NORTHAMPTON, a borough and market-town, having separate jurisdiction,
locally in the hundred of Spelhoe, county of NORTHAMPTON, of which
it is the chief town, 66 miles (N.W. by N.) from London, on the
road to Leicester, containing 10,793 inhabitants. This place, from
its situation to the north of the river Nine, or Nene, (called by
Camden the Avon) formerly the Aufona, is by some antiquaries supposed
to have been called North Aufonton, of which its present
name is probably a contraction; by others it
is said to have been called, by the Saxons, Hamtune,
and to have had the word North prefixed by way of distinguishing
it from other towns of the same name. It
is unquestionably a place of antiquity, and must have
attained a considerable degree of importance priorto
the division of the kingdom into shires, from its having
given name to that in which it is situated. In the
reign of Edward the Elder it was in the possession  of
the Danes, who, in 921, made it the principal station
of their forces, who marched thence to the siege of
Towcester. In 1010, it was again attacked by the
Danes, who burnt the town and laid waste the adjacent
country. During the insurrection of the Northumbrians,
in 1064, against Tosti, son of Earl Godwin, the insurgents,
under Earl Morcar,whom they had chosen for their
leader, marched to this place, where they committed excessive
outrages, burning the housesof the inhabitants, whom
they massacred, and carrying off great quantities  of
cattle, and several hundred prisoners. Harold, afterwards
king, being sent against the insurgents, encountered
them near the town, but listening to their just
representations of the tyranny and oppression of Tosti,
he entered into an accommodation with them, and procured
for Morcar a confirmation of his assumed.authority.
The town, which had scarcely recovered from the
depredation it suffered upon this occasion, was, at the
time of the Conquest, given to Earl Waltheof, who had
married the Countess Judith, niece of the Conqueror;
but the earl having entered into a conspiracy against
the king, was executed as a traitor, and his confiscated
possessions were bestowed on Simon de St. Liz, Earl
of Huntingdon and Northampton, who repaired and
beautified the town, erected a strong castle for its
defence, and surrounded it with massive walls, in which
were four gates. From this period it rapidly improved,
and from its central situation and the security of its
fortifications, became the occasional residence of several
of the kings, of whom Henry I., in the twenty-third
year of his reign, celebrated the festival of Easter here
with great pomp, and, in 1131, assembled a parliament,
in which the English barons swore homage to his
daughter, the Empress Matilda, whom he appointed his
successor. In the llth of Henry II., a council was
convened here, at which Archbishop Becket was summoned
to appear for his refusal to submit to the constitutions
of Clarendon; and on the rebellion of Prince
Henry, Anketil Mallore, one of his partisans, advancing
to Northampton with a body of forces, defeated the
king's troops, aided by a party of the inhabitants, and
took two hundred of the latter prisoners. William,
King of Scotland, being taken prisoner at the battle of
Alnwick, was brought to Northampton, where Henry
was then residing, and the Bishop of Durham, Roger
de Mowbray, Earl Ferrers, with Anketil Mallore, and
William de Dive, constables of the Earl of Leicester,
waited upon him, to surrender the several castles which
they had held against him. In 1180 a convention of
barons and prelates was held here, to take into consideration
the laws of the realm, and to amend and enforce
the constitutions of Clarendon, by which the kingdom
was first divided into six circuits, and three itinerant
justices were assigned to each, for the administration
of the laws and the punishment of ofenders;
and in the following year the king held a
council previously to his visiting his dominions on the
continent.
Richard I., soon after his return from captivity;
kept the festival of Easter in this town, where he entertained
William of Scotland, who came to solicit'1 a
grant of the county of Northumberland. During this
reign a mint existed here, and on the death of Richard,
the barons assembled in council at this place, and took
the oath of allegiance to his brother John, at that time
in Normandy. John, in the tenth year of his reign,
being displeased with the citizens of London, removed
his court of Exchequer to Northampton, and three years
afterwards assembled a council of temporal lords, at
which Pandulph and Durand, legates from the pope,
attended on behalf of the exiled clergy, whom the
king allowed to return to their country; but refusing
to restore their confiscated property, he was excommunicated
by the legates. Previous to the commencement
of the war between the king and the barons, the
latter transmitted to him their memorial of grievances,
which the king having indignantlyrefused to redress, they
laid siege to the castle of Northampton, but, being unable
to reduce it, they withdrew their forces, after remain*
ing before it fourteen days; it was, however, on the sign-
ing of Magna Charta, among other castles, placed in their
custody, as security for the fulfilment of the conditions;
but, on the renewal of the war, it was entrusted to Fulke
de Brente, a determined loyalist. In 1216, the townsmen
attacked and killed many of the garrison under
the command of that officer, in retaliation for which the
soldiers burnt a considerable portion of the town.
Henry III., attended by his court, celebrated the festival
of Christmas at the castle, where he was splendidly entertained
by the governor; and in the thirtieth year of
his reign, the king gave the inhabitants ten marks to
purchase books for a public library, a sacramental
chalice for the church of All Saints, and smaller vessels
of silver for the other churches. The castle was, in
1264, occupied by the insurgent barons under the Earl
of Leicester, from whose son, Simon de Montfort, it was
taken by stratagem, after many fruitless attempts to
reduce it; but the following year it was retaken by the
Montforts, who celebrated a tournament there, which
was numerously and brilliantly attended; soon after
which the elder Montfort was defeated and slain at the
battle of Evesham. In 1268, a parliament was held
here, in which the rebellious barons were deprived of
their estates, and Simon de Montfort was banished the
realm; and a council of prelates was assembled at the
same time, at which the pope's legate excommunicated
those bishops who had joined their party. During
this reign, repeated attempts were made to establish a
university in the town, in consequence of dissensions
between the students and the citizens of Oxford; in 1258,
a large party of students removed to this place, and a
royal license was obtained for erecting public schools
for teaching the-arts and sciences; subsequent disputes
between the students and the townsmen, both of Oxford
and Cambridge, occasioned fresh accessions to
Northampton, but, in 1265, the establishments were
dissolved by order of the king, and the professors returned
with their pupils to their ancient seats. In the
feign of Edward II., John Poydras, the son of a tanner
of Exeter, who pretended to be the son and heir of
Edward I., was convicted and executed as an impostor
in the town; and in the second year of the reign of Edward
III., atreaty was concluded with the Scots, by which
the king resigned his pretensions to the sovereignty of
Scotland, in consideration of thirty thousand marks paid
by Robert Bruce, whose infant son David was affianced
to Jane, the king's sister, also an infant: in the same
parliament was enacted the statute of Northampton,
specifying in what cases pardon should be granted for
felony, and regulating the appointment of judges of assize.
The last parliament held here, was sximmoned
in the fourth year of the reign of Richard II., to grant
supplies for the troops destined to serve in a war
against France, when a poll-tax was ordered, the levying
of which excited the rebellion headed by Wat Tyler:
this parliament, together with the convocation of Canterbury,
sat in the chancel of All Hallows' church, now
All Saints', the castle having fallen into a ruinous state.
During the war between the houses of York and Lancaster,
a sanguinary and decisive battle took place on
the 9th of July, 1460, in which Henry VI. was defeated
and taken prisoner. The treacherous desertion of Lord
Grey of Ruthin, who commanded the vanguard of the
king's army, contributed to the defeat of the royal forces,
on whose side fell the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl
of Shrewsbury, Viscount Beaumont, Lord Egremont,
and. other nobles, who were buried in the town; the
duke was interred in the church of the Grey friars, and
several of the others in St. John's hospital, where their
bones- have been recently discovered. In the 9th of
Edward IV., Earl Rivers and his son, who had been
taken by the rebels under Sir Henry Nevil and Sir
John Coniers, who headed the insurrection in Yorkshire,
were beheaded in this town. Queen Elizabeth, in her
progress through the country, visited Northampton,
where she was hospitably received, and presented by
the magistrates with a valuable purse containing £20;
a similar mark of respect was also paid to Charles I.
and his consort, who, on passing through the town, were
presented by the mayor and corporation with two bowls
of silver gilt, containing one hundred marks. In
1637, the court of Eyre for the forests was held here,
under the Earl of Holland, Chief Justice, as head of the
commission, assisted by five of the judges and many of
the nobility and gentry. During the parliamentary war,
Lord Brooke took possession of the town, which he fortified
for the parliament 5 and in 1675 it was nearly destroyed
by a fire, which consumed six hundred houses,
chiefly built of wood and roofed with thatch. From this
severe calamity, of which the damage was estimated
at £150,000, it recovered, under the auspices of the Earl
of Northampton, who procured an act of parliament for
its restoration.
The town is pleasantly situated OH the acclivity, of
an eminence rising gradually from the north bank of
the river Nene, over which are two bridges of stone, of
which that to the south is a handsome structure of three
elliptic arches; it consists principally of two- spacious
and regular streets, nearly a mile in length, which, intersecting
each other at right angles, divide it into four
nearly equal parts; the houses are handsomely built of
stone, and the town, which is well paved, and lighted with
gas, under an act of-parliament recently obtained, has a
clean, respectable, and cheerful appearance: the central
part is supplied with water from a reservoir near the
market-place, into which it is conveyed by pipes from a
spring, called the Conduit Head, in a field to the east of
the town. The theatre, a handsome modern building;
conveniently arranged and well fitted up, was opened
in 1.806, and the performances are well conducted by a
provincial company: races take place annually in September,
and are in general well attended; and within
these few years a spring meeting has been held, about
the last week in March; the race-course comprises
about one hundred and seventeen acres, at a short distance
from the town. At the end of Derngate-street is
a fine promenade, made at the expense of the corporation;
it is shaded by a range of lofty trees, and comr
mands a pleasing view of the adjoining meadows. The
environs are pleasant, and abound with handsome villas
and thriving plantations; at the northern extremity of
the town are the barracks, erected in 1796, forming a
handsome range of building, consisting of a centre and
two wings. The principal articles of manufacture are,
boots and shoes, of which great quantities are made
for the supply of the army; and stockings and lace,
the latter of which, since the introduction of machinery,
has materially declined: a considerable trade is
carried on in the currying of leather. A branch canal
was constructed, in 1815, from the river Nene to the
Grand Junction canal, by means of which a facility of
communication is obtained with almost every part of the
kingdom. The market days are Wednesday, Friday, and
Saturday; the last, a very large cattle market: the fairs
are on the second Tuesday in January, February 20th,
the third Monday in March, April 5th, May 4th
June 19th, August 5th and 26th, September IQth (for
cheese), the first Thursday in November, the 28th of
the same month, and December 19th, principally for
horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs; the fairs for horses
and cattle are numerously attended by dealers. The
market-place is a spacious and commodious area, in the
centre of which is a column with a powerful gas-light,
and on the south side the conduit from which the town
is supplied with water.
The borough received a charter of incorporation in
the 31st of Henry II., which was confirmed in several
succeeding reigns, and modified and enlarged in the 36th
of George III., by which the government is vested in a
mayor, an indefinite number of bailiffs who have served
that office, a recorder, deputy recorder, an indefinite
number of aldermen, and forty-eight common councilmen,
assisted by a town clerk, chamberlain, two coroners,
four Serjeants at mace, and subordinate officers. The
mayor, who  is annually chosen, becomes an alderman
on the expiration of his office; the bailiffs are chosen
from the common council, in which vacancies are filled
up by the mayor and aldermen from the general body
of freemen. The mayor, the late mayor, the recorder,
deputy recorder, and three aldermen annually, appointed,
are justices of the peace within the borough. The freedom
of the borough is inherited by birth, acquired by
servitude, ..or obtained by marriage with a freeman's
widow or daughter, or by purchase. The corporation
hold quarterly courts of session, and have power to try
for capital offences, which, however, they transfer to the
assizes for the county: they also hold a court of record,
at which the mayor and bailiffs preside, every
third week, for the recovery of debts and determining
pleas to any amount. The town hall is an ancient
edifice commodiously arranged, and decorated with portraits
of Sir Thomas White, the founder of St. John's
College, Oxford, and a munificent benefactor to Northampton
and other towns, and of the late Rt. Hon. Spencer
Perceval, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and first
lord of the Treasury. The borough gaol and house
of correction is a small modern building adapted to
the classification of prisoners. The borough has returned
two members to parliament from the early part
of the reign of Edward I.: the right of election is vested
in the inhabitant householders not receiving alms, of
whom the number is about two thousand; the mayor
and bailiffs are the returning officers. The assizes for
the county and the election of knights of the shire are
held here. The county hall is a spacious and elegant
structure, in the Grecian style of architecture, and contains
courts for the .assizes and quarter sessions, and
a suite of rooms well adapted to the transaction of
the general business of the county; in the hall, the
ceiling of which is splendidly decorated, are portraits
of King William III. and Queen Mary, Queen Anne,
George I., and George II.: this edifice is deservedly
admired as a handsome specimen, of the Corinthian
order. Adjoining the shire-hall is the common gaol
and house of correction fpr the county, erected in 1793
at an expense of £16,000: it is a spacious building,
and contains eleven wards, four work-rooms, twelve dayr
rooms, and eleven airing-yards, for the classification or
prisoners; an additional piece of ground has been enclosed
within the area of the prison, for the erection of
a tread-mill; the prisoners are employed in grinding
and dressing corn, splitting beans, and drawing wire,
and receive one-half of their earnings: the old county
gaol has been converted into a lodge for the turnkey,
and a prison for debtors.
The town comprises the parishes of All Saints, St.
Giles, St. Peter, and St. Sepulchre, all in the archdeaconry
of Northampton, and diocese of Peterborough,
and formerly had seven parochial churches within the
walls, and two without, of which only four are remaining.
The living of All Saints' is a vicarage, rated in the
king's books at £22, and in the patronage of such members
of the Corporation as are Parishioners; the church,
rebuilt soon after the fire in 1675, is a spacious edifice,
in the Grecian style of architecture, having in the centre
a cupola supported on columns of the Ionic order, and
at the west end the original square embattled tower,
which escaped the conflagration, and in which is a dial
illuminated with gas, and a portico of twelve lofty Ionic
columns supporting a cornice and balustrade, in the
centre of which is a statue of Charles II.; on the pedestal
is recorded his donation of one thousand tons of
timber for the rebuilding of the church; the interior is
appropriately ornamented; the altar-piece is decorated
with paintings of Moses and Aaron, by Sir Godfrey
Knellerj the chancel is separated by a richly-carved
oak screen, and among the monuments are, one to the
memory of the learned Dr. Conant, Prebendary of Worcester,
and vicar of this parish, and a handsome marble
monument, by Chantrey, to the Rt. Hon. Spencer
Perceval, many years member for the borough, who was
assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons j
his statue, elevated on a pedestal, is admirably sculptured,
and exhibits gracefulness of form and dignity
of expression: the old stone wall Vhich enclosed the
churchyard has been taken down, and a handsome
iron palisade substituted in its place. The living of St.
Giles' is a discharged vicarage, rated in the king's books
at £7. 19., endowed with £200 parliamentary grant,
and in the patronage of the Rev. Edward Watldns; the
church is a large cruciform structure, with a lofty
square embattled tower rising from the intersection; it
displays good portions in various styles of English
architecture, with a fine western Norman entrance; the
chancel is in the early English, with an east window
of the decorated, style, and in the nave and transepts
the windows and other portions are of the later English;
in a chapel in the south aisle is a beautiful altartomb
of alabaster, with a recumbent figure of a female,
supposed to represent some individual of the family of
Gobion, and an octagonal font, richly panelled in the
later English style. The living of St. Peter's is a rectory,
with the perpetual curacies of Kingsthorpe and
Upton, rated in the king's books at £34. 2. 11., and in
the patronage of the Governors of St. Katherine's hospital,
London: the church, supposed to have been erected
about the same time as the castle, is a beautiful and
perfect specimen of the enriched Norman style of architecture,
with a highly-ornamented tower, communicating
with the church by a richly-moulded arch, j the
details are exquisitely wrought, and, having been cleared
from the plaster and whitewash which concealed their
beauty, exhibit some of the finest models in that style
of architecture; to the east of the chancel is a vaulted
crypt j the roof of the church is supported on circular
arches, and a series of alternately clustered and
single-shafted columns; the font is richly ornamented
in the later English style; there are various ancient and
some modern monuments, among which latter is one to
the memory of John Smith, an eminent mezzotinto engraver,.
who died in 1742. The living of St. Sepulchre's
is a discharged vicarage, rated in the king's books at
£6. 1., endowed with £200 royal bounty, and £1000
parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of Thomas
Butcher, Esq: the church is supposed to have been
built by the Knights Templars, after the model of the
church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and is one
of four buildings of that kind remaining in the kingdom;
it is of a circular form, and has a cupola in the
centre of the roof, which is supported on eight round
Norman columns, and plain pointed arches, with a western
tower surmounted by a spire, and a chancel, in
which are many curious figures and ancient inscriptions.
There are two places of worship for Baptists, one for
the Society of Friends, one for Huntingtonians, three
for Independents, one for Wesleyan Methodists, and a
Roman Catholic chapel.
The free grammar school was founded, in 1542, by
Mr. Thomas Chipsey, who endowed it with lands, which,
together with subsequent benefactions, produce an income
of about £120 per annum; in 1557 Cardinal
Pole granted for its use the remains of the dilapidated
church of St. Gregory: the master is appointed by the
mayor'and corporation, and the usher by the master, the
mayor, deputy recorder, the vicar of all Saints, and the
lord of the manor of Lillingston-Lovell. The corporation
charity school was founded by the corporation, who
appropriated to that purpose an unrestricted gift of
£1000 by the Earl of Northampton, with which sum
and other benefactions an estate was purchased, producing
an income of £310 per annum, of which a part is
appropriated to the clothing of twenty aged freemen, to
each of whom ten shillings per annum is also paid. The
Blue-coat school was founded, in 1710, by Mr. John
Dryden of Chesterton, who endowed it with a house,
to which Mr. Zachariah Herbert added a farm, the rents
of which are applied to clothing, instructing, and apprenticing
twenty boys, who, on the expiration of their
indentures, receive each a gratuity of £ 10. The Green
school was founded, in 1761, by Mr. Gabriel Newton
of Leicester, who endowed it with a rent-charge of £26
per annum. In 1738, Mrs. Dorothy Becket, and her
sister, Mrs. Ann Sargeant, established a school for the
clothing and education of thirty poor girls; the number
has been increased, and a more convenient school-room
and house for the mistress were erected in 1813. A
National and a British and Foreign school are supported
by subscription. St. John's hospital, said to have
been founded, in 1090, by William, Archdeacon of
Northampton, for the reception of aged and infirm persons,
is governed by a master, appointed by the Bishop
of Lincoln, and two brothers, nominated by the master,
who must be in holy orders, and officiate as chaplains;
there are also eight aged women, who receive a small
weekly allowance in money, and a supply of coal. To
the south of St. John's is the hospital of St. Thomas a
Becket, founded by the burgesses, about the year 1450,
and endowed for the support of twelve aged widows -.
the endowment was augmented, in 1654, by Sir John
Langhara, for six additional widows, and has been increased
by subsequent benefactions: the present income
is about £780 per annum; the inmates receive each
4s. per week, besides clothes, fuel, &c., and fifty out-pensioners
£8 per annum each: the establishment is governed
by a warden, who is one of the aldermen; the
vicar of All Saints' is chaplain. The general infirmary,
to the east of the town, erected and fitted up by subscription
in 1793, at an expense of near £25,000, is a
handsome building of white stone, three stories high,
and well adapted to its various uses: it is under the
management of a committee, and is gratuitously attended
by the physicians and surgeons resident in the town:
it is supported by the income arising from benefactions,
and by annual subscription: there are numerous
and extensive bequests for benevolent purposes, among
which may be noticed Sir Thomas White's fund, amounting
to upwards of £ 13,000, for loans, in sums of
£ 100 each, for nine years without interest, to young
tradesmen on their commencing business, and various
charitable donations for distribution among the indigent
and necessitous, poor.
Among the monastic institutions formerly established
here, were the priory of St. Andrew, founded about
1076, for Cluniac monks, the revenue of which, at the dissolution,
was £344. 13. 7.; an abbey of Black canons,
founded about 1112, by William Peverill, natural son of
William the Conqueror, and dedicated to St. James, the
revenue of which was £213. 17. 2.; the abbey de la Pre",
or de Pratis, for nuns of the Cluniac order, founded in
the reign' of Stephen, by Simon de St. Liz, second Earl
of Northampton, and dedicated to St. Mary, the revenue
of which was £119. 9. 7?.; a house of'Friars minors,
built about the year 1217, on ground to the north of
the market-place, given to them by the inhabitants,
who were consequently regarded as the founders, of
which the revenue was £6. 13. 4.; an hospital, on the
south side of the town, for a master and leprous brethren,
founded in 1240, by Henry III., and  dedicated
to St. Leonard, of which the revenue was £ 12. 4. 8.,
now consolidated with the hospital of St. Thomas a
Becket; a Carmelite priory, founded in 1271, by Simon
de Montfort, the revenue of which was £ 10. 10.; a
priory and chapel for Augustine friars, founded in
1322, by John Longville, near the South gate; and
the college of All Saints, founded in 1459, for a master
and two fellows, of which the revenue was £2.13.4.
Of the ancient castle only a few vestiges, consisting
of mounds of earth, are to be traced; and of the embattled
walls and the four gates, which were demolished
by order of the king, in 1662, there are no remains.
Robert Brown, founder of the religious sect called
Brownists, was a native of this town; and Dr. Samuel
Parker, Bishop of Oxford under James II., and author
of some curious historical memoirs, was born here in
1640. Dr. Philip Doddridge, author of the "Family
Expositor," was tutor in a dissenting academy at Northampton,
until a short time previous to his death in
1749. Northampton gives the titles of earl and marquis
to the family of Compton.