LIFE IN THE EARLY 1800s
There was no local newspaper except the Norfolk Chronicle, which started in 1725. This paper gave syndicated national news but gradually reported more local events. Herewith some extracts:
Norfolk Chronicle of 1800:
March 22nd:
Assizes of the County held in Norwich – High Sheriff Roger Kerrison. (list of gentry forming grand jury is given)
The Napoleonic War was raging, and the problems of food supply were causing difficulties:
“The learned Judge in his charge to the Grand Jury, adverted to the present scarcity of corn and complimented the town classes of this County on their very peaceable and proper conduct, and recommended them to the special protection of their superiors”.
Whether it was poverty or sheer innate criminal behaviour is not known, but the severity of the sentences passed by the judges in the early assizes is remarkable.
“Six prisoners were sentenced to death (5 reprieved by the Judge later). One of the five was John White, aged 17, sentenced for feloniously assaulting John Carter of Necton, shepherd, on the King’s Highway and robbing him of a silver watch and seal and other articles”.
“One Samuel White was not reprieved; he was accused of forgeries of a £1 note and was hanged on 19th April”.
May 26th – A Notice
“The East Dereham subscription Assembly will be held on Wednesday 4th June 1800.
Non subscription tickets: - Ladies 2/6d, Gentlemen 3/6d.
Capt. Woodhouse and Rev T C Munnings are Stewards”.
This event was a major social event in the Dereham year. Captain Woodhouse was almost certainly of the Kimberley family of Woodhouses, a family which played a major role in the political life of Norfolk, and was a major landowner in the Kimberley/Wymondham area, south of the town.
June 14th – Advertisement
“At Mr Buck’s Academy, East Dereham Norfolk.
Young Gentlemen are boarded and instructed in the English Language, Writing, Arithmetic etc.
Under 14 years of age at 16 guineas per annum, Above 14 years of age at 18 guineas per annum.
Entrance 1 guinea.
Day scholars at half a guinea a quarter.
Terms for Latin, French, Drawing etc. to be had with other particulars on application to the Academy, which will open again on 14th July 1800”
As Latin was an optional extra at Mr Buck’s, it did not qualify to be classified as a Grammar School. Indeed Dereham never did have its own boys' Grammar School. However, Mr Buck’s was a school for ‘Gentlemen’ and Miss Hannah’s for ‘Ladies’, and genteel ones at that.
August 16th – Advertisement.
“At Miss Hanner’s Academy, East Dereham, Norfolk
Young ladies are boarded and educated in a genteel and useful manner etc.-
Under 14 years – 16 guineas per annum
Over 14 years – 18 guineas per annum
Entrance – 1 guinea
Terms for French, Geography, Drawing, Music and Dancing to be had on application.”
June 21st Notice
“Hundreds of Mitford and Launditch.
Annual meeting of Directors and Acting Guardians of the Poor at the George Inn – Tuesday 1st July at 10.00 a.m.
When and where all persons willing to supply the House of Industry with one hundred chaldrons of the best coals from Wells, Cley, Blakeney or elsewhere, should appear.
The Directors and Guardians are particularly requested at attend this meeting, fully to consider the expediency of apprenticing children out to service by the year only”.
September 13th – FARM SALE
“Sale 22nd September at Wendling, near East Dereham, the farm o Mr Thomas Read.
18 Polled cows – horns removed. 5 Stots (young bullock)
12 Heifers and Weaners 9 pigs
8 useful horses Capital Tumbrill
2 string narrow wheeled carriages 2 road carts”
The sale of Mr Read’s farm shows a small stock farm being broken up. The Dereham area had for a long time been an area of small yeoman farmers, who had an air of determined independence about them.
Norfolk Chronicle 1801
There was much poverty and unemployment in the first years of the 19th century. The Hundreds of Mitford and Launditch had formed a Poor Law Union in 1776 and built its House of Industry in Gressenhall. The House of Industry would, it was hoped, pay for its upkeep by the work of its inmates, and the economies of scale would mean that the running of the ‘Poor Law’ would cost the two Hundreds less than it otherwise would have done.
24th January 1801 – Parish Relief
“Guardians to meet 11.00 am 30th January to consider ‘An Act for making better provision for the maintenance of the poor and for diminishing the consumption of bread corn by directing the manner of applying parish relief until 6th November 1801, and from thence until the end of six weeks after the meeting to the then next session of Parliament.
John Crisp, Clerk”
February 14th – Poor Relief
“Hundreds of Mitford and Launditch.
Owners and occupiers of lands etc. within the two Hundreds are to meet at King’s Arms, East Dereham at 11.00 a.m. to consider the draft of a bill prepared by an appointed committee to amend the present Act for the Relief and Employment of the poor within the two Hundreds.
February 22nd – House and Business for Sale.
“To be sold – a very convenient and good dwelling house, brick and tile, situated in Baxter’s Row, late in the occupation of Mr Samuel Burcham deceased: where he has for some forty years carried on a large and extensive trade in the business of a Carpenter, Joiner and House builder, with good and convenient workshops and other buildings, large timber yards and a pightle of land adjoining.
Also freehold messuage and a large garden in Dereham now in the occupation of Widow Cork. The above estates have rights of common over those large and rich commons in East Dereham (also 1 messuage, I double cottage, and 1 single cottage in Gressenhall – with right of common in Gressenhall”.
March 11th
“At Great Yarmouth: to be sold by Auction at the King’s Head in the Market Place, part of the cargo of the Vrow Ilsabe captured by His Majesty’s sloop of war, Bufy. I A Ommanney Esq. Commander.
Consisting of:
4 packs Spanish wool
26 chests stone sugar
10 hogs heads lump sugar
5 chests E Indies sugar
4 bales cinnamon
4 casks coffee
1 cask skins
2 casks horn
2 hogsheads cloves”
Compared with the much more detailed local reporting of 1881 in the Dereham and Fakenham Times, this is limited news, but it gives an illustration of what can be gleaned about Dereham from the early nineteenth century Norfolk newspaper.
Norfolk Chronicle of 1800:
March 22nd:
Assizes of the County held in Norwich – High Sheriff Roger Kerrison. (list of gentry forming grand jury is given)
The Napoleonic War was raging, and the problems of food supply were causing difficulties:
“The learned Judge in his charge to the Grand Jury, adverted to the present scarcity of corn and complimented the town classes of this County on their very peaceable and proper conduct, and recommended them to the special protection of their superiors”.
Whether it was poverty or sheer innate criminal behaviour is not known, but the severity of the sentences passed by the judges in the early assizes is remarkable.
“Six prisoners were sentenced to death (5 reprieved by the Judge later). One of the five was John White, aged 17, sentenced for feloniously assaulting John Carter of Necton, shepherd, on the King’s Highway and robbing him of a silver watch and seal and other articles”.
“One Samuel White was not reprieved; he was accused of forgeries of a £1 note and was hanged on 19th April”.
May 26th – A Notice
“The East Dereham subscription Assembly will be held on Wednesday 4th June 1800.
Non subscription tickets: - Ladies 2/6d, Gentlemen 3/6d.
Capt. Woodhouse and Rev T C Munnings are Stewards”.
This event was a major social event in the Dereham year. Captain Woodhouse was almost certainly of the Kimberley family of Woodhouses, a family which played a major role in the political life of Norfolk, and was a major landowner in the Kimberley/Wymondham area, south of the town.
June 14th – Advertisement
“At Mr Buck’s Academy, East Dereham Norfolk.
Young Gentlemen are boarded and instructed in the English Language, Writing, Arithmetic etc.
Under 14 years of age at 16 guineas per annum, Above 14 years of age at 18 guineas per annum.
Entrance 1 guinea.
Day scholars at half a guinea a quarter.
Terms for Latin, French, Drawing etc. to be had with other particulars on application to the Academy, which will open again on 14th July 1800”
As Latin was an optional extra at Mr Buck’s, it did not qualify to be classified as a Grammar School. Indeed Dereham never did have its own boys' Grammar School. However, Mr Buck’s was a school for ‘Gentlemen’ and Miss Hannah’s for ‘Ladies’, and genteel ones at that.
August 16th – Advertisement.
“At Miss Hanner’s Academy, East Dereham, Norfolk
Young ladies are boarded and educated in a genteel and useful manner etc.-
Under 14 years – 16 guineas per annum
Over 14 years – 18 guineas per annum
Entrance – 1 guinea
Terms for French, Geography, Drawing, Music and Dancing to be had on application.”
June 21st Notice
“Hundreds of Mitford and Launditch.
Annual meeting of Directors and Acting Guardians of the Poor at the George Inn – Tuesday 1st July at 10.00 a.m.
When and where all persons willing to supply the House of Industry with one hundred chaldrons of the best coals from Wells, Cley, Blakeney or elsewhere, should appear.
The Directors and Guardians are particularly requested at attend this meeting, fully to consider the expediency of apprenticing children out to service by the year only”.
September 13th – FARM SALE
“Sale 22nd September at Wendling, near East Dereham, the farm o Mr Thomas Read.
18 Polled cows – horns removed. 5 Stots (young bullock)
12 Heifers and Weaners 9 pigs
8 useful horses Capital Tumbrill
2 string narrow wheeled carriages 2 road carts”
The sale of Mr Read’s farm shows a small stock farm being broken up. The Dereham area had for a long time been an area of small yeoman farmers, who had an air of determined independence about them.
Norfolk Chronicle 1801
There was much poverty and unemployment in the first years of the 19th century. The Hundreds of Mitford and Launditch had formed a Poor Law Union in 1776 and built its House of Industry in Gressenhall. The House of Industry would, it was hoped, pay for its upkeep by the work of its inmates, and the economies of scale would mean that the running of the ‘Poor Law’ would cost the two Hundreds less than it otherwise would have done.
24th January 1801 – Parish Relief
“Guardians to meet 11.00 am 30th January to consider ‘An Act for making better provision for the maintenance of the poor and for diminishing the consumption of bread corn by directing the manner of applying parish relief until 6th November 1801, and from thence until the end of six weeks after the meeting to the then next session of Parliament.
John Crisp, Clerk”
February 14th – Poor Relief
“Hundreds of Mitford and Launditch.
Owners and occupiers of lands etc. within the two Hundreds are to meet at King’s Arms, East Dereham at 11.00 a.m. to consider the draft of a bill prepared by an appointed committee to amend the present Act for the Relief and Employment of the poor within the two Hundreds.
February 22nd – House and Business for Sale.
“To be sold – a very convenient and good dwelling house, brick and tile, situated in Baxter’s Row, late in the occupation of Mr Samuel Burcham deceased: where he has for some forty years carried on a large and extensive trade in the business of a Carpenter, Joiner and House builder, with good and convenient workshops and other buildings, large timber yards and a pightle of land adjoining.
Also freehold messuage and a large garden in Dereham now in the occupation of Widow Cork. The above estates have rights of common over those large and rich commons in East Dereham (also 1 messuage, I double cottage, and 1 single cottage in Gressenhall – with right of common in Gressenhall”.
March 11th
“At Great Yarmouth: to be sold by Auction at the King’s Head in the Market Place, part of the cargo of the Vrow Ilsabe captured by His Majesty’s sloop of war, Bufy. I A Ommanney Esq. Commander.
Consisting of:
4 packs Spanish wool
26 chests stone sugar
10 hogs heads lump sugar
5 chests E Indies sugar
4 bales cinnamon
4 casks coffee
1 cask skins
2 casks horn
2 hogsheads cloves”
Compared with the much more detailed local reporting of 1881 in the Dereham and Fakenham Times, this is limited news, but it gives an illustration of what can be gleaned about Dereham from the early nineteenth century Norfolk newspaper.
The information in this section is taken from a document written by members of Dereham WEA and the University of Cambridge Board of Extra-Mural Studies led by Chris Barringer in 1989, and given to the Dereham Archive in 1998.
The original authors were: Joan Adams, Chris Barringer, Ben Norton, Teddy O' Donnell, Brian and Ruth Warwick-Smith, with help and additional material from Colin and Anne Chambers, Joy Lodey, Sharon Lake and Beryl Flatt.
The text was prepared for this website by Steffi Spooner.
The original authors were: Joan Adams, Chris Barringer, Ben Norton, Teddy O' Donnell, Brian and Ruth Warwick-Smith, with help and additional material from Colin and Anne Chambers, Joy Lodey, Sharon Lake and Beryl Flatt.
The text was prepared for this website by Steffi Spooner.
