commentator (Penelope Corfield) to identify a network of about eighty “micro-towns”, scattered across the countryside of East Anglia. Lowestoft is only mentioned as a significant new arrival in the hierarchy of towns proper (along with Wisbech) in about the middle of the 19th century – a classification based on the 1841 census count of 4,509 inhabitants. Its admission is attributed (not wholly accurately) to its growth as a seaside resort, which didn’t take place on a large scale till after the arrival of the railway in 1847. But, which had certainly been a feature, at a lower level, during the second half of the 18th century. 

Lowestoft had all the necessary elements to be considered a town long before the early Victorian period. The two hundred years, spanning 1560-1760, broadly reflect the availability of suitable documentation with which to attempt reconstruction of the town and the lives of its inhabitants – this, in spite of claims that “simple market towns” have been given little attention by historians because they left fewer records than their larger counterparts! But there is also the advantage of having been able to concentrate the study on a time-span which began during the early years of Elizabeth I and ended with the death of George II. During this period, Lowestoft evolved from its Late Medieval past and was still comparatively unaffected at the end of it by the growing politeness in society, which was to alter the nature and appearance of the town during the fifty years which followed.

It has been said that the early years of the 18th century saw a growing recognition, on the part of contemporary historians, of increasing civic pride and self-confidence as a feature of provincial culture. Lowestoft had a strong sense of its past at this time, but it had still not developed any kind of significant role as a focal point for local polite society. However, by the time that Richard Powles produced his ink-and-wash study of the High Street (1784), things had definitely changed. Powles stood at a point opposite Lion Score (later Crown Score) and what he drew is of considerable interest. The scene clearly shows how a number of the houses had had their exteriors updated to keep abreast of the times and also how there had been one or two complete rebuildings in Georgian style. The growing sense of fashion is represented in another way, too. The bottom left-hand corner of the view shows the sign for the Queen’s Head inn, which stood a little further to the west, in Tyler’s Lane (later, Compass Street). It was this particular establishment which had begun to hold assemblies after about 1760, in a purpose-built annex abutting directly onto the stable-block of The Crown. These gatherings were advertised in local newspapers and provide evidence of the growing “politeness” of society, which was so much a feature of the period. 

The existence of a book club in town at this time is further proof that Lowestoft was developing a different cultural identity, but perhaps the most obvious and visible signs of change are to be found in its becoming a seaside watering-place. The 1730s and 40s have been identified as the time during which the coastal resort began to emerge on a significant scale. Lowestoft arrived a generation later, with its first bathing machines being placed on the beach in 1768. They were put there by Scrivener Capon, proprietor of The Crown inn, and modelled on ones in use at Margate or Deal (accounts vary). The season was of six weeks’ duration, in August and September, and the town enjoyed some success as a resort (though not on the scale of the second half of the 19th century), drawing in people not only from Norfolk and Suffolk but from greater distances as well. 

One of the Norfolk visitors was Revd. James Woodforde, Rector of Weston Longville – he who created one of the most famous of all clergy diaries (published eventually, in five volumes, 1924-31). He recorded his visit on 5 April 1786, having come from Southwold with a nephew and servant (and having formed no great opinion of that particular place). He was, however, impressed with Lowestoft’s urban qualities. He and his small party had breakfast at The Crown and then spent two hours walking the Denes and Beach – before moving on to Great Yarmouth. Most notable of all outsiders, however, was Charles Sloane, first Earl Cadogan, who built a fine cliff-top residence in 1789 at the northern end of the High Street (the present-day No. 3, Beacon House). It was partly the influx of summer visitors which was responsible for construction of a new stretch of turnpike road in 1785 between Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, for provision of a mail-cart which passed through the town twice a day with letters to and from London, and for a daily stage-coach to the capital. This later developed into what became known as London Road North and London Road South.   

Perhaps the most lasting reminder of Lowestoft’s taking its place in the Georgian age of elegance was the presence in town of a soft-paste porcelain factory – third longest-lived in England after Worcester and Derby. It had a life-span in excess of forty years, from 1757 to c. 1800 and during that time produced a wide range of blue-and-white and polychrome pieces, which included tea, coffee and dinner wares, pastille-burners, inkwells, human and animal figurines, small plaques commemorating births of children, and personalised mugs and tankards with the owner’s initials or name painted on. Production was aimed at satisfying both local demand and that created by visitors arriving each year for the summer season. Hence, the named pieces particularly (especially when accompanied by the name of the town or village in which the person lived) assume the nature of an early souvenir industry. Then there were the items painted with the motto, A trifle from Lowestoft, aimed at providing people with a memento of their stay at the seaside. The factory itself became something of a tourist attraction and among the many visitors was the young French aristocrat, Francois de La Rochefoucauld. When he arrived in Lowestoft, in the late summer of 1784, he recorded the porcelain works’ activities in his journal, as well as noting the town’s sea-bathing facilities and involvement in fishing.

The place in which he made his brief stay was a very different one from that of fifty years before.

CREDIT: David Butcher 

[This article is a re-working of Chapter 12, Lowestoft 1550-1750.]