Place:Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England

Watchers
NameWellingborough
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish, Urban district
Coordinates52.317°N 0.7°W
Located inNorthamptonshire, England
See alsoHamfordshoe Hundred, Northamptonshire, Englandhundred in which it was located
Wellingborough District, Northamptonshire, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area 1974-2021
North Northamptonshire, Northamptonshire, Englandunitary authority covering the area since April 2021
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Wellingborough is a large market town in the in the county of Northamptonshire, England, situated about 11 miles (18 km) from the county town of Northamptonon the north side of the River Nene. Most of the older town is sited on the flanks of the hills above the river's current flood plain.

The former Borough Council of Wellingborough had its offices in the town centre. Since April 2021 the town is administered as part of the unitary authority of North Northamptonshire.

The town was granted a royal market charter in 1201, by King John of England.

At the 2011 UK census, the town had a population of 49,128.

History

The town was established in the Anglo-Saxon period and was called "Wendelingburgh". It is surrounded by five wells: Redwell, Hemmingwell, Witche's Well, Lady's Well and Whytewell, which appear on its coat of arms. Henrietta Maria (Queen of [[wikipedia:Charles I of England|Charles I) came with her physician Théodore de Mayerne to take the waters on 14 July 1627.

The medieval town of Wellingborough housed a modest monastic grange – now the Jacobean Croyland Abbey – which was an offshoot of the monastery of Crowland (or Croyland) Abbey, near Peterborough, some 30 miles (48 km) down-river. This part of the town is known as Croyland.

All Hallows Church is the oldest existing building in Wellingborough and dates from c. 1160. The manor of Wellingborough belonged to Crowland Abbey Lincolnshire, from Saxon times and the monks probably built the original church. The earliest part of the building is the Norman doorway opening in from the later south porch. The church was enlarged with the addition of more side chapels and by the end of the 13th century had assumed more or less its present plan. The west tower, crowned with a graceful broach spire rising to 160 feet (49 m), was completed about 1270, after which the chancel was rebuilt and given the east window twenty years later. The church was restored in 1861.

In the Elizabethan era the Lord of the Manor, Sir Christopher Hatton was a sponsor of Sir Francis Drake's expeditions; Drake renamed one of his ships the Golden Hind after the heraldic symbol of the Hatton family.

During the English Civil War the largest substantial conflict in the area was the Battle of Naseby in 1645, although a minor skirmish in the town resulted in the killing of a parliamentarian officer Captain John Sawyer. Severe reprisals followed which included the carrying off to Northampton of the parish priest, Thomas Jones, and 40 prisoners by a group of Roundheads. However, after the Civil War Wellingborough was home to a colony of religious dissidents known as "Diggers". Little is known about this period.

Wellingborough was bombed during World War II, on Monday 3 August 1942. Six people were killed and 55 injured; fortunately, being a bank holiday, thousands of people were away at a fair at a nearby village. Many houses and other buildings in the centre of the town were damaged in the attack.]

Originally the town had two railway stations: the first called Wellingborough London Road which was opened in 1845 and closed in 1966, and linked Peterborough with Northampton. The second station, Wellingborough Midland Road (now simply "Wellingborough", is still in operation with trains to London and the East Midlands. The Midland Road station opened in 1857 with trains serving Kettering and a little later Corby, was linked in 1867 to London St Pancras.

Wikipedia contains no discussion of industry in the town other than that iron ore quarrying was a major industry in and around Wellingborough from the 1860s until the 1960s. James Rixon and Wiliam Ashwell opened a major ironworks on the north side of the town in 1870, supplied by the extensive ironstone quarries around Finedon to the east of the town.

The Victoria County History for Northamptonshire has an article for Wellingborough in Volume 4, pp 135-146.

Research Tips

A Vision of Britain through Time

A 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.

Archive Centres

  • Northamptonshire Archives is located at Wootton Hall Park, Northampton, NN4 8BQ, Telephone from the UK: 01604 767562 (from overseas replace the "01" with "44"). The website gives opening times and facilities available.
  • Northampton Central Library, Abington Street, Northampton, NN1 2BA (Telephone from the UK: 01604 26771 (from overseas replace the "01" with "44").

Northamptonshire Family History Society

The 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.

GENUKI

The main GENUKI page for Northamptonshire lists a number of topics for research.

Victoria County History

  • the Victoria County History of Northamptonshire produced online by British History Online (founded by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust in 2003) contains only some of the Hundreds of Northamptonshire in its collection. Articles that do exist will be referenced under the relevant hundred and parish.

Online Databases

FindMyPast includes (list checked July 2018)

  • Northamptonshire Parish Records (Baptisms, Marriages, Burials, and Probate Index)
  • Northamptonshire Freeholders 1795-1797
  • Northamptonshire Hearth Tax, 1674
  • Northamptonshire Military Tribunals 1916-1918
  • Northamptonshire Militia Lists 1771
  • Northamptonshire, Northampton General Hospital Admissions 1774-1846

While Ancestry offers (list checked July 2018)

  • Census & Voter Lists 1841-1911.
  • Northamptonshire Birth, Marriage & Death
  • Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1532-1812
  • Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1912
  • Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1912
  • Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-1912
  • Other Birth, Marriage & Death collections related to Northamptonshire. (32)
  • Northamptonshire, England, Church of England Confirmations, 1870-1911
  • Other Schools, Directories & Church Histories collections related to Northamptonshire. (34)
  • A calendar of wills relating to the counties of Northampton and Rutland : proved in the court of the archdeacon of Northampton
  • Other Wills, Probates, Land, Tax & Criminal collections related to Northamptonshire. (23)
  • Reference, Dictionaries & Almanacs collections related to Northamptonshire. (21)
  • Maps, Atlases & Gazetteers collections related to Northamptonshire. (7)
  • Northamptonshire Stories, Memories & Histories
Genealogy of the descendants of Thomas French: who came to America from Nether Heyford, Northamptonshire, England and settled
Works of Reverend James Hervey, 1713-1758
The Orlebar Chronicles in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, 1553-1733, or the Children of the Manorhouse
Descendents of Thomas Chichele of Higham-Ferrers, Northampton, England
Rockingham Castle and the Watsons
Other Northamptonshire Stories, Memories & Histories (14)

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.

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Wellingborough. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.