Kettering, Northamptonshire Family History Guide
Kettering is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Northamptonshire.
Alternative names: Kettering St Peter and St Paul
Parish church:
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1637
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1706
Nonconformists include: Baptist, Calvinist, Independent/Congregational, Primitive Methodist, Society of Friends/Quaker, Strict Baptist, and Wesleyan Methodist.
Industry: boots, shoes, silk, shag, velvets, ribbons, brushes, and stays
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
KETTERING, a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district, in Northamptonshire.
The town stands on the slope of a hill, at a feeder of the Ise affluent of the river Nen, near the Leicester and Hitchin railway, 7 miles N by W of Wellingborough, and 14 NE by N of Northampton.
It was known to the Saxons as Kateringes; it was given, in 976, by Edwy, to his servant Elfsige; it passed to the abbots of Peterborough; and it became a market town, under the abbots, in the time of Henry III. Some Roman antiquities, including coins of several emperors, and urns, were found in the neighbourhood in 1726.
The town is a seat of petty sessions and county courts; it is also a polling place and the place of election for the northern division of the county; and it has a head post office, a railway station, a district police station, two banking offices, three chief inns, a town hall and corn exchange, a temperance hall, a church, five dissenting chapels, a grammar school, national schools, a British school, a public library, a workhouse, alms houses, and charities £259.
The town hall and corn exchange was built in 1863, and is a handsome edifice. The church is chiefly later English; has a lofty tower and spire; was renovated in 1862; and contains a recent beautiful reredos. Two of the dissenting chapels are Baptist; and the others are Independent, Quaker, and Methodist. One of the Baptist chapels was built in 1861, at a cost of £4,000; is in the Lombardo-Gothic style; and contains 850 sittings.
The grammar school is free for native boys, and has an endowed income of £147. The national schools are for boys, girls, and infants; and are an ornamental structure of 1859. The workhouse has accommodation for 250 persons. A new cemetery was recently formed on the Barton-Seagrave road.
A weekly market is held on Friday; fairs are held on the Thursday before Easter, the Friday before Whitsunday, the Thursday before 10 Oct., and the Thursday before St. Thomas’s; and manufactures in boots, shoes, silk, shag, velvets, ribbons, brushes, and stays, are carried on.
Gill, the expositor, was a native; and Fuller, the theologian, lived and died here. Pop. in 1851, 5,125; in 1861, 5,498. Houses, 1,162.
The parish comprises 2,840 acres. Real property, £17,097; of which £269 are in gas works. Pop., 5,845. Houses, 1,206. The manor belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch and George L. Watson, Esq. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Peterborough. Value, £1,095. Patron, G. L. Watson, Esq.
The sub-district contains also the parishes of Pytchley, Burton-Latimer, Cranford-St. John, Cranford-St. Andrew, Barton-Seagrave, and. Warkton. Acres, 14,375. Pop., 8, 606. Houses, 1,808.
The district comprehends also the sub-district of Rothwell, containing the parishes of Rothwell, Broughton, Cransley, Loddington, Thorpe-Malsor, Harrington, Desborough, and Rushton, and the extra-parochial tract of Glendon; and the sub-district of Corby, containing the parishes of Corby, Cottingham, East Carlton, Weekley, Grafton-Underwood, Geddington, Newton, Great Oakley, Little Oakley, and Stanion. Acres, 55,266.
Poor rates in 1863, £13,044. Pop. in 1851, 18,097; in 1861, 18,995. Houses, 4,065. Marriages in 1863, 109; births, 649, of which 32 were illegitimate; deaths, 440, of which 197 were at ages under 5 years, and 13 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 1,424; births, 6,627; deaths, 3,740.
The places of worship, in 1851, were 28 of the Church of England, with 7,987 sittings; 7 of Independents, with 2,645 s.; 4 of Baptists, with 1,322 s.; 1 of Quakers, with 170 s.; 7 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 1,632 s.; 2 of Primitive Methodists, with 132 s.; 1 of Wesleyan Reformers, with 270 s.; and 7 undefined, with 554 s. The schools were 30 public day schools, with 1,944 scholars; 40 private day schools, with 663 s.; and 39 Sunday schools, with 3,530 s.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Administration
- County: Northamptonshire
- Civil Registration District: Kettering
- Probate Court: Court of the Archdeaconry of Northampton
- Diocese: Peterborough
- Rural Deanery: Higham Ferrers
- Poor Law Union: Kettering
- Hundred: Huxloe
- Province: Canterbury