Local History
A BRIEF HISTORY OF WELLINGBOROUGH
Copyright acknowledged - Wellingborough Borough Council - www.wellingborough.gov.uk
Although there is evidence of pre-historic and Roman occupation in the area, Wellingborough is essentially Anglo-Saxon in origin, occupied by an Anglo-Saxon war band in the early sixth Century, "Wendeling burh" - the stronghold of Waendel's people. A helmet from this period, its crest surmounted by a boar, has been recovered from a site at Wollaston, near Wellingborough - one of only a handful of Anglo-Saxon helmets to be found in this country.
The Domesday Book of 1086 shows that approximately 250 people lived in "Wendleburie" at that time and from AD 948 to 1539 much of the area was in the hands of the fenland monastery of Crowland. The Dissolution of the Monasteries handed ownership of the land back to the Crown. Queen Elizabeth I gave the manor and other parish land to Sir Christopher Hatton and a smaller portion to the Earl of Leicester. Sir Christopher bought the latter out, but division came again in 1616 when the old manor was purchased by the Earl of Warwick. The two manors finally came together again when both were bought in the early nineteenth Century by John Vivian.
The town is noted for its wells, popular with the early Stuart nobility and visited by Charles I.
Early in the Civil War, the town was plundered for two days as a reprisal for its Royalist stance and prior to the Battle of Naseby in 1645, the town was full of Parliamentarian troops.
During the anarchic period after the long and bitter struggle between Crown and Parliament, the "Diggers", a party of agrarian communists led by Gerrard Winstanley, organised some of the people of Wellingborough to dig, plough and cultivate common land on the outskirts of the town. At this time the "Wellinborrow" Digger manifesto mentions that 1169 persons in the town (with a population then of little more than 2000) were in extreme poverty. Following this uprising the elite Parliamentarian soldiers moved in, destroyed the community and forced the inhabitants to disperse.
The enclosure of the common fields was discussed at The Hind in 1765 and shortly after the main roads were turnpiked and toll gates erected at the 4 main entrances to the town.
Traditional cottage industries began to decline and soon Wellingborough had a reputation for shoe making, this remaining its most important industry until the mid twentieth century.
With the Industrial Revolution came an expansion of the town and since the Second World War there has again been dramatic changes in the size and make-up of the population, with an influx of people mainly from London and other cities.
Wellingborough is now very much a multi-cultural town, being the home to a wide number of ethnic minority groups - of Afro-Caribbean and Asian origin, Irish, Polish, Italian, Ukrainian, Chinese and Vietnamese descent. This is reflected in some of the more recent buildings - the Hindu Centre and Muslim Mosque.
The Wellingborough Museum
Copyright acknowledged - Wellingborough Borough Council - www.wellingborough.gov.uk
The Wellingborough Museum is housed in Dulley's Baths, built in 1892 as an indoor swimming pool by David Dulley, a brewer in the town. In 1920, the building was bought by George Cox and converted into a shoe factory. Cox's moved to larger premises in 1995, and the building is currently being fitted out as The Wellingborough Museum. The building displays the collection of artefacts owned by the Winifred Wharton Trust, previously shown in Croyland Hall in Wellingborough. We have a typical market town collection of mainly social items relating to Wellingborough and district. Our new building is 10,000 square feet, and we are working on the displays in the main galleries. The lower gallery will show the Borough's history from earliest times up to the First World War. The upper gallery will show the 20th Century, mainly in room settings. At present you can see the shop, the restored Victorian swimming pool area and our temporary exhibitions.
