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WEST
This was our town in
1835 when there were around 2000 residents - a small fishing
and agricultural community.
The red line shows the county boundary, while the green line shows our
boundary with Great Yarmouth. The beginnings of our road
network can be seen and how the town was strung out along the river cliff
from the boundary in the north to Cliff Hill in the south. You
will note there were few buildings west of the High Street and south of
Cliff Hill.
At this time Gorleston was in the county of Suffolk but the river
entrance, pier and some of Riverside Road were part of Great Yarmouth and
therefore Norfolk
19th CENTURY GORLESTON
In
early 19th century England press gangs were scouring ports for
“unwilling recruits” to man His Majesties Naval ships for the war with
her old enemy France and their Emperor Napoleon, whose fleet was later
defeated at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and he himself finally routed
at the battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Crisp reports that in 1802 no less than 300 men were impressed at
Gt. Yarmouth in one day, although 250 were eventually freed to return to
their work, mainly fishermen and sailors on merchant ships.
Life
was hard for most people, poor living conditions, very little money
clothes mainly second hand, patched and mended until they were beyond
repair, some children having to go bare foot.
To vote was the privilege of a favoured few - mainly rich
landowners, merchants, and property owners; the so called “better
classes”. But not
females no matter what their
status. A feudal system
still remained with commoners doffing their hats or touching their
forelocks when confronting their “betters”. Education was still the
prerogative of the few, with many children starting work as young as eight
years old, many boys going to sea and girls going into service or working
as scullery maids to help boost their families meagre income.
As
you can see there was a great divide in life between the poor and the rich
who with their privileged position and servants very often led
a pampered life, while it was impossible for many of the workers families
to make ends meet in a country where life expectancy was about forty
years, perhaps a little more in rural areas such as Norfolk, but in the
over crowded cities with primitive sanitation, unclean water, rats and
vermin, bad nutrition and often bad or adulterated food, disease and
infant mortality was rife.
Very
often the aged, infirm and those without employment had to rely on poor
relief which only provided for recipients to survive at a subsistence
level and only after they were able to prove they were paupers with a
right to relief in that parish, because each parish had to provide for
it’s own paupers by property owners paying the poor tax.
This
is the picture of our country in those not so far off days, much of which
would have applied to the thousand or so people who inhabited the village
of Gorleston in the year 1800.
The community, at that time, mostly engaged in agriculture, fishing
and a small malting and brewing industry, was spread mainly along the
river side from Burnt Lane to Baker Street with farms making up most of
the remainder of the village.
For
seafarers and fishermen our coast was very dangerous with many ships and
fishing smacks being wrecked, often with great loss of life.
In 1807 one hundred bodies were washed ashore in the vicinity after
a fierce gale, leaving many widows and orphans in the community.
Geographically
and politically Gorleston was in the hundred of Lothingland in the County
of Suffolk, together with the adjoining hamlet of Southtown, or Little
Yarmouth, later both becoming part of the Borough of Great Yarmouth for
electoral purposes by the Parliamentary Reform Act
of 1832, to be constituted St. Andrews ward, returning six members to the
Town Council, but still remaining
in the county of Suffolk until further boundary changes in 1891 brought
the two villages into the county of Norfolk, something my father would
never acknowledge, always
addressing letters “Gorleston, Suffolk”.
The
1801 census records the population of Gorleston
and Southtown combined
as 1,728 inhabitants, approximately two thirds living in
Gorleston. The
whole of England and Wales was 8.8 million.
Population growth of the two hamlets up to the early 1820’s was
almost stagnant, until by the 1831 census growth was on a par with the
rest of the country. Around
the middle of that decade it
really started to take off when
the census of 1841 showed a big
increase in numbers. The
population had now started to take off.
Gorleston and it’s neighbouring hamlet of Southtown were
growing partly because of their proximity to Yarmouth, the growth of the
fishing industry, the infant tourist industry plus the general movement
from small agricultural villages to centres of employment, which in turn
would fuel the supply trades and the building industry as more and more
houses were required.
As
noted earlier there were several reasons for the rapid increase in
population from around the mid nineteenth
century, but the clues to the
foremost reason is in the employment of the newcomers and where they
came from - the discovery of
the “Silver Pits” as a highly productive
fishing ground and to a lesser extent the coming of the railway to
Yarmouth.
The fishing grounds were moving further northwards in the
North Sea and a suitable site
on the west side of the river in Gorleston for their
support base, prompted Hewetts to move their operations from Barking to Gorleston together with a great influx of their workers families.
The
railway of course meant it was easier for many, mainly professional and
monied people, to travel to the seaside to “take the waters”.
At first a trickle which became a flood when workers were granted bank
holidays and eventually weekly annual holidays, which meant the benefits of fresh air and relaxation by the sea were no longer just the
prerogative of the well to do. Consequently many boarding houses
sprang up
to accommodate them and more and more new facilities were
provided for their enjoyment.
As
the holiday trade was increasing, so trawl fishing from the port was in
decline because the growing rail system in the country meant it was
more profitable for the fleet to be based in Grimsby, Scarborough and
Hull, ports much closer to the productive fishing area with ease of transportation to the Northern cities.
Towards
the end of the 19th century the day of the sailing smack was
coming to an end with the introduction of the steam trawler.
The
famous Short Blue Fleet of Hewett & Co., once the largest in the world
was being sold off and their
operations at Gorleston came to an end in 1904
with the sale of their
facilities.
This
would have been an even worse blow but for the herring fishing season
continued to flourish and Gorleston-on-sea railway station opening in 1903 to bring holiday
makers direct to the
resort, and come they did in ever increasing numbers.
Unfortunately
we have very few buildings earlier than the nineteenth century, but this
detracts very little from the charm of much of our town which developed
from a village to a town in the mid nineteenth century onwards, originally
because of fishing and tourism. We are often termed
"Norfolk's best kept secret" because much still remains of our
Edwardian origins as a quiet family resort with a beautiful beach - long
may it remain so.
USING
THE CENSUS
The
Census is not only a useful tool to trace your family tree, it can also give
an insight into the history of our town.
When and how quickly it
grew, or shrank. What
work people did and where they lived.
Where
they were born and their ages.
Whether they were married, single or widowed.
It sometimes raises questions to be answered but also gives many clues to the answers.
Why so many widows compared to widowers?
Why did the population
grow so rapidly. Why
the large number of incomers from
Essex, Middlesex and Kent?
A clue is in the work these people did and
a little more research will provide the answers.
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