An historical snapshot

Before the internet we were of course reliant on printed materials for third-party information of every kind, not least the sort of nuts-and-bolts data provided by telephone directories and especially the Yellow Pages. Every locale was served by directories: the best known of these are perhaps Kelly’s Directories, which listed residents alphabetically and by street and contained other matter besides. In Victorian England there were rivals to Kelly’s, and a selection of these pertaining to Norfolk may be viewed here.

In effect they provide snapshots of the past. Here we will have a look at Langham’s entry in the History, Gazetteer and Directory of Norfolk, 1854, published at the height of the Victorian era.

Click images to enlarge

LANGHAM, 5 miles W.N.W. of Holt, has in its parish 89 houses, 416 souls,

Giving an occupancy rate of 4.67, much greater than today’s. Sometimes two families would be confined to a single tiny cottage: the living conditions of farm workers, even in the nineteenth century, were execrable, and were ably documented by Richard Jefferies.

and 1,670 acres of land, including a decoy

This is the duck decoy built by Captain Marryat.

and 100a. of wood. It was formerly in two parishes, called Langham Magna, and Parva; but the Church of the latter has long been dilapidated,

See ‘The Langham Madonna’ on this blog.

and its rectory consolidated with Cockthorpe, and Blakeney. The Church of Langham Magna is dedicated to St. Andrew and St. Mary, and is a discharged vicarage, valued in the King’s book

An Act of Henry VIII, repealed by Mary Tudor in 1555, but reinstated by Elizabeth I, discharged (exempted) all vicarages worth less than £10 p.a., and all rectories worth less than ten marks, from the payment of annates. These, also called ‘first-fruits’, were the first year’s revenues, together with a tenth of the income in all succeeding years, originally paid to the Papal curia in England. They were transferred to the Crown in 1534, when a new assessment of clerical holdings and revenues was made under the Act of First Fruits and Tenths, which became known as the ‘Valor Ecclesiasticus’, or, colloquially, ‘The King’s Book’, compiled in 1535.

at £4 10s. and now at £170.

Implying a reduction of nearly 38× in the value of the pound between 1535 and 1854. Today’s value would be £15,442, which suggests that Langham was not a very prosperous parish.

The Rev. Jno. M. Randall is the incumbent,

John Montague Randall trained for the ministry at King’s College, London. He served as vicar here from 1854 to 1890. In 1868 an extensive renovation of the church began. Among other improvements, windows were unbricked and cathedral glass installed, letting ‘the light of heaven come in’, as he put it. He became progressively blind, and taught himself Braille so that he could continue to read the services.

and the Bishop of Norwich

Samuel Hinds (1793–1872)

is patron and impropriator.

That is, a person to whom a benefice is granted as their property.

At the enclosure in 1817,

‘Enclosure’ was the arrogation to private individuals of previously common land, much resented by the citizenry.

land was allotted in lieu of tithes,

A ‘tithe’, from the Old English teogoþa ‘tenth’, is a 10% tax paid to a religious organisation or some other body. Tithes funded the English Church.

viz.: 200a. to the Bishop, (now the property of the Rev. S. F. Rippingall,)

Stephen Frost Rippingall, 1825-1856, who designed Langham Hall.

100a. to the vicar, and 49a. to the rector of Little Langham,

Or Langham Parva, the western part of the current parish of Langham. In 1743 the parishes of Cockthorpe and Langham Parva were united, as stated above, with the livings of Blakeney and Glandford.

the latter of whom performs no duty here. A new vicarage house was built some years ago.

In 1845.

The Rev. S. F. Rippingall is lord of the manor, and has recently purchased the estate of the late Capt. Marryat, whose residence, the Manor Cottage, is occupied by C. Rippingall, Esq. Mr. Chas. Elgar, Mr. Thos. Seely, Messrs. Starling and Pond, Rev. John O. Routh, Miss Stangroom, and a few others have estates here. At the enclosure 2r. 27p.

? ‘r’ may refer to the unit known as a rood, a quarter of an acre.

were allotted to the surveyors. The poor have the interest of £25 left by Chpr. (?) Ringer, and 10s. annually left by an unknown donor. A National school was built in 1851.

See A Short History of Langham School on this blog.

Post Office at John Massingham’s: letters arrive at 11 a.m., and are despatched at 2 p.m.

Barnes Jas. bricklayer

Bird Thos. vict. Bell

‘Vict.’ = ‘victualler’, and The Bell is the former name of the pub.

Beavers Jas. shopkpr

Hook Jno. wheelwright

Massingham Jno. blacksmith

Nelson Wm. shopkpr

Randall Rev. John Montague, Vicarage

Revett Wm. carpenter

Rippingall C. Esq. Manor Cottage

This refers to Cornelius Rippingall, 1824–1856.

Rippingall Rev. Stephen Frost, Hall

Standford Saml. tailor

Venn Rev. Edwd. Sherman, curate

Wall Robt. corn miller & baker

Wisker Wm. & Thos. tailors

Wyatt Jas. shoemkr

Farmers

Bone Rudd

Elgar Chas.

Pond Wm.

Seely Thos.

Whose name persists in Seeley’s Barn in North Street.

Wells Fredk.

Withers Jas.

Carrier, To Norwich, Geo. Johnson, tues. & fri.

The missing capital letters being perhaps a clue to the crushing workload of compiling, updating and typesetting these directories at speed, in order to get them to market on time and beat the opposition. The price to subscribers (13/6, or 67.5p) given on the title page equates to £61 today, so this might have been a lucrative trade. The main customers were probably public libraries, town halls and the like.