James Woodforde and Yarmouth

Woodforde's sixth and final visit, 1790

Woodforde's manuscript notebook covering the period from 6 March 1790 to 21 March 1791 has been lost. Fortunately, the entries relating to his visit to Yarmouth were transcribed for John Beresford's abridged edition of the diary before it disappeared. Regrettably, Woodforde's weather observations were not included in Beresford's abridgement.

Once again Woodforde undertook a 'scheme' for Yarmouth to entertain visiting family members. On this occasion, his brother John and his wife, and Mrs Richard Clarke journeyed from Somerset to stay with him at Weston parsonage. Readers of the 1790 diary might be puzzled that Woodforde refers to his brother John simply as 'My Brother'.

Heighes Woodforde, the diarist's eldest brother, c.1758, portrait by John Simmons of Nailsea and Bristol (c.1715–1780) [Private collection, unknown attribution, but with thanks]By way of explanation, the three eldest surviving children of Samuel Woodforde and Jane Collins – Woodforde's parents – were boys: Heighes (pronounced 'hayz'), James, and John. However, his elder brother Heighes had died the previous year, and now just one brother, John, remained.

The news would have occasioned a double sadness at the parsonage because Heighes was also the father, although not always a nurturing and supportive one, of Anna Maria (Nancy) who had been residing at Weston since 1779. The diarist's thoughts were also with William Woodforde (Nephew Bill), one of Heighes's two sons, whom he prayed God to comfort 'in his great distress'.

There is a portrait of Heighes Woodforde (1726–1789) by John Simmons of Bristol (1715–1780) in an unknown private collection, probably painted soon after Woodforde's marriage to Ann Dorvell (or Dorville) by licence of the Bishop of Bath and Wells on 22 January 1757 at Ditcheat in Somerset. His bond guarantor for the licence was, perhaps unsurprisingly, an innkeeper at Wells. Having earlier eloped, Heighes and Ann had already undergone a marriage ceremony in 1754 at the Savoy Chapel in London, a place where marriages without banns might take place. All of this perhaps foreshadowed Heighes's later rackety lifestyle. Roy Winstanley, a former journal editor of the Parson Woodforde Society and biographer of James Woodforde, wrote a comprehensive account of the life of Heighes Woodforde in an early issue of the Society's journal.

There is another possible source of confusion for readers of the 1790 diary extracts: the Mrs R Clarke who visited Yarmouth with Woodforde in 1790 is not 'Sister Clarke' who proved so prickly and quarrelsome when she and her son, Sam Clarke, paid an extended visit to Weston in 1779. 'Sister Clarke' was not invited to visit again.

Martin Brayne, the Society's president and journal editor since 1999, has the explanation: the 1790 visitors were Brother John, his wife Melliora (née Clarke), and Melliora's sister Martha (confusingly known as 'Patty'). Martha's first husband, Richard Clarke, had died in 1784: hence, she was the Mrs R Clarke to whom Woodforde refers in the diary. She later remarried John Jeanes, and it was Mrs Jeanes (formerly 'Patty' Clarke) who Nancy would go and live with in Somerset following Woodforde's death. Robin Gibson wrote a fine article about the Clarke Family of Ansford.

Declining health

In the spring of 1790, as he approached the age of fifty, Woodforde's health was less robust than it had been on earlier visits to Yarmouth. Nevertheless, he revisited many of the places that had once appealed to him and delighted his family during their earlier stays at Weston – especially the harbour fort, the quay, and a 'coach' trip along the coast. Just a few days earlier, however, he had written in his diary:

He ensured a more comfortable journey for himself and his guests by bespeaking two chaises from the King's Head to meet him at the parsonage at 11 o'clock and take them all to Norwich. A further source of concern for him was that his brother John had been unwell recently with a swollen leg.

We do not have Woodforde's diary entry for Sunday, 9 May, but there is no mention of his feeling unwell as they set off from Weston the following Monday morning.

'Flying gout'

The term 'flying gout' was used to describe a condition where the painful, inflammatory symptoms of gout manifested in a widespread manner throughout the body, moving beyond the usual joints. While traditional gout attacks are localized to joints (like the classic gouty toe) a patient diagnosed with flying gout likely had severe systemic symptoms, possibly a more serious underlying condition that caused widespread pain and was accompanied by widespread inflammation. It was unpredictable and the condition appeared to strike suddenly, move erratically, and sometimes disappear just as quickly – only to return elsewhere.

Contributing factors, according to the medical beliefs of the time, included a sedentary life, excessive consumption of rich foods and alcohol, and obstructed perspiration.

An eighteenth-century diagnosis of flying gout was essentially a way for doctors to describe a patient's painful, widespread symptoms when they did not present with the classic signs of localized gout. It was often used as a catch-all diagnosis when symptoms were inconsistent, not clearly attributable to classic gout, or when medical understanding was limited. Flying gout may have encompassed a variety of conditions – from what we might now call rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, neuralgia, or even psychosomatic disorders. Source: Google AI

Origin of the Gout, cartoon of 1815, Henry Bunbury (1750–1811) [Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine via Wikimedia Commons]

Woodforde had only recently self-diagnosed gout.

Gout is often depicted as a demon attacking a toe because of the excruciating pain it can cause. It is frequently illustated in this way in cartoons of late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Historically, it has been called 'the disease of kings' due to its association with rich foods and alcohol consumption. However, it is now known that gout does not discriminate based on socioeconomic status but rather it is directly related to uric acid metabolism.

The worst of the pain subsided after a week and his diary entries become focussed on the health of his brother. However, Woodforde suffered a stomach ailment, took rhubarb before going to bed, and slept poorly. As he set off for Yarmouth he was not the same man who had ridden to Yarmouth from Weston via Norwich, Bungay, Beccles, Southwold, and Lowestoft just four years previously.

As Roy Winstanley, Woodforde's biographer, observes:

[Roy Winstanley, Parson Woodforde – The Life and Times of a Country Diarist, 2008, Pp 242–248]

A sea view

For the most part, Woodforde's 1790 sojourn at Yarmouth retraced the familiar sights that had delighted him and his family on earlier visits.

In spite of being soaked by the rain in 1779 Woodforde set off with his companions to 'ride upon the beach'. Did he return to the 'Sign of the Ship' or was it a different 'public house' which the diary simply doesn't name?

Portrait of John Crome, 1798, by John Opie (1761–1807) [© Norfolk Museums Service] Woodforde seldom records visual descriptions of people's appearance, buildings, or landscapes. The notion of landscape as something worthy of mention was largely unknown to him and to most of his contemporaries. Yet there is an irony here, given that only twenty miles away in Norwich, a certain John Crome (1768–1821) was completing his indenture as a sign painter, and beginning the artistic journey that would make him one of the most innovative and eminent landscape painters in England.

The 'Sea View', which Woodforde unusually mentions three times, was to become an inspiration for Crome, and later for John Constable and J M W Turner.

Alongside the sight of ships riding at anchor in Yarmouth Roads, a prominent feature of the sea view was the jetty, first built in 1560 as a landing place for fish. Repeatedly damaged by storms and high tides, it was reconstructed many times over the centuries. In the year following Woodforde's final visit, the 5 February 1791 issue of the Norfolk Chronicle reported:

At Weston parsonage Woodforde did not get to bed until 4 o'clock in the morning.

Consequently, the jetty which was a notable element of the sea view which so pleased Woodforde's visitors had to be rebuilt, and it was that 'new' jetty that was painted by John Crome at least five times.

Although from wholly divergent backgrounds – Crome was the son of a journeyman weaver and innkeeper – both Crome and Woodforde were retiring, quiet-living men whose fame came only after their deaths. In early 1798, Woodforde's diary entries were brief, following a serious bout of ill health the previous spring; while at Earlham Hall (the home of Sir Edmund and Lady Ann Bacon until 1785), west of Norwich and just ten miles from Weston parsonage, Richenda Gurney was also keeping a diary:

For most of his adult life, Crome earned his living not as a successful painter but as a drawing master to Norwich's newly affluent families. The 'so provoking' Betsy – one of the seven daughters of the Quaker businessman, John Gurney – was later to become Mrs Elizabeth Fry, the formidable prison reformer.

The New Chapel

St George's Chapel, Great Yarmouth [photo Alan Ovenden, 2024]When Woodforde mentions the 'New-Chapel' at Yarmouth we must assume that he was not referring to the Methodist chapel opened by John Wesley on 22nd October 1783.

Generally known as St George's Chapel, the new Anglican chapel was built to a similar design to Wren's church of St Clement Danes in the Strand, London. In the early eighteenth-century, St Nicholas's was the only church serving the town. Yarmouth Corporation identified the need for another place of worship and promoted an Act of Parliament to raise funds for its construction, which passed into law as the St George's Chapel Act of 1714.

Woodforde and his party visited St George's on Ascension Day, which he refers to as 'Holy Thursday'.

There is a tone of criticism, and a hint of hypocrisy, in Woodforde's comment that 'there was no Duty at the Chapel', although he himself never celebrated Ascension Day at Weston, nor any other weekday Prayer Book services except for Good Friday. Perhaps he simply misunderstood that St George's was not a parish church in its own right, but a chapel of ease to St Nicholas's parish church, which is where the Ascension Day service would have been held – if indeed there was one.

As congregations declined in the second half of the twentieth-century, the chapel was closed and eventually made redundant in 1959. However, its fine architecture and excellent acoustics saved it and it is now a theatre.

The previous evening Woodforde had called alone on Lady Bacon who was in lodgings near St George's Chapel. Formerly Ann Beauchamp Proctor, she was the sister of Frances who had married John Custance, Woodforde's squire at Weston. Ann and Frances were close sisters, and Lady Bacon was a frequent visitor to Weston House and regularly appears in James Woodforde's diary.

Whether Lady Bacon was at Yarmouth for the benefit of her health or to enjoy the developing social scene in line with the growing eighteenth-century fashion for seaside retreats, we are not informed. Sir Edmund Bacon, having translated his principal residence from Earlham Hall – which was favourably located for Norwich and Weston – to Raveningham Hall, Yarmouth might simply have been a convenient and agreeable setting for Lady Bacon to maintain contact with family and acquaintances.

A pocket purchase

A pocket magnetic compass in a brass case, 1792 [© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London]The diary contains numerous entries for the purchase of instruments and books for investigating geography and astronomy. This small compass must have struck a distant chord with Woodforde: while a curate at Babcary in Somerset he had requested that Daniel Prince, an Oxford bookseller, send him a copy of what he refers to in the diary as 'Turners Geography'.

'Turners Geography' was in fact a small volume of 72 pages by the Revd Richard Turner, entitled A view of the Earth: being a short but comprehensive System of Modern Geography. On advising the reader to perhaps construct their own compass, Turner also acknowledges that,

Woodforde could not resist the purchase prior to departing from Yarmouth. The diary doesn't tell us where he bought it, or a book of Oliver Goldsmith's poems which he acquired for nine pence. However, since he was later to be found drinking porter with some 'Jolly Tars' at a pot house, we might assume it was among the shops along the Quay.

The Fishermen's Hospital, Yarmouth, aquatint, John Preston, 1820 [Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection, Ref. 17958i] The afternoon concluded with a visit to the Fishermen's Hospital, which Woodforde referred to as 'a Hospital for old Sailors', where he gave one shilling. It was not a medical hospital in the modern sense, but a charitable institution established by the Corporation of Great Yarmouth in 1702 as almshouses for twenty fishermen and their wives over the age of sixty who could not provide for themselves. It continues to flourish.

Poker Work art (pyrography)

Mrs Ramey is most likely Abigail Ramey (née Browne) (1727–1811), the wife of John Ramey (1718–1794). John Ramey was an attorney (solicitor) who became a successful barrister. He twice served as Mayor of Yarmouth, and was also Receiver-General for Norfolk.

Poker work (pyrography) glove box (early nineteenth century) [Private collection] A Receiver-General was a public officer responsible for collecting government revenues in a specific region – in this case, the county of Norfolk. As such, he was a link between local parish tax collectors and the Exchequer. The best known of them in Norfolk was Roger Kerrison, Woodforde's Norwich banker, who held the position for thirty years until his death in 1808, when his estate was found to be insolvent. The office of Receiver-General for Norfolk was abolished in 1918.

The Yarmouth poll record for 1790 gives John Ramey's place of residence as Scratby Hall in the parish of Ormesby St Margaret, to the north of Yarmouth. However, Woodforde's diary entry implies that he also retained a home on Yarmouth Quay.

It has not been possible either to trace any surviving examples of Abigail Ramey's poker work or to locate fine examples of eighteenth-century pyrographic boxes in public collections. Most surviving pieces are Victorian and lack the fineness of line that Woodforde so admired, as shown in the glove box above.

Later that afternoon:

The Nelson connection

There are conflicting traditions about whether Admiral Lord Nelson landed at the jetty or in the haven when he arrived at Yarmouth on 6 November 1800. The artist Fred Roe depicted him arriving at the jetty from the open sea. However, it is almost certain that he landed at one of the town quays adjacent to the Haven Bridge, as the Ipswich Journal of 8 November 1800 clearly reports:

The landlady of the Wrestlers at that time was one Sarah Suckling, who claimed kinship with Nelson through his mother Catherine Suckling (1725–1767). Sarah asked leave to rename her hostelry the Nelson Arms in his honour. "That would be absurd," said Nelson, "seeing that I have but one."

The people and the corporation were expressing their gratitude for Lord Nelson's victory two years earlier, at the Battle of the Nile on 1 August 1798, when he completely destroyed the French fleet. The news reached London and Nelson's native Norfolk only on 2 October, and Woodforde recorded it in his diary:

The diary also refers to the subsequent celebrations at Norwich and at Weston parsonage:

When Lord Nelson arrived at Yarmouth for the third time, he landed at the jetty from the gun-brig Kite on 1 July 1801, after his decisive role at the Battle of Copenhagen under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker on 1 April that year. Woodforde recorded the event:

Martin Brayne has, however, discovered that woven through this part of the Nelson story there is another more personal one connecting the Diarist to the great sailor.

Departure from Yarmouth

Having gathered Brother John, Woodforde's party departed the Angel at 3 o'clock that afternoon in the Norwich coach, having paid Mrs Dark's bill of £5 : 12 : 10 (five pounds, twelve shillings and ten pence) and given twelve shillings in gratuities to the servants. It had been a full and busy three days, and he would not visit Yarmouth again.

James Woodforde and Yarmouth

Yarmouth's literary associations

Woodforde's first visit in 1775

Woodforde's first visit in 1775 – Washbourne Cooke

Woodforde's second visit in 1776

Woodforde's third visit in 1778

Woodforde's third visit in 1778 – the journey to Yarmouth

Woodforde's fourth visit in 1779

Woodforde's fifth visit in 1786