9

THE VICTORIANS TO THE GREAT WAR

1837–1914

Queen Victoria was crowned monarch in 1837, following the death of her uncle William IV (r. 1830–37). The Victorian age bore witness to events that shaped our modern world. It was a period of relative peace between the great international powers. Great Britain established a major global presence and there was significantly increased economic activity. The population of England and Wales more than doubled between the mid-nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, from seventeen million to forty million.

In the mid-nineteenth century there were 443,000 people living in Norfolk. The county was not industrialised to the extent seen in other parts of Britain. Here, most people were still living off of the land. In the early decades, everyday life for rural people remained much as it had been in previous centuries. Families lived in cottages without access to running water, sewerage, public education, healthcare or efficient methods of transport. As the century progressed, the Victorian years gave rise to steady improvements in living conditions, alongside other progressive changes in public health, social provision, commerce and across the arts.

The middle years of the nineteenth century saw the introduction of liberal legislation through a series of new laws. In 1838 the Abolition of Slavery Act came into force. A poor law was introduced to provide relief for the destitute. In 1870 the Education Act was passed, which introduced universal education. The Chartist movement between 1836 and 1848 sought political rights for the working classes. The period also witnessed the last public execution, in 1868.

From the 1840s the railways became the principal conduit for trade. Norfolk’s major towns achieved improved connections with other parts of the country and, in particular, London.

VICTORIAN VALUES

The period from the 1780s to the 1840s had been one of increasing disorder. In Victorian England, strong efforts were made to reduce lawlessness, drunkenness, general crime and domestic violence, and to subdue political unrest. In order to achieve this, it was considered a priority to address the issue of moral values and behaviour, while promoting Christian morality. The approach employed was the creation of a set of values embodying the ‘Spirit of the Age’, involving adhesion to religion, domesticity and stability of home life, a strong work ethic and desire for personal improvement.

These efforts involved all sectors of society, including churches, schools, the newly established police force and many voluntary bodies, as well as parliament and the courts. By the 1870s a noticeable decline in crime, drunkenness and unsociable behaviour had been achieved.

Punishments for crimes remained severe and hangings were a regular public spectacle until 1868. In Norfolk, executions were performed outside Norwich Castle and the author Charles Dickens described visiting Norwich to see one such hanging.

Victorian society was strongly religious, with over 40 per cent of the population regularly going to church, and with more than half of those people attending Nonconformist chapels. The proportion of churchgoers in Norfolk was higher than in other parts of the country. The church was to become a cornerstone of the community and part of the routine of family life, with attendance considered the norm. As more people moved to the towns, new churches were built in the developing areas and many older ones were restored.

SCHOOLS

The basic form of educational provision for the poor in Victorian England was the Dame School. These establishments varied in quality. While some just provided a form of day care, others managed to deliver a sound, if basic, education. Significant improvement was made during the late nineteenth century, following the Education Act of 1870. By the final decades of the century there was adequate provision of school places for all children.

During the second half of the century a broader access to education was assisted by the provision of classes for adults and the establishment of lending libraries. Some villages also provided reading rooms. Sunday schools, which had been established in the late eighteenth century, were also widely available. By the 1850s, the level of literacy was increasing significantly.

THE ARRIVAL OF THE RAILWAYS

The first Norfolk railway was opened in 1844 and ran between Norwich and Great Yarmouth. A connection from Norwich to London was made the following year. By 1850 all major towns across Norfolk had been joined by rail. The different lines came together under the Eastern Counties Railway in 1854 and subsequently became the Great Eastern Railway in 1862.

Norfolk’s rail network was widespread and intricate, essentially linking the market towns and coastal resorts. The establishment of the system had a positive influence on the commercial stability and subsequent development of the county, especially Norwich. The railways also provided a welcome source of employment, particularly through the Great Eastern Railway.

THE TOWNS

England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was becoming the first truly urban nation. In Norfolk, conditions in the countryside increasingly drove a migration to the towns during Victoria’s reign, leading to a need for a massive increase in urban housing.

At the start of the Victorian era, Norwich was experiencing an economic decline and a series of social problems. The city had lost its prominence in the textile industry, together with its status as England’s second city. The citizens had started to protest about low wages, high food prices and unemployment, exacerbated by the introduction of power looms. Industrial pollution from factories, power stations and the railway, together with cramped housing conditions, combined to make the city a dirty and often unpleasant place. In spite of these problems, it nearly doubled in size, from 62,000 inhabitants to 112,000, between 1837 and the end of Victoria’s reign in 1901.

For the next sixty years, steady improvements were made to address the accumulated problems. Better communications with other parts of the country, the new forms of transport and a growth of new industries served to re-establish Norwich as a fine city as it approached the twentieth century. There were civic improvements, including the building of terraced houses, with episodes of rapid construction in the north and north-eastern suburbs. Important new buildings were built, involving some prominent architects. Edward Boardman (1833–1910) designed the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and undertook the conversion of the historic Norwich Castle into a museum. George Skipper (1846–1948) designed the Royal Arcade, with its stunning Art Nouveau entrance. Skipper also created the acclaimed palazzo of the Norwich Union office building. Norwich’s second cathedral, the Cathedral Church of St John the Baptist, was designed by George Gilbert Scott Jr and constructed between 1882 and 1910.

By the 1890s, Norwich had three railway stations and trams were introduced in 1900. A sewer system was constructed in 1869. Public parks were created at Chapelfield and on Mousehold Heath, where there was an ornate bandstand. By the end of the Victorian period, Norwich had become a peaceful, law-abiding and prosperous city once again.

George Skipper also left his architectural mark on the profile of Cromer, which was developing as a seaside resort. He designed some nineteen distinctive new buildings there, including the Hotel de Paris, which remains as a striking feature of today’s skyline.

Norfolk’s second town was still Great Yarmouth, with a population of 28,000 in 1837. Its importance was based on maritime trade, dealing in Baltic timber, cargoes from the Rhineland and exporting corn from East Anglia. But it was herrings, known as ‘silver darlings’, that created the greatest wealth and new markets for them were opened up with the railways. Yarmouth was England’s eighth most important port and fishing centre until the end of the nineteenth century. The fishing fleet was supplemented each autumn by the arrival of Scottish vessels. Together, they maintained a trade in salted herring with eastern Europe. Yarmouth’s herring fishery continued to grow in importance and its greatest season was in 1913, when the fleet numbered over 1,000 steam and sailing drifters, landing 900 million fish. Every autumn there was also an influx of hundreds of Scottish fisherwomen who came to gut, salt and pack the herring. The town resonated to the sounds of the fish wharves and the smell of the smokehouses, where kippers were hung on wooden staves called ‘spits’.

The growing holiday industry was given a boost by the arrival of the railway. Like Norwich, Great Yarmouth had three stations by the end of the century. Holidaymakers arrived from London by train and also by paddle steamer from the Thames Estuary. Others came from the Midlands, direct to the Beach Station. The Wellington Pier was constructed in 1853, followed by the Britannia Pier in 1858. The Marine Parade was extended and developed in 1863. Gorleston to the south, with its wide sandy beaches, developed as a quieter family resort.

King’s Lynn retained its importance as a trading port. It maintained a coastal trade in grain and coal, as well as fishing. It was also an important market town, serving west Norfolk and the eastern Fens. In 1867–69 the Alexandra Dock was built, followed by the Bentinck Dock in 1883. Both enabled larger ships to access the port, while the railway was extended to the wharves. Living conditions had improved markedly by the end of the nineteenth century. Following a typhoid epidemic in 1897, clean water was provided for the town through a new waterworks. The population grew from 16,000 in 1837 to 24,000 at the end of the century.

INDUSTRIAL NORFOLK

The Industrial Revolution eventually made a belated appearance in Norfolk. Food processing became an important industry, most famously through Colman’s of Norwich. Jeremiah Colman founded the company in 1814 and it steadily expanded to become a regional institution. The distinctive yellow branding famous today was introduced in 1855 and in 1866 Colman’s were given a Royal Warrant as manufacturers of mustard to Queen Victoria; one which continues to the present day. Besides being a major employer, the Colmans were pioneers in social welfare, devoted to the health and welfare of their workers. They employed the first ever industrial nurse in Britain, Philippa Flowerday, and also a works doctor, as well as running a Sick Benefit Society and establishing a school for the children of workers.

Norwich also became a centre for engineering, particularly through Barnard, Bishop and Barnards, who set up their ironworks at Coslany in 1851, and Boulton and Paul, at Mountergate, in 1865–91. By 1870 leatherworking had become Norwich’s leading industry, with an emphasis on shoe manufacture. It was boot and shoe making that replaced textiles as the major employer in Norwich.

In the financial sector, Norwich was a centre for banking and insurance. The local Gurney Bank became part of Barclays in 1896. In the sphere of life insurance, Norwich Union Fire and Life Societies became established nationally.

The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw further growth of beer making, with Norfolk’s breweries supplying establishments between Lincolnshire and Essex. A.J. Caley & Son started as chemists and went on to produce cocoa and chocolate. Norwich also remained a major agricultural centre, with a thriving cattle market in the centre of the city, adjacent to the castle. Associated trades grew up in adjacent streets, with butchers in and around Ber Street.

One of the more unusual trades carried out in Norwich was brush making. Brushes had been made in the city from the eighteenth century and by 1890 there were fifteen manufacturers in the city, including S.D. Page & Sons, the largest in the country. This also became a major established trade at Wymondham.

During the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries one of the most popular family leisure activities was going to fairgrounds, which travelled all over the country. All ages would be captivated by the colourful, noisy and exotic amusement rides. The most famous and popular attraction was the carousel, or merry-go-round. Savages of King’s Lynn is the name associated with the construction of these extravagant rides. Its engines and machinery were once familiar all over Britain and abroad. The name remains firmly linked with King’s Lynn, where the company was a major employer. Established by Frederick Savage in 1853, his firm first produced horse-drawn agricultural machinery and then self-propelled traction engines, eventually developing showground machinery in 1872.

There were numerous small iron foundries during the early nineteenth century. Some of these grew to become larger engineering works. It was in the mid-nineteenth century that Thetford became the centre of a heavy engineering industry. Charles Burrell & Sons were manufacturers of some of the most highly regarded steam locomotives in the world through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They built steam traction engines, agricultural machinery, steam trucks and steam engines. At the height of their business the firm employed over 350 people in the town. Members of the Burrell family had grown their business from origins in metal smithing in the 1740s. During the later years of the eighteenth century, Joseph Burrell began to develop and manufacture agricultural implements and early in the nineteenth century he began to design patent agricultural machinery with his brothers, James and William. During the mid-nineteenth century they developed a self-propelled road engine for pulling loads, known as the Burrell-Boydell engine.

THE LAND

Although Norfolk was situated well away from the coalfields and the major centres of heavy industry that proliferated to the west and north, the county played a significant role in support of the Industrial Revolution through what can be called the Agricultural Revolution. The country’s population grew rapidly over these years and Norfolk’s agriculture made a significant contribution to feeding them. Agriculture was still the county’s main employer and was to remain so until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Landholdings of the landed gentry with their grand houses, lakes, parks, farms and associated villages still dominated large parts of the county during the later nineteenth century, particularly in the north. Some of the great estates had increased in size during the later eighteenth century and by the middle years of the nineteenth century, more than 100 Norfolk families owned estates greater than 2,000 acres. Their distinctive landscapes were designed to accommodate field sports, as well as the husbandry of game herds. Holkham remained the largest, while others of the period included Houghton Hall, the Raynham Estate, Melton Constable and Wolterton.

The construction of grand houses continued in the Victorian years, although the styles employed and the scale differed from their heyday in the previous century. New builds included Costessey Hall near Norwich (1826–55), built as an extension to a Tudor house, Cromer Hall (1856–60), Bylaugh Hall (1849–51), Lynford Hall (1856–61), in addition to How Hill House, Kelling Hall, South Pickenham Hall and Sandringham House.

It was in the 1860s that Edward, Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII, acquired Sandringham, situated just to the north of King’s Lynn, as his private residence and estate. The main house was built in 1870 to accommodate the royal family and has remained in their hands ever since. An agricultural recession that started in the 1870s eventually brought an end to the construction of more grand country houses.

The years between 1840 and 1870 had seen agriculture in Norfolk flourish, with the development of what is known as ‘High Farming’. The term denoted ‘top quality’ farming, associated with the adoption of new methods to achieve improved results. The practices in question were improvements in land drainage, use of fertilisers, intensive livestock production and new designs in farm buildings to achieve animal fattening and greater efficiency. The adoption of machinery steadily increased, in particular the use of steam engines produced by Burrells in Thetford.

Things then changed dramatically during the mid-1870s. There was a collapse in grain prices and an accompanying agricultural depression right across the country. Landowners suffered a significant decline in income from rents. Living conditions for rural communities was already poor and although some estates did provide limited housing for labourers, hovels were more common. The threat of starvation encouraged ever greater numbers of farmworkers to migrate to the towns.

It was not until after 1894 that the countryside experienced a slow but steady recovery. The years leading up to 1914 then saw good quality produce finding markets, especially through malting, barley, livestock and dairying. In the Fenland, the growing of fruit and vegetables continued to thrive.

The life of Sir George Edwards (1850–1933) serves to illustrate many aspects of country life and the importance of agriculture within the county. Born at Marsham, near Aylsham, George was the youngest of seven children from a poor family. At the age of just 5, he entered the local workhouse with his family. When they came out, George immediately started work on the land, given the job of scaring crows.

At the age of 17, he became an agricultural worker and was employed as a ploughman. At 22 he married Charlotte Corke, who taught him to read and write, and he proceeded to become a Methodist lay preacher. In the 1870s George became secretary of the local branch of the Agricultural Labourer’s Union. He entered local politics as a Liberal, pressing for land reform and the vote for farmworkers. His lasting achievement was the foundation of the Eastern Counties Agricultural Union in 1906, which was to become the National Union of Agricultural Workers after the Great War.

In 1920, at the age of 70, George Edwards was elected to Parliament as Labour candidate for South Norfolk. He was awarded the OBE in 1929 and in 1933, the year he died, became the first farmworker to be knighted. This remarkable man had overcome poverty, illiteracy and low birth, devoting his whole life to the service of his fellow man.

The Victorian years overall witnessed a decline in rural populations. From the 1850s onwards, an unforeseen impact of the railway was to further facilitate the migration of people away from Norfolk to London and to the north of England. Others were lured further afield by opportunities offered in Canada and America.

WORKHOUSES

Workhouse buildings are still found across Norfolk and serve as a reminder of rural poverty during the nineteenth century. There had been a steady increase in unemployment since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. In the countryside, this was exacerbated by the impact of new technology at the expense of jobs for agricultural workers. The New Poor Law of 1834 sought to address the relief of poverty in society. Although workhouses, which had been introduced in the eighteenth century, were able to provide relief for the truly destitute, the conditions provided for inmates were such that they would deter all but the really needy.

The new Act resulted in the formation of new ‘unions’ between adjacent parishes. These ensured better provision of workhouse accommodation for the poor. The formation of the unions enabled the joint financing of workhouse provision across all areas.

Between 1835 and 1838, twelve unions were formed in Norfolk and built new workhouses while, in other areas, existing buildings continued to be used. Inmates lived and worked under a strict regime in return for their accommodation and food. The workhouse at Gressenhall near East Dereham in central Norfolk has been preserved as a museum, where the lives of the inmates can be explored. Originally built in 1777, from 1834 Gressenhall became the workhouse for the Mitford and Launditch area.

WINDPUMPS AND WINDMILLS

During the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the sight of drainage windmills or windpumps dominated large parts of Norfolk’s flatter landscape. These buildings were constructed primarily in the east to remove excess water from the surface of marshy areas. The most famous example of a windpump is that at St Benet’s Abbey, which was constructed inside a medieval abbey gatehouse during the later eighteenth century and has been a subject for many artists.

The landscape of Broadland provides the densest landscape of these mills anywhere in England. The very early examples were constructed from timber but most surviving mills are brick towers, which still dominate the flat marshy landscape inland from Great Yarmouth. The early ones were manually turned while later examples employed a fantail mechanism. Steam engines were also used from the mid-nineteenth century.

Norfolk’s landscape also favoured the establishment and use of windmills for producing corn. Over 400 corn mills were in use in the county around 1850. By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, this had declined to just 100.

TRANSPORT AND TRADE

The improvements in transport allowed quicker journeys across the country, enabling daily deliveries over long distances and providing a boost to the economy. Additions to the early railway system provided improvements to the lines serving the coastal tourist resorts. Tramways were also established between the rail lines and docks at King’s Lynn, Great Yarmouth and Wells, facilitating the loading of commercial commodities to rail wagons.

As in medieval times, waterways continued to be of importance for transporting heavy goods. Rivers to the west of the central Norfolk watershed were linked with King’s Lynn and the Fenland. Those to the east were linked to Great Yarmouth. In 1872 the North Walsham and Dilham canal connected Dilham with Antingham to the north. Further west, the River Bure was improved and widened as far inland as Aylsham. Both of these systems had mills located on their banks.

The sight of the majestic sailing vessels called wherries, with their distinctive sails and low, rounded profile, is inextricably associated with Norfolk’s Broads. Wherries are a form of sailing barge that were the main means of transporting traded goods between Norwich and Great Yarmouth. They could each carry up to 50 tons, with their cargoes of coal, grain, timber, building materials and fertilisers, which they carried along the River Yare and across Broadland. The use of wherries eventually declined during the twentieth century, although a few remained until the outbreak of the Second World War.

The seafaring importance of Norfolk’s coast extended beyond the large towns. The smaller ports, including Wells, Blakeney, Cley and Burnham, were still engaged in the import of coal, timber and building materials and the export of grain. Together with other coastal villages including Sheringham and Weybourne, they had their own longshore fishing fleets. A wooden jetty still functioned at Cromer to facilitate the loading of farming produce onto sea-going vessels.

THE SEASIDE

Norfolk’s seaside was becoming an increasingly fashionable attraction, while providing a lift to the county’s economy in a new direction. Businessmen began to invest in bathing machines and other aspects related to tourism. The need for places for visitors to stay increased and guest houses and hotels grew up at resorts right around the coast. Grand new architectural interventions started to characterise the coastal resorts.

The earlier jetty at Cromer was replaced by a longer structure in 1846 and visitors to the resort began to use it as a promenade. Then a new pier was constructed in 1902, specifically designed for public use and enjoyment. At Great Yarmouth, Wellington Pier was opened in 1853, with the nearby Britannia Pier built just five years later. In 1903 they were accompanied by a Pavilion and a Winter Gardens. Hunstanton in the west originally received visitors as a watering place. It later became popular with visitors from the east Midlands as a seaside resort.

It was the arrival of the railway that provided the critical boost to Norfolk’s seaside industry. A line connecting Great Yarmouth to Norwich opened in 1844 and subsequent lines linked to Cromer, Sheringham and Mundesley, which enabled them to grow as seaside destinations.

INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCES

The English East India Company had been founded in 1600 to pursue trade in the East Indies (South East Asia) and came to own large parts of India. In 1858 the rule of what was by then the British East India Company was handed over to the Crown. The Indian subcontinent was to remain under British rule until 1947; the period known as the British Raj. The Punjab was an independent kingdom in the north-west of India and came under British control in 1805. The Maharajah Duleep Singh (1839–93) was the last Sikh ruler of the region. Singh was to spend most of his life in England and have a lifelong association with the area around Thetford.

It was following the Anglo-Sikh wars of the 1860s that the young Duleep Singh surrendered his lands and property and was exiled to England, aged just 15. In 1863 he purchased the Elveden Estate, on the Norfolk–Suffolk border, which he transformed into an oriental palace. Outside, exotic peacocks roamed the grounds, while cheetahs and leopards were kept in enclosures. As the years passed, Singh adopted the life of an English gentleman and became renowned as a colourful local personality. He was befriended by Queen Victoria, who was godmother to several of his eight children. He is buried in Elveden churchyard.

During the nineteenth century, a number of European tourists visited Egypt. Many brought back artefacts and formed their own collections. Some Norfolk residents played high-profile roles in the European discovery of ancient Egypt. One of these was Howard Carter (1873–1939), of Swaffham, who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, which was one of the most famous and spectacular archaeological discoveries ever made. Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856–1925), the famous writer, was also born and lived in Norfolk. A keen traveller, he too was fascinated by Egypt. He bought antiquities and donated some items to the Norwich Museum in 1917.

Rider Haggard’s writings reflect a contemporary fascination with the investigation of ancient and exotic cultures. He was also an accomplished farmer on his own Norfolk estate and in 1902 he published Rural England, a study of agriculture and rural conditions in Britain at the time. His life brings together the associations of agriculture and exploration overseas alongside the important literary tradition that has developed within the county.

International politics and the maintenance of the British Empire involved the Royal Norfolk Regiment. In 1835, they arrived in India. From there they were sent to Afghanistan and took part in bitter hand-to-hand fighting at the Khyber Pass. They participated in the First Sikh War of 1845. When in 1854 England declared war on Russia, they were sent to the Crimean War.

In 1857 the 9th Foot became a two-battalion regiment. Towards the end of the nineteenth century both battalions were involved in campaigns to stabilise the security of the British Empire. They served in the Second Afghan War, Gibraltar, India and Burma. On 1 July 1881 they became The Norfolk Regiment. In 1900 they were sent to South Africa to participate in the Boer War.

SPORT IN VICTORIAN NORFOLK

The formal organisation of major sports at this time played an integral role in the efforts to define and promote Victorian moral values. Organised sport was a significant cultural invention of Victorian England and became a way of focusing the energies and behaviour of all social classes. Sports such as cricket, rugby union and football all encouraged the kind of virtues and values seen as important to ensure a stable, considerate and fair society. Sports clubs were established throughout the county.

Cricket had been played in Norfolk from the seventeenth century. It was in 1876 that Norfolk County Cricket Club was founded. The Eastern Counties Rugby Union, which organised the game across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, was founded in 1890. The Norfolk and Suffolk Football League was established in 1897, bringing together the clubs Beccles Claxton, Great Yarmouth Town, Kirkley, Lowestoft Town, Lynn Town and Norwich CEYMS. Both Norwich City and Ipswich Town joined in the years after 1900. Norwich City FC was founded in 1902.

THE ARTS

The tradition of writing in Norfolk blossomed in the Victorian period. Sir Henry Rider Haggard’s novels include King Solomon’s Mines and She. Anna Sewell (1820–78) was born in Great Yarmouth. She wrote her only but internationally acclaimed novel Black Beauty at her house at Old Catton, on the outskirts of Norwich. Charles Dickens (1812–70) visited Norfolk on occasions and in his novel David Copperfield, he included an evocative description of Great Yarmouth in 1850.

In the field of photography, Norfolk’s Olive Edis (1876–1955) rose to international renown through her portrait photography and as a war artist during the First World War. She opened a studio at Sheringham, on the north coast, in 1903, from where she specialised in portraits of fishermen and local gentry.

Edis pioneered new photographic techniques through the early decades of the twentieth century. She photographed a wide variety of British society, from royalty and famous people to studies of Norfolk fishermen and their families. Her more prominent sitters included George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Hardy, Emmeline Pankhurst and the Duke of York.

When the First World War started, Edis was appointed an official war artist and became the only official woman photographer. During the course of this work, she photographed the various women’s services and the battlefields of France and Flanders between 1914 and 1918.

Peter Henry Emerson (1856–1936) was another photographer and writer, who was best known for his evocative images of rural life in Norfolk and Suffolk. He liked to depict real people in their own environment and he used his photography to capture and preserve what he recognised as disappearing ways of life.

In an age of rapidly expanding industrialisation and styles, Thomas Jeckyll (1827–81) became an influential figure in the Victorian design reform movement. He was also a major designer of private and public architecture. Jeckyll’s architectural career was focused on East Anglia. Today, he is perhaps best known for his metalwork designs, which combined oriental influences and include some of the finest pieces of the period. He established his name designing exhibition pieces for the Norwich ironwork firm of Barnard, Bishop and Barnards, with whom he won international awards for such pieces as the Norwich Gates, shown at the 1862 London International Exhibition, and which are now installed at Sandringham.

Norwich’s Castle Museum has its origins in Victorian Norfolk. The Norfolk and Norwich Museum was established in 1825, initially located in the city’s Haymarket. By the 1880s it had become apparent that Norwich Castle was no longer adequate to serve as a gaol and it was replaced by a new county prison that was constructed on Mousehold Heath, to the north of the city. It was local architect Edward Boardman, together with local banker John Gurney (1819–90), who recognised the potential for redeveloping the castle to house the museum. Norwich Corporation purchased the site in 1884 and Boardman himself prepared the plans for the new museum, based on the conversion of the Norman Keep and prison buildings. Boardman’s proposal to reinsert the lost Norman principal floor and replicate the original Norman castle interior was rejected by the museum committee on cost grounds – a plan that is at last being revived and realised in 2020.

THE FINAL YEARS

Queen Victoria died in 1901. By the time of her death, her reign had seen major improvements in living conditions across Norfolk. These included the introduction of water mains, sewers, paved streets, gas lighting, surfaced roads, organised sport and even newspapers, which in turn enabled the swift communication of national news and events. Houses were now routinely built in brick or stone. There were further improvements in education and provision for the poor and destitute. New methods of transport opened up the county to improved trade and mass tourism. The first cars were appearing on the roads. The crisis in public order had been tackled and a strong moral code embraced.

The years following Victoria’s death saw low unemployment but a rise in the cost of living. A changing political landscape began to emerge, together with a surge in Trades Union membership. But all was to be violently disrupted by international events in just the second decade of the twentieth century.