Wisbech, United Kingdom

The earliest authentic references to Wisbech occur in charters. in 657 it appeared in a charter of the Mercian King Wulfere, and in another dated 664 granting the Abbey at Medeshamstede (now Peterborough) land in Wisbech and in 1000, when Oswy and Leoflede, on the admission of their son Aelfwin as a monk, gave the vill to the monastery of Ely.

The folktale of Tom Hickathrift or Wisbech Giant is sometimes set about the time of the Norman Invasion.

In 1086, when Wisbech was held by the abbot, there may have been some 65 to 70 families, or about 300 to 350 persons, in Wisbech manor. However, Wisbech (which is the only one of the Marshland vills of the Isle to be mentioned in the Domesday Book) probably comprised the whole area from Tydd Gote down to the far end of Upwell at Welney.

A castle was built by William I to fortify the site. At the time of Domesday (1086) the population was that of a large village. Some were farmers and others were fishermen.

Richard I gave Wisbech a charter exempting the residents from paying tolls at markets across England. King John of England visited the castle on 12 October 1216 as he came from Bishop's Lynn. Tradition has it that his baggage train was lost to the incoming tide of The Wash. Treasure hunters still seek the lost royal treasure.

On 12 November 1236 the village of Wisbech was inundated by the sea. Hundreds were drowned, entire flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were destroyed, trees felled and ships lost. The castle was "utterly destroyed" but was rebuilt by 1246 when the constable or keeper was William Justice.

In 1333–4 the kiln in the town was producing 120,000 bricks. There were several fisheries belonging to the manor of Wisbech and in the 1350s the reeves of Walton and Leverington each sent a porpoise to Wisbech Castle, and the reeve of Terrington a swordfish.

Wisbech Grammar School dates back to 1379 or earlier. The register of Bishop John Fordham of Ely records the appointment of a Master of the Grammar Scholars in 1407.

In 1549, after the important Holy Trinity Guild was dissolved with other religious guilds, Wisbech was incorporated as a borough under a charter from Edward VI. In the same year, William Bellman gave a plot of land for the Wisbech Grammar School schoolhouse.

During the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, there was a state ecclesiastical prison in Wisbech for Catholics, many of whom died there owing to the insanitary conditions.

A dispute arising amongst the Catholic prisoners was widely known as the Wisbech Stirs. In 1588 it is claimed that Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham were committed to Wisbech Castle on the approach of the Spanish Armada. Among those held there was John Feckenham, the last Abbot of Westminster.

The palace was demolished and replaced with John Thurloe's mansion in the mid-17th century, and Thurloe's mansion demolished in 1816 by Joseph Medworth, who also developed The Circus comprising The Crescent, Union Place and Ely Place with Museum Square and Castle Square familiar as the settings in numerous costume dramas.

In 1620 former Wisbech residents William White and Dorothea Bradford (née May) sailed on the Mayflower to the New World with her husband William Bradford, later to be Governor Bradford.

Across the Eastern Counties, Oliver Cromwell's powerful Eastern Association was eventually dominant. However, to begin with, there had been an element of Royalist sympathy within Wisbech. Bishop Matthew Wren was a staunch supporter of Charles I but even in 1640 was unpopular in Wisbech, after discovering his absence from a 'Commission of Sewers' meeting at the Castle, a crowd of soldiers plundered shops of some of his supporters. The town was near the frontier of the Parliamentary and Royalist forces in 1643. The Castle and town were put into a state of readiness and reinforced. A troop of horse was raised. Locally based troops took part in the Siege of Crowland in 1642. The town controlled the route from Lincolnshire to Norfolk particularly during the Siege of King's Lynn in 1643 as it prevented reinforcements by land of the Royalists holding the Norfolk port.

In 1656 the bishop's palace was replaced by Thurloe's mansion however after the Restoration the property reverted to the Bishops of Ely.

Soap was taxed and manufacturers such as the Wisbech Soap Company required a licence. Based in an Old Market property facing the river, they were able to receive oil from the blubber yards of King's Lynn as well as coal, wood for casks and olive oil used in making the coarse, sweet and grey (speckled) soaps they produced from 1716 to about 1770.