To mark the start of Museums and Galleries Month, Woodbridge Museum, on the Market Hill, will not charge for entrance from Saturday 5th to Monday 7th May. The museum will be open from 10 am to 4 pm and the evolution of the town is set out in colourful displays.

Woodbridge was a Saxon settlement and by Tudor times it was a thriving port exporting the products of the surrounding countryside. In the seventeenth century it was a centre for building men-of-war. By the early nineteenth century it was the fourth largest town in Suffolk and, on the outskirts of the town, there was a garrison of nearly 4000 troops defending the coast against the threat of Napoleon. The arrival of the railway in 1859 sent the port, and the town, into decline. Since the 1960s the town has grown considerably but its Tudor heart remains largely untouched.

On Saturday 5th and Monday 7th , in the nearby St Mary’s House, there will also be a special exhibition on a number of notable people associated with the town – Norman Heatley, the pioneer of penicillin production; Thomas and John Clarkson, the abolitionists; Edward FitzGerald, the translator of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám; Thomas Churchyard, the artist and lawyer; Bernard Barton, the Quaker Poet, and the Lockwood family of builders and architects who had a significant impact on the town during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Much has been heard about Thomas Clarkson during the recent bicentennial celebrations of the abolition of the slave trade but his brother John has been hardly mentioned. John acted has his brother’s secretary for several years and then became the first Governor of the Sierra Leone Colony. This provided an African sanctuary for the slaves who had fled from their masters during the American war of Independence and then fought for the British. John Clarkson eventually came to Woodbridge as partner of the bank on Church Street (now Barclays). He and his family lived in the accommodation above the bank.

Bernard Barton was a cashier at the same bank. His father was one of the eleven men who, with Thomas Clarkson, founded the London Abolition Committee in 1786. This committee recruited William Wilberforce and laid the foundation for the abolition of the Slave Trade.

Bob Merrett
Custodian of Woodbridge Museum

01394 385572
bob.merrett-@-btinternet.com