392 



BEDFORD. 



' tins king, and the right of election remains vested in 

 " ^~"~' the 1).!; freemen, and inhabitant householders 



not receiving alms, amounting to about 14-00 vol 



Bedford was made a dukedom by Henry V., and 

 the honour conferred on Join: Plantagenot, third 6on 

 of Henry IV., who was-the iirst duke of Bedford: 

 a titl\ which was successively enjoyed by the Nevils 

 and De Hat fields, and at length, wm bestowed on 

 John Russel, the ancestor of the present Duke of 

 Bedford. 



This town is distinguished as much by the variety 

 of its religious sects, (which, besides all the common 

 classes of religious persuasions in England, has ,Tc>vs 

 and Moravians among them,) as by the number and 

 extent of its charitable endowments. The hospital 

 of St John is said to have been founded in JJRO by 

 Robert de Paris, who was the first master: it now 

 has 10 poor men under the rector of St John's church, 

 who is the master. St Leonard's hospital was built 

 and endowed in the reign of Edward I., and the hos- 

 pital of Grey Friars in that of Edward II. by Mabi- 

 lia de Paterhall. Thomas Christy founded an hospi- 

 tal for 8 poor people, endowed a charity-school for 

 40 children, and repaired the old town-hall, a wooden 

 building, which has since been removed, to widen and 

 open the street, and a new one erected. The bene- 

 volent and well-intentioned Sir William Harper, a 

 native of Bedford, having settled in London, and be- 

 come Lord Mayor in 1561, he purchased, for 1.-0, 

 13^ acres of land in St Andrew's parish, Holbom, 

 which, with his dwelling-house in Bedford, he be- 

 queathed to the corporation of Bedford, for the en- 

 dowment of a grammar school, m&Jbr apportioning 

 young toomen of the town upon marriage} a fruitful 

 source of evil to the poor girls themselves, in the 

 temptation to which it has exposed hundreds of them, 

 from soldiers of marching regiments and the most 

 abandoned individuals, who have married them in 

 hopes of ** fingering Harper's twenty pounds !" and 

 of ruin to the town in its consequences. The origin- 

 al rent of this Harper charity-estate in London was 

 40. In 1C68 it was leased for 41 years, at 99 per 

 annum ; and the rapid extension of Loudon having 

 commenced, a reversionary building lease was granted 

 by the trustees for a further term of 5 1 years, at 1 50 

 per annum : the whole having been covered by va- 

 luable houses, forming Bedford Row and the adjoining 

 streets ; and the leases having fallen in, and new ones 

 been granted, the present net rent is 4000, and short- 

 ly is expected, by second renewals, to reach .5000 

 per annum ! Yet, notwithstanding all these, and nu- 

 merous other sources of relief, unknown to the indi- 

 gent of the greater part of the kingdom, such is the 

 effect of charitv distributed by law, and without 

 sound discretion in the distributor, that Bedford, 

 having never possessed extensive manufactures which 

 had declined, after drawing together a surplus popu- 

 lation, became so oppressed by poors rates, that in 

 1794- the inhabitants, by way of checking the grow- 

 ing evil, which threatened to swallow up all their 

 property, applied to parliament for an act for 

 consolidating the 5 parishes, as far as concerns the 

 maintainance of the poor, and building and organising 

 an effective " house of industry," the money for which 



purpose was raised principally on life annuities ; a 

 tire which, with the growing expenses of the 

 poor, increased the poors rates to seventeen shilli 

 v.nd sixpence i,i the pound on the rack rents, during 

 some years. The just terrors to the dissolute poor, of 

 being made to work, if able, and a fortunate extinc- 

 tion of money annuities, had, however, in 180.'!, re- 

 duced the poors rates in Bedford to 6s. Id. in the 

 pound rent, (-while vet, the average of the whole 

 county, without, this town, was but ,'5s. 9d. in the 

 pound rent,) anil a further reduction of rates has 

 since followed ; but ever must the poors rates of this 

 town continue to mock the evils of gratuitous mar- 

 riage portions, distributed with little of that sound 

 discretion which must ever direct the distribution of 

 charity, unless an evil is to be produced instead of 

 the good intended. 



The late Mr Whitbread left handsome 1 

 building and endowing almshouses, and towards the 

 erection of a county infirmary, which has since 1 

 carried into effect. A new county gaol and bl 

 well, and a dew town gaol, have lately been built. In 

 the loathsome gaol in this town, which has not many 

 years been pulled down, the well-known John Bunyan 

 wrote most of hi books, in the 17th century, during 

 a captivity of near 20 years, for the crime of preach- 

 ing; a prosecution, instigated by a spirit of intoler- 

 ance, h.ipp'ly unknown among the present inhabitants 

 of Bedford. The county hall, where the sessions are 

 held, is a handsome and commodious stone building. 

 This town, particularly the southern part of it, is 

 subject to inundations from the swelling of the Ouse 

 after sudden rains : of late years these have been 

 more frequent and greater than formerly, as is suppo- 

 sed from the general straightning and opening of 

 brooks, in the many newly inclosed parishes wdiich 

 drain into the Ouse, which now pour their floods with 

 more celerity than formerly, into the vale of the Ouse, 

 whose swell, comparative declivity, and numerous 

 mill-dams and sinuosities, occasions the temporary 

 stagnation of the water, 12 or 15 feet deep on the 

 meadows in many places, on such occasions. 



Bedford is 50 miles from London, having the Leeds 

 mail-coach running through it daily : it arrives from 

 London at 7\ hours in the morning, and leaves Bed- 

 ford for London at 2\ hours m the afternoon. A 

 bank has some years been established here, by the 

 firm of Barnard & Co., who draws on Harrisons & 

 Co. in London. 



Thread-lace making, by the poor women and girls, 

 is the principal manufacture of the place. Some 

 coarse baises are made at the house of industry ; a 

 little wool-combing is done; coke is burnt, in highly 

 domed ovens, for the use of malsters ; some lime is 

 burnt, and tiles made for sale to the neighbouring 

 villages : besides which, we have not heard of any ma- 

 nufactures in this place. Bedford is, on the whole, 

 pretty well built, and rather a handsome and clean 

 town, with excellent gravelled roads out of it in all 

 directions. 



The town of Bedford, according to the parliamen- 

 tary returns of 1801, contained 800 houses, and SMS 

 inhabitants: of whom 1712 were males, and '.ji-'oYi fe- 

 males ; a disproportion between the sexes, which 



Hedford. 



