text: From the 16th to 18th century the weaving industry was less consistently profitable and Sudbury experienced periods of varying prosperity. By means of the borough court, the mayor and corporation directed the affairs of the town. They built a house of correction (1624) for 'rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars' and tried to finance the reconstruction of Ballingdon Bridge, which disappeared during a storm on 4 September 1594. Among theatrical companies that they paid to visit Sudbury were Lord Strange's Men (1592) and the King's Men (1610). Minor infringements, such as not attending church, were punished by fines; for worse offenders there was a stocks or a whipping. During the Civil War a 12-strong band of watchmen was created to prevent the town's enemies, presumed to be Royalists, burning it down.
  Sudbury and the surrounding area, like much of East Anglia, was a hotbed of Puritan sentiment during much of the 17th century. Sudbury was among the towns called "notorious wasps' nests of dissent." During the 1630s, many families departed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony as part of the wave of emigration that occurred during the Great Migration.
  In 1706 the River Stour Navigation Act 1705 (4 & 5 Ann. c. 2) was passed in Parliament, and work was undertaken to make the river navigable all the way from Manningtree.
  By the 18th century the fees charged to become a freeman, with voting rights, were exorbitant and the borough of Sudbury, along with 177 other English towns, was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.