James Woodforde and Yarmouth
Yarmouth, a map by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, 1764 [Private collection]James Woodforde reached Norwich in 1775 with his Oxford friend Washbourne Cooke. They 'took a Walk over the City in the morning & we both agreed that it was the fairest City in England by far'. Norwich was to become not just the ecclesiastical centre of his life, but the city which he regularly visited for entertainment, banking, and purchases, and in whose affairs he took a great interest for the following twenty nine years.
Shortly after arriving in Norfolk, and having familarised himself with his new parish of Weston, he and Cooke set off for Yarmouth. Why he should have chosen Yarmouth as his first Norfolk expedition isn't explained. Woodforde's diary rarely answers the question, why? He presents a factual account, often with supporting data, but seldom with explanation. The reader must piece together the evidence.
Perhaps he simply wished to view the sea. We cannot be certain but, coming from rural Somerset via Winchester and Oxford, perhaps Yarmouth was his first opportunity. Although there is no known record of his daily life before the first diary entry in 1759, it is possible however that he had visited Bridgwater Bay. He certainly revelled in walking and and taking a 'coach' on the long Yarmouth beach and in witnessing the aftermath of a storm. Perhaps his first conversations at Weston suggested the expedition to Yarmouth, or maybe Cooke, who had Suffolk connections, recommended it.
Yarmouth was certainly a borough of some distinction having received its first charter from King John in 1208, which included an important provision for encouraging trade that was to become the cornerstone of its fortunes:
We have also granted them a merchant's guild. Moreover, for the amendment of the said Burgh of Yarmouth we have granted, that whatever merchants shall come to the Burgh of Yarmouth with their ware, of whatever place they shall be, whether foreigners or others, who are at peace with us or by our permission shall come into our land, they may come, stay and depart in our safe peace paying the due customs of that burgh.
When Woodforde visited over five centuries later Yarmouth was a bustling port and trading town with links to the Baltic as far as Russia, and with Spain and Italy. Fishing was and remained until the twentieth century a key element of its prosperity. As the diary records, the arrival of the herring fleet from Holland was an important annual occasion. The fashion for sea bathing had come to Yarmouth by Woodforde's time, as Richard Beatniffe reported in The Norfolk Tour, 1777:
A traveller, wishing to see this town to advantage with respect to amusements, should make a visit in the bathing-season, during the months of July, August, or September, when a great deal of genteel company from London, most parts of the county, and Suffolk, assemble here either for the purpose of health or pleasure.
Woodforde didn't indulge in sea bathing, but he was interested in talking to the people whom he and Cooke met during their three day stay, including the guardian of the Harbour Fort and the mariners aboard the colliers (coal ships) taking shelter at Yarmouth Quay en route from Sunderland to London.
South-West Prospect of Yarmouth, engraving of 1778, derived from Samuel and Nathaniel Buck's engraving of 1741 [Private collection]Perhaps, Woodforde was simply curious to experience and learn about Yarmouth. At Oxford he had purchased a pair of pocket globes – one would have been terrestrial and the other celestial. He owned an Atlas Minimus – we know this because he gave it to his favourite nephew William ('Nephew Bill') Woodforde. When on 3 June 1769 Joseph Banks and James Cook were observing the Transit of Venus at Tahiti, James Woodforde was in Somerset and he too observed the transit and noted that Venus appeared as 'black-Patch upon a fair Lady's face'.
At Weston he regularly sent his manservant to Norwich to bring home the weekly newspapers. Woodforde, certainly in his younger days, was not devoid of an enquiring mind.
He definitely approved of Yarmouth; he made five visits, and enjoyed showing the town and its attractions to family and friends.
Yarmouth's literary associations