A CELEBRATED NORFOLK TOWN.
Great Yarmouth Nonconformists--Intellectual life--Dawson Turner--Astley
Cooper--Hudson Gurney--Mrs. Bendish.
When David Copperfield, Dickens tells us, first caught sight of Yarmouth,
it seemed to him to look rather spongy and soppy. As he drew nearer, he
remarks, 'and saw the whole adjacent prospect, lying like a straight, low
line under the sky, I hinted to Peggotty that a mound or so might have
improved it, and also that if the land had been a little more separated
from the sea, and the town and the tide had not been quite so much mixed
up, like toast-and-water, it would have been much nicer.' He adds: 'When
we got into the street, which was strange to me, and smelt the fish, and
pitch, and oakum, and tallow, and saw the sailors walking about, and the
carts jingling up and down over the stones, I felt that I had done so
busy a place injustice.' In this opinion his readers who know Yarmouth
will agree. Brighton and Hastings and Eastbourne might envy Yarmouth its
sandy beach, where you can lead an amphibious life, watching the
fishing-smacks as they come to shore with cargoes often so heavy as to be
sold for manure; watching the merchant-ships and yachts that lie securely
in the Roads, or the long trail of black smoke of Scotch or northern
steamers far away; watching the gulls ever skimming the surface of the
waves; or the children, as they build little forts and dwellings in the
sand to be rudely swept to destruction by the advancing tide. In the
golden light of summer, how blue is the sky, how green the sea, how
yellow the sand, how jolly look the men and handsome the women! What
health and healing are in the air, as it comes laden with ozone from the
North Sea! You have the sea in front and on each side to look at, to
walk by, to splash in, to sail on. The danger is, that you grow too fat,
too ruddy, too hearty, too boisterous. As we all know, Venus was born
out of the sea, and out there on that eastern peninsula, of which
Yarmouth is the pride and ornament, there used to flourish bonny lasses,
as if to show that the connection between the ocean and lovely woman is
as intimate as of yore. Yarmouth and Lowestoft owe a great deal to the
Great Eastern Railway, which has made them places of health-resort from
all parts of England; and truly the pleasure-seeker or the holiday-maker
may go farther and fare worse.
I was a proud boy when first I set foot in Yarmouth. How I came to go
there I can scarcely remember, but it is to be presumed I accompanied my
father on one of those grand occasions--as far as Nonconformist circles
are concerned--when the brethren met together for godly comfort and
counsel. It is true Wrentham was in Suffolk, and Yarmouth was in
Norfolk, but the Congregational Churches of that quarter had always been
connected by Christian fellowship and sympathy, and hence I was taken to
Yarmouth--at that time far more like a Dutch than an English town--and
wonderful to me was the Quay, with its fine houses on one side and its
long line of ships on the other--something like the far-famed Bompjes of
Rotterdam--and the narrow rows in which the majority of the labouring
classes were accustomed to live. 'A row,' wrote Charles Dickens, 'is a
long, narrow lane or alley, quite straight, or as nearly so as may be,
with houses on each side, both of which you can sometimes touch with the
finger-tips of each hand by stretching out your arms to their full
extent. Many and many a picturesque old bit of domestic architecture is
to be hunted up among the rows. In some there is little more than a
blank wall for the double boundary. In others the houses retreat into
busy square courts, where washing and clear-starching are done, and
wonderful nasturtiums and scarlet-runners are reared from green boxes
filled with that scarce commodity, vegetable mould. Most of these rows
are paved with pebbles from the beach, and to traverse them a peculiar
form of low cart, drawn by a single horse, is employed.' This to me was
a great novelty, as with waggons and carts I was familiar, but not with a
Yarmouth cart--now, I find, replaced by wheelbarrows. In Amsterdam, at
the present day, you may see many such quaint old rows. But in Amsterdam
you have an evil-smelling air, while in Yarmouth it is ever fresh and
crisp, and redolent, as it were, of the neighbouring sea. The
market-place and the big church were at the back of this congeries of
quays and rows, and the sea and the old pier were at quite a respectable
distance from the town. I fancy the Yarmouth of the London bathers has
now extended down to the sandy beach, and the rough and rude old pier has
given place to one better adapted to the wants and requirements of an
increasingly well-to-do community. Far more Dutch than English was the
Yarmouth of half a century ago, I again say.
As to the Yarmouth Independent parson, I shall never forget him. He was
a very big man, with great red cheeks that hung over his collar like
blown bladders, and was always on stilts. He preached in a big
meeting-house, now no more, the pillars of which intercepted alike the
view and the sound. One winter evening he was holding forth, in his
usual heavy style, to a few good people--with whom, evidently, all
pleasure was out of the question--who came there, as in duty bound, and
sat like martyrs all the while, and all were as grave as the preacher,
when a wicked boy rushed in and, in a hurried manner, called out, 'Fire!
fire!' The effect, I am told, was electrical. For once the good parson
was in a hurry, and moved as quickly and spoke as rapidly as his fellows;
but never had there been so much excitement in his chapel since he had
been its pastor. Once, I remember, he came to town, and dropped in at
the close of a party rather convivially inclined, in the Old London
Coffee House. As the reverend gentleman advanced to greet his friends, a
London lawyer, with all the impudence of his class, muttered, in a
whisper intended to be heard, and which was heard, by everyone, 'Yarmouth
bloater.' The good man said nothing, but it was evident he thought all
the more, as the group were more or less tittering over the fitness of
the comparison. The lawyer who made the remark was also the son of a
London minister, and, therefore, might have been expected to have known
better. I fear the Yarmouth minister never forgave him. Well, it only
served him right, as he had a horrible way of making young people very
uncomfortable. 'Well, Master James,' said he to me on one occasion, when
all the brethren had come to dine at Wrentham, and when I was admitted,
in conformity with the golden maxim in all well-regulated family circles,
that little children were to be seen and not heard (perhaps in our day
the fault is too much in an opposite direction), 'can you inform me which
is the more proper form of expression--a pair of new gloves, or a new
pair of gloves?' Of course I gave the wrong answer, as I blushed up to
the ears at finding myself the smallest personage in the room, publicly
appealed to by the biggest. He meant well, I dare say. His only object
was to draw me out; but the question and the questioner gave me a bad
quarter of an hour, and I never got over the unpleasant sensation of
which he had unconsciously been the originator in my youthful breast.
At that time Yarmouth people were supposed to be a little superior. They
were well-to-do, and lived in good style, and, as was to be expected,
considering the sanitary advantages of the situation, were in good health
and spirits. They got a good deal of their intellectual character from
Norwich, which at the time set the fashion in such matters. In 1790 two
societies were established in that city for the private and amicable
discussion of miscellaneous questions. One of these, the Tusculan, seems
to have devoted the attention of its members exclusively to political
topics; while the Speculative, although it imposed no restrictions on the
range of inquiry, was of a more philosophical character. William Taylor
was a member of both, and it is difficult to say whether he distinguished
himself most by his ingenuity in debate, by the novelty of the
information which he brought to bear on every point, or by the lively
sallies of imagination with which he at once amused and excited his
hearers. The papers read by himself embraced an infinite variety of
subjects, from the theory of the earth, then unillumined by the
disclosures of modern geologists, to the most elaborate and refined
productions of its rational tenants, and he was seldom at a loss to place
on new ground or in a fresh light the matter of discussion introduced by
others. Writers of every tongue, studied by him with observant
curiosity, stored his retentive memory with materials ready to be applied
on every occasion, moulded by his Promethean talent into the most
animated and alluring forms. As a speaker and converser he was eminently
characterized by a constant flow of brilliant ideas, by a rapid
succession of striking images, and by a never-failing copiousness of
words, often quaint, but always correct. A similar society was formed at
Yarmouth, under the auspices of Dr. Aiken, at which William Taylor also
occasionally attended. The Rev. Thomas Compton has given the following
description of these visits: 'We were, moreover, sometimes gratified by
the presence of our literary friends from Norwich. I have there
repeatedly listened to the mild and persuasive eloquence of the late Dr.
Enfield. A gentleman, too, still living, who has lately added to his
literary fame by a biographical work of high repute (I scarcely need add
that I allude to Mr. W. Taylor) would sometimes instruct us by his
various and profound knowledge, or amuse us with his ingenious
paradoxes.' When we recollect how at this time the poetical puerilities
of Bath Easton flourished in the West, we may claim that Norwich and
Yarmouth, if not as favoured by fashion, had at any rate a claim to
intellectual reputation at least quite equal to that city of the _ton_.
Dr. Sayers, whose biography William Taylor had written, and whose
'Dramatic Sketches of Northern Mythology' had created a great sensation
at the time, was of Yarmouth extraction.
The Rev. Mr. Compton writes: 'In Yarmouth, where I lived at this time,
and where Lord Chedworth was accustomed to pay an annual visit, there was
then a society of gentlemen who met once a fortnight for the purpose of
amicable discussion. Our members--alas! how few remain--were of all
parties and persuasions, and some of them of very distinguished
attainments. A society thus constituted was in those days as pleasant as
it was instructive. The most eager disputation was never found to
endanger the most perfect goodwill, nor did any bitter feuds arise from
this entire freedom of opinion till the prolific period of the French
Revolution. On this subject our controversies became very impassioned.
The present Sir Astley Cooper, then a very young man, was accustomed to
pass his vacations with his most excellent father, Dr. Cooper, a name
ever to be by me beloved and revered. It was the amusement of our young
friend to say things of the most irritating nature, I believe--like Lady
Florence Pemberton in the novel--merely to see who would make the ugliest
face. Thus circumstanced, it was not in my philosophy to be the coolest
of the party.' We can well imagine the consequences. There was a row,
and the literary society came to grief. As time went on matters became
worse instead of better, and the town was split up into parties--Liberal
or the reverse, Church or Dissent, but all of one mind as regards their
views being correct; and as to the weakness or wickedness of persons who
thought otherwise. The evil of this spirit knew no bounds, and the
demoralizing effect it produced was especially apparent at election
times. When Oldfield wrote his 'Origin of Parliaments,' the town, he
tells us, was under the influence of the Earl of Leicester, and was for
many years represented by some of his Lordship's family. The right of
election was in the burgesses at large, of whom there were at that time
one thousand. The Reform Bill did little to improve the state of
affairs; it led to greater bribery and corruption and intimidation than
ever, and now, as a Parliamentary borough, Yarmouth has ceased to exist.
'Sugar,' it seems, was the slang term used for money, and the honest
voters were too eager to get it. Alas! in none of our seaport towns is
the standard of morality very high. Yarmouth, at any rate, is not worse
than Deal. In old days the excitement of a Yarmouth election much
affected our village. It lasted some days. The out-voters were brought
from the uttermost parts of the earth. As there were no railways,
stage-coaches were hired to bring them down from town; and when they
changed horses at Wrentham, quite a crowd would assemble to look at the
flags, and the free and independents on their way to do their duty,
overflowing with enthusiasm and beer.
Sir Astley Cooper was much connected with Yarmouth in his young days,
when his father was the incumbent of the parish church. Some of his
boyish pranks were peculiar. Here is one of them: 'Having taken two
pillows from his mother's bed, he carried them up the spire of Yarmouth
Church, at a time when the wind was blowing from the north-east; and as
soon as he had ascended as high as he could, he ripped them open, and,
shaking out their contents, dispersed them in the air. The feathers were
carried away by the wind, and fell far and wide over the surface of the
market-place, to the great astonishment of a large number of persons
assembled there. The timid looked upon it phenomenon predictive of some
calamity; the inquisitive formed a thousand conjectures; while some,
curious in natural history, actually accounted for it by a gale of wind
in the north blowing wild-fowl feathers from the island of St. Paul's.'
On another occasion he got into an old trunk, which the family had agreed
to get rid of as inconvenient in the house. In this case he had to pay
the penalty, when he emerged from the chest in the carpenter's shop. The
men, who had complained terribly of its weight, were not inclined to
allow young Astley to get off free. One of Astley's tricks had, however,
a good motive, as it was intended to cure an old woman of her besetting
sin--a tendency to take a drop too much. In order to cure the old woman
of this weakness, he dressed himself as well as he could to represent the
sable form of his satanic majesty. Alas! instead of being surprised, the
old lady was too far-gone for that, and listened with tipsy gravity to
the distinguished visitor's discourse. In her case it was true, as Burns
wrote:
'Wi' tipenny we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae we'll face the deevil.'
One of his tricks nearly led to unpleasant consequences. Whilst out
shooting one day, near Yarmouth, he killed an owl--a bird familiarly
known in Yarmouth by the sobriquet of 'Brother Billy.' Having arrived at
home, he went up into his mother's room, with the bird concealed behind
his coat, and, assuming a countenance full of fear and sorrow, exclaimed,
'Mother, mother, I've shot my brother Billy!' but the alarm and distress
instantly depicted on the distracted countenance of his parent induced
him as quickly as possible to pull the owl from under his coat. This at
once exposed the truth and allayed the apprehensions of his mother's
mind, but the effects of the shock it caused did not so immediately pass
away. Dr. Cooper determined to punish his son, and he therefore confined
him, according to his usual mode of correction, in his own house. Astley
was, however, but little disposed to remain passive in his imprisonment,
and in the wantonness of his ever-active disposition amused himself by
climbing up the chimney, and having at length reached the summit,
endeavoured, by imitating the well-known tone of the chimney-sweeper, and
calling out as lustily as he could, 'Sweep, sweep!' to attract the
attention of the people below. Even on his father the incorrigible lad
seems on more than one occasion to have tried his little game. One day,
while the worthy Doctor was marrying a couple in the church, Master
Astley concealed himself in a turret close by the altar, and, imitating
his father's voice, repeated in a subdued tone the words of the
marriage-service as the ceremony proceeded, to the consternation of his
father, who said that he had never observed an echo in that place before.
Once or twice the lad's life was in peril, as when his foot slipped on
the top of the church, and he was unpleasantly suspended for some time
between the rafters of the ceiling and the floor of the chancel. On
another occasion he had a narrow escape from drowning. It seems that on
the Yare are little boats out together very slightly, for the purpose of
carrying a man, his gun, and dog over the shallows of Braydon, in pursuit
of the flights of wild-fowl which at certain seasons haunt these shoals.
When the boat is thus loaded, it only draws two or three inches of water,
and is quite unfit for sea. Young Astley nearly lost his life in
attempting to take one of these boats out to open sea. In this way young
Astley Cooper, from his fearless and enterprising disposition, soon
became a sort of leader of the Yarmouth boys, and at their head, for a
time, seems to have devoted himself to every kind of amusement within his
reach--riding, boating, fishing, and not unfrequently sports of a less
harmless character, such as breaking lamps and windows, ringing the
church bells at all hours, disturbing the people by frequent alterations
of the church clock, so that if any mischief were committed it was sure,
says his admiring biographer, to be set down to him.
The two men who shed most literary fame on the Yarmouth of my childhood
were Dawson Turner and Hudson Gurney, who in this respect resembled each
other, that they were both bankers and both antiquarians more or less
distinguished. Dawson Turner was a man of middle height and of saturnine
aspect, who had the reputation of being a hard taskmaster to the ladies
of his family, who were quite as intelligent and devoted to literature as
himself. He published a 'Tour in Normandy'--at that time scarcely anyone
travelled abroad--and much other matter, and perhaps as an
autograph-collector was unrivalled. Most of his books, with his notes,
more or less valuable, are now in the British Museum. Sir Charles Lyell,
when a young man, visited the Turner family in 1817, and gives us a very
high idea of them all. 'Mr. Turner,' he says, in a letter to his father,
'surprises me as much as ever. He wrote twenty-two letters last night
after he had wished us "Good-night." It kept him up till two o'clock
this morning.' Again Sir Charles writes: 'What I see going on every hour
in this family makes me ashamed of the most active day I ever spent at
Midhurst. Mrs. Turner has been etching with her daughters in the parlour
every morning at half-past six.' Of Hudson Gurney in his youth we get a
flattering portrait in one of the charming 'Remains of the Late Mrs.
Trench,' edited by her son, Archbishop of Dublin. Writing from Yarmouth
in 1799, she says: 'I have been detained here since last Friday, waiting
for a fair wind, and my imprisonment would have been comfortless enough
had it not have been for the attention of Mr. Hudson Gurney, a young man
on whom I had no claims except from a letter of Mr. Sanford's, who,
without knowing him, or having any connection with him, recommended me to
his care, feeling wretched that I should be unprotected in the first part
of my journey. He has already devoted to me one evening and two
mornings, assisted me in money matters, lent me books, and enlivened my
confinement to a wretched room by his pleasant conversation. Mr. Sanford
having described me as a person travelling about _for her health_, he
says his old assistant in the Bank fancied I was a decrepit elderly lady
who might safely be consigned to his youthful partner. His description
of his surprise thus prepared was conceived in a very good strain of
flattery. He is almost two-and-twenty, understands several languages,
seems to delight in books, and to be uncommonly well informed.' Little
credit, however, is due to Mr. Hudson Gurney for his politeness in this
case. The lovely and lively widow--she had married Colonel St. George at
the age of eighteen, and the marriage only lasted two or three years, the
Colonel dying of consumption--must have possessed personal and mental
attractions irresistible to a cultivated young man of twenty-two. Had
she been old and ugly, it is to be feared his business engagements would
have prevented the youthful banker devoting much time to her ladyship's
service.
Yarmouth is intimately connected with literature and the fine arts. It
was off Yarmouth that Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked; and the testimony
he bears to the character of the people shows how kindly disposed were
the Yarmouth people of his day. 'We,' he writes, 'got all safe on shore,
and walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men, we
were used with great humanity, not only by the magistrates of the town,
who assigned us good quarters, but also by particular merchants and
owners of ships, and had money given us, sufficient to carry us either to
London or back to Hull, as we thought fit.' It was from Yarmouth that
Wordsworth and Coleridge sailed away to Germany, then almost a _terra
incognita_. Leman Blanchard was born at Yarmouth, as well as Sayers, the
first, if not the cleverest, of our English caricaturists. One of the
most brilliant men ever returned to Parliament was Winthrop Mackworth
Praed, M.P. for Yarmouth, whose politics as a boy I detested as much as
in after-years I learned to admire his genius. One of the most fortunate
men of our day, Sir James Paget, the great surgeon, was a Yarmouth lad,
and the See of Chester was filled by an accomplished divine, also a
Yarmouth lad. Southey, when at Yarmouth, where his brother was a student
for some time, was so much struck with the uniqueness of the epitaphs in
the Yarmouth Church, that he took the trouble to copy many of them. One
was as follows:
'We put him out to nurse;
Alas! his life he paid,
But judge not; he was overlaid.'
And hence it may be inferred that in Yarmouth the custom of baby-farming
has long flourished. Possibly thence it may have extended itself to
London. Amongst the truly great men who have lived and died in Yarmouth,
honourable mention must be made of Hales, the Norfolk Giant. In times
past soldiers and sailors and royal personages were often to be seen at
Yarmouth. It was at Yarmouth the heroes, returning from many a distant
battle-field, often landed. Nelson on one occasion--that is, after the
affair of Copenhagen--when he landed, at once made his way to the
hospital to see his men. To one of them, who had lost his arm, he said,
'There, Jack, you and I are spoiled for fishermen.'
A good deal of Puritanism seems to have come into England by way of
Yarmouth. In Queen Elizabeth's time, 300 Flemings settled there, who had
fled from Popery and Spain in their native land. In Norwich the Dutch
Church remains to this day. Some of them seem to have been the friends
and teachers of the far-famed, and I believe unjustly maligned, Robert
Browne. In Norfolk the seed fell upon good soil. While sacerdotalism
was more or less being developed in the State Church, the Norfolk men
boldly protested against Papal abominations, as they deemed them, and
swore to maintain the gospel of Geneva and Knox. One of the men
imprisoned when Bancroft was Archbishop of Canterbury, for attending a
conventicle, was Thomas Ladd, 'a merchant of Yarmouth.' The writ ran:
'Because that, on the Sabbath days, after the sermons ended, sojourning
in the house of Mr. Jachler, in Yarmouth, who was late preacher in
Yarmouth, joined with him in repeating the substance and heads of the
sermons that day made in the church, at which Thomas Ladd was usually
present.' In 1624 the penal laws for suppressing Separatists were
strictly enforced in Yarmouth, and one of the teachers of a small society
of Anabaptists was cast into prison, and the Bishop of Norwich wrote a
letter of thanks to the bailiffs for their activity in this matter, which
is preserved to this day. But, nevertheless, people still continued to
worship God according to the dictates of conscience; we find the Earl of
Dorset in his reply to the town of Yarmouth, as to the way in which the
town should be governed, adds: 'I should want in my care of you if I
should not let you know that his Majesty is not only informed, but
incensed against you for conniving at and tolerating a company of
Brownists among you. I pray you remember there was no seam in the
Saviour's garment.' Bridge was the founder of the Yarmouth
Congregational Church, somewhere about the time of the commencement of
the Civil War. The people declared for the Parliament. Colonel Goffe
was one of its representatives in the House of Commons. All along, the
town seems to have been puritanically inclined, and to have been in this
matter more independent than neighbouring towns. At one time they were
so tolerant that the Independents seem to have worshipped in one end of
the church while the regular clergyman performed the service in the
other; but that did not last long, and when the Independents had a place
of worship of their own, they were not a little troubled by Friends and
Papists claiming for themselves the liberty the Independents had sought
and won. In 1655 the peace of the Church was disturbed by Quaker
doctrines. It appears two females, members of the Church, had joined
them, and refused to return. We read: 'The messenger appointed to visit
May Rouse, brought in an account of her disowning and despising the
Church; she would not come at all unless she had a message from the
Spirit moving her.' She came, however, a week after (December 11), but
by reason of the cold weather was desired to come in again the next
Tuesday. She did so, and gave in these two reasons why she forsook the
Church: 1. Because the doctrine of the Gospel of Faith was not holden
forth; 2. Because there wanted the right administration of baptism.
In 1659 the Church at Yarmouth, feeling the times to be full of trouble
and of peril, said:
'1. We judge a Parliament to be expedient for the preservation of the
peace of these nations; and withal, we do desire that all due care be
taken that the Parliament be such as may preserve the interests of Christ
and His people in these nations.
'2. As touching the magistrates' power in matters of faith and worship,
we have declared our judgments in our late (Free Savoy) confession, and
though we greatly prize our Christian liberties, yet we profess our utter
dislike and abhorrence of a universal toleration, as being contrary to
the mind of God in His Word.
'3. We judge that the taking away of tithes for the maintenance of
ministers until as full a maintenance be equally secured and as legally
settled, tends very much to the destruction of the ministry, and the
preaching of the Gospel in these nations.
'4. It is our desire that countenance be not given unto, nor trust
reposed in, the hand of Quakers, they being persons of such principles as
are destructive to the Gospel, and inconsistent with the peace of modern
societies.'
In five years the Yarmouth people had a Roland for their Oliver; the King
had got his own again, and he and the Parliament of the day looked upon
the Independents or Presbyterians as mischievous as the Quakers; and as
to tithes, they were quite as much resolved, the only difference being
that King and Parliament insisted on their being paid to Episcopalians
alone. In 1770 Lady Huntingdon writes: 'Success has crowned our labours
in that wicked place, Yarmouth.'
Mrs. Bendish, in whom the Protector was said to have lived again, was
quite a character in Yarmouth society. Bridget Ireton, the granddaughter
of the Protector, married in 1669 Mr. Thomas Bendish, a descendant of Sir
Thomas Bendish, baronet, Ambassador from Charles I. to the Sultan. She
died in 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of her life to
Yarmouth. Her name stands among the members of the church in London of
which Caryl had been pastor, and over which Dr. Watts presided. To her
the latter addressed at any rate one copy of verses to be found in his
collected works. She recollected her grandfather, and standing, when six
years old, between his knees at a State Council, she heard secrets which
neither bribes nor whippings could extract from her. Her grandfather she
held to be a saint in heaven, and only second to the Twelve Apostles.
Asked one day whether she had ever been at Court, her reply was, 'I have
never been at Court since I was waited upon on the knee.' Yet she
managed to dispense with a good deal of waiting, and never would suffer a
servant to attend her. God, she said, was a sufficient guard, and she
would have no other. She is described as loquacious and eloquent and
enthusiastic, frequenting the drawing-rooms and assemblies of Yarmouth,
dressed in the richest silks, and with a small black hood on her head.
When she left, which would be at one in the morning, perched on her
old-fashioned saddle, she would trot home, piercing the night air with
her loud, jubilant psalms, in which she described herself as one of the
elect, in a tone more remarkable for strength than sweetness. In the
daytime she would work with her labourers, taking her turn at the
pitchfork or the spade. The old Court dresses of her mother and Mrs.
Cromwell were bequeathed by her to Mrs. Robert Luson, of Yarmouth, and
were shown as recently as 1834, at an exhibition of Court dresses held at
the Somerset Gallery in the Strand. As was to be expected, Mrs. Bendish
was enthusiastic in the cause of the Revolution of 1688, and the printed
sheets relating to it were dropped by her secretly in the streets of
Yarmouth, to prepare the people for the good time coming. Her son was a
friend of Dr. Watts as well as his mother. He died at Yarmouth,
unmarried, in the year 1753, and with him the line of Bendish seems to
have come to an end. Another daughter of Ireton was married to Nathaniel
Carter, who died in 1723, aged 78. His father, John Carter, was
commander-in-chief of the militia of the town in 1654. He subscribed the
Solemn League and Covenant, being then one of the elders of the
Independent congregation. He was also bailiff of the town, and an
intimate friend of Ireton. He died in 1667. On his tombstone we read:
'His course, his fight, his race,
Thus finished, fought, and run,
Death brings him to the place
From whence is no return.'
He lived at No. 4, South Quay, and it was there, so it is said, that the
resolve was made that King Charles should die.
He is gone, but his room still remains unaltered--a large wainscoted
upper chamber, thirty feet long, with three windows looking on to the
quay, with carved and ornamented chimney-piece and ceiling. A great
obscurity, as was to be expected, hangs over the transaction, as even now
there are men who shrink from lifting up a finger against the Lord's
anointed. Dinner had been ordered at four, but it was not till eleven,
that it was served, and that the die had been cast. The members of the
Secret Council, we are told, 'after a very short repast, immediately set
off by post--many for London, and some for the quarters of the army.'
Such is the account given in a letter, written in 1773, by Mr. Mewling
Luson, a well-known resident in Yarmouth, whose father, Mr. William
Luson, was nearly connected the Cromwell family. Nathaniel Carter, the
son-in-law of Ireton, was in the habit of showing the room, and relating
the occurrence connected with it, which happened when he was a boy.
Cromwell was not at that council. He never was in Yarmouth; but that
there was such consultation there is more than probable. Yarmouth was
full of Cromwellites. In the Market Place, now known as the Weavers'
Arms, to this day is shown the panelled parlour whence Miles Corbet was
used to go forth to worship in that part of the church allotted to the
Independents. Miles Corbet was the son of Sir Thomas Corbet, of
Sprouston, who had been made Recorder of Yarmouth in the first year of
Charles, and who was one of the representatives of the town in the Long
Parliament. The son was an ardent supporter of the policy of Cromwell,
and, like him, laboured that England might be religious and free and
great, as she never could be under any king of the Stuart race; and he
met with his reward. 'See, young man,' said an old man to Wilberforce,
as he pointed to a figure of Christ on the cross, 'see the fate of a
Reformer.' It was so emphatically with Miles Corbet. Under the date of
1662 there is the following entry in the church-book:
'1662.--Miles Corbet suffered in London.'
He was a member of the church there, and was one of the judges who sat on
the trial of King Charles I. His name stands last on the list of those
who signed the warrant for that monarch's execution. Corbet fled into
Holland at the Restoration, with Colonels Okey and Barkstead. George
Downing--a name ever infamous--had been Colonel Okey's chaplain. He
became a Royalist at the Restoration, and was despatched as Envoy
Extraordinary into Holland, where, under a promise of safety, he
trepanned the three persons above named into his power, and sent them
over to England to suffer death for having been members of the Commission
for trying King Charles I. For this service he was created a baronet.
The King sent an order to the Sheriffs of London on April 21, 1662, that
Okey's head and quarters should have Christian burial, as he had
manifested some signs of contrition; but Barkstead's head was directed to
be placed on the Traitor's Gate in the Tower, and Corbet's head on the
bridge, and their quarters on the City gates.
Foremost amongst the noted women of the Independent Church must be
mentioned Sarah Martin, of whose life a sketch appeared in the _Edinburgh
Review_ as far back as 1847. A life of her was also published by the
Religious Tract Society. Sarah, who joined the Yarmouth church in 1811,
was born at Caistor. From her nineteenth year she devoted her only day
of rest, the Sabbath, to the task of teaching in a Sunday-school. She
likewise visited the inmates of the workhouse, and read the Scriptures to
the aged and the sick. But the gaol was the scene of her greatest
labours. In 1819, after some difficulty, she obtained admission to it,
and soon seems to have acquired an extraordinary influence over the minds
of the prisoners. She then gave up one day in the week to instruct them
in reading and writing. At length she attended the prison regularly, and
kept an exact account of her proceedings and their results in a book,
which is now preserved in the public library of the town. As there was
no chaplain, she read and preached to the inmates herself, and devised
means of obtaining employment for them. She continued this good work
till the end of her days in 1843, when she died, aged fifty-three. A
handsome window of stained glass, costing upwards of 100 pounds, raised
by subscription, has been placed to her memory in the west window of the
north aisle of St. Nicholas Church. But her fame extends beyond local
limits, and is part of the inheritance of the universal Church. It was
in Mr. Walford's time that Sarah Martin commenced her work. Mr. Walford
tells us, in his Autobiography, that the Church had somewhat degenerated
in his day, that the line of thought was worldly, and not such as became
the Gospel. It is clear that in his time it greatly revived, and, even
as a lad, the intelligence of the congregation seemed to lift me up into
quite a new sphere, so different were the merchants and ship-owners of
Yarmouth from the rustic inhabitants of my native village. In this
respect, if I remember aright, the family of Shelley were particularly
distinguished. One dear old lady, who lived at the Quay, was
emphatically the minister's friend. She had a nice house of her own and
ample means, and there she welcomed ministers and their wives and
children. It is to be hoped, for the sake of poor parsons, that such
people still live. I know it was a great treat to me to enjoy the
hospitality of the kind-hearted Mrs. Goderham, for whose memory I still
cherish an affectionate regard. To live in one of the best houses on the
Quay, and to lie in my bed and to see through the windows the masts of
the shipping, was indeed to a boy a treat.
A little while ago I chanced to be at Norwich, when the thought naturally
occurred to me that I would take a run to Yarmouth--a journey quickly
made by the rail. In my case the journey was safely and expeditiously
accomplished, and I hastened once more to revisit the scenes and
associations of my youth. Alas! wherever I went I found changes. A new
generation had arisen that knew not Joseph. The wind was howling down
the Quay; the sand was blown into my mouth, my nose, my ears; I could
scarcely see for the latter, or walk for the former; but, nevertheless, I
made my way to the pier. Only one person was on it, and his back was
turned to me. As he stood at the extreme end, with chest expanded, with
mouth wide open, as if prepared to swallow the raging sea in front and
the Dutch coast farther off, I thought I knew the figure. It was a
reporter from Fleet Street and he was the only man to greet me in the
town I once knew so well. Yes; the Yarmouth of my youth was gone. Then
a reporter from Fleet Street was an individual never dreamt of. And so
the world changes, and we get new men, fresh faces, other minds. The
antiquarian Camden, were he to revisit Yarmouth, would not be a little
astonished at what he would see. He wrote: 'As soon as the Yare has
passed Claxton, it takes a turn to the south, that it may descend more
gently into the sea, by which means it makes a sort of little tongue or
slip of land, washt on one side by itself, on the other side by the sea.
In this slip, upon an open shore, I saw Yarmouth, a very neat harbour and
town, fortified both by the nature of the place and the contrivance of
art. For, though it be almost surrounded with water, on the west with a
river, over which there is a drawbridge, and on either side with the sea,
except to the north, where it is joined to the continent; yet it is
fenced with strong, stately walls, which, with the river, figure it into
an oblong quadrangle. Besides the towers upon these, there is a mole or
mount, to the east, from whence the great guns command the sea (scarce
half a mile distant) all round. It has but one church, though very large
and with a stately high spire, built near the north gate by Herbert,
Bishop of Norwich.' In only one respect the Yarmouth of to-day resembles
that of Camden's time. Then the north wind played the tyrant and plagued
the coast, and it does so still.