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Celebrating Heritage, Promoting Our Future

David Butcher

Though of Bungay origins, my whole working-life - as a teacher of English - was spent in Lowestoft, at the Harris Secondary School for Girls (1965-9) and at Alderman Woodrow/Kirkley High School (1969-2002). My BA degree from Durham University was in English, Modern History & Latin (1964) and I also hold an MPhil in History, from the University of East Anglia (1989), for a study of Lowestoft’s social and economic development 1560-1730. I taught that university’s Certificate Course in English Local History for its Continuing Studies Dept., at Lowestoft College of Further Education, from 1990-2004 - this being via a two-year, weekly, evening class for adults. My interest in the town’s history, specifically, began when my wife and I moved to Corton in August 1971 -  beginning with its maritime activity connected to fishing, before moving on to other aspects of its fascinating past. 

My main focus in the study of Local History generally (beginning, perhaps, in boyhood with an interest in the countryside around me) has always been rooted in what a particular environment enables its inhabitants to make of it. For me, starting with surface geology and major topographical features is the basic building-block (including a maritime setting, in the case of Lowestoft) on which to base study of a community. Added to this, wherever possible, is full family reconstitution of parish registers, in cases where the documentation allows this to be done, with manorial and probate records acting as valuable supplementary back-up. Other contemporary sources - such as parish tithe records, account rolls and land rentals, poor law accounts, settlement certificates, legal  indictments and decisions, and old maps - can all help to create some sense of the past which goes beyond the merely superficial and creates an idea of “life at the time”, in so far as we are able to represent it.

In specialising mainly on the Early Modern period of English history (loosely, that stretching from the early 16th century to the end of the 18th), one of my main concerns has always been to show Lowestoft within the context of its own local area - as well as within a national one also, wherever possible. Too much “Local History” begins and ends with the first word: local. Events referred to are often merely a statement of what happened, without any attempt at either analysis or placing them within a wider framework. Context is everything, in the study of history, and every effort must be made to reflect this - something which is made easier today by the amount of national government documentation (e.g. Calendar of Patent Rolls, Calendar of State Papers Domestic etc., etc.) and other material which is now available online via the process of digitisation.

The pioneering work of W.G. Hoskins, during the 1950s and 60s, in establishing English Local History as a legitimate field of academic study, was a most important development within the world of university teaching and learning. It is to be regretted that it hasn’t managed to find its way as yet, in some form or other, into secondary-level education in England at either GCE Ordinary or Advanced levels.   

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Title Image Body
Lowestoft Almshouses CREDIT: Jack Rose Collection The first almshouses in Lowestoft were provided by John Manyngham, the parish vicar from 1457-78. / 19 January, 2025
Bequests for the Relief of Poverty, 1560-1730 poor For centuries, the use of alms boxes in parish churches throughout the whole of England was a means of collecting sums of money for charitable purposes – particularly the relief of poverty where it / 13 January, 2025
Outsider Presence in Lowestoft 1561-1730 Hall (Parish Register Entries)The register entries below are presented in as close a way as possible to the original handwritten ones  / 7 January, 2025
Samuel Morton Peto and the Wider European World  peto , CREDIT: Pete Browne Centuries of Ongoing ChangeDenmark Road, Flensburgh Street and Tonning Street: three closely connected roads near the shopping-centre and railway station of the Suffolk coastal town of Low / 31 December, 2024
Occupied Ground space 1600s ogs Nos. 5 -25 High StreetNos. / 17 December, 2024
Properties on West Side of High Street in 1618 CREDIT: thelandmagazine (North of Mariners Street) / 17 December, 2024
Ship Money Levy (1636) English Warship 1640 CREDIT:Alamy So-called “Ship Money” had its roots in Late Medieval times, when coastal towns and counties in England were periodically called upon to supply vessels to the Crown for use in naval warfare during / 21 November, 2024
Brewing in Lowestoft 1560-1760 Beer , c. 1720, with the numbered locations present being those relating to malting and commercial brewing activity The Town of Lowestoft c. / 8 November, 2024
Human Migration into Lowestoft – 1696-1735 boats In 1662, an Act of Settlement for the Better Relief of the Poor was passed by Parliament – a measure soon to become known as the Act of Settlement and Removal, as it aimed at rest / 5 November, 2024
The Hearth Tax of 1674 hearth tax image , Nos. 77-79 High Street, recorded in 1674 as a three-hearth house belonging to Thomas Porter (merchant) of Carlton Colville Hearth Tax, as a means of raising money for The Crown, was introduced into England following the Restoration of the Monarchy under Charles II in 1660. / 25 October, 2024
The Lay Subsidy of 1568 coin , coin Authorisation for this Elizabethan taxation was granted by Parliament on 18 December 1566 and the official date of collection was 24 February 1568. / 28 September, 2024
The Lay Subsidy of 1524-5 (2) Stamp Comparisons of Lowestoft with other Suffolk communities / 24 September, 2024
The Lay Subsidy of 1327 The meeting of roadways near the original Lowestoft township , Section of 14th century wall found below ground during 2013 on the plot of the former No. 1 High Street The national tax levied in 1327 to raise revenue for the Crown came at a troubled time for the country, for this was the year in which Edward II was deposed by his wife, Isabella, and her lover, Ro / 2 September, 2024
The Old Town of Lowestoft high st , high st A paper written in advance of the creation of the High Street HAZ in 2019  / 31 August, 2024
The Hundred Roll of 1274-5 Leathes Ham - a flooded Late Medieval peat-digging , Normanston Park - a large unbuilt section of the former West South Field When Henry III died in November 1272, his son and successor Edward (thirty-three years old) was in Sicily, on the way home from fighting in the Seventh – and last – Crusade. / 31 August, 2024