King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn & colloquially as Lynn, is a port & market town in Norfolk, England, 98 miles north of London. The population is 42,800.
The city of Lynn, Massachusetts, north of Boston, was named in 1637 in honour of its first official minister of religion, Samuel Whiting, who arrived there from Lynn, Norfolk.
Lynn's 12th-century Jewish community was exterminated during the widespread massacres of 1189.
During the 14th c., Lynn ranked as England's most important port. It was considered as vital to England in the Middle Ages as Liverpool was during the Industrial Revolution. Sea trade with Europe was dominated by the Hanseatic League of ports; the transatlantic trade & the rise of England's western ports didn't begin until the 17th c. Lynn retains 2 former Hanseatic League warehouses: Hanse House of 1475 & Marriott's Warehouse, in use between the 15th & 17th c. These are the only remaining
buildings of the Hanseatic League in England.
In the 16th & 17th c, the town's main export was grain. Lynn was no longer a major international port, but iron & timber were imported. King's Lynn suffered from the discovery of the Americas, which benefited ports on the west coast of England. It was also affected by the growth of London.
In the late 17th c, imports of wine from Spain, Portugal & France boomed, & there was still much coastal trade. It was cheaper to transport goods by water than by road at the time. Large amounts of coal arrived from the north-east of England.
The Fens began to be drained in the mid?17th c & the land turned to farming, allowing vast amounts of produce to be sent to London's growing market. Meanwhile, King's Lynn was still an important fishing port. Greenland Fishery House in Bridge Street was built in 1605. By the late 17th century shipbuilding & glass-making had developed.
In the early 18th c, Daniel Defoe called the town "beautiful, well built & well situated". Shipbuilding thrived, as did associated industries such as sail-making & rope-making. Glass-making prospered; brewing was another important industry. The first bank in King's Lynn opened in 1784.
A fearsome example of penal brutality occurred on 28 Sept
1708, when a 7-yr-old boy, Michael Hammond, & his 11-yr-old sister Ann were convicted of stealing a loaf of bread & sentenced to hanging. Their public executions took place near the South Gates. The Member of Parliament at the time was Sir Robert Walpole, generally regarded as the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.