Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for WEM

WEM, a small-town, a parish, a sub-district, a district, and a hundred, in Salop. The town stands on the Crewe and Shrewsbury railway, and on the Ellesmere canal, 11 miles N by E of Shrewsbury; is supposed by Horsley, but without any good evidence, to occupy the site of the Roman station Rutunium; belonged, at Domesday, to W. Pandulph; passed to the Howards, the Wycherleys, and Judge Jeffreys; gave to Jeffreys, in 1685, the title of Baron; declared for the parliament at the outbreak of the civil wars of Charles I.; sustained and repelled, in 1643, an attack by a party of the royal troops; suffered devastation by fire in 1677, with the loss of not less than £23,000 worth of property; numbers among its natives Lord-Mayor Adams who died in 1667, and Wycherley the dramatist; appears, at some time, to have been incorporated; is now a polling place; carries on malting and leather manufacture; comprises one large street, and several cross-streets and lanes; and has a post-office‡ under Shrewsbury, a r. station, a banking office, a town hall of 1848, a market house, a church rebuilt in 1679, three dissenting chapels, an endowed school with £337 a year, a workhouse, charities £45, a weekly market on Thursday, and six annual fairs.—The parish contains eleven townships and a part; and comprises 13,841 acres. Real property, £24,834. Pop., 3,802. Houses, 814. The property is much subdivided. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield. Value, £2,300.* Patron, the Duke of Cleveland. The p. curacies of Edstaston and Newtown are separate benefices. --The sub-district contains 8 parishes and a chapelry, Acres, 34,547. Pop., 7,282. Houses, 1,515.—The district includes Prees sub-district, and formerly included also Whitchurch and Malpas sub-districts. Acres of the present district, 51,197; of the former district, 90,273. Poor rates in 1863, of the present district, £4,719; of the former district, £9,763. Pop. in 1851, of the present d., 10,625; of the former d., 21,995; in 1861, of the present d., 10,644; of the former d., 21,916. Houses of the present d., 2,230; of the former d., 4,567. Marriages, in 1863, of the present d., 71; of the former d., 166; births of the present d., 341,-of which 34 were illegitimate; of the former d., 725,-of which 98 were illegitimate; deaths of the present d., 187,-of which 50 were at ages under 5 years, and 7 at ages above 85; of the former d., 440,-of which 137 were at ages under 5 years, and 16 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, of the former d., 1,419; births, 6,037; deaths, 4,130. The places of worship, in 1851, of the former d., were 21 of the Church of England, with 8,225 sittings; 9 of Independents, with 2,125 s.; 3 of Baptists, with 710 s.; 9 of Wesleyans, with 1,090 s.; 1 of New Connexion Methodists, with 50 s.; 22 of Primitive Methodists, with 1,472 s.; 2 undefined, with 40 s.; and 1 of the Catholic and Apostolic church, with 140 s. The schools were 27 public day-schools, with 2,141 scholars; 28 private day-schools, with 519 s.; 28 Sunday schools, with 1,505 s.; and 2 evening schools for adults, with 19 s.-The division contains three parishes and a part; and is part of North Bradford hundred. Acres, 35,029. Pop. in 1851, 6,691. Houses, 1,378.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small-town, a parish, a sub-district, a district, and a hundred"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Wem AP/CP       Wem Urban CP       Wem SubD       Wem RegD/PLU       Shropshire AncC
Place: Wem

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