|
|
Pre-
1700 | Please click here if you wish to view events leading up to 1700. | | 1700 | By the end of the 18th century the Guildhall Feoffees had built a Dispensary in Angel Lane to provide out-patient care to the poor of Bury.
In Haverhill as the seventeenth century gave place to the eighteenth, weaving began to expand in the town, no doubt as a result of the influence of Flemish Huguenot refugees who had settled in the eastern counties in the seventeenth century, particularly in its second half.
The year began with one of the coldest winters on record. Freezing NNE winds continued to blow through April and May. | | 1702 | Queen Ann came to the throne. By now, Suffolk was dominated by the Tory party who controlled both County parliamentary seats. Notable local Tories were Sir Robert Davers of Rushbrooke and Sir Thomas Hanmer of Mildenhall.
The house now called Angel Corner was built on the Angel Hill in Bury. | | 1703 | Bury's MP Sir Robert Davers bought the manor of Rushbrooke.The estate included Little Welnetham. He owned sugar plantations in Barbados, planted by the first Robert Davers from 1635 onwards. Despite his wealth, he seems to have been unable to read and write, having been brought up to run the slaves on the plantation. He continued as an MP and died in 1722. | | 1705 | About this time the first Congregationalist Chapel was dedicated in Whiting Street. Before this time, members mostly met in private houses, and it is likely that the chapel was an adapted house. A proper purpose built church had to wait another ten years. | | 1707 | The Act of Union joined England and Scotland.
In Bury there were a series of about five separate fires in the centre of town between 1702 and 1707, around the Churchgate area. Luckily the fine Meeting House in Churchgate Street was unscathed.
In 1707, the "Fundamental and Standing Rules and Orders for the Charity Schools in St EdmundsBury in Suffolk", were published. These began "Whereas several schools have been lately set up and established by the voluntary subscriptions of charitable and well disposed persons in the several parishes of this town, for instructing poor children, whose parents are not able to afford them education, and for qualifying them to get their living; and for as much as good government conduces to those ends, the following Rules and Orders are by the said subscribers directed and appointed to be observed."
The boys wore green caps and neckcloths, the girls wore Dolphins with green worsted or taffety. Only Thursday afternoons could be for play, but this was "by no means to be grant(ed) too freqently". They would break up three times a year at the usual festivals, "and so by no means at Bury Fair, beginning on the Festival of St Matthew." | | 1711 | The first Turnpike Trust in Suffolk took over the Ipswich to Scole road, followed by the Ipswich to Bury road. There was a toll bar at Sicklesmere and the octagonal keeper's house still remains.
The Unitarian Meeting House was built in Churchgate Street for local Bury presbyterians, and remains one of Bury's more remarkable buildings. It replaced an earlier Meeting House built for the Presbyterians. Unitarianism was not embraced until 1801. | | 1713 | Sir John Hervey of Ickworth had been a supporter of the 1688 revolution and in 1713 also supported the Hanoverian accession. He was at Greenwich to welcome the new King George I into the Country. By the time of the coronation in 1714 he was made the Earl of Bristol. | | 1714 | George I of Hanover was given the throne.
By this time the Bury Fair was less important as a market for merchandise, and more important as a "market for ladies".
John Eastland, a dancing master, bought the large house at the end of Angel Hill, and converted it into an Assembly House. Today this building is called the Athenaeum, but it has performed a similar public function ever since. It had been one of the largest private houses in Bury, for it had 17 hearths recorded in the Hearth Tax returns of 1674. It was on three floors at this time and Eastland had his ballroom on the second floor. The gentry would pay a subscription to use the place, and assemblies were regularly arranged. In 1715, John Hervey the first Earl of Bristol, recorded that he had paid his subscription to Mr Eastland's New Rooms in Bury. The building would stay in this form until 1789, when the ballroom was removed to the Ground Floor, as it is today.
Suffolk's first newspaper began in 1714. It was the Suffolk Mercury or St Edmundsbury Post. It would last until about 1740. | | 1716 | The Lark navigation was constructed from Mildenhall to Bury St Edmunds under an Act of Parliament passed in 1700. By 1700 the Lark was no longer navigable any further than Mildenhall from the sea, and so Henry Ashley obtained the Act to allow navigation as far as Eastgate Street. The Corporation of Bury were afraid of him setting up a wharfage monopoly, and opposed the plan. All Ashley could do was build his canal as far as Fornham, outside the Borough boundary. The canal seems to have been profitable immediately, largely for bringing in coal. Boys in the 1950's still called the Lark behind the Fornham Road, "the Coal Rivers".
A new purpose built chuch was completed for the Congregationalists in Whiting Street. | | 1720 | The mansion in the abbey grounds,lived in by Sir John Eyer in the late 16th century, and now known as the Abbot's Palace was demolished. | | 1721 | A major financial crisis occurred with the bursting of the so-called South Seas Bubble in September.Many investors who had overstretched themselves now faced ruin. One such man was Arundel Coke of Honey Hill, Bury St Edmunds, of whom, more will be heard later.
In Bury there was an enquiry into a supposed Right of Way from Lower Baxter Street to the Angel Hill. Obviously by this time any such access must have been no longer self evident, but it is entirely possible that the original street pattern had included a street, or alleyway off the corner of Angel Hill, between the Borough Offices and number 8 Angel Hill, also called the Angel Corner. | | 1722 | A highly publicised trial took place of Arundel Coke, who lived in Honey Hill, Bury St Edmunds. Coke was a barrister, but lived a flamboyant lifestyle, and was always short of money. His home was right next door to the Manor House, and is a stone clad house which today is called St Denys. He was also one of the Guildhall Feoffees, and a pillar of local society. He had been facing ruin following the financial crisis known as the South Sea Bubble. He believed that if his wife's brother were to die, his wife would inherit his fortune. The brother in law was Edward Crisp, who lived in a very fine house at number 6, Angel Hill, which is today the Tourist Information Office.
Coke hatched a plot to hire a ruffian called Woodburn, who was also a local handyman, to murder Crisp. Following a New Year Dinner party at his house, Coke took Crisp through the Great Churchyard on the pretext of visiting Mrs. Monk's Coffee House. Woodburn then attacked them with a knife. Coke ran off, leaving Crisp to his fate, but Woodburn bungled the attempt and only managed to slash open Crisp's nose.
They were tried at the Assizes, in the Court of Common Pleas, at Bury. On 13th March 1721, they were found guilty, and sentence was passed the following day. Both Coke and Woodburn were hanged after Coke confessed to the plot.
This case illustrates the problem that modern people can have with the dating systems in use in the past. Until 1751, the year began on Lady Day, the 25th March. From 1st January 1752, the year began on 1st January, a practice already in use on the continent. Therefore the date known at the time as 13th March 1721, to modern eyes would seem to be properly called 13th March 1722. Dates have been "adjusted" like this over the years by later writers, and sometimes have got adjusted more than once, so that this trial has been written up as happening in 1721 or 1722, or even 1723. Does this matter? Yes it does matter if we are looking to follow the sequence of events, or the cause and effect. To modern minds the events of January, February and March 1721 are assumed to have taken place before the events of April to December, 1721. But to the person in 1721 they naturally took them to occur after April to December. | | 1724 | Daniel Defoe wrote his "Tour through the Eastern Counties" and described Bury at the time as a major social capital. Its old cloth industries had long gone. The weaving of darnex coverlets was declining and only spinning remained as a major manufacture. "The beauty of this town consists in the number of gentry who dwell in and near it, ..... the affluence and plenty they live in". Bury fair attracted people for "the company", not for the trade. It was also called, "The Montpelier of Suffolk, and perhaps of England".
Suffolk had been an important textile manufacturing region since the Middle Ages, but by this time very little cloth was made in the County. Sudbury and Long Melford still made says and perpetuanas, and this would carry on for the next sixty years. Calimancoes were made in Lavenham, tammies in Stowmarket, and bays and says in Nayland.
Mostly, however, weaving was replaced by wool combing and yarn spinning for the worsted makers in Colchester and Norwich, and Bury was a growing centre for these trades. | | 1727 | George II took the throne.
The Great Court of St Edmunds' Abbey was acquired by the Davers family. | | 1729 | Possibly one of the ceremonial maces was damaged around this time as one of them has a shaft which was cast new in 1729. The corporation paid £25 17s 6d for the repairs. | | 1730 | The firm of Orbell Ray must have been of considerable size, even at this early date, as Ray insured his goods and stock in trade at £500. This was a sizeable sum for a provincial town, and we must remember that it was normal to be considerably under insured at the time. The stocks would have been wool and yarn. | | 1731 | Samuel Kent bought Fornham St Genevieve as a country estate. He was a wealthy London malt distiller.
Around this time Woolpit was noted for making the best white bricks. | | 1732 | The Earl of Oxford recorded that avenues of trees were newly planted in the Great Churchyard at Bury. There is some evidence that at first they planted Poplars, rather than the Limes of today. | | 1734 | Bury got its first theatre, purpose built on the first floor in the Market Cross. Robert Adam would improve it 40 years later. Performances of plays and other entertainments had previously taken place in the Guldhall and even the Shire Hall. Inn yards provided the less well off in society with the same function, but Bury Society now demanded some better facilities.
The room above the Town Cross had hitherto been used as a Woolhall, or Wool Exchange, as well as for other public events, before this new work. The Woolhall was now moved down the road. | | 1737 | John Hervey completed the building of the Manor House in Honey Hill for his wife, Lady Elizabeth Hervey, to live and entertain in town during the Bury Season. It was designed by Sir James Burrough.
From 1737 for about a century, a one day stage coach operated from Bury to London. It ran from the Angel three times a week, and was called The Old Bury, and the Angel needed to be able to stable up to 70 horses to run her. The Angel was not to be the only coaching inn, as they were called, as there were several others.
The Greyhound in the Buttermarket ran a coach to London via Braintree, taking two days. The Three Tuns in Crown Street was the inn for the Norwich Mercury. | | 1738 | Samuel Cumberland, a wealthy yarn maker of Bury St Edmunds, had insured his property with his partner, for £1,500, showing that Bury's yarn manufacturers were doing very well. | | 1740 | Downing published his map of Bury, which looks very curious to modern eyes, with west at the top of the plan.
Clopton's Asylum was built in the Great Churchyard in Bury. Today it is the Provosts' house. The land was acquired by Trustees in 1735, and the fine new building seems to have been ready for its first residents in 1744. Dr Poley Clopton left money for its erection and upkeep for six poor men and six poor women who had "paid Scot and Lot without having received Parochial Relief".
By the middle of the 1700's a traveller to Haverhill had noted that 'every cottage brought forth a clatter as the workers applied themselves to their looms'. The cloth produced was of the heavy linsey-wolsey variety used principally by the agricultural worker. It was towards the end of the century that the effect of the Industrial Revolution began to be felt. Master weavers began to appear, who bought up the finished cloth and marketed it, chiefly in London; woollen cloth giving way about this time to checks and fustians. | | 1741 | Bury corporation threatened to prosecute anybody found selling Lincolnshire wool in the the two Bury wool halls without paying their market tolls. This decision was to be advertised in Stamford, Lincs, as well as in Bury on the Market Cross. This long staple wool was the basis of the high quality yarn produced around Bury at this time. | | 1743 | On 27th June 1743 the 12th Regiment of Foot fought against the French in the Battle of Dettingen, the last battle in which an English King (George II) led troops into the fray. Their motto "Stabilis" or "Steady" was also adopted at this time from the personal arms of the Colonel of the Regiment at Dettingen. | | 1745 | The Jacobite Rebellion occurred in Scotland under Bonnie Price Charlie.
John Battely had lived from 1646 to 1708, and was educated at Bury School, eventually becoming Archdeacon of Canterbury. During his lifetime he wrote the first history of Bury St Edmunds, but it had never been published.
In 1745 the Opera Posthuma or Posthumous Works of John Battely were finally published, with assistance from Oliver Battely and Sir James Burrough. This work was entirely in Latin and consisted of Antiquitates Rutupinae (Reculver) and, more importantly for our Chronicle, Antiquitates S. Edmundi Burgi ad Annum MCCLXXII Perductae. It outlined the history of Bury from Roman times to 1272. It included the much reproduced engraving of the Abbot's Palace drawn by Sir James Burrough in 1720, and the copy of Canute's Charter included in the Sacrist's Register, folio 20. King Edward's charter and a list of Abbots was also included.
Sir James Burrough was a well known antiquarian and amateur architect in the area. He lived from 1691 until 1764, and was the Master of Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge from 1754 until his death. He himself had amassed a collection of notes and drawings on the antiquities of Bury, which he left to the library of St James's Church. In 1736 he had advised the wife of the Earl of Bristol on the form and design of the Manor House in today's Honey Hill. | | 1746 | The rebellion in Scotland was finally put down. | | 1747 | Downing's map of Bury perhaps did not show all the details required, and so, by 1747, Thomas Warren had made his own survey. He placed east at the top of his plan, a tradition which went back to medieval times, when east was seen to have a religious significance. Thomas Warren's new Town Plan dated 1747 has the following market places marked upon it:
- Horse market - located in today's St Mary's Square
- Butter and Fish market - located in today's Buttermarket from Marks and Spencer's down to Abbeygate Street
- Beast Market - located in today's market area between Woolworth's and Marks and Spencer's.
- Great Market - located in today's Cornhill and Traverse area.
The present day Honey Hill is so named on Warren's map, but its medieval name had been Schoolhall Street as the monastic song school and grammar school had been located east of St Mary's Church and on the site of the Shire Hall. Thomas Warren senior was a surveyor, but described himself as a schoolmaster of Bury. However, he is also known to have been the first Clerk to the Trustees of Dr Clopton's Charity. He had a son, also called Thomas, who was the second Clerk to those same Trustees and re-issued his father's map in 1776, updated, and undertook his own town survey. Dr Clopton's Charity still exists.
In 1747 Parliament reorganised Poor Relief, by encouraging parishes to form Unions for this purpose. James Vernon left a farmhouse at Great Wratting for use as a workhouse for four parishes. The benefits of scale were being appreciated, and after this date other combined centralised workhouses were set up in Bury and Sudbury. At this time the St James's Poorhouse was in Eastgate Street, and St Mary's was near the Shire Hall. After 1747, the two Bury parishes of St James and St Mary's were incorporated for poor law purposes under a Court of Guardians of the Poor. A girl's school on the site of the College of Sweet Man Jesus was purchased and converted into the Union Workhouse for 200 people by 1748. This College Street workhouse would remain in use right through to 1884.
Until 1747 Bury's two MP's were virtually picked by the Earl of Bristol and the corporation happily agreed with him. After this date the Duke of Grafton also shared this patronage. Sudbury's two MP's seats were available more or less to the highest bidder. | | 1748 | Bury St Edmunds was blessed with a new workhouse in College Street completed in 1748, and from the beginning the inmates were employed in yarn spinning on contract to the local yarn makers. This continued for many years. | | 1749 | The once mighty west front of the old abbey church had been converted into living accomodation, and other secular uses. In 1749 Samsons Tower was used as stabling by the Six Bells public house, which stood on Chequers Square, and is today the Masonic Lodge. Previously, it had been stabling for the Assembly Rooms. | | 1750 | Around this time the Shire Hall, the old monastic school building, was rebuilt. It stood more or less opposite The Hervey's Manor House, and was very important as the site of the Assizes, which brought in tourists to view trials, as well as the legal personnel.
In the 1750's the town's medical centre was in Angel Lane at the Dispensary. Smallpox had been a problem for a hundred years and there was a particularly bad outbreak in this decade. Vaccination would become more accepted in the next half century, particularly after half the population of Bury seem to have suffered symptoms during this outbreak.
Henry Bunbury, the caricuturist and cartoonist was born at Great Barton. His father was the Reverend Sir William Bunbury, the 5th baronet, who owned the estates of Great Barton and Mildenhall. Henry was sent to school at Westminster and to university at St Catherine's College, Cambridge. His work stretched from his student days until his death in 1811. | | 1751 | Until the end of 1751 the year began in Britain on Lady Day, the 25th March. If March was therefore counted as the first month, this explains why September was the seventh, October, the eighth, November the ninth and December the tenth month, as in their names. | | 1752 | England and Wales adopted the Gregorian Calendar and an 11 day correction was needed to bring Britain into line with Europe. The day after September 2nd became September 14th 1752. The new year now began on January 1st. This new system had been in use in the Catholic world since 1582 when Pope Gregory instituted months of unequal length, and invented the leap year to keep local time in step with the movement of the planets.
At Bury the Quakers opened their Meeting House in St Johns Street, where it remains today.
| | 1753 | In 1753 Orbell Ray the younger inherited a prosperous wool and yarn business from his father at Bury, in Guildhall Street. Although Bury has not been regarded as an industrial town, by this time there were many large yarn making concerns in the town. One of the biggest was that of the Ray family. Four years later the firm would be joined by James Oakes, and the yarn business would grow and prosper until the 1780's.
In Bury most of the textile merchants were non - conformists, but both Ray and Oakes were unusual in this business by being Anglican. |
| |
|
| 1759 | Elections at this time were very expensive for the parliamentary candidates, as they were routinely expected to treat the electors and their families. Although only the 32 men of the council could vote, Admiral Hervey spent £400 on entertaining 360 people at the Angel Hotel on New Year's Day.
One of the most famous of the 12th Regiments' engagements was on 1st August 1759 at the Battle of Minden. Six British regiments, including the 12th Foot on the right of the leading line marched through withering cannon fire and repulsed six elite French cavalry charges. Sheer determination and steadiness won the day, and the soldiers plucked roses to decorate their hats. Today Minden Day is still commemorated by a parade and the wearing of a red rose and a yellow rose.
| | 1760 | George III came to the throne.
Despite all the new dissenting religions, the Catholics still numbered about 158 in Bury at this time. They were always thought of as recusants, rather than dissenters. Although the Mass was still illegal, Father John Gage, a jesuit, built himself a house and chapel in Westgate Street. He was brother of the owner of Hengrave Hall, and the adjacent site would receive a new Catholic church in 1837. | | 1761 | The origin of Methodism in Haverhill seems to date from this year when a barn in that town belonging to John Adams was licensed for itinerant preachers.
Between 1761 and 1765 the town gates of Bury were demolished in order to improve the flow of traffic.
The sale of livestock took place in Bury roughly where the Corn Exchange stands today. Butchers had long had a Shambles there for the preparation of carcases, and by now the area was probably in need of improvement. A new Butchers Shambles was erected at this time, in a splendid style with colonnades, and arches. Remnants of this building was incorporated into the Corn Exchange finally built here in 1862, on its north face, and the area between the Traverse and Cornhill retains the name The Shambles today. | | 1762 | The road from Bury to Sudbury and Clare became a turnpike, following an Act of Parliament in 1762.
The Grammar School in Northgate Street was enlarged to give accomodation to 30 boarders. An extension was tacked on to its southern end, unbalancing the symmetry of the original facade.
The South Gate stood at the bottom of Southgate Street and was pulled down in 1762. Just outside it used to stand St Petronilla's Hospital for female lepers.
John Wesley, the great Methodist preacher, recorded in his diary that he preached in a barn in Haverhill. He also visited Bury 17 times over several years. | | 1763 | The East Gate was pulled down in 1763. It was close to the Abbots Bridge. | | 1764 | In the 1764 edition of his book "The Suffolk Traveller", J. Kirby described the land north-west of Bury as "delicious champaign fields". Champaign means "open country". The area we call Breckland was then known as the fielding and retained its medieval character of open-fields, heaths, sheepwalks and rabbit warrens. After the sheep, a corn crop would be taken, but the soil remained poor.
In mid-Suffolk by contrast, farming was more intensive and productive. Turnips had been grown for winter cattle feed for a century; carrots, clover and other crops were rotated. This area was called the Woodlands or High Suffolk and dairy cattle were also important and famous nationally for their milk production. Defoe had written earlier that Suffolk made "the best butter and perhaps the worst cheese in England".
John Wesley travelled through the area to Norwich on many occasions, often staying at Lakenheath, a village with a revivalist tradition. In 1757 he filled the newly built "preaching house" there.
The old North Gate was pulled down in 1764. Today the site is either under or next to the Northgate Roundabout. | | 1765 | The West Gate which stood at the junction of St Andrews Street and Westgate Street was pulled down in July 1765, and the materials sold for ten guineas. The Risby Gate which went across the road by the Cock, now the Grapes Inn, at the top of Risbygate Street was also pulled down. | | 1766 | The main Colchester, Haverhill and Cambridge road was turnpiked in 1766. News travelled faster and trade and communications all became easier and cheaper. Today's Withersfield Road in Haverhill was called Red Cross Road at the time. | | 1767 | The 3rd Duke of Grafton, Augustus Henry Fitzroy, become Prime Minister from 1767 to 1770, the only Suffolk resident to hold that office. | | 1768 | The Great Plague of Haverhill killed 79 people in an already depleted population.
In Bury, Orbell Ray died, and left his valuable share of the Ray yarn-making business to his nephew, James Oakes, later to be known to us from the diaries he wrote from 1778 to 1827. James Oakes was born in November, 1741, the son of James Oakes senior and Susan Ray. He was educated at the King Edward VI Grammar School in Bury, and had left at 16, to be apprenticed for four years with his uncle, Orbell Ray. He had been with Ray eleven years by 1768.
Oakes's father had come to Bury from Lancashire some time before 1726, and set up as a wholesaler in Manchester cotton goods at the top of Cook Row, today called Abbeygate Street. In 1729 he married a local woman who died in 1737, leaving him some property. In 1741 he married Susan Ray, giving him entry to the leading social, commercial and political families in Bury. The Rays were substantial clothiers and yarn makers, and together with about 20 other yarn makers made up a major industry in Bury. James Oakes senior had died in 1759 as an eminent tradesman of Bury.
By the 1760's all the wool used in the Suffolk yarn industry came from long fleeced wool brought from Lincolnshire and some other counties. This wool was traded in two wool halls in Bury, having been brought in from Stourbridge Fair and from London markets. Stourbridge was the source of most of the wool sold into Norfolk and Suffolk. Defoe had called it the biggest fair in the nation.
The short fleece wool from Suffolk and Norfolk sheep was sold in these woolhalls and then had to be sent to Yorkshire to be carded and spun for woollen cloths. Our local sheep were bred more for eating, and had not produced long staple wool since the seventeenth century.
Lincolnshire wool arrived in Bury via the waggon service to Stamford, and from the Midlands by way of the Lark navigation to Kings Lynn and beyond. Ships also landed wool at Ipswich, and at Yarmouth, which could be waggoned to Bury.
The best of the Romney Marsh wool, from Kent, also went to Norwich and to Bury.
By this time Ray, Oakes and company were now scouring and washing the raw wool as part of their manufacturing process of turning raw wool into high quality yarn. This was done in town, mainly in St Andrews Street South, in large buildings with open areas for drying it afterwards. Previously the farmers may have washed the wool, or there were specialist woolstaplers who did it.
Apprenticeship registers for 1750 to 1765 also showed that there were more woolcombers in and around Bury St Edmunds than anywhere else in Suffolk. Hadleigh came next in numbers followed by Kersey, Boxford, Lavenham, Glemsford, Nayland and Sudbury. Oakes reckoned that one comber produced enough wool to keep 30 spinners in work. Again, if they worked for Oakes, it would have been behind his Guildhall Street home, in St Andrews Street, in a series of comb shops in one large narrow building. These were built between 1745 and 1758. This was a considerable concentration of labour and capital for this mainly pre-industrial time.
The combs used in the combing of wool needed to be heated, and Oakes seems to have been bringing in coal for this purpose via the Lark Navigation, by this time. This also probably led him to sell coal on to other local users, as by 1788, he was included in a list of Bury coal merchants.
The spinning side of the business was, however, anything but industrialised, and it is likely that Oakes employed at least 1,500 spinners working in their own homes, throughout the countryside. These networks of spinners extended over large areas, as Oakes had workers from Burwell to Woodbridge, a spread of 60 miles. Packmen took loads of combed wool to local shopkeepers or publicans who acted as Putters - Out to their own local teams of spinners. | | 1769 | The Corporation of Bury St Edmunds built a market house for the fish and herb market.
A turnpike was established from Bury to Ixworth and Norwich with a tollbar operating at Great Barton, following the Act of 1769. | | 1770 | The Bury to Newmarket turnpike was set up following an act in 1770, with tolls collected at Risby. | | 1773 | Moreton Hall was built for Professor John Symonds by Robert Adam. Symonds Road reminds us of him today. | | 1774 | Robert and James Adam produced designs for refurbishing The Market Cross, which was originally erected in 1608, and was now felt in need of improvement. The work probably lasted until 1780, and consisted mainly of enclosing the old building with an elegant stone faced brick facade. The ground floor was still open and used for the corn exchange. The upper floor was already used as a theatre. The Earl of Bristol subscribed £500 to works on the New Theatre as it was called.
The Guildhall Feoffees started rebuilding the Angel, a job which took two years.
In 1766 Sir Charles Davers, the fourth generation of the Barbados sugar family, had returned to Rushbrook from his army career. He had 8 children by a Mrs Treice who lived with him. He was well liked, and although he was a Whig, although a rather independent one, he was elected as an MP in 1774, and would be consistently returned to Parliament by the corporation of Bury for the next 28 years. | | 1775 | Alexander Cumming invented the first flushing water closet. This was important because it led to the introduction of a water-borne system of sewage disposal. As it very slowly became adopted, it led to a need to deal with sewage in a new way.
When the 13 tobacco colonies in mainland America were fighting for independence, the sugar colonies of the West Indies stayed loyal to the crown. | | 1776 | Thomas Warren junior updated and re-issued his father's map of Bury, produced first in 1747. This edition would show illustrations of notable buildings in the town, including the Robert Adam Market Cross, newly designed and started in 1774.
From 1774 to 1776, the Angel Hotel was rebuilt more or less into its present appearance. Inns of various forms had stood on its site since at least 1282, when an agreement was made by Abbot John and the convent of the abbey to let property here as a taberna.
Adam Smith wrote in his "Wealth of Nations", that the sugar crop from St Kitts was worth more than the whole tobacco output of the 13 American tobacco colonies.
Thrushes and Blackbirds were killed in great numbers by the harsh winter weather in 1776. | | 1777 | At the age of eleven, young Robert Bloomfield went to work as a farmer's boy at Sapiston, on the farm of his uncle by marriage, Mr William Austin. His four years on the farm, despite his lack of strength, were to be the basis for much of his poetry in later life. He was born in 1766, in the small village of Honington, but the family were poor and overcrowded, and he was lucky to get the job with his uncle, living-in at his farmhouse near the watermill and church at Sapiston. | | 1778 | James Oakes, a prominent Bury entrepreneur, started his diaries, which he kept up until 1827. James Oakes was 36 years old and had been a yarn merchant for 16 years. He was a member of the corporation, Alderman and a trustee of all the town's major charities. In 1778 he built 12 cottages next to his wool combing sheds in St Andrews Street to attract labour by offering the workers and their families homes to live in. | | 1779 | One of James Oakes's first diary entries recorded that Maria, his eldest daughter was innoculated against the smallpox. Edward Jenner was developing the use of cowpox innoculations as a preventative against the smallpox in humans.
The Angel was remodelled to more or less its present appearance. | | 1780 | From about 1780, Sir Thomas Cullum practised surgery and medicine from Consulting Rooms in Northgate Street. Many of his remedies would seem dangerous and frightening to us today. The Cullum family lived at Hardwick House in Hawstead. | | 1781 | The 12th Regiment of Foot was stationed in Gibraltar for 14 years from 1769 to 1783, and was involved in the Siege of Gibraltar by the Spanish and French from 1779 to 1783. On 17th November 1781 the Siege was broken by a Grand Sortie and its main body was 12th of Foot.
For services in the siege the Regiment took the arms of Gibraltar as its crest and the Castle and Key were part of the cap badge and colours from then on. This remains as part of the Royal Anglian Regiment badge today.
In 1878 when a new Depot was built at Bury St Edmunds it was known as Gibraltar Barracks.
Robert Bloomfield moved to London from Sapiston to live with his brother George, and to follow him into the trade of shoe making. He would never again live permanently in Suffolk, although he would become famous as the poet who wrote "The Farmer's Boy."
| | 1782 | In 1782 the 12th Regiment of Foot became the East Suffolk Regiment.
The Bury and Norwich Post was founded with offices in Hatter Street and a printing works. For its first 3 years of life it was called the Bury Post. This newspaper operation was incorporated into the Bury Free Press in 1932.
From 1780 to 1782, the price of wool fell sharply. The Lincolnshire growers started to agitate to allow them to export their wool, something they had been forbidden to do since the sixteenth century. Wool manufacturers like Oakes objected to this, as they relied on cheap wool for their own business success. Things were left as they were until 1786. | | 1783 | Hodskinson's map in his "Survey of Suffolk" showed that the area of St Edmundsbury at this time was rich in great houses and parks. The biggest estate was the Duke of Grafton's at Euston. Others were at Livermere, Culford, Ampton, Lord Bristol's at Ickworth; Rougham, Rushbrooke and Fornham St Genevieve.
Wratting Park was a large estate near Haverhill.
The quality of spun yarn produced in the cottages of Suffolk had long been a problem for the weavers of Norwich who took most of their output. Short measures were frequently handed in, and so in 1783 the Norwich manufacturers persuaded the Suffolk yarn makers to promote an Act of Parliament which would allow them to appoint inspectors to enforce quality control over the spinners. The yarn committee held its first meeting in 1784 at the Wool Pack in Bury. The Woolpack public house was adjacent to the Woolhall, at the top of Abbeygate Street. It later became known as Everard's Hotel, and is a Pizza House today. After this meeting, wayward spinners were prosecuted and fined for trying to cheat on the yarn supplied.
We know that the workhouses were also used to provide spinning labour at this time, taking in wool from men like Oakes who had to tender for the privilege. In 1783 Oakes was bidding to supply the Melton House of Industry, north of Woodbridge, but it was won by Cuberlands, also of Bury. The firm of Harmers of Bury came second and Oakes was third. This illustrates the dominance of Bury's yarn makers in Suffolk at this time.
During the 1780's the Norwich manufacturers of camlets were opening up the export market provided by the East India Company. The firm of Ray Oakes specialised in making the fine yarn needed for these camlets.
At Honington there was a severe fire in the village, and several homes were destroyed, including the rectory.
| | 1784 | The Gurteen family were operating as substantial weavers in Haverhill by this time. A trade token from this date has been found showing a loom and the motto Pro Bono Publico. Issued by John Fincham, it bore the inscription "Haverhill Manufactory". From about 1770 to 1790 such trade tokens were commonplace as small change was in short supply.
George Bloomfield moved from London to carry on the trade of shoe maker in Bury St Edmunds. He was Robert Bloomfield's elder brother, and he left Robert in London, also working as a cobbler, although Robert also had a sideline of making aeolian harps. Both brothers were born in Honington, and their mother and her other children were still there.
The winter of 1784 was Siberian in character. The winter frost was so severe that even the tough ivy and holly trees were killed. Not for nothing has the period from 1550 to 1850 been called a Little Ice Age. | | 1785 | One Captain Poole was described in a drawing as departing "from St Edmunds Bury on the 15th October 1785. The ascent of the Balloon was remarkably Fine and Gradual and continued in view for an hour, moving Eastward." Henry Bunbury was said to have drawn in the figures of the crowd on this illustration, as he sometimes did for Jacob Kendall (1741-89). A plaque commemorates the event in Westgate Street.
The Cullum family had owned the estates of Hardwick and Hawstead since 1656. The 6th baronet was the Reverend Sir John Cullum, a keen botanist and genealogist. In 1785, he published the "History of Hawstead". | | 1786 | James Oakes of Bury took a major part in lobbying the government to tighten up the laws prohibiting the export of raw wool. Arthur Young, a well known local farmer at Bradfield Combust, led a movement to denounce this action as a conspiracy against the landed interest. He said that this was a question of the urban manufacturers against the rural producers of the raw materials. Young also highlighted the low wages that manufacturers paid to their spinners. This dispute continued for another two years. | | 1787 | The Duke of Grafton's candidate was successfully returned to Parliament for St Edmundsbury. Within a few days, his agent got his reward. James Oakes was the Duke of Grafton's political agent in Bury, and through the Duke's influence now became Receiver General of the Land Tax for the Western Division of Suffolk. In those days such an office meant that all money collected passed through your own personal bank account until the time came to make payment to the Crown. Any interest earned in this time belonged to the Receiver, and was seen as remuneration for the job. Treasurers to various charities and other bodies also saw such arrangements as quite normal at this time. This substantial extra cashflow helped Oakes to decide to formally set up as a banker in 1794.
The corporation of Bury St Edmunds had the right to return two MP's to Parliament, and only the 37 members of the corporation could vote. A complex web of patronage and family ties had left these seats controlled by three local families. These were the FitzRoys of Euston, the Hervey's of Ickworth and the Davers' of Rushbrooke. One seat had been held by Sir Charles Davers since 1774, and this would continue up to his retirement in 1802. | | 1788 | The Wool Bill became law, and allowed Irish yarn to be freely imported into the country for the first time. This was seen as a victory for manufacturers and a defeat for wool growers in the countryside. It would help to depress the price the growers could get for their wool locally. Bells rang in Sudbury for two days and fireworks were let off in the streets. In Bury wool combers rode in procession, but Oakes forbade his men from joining in because of the 'melancholy and oppressed state of the trade at this time.' Very little, if any, yarn could be sold to Norwich at this time. Such problems had existed in 1785 and in 1786, and had beset the industry since the onset of the American War.
He also did not want to inflame local opinion, particularly amongst his rural landowning relations, and may have thought that it would harm his own Suffolk yarn business eventually.
By this time, James oakes was also a dealer in coal, bringing in his stocks on the Lark Navigation. | | 1789 | The tympanum of the west arch of the Norman Tower was removed to let hay carts pass through.
The French Revolution began. On 14th July the people of Paris stormed the Bastille prison, which for centuries had represented the oppressive power of the monarchy.
The White House in Bury was rebuilt by George Anderson to become the New Assembly Rooms, standing facing the Angel Hill. The Assembly House had been converted to this use in 1714, by John Eastland, a Dancing Master. Until 1789 the Ballroom was on the second floor, and there were rooms on a third floor. In 1789 the third floor was removed, and as part of the general improvements, the Ballroom was moved to the ground floor, where it remains today. These Rooms were to become called the Athenaeum in 1854.
John Soane, later to become Sir John, met James Oakes to settle the design of the new wings to be added to Oakes' house at 81-82a Guildhall Street in Bury. In 1788 Soane had just begun to build his great design for the Bank of England, and this must have influenced his choice for this work.The northern wing was specifically designed as a banking office, but he was not yet the type of retail bank that we would recognise. This did not begin until 1794.
The Suffolk Public library started in 1789 in Bury.
A new law was passed which allowed Roman Catholics to worship openly. A license was given to the Westgate Street chapel for this purpose in 1791, but it seems that public worship had been quietly going on here for many years already. | | 1791 | From 1791 to 1794 was the height of the national mania for investing in canal building. In 1791 a committee was set up in Bury to consider building a 31 mile canal from the Lark at Bury, to the Stour at Mistley. It would need a tunnel of 2,420 yards to go under the hill at Lavenham, and the idea died. At the same time the idea of a canal to link Stowmarket to Ipswich was to be developed successfully over the next few years. James Oakes and Sir Charles Davers tried to get the Stowmarket canal extended to Bury, but its promoters refused to consider the idea. The Bury men feared that Stowmarket would grow at Bury's expense. They were correct in that Stowmarket enjoyed prosperity and growth in the early nineteenth century because of its success. The 1847 rail link would be the death of this canal as a successful business.
Messrs Buckley and Garniss opened the Capital Brewery in St Andrews Street, based at great expense upon the most modern ideas at the time.
In 1791 a further edition of Thomas Warren's Map of Bury was published. This edition showed some of the surrounding countryside, and the Town Fields. It also shows Woolhall Street for the first time, connecting the Cornhill with St Andrews Street South. A copy of this map hangs in the Athenaeum lobby today. | | 1792 | By 1792, only a few months after opening, the Capital Brewery went bust. It was sold at £500 less than its value to a Morris of Ampthill for his nephew John Clark. It seems from his diaries that James Oakes considered going into brewing, but he was always cautious in business, and nothing came of it.
The turnpike act allowing a toll road from Bury to Thetford and Brandon was passed by parliament. As usual, it covered a 21 year concession, so it would expire in 1813. For the last six or seven years there had been attempts to answer complaints about the state of the Bury to Thetford road. It was said that for the last 15 or 30 years tourists had avoided visiting Bury from their Norfolk tours because of this. Nevertheless there were objections to the proposed turnpike, mainly on the grounds of increased local taxes being needed to build it. In August work began to build the turnpike from the Tollgate at Bury, to another gate at Ingham and a further toll house at Elveden.
Eleven people appear to have died of Rabies when a number of mad dogs terrorised Bury.
Also in Bury, Cook Row became known as Abbeygate Street at this time. | | 1793 | The Reign of Terror began in France and Britain declared war. The Napoleonic Wars had begun, and would last to 1815 with one short break. One local advantage was that farmers could sell their produce free of foreign competition.
To meet the foreign threat, Arthur Young, of Bradfield Combust Hall, formed the Suffolk Yeomanry to provide home defence against a possible French invasion. There were four troops of Light Dragoons, of which the Fourth Troop was based in Bury. This troop was commanded by Lord Charles Brome, later Lord Cornwallis.
Some sectors of society were hit very badly by the war. There was a sudden and violent reduction in the volumes of foreign trade. Spinner's wages were cut in January as trade dried up, and cut again in March. Over the next few years Bury's wool and yarn industry would die, but cheap Irish yarn was already being sent to Norwich and wartime disruption just hastened the process.
By 1793 the town jail at Moyses Hall and the County jail facing down Abbeygate Street, were both overcrowded and in disrepair. It was agreed to build a new joint jail in Sicklesmere Road, inside the Borough so that it remained under the Alderman's jurisdiction. The gallows site could also be moved from Tay Fen to the new Jail.
At Culford, Lord Cornwallis had just completed a major series of adaptations to Culford Hall. | | 1794 | By this time the Gages of Hengrave were living at Coldham Hall, home of the Rookwoods, who they had married into. Hengrave Hall was lent to the Canonesses of St Augustine, a religious group from Bruges. The local people helped them settle in, providing funiture and water to the empty house. The nuns arrived penniless and had to work for a living and seek charitable aid. They opened a school and their superior was Mother Mary More, a descendant of Sir Thomas More. They would stay at Hengrave until 1802.
In September, 1794, James Oakes, a yarn manufacturer and coal dealer finally decided to set up a bank at his house in Guildhall Street, Bury. Within two weeks he was issuing his own notes. The Bury New Bank relied on Gurney's Bank of Norwich for technical backing. Oakes was already familiar with what we would nowadays recognise as banking practices because it was normal for bigger businesses at this time to provide credit and buy bills at discount, and even to issue promissory notes. Up to this time his major income had been in the making of yarn, but this was coming under increasing pressure from cheaper yarn from Ireland and Yorkshire. He needed to find an alternative business, and this was not easy in a an agricultural county like Suffolk. He had considered brewing, but seems to have felt more comfortable as a banker.
Oakes sold his Woodbridge operation to a Norwich comber, a sign of hard times, and the success of Norfolk and Norwich at the time. | | 1795 | In 1795 Oakes was forced to grant his combers a wage rise, but only for the finest work. Two days later the bricklayers and their labourers 'all turned out' to demand a raise of fourpence a day. War time price rises were forcing up wage demands.
By September, James Oakes had given up on the yarn trade and resigned from the Yarn Committee.
Highway robbery was a particular problem at this time. Many people were robbed on the 14 mile stretch from Bury to Newmarket, the main route to London. Oakes joined in the call for armed guards to be put on the mail coaches, but the problem persisted for the next few years.
At Ickworth the Earl of Bristol began work on his extraordinary new house.
In 1795 the New Public Library was started in Bury as an alternative to the Suffolk Library. These were subscription libraries. | | 1796 | In July 1796 Oakes wrote that he had declined the wool trade and was now entirely confined to banking. This was still unusual for country bankers as most ran other businesses as well as their bank. In Bury Spink and Carss were also drapers, as was Robert Walpole, while Corks were also leather cutters and tea dealers.
The Royal Mail had been using the Greyhound Service from Newmarket. Not only was it unarmed, but was a very slow post-chaise. Sir Charles Bunbury of Great Barton got the mail transferred to a stage coach direct from London. | | 1797 | Arthur Young wrote that the improvement in Suffolk's roads over the previous 20 years was "almost inconceivable". Many roads had been diverted to run round the great estates, such as Culford and Ickworth. Arthur Young was born in 1741 at Bradfield Combust and educated at Lavenham. He wrote extensively on agricultural practices and many of his ideas were widely adopted. He got most of his information about wool manufacture from James Oakes in Bury. He died in 1820.
The state of the Lark Navigation was causing concern among the local coal merchants by this time. The Navigation was owned by the Palmer family, and had been allowed to fall into disrepair. This was hindering the deliveries of bulky goods like coal, which could not economically be brought in by road.
In March, 1797, invasion scares led many customers to withdraw their deposits in cash from their bankers. Any banker who was overstretched would be vulnerable. The government had to suspend cash payments for a time, as the Bank of England ran out of gold and silver coinage.
The bank of Grigby and Cork of Bury failed on March 13th of 1797.
The largest bank in Bury at the time was Spink and Carss, but two days later, on March 15th 1797, it too failed. It was already weakened because its late proprietor had died three years earlier, heavily in debt to the Treasury for taxes he should have collected as Receiver General for the Eastern Division of Suffolk.
Oakes's bank kept going all the better because it continued to pay out and survived its rivals' failure. The bank was even given a new name. It became the Bury and Suffolk Bank, and it was to be the sole Bury bank for the next four years. It gave up its relationship with Gurneys and indirectly Barclay's bank, and Oakes now used Ayton Brassey and co as his London banker.
At the same time Oakes's bank became the bankers to the Bury Corporation, taking over a loan of £2,350 made to it by Spink some time before 1778.
Despite the experiences of Spink's bank, being a Receiver of Taxes was still thought worthwhile and James Oakes got his son Orbell appointed to the West Division in this same year. In effect the job was handed on from father to son through the influence of the Duke of Grafton. | | 1798 | James Oakes recorded that he bought the Churchyard for £330 "with a view to reserving it for the corporation, hoping that they will be in very few years capable of repaying me the purchase money and all expenses". A committee was set up to manage it and seven £50 bonds were issued to pay for it and cover costs. It had been owned by Spink and Carss Bank, as Mr John Spink had bought it, also intending to donate it to the town. He died before he could do this and it passed to the bank, being now sold at auction to raise cash for the liquidation. Spink had wanted to keep the Charnel Chapel as a family mausoleum, and was himself buried there. It remains Council property today.
The war with Napoleon was proving very costly and in 1798 William Pitt persuaded Parliament to bring in the first modern Income Tax as a temporary measure to meet the crisis caused by threat of invasion. Apart from a short period in the early 1800's, it has continued ever since.
John Orridge was appointed Governor of Moyses Hall jail with the promise of also being Governor of the New Jail to be built in Sicklesmere Road. He had modern views on prison reform and had a big input onto the new design. He introduced a Treadmill, prisoners could cook their own rations and other new ideas copied later at other prisons. The Tsar of Russia even asked him for advice in 1819. | | 1799 | Having given up the yarn trade four years earlier, in 1799 James Oakes sold his comb shops to John Clark, a brewer, for £900. He had sold his Stowmarket property a year earlier. Most of the other big Bury yarn makers had also given up by now.
In 1792 John Clark had taken over the Capital Brewery in St Andrews Street which was next door neighbour to Oakes's now redundant comb shops. In order to expand his brewery he needed more space, and he probably needed more staff. Either in 1799 or some time in the next two years he would engage Benjamin Greene from Bedford as an assistant brewer. Greene would go on to found the firm which eventually became Greene King, but this seems to be the only tenuous link that the firm of Greene King can have with 1799. | | 1800 | By 1800 the yarn industry of Suffolk, including Bury St Edmunds, had dwindled to almost nothing. Norwich, however, would still be a sizeable textile town until the mid nineteenth century. It relied upon cheaper yarn now brought in from Ireland.
Brandon developed a unique industry to supply the demand for flints to use in the flintlock muskets needed for the Napoleonic wars. This revived the flint industry which had last flourished at Weeting in the stone age.
The Baptist Church was established in Bury.
The poem "The Farmer's Boy" was published in London, written by Robert Bloomfield, who was now a very poor cobbler working in that city, although born at Honington in Suffolk. A second edition followed very rapidly, published simultaneously in London, Bury and Norwich. The poem was written in 1798, but Robert could not get a publisher. His brother George, living in Bury, finally managed to show it to Mr Capel Lofft, a Whig barrister and magistrate who lived at Troston Hall, three miles from Honington. It was Capel Lofft who got the poem published, and introduced Bloomfield's work into society. He was largely responsible for enlisting the support of Captain Bunbury at Livermere Hall, the Duke of Grafton at Euston, Dr Drake of Hadleigh, the Earl of Buchan, the Duke of York and even the Prince of Wales, all of whom were to admire and promote Bloomfield's work. By 1803, 30,000 copies had been sold. Bloomfield became rich on the proceeds, but over the years his various relatives were to relieve him of most of it. | | 1801 | The Irish Act of Union led to rule from London.
In 1801 Bury was the second town in the county of Suffolk, having a population of 7,655. It was run by a closed corporation of 37 members who returned two MP's to Parliament. It was the venue for the county assizes and quarter sessions, as well as petty sessions and other Borough courts, such as the Coroner's court and the court of pie powder, which enforced market bye laws. There were various industries supplying local needs, but the big earners were brewing and malting. The great fortunes made in the last century from yarn making were still mostly intact, although the yarn industry itself was over. It was a prosperous and well situated town, widely known for its social life. Every October, the Bury Fair was nationally known for its social entertainments.
Land enclosure had again been going strong since 1770. In 1801 the enclosure of the green at Honington led Nathaniel Bloomfield to write his poem "The Elegy on the Enclosure of Honington Green". He echoed the feelings of the poor when he wrote that "In all seasons the green we loved the most, because on the green we were free". His brother Robert Bloomfield wrote "The Farmers Boy".
Messrs Crowe Sparrow and Browne bought Spink and Carss old banking house on the Cornhill, and opened up a new bank in Bury.
In 1801 the Presbyterian Minister, Nathaniel Phillips, persuaded some of his congregation to embrace the rationalist doctrines of Unitarianism. Many of his flock then left to join the Congregational Church, but today we still know the building in Churchgate Street, Bury, as the Unitarian Meeting House. | | 1802 | In November 1802 the poor state of the Lark Navigation, combined with a drought, left the coal yards of Bury St Edmunds empty. There was not enough water to float the barges.
Sir Charles Davers who had held one of Bury's two parliamentary seats since 1774 stood down with no heir to follow him. James Oakes, who by now was over 60, immediately decided to offer his services as political agent to the Earl of Bristol. He held the same office already for the Duke of Grafton. For the next 25 years the FitzRoys and the Herveys shared the two seats whatever the state of politics in the country as a whole.
Bury corporation had banned the practice of bull baiting and in 1802 supported a bill to outlaw it nationally.
In 1802, Benjamin Greene joined the Congregationalist Chapel in Whiting Street. He paid a subscription to reserve a pew for himself and family, and this is the first written evidence of the would-be brewer's presence in Bury.
There is a well known gravestone in Bury churchyard for the servant girl, Sarah Lloyd, hanged in 1802 for stealing goods worth £2 from her employer, after letting two soldiers into the house, while her employer was out. Capel Lofft, a barrister and magistrate of Troston Hall led the appeal against this harsh sentence. Even the Duke of Grafton signed the appeal for mercy, but all to no avail. As the tumbril was taking her to execution at Tayfen Meadows, Capel Lofft also climbed aboard and harangued the crowd for 15 minutes. As a result, this great radical philanthropist was struck off the roll of magistrates.
Lofft had also been the reason for the success of the poet, Robert Bloomfield, who published his second work, called "Rural Tales, Ballads and Songs" in 1802.
In 1802, those refugees from the French Revolution, the Canonesses of St Augustine, voted to leave Hengrave Hall and return to Bruges. | | 1803 | The New Assembly Rooms in Bury were improved by way of a subscription fund raised by the banker James Oakes. Twelve men contributed £500 each, and a five man committee was appointed. A separate committee ran the Billiard Room. The building was then re-named The New Subscription Rooms. Some 150 people became subscribers to use it. It would not become called the Athenaeum until after 1854.
Oakes recorded that it opened in 1803, in time for the Bury Fair in October. |
| |
|
| 1804 | Edmund Gillingwater produced his guide book to the town entitled "History of St Edmund's Bury". Gillingwater had previously written the History of Lowestoft, his best known work, in 1795. This present book was printed by and for J Rackham's of Angel Hill. It was described as An Historical and Descriptive Account of St Edmund's Bury, in the County of Suffolk. The book is full of historical incidents, facts and figures, and has the feel of a compilation of sections, covering many disconnected periods. It includes a list of plants growing wild about the town and its surrounds. The book opens with a long discussion of whether Bury ever was the Villa Faustini, and appears to conclude that in the view of most authorities, it was not. However, this idea was still very much alive, a hundred years later when Villa Faustini featured in the 1904 pageant. On a more modern note, he says that the Assembly Rooms were nearly finished in 1804. Improvements were carried out from 1803 to 1805.
Edmund Gillingwater was a barber's apprentice in Lowestoft when he was taken in hand by a local rector, and given tuition. As he had no means to pursue a scholastic career he became a bookseller in Harleston, just inside Norfolk. He became well known for his learning and his antiquarian interests throughout the two counties, as well as for his devotion to the church. He, in turn, took classes for young men in Harleston. His brother remained in Lowestoft and provided Edmund with much of the material for his book on Lowestoft. It is likely that the Bury bookseller, J Rackham, knew of Gillingwater's book on that town, and commissioned him to write this History of St Edmundsbury. |
|
Moyses Hall with original east wall
|
In 1804 the east wall of Moyses Hall collapsed. It was subsequently rebuilt on a much plainer style, apparently with the loss of some Norman window frames and features. There is one known print of the building before the collapse. It illustrates one of our difficulties in relying on old pictures for accuracy. If the artist felt like leaving out some feature because it was, perhaps, not picturesque in his view, then he would do so. This view omits the cupola on the building. Although there has been more than one of these additions over the years, there was certainly thought to be a cupola in place at this time.
The Congregational Church in Whiting Street was re-built in 1804, although the congregation could be dated back to the 17th century.
The smallpox vaccine of Dr Jenner was now so highly regarded that Robert Bloomfield even published a poem in its honour, "Good Tidings or News from the Farm." | | 1805 | In 1805 we can trace the real beginnings of the brewers Greene, King and Company, when Benjamin Greene set up a partnership with William Buck to brew and sell beer. Greene had been apprenticed to Whitbread's Brewery in London, in the 1790's and apparently when this was over, he moved to Bury somewhere between 1799 and 1802. He seems to have entered into a 3 year contract as Assistant Brewer at the Capital Brewery of John Clark in St Andrews Street. After this he decided to set up on his own account.
There had been a Brewery in Westgate Street, Bury St Edmunds, throughout the 18th Century, owned by three generations of the Wright family. In 1798 Matthias Wright had decided to sell the Westgate Brewery, together with its Malting House and Public Houses. It did not sell, and for several years had stood empty. Finally in the Winter of 1805, The Buck and Greene partnership took it over, and began slowly to restart the brewing process.
James Oakes presented the corporation with a Mayor's robe and chain. The chain incorporated a gold medallion chased with a profile of King James I, and the arms of the town. The gold chain, made of horse-bit links and chased rosettes, cost Oakes £140.
In 1805 the County Gaol was completed by George Byfield in Sicklesmere Road. The County no longer needed to keep prisoners in the old gaol on the Cornhill, at the bottom of Woolhall Street. The first Gaol Keeper was John Orridge who would later influence prison design both within the kingdom and abroad.
Nelson was victorious at the Battle of Trafalgar.
In 1805 Yates History of Bury was published and aroused a great interest in Bury's monastic ruins and remains all over England. The full title of Richard Yates' book was "An Illustration of the Monastic History and Antiquities of the Town and Abbey of St Edmund's Bury". The Reverend Richard Yates was provided with the illustrations for his book by his brother, the Reverend William Yates, of Jesus College, Cambridge. There were 15 illustrations of historical remains of Bury St Edmunds as they existed at the time. Much interesting material was published about the abbey. The Norman Tower was shown with a cupola on the top, a public clock on its face, and houses built on both sides of it. Access to the West Front homes was therefore through its arch at present day street level. Much of the arch was by now below ground level. This book was re-published in 1843, with some additional plates. One new illustration is of the coat of arms of the Abbey, basically three crowns, which was said to have been displayed over the South Gate. The three crowns were incorporated into the arms of the Borough of Bury St Edmunds and later St Edmundsbury Borough Council.
According to a postscript in the book, Yates intended to publish further extensive work on the town's history, but this does not seem to have happened. Yates was an educated man from a well to do family. Yates recorded that his father had lived for 37 years within the abbey precincts, and had fostered his own antiquarian interests. His book was a scholarly work, quoting extensively from medieval documents, with latin extracts. It was large and lavishly produced. In the fashion of the time you could order your own custom binding depending upon your purse. It had a large number of wealthy local gentry on its subscription list, and was aimed at a completely different market than the small popular history produced earlier by Edmund Gillingwater. | | 1806 | By April 1806 Buck and Greene began advertising that they would be ready by the first week in June, to execute any order thay may be favoured with for table beer. They also announced that as soon as possible, the would supply such Ale, Porter and Old Beer, as will give complete satisfaction to their friends. Thus did the name of Greene become associated with the Westgate Brewery in Bury St Edmunds.
The wool trade being moribund in Bury, Mathew's Wool Hall was leased to an earthenware man.
Sir Charles Davers died in 1806 "when the scite of the Abbey and the Stewardship of the franchise, descended to the second sister's second son, Frederick, now Marquis of Bristol."
Bury's Assembly Rooms were formally conveyed into the ownership of its Subscribers.
The two subscription libraries in town were amalgamated in 1806 and survived until 1829.
Oakes opened a branch of his Bury and Suffolk Bank in Stowmarket to compete with Crowe, Sparrowe and Browne who had recently done the same. Stowmarket was enjoying rising prosperity at this time. Farmers were doing well in the war, and the Gipping Navigation had opened in 1793.
In 1806 the Norfolk and Suffolk General Bank of Thetford opened a branch in Bury. This bank was owned by Willett and Sons. | | 1807 | On 28th January London became the first city in the world to be lit by gas light.
James Oakes had estimated that in 1807 the population of Bury was 7,500, but he thought that about 4,500 were paupers. If correct, this put 60% in poverty.
The Guild Hall was refronted and repaired during 1806 and 1807 at a cost of £1,400. It assumed broadly the appearance that it has today. | | 1808 | A system of shutter telegraphs was set up to send messages from the admiralty in London to naval ships in port at Yarmouth. A chain of 18 stations were set up on hills in line of sight which operated 12 shutters abut 3 feet square. A message could be sent to Yarmouth in about 17 minutes by this system. The chain had a station at King's Chair at Newmarket followed by one at Telegraph Road, Icklingham about 10 miles away. The next station was on the Thetford Road at Barnham, about 5½ miles distant. The system only lasted until the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1814.
The non conformist British and Foreign school society was set up to provide schools for poor children. | | 1809 | Despite the recent difficulties in the yarn trade, when Simon Cumberland died, he left the enormous sum of £200,000. He had been in partership with his brother in Bury and Woodbridge. | | 1810 | John Webb's poem, "Haverhill", was published. He later became famous as the 'Haverhill poet'. He wrote that he realised 100 guineas from its publication. William Wordsworth was said to have admired this poem and commented that he had never made so much money from his work. John Webb's patron was the Reverend Marryweather, who procured a number of "respectable subscribers" to finance publication of the poem. Webb recorded in his diary that shortly after its publication, "Sir George Beaumont called upon me and told me it did me credit and that Wordsworth, the poet, read "Haverhill" through at his house and approved of it".
Plans to move the Bury Assizes to Ipswich and an attemp by county magistrates to extend their jurisdiction into the Borough were both defeated by James Oakes and the Bury corporation. | | 1811 | An Act of Parliament was obtained to establish Paving and Improvement Commissioners for the town of Bury St Edmunds. They could levy a rate to improve the paving, lighting and drainage of the town and provide piped water supplies. They operated alongside the Corporation and would eventually make substantial progress in sewering the town. Both James and Orbell Oakes were appointed as Commissioners and James was made Treasurer. The Commissioners operated until 1873, when the corporation were given their responsibilities.
1811 saw the start of a rapid period of growth in Bury, particularly up to 1821.
The Guildhall Feoffees built the almshouses in Long Row, Southgate Street, in Bury. The builders were W Steggles of Bury and this is one of their earliest buildings but the firm went on to develop or re-develop large areas of the town. The business ran from the site of Model Junction in Whiting Street.
A Wesleyan Chapel was built in St Mary's Square on a site of a smaller one in which John Wesley had often preached. Between 1755 and 1790, he had preached in St Mary's Square on 17 occasions. Today it is number 4A, a private house. |
| |
|
Henry Bunbury of the Great Barton estate died in 1811. He had become well known as a satirical caricaturist, and had spent much of his life in London, moving in fashionable and court circles. However, he often returned to Bury, where he was highly popular and equally well known as "a bit of a lad". Joseph Farington described him as "living most of his time a sotting life at Bury in Suffolk." Bunbury had also been a captain of the West Suffolk Militia, and many of his pictures depict militia life, as well as local scenes and local tradespeople.
The Anglican National Society was started to provide school places for working class Church of England children.
The Prince Regent was installed during the madness of King George III. | | 1812 | In the Breckland area to the north-west of Bury, the views were much different than they are today. From about 1812 the distinctive belts of Scots Pine began to be planted to serve as windbreaks, to protect crops from sandstorms. The landscape was huge open plains, but small areas were sown with rye until the soils were exhausted, and then allowed to revert to heath. There were huge areas of dunes created by wind blown sand, and enormous flocks of sheep on the sparse grasslands. After 1812 the pine belts started to change the landscape and ecology. The Great Bustard would become extinct by the 1830's. | | 1813 | Farm prices began to collapse, and for the next decade farmers would be in financial difficulties.
In November a petition applying for an Act of Parliament for enclosure of the town fields was considered in the House. Landowners needed to maximise their efficiency in the face of falling prices, and it would be the common users who would have to give way. | | 1814 | In May the Napoleonic War was ended by a peace treaty. The stations of the Yarmouth naval telegraph line set up in 1808 were rapidly sold off. The by-now eight troops of Suffolk Yeomanry originally formed in 1793 were formed into the First Regiment Loyal Suffolk Yeomanry Calvary. Bury was to remain the depot of the 4th Troop. | | 1815 | Napoleon returned from exile but was finally defeated again at the Battle of Waterloo.
No Mans Meadows came into the possession of the Guildhall Feoffees under the Bury St Edmunds Enclosure Award of 1815. They are still owned by the Feoffment Trust today, but were opened to public access under a management agreement with St Edmundsbury Borough Council in the 1990's.
During the 20 odd years of the Napoleonic wars, farmers had increased production as agricultural prices had risen. Food had doubled in price. Suffolk pastures were ploughed up to grow wheat. After 1814 prices for wheat began to fall back, profits fell and unemployment rose. Farm wages were cut by 30% and discontent occasionally boiled over into violence, particularly against any form of mechanisation. Mobs in Ipswich and Gosbeck smashed machines and burned agricultural buildings. The words "Bread or Blood" were frequently daubed on Ipswich walls. How far the enclosures contributed to discontent is not easy to tell, but it is clear that this was yet another attack on the rights and incomes of the poor.
During 1815 the Boby family of Bury built a new family home in St Andrews Street South in a mock medieval style with battlements and called it St Andrews Castle. It has since been a convent school, and today houses a business centre. | | 1816 | By 1816 Suffolk was in a very depressed state. By 1816 the Guldhall Feoffees were completing the enclosure of land in Bury, and this may have helped to stir up further discontent. In April there was trouble in the countryside around Bury, and on the 29th April the Bury Magistrates issued a proclamation that they intended to enforce the law against disorderly assemblages, and "outrages". By May, violence reached Bury, when on the 8th large crowds gathered on the market, and on the 14th Robert Gooday's barns in Southgate Street were burned to the ground by a mob.
On May 15th James Oakes recorded that around 8 o'clock in the evening a great number of people assembled in the Butter Market to demand that a local hosier, Mr Wales of Abbeygate Street, should give up his Spinning Machines. Things "were proceeding to be very tumultuous", so the magistrates, principal inhabitants and officers of the militia turned out and suppressed any further disturbance before 12 o'clock. Things quietened down in Bury, but agrarian riots continued elsewhere in Suffolk.
High shop prices were also attacked. In Brandon, 1500 armed men wrecked a butcher's shop and demanded "bread or blood".
| | 1817 | The post war slump in agricultural prices left about a third of Suffolk's working population unemployed. The previously well-off farmers could not pay tradesmen's bills and they in turn were ruined. By 1834 about half of Suffolk would be on some form of parish relief.
In Bury in 1817 about 4,000 of the 10,000 population were on some form of poor relief. In order to qualify for relief the conditions were now more demanding than in earlier years, and the poor were now probably worse off than for the last 20 years. The parish would top up the wages of a family of seven to 14 shillings a week, but this was 9 shillings the man, 1 shilling the wife and the five children were expected to earn 4 shillings. Employers exploited this by cutting wages. The Poor Rate had been a large and growing burden on the property owning class up to 1800, but since then costs had been cut and benefits reduced. | | 1818 | James Oakes recorded an account of the Parliamentary election for the Borough of Bury St Edmunds. The candidates entertained 150 gentlemen and the corporation at the Guildhall. Later there was a ball in the Ball Room until 1.30 am. Although the two candidates were returned unopposed, the election expenses were £878. | | 1819 | The poverty and ignorance amongst the working people led to movements such as the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. In Suffolk the Suffolk Society for the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church was in action to provide elementary and bible schooling. They set up Central Schools, such as the National School in Field Road. This road is today called Kings Road, and the location was opposite the offices of the Bury Free Press. In Bury a new Theatre was erected in Westgate Street by William Wilkins, the manager of the Norwich Company of Comedians, who had performed regularly at the Market Cross. It was called the New Theatre and was most used during the Bury Fair. It had 780 seats, all benches. It did not become called the Theatre Royal until after Wilkins died.
The old theatre which was in the Robert Adam building now called the Market Cross, now became used as a concert hall and ballroom.
In the same year the County Gaol was enlarged.
In Haverhill Gurteen's records first noted the sale of ready-made smocks, a major leap forward in the business from just supplying drabbet, fustian and cotton cloths to other businesses. The smocks would be booked out to local women to embroider the neck and sleeves with designs that denoted the occupation of the wearer. They would be collected back again and sent out to clothier's shops.
A branch of Bury and Suffolk bank was opened in Clare, following the failure of Ray's Bank in that town. The agricultural slump also affected the banks, and the closure of the Clare Bank left people who held their banknotes in dire straits as well. | | 1820 | King George IV took the throne.
Street lighting was installed in Pall Mall.
James Oakes was influential in prompting a new Act of Parliament giving the Paving Commissioners the right to borrow up to £10,000. However, in the way of government bureaucracy, they could never borrow more than £8,000 at one time. Oakes knew that this would not be enough "to complete the paving and repair which wants and to light next winter."
Nevertheless, the Act authorised the lighting of the town by gas, but this would take another 14 years to happen.
The Botanical Gardens were laid out in Bury. | | 1821 | John Webb wrote his second long poem about Haverhill, and called it "The Market Town". this poem does not seem to have been published until 1859, some years after his death.
Following ten years of growth, Bury St Edmunds now had a population of nearly 10,000, overall an increase of 25 per cent since 1800. The last few wool combers and spinners had finally given up in Bury by now. The town's only industry would be brewing and malting until Robert Boby's works opened in mid century.
The Improvement Commissioners of Bury finally appointed a Professional Surveyor, called James McAdam, to ensure that road paving and sewering was efficiently undertaken. Previously they were being criticised for the poor state of the roads. McAdam also got the commissioners to appoint a resident sub-surveyor who would supervise the contracts and report to McAdam.
The Improvement Commissioners also gave permission for the path and highway to the east of the Assembly Rooms to be encroached upon by about four inches. A new brick wall was required to clad the side of the building.
The demand for political reform was growing, and there was an increasing amount of protest at the political control exercised at Bury. The Bury and Norwich Post gave a voice to reformers, and in 1821 the Tory Bury Gazette was set up. As well as opposing parliamentary and other reforms, it opposed the emancipation of Catholics.
In December, William Cobbett toured Norfolk and Suffolk, later to be recorded in his "Rural Rides", published in 1853. "The land all along to Bury St Edmund's (from Sudbury) is very fine; but no trees worth looking at. Bury, formerly the seat of an abbot, the last of whom was, I think hanged, or somehow put to death, by that matchless tyrant Henry VIII, is a very pretty place; extremely clean and neat; no ragged or dirty people to be seen, and women (young ones I mean) very pretty and very neatly dressed." This is the total of Cobbett's comments on Bury for 1821, but illustrates the type of black and white views he held, and his somewhat cavalier attitude to historical accuracy.
The gaol in Sicklesmere Road was enlarged to incorporate extra features proposed by John Orridge, its Governor.
The Bury Guide Book for 1821 recorded that there were three charity schools in Bury. | | 1822 | Willetts Bank, called the Norfolk and Suffolk General Bank, closed down at Thetford, Brandon and Mildenhall, affected by the agricultural slump. Their branch in Bury which had opened in 1806 also closed. In response the Bury and Suffolk Bank of the Oakes family opened a branch at Mildenhall, and possibly for a very short time in Brandon.
Things were so bad in Bury that the first ball of the Bury Fair Season had to be cancelled as only 10 tickets were sold, compared to 409 a year earlier. | | 1823 | A new town map of Bury was published by J G Lenny. It shows just about the first new street to be built since medieval times, called St Edmunds Place. This short row was off the Field Lane, which is today called Kings Road, and the new street is now called Prospect Row. Another new road marked was Waterloo Road, joining Field Lane to Risby Gate Street. Perhaps this was a speculative development that faltered as within a few years it was known as Chalk Lane, and Chalk Road today. But this was just the start of new building and within a decade Lenny's map was seriously out of date. It would be replaced in 1834 by Payne's map.
By 1823 there was a Baptist chapel, called the Ebenezer Chapel, in Lower Baxter Street. In 1823 its new pastor was Cornelius Elven, a convert from Congregationalism.
Robert Nunn, the organist at St Mary's, added a Concert Room to his house on Honey Hill. It was called St Margaret's House and his concert room could hold 300 people, and the stage was big enough for a full orchestra. Gradually this venue would become the centre of Bury's 'serious' musical life for the next fifty years.
The second Marquis of Cornwallis died and the Culford Estate and its five villages were sold to Richard Benyon de Beauvoir of Reading.
The well known and highly regarded poet, Robert Bloomfield died in Shefford in Bedfordshire, in greatly reduced circumstances. He had been a great pastoral poet, drawing upon youthful life in and around Honington, Sapiston and Euston, although most of his adult life was spent in London and out of Suffolk.
| | 1824 | The Bury St Edmunds Gas Works were opened in Tayfen Road. They cost about £12,000 and were said to be built on the site where at one time criminals were executed. This privilege was also attributed to Thingoe Hill up to 1766.
The Mechanics Institute was established in Bury. | | 1825 | The West Suffolk Hospital was founded in 1825 in the then rural surroundings of Hospital Road. At the time it was called The Suffolk General Hospital. It was opened in 1826, and was established in a converted military depot, now redundant after the end of the Napoleonic War following Waterloo. The depot was said to hold a 10,000 stand of arms. The new hospital was funded by public donations, the first of which was £2,000 from Lord Bristol. Donors could nominate the patients to be treated, and at first there were 50 in-patients.
A new era in transport began when the world's first public steam-powered railway opened in September in the north of England between Stockton and Darlington. The first train to make the twenty-seven mile journey was pulled by George Stephenson's steam engine Locomotive No 1 and consisted of a tender, six goods wagons, the director's coach, six passenger coaches and fourteen wagons carrying workmen.
December 1825 produced a financial crisis when a series of banks crashed nationwide. Luckily there was only one bank failure in Suffolk, and this was at Brandon. Most could get to London to get cash to meet demands, and none had London bankers that failed. Sparrows of Braintree were not so fortunate. | | 1826 | Catholic emancipation was one of the major issues in the 1826 General Election. The corporation of Bury opposed emancipation, despite the fact that both the Earl of Euston and Lord Hervey supported the cause. This led to some uncomfortable moments for both sides as the corporation more or less had to return both men as MP's because of their control of patronage in the town. There was pressure from reformers from all sides, and the corporation was no longer leading opinion as it once had. It was extraordinary that 37 mainly Tory men could still elect a Whig in this way. | | 1827 | James Oakes became unable to continue with his diaries in October 1827 as he was nearly 86, arthritic and deaf.
The Suffolk Yeomanry were suspended from duty for a brief period from 1827 to 1831.
| | 1828 | To avoid severe congestion on market days the Cattle Market was removed from Bury town centre near the Corn Exchange to St Andrews Street (South) which today is just behind Woolworths. This resulted in a riot on 30th April when a brick was thrown at the Town Clerk. The octagonal toll collectors booth still survives from this site, but was not built until 1864. Bonds were issued by the corporation in their usual way to raise the finance to buy the land for the new market.
Also in 1828, the old Woolhall, which had ceased its real use in about 1800-1806, was pulled down, to make way for a road to connect the Market Place with St Andrews Street. This created Woolhall Street, the first major opening in the line of the old town wall.
The Independent or Primitive Methodist Chapel was opened in Northgate Street, at the Angel Hill end. It was largely rebuilt in 1866. The building still exists today on the corner of Looms Lane and has had a variety of secular uses as well as the religious.
John Webb of Haverhill reported attending a sermon in London preached "to improve the Polstead murder". The preacher "cautioned young men in the congregation against idleness, Corder was idle, and held Maria Martin as a warning against immoderate dress". This murder, soon to become known as The Murder in the Red Barn, was widely reported in its day. William Corder was tried and executed in Bury St Edmunds for the murder of Maria Martin in August 1828. A very full account of the trial and the events surrounding it can be found by clicking where shown.
From 1828 to 1839 there was also a great expansion in non-conformist activity in Haverhill. In 1828 the Baptists opened a new meeting house, to be followed by the Quakers house in 1834, the Methodists in 1836, the old Independents and the Market Hill Chapel in 1839. | | 1829 | James Oakes, the prominent banker of Bury St Edmunds, died but he left a diary covering the years from 1778 to 1827. He had been five times Alderman of the town, Deputy Lieutenant of Suffolk, Justice of the Peace, Turnpike Trustee for Thetford and Sudbury roads, a Guildhall Feoffee and governor of King Edward VI Grammar School.
His son, Orbell Oakes, now retired to Nowton to be a gentleman farmer and antiquarian, and amalgamated the Bury and Suffolk Bank with Browne, Bevan and company to produce Oakes Bevan and co.. The family would retain an interest in the bank until 1899 when it was bought by the Capital and Counties Bank. Orbell continued his involvement in local affairs, perhaps more so than in his business affairs. | | 1830 | William IV became King.
A major cholera outbreak began in Britain and continued into 1831. It took ten years for the link to insanitary drinking water to be accepted.
The Duke of Wellington brought in the Beerhouse Act. The idea was to halt the spread of gin consumption by allowing householders to set up beerhouses at home for the sale of beer or cider. The duty on beer was abolished as an encouragement.
William Cobbett returned to the east in 1830, for another of his rural rides, described in his book of the same name to be published in 1853. "At Bury St Edmund's I gave a lecture on the 9th, and another on the tenth of March in the playhouse, to very crowded audiences." He was controversial in his views, and when he arrived at Thetford to give two more lectures on the 22nd, the Mayor refused permission for the talks as the Assizes were in session and the judge might be offended.
Cobbett also wrote "To conclude an account of Suffolk and not to sing the praises of Bury St Edmund's would offend every creature of Suffolk birth; even at Ipswich when I was praising that place, the very people of that town asked me if I did not think Bury St Edmund's the nicest town in the world. ..... and indeed, as a town in itself, it is the neatest place that ever was seen. .... it is so clean and neat that nothing can equal it in that respect."
"At Ipswich, to my great surprise, we found a most beautiful town, with a population of about 12,000 persons, and ..... most abundant prosperity; for the new houses are, indeed, very numerous. ...... see the numerous little vessels upon the arm of the sea which comes up from Harwich." Cobbett was, however somewhat scornful of this prosperity which he ascribed to the 20,000 troops which he said had been garrisoned here for twenty years and paid for from taxation which had "plunged into ruin and decay other counties not benefitting from the ruthless squanderings of the war." Nevertheless, he wrote, "I know of no town that can be compared with Ipswich, except it be Nottingham".
Cobbett's view on local agriculture was favourable. "I have always found Suffolk farmers great boasters of their superiority over others; and I must say that it is not without reason."
Needham Market and Stowmarket he called "two very pretty market towns." "I did not see in the whole county one single instance of paper or rags supplying the place of glass in any window, and did not see one miserable hovel in which a labourer resided."
He disliked the habit of trees being pollarded in the county, and commented that labourers' gardens were used to grow food, and there was no ornamental gardening as occurred in Hampshire, Sussex and Kent.
A Primitive Methodist Chapel was built in Garland Street, Bury.
Despite all this apparent progress farm labourers were protesting against the further mechanisation of their employments. All over the country intimidating notes were left on farm gates signed by one Captain Swing. By December it was felt that the Swing Riots, as they were called, were about to break out in Bury. The magistrates swore in many special constables and at the close of December 1830 about 30 people had been arrested for riot or machine breaking. Joseph Saville was taken for leaving threatening letters at Stradishall. He demanded higher pay for our labour or else "we will put you in bodily fear. SWING." | | 1831 | January 1831 opened with seven men transported by Bury Quarter Sessions for breaking a threshing machine at Withersfield. This agitation merged with the movement to reform the electoral system, and change, reform and an air of menace was in the air for the established farmers, parsons and general well to do of the country.
The Suffolk Yeomanry, mothballed in 1827, was re-formed. The original troop at Bury had been light dragoons, but were reformed as The First Troop of Heavy Dragoons. This lasted until 1875.
Orbell Oakes continued to run the politics of Bury as his father had done, and at the May, 1831 General Election managed to get the Whig reforming candidate of the Fitzroys elected to one of Bury's two parliamentary seats. Only the 37 members of the Council could vote, and they had two votes available as there were two parliamentary seats. Earl Jermyn (anti-reform), got 23 votes and Colonel Charles Fitzroy (Reform) got 15, so they were both elected. Bennet (anti-reform) got 14 votes and Robert Rolfe, the much less well-connected of the two |
| |
