Luton, Bedfordshire, England. Geographical and Historical information from 1866.

LUTON:
Geographical and Historical information from the year 1866.

"LUTON, a parish, a town, a township, a sub-district, and a district, in Beds. The town stands on the river Lea, and on the Hereford and Leighton-Buzzard branch of the Great Northern railway, 2¼ miles SE of Icknield-street, and 19 S by E of Bedford. Its site is a valley, surrounded by hills. Its name is a corruption either of Leatown or of Lowtown. The groud on which it stands was given by Offa, king of Mercia, in the 8th century, to the abbey of St. Albans; belonged, at Domesday, to the Crown; went, in 1216, to Fulke de Brent, who built a castle on it; and passed to the Wenlocks.

The town acquired importance in the time of James I., by being made the seat of a straw-hat manufacture, which Mary, Queen of Scots, had introduced from France; it suffered a check to its prosperity, by the transference of that manufacture, in a considerable degree and for some time, to Dunstable; it eventually recovered its status as the largest seat of that manufacture in Great Britain; and it so throve upon it in the decade from 1851 till 1861 as then to increase its population, on account of it, nearly 50 per cent.

An extraordinary inundation came down on it in 1828, by immense and long continued rainfall; laid many of the smaller houses under water; and did such damage to several of the larger ones, that they required to be taken down and rebuilt. The town consists chiefly of street diverging from a central market-place; but it has, of late years, been greatly extended.

The town-hall stands at the junction of the Bedford and the Dunstable roads; and is a handsome edifice. The court-house was built by the county; is large and commodious; and includes some prison cells. St. Mary's church is partly decorated English, partly later English; comprises nave, aisles, transepts, and choir; has a W embattled tower in chequerwork 90 feet high, surmounted at the corners by hexagonal turrets; includes, in the S transept, a lofty stone baptistry, with groined roof and pinnacles, standing over a famous baptismal font supported by five pillars, and said to have been presented by Queen Anne Boleyn; includes also, on the N side of the chancel, an elegant chapel, built prior to 1461 by Sir John Wenlock; and contains four richly ornamented sedilia, several royal armorial bearings, several arched altar-tombs, some very ancient brasses, and a number of handsome modern monuments and cenotaphs. Christ Church was ereceted in 1856; and a wooden church was erected in 1858. The Independent chapel in King-street was built in 1866, at a cost of about £6,000; is on the pointed style, with a spire; contains about 1,200 sittings; and includes a basement-school, capable of accommodating 1,200 children. The Union Congregational chapel is London-road. The Baptist chapel in Park-street dates from 1670; and that in Wellington-street is recent. The Ebenezer Baptist chapel is in Dumfries-street; the Ebenezer Calvinist chapel is in Hastings-street; and the Quakers' chapel is in Castle-street. Two Wesleyan chapels are in Waller-street and Chapel-street; the one built in 1863, the other also recent; and one of them is a handsome edifice, cost upwards of £3,000, and contains about 1,700 sittings. A Primitive Methodist chapel is in High-town.

There are a literary institution and news-rooms, a young women's literary institute, a national school, a British school, a school endowment of £37 a-year, almshouses with £43, other charities £74, and a workhouse. The town has a head post-office, a railway station with telegraph, two banking-offices, a county police station, a fire-brigade establishment, and four chief inns; is a seat of petty-sessions and county courts, and a polling-place; and publishes five weekly newspapers. A weekly market for corn and straw-plait is held on Monday; a weekly market for provisions, on Saturday; fairs for cattle, on the third Monday of April and the third Monday of October; and a hiring-fair, on the Friday after the third Monday of September. The straw-hat and bonnet manufacture is carried on in large and handsome buildings, and exports its produce to all parts of the world. There is an iron-foundry. Pomfret, the poet, was a native. Real property, of the town, in 1860, £44,433; of which £554 were in the railway, and £526 in gas-works. Pop. in 1851, 10,648; in 1861, 15,329. Houses, 2,724.

The township is conterminate with the town. The parish contains also the hamlets of East Hyde, West Hyde, Stopsley, Leegrave, and Limbury-cum-Biscott. Acres, 15,750. Real property, £62,350. Pop. in 1851, 12,787; in 1861, 17,821. Houses, 3,196. Summeries Tower, 1¾ mile ESE if the town, formed part of an ancient mansion of the Wenlocks, now all destroyed except the portico. Luton Hoo, 1¾ mile SSE of the town, was built by the Earl of Bute, prime minister of George III.; was the seat of the late Marquis of Bute; had a splendid chapel of richly carved wood; suffered vast damage by fire, with total destruction of the chapel, in 1843; passed to John Shaw Leigh, Esq.; has been completely restored; and stands in a very fine park of 1,670 acres. Stockwood, 1 mile SSW of the town, is the seat of J. S. Crawley, Esq. The parish is ecclesiastically cut into the sections of St. Mary, Christchurch, East Hyde, and Stopsley. East Hyde was made a separate charge in 1859; and Christchurch and Stopsley, in 1861. Pop., of the Christchurch section, in 1861, 6,658. Houses, 1,150. The living of St. Mary is a vicarage, and that of Christchurch is a p. curacy, in the diocese of Ely. Value of the vicarage, £1,350. Patron, the Rev. A. King. Value and patron of Christchurch not reported. East Hyde and Stopsley are separately noticed.

The sub-district also contains the parishes of Sundon-Streatley, Barton-in-the-Clay, and Caddington, - part of the last electorally in Herts. Acres, 26,967. Pop., 21,419. Houses, 3,967. - The district comprehends also the sub-district of Dunstable, containing the parishes of Dunstable, Houghton-Regis, Totternhoe, Whipsnade, Studham, and Kensworth, - all the last and part of the proceding electorally in Herts. Acres of the district, 40,836. Poor-rates in 1863, £13,206. Pop. in 1851, 25,087; in 1861, 30,712. Houses, 5,865. Marriages in 1863, 297; births, 1,144, - of which 92 were illegitimate; deaths, 631, - of which 92 were illegitimate; deaths, 631, - of which 282 were at ages under 5 years, and 6 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 2,213; births, 9,876; deaths, 5,662. The places of worship, in 1851, were 12 of the Church of England, with 4,841 sittings; 13 of Baptists, with 3,956 sittings; 1 of Quakers, with 220 sittings; 18 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 4,705 sittings; 2 of Primitive Methodists, with 530 sittings; 3 undefined, with 1,142 sittings; and 2 of Latter Day Saints, with 130 sittings The schools were 13 public day schools, with with 1,386 scholars; 50 private day schools, with 1,018 sittings; 41 Sunday schools, with 5,688 sittings; and 1 evening school for adults, with 31 sittings The workhouse, at the census of 1861, had 150 inmates."