page_title: Northampton
section_title: Early Modern
hierarchical_section_title: Northampton / History / Early Modern
caption_attribution_description: English: Sessions House, Northampton, EnglandThis is a photo of listed building number 1039664.
context_page_description: Northampton is a large market town and the county town of Northamptonshire in the East Midlands of England. It lies on the River Nene, 60 miles north-west of London and 50 miles south-east of Birmingham. One of the largest towns in England, it had a population of 212,100 at the 2011 census.
  Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates to the Bronze Age, Romans and Anglo-Saxons. In the Middle Ages, the town rose to national significance with the establishment of Northampton Castle, an occasional royal residence which regularly hosted the Parliament of England. Medieval Northampton had many churches, monasteries and the University of Northampton, all enclosed by the town walls. It was granted a town charter by Richard I in 1189 and a mayor was appointed by King John in 1215. The town was also the site of two medieval battles, in 1264 and 1460.
  Northampton supported the Parliamentary Roundheads in the English Civil War, and Charles II ordered the destruction of the town walls and most of the castle. The Great Fire of Northampton in 1675 destroyed much of the town. It was soon rebuilt and grew rapidly with the industrial development of the 18th century.
context_section_description: The royal connection to Northampton Castle became less significant, and by the time of the English Civil War, Northampton was decidedly pro-Parliament. Though Spencer Compton, Earl of Northampton, was a royalist (Cavalier) and backed King Charles I, the people of Northampton supported Parliament and Oliver Cromwell's republican Roundhead army. The town had a long history of religious dissent from the Lollards and Puritanism gained a strong hold on the town. The corporation of the town, having already refused to provide troops to the King in 1632 or to pay the notorious ship money tax in 1636, petitioned Parliament in 1642 against papists and bishops.
  When war broke out in 1642, the town willingly became the main Parliamentarian garrison for the south-east Midlands area with the former royal castle as its headquarters. In 1643, Prince Rupert attacked Northampton with approximately 2,000 men, but was beaten back at the North Gate of the town. Oliver Cromwell visited in 1645 and General Fairfax marched from the town to Naseby, where Charles I's Royalist army was decisively defeated. Over 4,000 pairs of leather shoes and 600 pairs of cavalry jack-boots for the Parliamentary armies were manufactured in Northampton during the Civil War, and a further 2,000 for Cromwell's New Model Army in 1648. Until well into the 19th century, the shoe industry boomed in and around the town with small manufacturing workshops set up in the surrounding areas.
  The War ended with a Parliamentary victory, resulting in England becoming a Commonwealth, which lasted a decade. Following the restoration of King Charles II in 1660, he took revenge on the town by ordering the destruction of its walls and partial demolition of its castle in 1662, since it did not support his father Charles I and his cavaliers. From then on, the castle was used as a court and a gaol, but its physical condition worsened. The new council of the town had to pay £200 to have its charter renewed and also required all officials to swear the oath of allegiance and some confirmed by the Crown.
  The town centre was further destroyed by the Great Fire of Northampton in 1675, caused by sparks from an open fire in a thatched cottage by the castle. The fire spread eastwards by strong westerly winds and consumed three-quarters of the town centre in 24 hours. Matters were worsened because most buildings were chiefly made of wood and covered with thatch. An estimated 600 buildings were destroyed, amounting to £150,000 lost. Very little survived the fire, apart from buildings made of stone, like the Welsh House on Market Square, built in 1595, and Hazelrigg House in Mare Fair, built in 1662.
  The devastation led to an Act of Parliament for the rebuilding the town. Local people and businesses helped to raise around £25,000 towards the rebuilding of the town centre based around the Market Square. Streets were widened and buildings made of brick and stone and tiled to prevent such devastation again. In an act of reconciliation, King Charles II donated timber from the royal forests of Salcey and Whittlebury to help with the rebuild. In 1678, the Sessions House and what is now County Hall were amongst the first buildings to be completed. A Georgian town with new houses, shops and workshops eventually grew out of the old medieval town destroyed by the fire. In 1741 Edward Cave opened Marvel's Mill, the world's first cotton mill to be driven by a water wheel.
  A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Gibraltar Barracks in 1797.
  By the end of the 18th century, Northampton had become a major centre of footwear and leather manufacture. In 1801, the population was 7,020; it more than doubled to 15,351 in 1831, attributed to the fact that there was great demand for footwear caused by the Napoleonic Wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. A third of the adult males alone were shoemakers at the time. Northampton grew beyond the old town walls and industry grew rapidly with the mechanisation of factories by the middle of the 19th century.
  The Nene Navigation C
caption: Sessions House was one of the first buildings built after the Great Fire of Northampton (1675)
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