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Contents | Page |
---|---|
Map of Witham | 4 |
Acknowledgements | 5 |
Map of Witham’s surroundings | 6 |
Introduction | 7 |
Chapter 1. Early days | 8 |
Anglo Saxons | 9 |
The burh | 10 |
The parish | 12 |
The Knights Templar | 14 |
The new town | 15 |
More changes | 16 |
The Knights Hospitaller | 17 |
Everyday life in the 1400s | 17 |
Chapter 2. Tudor and Stuart Witham | 20 |
Christopher Raven | 20 |
The Dissolution of religious houses | 20 |
Making woollen cloth | 21 |
Puritans | 23 |
The Civil War, 1642-1651 | 25 |
The Restoration of Charles II, 1660 | 25 |
Everyday life in the 1600s | 27 |
Chapter 3. 1700-1815. ‘A good handsome town’ | 29 |
The best gentry and their mansions | 29 |
The lesser gentry and the military | 31 |
The Pattissons | 32 |
The Clergymen | 33 |
Dissenters | 35 |
Schools | 36 |
Witham Spa and social life | 37 |
The Great Essex Road | 39 |
Cider, clocks and surgeons | 42 |
Rebuilding Witham | 45 |
Manufacturing and farming | 46 |
The poor | 48 |
The French Wars, 1793-1815: the poor | 51 |
The French Wars, 1793-1815: the wars | 52 |
Chapter 4. 1815-1901. ‘A radical place’ or ‘a respectable little town’? | 54 |
The Witham Fires, 1828-1829 | 55 |
The poor before 1834 | 57 |
The Union Workhouse and the poor after 1834 | 58 |
The railway, 1840s | 62 |
The telegraph | 65 |
Tanning, gas and coke, and brushes and drills | 65 |
Farming | 68 |
Peculiars, Congregationalists and the like | 70 |
William Henry Pattisson | 72 |
The Church of England and the Reverend John Bramson | 73 |
Catholics | 75 |
Charity and self-help | 76 |
Chartists and reformers | 77 |
Respectable mid-Victorian life | 78 |
Jacob Howell Pattisson | 80 |
The Empire and foreign parts | 81 |
Water, drains and health | 83 |
New houses and factories | 85 |
Trouble on the farms | 88 |
The Co-op | 90 |
The Victorians’ last word | 92 |
Chapter 5. 1901-1945. Paradise in Cressing Road | 93 |
An eventual start to the century | 93 |
Novelty | 94 |
Pinkham’s glove factory and the liberals | 97 |
Women and ladies | 98 |
Health and houses | 102 |
The First World War, 1914-1918 | 102 |
Pinkham’s again | 110 |
Crittall’s window factory | 110 |
The General Strike and the Great Depression | 113 |
Progress | 114 |
More motors | 117 |
The ‘Great Essex road’ again | 118 |
Flight | 121 |
Living and housing | 121 |
Social Witham between the Wars | 126 |
Town Planning | 130 |
War approaches | 130 |
The Second World War, 1939-1945 | 131 |
Witham recovers | 139 |
Walk 1. Round the ancient earthworks | 140 |
Walk 2. The village of Chipping Hill | 150 |
Walk 3. The town centre | 160 |
Other places to see | 183 |
Sources of information | 186 |
Index | 190 |