(Vol. ix., p. 515.)
Your correspondent T. A. T. can find a full, but in one respect a most
unsatisfactory reply to his inquiry, in the preface to a _History of the
Religious Orders and Communities, and of the Hospital and Castle of
Norwich_, by Mr. John Kirkpatrick, Treasurer of the Great Hospital, bearing
the names of Edwards and Hughes, London, and Stevenson and Hatchett,
Norwich, as publishers, and dated 1845. This volume was printed at the
expense of Hudson Gurney, Esq., whose "well-known liberality and laudable
desire to perpetuate the knowledge of the antiquities of his native city,"
the preface fitly records; but it was not, in the commercial sense of the
word, _published_; and, therefore, the information it gives may not be
generally accessible. The following is the list of the collections which
were "safe in the custody of the corporation about thirty years ago (say
between 1800 and 1810), when M. de Hague held the office of town-clerk."
"1. A thick volume of the early history and jurisdiction of the city;
date 1720.
2. A similar folio volume, being an account of the military state of
the city, its walls, towns, ponds, pits, wells, pumps, &c.; date 1722.