A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



the eighteenth century as it had in the sixteenth. 

 But the great majority of these were women and 

 children, who span wool in the intervals of 

 household work for a miserable pittance of ^d. 

 or 4^. a day. Their occupation in this way can 

 hardly be said to have given an industrial character 

 to the county. 



From Defoe's famous description of his tour 

 through the eastern counties in 1722, it is clear 

 that at this period the activities of Suffolk seemed 

 to the intelligent observer to be mainly concen- 

 trated in maintaining a large export of food. 



A very great quantity of corn is shipped from 

 Ipswich to London. . . . Woodbridge is full of corn 

 factors and butter factors some of whom are very con- 

 siderable merchants. . . . Even Dunwich, however 

 ruined, retains some share of this trade as it lies right 

 against the particular part of the county for butter. 

 ... A very great quantity of beef and mutton also 

 is brought every year and every week to London from 

 this side of England. . . . Suffolk is particularly 

 famous for furnishing the city of London and all the 

 counties round with turkeys. . . . Three hundred droves 

 have been counted crowing Stratford Bridge in one 

 season and still more leave the county by Newmarket, 

 Sudbury, and Clare. The geese begin to be driven 

 to London in August . . . and hold on to the end 

 of October when the roads begin to be too stiff and 

 deep for their broad feet and short legs to march in. 

 . . . Moreover of late carts have been made with 

 four stories to put the creatures in one above another 

 by which invention one cart can carry a great num- 

 ber. Changing horses they travel night and day, so 

 that they bring the fowls seventy, eighty, or one hun- 

 dred miles in two days and one night.' 



Under such conditions as these it is evident 

 that good communications by road or river be- 

 tween the interior of the county and the outside 

 world, especially with the capital, were of the 

 utmost importance to the economic prosperity of 

 Suffolk ; and it was at this period that both 

 road and river received the greatest improve- 

 ments. It was the period of the Turnpike 

 Acts ; 3 and Arthur Young, towards the close of 

 it, testifies that ' the roads are uncommonly good 

 in every part of the county ; so that a traveller 

 is nearly able to move in a postchaise by a map, 

 almost sure of finding excellent gravel roads ; 

 many cross ones in most directions equal to 

 turnpikes. The improvements in this respect in 

 the last twenty years are almost inconceivable.' 3 

 The canalization of the rivers, so far as it has been 

 accomplished, was practically all of it carried out 

 during this distinctively agricultural period of 

 Suffolk history. A scheme for making the Lark 



1 D. Defoe, Tour in Eastern Counties, Cassell's 

 National Library, 94, pp. no, 112, 120-3. 



' Stat. 25 Geo. Ill, cap. 106 (Ipswich to Gorleston), 

 51 George III, cap. 10 (Barton to Brandon), 51 

 Geo. Ill, cap. 108 (Ipswich to Scole), 51 Geo. Ill, 

 cap. 113, (Gorleston to Blythburgh), 52 Geo. Ill, 

 cap. 24 (Ipswich to Stratford), 52 Geo. Ill, cap. 119 

 (Bury to Newmarket), 52 Geo. Ill, cap. 23 (Ipswich to 

 Debenham). * Young, A Gen. Hew, 227. 



navigable from Bury to the Little Ouse had 

 been set on foot by a certain Henry Lambe, and 

 received the royal approval just before the out- 

 break of the Civil War, 4 but was apparently not 

 carried out till 1698, when an Act was passed 

 empowering Henry Ashby, esq., of Eaton Socon 

 in Bedfordshire to make the Lark navigable from 

 Long Common a little below Mildenhall as far 

 as Eastgate Bridge at Bury. The Act was 

 amended by another passed in 1817 which placed 

 the navigation under the management of about 

 eighty commissioners. 5 Owing to some misun- 

 derstanding between the first proprietors and the 

 Bury corporation respecting the right to con- 

 struct wharves and erect warehouses within the 

 borough, the canalization of the river was never 

 carried further than Fornham. A further pro- 

 ject set on foot at the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century to connect Bury by a canal with the 

 Stour near Manningtree met with opposition 

 from the proprietors of the Lark Navigation and 

 others and was abandoned. 6 Similar powers for 

 the improvement of the Stour from Sudbury to 

 Manningtree and for the levying of tolls on the 

 traffic were conferred on a body of commissioners 

 connected with the former town. In 1 706 7 

 Defoe found the improvement in operation, and 

 though there were complaints that it did not pay 

 very well, 8 it continued in full use till the intro- 

 duction of railways. The Blythe was made 

 navigable for small craft to Halesworth under the 

 powers conferred by an Act of 1756, this being 

 the completion of a work commenced in 1 749 and 

 continued in 1752 by opening out the choked- 

 up Blythe haven at Southwold, and erecting two 

 piers, one on the north and the other on the 

 south side of the haven. 10 



The canalization of the Gipping from Slow- 

 market to Ipswich was begun in 1790 and 

 finished in 1798, the chief movers in the matter 

 being Mr. Joshua Grigsby of Drinkstone Park 

 and Mr. William Wollaston of Finborough Hall. 

 The total cost was over 26,000, a good deal of 

 extra expense being incurred in a lawsuit with 

 the first contractors. The length was over 

 1 6 miles, and there were fifteen locks con- 

 structed. The original charges made for freight 

 were a penny per ton per mile from Stow to 

 Ipswich, and a halfpenny per ton per mile from 

 Ipswich to Stow. In the first full year ten 

 barges were employed, and the tolls amounted 

 to 937 IOJ. The cost of the carriage of produce 

 was reduced to one-half, and the rent of land is 

 said to have risen in consequence. AH these 



4 Cal. o/S.P. Dom. 1637-8, p. 323. 

 ' Stat. n and 12 Will. Ill, cap. 22. 



* White, Direct. (1855), 149. 

 7 Stat. 4 Anne, cap. 15. 



' Defoe, Tour in Eastern Counties, 99. 



* A Collection of Acts and Ordinances, etc. Relating to 

 Suffolk, vol. i (B.M.) 



10 Stat. 20 Geo. II, cap. 14 ; see also 30 Geo. II, 

 cap. 58, and 49 Geo. Ill, cap. 77. 



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