MALDON, a borough, port, and market-town, having
separate jurisdiction, though locally in the hundred
of Dengie, county of ESSEX, 10 miles (E.) from
Chelmsford, and 38 (E.N.E.) from London, containing
1398 inhabitants. This place is, by Camden, in
which opinion he is supported by Horsley, supposed
to have been the Camalodunum of the Romans, one of
the earliest colonies established by that people in
Britain, and which other antiquaries have fixed at
Colchester. Its name is said to have been derived from
an altar dedicated to Mars, under the name of Camulus,
by which also that divinity is designated in some
coins, still extant, of Cunobeline, King of the Trinobantes,
who, prior to the conquest of the Romans, had
his royal residence in the town. During its occupation
by the Romans, in the reign of Nero, it was destroyed
by an insurrection of the Britons, who defeated, with
great slaughter, the ninth Roman Legion, which had
been sent to its assistance. From the Roman name
Camalodunum, it was called by the Saxons Meal dune,
or Male dune, from which its present appellation is
evidently derived. During the time of the Saxons, it
does not appear to have been distinguished by any events
of importance previously to its destruction by the Danes,
from which it was restored by Edward the Elder, son of
Alfred, who, to guard it against future attacks, fortified
it with a castle, of which there are at present no visible
remains. The town is pleasantly situated on an eminence,
near the confluence of the rivers Blackwater and
Chelmer, and consists principally of one spacious street,
extending for more than a mile from west to east, intersected
by a smaller street; the houses, which were in
general ancient, have been much improved in their appearance,
and within the last half-century, many ranges
of handsome modern houses have been erected: the
town is partially paved, and amply supplied with water
from several wells lately made. A library was founded
by Dr. Thomas Plume, who bequeathed all his books and
pictures to this town, with £2 per annum for the purchase
of additional volumes, and £40 per annum as a
salary to a librarian in holy orders, who should reside in
the town; and there are some book societies, which together
constitute the chief sources of recreation. The
haven, formed by the bay of the Blackwater river, affords
safe anchorage to vessels not drawing more than eight
feet of water; ships of heavier burden anchor in the
offing, and discharge their cargoes by lighters on the
quay: the trade of the port is' principally in coal of
which, not less than ninety thousand chaldrons are,' on
the average, imported annually; also in corn, deals
and iron. There is an excellent fishery, extending for
more than twenty miles along the coast, and oysters of
very superior quality, called the Wall-fleet oysters, are
found here in abundance. The custom-house is a neat
brick building. A canal from Haybridge to Chelmsford
passes within a mile of the town. The market, principally
for corn, is on Saturday; the fairs are on
May 1st, for horses, cattle, and sheep, and on the 13th
and 14th of September.
The town was made a free borough by William de Mandeville,
Earl of Essex, in the reign of Henry III., and exempted from
all foreign service, except finding one ship for the use of
the king, for forty days; it received its first charter of
incorporation from Henry II., and another from Queen Mary,
in 1553; which being forfeited in the 4th of George III.
the town remained for forty-six years without a charter,
till in 1810, when the present charter was granted,
by which the government is vested in a mayor, recorder,
six aldermen, and eighteen capital burgesses,
assisted by a town clerk, chamberlain, water bailiff,
and other officers. The mayor is chosen annually
by the aldermen and capital burgesses, the aldermen by
the mayor and capital burgesses, and the capital burgesses
by the mayor and aldermen; the mayor, the
recorder, and the two senior aldermen, are justices of
the peace within the borough; the freedom is inherited
by birth, and obtained by marriage with a freeman's
daughter, by servitude, by purchase, or by gift. The
corporation hold quarterly courts of session, on the days
before those for the county, for offences not capital;
and have power to hold a court of record, for the recovery
of debts to any amount; but this privilege has
not been exercised under the new charter: a court
leet, with view of frank-pledge, is also held, at which
a headborough and constables are appointed. The borough,
besides its jurisdiction on land, extends twentyfive
miles to sea, to the eastward of the Knowle sands.
The petty sessions for the hundred of Dengie are held
here every Saturday. The town hall is an ancient
edifice of brick, built in the reign of Henry VI., called
D'Arcy's tower; it contains a neat court for the busi-
ness of the sessions, a council-room for the meetings
of the corporation, and a banquet-room. The custom
of borough English prevails here. The borough first exercised
the elective franchise in the 2nd of Edward III.,
since which time it has continued to return two members
to parliament: the right of election is vested in the
freemen not receiving alms, of whom, resident and
non-resident, the number is about three thousand-five
hundred: the mayor is the returning officer.
The borough comprises the parishes of All Saints,
St. Peter, and St. Mary j the two former in the archdeaconry
of Essex, and diocese of London, and the last
a royal peculiar, in the jurisdiction of the Dean and
Chapter of Westminster. The living of All Saints
is a vicarage, with which that of St. Peter is united,
rated in the king's hooks at £ 10, and in the patronage
of the Rev. C. Matthew. The church is an ancient and
spacious structure, in the early Norman and early English
styles of architecture, with a triangular tower surmounted
by an hexagonal spire; in the south aisle are
three chapels, or chantries, founded by Robert D'Arcy,
in the reign of Henry VI.; there are various ancient
monuments, and a tablet of white marble to the memory
of John Vernon, a Turkey merchant, who died in 1653,
with a Latin inscription attributing to him the discovery,
in the ancient city of Smyrna, of some manuscripts and
relics which he brought over to his native country.
Edward Bright, a shopkeeper in the town, who died in
1750, aged twenty-nine, was with much difficulty interred
in this church: he had attained the unusual
weight of forty-four stone; the body was drawn to the
church in a carriage upon rollers, and lowered into the
vault by means of a triangle and pulleys. The living
of St. Peter is a vicarage not in charge, united to that
of All Saints. The church has been demolished, the
tower only remaining, adjoining to which is the library,
erected by Dr. Thomas Plume. The living of St. Mary's
is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Dean and
Chapter of Westminster. The church, a spacious and
very ancient structure, is said to have been founded
prior to the Norman Conquest, by Ingelric, a Saxon
nobleman j part of the tower and church was rebuilt
in the reign of Charles I. There are places of worship
for the Society of Friends, Independents, and Wesleyan
Methodists.
Ralph Breder, in 1608, bequeathed £300 for the
endowment of a free grammar school; to which a
rent-charge of £3 was added by Mrs. Anastatia Wentworth;
and the farm of Htney, in the parish of Munden,
by Dr. Plume, for the clothing and instruction
of six boys of either parish. A National school, in
which three hundred children are instructed, is supported
by subscription. Dr. Plume bequeathed £2000
for charitable uses, and £ 100 as a marriage portion for
five poor maidens of this parish, and five of the parish
of Greenwich, in Kent, who had lived for seven years
in one service, and were above twenty-four years of
age; there are also other charitable bequests for distribution
among the poor. Within less than a mile of the
town are the remains of the abbey of Beleigh, founded
in 1180, by Robert Mantell, for Premonstratensian canons,
and dedicated to St. Nicholas, the revenue of
which, at the dissolution, was £196. 6. 5.: the chapel,
which is the most perfect portion of the ruins, is a
small edifice, chiefly in the early style of English architecture,
with later insertions: the roof is groined,
and supported on slender-shafted columns, and gracefully-
pointed arches; Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex,
and his Countess, were interred in this chapel; and in
digging for gravel in the ground adjoining, some leaden
coffins and skeletons were discovered. A priory for
Carmelite friars was founded here, in 1292, by Richard
Gravesend, Bishop of London, the revenue of which, at
the dissolution, was £26. 0. 8.; but there are no vestiges
of it at present, except the garden walls. An hospital for
lepers was also founded here by one of the English
monarchs, prior to the 16th of Edward II., which, by
Edward IV., was annexed to the abbey of Beleigh: the
remains, now converted into a barn, exhibit in their
structure a mixture of stone and of bricks and tiles,
which appear to have been of Roman origin. A gold
coin of Nero and Agrippina, and a coin of Vespasian,
have been found at this place. To the west of the town
are the remains of a camp, through which is the road
to Chelmsford: it is of quadrilateral form, including
twenty-two acres; three sides of the ramparts are
visible, and the fourth is occupied by buildings; on the
north is a fine spring, called Cromwell's spring. Dr.
Thomas Plume, Archdeacon of Rochester, whose public
benefactions to this town have been already recorded,
and who founded the Plumean Professorship of Astronomy
and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge, was
born at Maldon in 1680, and died in 1704. Maldon
gives the inferior title of viscount to the Earl of Essex.