Norwich, Norfolk, England in the 1630s

Work

Cloth under strain

The leading trade was cloth, but Norwich suffered a trade depression³ in these years. The immigrant Strangers were still mostly connected with the cloth industry³.

Who lived here

Strangers in every ward

Dutch, Flemish, Walloon, and French Protestant families were not a memory: they made up 5 to 10 percent of each ward³. In 1635 their churches counted 759 communicants².

Faith

Cathedral and discipline

The cathedral stood in a close beside the River Wensum⁷, with its own gates and precinct. After 1635, Bishop Wren brought Laudian, anti-Puritan church policies¹¹ into local religious life.

Law & power

Mayor, aldermen, king

Most daily authority came through civic assembly, aldermen, market order, plague control, poor relief, and ward government. Above them, Charles I ruled without Parliament from 1629 to 1640⁶.

What people feared

Marked doors, shut houses

People remembered earlier disasters: the 1603–4 and 1625–6 plagues each killed almost 3,500⁹. In the 1630s an infected house could be marked and shut up for six weeks¹.

Home & table

Poor relief mattered

The depression was visible in the parish accounts: poor-relief recipients outnumbered ratepayers in the 1630s³. A household’s survival could depend on parish and ward decisions.

Roads & news

Gates watched arrivals

Norwich was not open without scrutiny: twelve gates and river boom towers⁴ controlled approaches. In plague scares, travellers from Wymondham needed certificates from uninfected houses¹.

Money

Taxes without Parliament

Ship money made royal finance personal, because John Hampden’s 1637 case turned the tax into a national controversy⁶. For local prices, no reliable Norwich-specific 1630s price list was found online.

Year by year

1. 1629Charles I began ruling without calling Parliament, a settlement that lasted through the 1630s. the country⁶
2. 1631Plague at Wymondham made Norwich require health certificates from people coming from that town. nearby¹
3. 1631Schools in Heigham and West Wymer ward were closed during plague precautions. here¹⁰
4. 1635Matthew Wren became Bishop of Norwich. here¹¹
5. 1635The Dutch and Walloon churches in Norwich recorded 759 communicants. here²
6. 1636Plague and other contagious sicknesses again troubled English towns, making Norwich’s watchfulness at gates and houses part of a wider fear. the country¹
7. 1637John Hampden lost his famous ship-money case, keeping alive argument over taxation without Parliament. the country⁶
8. 1638Matthew Wren left Norwich to become Bishop of Ely. here¹¹

What the sources say

• Between the 1620s and 1650s Norwich suffered a trade depression, and in the 1630s people receiving poor relief outnumbered ratepayers. from the sources³
• Norwich still had a Protestant Dutch, Walloon, and French immigrant community in the 1630s, mostly connected with the cloth industry. from the sources³
• By the 1630s, Strangers made up between 5 and 10 percent of the population of each Norwich ward. from the sources³
• In 1635 the Dutch and Walloon churches in Norwich recorded 759 communicants, from which historian Nigel Goose estimated roughly 1,500 to 2,000 Strangers in the city. from the sources²
• Norwich’s medieval wall circuit had twelve gates, forty towers, and two boom towers controlling river access. from the sources⁴
• The east side of Norwich had no wall because the River Wensum protected it, though Bishop Bridge was defended by a gatehouse. from the sources⁴
• The main market had been moved from Tombland to the Mancroft area, where it could be watched from the castle. from the sources⁵
• Norwich Castle stood on a Norman mound and overlooked the Wensum valley as the river looped east, north-east, and north. from the sources⁸
• Norwich Cathedral stood inside a close beside the River Wensum, entered from Tombland through the Erpingham and Ethelbert gates. from the sources⁷
• Norwich had suffered plague in 1603–4 and 1625–6, each outbreak killing almost 3,500 people according to later city chronologies. from the sources⁹
• In 1631, when plague was at Wymondham, people coming from there to Norwich had to show certificates that they came from uninfected houses. from the sources¹
• Norwich plague orders in the 1630s required an infected house to be marked and shut up for six weeks after danger appeared. from the sources¹
• During a 1631 plague outbreak in Norwich, schools in Heigham and West Wymer ward, around St Benedict’s Street, were closed as a precaution. from the sources¹⁰
• Matthew Wren became Bishop of Norwich in 1635 and was associated with Archbishop Laud’s anti-Puritan ceremonial policies. from the sources¹¹
• Charles I ruled without calling Parliament from 1629 to 1640, and John Hampden’s 1637 ship-money case made the tax a national controversy. from the sources⁶
• The Norwich civic assembly and aldermen, not Parliament, were the local machinery people met most often in matters of market order, plague control, poor relief, and ward government. inferred
• No online source found in this quick search gives a reliable Norwich-specific 1630s price list for bread, rent, cloth wages, or ale. not known
• No opened source gives a street-by-street description of ordinary Norwich houses in the 1630s, beyond the city’s gates, close, castle, market, and river setting. not known

Sources

1. Fighting the Plague in Tudor Norwich. Norfolk Record Office, 2020
2. Strangers—A brief history of Norwich’s incomers. Norfolk Record Office, 2016
3. Social Relations and Urban Space: Norwich 1600–1700. University of Northampton Research Explorer, 2014
4. Norwich City Walls Survey. Norwich City Council
5. Heritage, Townscape and Visual Impact Assessment. Norwich City Council, 2022
6. Civil War person: Charles I. The National Archives
7. The Close. Norwich Cathedral
8. Norwich Castle, Non Civil Parish - 1004054. Historic England
9. Timeline of Norwich. Wikipedia
10. Then and Now: counting and control in time of epidemic. Norfolk Record Office, 2020
11. Matthew Wren. Wikipedia

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