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Jeremiah Ives 1692-1741 At least two and perhaps even three Mayors of Norwich came from Bourne. The best documented is Jeremiah Ives who was born at Bourne on 26th March 1692 but his family moved to Norfolk when he was still young. In 1726, he became Sheriff of Norwich and was elected Mayor in 1733. He supported the Whig interest. There is some evidence that he kept two homes during this period, one at Norwich and another at Bourne, and travelled between the two. Ives married Alice Black of Norwich in 1714 and had a son, also called Jeremiah, who was born at Bourne circa 1729, and is believed to have become Alderman Ives, also later elected Mayor of Norwich, while a nephew or cousin, also Jeremiah Ives, was mayor and later became Justice Ives. Jeremiah senior died on 20th March 1741 at the age of 50 and his mural tablet on the north wall of St Clement's Church in Norwich contains a remarkable reference to his last illness. Genealogical research by a descendant, Professor Eric Hadley-Ives of the University of Illinois, USA, suggests that Jeremiah Ives lost a fortune in the South Sea bubble, a major financial crisis in Britain in 1720 involving a monopoly of trade with South America that resulted in the ruin of thousands of speculators, although his financial prospects had considerably improved by 1733 when he was able to accept the mayoralty of Norwich.
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