Robert Cory (1776–1840)
A narrative of the grand festival, at Yarmouth, on Tuesday, the 19th of April, 1814: with an appendix, containing copies of all the handbills which were published on the occasion; a list of the subscribers; and an account of the expenditure
Yarmouth: printed and published by J. Keymer, 1814
LO.21.9(10), plate opposite p. 6

This plate is from a vivid account of the ‘grand festival’ in Great Yarmouth was written by Robert Cory, a local businessman and the builder of a suspension bridge across the River Yare which collapsed in 1845 with considerable loss of life. Inclusivity was again the order of the day, and on a larger scale than at Cambridge: over 9,000 people were fed at fifty-eight tables stretched along the waterfront. An afternoon of feasting, donkey-racing and a ‘pig hunt’ culminated in the burning of a vast, symbolic bonfire representing the ‘Funeral Pile of the Buonapartean Dynasty’. Despite concerns prompted by the participation of ‘the lowest order of society’, everything passed off peacefully. Even the weather obliged: the drizzle stopped five minutes before dinner was served.