The person described as a Proctor must have been a local lawyer, affiliated to Doctors’ Commons, and endowed with some special authority in the matter of wills. Only one person’s name appears in our period described as a surgeon. He died in 1585, one of those terrible years when Lowestoft was visited by the plague or some infectious disease, to which he apparently fell a victim. We only notice the name of one chymney-sweeper. There may have been more. But as we shall see further on, chimneys were only now coming into fashion and were as yet only to be found in the newer or best houses.
This sketch, imperfect as it is, of the trades and occupations of the inhabitants of our town, will, I think, leave no doubt in your minds that Lowestoft was at this time a very respectable little town—well represented by residents of every grade in the social scale—and frequented by the inhabitants of Lothingland, and the adjoining parishes in the south, for shopping and business purposes. Indeed, that the neighbourhood was more dependent on Lowestoft for shopping purposes than now, we can understand, when we bear in mind the absence or extreme badness of the roads, which rendered communication with any town beyond Beccles difficult and expensive. Yarmouth was not far off; but Yarmouth although richer and more populous, could not afford counter attractions to Lowestoft as a shopping town, at all events for the residents on the Suffolk side of the water.
Lowestoft had been a market town for more than a hundred years, but it does not appear that the market was ever much of a success. There was no large population like that of Yarmouth requiring a large supply of provisions and vegetables in addition to the produce of the townspeople’s own gardens and the neighbouring farms. Nor could a place with only half the environment of an ordinary inland town be a convenient centre for the sale of general agricultural produce, particularly with another large market at Beccles.
While furnishing information as to the character of the town, the register supplies us with trustworthy evidence of its size and population in Elizabeth’s time. A comparison of the numbers of marriages, christenings, and burials for the two periods of 21 years comprising our period, shows no evidence of increase during Elizabeth’s reign, while a comparison of the entries in this period with the corresponding entries for the 21 years, 1754–1774, shows that there was no material increase in the population after a lapse of some 200 years.