John Thelwall and Radical NorfolkJohn Thelwall and Radical Norfolk
Friday 25 October 2024
Norfolk Record Office Archive Centre Martineau Lane Norwich NR1 2DQ

Programme
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Norfolk and the city of Norwich experienced an extraordinary cultural efflorescence. In these years, Norwich became a centre of vibrant literary and intellectual activity supporting a substantial, educated population nurtured by its newspapers, its Theatre Royal, public library (1784), and its numerous debating and discussion clubs and coffee shops. Norwich’s citizens actively debated the leading political, social, and cultural issues of the day, including the American War of Independence, the transatlantic slave trade, the French Revolution and civil and religious liberty more widely. This culture of political activism extended to the nearby port of Great Yarmouth. In 1796, the famous London radical poet and lecturer, John Thelwall, arrived in Great Yarmouth to deliver his historical lectures, an event that ended in serious rioting when opposing loyalist forces deployed a naval pressgang to disrupt the proceedings.
This symposium is being held to mark the generous donation of manuscripts, by the John Thelwall Society to the Norfolk Record Office which includes affidavits of witnesses to and victims of this politically motivated assault and the recent discovery of a new manuscript copy of Thelwall’s poem, ‘The Orphan Boy”.