The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland 1868

"CHATHAM, a parish, parliamentary borough and naval arsenal, forming a suburb to the city of Rochester, but chiefly in the hundred of Chatham and Gillingham, in the county of Kent, 16 miles from Sheerness, 25 miles W.N.W. of Canterbury, 30 miles from London by road, and 37½ miles by the London, Chatham, and Dover railway; the North Kent railway has a station at Strood, 2 miles from Chatham, and 31 miles from London. The town, which lies on the Medway, appears in Domesday Book as Ceteham; it belonged to Earl Godwin and his son King Harold II., and was given by William the Conqueror to Hamon de Crevequer, from whom it came to the Badlesmeres, Despencers, Wentworths, and others.

Roman tiles, weapons, coins, and other relics of that people have been found in Chatham; and from various discoveries made in erecting the fortifications, it seems probable that the Romans had a cemetery here. Human remains, discovered in the surface soil in the year 1863, near Luton, in this parish, showed evidence of, death by sabre cuts, or wounds of a similar character, and from the position in which they were found, it was conjectured that they belonged to ancient Britons killed by the Romans in some conflict in that locality. The Dutch under De Ruyter, in 1667, having taken Sheerness, did considerable damage to Chatham; this was the cause of additional and stronger fortifications being erected. The dockyard may be said to have been of little consequence until the time of Queen Elizabeth, who erected Upnor Castle, at present merely a powder magazine, for defence of the dockyard and the shipping.

The dockyard, which has been very much enlarged, is a mile in extent, and contains, besides officers' houses, six building slips, four wet and one dry stone dock, a storehouse 660 feet long, a mast-house 240 feet, rope-house 1,128 feet, sail loft 210 feet, besides blacksmiths' shops with upwards of 40 forges and sawmills by Brunel. A large establishment is kept up here, and in time of war as many as 3,000 workmen are employed. The arsenal and barracks extend more than 2 miles along the Medway. In consequence of the entire space at St. Mary's Creek, Chatham, hitherto used by the Royal Engineers for carrying on their course of instruction in pontooning, diving, and subaqueous experiments, being required by the Admiralty for the enlargement and extension of Chatham Dock-yard, the Royal Engineer Pontoon Depot was removed in 1863 to the opposite side of the creek, near Upnor Castle, where the pontoons and other apparatus are now located.

There are five livings in Chatham. The principal one is a vicarage in the diocese of Rochester, value £400, in the patronage of the dean and chapter. The church is dedicated to St. Mary, and was rebuilt in 1788, on the site of the early English one, of which remains may be seen at the W. and S.W. of the present building. It had a finely carved sedilia, and the shrine of Our Lady, which used to be famous for working miracles; there is a brass plate recording the memory of Stephen Borough, who opened the N.E. passage to Russia. St. Paul's is a perpetual curacy value £250, in the patronage of the Bishop of Rochester. The church was consecrated in 1854; it is built in the Norman style, and seats upwards of 900 persons. The other three churches, St. John's, Luton, and Brompton, are all perpetual curacies, the two first, which are endowed, being in the patronage of the Vicar of Chatham, the last in that of the Rev. W. and Miss Conway. Brompton Church stands in the parish of Gillingham, but the district was partly formed out of Chatham. Besides these churches there is also a small chapel attached to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, which is used as a chapel of ease. Near the railway station is a Presbyterian church, erected in 1861 at a cost of £1,400, on a site granted by the War Department, a neat building of galvanised iron, with slate roofs. There are chapels for Reformed Wesleyans, Baptists, Independents, Bible Christians, Irvingites, Swedenborgians, and Unitarians.

There are four sets of National schools in the parish-one attached to the parish church, one to St. John's and one to St. Paul's church, and one at Luton; the British school is situated on the New Road. Extensive buildings have been recently erected for the Medway Union. Ralph Paine, by his will bearing date 1812, left a sum of money in the Funds, now amounting to about £10,000, to the vicar and churchwardens, for the relief of decayed persons who are not in the receipt of parish relief. Since the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832, Chatham has returned one member.

The population in 1851 was 28,424, with 4,337 inhabited houses, which in 1861 had increased to 36,177, with 5,185 inhabited houses, besides 8,910 military.

The fortified lines were made in 1758; they enclose a space of 1½ mile, and were defended by forts Pitt and Clarence at one end, Gillingham Fort at the other end, and Spur Battery on the heights. The defences, however, are now undergoing a thorough alteration and improvement, in accordance with the Fortifications Bill. Amongst other works, a large fort is being erected on the Isle of Grain, between the Thames and the Medway, to command the mouth of the latter river. Within the old lines are the dockyard, the Marine and St. Mary's barracks, the new Soldiers' Institute, the Melville hospital, &c. The High Street, which is narrow, is about 1½ mile in length; a considerable portion of the town itself is irregular and ill built. Behind the Sun Inn is a pier erected by Colonel Best, which cost £3,000. A military school was founded in 1812, and experiments are sometimes carried on upon a large scale, many visitors coming from a distance to witness them. Fort Clarence forms a military prison, but the medical school which was stationed at Fort Pitt, and the invaliding establishment at St. Mary's, are now in course of removal to Netley.

There are United Service and Marine libraries; the Chatham and Rochester Mechanics' Institute, which has a library of 2,000 volumes; two banks, besides a savings-bank with 3,175 depositors, holding £101,982; a lepers' hospital called St. Bartholomew's, founded by Ernulph the Saxon, or Bishop Gundulph, in 1078; this hospital is now reconstituted under a degree of the Court of Chancery; the management of the income, which is considerable, and of the new building, are intrusted to a body of trustees, of whom the Dean of Rochester is chairman; another hospital for 10 decayed mariners and shipwrights, founded by Sir John Hawkins in 1592, and incorporated by Queen Elisabeth in 1594; the old victualling office, and other buildings. Hawkins and Drake founded the " Chatham Chest," in 1588, but this has since been removed to London. There is an old house in the town which belonged to Pett, the celebrated ship-builder of the time of Charles I. Chatham gives the title of earl to the Pitts. The market, fairs, and races have recently been discontinued."

[Transcribed from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland 1868 by Colin Hinson ©2010]