The Historians and Histories..Chapter 3 next page hyperlink scroll to the end, but before the references
Chapter Three
Henry Swinden and John Ives Junior
Like Manship, Yarmouth’s next historian, was to have his work published
after his death by another. In both
cases the work appears to have been complete and ready for the press. In Swinden’s case we are told that this was
so in the preface to the printed work.
Swinden (1716-1772) was a schoolmaster as well as historian and town
surveyor. His first venture into
historical publishing was a broadsheet printed in 1763. A later copy of this
can be found at the British Library.
The sheet includes details of the town’s history, its officials, and
includes a description of the new sea baths that were built in 1759. Also in the British Library is a collection
of items that Swinden used in the compilation of his history, as well as a
manuscript that is itself a history of the town.[1] In this
substantial manuscript, Swinden, seeming to vary in mood, takes quite a
different approach when writing different parts. On some occasions it is carefully and painstakingly written, and
in others the writing is scrawled across the page. The manuscript I think was a fore-runner of the printed work, but
the layout and contents are largely different, and so there must have been
another manuscript that Ives had printed.
In many respects items in Swinden’s British Library manuscript are
incomplete. For instance, on the reverse of folio 187, Swinden translates
extracts of Sir Henry Spelman’s work.
From that point on he changes style completely, and rules the book in
two columns. In the left column are
written the transcripts of ancient documents in their original Latin or
French. In the right column he places
his translation. Then from page 200 he
ceases to translate any of the transcribed documents. Starting a new subject on page 208, he analyses the shipping
passing through the port. He does not
proceed further with this, leaving most of the page blank. He presumably intended to return to this
later, but never did so. His footnotes
appear for the first time on page 209, and after that he uses a quarter of
every page in footnotes, in a style that became the norm for the later printed
history.
Swinden is no different to so many others in respect of plagiarism. When starting his text, he took the early
history straight out of the “Foundation and Antiquitye of Great Yermouth” and
Manship’s “History”, both then un-printed and not available to the general
public. He made little effort to rewrite the substance of it, and did not
develop in any way the early ideas of Yarmouth's supposed emergence from the
sea in Saxon times. We can however see
the influence of the changes in style and technique that were disseminated by
Camden and Dugdale. He is one who takes
these changes to extremes, and develops the use of the footnote not to a fine
art, but into almost the major item of text. At times this overwhelms the text,
so that on page 15, he has only 11 words of narrative, compared to 864 words in
3 footnotes. Astonishingly this is not
at all exceptional! Swinden’s treatise
is very useful for its citation of documents that are otherwise not readily
available, or may have been lost, with many original documents given in full,
even such as court rolls of Edward III, with the original text in Latin with
Swinden’s own translation next to it. I wonder whether he had his school pupils
working on these texts?
At that time
it seems, the scope for free thought and original thinking was strictly
limited. It is clear that many
documents were not readily accessible, being either very restricted in access
in the town archive, or else in private collections. Official translations and printed transcripts were certainly not
available then. Swinden’s main aim it appears was for his work to give access
to these. Further analysis was not the
norm.
The nearest
that Swinden gets to a modern analytical style is when he assembles his
financial data. He gives a list of
annual rents payable to the religious houses, and shows that some seventeen
different religious houses in Norfolk and Suffolk owned property in Yarmouth in
1292. It does not appear that the original documents that provided Swinden with
his data are now available.[2] Swinden also examined
the rolls for the rents payable for the foot and horse ferries, giving the roll
number rather than the date. In this
instance the rolls that he used start at roll 3 Edward II, and end at roll 4,
Henry V.[3] He relates
the prices of materials and labour, suggesting that the reader makes
comparisons. The Latin documents are given in full with translations, and in
this way considerable detail is presented between 18 Ed II (8 July 1324 - 7
July 1325) and 12 Ed III (25th Jan 1338 - 24th Jan 1339).[4] Swinden also
quotes accounts of port duties upon imports of herring and of cloth, the duty
on the latter being one penny in the pound, with a shipload being worth as much
as £12. I think that considerable further use could be made of this data. A rate was levied upon all foreign shipping
entering the port, upon both the ship itself and upon the value of the goods
imported. This special levy was made to
assist in the building of the town wall, and the rate thus called “murage”.
Swinden lists the amounts given in six rolls over the period 16 Ed III to 17 Ed
III, and he compiles every week from August 3rd 1342 to August 2nd 1343.[5]
It was very
interesting to find that in the British Library, entitled “Bibliotheca
Ivesianae 1769" are original drawings by Henry Swinden, bound in a volume
with Le Neve’s collection of Fastolf letters.
Swinden drew scale plans of Caister Castle (Fastolf's mansion) and also
of Burgh Castle[6]. The latter is the original plan that John
Ives used without acknowledgement in his treatise on The Garianonum of the
Romans. The same plan was printed
again the next century by Charles Palmer, who I think almost certainly never
saw the original. The plans are drawn
to scale and coloured with water-colour.
John Ives (1750-1776)
was the son of a Yarmouth merchant and money lender of the same name. John Ives senior was interested in local
history and collecting, but his son clearly “got the bug” at a very young age. Young John was born in 1750. Schoolwork began at home under the guidance
of a lady tutor. He went for a time to
the “Free School” in Norwich. He did
not care for the education in the classics that he was offered there, and soon
left. Later he was articled to his
father, and worked in his father’s counting house. His thoughts were far from his work it seems. He met a young girl (Miss Kett) with whom he
soon became besotted. He was far too
young for that sort of thing in his parent’s eyes; the couple eloped and
married at Lambeth Chapel by special dispensation.[7] On their
return to Yarmouth, his father was just relieved to have him back, and forgave
him entirely. Ives’ father bought the
couple a pleasant house in King Street, and from then on Ives devoted himself
to history and books.
Somehow Ives
came to know Thomas Martin, the great collector and acquirer of a large part of
Le Neve’s collection. John Ives also met and became very friendly with and
greatly encouraged by Henry Swinden. In
1772, Ives became, by courtesy of the Duke of Suffolk, the new Suffolk Herald.
A year earlier Tom Martin had died. It was always Ives’ intention to erect a
memorial to his friend at Palgrave. In
the event he failed to have this done. He became a fellow of the Royal Society
on May 4th 1774, but his health began to decline, and he died on 9th
January 1776. He was posthumously
elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (13th June 1777).[8]
Ives has left
very little published work. He
evidently had amassed a huge collection of antiquities during a short period,
so possibly he as well had designs upon producing the history of Norfolk. His collections were sold after his death,
but a catalogue of them does not appear to exist, although he had participated
in cataloguing Martin’s books. Ives
published the Remarks upon the Garianonum of the Romans, a work that
contains a lot of original observation.
In this book, Ives printed a copy of the “Hutch” Map and the same print
was subsequently reproduced by Palmer.
Palmer, I suggest, never saw the original. Ives I think, had owned it, and after his death it would have
been auctioned with the rest of his property.
The purchaser was evidently Richard Gough, since although the original
had disappeared, when I visited the Bodleian library and investigated what
could be found there relating to the history of Yarmouth, I found it catalogued
as “a map of the area between Gt Yarmouth and Lowestoft.” The alternative
version remains in Yarmouth in the town hall archive. John Ives’ local history manuscript called “A History of
Lothingland” was never published.[9]
Once again,
history writing evolved through the death of one protagonist, and the taking up
of the task by another. Chance dictated the outcome. A Norfolk History as
completed by Ives, would have been very different from that produced by the
clerics Blomefield and Parkin. By this time map-making had become widespread.
Maps displayed their information in a clear and persuasive manner. Like some of the old manuscripts, they were
taken at face value, and had a strong influence upon the printed word. Though
all was not always as it seemed.
The Historians and Histories chapter 4.htm
[1]British Library, “Collections for a history”, MS Add. 23012.
[2]Henry Swinden, The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Borough of Great Yarmouth in the County of Norfolk, (John Crouse, Norwich; 1772) p.923.
[3]Henry Swinden, The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Borough of Great Yarmouth in the County of Norfolk, (John Crouse, Norwich; 1772) p.46.
[4]Henry Swinden, The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Borough of Great Yarmouth in the County of Norfolk, (John Crouse, Norwich; 1772) pp.75-92
[5]Henry Swinden, The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Borough of Great Yarmouth in the County of Norfolk, (John Crouse, Norwich; 1772) p.93.
[6]British Library MS add. 59848.
[7]Charles J. Palmer, The Perlustration of Great Yarmouth (George Nall, King Street, Great Yarmouth; 1872). II, p.402
[8]John Ives, Remarks upon the Gariannonum of the Romans, (J.D.Downes, Great Yarmouth; 1803), preface, p.2.
[9]John Ives, Remarks upon the Gariannonum of the Romans, (J.D.Downes, Great Yarmouth; 1803) p.43.