RETFORD (EAST), a parish and borough and market-town, having exclusive jurisdiction, though locally in the North-clay division of the wapentake of Bassetlaw, county of NOTTINGHAM, 32 miles (E. N. E.) from Nottingham, and 144 (N. by W.) from London, containing 2465 inhabitants. This place is supposed to have derived its name from an ancient ford over the river Idle (on the eastern bank of which it is situated), at a place where the soil was a reddish clay, which abounds here; in Domesday-book it is written Redeford, and early in the thirteenth century Este Reddfurthe. The town is pleasantly situated, and is connected with West Retford by a bridge across the Idle; it is well built and paved, and the open square, or market-place, is surrounded by good houses; its situation on the great north road to York and Edinburgh gives it many advantages as a place of residence. There is a small but neat theatre, usually open for the six weeks preceding Christmas; and a news-room was erected by the corporation a few years since, to which Lord Galway presented portraits of George II. and his queen; there are about forty members, who subscribe £1. 11. 6. each annually. A considerable trade was formerly carried on in malt, but it is much reduced; hats and shoes are the principal articles manufactured, and a paper-mill is now in operation. The Chesterfield canal, which was opened in 1777, is conveyed by an aqueduct over the river Idle, to the south-west of the town; and the corporation paid £500 to the proprietors for making the canal from Retford to Stockwith, on a scale to admit the passage of vessels of greater burden than was otherwise intended: the company have here a spacious warehouse for the reception of corn, &c. The market is on Saturday, and is well supplied with all kinds of provisions, with the addition, in Autumn, of great quantities of hops; it has been much improved by the corporation having relinquished the tolls . there is also a large market for cheese and hops on the first Saturday in November. The fairs are on the 23rd of March, for horses and black cattle, and the "2nd of October for horses, cattle, cheese, and hops, which are brought in great quantities. East Retford is an ancient borough by prescription, and a royal demesne. It was granted by Edward I., in 1279, to the burgesses at a fee-farm rent of £10 per annum, with the privilege, amongst others, of choosing a bailiff from among themselves; in 1336, Edward III. confirmed their privileges, and in 1424, Henry VI. granted them a charter, empowering the bailiff to hold courts of record, and to execute the duties of escheator and clerk of the market. These immunities were subsequently confirmed, and others added, by the charter of James I., under which the town is]j now governed by two bailiffs, the senior bailiff being chosen from among the aldermen, and the junior bailiff from such of the freemen as have served the office of chamberlain, and eleven aldermen (exclusively of the bailiff), who compose a common-council 5 they are empowered to choose a high steward, a recorder, with two chamberlains, a town clerk, and two Serjeants at mace; the two bailiffs and the recorder are justices of the peace, and have exclusive jurisdiction within the borough. A court of record, for the recovery of debts to any amount, is held every third Monday, or oftener, if the bailiffs require it, at which one or both of the bailiffs, assisted by the steward, or his deputy, preside; this court having fallen into disuse, was revived in 1827. General quarter sessions of the peace for the borough, and also for the northern division of the county, are held in the town hall, which was erected in 1755, and is a handsome and commodious edifice, surmounted by a neat cupola, the principal room being sixty feet long, twentysix wide, and twenty feet high, with good shambles underneath. The petty sessions for the division are held here every alternate Saturday. Retford first sent members to parliament in the 9th of Edward II.; but in the year 1330, the burgesses petitioned for a suspension of this privilege, on account of their poverty, and it consequently lay dormant until the year 1571, when it was again exercised. The borough has frequently been, since that period, the scene of electioneering dissensions; and it appears that within the last century, committees of the House of Commons have been engaged no less than seven times in determining the freedom: in 1705, it was decided by that house, " That the right of electing burgesses to serve in parliament for this borough is in such freemen only as have a right to their freedom by birth, as eldest sons of freemen, or by serving seven years apprenticeship, or have it by redemption, whether inhabiting or not inhabiting the said borough at the time of their being made free:" the two bailiffs are the returning officers. At the election in 1826, Sir H.W.Wilson, the unsuccessful candidate, protested against the whole of the proceedings, in consequence of the riotous transactions which occurred, and the intervention of the military; and on the assembling of parliament, in February 1827, he brought the matter before the House of Commons, a committee of which, after declaring the election void, directed the attention of the House to the very corrupt state of the borough; and after various motions had been made, with a view to transfer the elective franchise to Birmingham, Manchester, and other large places, it was settled, in 1829, that the franchise should be thrown open to the whole of the hundred of Bassetlaw, the freeholders of which, in common with the freemen of the borough, now exercise the right. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Nottingham, and diocese of York, rated in the king's books at £5. 5., endowed with £400 private benefaction, £400 royal bounty, and £1000 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of Sir Richard Sutton, Bart. The church, which is dedicated to St. Swithin, is a large and handsome structure, with a lofty square tower; it is composed of several styles of architecture, a portion being very old. It was formerly a very large church, and, in 1258, was presented by Roger, Archbishop of York, to his chapel of St. M.ary and the Holy Angels, near York Minster; in 1392 it. contained two altars (in a chapel at the back), dedicated to St. Trinity and St. Mary, endowed by the bailiffs of East Retford, who appointed two cantuarists to minister daily; in 1528, the chapel was pulled down, to repair the church, both being in a ruinous condition; and in October 1651, the building was demolished by the fall of the steeple and tower, and a brief was granted by Richard Cromwell, during his short protectorate, for rebuilding it, which was done by the corporation, in 1658, at an expense of £ 1500. A handsome chapel of ease, in the later style of English architecture, has been erected at Moorgate, chiefly by subscription; the site and chapel-yard were given by H. C. Hutchinson, Esq., with a donation of £ 500, and the Incorporated Society for building and enlarging churches and chapels contributed £ 800; the whole cost was £4000: it contains sittings for one thousand and forty persons, six hundred of which are free. There are places of worship for General Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyan Methodists, the two latter with Sunday schools attached to them. The free grammar school was founded by Edward VI., who endowed it with the possessions of the dissolved chantries of Sutton in Loundale, Tuxford, and Annesley, and placed it under the government of the bailiffs and burgesses, who appoint the master and under-master; the present school-house was built, in 1779, by the corporation, who, in 1797, built a house for the master, and in 1810, one for the second master: the present income is about £400 per annum, and there are at this time two boys only in the school. The corporation have been long in possession of considerable property in their own right, and as trustees for the grammar school, almshouses, &c., which, from the loss of some old deeds, has become so mixed, as to occasion a Chancery suit, at this time pending. A National school for boys was erected in 1813, to be supported by voluntary subscription, but it has been closed for want of sufficient support. Sloswicke's hospital was founded by Richard Sloswicke, in 1657, who gave his dwelling-house to be converted into a Maison de Dieu, and endowed it with property from which six poor men were to receive £3. 6. 8. each annually. It was rebuilt by the corporation in 1806, and is inhabited by aged burgesses, who receive 2s. each weekly; the estate now lets for £84. 10. a year. There are also nine other almshouses. The workhouse was built, in 1818, by the corporation, who receive five per cent, for the money expended on it: it is on a large scale, being intended for the poor of twenty-six incorporated parishes, which pay an annual rent of £3 each, and three shillings a week for each pauper they send; in the square is a relic of antiquity, called the Broad stone, supposed to be part of an ancient cross, which formerly stood near the town; the corn market is held round it.