13.--Died at East Dereham, aged 85, Mr. James Philo, who had filled the
office of parish clerk for fifty years. ("The dignified High Church
clerk" in "Lavengro.")
21.--The _Crim. Con._ action, Muskett _v._ Gurney, tried at the Thetford
Assizes in 1818, was re-opened in the Court of King's Bench, when further
evidence was adduced on behalf of the plaintiff, to whom the jury awarded
2,000 pounds damages. (May 17th, 1830: "Married, at St. Mary's,
Marylebone, Richard Hanbury Gurney, to Mary, only daughter of Mr. William
Jary, of Burlingham.")
--A meeting of 200 insurers in the Norwich Equitable Insurance Office was
held at the Norfolk Hotel, Norwich, "for the purpose of taking into
consideration the conduct and management of the funds of the society, and
of dissolving the institution, with the view of the just redistribution
of the funds, the formation of a new society under a more protective
management and control." Mr. Skipper was elected registrar and secretary
of the new society.
26.--The pantomime, "Punch's Festival, or Harlequin Christmas-box," was
produced at Norwich Theatre, under the superintendence of Mr. T. Hill, of
Drury Lane Theatre. Mr. Thorne painted "a grand moving panorama,
commencing with a view of the intended Port of Norwich (ships lying in
the basin), leading through the valley of Thorpe, embracing Col. Harvey's
house (Thorpe Hall), Hinsby's Gardens, and intermediate scenery to Lake
Lothing, and concluded with the grand junction lock at Lowestoft in its
present state." The last scene, "Norwich a Port," concluded with "a
grand display of fireworks by Chevalier Southby, of the Royal Gardens,
Vauxhall, and the London theatres."
28.--Died at Lynn, Mr. Benjamin Smith, aged 93. "He was a man of rather
eccentric habits. His gravestone had been placed in the churchyard of
St. Margaret's nearly ten years before his death, having only a blank for
his age and day of decease. In his personal habits he was frugal almost
to parsimony, but his benevolence was only bound by his means. He
entirely rebuilt St. James's almshouses for 12 widows, and an abode for
the Reader; and erected and partly endowed another almshouse (called the
Wesleyan almshouse) for six poor women."
1830.