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of adherents whom he occasionally met for religious pur- 

 poses did not long elude the jealous notice of the magis- 

 tracy. On June 1, 1662, he and his friends were appre- 

 hended and taken to prison : they were fined in 201. each, 

 and he in 100/. Not heing able to pay this penalty, he was 

 remanded to prison, where, in less than five weeks, through 

 the pestilential atmosphere of the place and want of exer- 

 cise, he contracted a disease which terminated his life, 

 Sept. 22, 1662, in the forty-stventh year of his age. During 

 liis exile he drew up an essay to explain the Apocalypse ; 

 and in 1653 he published several small pieces, translated 

 from the works of the Polish Unitarians, among which was 

 Przipcovius's Life of Faustus Socinus. All his contem- 

 poraries describe him as a man of pure and irreproachable 

 life ; and Anthony Wood, who had no great love for here- 

 tics, said of him, that ' except his opinions, there was little or 

 nothing blame-worthy in him.' (Toulmin's Life of Biddle.) 



BIDEFORD, a port, borough, and market-town, on both 

 sides of the river Torridge near its confluence with the Taw, 

 in the hundred of Shebbear, in the county of Devon, thirty- 

 six miles N.W. by W. from Exeter, and 180 W. by S. 

 from London ; in 51 2' N. lat., and 4 3' W. long. The 

 parish extends over the borough and manor, and contains 

 about 45 10 English statute acres, and is bounded on the 

 north by Northam, N. E. by VVestleigh, S.E. by Weare 

 Giffird, S. by Littleham, and W. by Abbotsham. 



Bideford, sometimes, but erroneously, spelt Biddeford, 

 derives its name from its local position, being situated near 

 an ancient ford, ' by the ford.' We have no authentic 

 account of it till the Conquest, when it was bestowed on 

 Richard de Grandavilla, or rather de Granville, a Norman 

 nobleman, by William the First. There is an ancient 

 charter granted by Sir Richard de Granville as lord of the 

 manor, to which unfortunatelythere is no date ; but it appears 

 from Prince, and from the names of the witnesses to the char- 

 ter, that this Sir Richard de Granville lived in the thirteenth 

 century, and that in the twenty-fourth year of the reign 

 of King Edward the First he held one fee in 'Bytheford.' 

 Cainden mentions Bideford as a place of little consequence 

 in his time, and Leland takes no further notice of it than 

 to mention its bridge, which he calls a ' notable work, fairly 

 walled on each side.' In 1573, through the interest of 

 Richard Granville, Esq., Queen Elizabeth granted it a 

 charter, and made the town a free borough. This charter 

 was enlarged and confirmed by King James the First, in 

 the seventh and sixteenth years of his reign. Although a 

 borough, Bideford does not appear to have sent members to 

 Parliament ; it got excused from the burden as a very 

 great favour, through the interest at court of the Granville 

 family. In 1750 the manor of Bideford was sold by some 

 of the descendants of William Glanville, Earl of Bath, to 

 John Cleveland, Esq., and is now the property of his grand 

 nephew, Augustus Saltren Willett, Esq., who has lately 

 taken the name of Cleveland. The inhabitants of this 

 place were not backward in the civil wars of Charles the 

 First : two forts were erected, one on each side of the river 

 Torridge, so as to command the river and the town ; and 

 another was built at Appledore (a small watering-place in 

 the neighbourhood, lately consolidated with Bideford), which 

 effectually commands the entrance of the rivers Torridge 

 and Taw. These forts, as well as the towns of Bideford 

 and Barnstaple, surrendered to Colonel Digby, who com- 

 manded (he forces of the Royalists, on the 2d of September, 

 1 043 : so desperate was the struggle which preceded the 

 surrender, that Lord Clarendon in alluding to it says, ' that 

 the swords of the Royalists were blunt with slaughter, and 

 that they were overburdened with prisoners.' In 1680 this 

 place was visited by the plague, which swept off a great 

 number of its inhabitants. Also about this time three old 

 women, whose only crimes were age and poverty, were 

 accused by the then nourishing and comparatively enlight- 

 ened inhabitants of Bideford of witchcraft and sorcery, and 

 were actually executed at Exeter for those offences. So 

 deluded were these poor wretches themselves, that on the 

 scaffold, either in the hopes of escaping punishment, or being 

 persecuted into a sort of madness, they positively confessed 

 themselves guilty, and acknowledged the justness of their 

 punishment. Till within a few years the lower classes of 

 Devonshire had implicit faith in witchcraft, and this is the 

 case, even to the present day, in many parts of Cornwall. 



The governing charter is that of James the First, granted 

 on the 20th of December, in the sixteenth year of his 

 reign. The government of the town is vested in a mayor, 



a recorder, seven aldermen, and ten capital burgesses, 

 assisted by a town-clerk, a coroner, two sergeants at mace, 

 sixteen constables, a beadle, a clerk of the market, a gaoler, 

 and a town-crier. The mayor is elected on the 21st of 

 September (St. Matthew's day) by the mayor for the time 

 being, the aldermen, and the capital burgesses. He is 

 appointed for one year and further until another alderman 

 is declared and sworn mayor. He is a justice of the peace of 

 the borough, and presides as chairman at the Quarter 

 Sessions. He is also judge of the civil court of record and 

 clerk of the market; his salary is 20/. per annum, but that 

 never covers his expenses. The aldermen are elected in 

 the same manner as the mayor ; two of them sit as judges 

 in the court of record. The recorder must be ' a discreet 

 man, skilled in the laws of England,' and has power to 

 appoint a deputy. Neither have any salary. A court leet 

 is held here twice a year, and a general session quarterly, 

 and petty session every other Monday, and at other times 

 when required. There is also a civil court, or court of record, 

 where actions, real and personal, are tried to any amount. 

 It is now become nearly useless, and is only opened four 

 times a year. The magistrates have an exclusivejurisdiction, 

 and their duties are exceedingly laborious. By the Hundred 

 Roll, temp. Edward I. it appears that formerly the lords of 

 the manor of Bideford could inflict capital punishment. 



The town principally consists of two large well-paved 

 streets ; the houses in these streets are generally well 

 built and clean, but the rest are narrow and dirty. There is 

 a good supply of water, and the town is pretty well lighted. 

 There is a handsome bridge across the Torridge, said to 

 have been built by Theol>ald Grenville early in the four- 

 teenth century, and endowed with certain lands for its 

 repair*. It consists of twenty-four arches, and is 677 feet 

 in length. In 163S it underwent a thorough repair. The 

 annual revenue of this bridge, aiising from the rent of lands 

 given by several benefactors now unknown, and a stock of 

 about 650/., varies accocding to circumstances from between 

 300/. to 400^. In consequence of some abuses by the 

 trustees of the bridge estates there was a decree in Chancery 

 which ordered a new election of feoffees in 1G08. The 

 trustees are a corporation, and have a common seal : a 

 hall was built for their use in 1 758. There is also a good 

 quay, the dues of which are paid to the lord of the manor, 

 who pays for the lighting of it. The bridge is lighted by 

 the trustees. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is rather a 

 fine building, originally in the shape of a cross, but it has 

 been considerably added to at different periods, and the 

 uniformity of the building luis not always been attended to. 

 It contains a handsomely carved stone screen and several 

 interesting monuments; amongst others that of Mr. John 

 Strange, and of three children of Mr. Henry Ravening, 

 who died of the plague in 1G46. Here was also buried an 

 Indian, brought over by Sir Richard Grenville. He was 

 baptized at Bideford by the name of Rawleigh, and is 

 entered in the parish register as ' a natif of Wyngonditoia" 

 (Virginia.) The living is a rectory in the archdeaconry of 

 Barnstaple and diocese of Exeter, of the annual net yearly 

 value of 033/. according to the Ecclesiastical Revenues' Re- 

 port, 1 835. The present patron is Lewis William Buck, Esq. 



Bideford was at a very early date of considerable im- 

 portance as a commercial town. The weaving of silk was 

 introduced in 1650, and after the revocation of the edict of 

 Nantes in 1685 many French Protestants settled here, and 

 established a manufacture of cotton and silk. Wool was 

 also exported to Spain. Brice says that in 1759 forty or 

 fifty ships were employed in fetching cod from Newfound- 

 land, and that there was a great export of herrings. Since 

 that time the Newfoundland fishery has gradually declined, 

 and now not more than one or two ships are annually fitted 

 out for that purpose. The foreign trade is at present very 

 trilling. The principal imports are timber from North 

 America and the Baltic, coals from Bristol and Wales, and 

 spices and tobacco from the West Indies. The exports are oak 

 bark, which is shipped in great quantities to Scotland and 

 Ireland, oats, malt, and sails, cordage, and articles of gene- 

 ral supply to the fisheries of Newfoundland. Ship building is 

 carried on to a great extent ; there are nine or ten building 

 yards, and several frigates were built here during the last 

 war. There are also several potteries, principally for the 

 manufacture of flower-pots. Anthracite, or culm, is found in 



There is a tradition that this bridge was erected by subscriptions wised in 

 Devonshire and Cornwall by Graiidison, Bishop of lixeter, who granted in- 

 dulgences to al| who contributed lv Uw w<xk> 



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