lying in a valley surrounded by hills, up which the town is gradually climbing, and watered by the picturesque orwell, which elevates the town to the dignity of a port, and within little more than an hour and a half’s run from london by the great eastern railway, ipswich may claim to be a place well worth visiting, while to the trader it is known and appreciated as a busy and thriving town. when i first knew it—at a time a little antecedent to the advent of the illustrious mr. pickwick—it was not much of a place to look at. with the exception of the space opposite the town hall, a handsome building all of the modern time, the people seemed sadly hampered for want of room. in this respect the place has been wonderfully improved of late, as much as any town in her majesty’s dominions; not even birmingham more. it was one of the first places to have an arboretum, which is well kept up for the health and comfort of its people. then by the river a pleasant promenade has been formed, where, when the tide comes up from harwich, bringing with it a faint touch of the briny, you may fancy that you are by the side of the sea itself. that river orwell is a sight in itself, and is utilised by the young and vigorous as regards boating and bathing in a way conducive to the development of health and muscle alike. the corn market at ipswich is one of the most important in the kingdom, and the public buildings are numerous, and p. 29boast not a little of architectural skill, as, for instance, the grammar school, the theatre, tacket street chapel—one of the oldest representatives of nonconformity in the place—the pile of buildings forming the offices of the east anglian daily times—the most successful of the east anglian dailies, which would be a credit even to the metropolis. one of the handsomest piles of buildings in the town is that occupied by the museum, the schools of art and science, and the victorin free library. since their completion in 1881, the whole of the valuable books and arch?logical treasures belonging to the corporation have been classified and attractively arranged for inspection by visitors. the old judge’s chambers have now been turned into a club, which supplies a want felt in such a place. i think ipswich was one of the first towns to start a mechanics’ institute, still in vigorous existence; while all over europe you may meet with agricultural machines that had their birth in the great works of ransomes, sims, and jefferies—names dear to the farmer all the land over. ipswich is now also becoming celebrated for its boots and shoes, while its tasteful shops indicate a considerable amount of intelligence and wealth as existing among its people to the present day.
ipswich contains no less than thirteen churches, built, for the most part, in the perpendicular style of architecture. portions of some, however, are of earlier date. the oak door at st. mary at the elms, for instance, is in the norman style, but slightly enriched, and therefore probably of the older or primary norman. the town hall stands upon the cornhill, upon the site of st. mildred’s church, many centuries disused. there also stood an ancient hall of pleas; and a sociary or seating room of the corpus christi guilds was erected there in henry viii.’s time. the mansions of ipswich merchants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, still to be found ornamenting the parish of st. clement’s, are worthy of close inspection, as they attest the wealth and importance of those who once inhabited them. very many of the houses bear dates, and have fine p. 30ornamental exteriors. many of the fine carved corner posts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries still remain. a gateway, an interesting relic of the great cardinal wolsey, who was a native of ipswich, stands abutting upon college street, and near the east end of st. peter’s church. it is of brick and small, and was probably not the chief place of egress attached to the building, which was undoubtedly built in a style of magnificence, and in accordance with the fine taste in architecture which the cardinal was known to have possessed. over the doorway are the arms of henry viii., and on each side of the royal coat is a trefoil-headed niche, though now containing no figures. the place was erected in 1528. in the early part of the present century ipswich was evidently a declining town. in 1813 its population was only 13,670, when windham, the great statesman, who visited the place, speaks of it in very favourable terms as a town, picturesque and pleasant. at this present time the town has a population of 57,260. one of the most eminent men born in ipswich was firmin, the london draper, who was a philanthropist of the noblest character, and who did much for the poor both at ipswich and in london. he was a unitarian when to be anything but orthodox was considered in all circles as a matter of serious censure, and yet he was a friend of a liberal bishop. he is buried in christ church, newgate street, close to the great school for which he did so much, and to the funds of which he was such a liberal contributor. in every way he is to be considered a credit to his native town, and as one of the foremost men of the age in which he lived, and which he so greatly adorned. he set a good example that many of our merchant princes have not been slow to imitate. had he been orthodox his fame would have been greater still.
one of the oldest houses in ipswich is that known as christ church, the dwelling place of the fonnereaus for many generations. it is one of the oldest houses in england, and has been inhabited for 350 years. there is not a better example of elizabethan building to be p. 31met with anywhere. more than once has royalty been hospitably entertained there. the most celebrated royal visitor was queen elizabeth, who made a tour of the eastern counties in 1589, and rode through essex and suffolk with a crowd of attendant cavaliers. her majesty reached ipswich in august, and was entertained there four days. local tradition says that the bed her majesty slept in may be seen to this day in the haunted chamber of the old mansion. long before the house was built, there was on the spot the convent and priory of christ church, tenanted by monks, known as black canons of st. augustine, who took an active part in the business of the town, and to whom king john granted a charter for a market, which became a very popular one. as regards the park, the legend is that the bowling-green on the summit, now surrounded by a double avenue of magnificent limes, was one of those places selected by the druids for purposes of worship. it is certain that the danes, who were much given to sailing up and down the orwell, on plunder bent, chose this very spot as the site of what may be called a hall of justice. there is reason to believe that on this very green charles ii. played bowls. there was a celebrated lord rochester who visited the house, and found the park-keeper driving two donkeys for the purpose of keeping the turf in good order. further tradition says that in order not to hurt the turf the donkeys wore boots, which induced the facetious earl to observe that ipswich was “a town without people, that there was a river without water, and that asses wore boots.” christ church is now on sale. ultimately it is to be hoped it will be purchased by the corporation for a people’s palace and park.
in the old times ipswich must have been a much more picturesque place than it is to-day. all its old records are religiously preserved by a worthy townsman, mr. john glyde, in his illustrations of old ipswich, a handsome work, which is a credit to the town, and which ought to find a place in the library of east anglians wealthy enough to purchase it. he p. 32writes lovingly of its gates and walls indicating the lamentable state of insecurity by which our forefathers were embarrassed in those good old times, when the curfew bell tolled every evening at eight o’clock. “there is, perhaps,” says an antiquarian writer, “no house in the kingdom which, for its size, is more curiously or quaintly ornamented than the ancient house still standing in the butter market.” the tradition is that charles ii. was hidden for awhile in that house after his defeat at worcester. be that as it may, the ipswich traders, like john gilpin, were men of credit and renown, and fuller, in the seventeenth century, spoke of the number of wealthy merchant houses in ipswich. it was in the reign of elizabeth, remarks mr. glyde, that ipswich seems to have attained the zenith of its fame. there is scarcely a branch of foreign commerce carried on at the present time, with the exception of trade with china, that was not prosecuted with more or less entirety in the reign of queen elizabeth. at that time ipswich was much richer in shipping than yarmouth, southampton, or lynn. foreign weavers discovered the advantage of using english wool, and the gold of flanders found its way into the pockets of english traders. the town still boasts a memorial of cardinal wolsey’s munificent liberality. one of its representatives was no less a distinguished person than bacon—
the wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind.
cavendish, the explorer of the world, was one of the personages at one time often to be seen in its streets—streets along which had ridden in triumph queens mary and elizabeth, to say nothing of the saxon queen, who at one time resided in the town. but if ipswich knows no longer the grandeur and pageantry of the past, if its black friars are vanished, it is still the abiding place of that new and better spirit to which cromwell appealed, and not in vain, when he sought to make this england of ours great and free.
p. 33“i knew of no town to be compared to ipswich,” wrote old cobbett, “except it be nottingham, and there is this difference that nottingham stands high and on one side looks over a fine country whereas ipswich is in a dell, meadows running up above it and a beautiful arm of the sea below it. from the town itself you can see nothing, but you can in no direction go from it a charter of a mile without finding views that a painter might crave, and then the country round is so well cultivated.” a good deal has been done for ipswich since cobbett’s day. it has its public promenades and in the neighbourhood of the river there still lingers somewhat of the scenery gainsborough loved to paint. there is also a good deal of literary association connected with ipswich. the white horse inn still remains in much the same state as it was in the times of mr. pickwick, “famous,” wrote dickens, “in the neighbourhood, in the same degree as a prize ox, or county paper chronicled turnip or unwieldy pig for its enormous size.” any one who has sojourned there will find it easy to understand how the illustrious pickwick came to mistake a lady’s bed-chamber for his own. why should not the great white horse be as dear to the admirers of dickens as the leather bottle at cobham? if the admirers of pickwick rush as they do by hundreds to cobham to view the room where pickwick slept, why, it may be asked, should not a similar patronage be extended to the great white horse at ipswich.
curious people besides pickwick and his friends have favoured ipswich. there lived there in the reign of william iii., a family known as the “odd family,” a most appropriate name, as the following facts clearly prove. every event, good, bad, or indifferent, came to that family in an odd year, or on an odd day of the month, and every member of it was odd in person, manner, or behaviour. even the letters of their christian names always amounted to an odd number. the father and mother were peter and rahab; their seven p. 34children (all boys) bore the names of solomon, roger, james, matthew, jonas, david, and ezekiel. the husband possessed only one leg, and his wife only one arm; solomon was blind in his left eye, and roger lost his right optic by an accident. james had his left ear pulled off in a quarrel; matthew’s left hand had but three fingers; jonas had a stump foot; david was humpbacked; and ezekiel was 6ft. 2in at the age of 19. every one of the children had red hair, notwithstanding the fact that the father’s hair was jet black and the mother’s white. strange at birth all died as strange. the father fell into a deep sawpit and was killed; the wife died five years after of starvation. ezekiel enlisted, was afterwards wounded in 23 places, but recovered. roger, james, matthew, jonas, and david died in 1713, in different places on the same day; solomon and ezekiel were drowned in the thames in 1723.
thomas colson, known to ipswich people as robinson crusoe, died in the year 1811. he was originally a wool-comber, then a weaver, but the failure of that employment induced him to enter the suffolk militia, and while quartered in leicester with his regiment, he learned the trade of stocking weaving, which he afterwards followed in suffolk. but this occupation he shortly exchanged for that of fisherman on the orwell. his little craft, which he made himself, was a curiosity in its way, and seemed too crazy to live in bad weather, and yet in it he toiled day and night, in calm or storm. subject to violent chronic complaints, with a mind somewhat disordered, in person tall and thin, with meagre countenance and piercing blue eyes, he was thus described by a contemporary poet—
with squalid garments round him flung,
and o’er his bending shoulders hung,
a string of perforated stones,
with knots of elm and horses bones.
he dreams that wizards leagued with hell,
have o’er him cast their deadly spell;
though pinching pains his limbs endure,
he holds his life by charms secure,
and, while he feels the torturing ban,
no wave can drown the spell-bound man.
p. 35—but this security was the means of his death. in october, 1811, there was a great storm on the orwell, and he was driven in his boat on the mud. he refused to leave his vessel, though advised and implored to do so. the ebb of the tide drew his boat into deep water, and he was drowned.
amongst the charitable women of ipswich must be mentioned miss parish, a maiden lady, who died there in 1810. she seems to have relieved everyone who was in distress. at the time of her death she had actually twenty pensioners living in her house, besides children supported at different schools, while numbers were cheered by her occasional donations. she was a good samaritan indeed. it is to be hoped there are to be found many such in the ipswich of to-day.
