year it was resolved that the sum of £5 00 ra ^ se< ^ 
means of shares bearing interest. From this time the 
Museum made steady progress under the Presidency ol 
Sir James Edward Smith, F.R.S., and other Norfolk men 
who attained fame in Science, Literature, and Art. At the 
Annual Meeting held in 1826 the President stated that the 
collections had outgrown the accommodation, and that 
they were valued at £850. 
The collections formed by the Norwich Museum Society 
were made over to the Corporation of the City of Norwich 
in 1893, and thus, after seventy years, ceasecNto exist as a 
private Institution in a hitherto unknown position of 
prosperity. 
The last Report closes as follows : — 
“ Your Committee may perhaps be permitted to remind 
you that during the period of the Museum’s existence as 
private property it has grown from a small beginning to its 
present dimensions almost entirely from private gifts, and 
that the change to its new and improved circumstances 
is also due entirely to private munificence.” 
'V 
The present Norwich Castle Museum was opened by 
Their Majesties the King and Queen (then Duke and 
Duchess of York) on October 23rd, 1894, the work of 
restoring the interior of the Keep and converting the 
adjacent prison buildings into spacious galleries having been 
carried out at a cost of £26,474, the late Mr. John Gurney, 
then Mayor of Norwich, contributing the sum of £5,000. 
6 
History of the Norman Keep. 
T HE Castle Museum is approached by a roadway over 
a beautiful arch spanning the earthworks known in 
early days as the Castle ditches. The Mound on 
which the buildings stand is mainly artificial and probably 
had its origin in prehistoric times. The first stone Castle 
was begun soon after the Norman Conquest, by one of 
the Conqueror’s chieftains, William Fitz Osbern, and in 
1075 the Countess Emma, wife of the rebel Earl Ralph, 
successfully defended it for three months against the King’s 
troops ; after her honourable capitulation it was occupied 
by 300 of the King’s soldiers, and must therefore have 
been of considerable extent. It is doubtful, however, 
whether any relics of this building survive, with the 
exception, perhaps, of a few slight remains in the basement. 
Earl Roger Bigod held the castle under William Rufus, and 
his son Hugh under Henry I. During Jhe latter part of the 
reign of Stephen, Hugh set himself up as an independent 
chief, and to him at that time we may attribute the building 
of the Keep as we now see it. When Henry II came to the 
throne Hugh surrendered the Castle to him, but in 1174 
seized it again for a short time. In 1217 it was held by the 
French king Louis, in opposition to King John. 
From this time the Castle ceased to have any military 
importance and was used as a Royal prison throughout the 
rest of the thirteenth cesrtury and till 1345, when it was given 
to the Sheriff of Norfolk for a county gaol, and so it 
continued until 1806, when it was transferred to the 
magistrates of the County of Norfolk, who held it till 
1884, when it was decided by the Government to build a 
new gaol on Mousehold. After some negotiations the 
old buildings were purchased by the Corporation and 
converted into the present £C Castle Museum.” 
7 
