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Kettering is a town in Northamptonshire, England, about 83 miles (134 km) north of London and 15 miles (24 km) northeast of Northampton, on the west side of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene. The parish is now in the unitary authority of North Northamptonshire. From 1974 until April 2021 it was part of the Kettering District of Northamptonshire, England. From 1894 until 1974 Kettering was a municipal borough. At the 2011 UK census, the town of Kettering had a population of 56,266, by 2019 it was estimated to be 60,749. Along with other towns in Northamptonshire, it has a growing commuter population as it is on the Midland Main Line railway, with East Midlands Trains services direct to London St Pancras taking around 1 hour. [edit] History of KetteringThe town traces its origins to an early, unwalled Romano-British settlement, the remnants of which lie under the northern part of the modern town. Occupied until the 4th century, there is evidence that a substantial amount of iron smelting took place on the site. Along with the Forest of Dean and the Weald of Kent and Sussex, this area of Northamptonshire "was one of the three great centres of iron-working in Roman Britain". The settlement reached as far as the parishes of Weekley and Geddington. However it is felt unlikely that the site was continuously occupied from the Romano-British into the Anglo-Saxon era. Pottery kilns have also been unearthed at nearby Barton Seagrave and Boughton. [edit] SaxonExcavations in the early 20th century either side of Stamford road (A43 road), revealed an extensive early Saxon burial site, consisting of at least a hundred cremation urns dating to the 5th century AD. This suggests that it may have been among the earliest Anglo-Saxon penetrations into the interior of what later became England. By the 7th century the lands that would eventually become Northamptonshire formed part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. The Mercians converted to Christianity in 654 with the death of the pagan king Penda. From about 889 the Kettering area, along with much of Northamptonshire (and at one point almost all of England except for Athelney marsh in Somerset), was conquered by the Danes and became part of the Danelaw, with the ancient trackway of Watling Street serving as the border, until being recaptured by the English under the Wessex king Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, in 917. Northamptonshire was conquered again in 940, this time by the Vikings of York, who devastated the area, only for the county to be retaken by the English in 942. It is unlikely however that Kettering itself existed as a village earlier than the 10th century (the county of Northampton itself is not referenced in documents before 1011). Before this time the Kettering area was most likely populated by a thin scattering of family farmsteads. The first historical reference of Kettering is in a charter of 956 in which King Edwy granted ten "cassati" of land to Ælfsige the Goldsmith. The boundaries delineated in this charter would have been recognisable to most inhabitants for the last thousand years and can still be walked today. It is possible that Ælfsige gave Kettering to the monastery of Peterborough, as King Edgar in a charter dated 972 confirmed it to that monastery. [edit] MedievalAt the Domesday survey in 1086, Kettering manor is listed as held by the Abbey of Peterborough, the church owning 10 hides of land. Kettering was valued at £11, with land for 16 ploughs. There were 107 acres of meadow, 3 of woodland, 2 mills, 31 villans with 10 ploughs and 1 female slave. The nearby stately home of Boughton House, sometimes described as the 'English Versailles' has for centuries been the seat of the Dukes of Buccleuch, major landowners in Kettering and most of the surrounding villages; along with the Watsons of Rockingham Castle, the two families were joint lords of the manor of Kettering. Kettering is dominated by the crocketed spire rising about 180 feet (55 m) above the Parish church of SS Peter and Paul. Little is known of the origins of the church, its first known priest becoming rector in 1219–20. The chancel is in the Early Decorated style of about 1300, the main fabric of the building being mostly Perpendicular, having been rebuilt in the mid 15th century (its tower and spire being remarkably similar to the tower and spire of St Peter's in Oundle). Whether the current building replaced an earlier church on the site is unknown. Two medieval wall paintings, one of two angels with feathered wings, and one of a now faded saint, can still be seen inside the church. The charter for Kettering's market was granted to the Bishop of Peterborough by Henry III in 1227. [edit] 17th centuryIn June 1607 at the nearby village of Newton, the Newton Rebellion broke out, causing a brief uprising known as the Midland Revolt, which involved several nearby villages. Protesting at land enclosures at Newton and Pytchley by local landlords the Treshams, on 8 June a pitched battle took place between Levellers – many from Kettering, Corby and particularly Weldon, – and local gentry and their servants (local militias having refused the call to arms). Approximately 40–50 local men are said to have been killed and the ringleaders hanged, drawn and quartered. The Newton rebellion represents one of the last times that the English peasantry and the gentry were in open conflict. By the 17th century the town was a centre for the manufacture of woollen cloth. [edit] Recent historyThe present town grew in the 19th century with the development of the boot and shoe industry, for which Northamptonshire as a whole became famous. Many large homes in both the Headlands and Rockingham Road were built for factory owners, while terraced streets provided accommodation for the workers. The industry has markedly declined since the 1970s, large footwear-manufacturers such as Dolcis, Freeman, Hardy and Willis, Frank Wright and Timpsons, having left the town or closed down in the face of stiff overseas competition, while others have outsourced their production to lower-cost countries. Only two smaller footwear-businesses remain. William Carey, born in 1761 at Paulerspury, spent his early life in Kettering before leaving for India as a missionary in 1793. Carey Mission House and Carey Street were named after him. Andrew Fuller helped Carey found the Baptist Missionary Society and he is remembered in the Fuller Church and Fuller Street. In 1803 William Knibb was born in Market Street and became a missionary and emancipator of slaves; he is commemorated by the Knibb Centre and Knibb Street. Toller Chapel and Toller Place take their names from two ministers, father and son, who preached in Kettering for a total of 100 years. The chapel was built in 1723 for those who since 1662 had been worshipping in secret. After several false starts the Midland Railway opened Kettering railway station in 1857, providing a welcome economic stimulus to an ailing local economy, suffering as it was from the loss of wayfaring business since the introduction of railways nationwide. The line in 1857 ran through Kettering from Leicester to Hitchin, Hertfordshire where it joined the Great Northern Railway. Trains ran from there into London King's Cross. The line was finally linked to London directly in 1868 when the Midland opened its own line from Bedford to London St Pancras. Iron-ore quarrying began in the Kettering area, probably for the first time since Roman times, at Glendon to the north of the town in 1863. At that place the digging of a railway cutting had exposed the ore beds. Quarrying began a little north of what later became Glendon Junction on the west side of the main railway. The Glendon quarries continued in operation until 1980. The last ore was extracted a little to the east of the starting point on the west side of the A6003 road. Other quarries opened to the east, south and west of Kettering, all opening and closing at some time between 1875 and 1969. There were also two ironworks in or near the town which used local ore. The Cransley Ironworks stood on the north side of the A43 to the west of what is now the junction with the A14. It began smelting iron in 1877 and ceased production in 1959. The Kettering Ironworks, on the west side of the main railway to the north of Rothwell Road, began smelting iron in 1878 and ceased production in 1959, though ore quarrying continued until 1961. From 1942 to 1945 the town witnessed a large influx of American servicemen, mainly from the US 8th Air Force at RAF Grafton Underwood, 3.7 miles (6.0 km) away. Aircraft from Grafton Underwood dropped the 8th Air Force's first and last bombs of the Second World War. The Victoria County History for Northamptonshire has an article for Kettering in Volume 3, pp 218-226. [edit] Research Tips[edit] A Vision of Britain through TimeA Vision of Britain through Time describes parishes and former parishes from a gazetteer of 1871; provides an outline of the historic administration links for parishes. The OS map of 1900, the OS map of 1935, and the OS map of 1965 all show parish boundaries and settlements within parishes. These maps are all expandable to show individual parishes and are useful for inspecting changes occuring over the 20th century. [edit] Archive Centres
[edit] Northamptonshire Family History SocietyThe NFHS website describes the activities of the society. The Society is presently transcribing the deposited Marriage Registers for the period 1754 through 1837. These transcriptions may provide more details than can be found on other databases where subscriptions are charged. [edit] GENUKIThe main GENUKI page for Northamptonshire lists a number of topics for research. [edit] Victoria County History
[edit] Online DatabasesFindMyPast includes (list checked July 2018)
While Ancestry offers (list checked July 2018)
FamilySearch also has an extensive database online. It is free, but may not always provide the original images provided by the services one pays for.
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