The Hon. Excursion Secretary. Mr. Walter R. Rudd, having explained that the funds of the Society were extensively used for defraying the cost of the excursions; it was decided that each person taking part in one should be obliged to have a ticket, for which a charge of one shilling would be made.

With regard to the publication of Mr. Hugh Bryant's Norfolk Churches, Mr. J. E. T. Pollard stated that the work would be published in volumes at the price of 7s. each, and that the sum of £125 had been already guaranteed towards the £150 required, but 250 subscribers were necessary to enable the publication to be produced without loss.

The Right Hon. The Earl of Orford was unanimously re-elected President. The remaining officers were also re-elected, as were the retiring members of the Committee, Mr. F. H. Barclay and Mr. R. H. Teesdale being chosen to fill the vacancies in that body.

THE GILDENCROFT MEETING HOUSE.

In the afternoon a visit was first made to the Friends' Meeting House, where Mr. Walter R. Rudd read the following paper:

"Les monuments sont les crampons qui unissent une génération à une autre," declared a celebrated author. This pregnant phrase, to me, seems to fitly express the wide bounds of archæological research. Surely, interest should not wane with the Decorated Gothic era and cease with the Tudor age! Our glorious Cathedral: our renowned churches-of which every good citizen should hold himself trustee-link us with generations of a remote past and their ornate ritual. This Friends' Meeting House, I think, helps us the better to understand an important phase in our national life, as well as the history of a community valued and honored in the annals of Norwich.

Devoid of decorative effect, the building impresses one with a reposeful air of restrained dignity which accords well with the simple faith of those generations of Friends who, believing doctrines and creeds, "but variant views

Held by mortals of immortal truths,"

here for centuries have adored the universal Creator in their simple manner, testifying the one to the other without priest or pastor. Here long worshipped the saintly Elizabeth Fry. The vivacious Amelia Opie. The justly honored Joseph John Gurney.

Norwich at the close of the seventeenth century, when the chapel was erected, has been described in glowing terms by Lord Macaulay. It then had a population of about 30,000, composed of English, Dutch, Walloons, and French; it was the second town in the kingdom, and, already the chief seat of textile manufactures, it was to see more than half a century of increasing prosperity. William Taylor has recorded that Norwich patterns were exhibited in every principal town from Moscow to Lisbon, Seville, and Naples.

In the midst of such prosperity, Benjamin Bangs, writing in 1679, describes the Norwich Quakers as men of poor estate, journeymen combers, weavers, shoemakers, etc. Yet one family of Quakers, the Gurneys, from those times until the present was to prove an invaluable and important factor in the city.

Through Mr. Eddington's kindness it has been possible to inspect the Minute Books of the Society of Friends, which commence in 1670. At that time the members met in a hired room, the original Goat Lane Chapel being opened in 1680 One of the earliest entries relates to the purchase of the Burial Ground in St. Augustine. For a few years, however, part of it appears to have been used as a tenter ground, but some building, which may have been nothing more than a stable for the convenience of "Friends" from the country attending the Goat Lane Chapel, was erected here in 1694. After several years had been consumed in collecting funds, the present Meeting House was opened in February, 1699.

In the Burying Ground ninety-nine Gurneys are interred, and many Birkbecks, including the John Birkbeck of whom Richard Gurney wrote in a letter dated 5th January, 1771, found a few years since at the old "Gurney House" in Magdalen Street:At the close of the last year our old firm of J. S. and R. Gurney ended. We begun the new with the firm of Richard and John Gurney and Co. The Co. is my particular friend J. Birkbeck, who has conducted himself with such strict Propriety during a residence of near 16 y as to merit the friendship of our whole family." Here also rests Amelia Opie. 'A goodly company," and so we leave these worthy "Friends" sleeping their long last sleep in this secluded spot, retired, yet encompassed by the busy haunts "Where all the air a solemn stillness holds

of man."

THE OCTAGON
CHAPEL.

Beneath those rugged elms."

The party then proceeded to the Octagon Chapel, of which Mr. G. A. King gave an account. He said: On August 24th, 1662, two Norwich clergymen, being Presbyterians, were compelled, with many others, to resign their livings. One was Dr. John Collinges, a native of Boxted, Essex, and, at the time of the ejectment, minister of St. Stephen's Church; the other was Benjamin Snowden, a Norwich man, who held the living of St. Clement. Ten years afterwards, on the proclamation of Indulgence to Nonconformists, both these individuals seized the opportunity to obtain licences to teach their co-religionists and, within a short time, they procured a lease from the Corporation of Norwich of part of the Long Granary at the New Hall (now St. Andrew's Hall and its precinct) for purposes of religious worship. The lease was periodically renewed until the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in 1687, when the Presbyterians commenced building a Meeting House of their own. There is an illustration of the Oid

Meeting House on Cleer's Plan of Norwich. It was enlarged in 1693, but the building could not have held more than 500 persons. Collinges and Snowden were the first ministers, and they worked together. Collinges died in 1690 and is buried in the church of Walcot; Snowden died in 1696 and is buried in St. George Colegate, there being no burial ground attached to the first Meeting House. The building stood for sixty-six years, and, though nothing of the fabric remains, there are one or two interesting links with the early days, the most valuable being the six silver plates, "The gift of Mr. John Raining" in 1713. There are, besides, the communion table of elm and tablets to the memory of Sarah Petty, who died in 1751; of Benjamin and Sarah Elden, members of the first congregation; and of George Coldham, who died in 1769.*

In 1753 it was determined to pull down the old building at once and to erect a new one, for which octagonal plans were desired. The design of Thomas Ivory was approved and accepted, Dr. John Taylor laying the foundation stone in February, 1754. The building was opened in May, 1756, the cost being £5,174. 15s. 8d., and during its construction the congregation met in the church of St. Mary the Less. Mr. John Taylor says: "The roof is admirable in its contrivance, and the fluted columns are of the Corinthian order. The eye of the critic may be offended by the disfigurement of the columns where the moulding and cornices of the gallery cut into them, but, as the galleries were not to be dispensed with, beauty was sacrificed to utility." John Wesley also speaks of "Dr. Taylor's new Meeting House" as "perhaps the most elegant one in all Europe."

Besides Dr. John Collinges, the roll of the ministers gives the names of Dr. John Taylor, a composer of several hymns of merit. He left Norwich in 1757 to become Divinity Tutor of the Warrington Academy. His colleague, the Rev. Samuel Bourn, was a masterly writer and profound thinker, under whose influence came James E. Smith, afterwards Sir James of the Linnean Society, and Edward Maltby, afterwards Bishop of Durham. The Rev. George Morgan, a regular contributor to the Analytical Review. The Rev. R. Alderson, who was called to the Bar and later on became Recorder of Norwich.† Dr. William Eufield, who was instrumental in the foundation of the Norwich Public Library and author of Enfield's Speaker. Among his pupils were the future Lord Chief Justice Denman and the Bishop of Durham, already mentioned. The names also of Harriet Martineau, of Dr. Thomas Baker, and of Henry Reeve, M.D., could not be passed over.

THE OLD MEETING
HOUSE.

The Congregational Church was next visited, and the Minister, the Rev. J. J. Brooker, gave an account of its origin and history. The records, which run back to 1635, supply the reason why our forefathers broke

The four silver cups bear the date 1785.

↑ See p. xxx.