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Henry Blogg
If you take a stroll along the upper promenade at Cromer, Norfolk, you will come across a bronze bust of a man looking out to sea.
Turn and follow his gaze, out to sea and try to imagine it’s a hundred years ago. There is a fierce storm with waves crashing all about. Can you see ... on the horizon ... a boat, a ship in distress, its crew in peril, what do you do?
For over fifty-three years he did battle in conditions such as these with the North Sea. His prize? that what we all hold dear ‘life’. Sometimes the sea won other times he and his crew won. His name? Henry Blogg and he is one of Cromer’s famous sons.
Born in 1876, he resided at 17 North Row Cromer, Norfolk. When he was only 18 he joined the lifeboat crew it the year 1894. Henry was odd for a lifeboat man as he neither drank, or smoked which was unusual in those days.
But, even more extraordinary was the fact that he never learnt to swim. Yet despite this obvious disadvantage, he and his crew were responsible for rescuing over 873 lives. The most decorated British life boatman, being awarded the RNL’s gold medal for gallantry three times, the silver four times, the George Cross and the British Empire Medal.
For thirty-seven years of the fifty-three years, he held the position of Coxswain (helmsman) before eventually retiring in 1947 at the ripe old age of seventy-one. He passed away on 13th June 1954 but is still very much remembered in Cromer today. In the magnificent church of St. Peters and St. Paul’s in the town centre there is a very nice stained glass window depicting the rescue of the Sepoy, which took place in 1936.
As well as lots of information about Mr. Blogg along with the history of Cromer in the Cromer Museum, located in fishermen cottages just next to the church. But I like to think that his shade is probably happiest with this bronze image, whose gaze if firmly fixed on his old adversary The North Sea.
The Black Death is a modern expression given in the 19th century to the bubonic plague.
It is believed that the plague originated in China in the 1340’s. By 1348 it had reached the South of France where it totally devastated the Papal City of Avignon.
In Hunstanton, during the months of September and October of 1349, 63 men and 15 women died of this deadly pestilence.
This number increased to a total of 172 by the end of six months. At the end of 1350 it had been estimated that at least half of the population of Norfolk and Suffolk were dead.
At the end of 1348 it had crossed the channel to England. Within 12 months this horrific epidemic, would leave between a third and a half of this nation's population dead!
On January 1st 1349 the then King, Edward III issued a proclamation, canceling parliament because the deadly pestilence had reached the doors of Westminster. In June of 1349 the plague arrived in Norfolk. For the next three centuries the plague continued to break out. The city of Norwich was ravaged by it following Queen Elizabeth's I visit. The last major outbreak was in 1665 when in London a quarter of the inhabitants died.