A History of the Grammar School of Charles King of England in Kidderminster (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER III. KIDDERMINSTER IN THE DAYS OF THE STUARTS. The county of Worcestershire is rich in historic associations, and of these the district round Kidderminster has its due share. In the early days of the seventeenth century, however, Kidderminster by no means took the leading position in the north of the county which it now holds, but was evidently inferior in wealth and population to towns like Bewdley and Droitwich. We see this from the interesting assessment for the Ship money demanded by Charles I, the cause of the protest in which John Hampden took so famous a part. The Sheriff of Worcester, John Savage, in his accounts referring to this Ship money, under date February 16th, 1635, gives the assessment for the whole county at 4,000, of which Worcester city paid 266, Evesham 84, Bewdley and Droitwich, 70 each, but Kidderminster only 30, less than half that paid by its ancient rival and neighbour on the banks of the Severn. This is not surprising when we consider the important river traffic of those days, of which Bewdley had so large a share, and which made the riverside port a town which even royalty did not disdain; and indeed we find that the population of Kidderminster was only between one andtwo thousand.1 It was then only a " good market town " whose inhabitants also were concerned in the making of woollen cloths, though there were plenty of other towns engaged in a similar industry. John Leland, the author of textit{The Itinerary, who visited the town about 1539, records that it " standeth most by cloathing," but in this period (the reign of Henry VIII) it is evident that Evesham, Droitwich and Bromsgrove were quite as important in this manufacture as was Kidderminster. A century later, however, there was evidently a more distinct manufacture special to the town, for "Kidderminster ...