News, Articles and Events
We regret that, owing to ill health, the workshop about 18th Century Poor Law and Settlement records due to take place on 11 April has been postponed. We now aim to hold it on 3rd October as part of the Autumn programme.
Castle Hill chapel, close to Northampton station, is one of the town's most notable buildings. From 1729 until his death in 1751, the minister was Philip Doddridge. First built in 1692 and enlarged in 1852 and 1890, the chapel, complete with box pews and galleries, has been the home of the congregation now called Castle Hill United Reformed Church.
Between 1695 and 1706, a tax was levied to pay for the war against France. Various sums were charged for births, marriages & burials and also from bachelors over 21 and widowers without children. To help work out how much each person had to pay, lists were compiled of those living in Rothwell Hundred.
If you are curious about local or family history in the area that includes Burton Latimer, Corby, Irthlingborough, Kettering and Rothwell, the most useful sources include lists compiled to help collect the poll tax in 1698 and the window tax in 1702. They contain over 4,000 names of individuals who lived in Corby, Huxloe and Rothwell hundreds (a total of 105 parishes).
One of the best ways to discover people and places in the past is to check the administrations that were granted for the estates of people who had not left a will. The ones granted by Northampton Archdeaconry Court (1667-1710) were printed decades ago as a book which can be hard-to-find.
Would you like to meet earlier inhabitants of your town or village in the documents they left behind? Would you like to find out more about the wealth of records at Northamptonshire Archives and meet others with similar interests?
In the 1810s, William Hyett and his colleagues composed an enormous series of surveys as the basis for some of the earliest maps published by the Ordnance Survey. These drawings include precise field boundaries (not found on printed OS maps until a much later date).
Rushton, a village situated a few miles from Kettering, Desborough and Rothwell, has a very well-documented history. Its oldest parish register is one of the earliest surviving in the county and, along with nine later volumes for the parish, was precisely transcribed and printed in 1929.
Eleanor Townsend’s recent inspiring talk to the Society led us to a marvelous, richly illustrated collection of images and information about Medieval Wall Painting in the English Parish Church.
A series of sections there unfold the various subjects depicted on the walls of churches and identify the churches where each type is installed.
A major collection of pictures of local people extending back into the 19th century is now available online. Marjorie Clipstone (1915-1995) assembled a collection of family and other photographs that features over 40 different individuals whose names we know. Some pictures show the activities of Kingsthorpe Bowling Club.
Between 1891 and 1908, Frederick William Bull, a solicitor then living at Kettering, wrote three books on aspects of the history of the town. They provide important accounts from a period of great change - Kettering’s population of 5,198 in 1851 had soared to 28,653 by 1901. The books are all now available to download free of charge.
In 1970-71, members of a local history course at Long Buckby worked on its oldest parish register leading to a transcript and index edited by Ron Greenall, who also composed a detailed introduction. The Record Society has had it digitised so anyone can download it as a PDF free of charge.