DEDHAM, a parish in the Colchester division of
the hundred of LEXDEN, county of ESSEX, 4 miles
(W. by N.) from Manniagtree, containing 1651 inhabitants.
The living is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry of
Colchester, and diocese of London, rated in the king's
books at £10. 0. 2., endowed with £200 private benefaction,
and £300 parliamentary grant, and in the
patronage of the King, as Duke of Lancaster. The
church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a spacious structure
in the later style of English architecture, having
an embattled tower at the west end, and crowned with
octagonal turrets richly pinnacled. Annexed to the
church is a lectureship which, in the beginning of the
eighteenth century, was endowed with the great tithes,
by the Rev. William Birkett, then lecturer, the able and
learned commentator on the New Testament; the appointment
belongs to the governors of the grammarschool.
Dedham is situated in a picturesque valley on the
river Stour, over which it has a good bridge, and consists
chiefly of one street: it had formerly the privilege of a
market on Tuesday; there is a fair for toys on Easter-
Tuesday. The clothing trade flourished here so early as
the reign of Richard II., but has wholly declined, and
the place is now only remarkable for the number of
genteel residences in the vicinity. A free grammar school
was built by Dame Jane Clarke, prior to 1571, when it
was endowed by William Littlebury, with a farm of one
hundred and eighty acres, for teaching twenty boys, in
aid of which, William Cardinal, in 15Q3, bequeathed
land, now let for £ 60 per annum, for the maintenance
and education of two of the boys at St. John's College,
Cambridge, born at Dedham. or Much Bromley; the governors
of the school, twenty-four in number, were
incorporated by charter of ,Q,ueen Eli2abeth, in 1574,
The same William Littlebury, also founded and endowed
an English school, and some almshouses. John Marsh,
in 1642, left an annuity of £6 for teaching two boys in
the grammar school, and one in the English school,
with a house and land to the English master, in farther
augmentation of whose salary a bequest of £4 per
annum was made by William Burkitt, in 1698, which
the vicar holds in trust.