Norwich

Norwich (pronounced variously "Norritch" or "Norridge") is a city in East Anglia, in Eastern England, and the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk.

Famous names associated with City

Throughout its history, Norwich has been associated with radical politics, nonconformist religion, political dissent and liberalism. Between 1790 and 1840, many of the famous names associated with the City flourished. These include:

Related Topics:
Radical - Nonconformist - Political dissent - Liberalism - 1790 - 1840

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• Julian of Norwich. Medieval Christian mystic and contemporary of Chaucer. Julian is the author of The revelations of Divine Love the first book written by a woman in the English language. Julian's writings are well-represented by the scholarly website www.umilta.net.
• Robert Ket(t) Norwich's very own Robin Hood or Wat Tyler. Kett was a Norfolk landowner from Wymondham who lead the peasant's revolt in 1549 in the name of the common man against the corrupt Norfolk landowners. This eventually lead to the Battle of Dussindale against the King's forces on the 27th August 1549 in which 3000 of Kett's men were killed. He was hanged for Treason at Norwich Castle on the 7th December 1549.
• The physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), medical doctor, polymath scholar and encyclopedist with interests in Biblical scholarship and the esoteric. The stylistic purity and stupendous learning displayed in Browne's varied prose in the spheres of religion, science and art are minor classics of World literature.
• Admiral Nelson attended the Norwich School from 1767 to 1768. He was born in nearby Burnham Thorpe.
• William Crotch (1775-1847) Composer, artist and teacher. Norwich's Mozart. He gave daily public organ recitals aged two and a half. Crotch played God Save the King before the King aged three. He had performed at every major town in England and Scotland by the age of seven. Crotch became Organist of Christ Church Oxford and for 50 years he was Oxford's Professor of Music. Unlike Mozart however his precocious musical talents failed to mature.
• John Crome and Joseph Stannard along with John Sell Cotman established the first art movement outside of London. The Norwich school of painters were influenced by the achievements of Dutch landscape painting and the beauty of the rural hinterland surrounding Norwich.
• The writer and traveller George Borrow (1803-1881). In his youth Borrow was resident at Willow Lane. He attended the Norwich King Edward school. Borrow recollects his youth in the city and conversations with the philologist and translator of German Romantic literature, William Taylor in his semi-autobiographical novel Lavengro.
• Sir James Edward Smith botanist, natural historian and one-time owner of the Linnean collection of Linnaeus
• The prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) and leading Quaker was born in Gurney Court in Magdalen Street, and was one of several philanthropists associated with the city (her portrait is currently upon the new Bank of England £5 note).
• Joseph John Gurney (1788-1847 was a banker and philanthropist who worked with his sister Elizabeth Fry (see above) in prison reform. He was also active in the movement to abolish the slave trade and in the temperance movement.
• Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) daughter of a Norwich manufacturer of Huguenot descent. She suffered from ill-health and deafness throughout her life. A devout Unitarian, her writings include Illustrations of political economy (1832-1834). Harriet Martineau supported the abolitionist campaign in the United States writing Society in America (1837). She translated writings by Auguste Comte. Her first novel was entitled Deerbrook (1839). A radical in religion she published the anti-theological Laws of Man's Social Nature (1851) and Biographical sketches (1869).
• Amelia Opie (1769-1853), Norwich author and Quaker. Opie wrote The dangers of Coquetry when aged 18 and married John Opie in 1798. Her novel Father and Daughter (1803) is about misled virtue and family reconciliation. Encouraged by Mary Wollstonecraft she wrote Adeline Mowbray (1804) an exploration of relationship between mother and daughter. Adeline Mowbray discusses in an un-self-conscious and frank manner and delivers the moral that the desires of women as much as men can override their families' wishes and thus jeopardise their future. Most of Amelia Opie's life was divided between London and Norwich. She was a friend of Sir Walter Scott, Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Madame de Stael. In 1825 she drastically changed her life as a socialite, party-goer, and attendant at literary soirees, to become a Quaker. Late in her life she received George Borrow as a guest. After a visit to Cromer, a seaside resort on the North Norfolk coast, she caught a chill, retired to her bedroom and died a year later.