Familiar then, as still today, was the squabbling inside the political parties and there was much talk of alliances though fortunately for the man in the street there was not television and he was spared much of the unsavoury verbiage to which we are submitted in our own times.
It was also the year of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Steam trains had just about arrived on one or two routes but it was some time before one was to be seen in Sudbury; indeed 15 years. Steam as a motivating power had just begun to be adopted in some industries.
The British Museum was a long way from finding its home in Bloomsbury but Faraday had recently discovered self-induction electricity. It seems strange to relate that slavery in British colonies had only just been abolished in the previous year.
It was a period rich in literature and art. Shelley and Byron had been dead but a short time and Wordsworth was still writing. Charles Dickens was the rising star while the Brontes, Thackeray, Trollope, Browning and a host of other classic writers were popular or on their way to popularity. ‘Turner was painting and so was Constable, though the latter was ailing. The great era of the Impressionists was yet to come but the signs were there in the work of their immediate predecessors. In music, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, ‘Tchaikovsky and Wagner were well established although this country had no composers to compare.
If this sounds a richly promising era, which in many ways it was, educationally it was a period in which the country could take little pride. True, it was the dawn of a wealthy era of expansion in many directions but the other side of the coin revealed great poverty. Only one in ten of the population had any education according to an official report published at the time. There were some voluntary and a few charity schools but it was not until 1836 that the Government made any grant towards education: £20,000 for voluntary schools. All this was, of course, widely commented upon by Charles Dickens in his novels and newspaper articles. Another official report about this time spoke of the “lamentable deficiency of the voluntary schools” and complained that “they were confined to towns while country districts are wells of ignorance”. Children worked or roamed the streets and, difficult though it may be to believe, some were still put up the chimneys to clean them.
Another official report published in 1836 gave as an example that a typical budget for a working family of husband, wife and five children was 13/9d (69p) per week. Even by 1870 it had risen to only 18/- (80p). However, the demand for education and literacy was growing and gaining recognition; the living standards of the middle and upper classes were increasing and bringing with it great bursts of creative and cultural activity as well as industrial and commercial expansion. Thus the need for literacy was becoming not only popular but necessary.
Briefly and inadequately summed up, this then was the scene into which the Club was born.
But what of Sudbury itself? It is a picture not vastly different overall from the national scene. Life, it would seem, held few sensations. This is not to say it was a dull town. Its main industry was weaving, mat and matting, brewing and coopering. There were in fact four factories housing many looms, one of which employed 500 people and the numbers so employed for some time grew rapidly. Forty pubs brewed their own beer but, as may be imagined, there was little industry as such. As it was still an era of horse-drawn transport, carriage, coach and wagon manufacturing and repair thrived.
Soon after the Club was founded, a number of houses surrounding St. Peter’s Church were demolished and in the space created came in due course the market. Another landmark, the Corn Exchange building (now the Library) was built in 1841.
Local educational facilities about matched those throughout the rest of the country although Sudbury seems to have had several private schools. Many poor children benefited by such charity schools that existed – some opened only on Sundays. A larger school was built at a cost of £954 and poor and middle class children attended at fees ranging from 2d (1p) to 1/- Sp) per week. The Grammar School, founded in 1491, was forced to close in 1827 for various somewhat complicated reasons but was re-opened after some years of legal wrangling in 1856, Alas it was to suffer fatally in 1972 when it was swallowed whole into the comprehensive system of which, as All Saints Middle School, it was apart. But though its traditions live on as memories, its own original character and individuality were inevitably stolen and have to remain as memories only. And perhaps in a way Sudbury lost a little of its dignity.
Barges navigated the River Stour and brought heavy loads in and out of town. Once again the horse was overtaken by steam when the first steam barge was seen in Sudbury in 1864. The last barge was seen in 1914.
The steam train came to Sudbury in 1849 and it is noteworthy that the Institute was quick to make use of it. It organised an excursion to Chappel in 1849 and one to Ipswich in 1850. ‘To these, townspeople were invited to take part in early anticipation of Away-Days! Before the coming of the Sudbury-Marks Tey line, travel was by coach and the town was served by two coaches from Norwich that passed through Sudbury. We know something of these coaches from Dickens.
It was earlier mentioned that the name of the Institute was something of a misnomer and this is borne out by the early Minutes written, as might be expected of that time, in the most superb handwriting. The range of the lectures staged and the books purchased for the Library reveal from the outset the catholic nature of its interests.