What was Norfolk and Norwich like to visit around 300 years ago?
One man who gave a vivid account of the place and the people was Daniel Defoe who headed our way after writing Robinson Crusoe.
In his famous book, the hero’s first shipwreck was at Winterton-on-Sea and a few years on and Daniel arrived in the city and county as part of his "Tour thro the Whole Island of Great Britain" in 1724.
This talented man of words led quite a life.
Apart from writing hundreds of articles, including novels such as Crusoe, Colonel Jack, Moll Flanders, Roxana and more, he lived life on the edge ending up in debtors’ prison and in the pillory for libel…where they threw flowers at him!
So what did he make of our part of the country in those days?
"When we come into Norfolk, we see a face of diligence spread over the whole country."
"The vast manufacturers carry’d on (in chief) by the Norwich weavers, employs all country round in spinning yarn for them: besides many thousand packs of yarn which they receive from other countries even as far as Yorkshire and Westmoreland."
He wrote: "This side of Norfolk is very populous, and throng’d with great and spacious market-towns, more and larger than any part of England and so far from London, except Devonshire and the West-riding of Yorkshire."
Daniel writes of meeting an eminent weaver of Norwich who tells him there were around 120,000 people employed in the woollen and silk trade across the city and neighbouring communities.
"As I pass’d this part of the country in the year 1723, the manufacturers assured me that there was not in all the eastern and middle part of Norfolk, any hand, unemploy’d, if they would work and that children after four or five years of age, could every one earn their own bread…"
And as he continued his travels he wrote that the west part of Norfolk was full of open plains and was somewhat sandy and "barron," and fed great flocks of sheep.
Daniel was certainly impressed by what he witnessed all those years ago writing: "There is no single county in England, except as above, that can boast of three towns so populous, so rich and so famous for trade and navigations, as in this county.
"By these towns, I mean the city of Norwich, the towns of Yarmouth and Lynn: besides that it has several other sea-ports of very good trade, as Wisbech, Wells, Burnham, Clye &c.
"Norwich is the capital of all the county, and the center of all trade and manufacture which I have just mentioned: an ancient, large, rich and populous city: If a stranger was to ride thro’ or view the city only for a day, he would have…reason to think there was a town without inhabitants.
"But on the contrary the inhabitants being all busie at their manufactures, dwell in their garrets at their looms, and inn their combing-shops, so they call them, twisting mills, and other work houses: almost all the works they are employ’d on, being done within doors."
And added: "The walls of this city are reckon’d three miles in circumstance, taking in more ground than the city of London; but much of that ground lying open in pasture-fields and gardens…
"The River Yare runs through the city and is navigable thus far without the help of any art (that is say without locks or stops) and being encreased by other waters, passes afterwards thro’ a long tract of the richest meadows, and the largest, take them all together that are anywhere in England, lying for thirty miles in length, from this city to Yarmouth…"
Daniel went on to write about the vast tract of meadows where a prodigious number of black cattle, which supplied Norwich, Yarmouth and adjacent counties but also London, were fed.
"Some have told me…that there are above 40,000 of these Scots cattle fed in this country every year, and most of them in the said marshes between Norwich, Beccles and Yarmouth," he wrote.
Described as a writer, merchant and spy ( for William 111), he died in 1731 at the age of 71 in Ropemakers Alley, London, while probably hiding from his creditors.
His memory and his words live on…
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