On July 12th, 1756, the Earl of Orford put the act for the better regulating the Militia in execution. This act fixed the number of men to be raised for Norfolk and Norwich at 960, of which the city furnished 151.
On June 21st, 1759, there was a most violent storm here, some of the hailstones being two inches long, and weighing three-quarters of an ounce. On July 4th and 5th, the Norfolk Militia, commanded by Lord Orford, marched from Norwich to Portsmouth, and passed in review before His Majesty George II., at Kensington.
In digging under the rampart of the Castle Hill in 1760, two very curious bones were discovered, supposed by some to be amulets, which the Druids wore at their sacrifices.
In 1760, King George II. died at Kensington, on October 25th, and his grandson, George III. was proclaimed king, in Norwich, on the 29th, by the mayor and corporation, preceded by the four Norwich companies of militia, with flags, banners, and music. On September 22nd, 1761, the coronation of their Majesties was celebrated with great splendour in Norfolk, and in Norwich there was a general illumination, and a grand display of fireworks from a triumphal arch erected in the Market Place.
On October 27th, 1762, there was a sudden flood in the city, which laid near 300 houses and 8 parish churches under water. It rose 12 feet perpendicular in 24 hours, being 15 inches higher than St. Faith’s flood in 1696.
In 1763, January 3rd, John Spurrell, Esq., died, leaving £1355 to the corporation, the interest to be applied for the benefit of the poor in the Great Hospital, and for other charitable purposes. The Earl of Buckinghamshire, alderman Thomas Harvey, and Mr. Robert Page, gave £100 each to Doughty’s Hospital.
In the same year _Sir Armine Wodehouse_, _Bart._, gave a valuable volume to the corporation containing some old statutes, in which the prescriptive right of the corporation to its present legal name is supported. It had been the property of the Wodehouse family for 200 years. A vote of thanks was passed to Sir Armine Wodehouse for his present. He was a member of parliament for Norfolk from 1736 to 1768 (32 years), and died in 1777. His death was occasioned by a herring-bone sticking in his throat.