3. Great Yarmouth
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Of the three main bases we have the least information on circuits based in Great Yarmouth, but rather more on Norwich masters who tried to snaffle bits of Yarmouth and Yarmouth masters who went on a raiding party to Norwich assisted by ingenious advertising. There are more details of their activities in Norwich, so they reappear under that heading. Meantime, here is a chronology of Yarmouthbased circuits.
1729
Mr D M Jones ran a dancing school and a boarding school, working in Yarmouth only. No location is known.
1736
Joseph Burney, from London, advertised in the Gazette 26 June, a practice in Norwich on Mondays and Tuesdays and in Yarmouth on Thursday and Saturday. No Yarmouth location known.
1738
William Claggett, dancing master in Yarmouth advertised 10 June ‘ … he will teach Tuesday and Wednesday at Chapelfield House, Norwich.’ 2 Yarmouth location not known.
1742–50
Peter Oliver, lately of the Norwich Company of Comedians at the White Swan theatre, opened a dancing school in Yarmouth on 22 March 1742. In 1743 he held a pupils’ ball in N. Walsham and a practice at Mr Vipond’s in Norwich. On 6 January 1753 he advertised a pupils’ ball in Yarmouth, unlocated, alas. Oliver came to a sad end; his suicide at Deal in Kent was reported in the Gazette on 24 July 1762.
1776–1779
Yarmouth was on the circuit of John Browne of Norwich.
1770
Mr Lindsey of Yarmouth taught twice a week in Norwich.
1792
Mr Lalliet of Paris, lately assistant to François Vernon of Lynn, set up a practice in Yarmouth which ran till at least 1802. He also taught in Beccles in competition with several Norwich masters. In 1793 he tried to set up a practice in Norwich which was apparently unsuccessful and ended in a retreat to Yarmouth.
1802
Edward Christian of Norwich ‘… removed his dancing Academy to a commodious room at the Star Tavern’, but we don’t know his previous Yarmouth address on his circuit. His successor, Mr Bailey, included Southtown (Yarmouth) on his circuit. On 26 November 1803 Christian announced his annual pupil balls on his circuit, including Yarmouth, in the Chronicle.
1805
Lalliet’s pupil and successor, John Eager, based in Yarmouth as a dancing master but with a wide practice as a music master and musician, made a bid to open a dancing school in Norwich. His high-handed method did not lead to success and he retreated as his master had done. The full story is told in the Norwich section.
The Yarmouth masters tended to have a Norwich practice in their sights. We know more about the ones who worked in Norwich. The Norwich masters retaliated by appropriating bits of Yarmouth for their circuits.
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2 Chapelfield House was the earlier name of the Assembly House.
