Village and Family History

A Very Brief Village History

The Early Years

Long Buckby as a village is probably at least 1000 years old. The name is of Scandinavian origin, the 'by' meant farmstead and the first part comes from a personal name such as 'Bucca'. By the time of the Domesday Book (1086 A.D.) the manor of 'Buchebi' had been given to Norman nobles and in the mid 12th century one of these, Sahir de Quincy, built a castle here. The castle mound has survived and is signposted off Station Road.

In 1281 the lord of the manor, Henry de Lacy, applied to the King for a charter to hold a weekly market and two annual fairs. This was granted and a new market place was laid out where it is to-day. At this time the villagers must have begun to move their homes from the original site by the stream in the area now known as Salem, up to the new market place. The parish church was also built about this time and parts of the modern church are original.

For much of the Middle Ages the manor was held by important noblemen such as the Earls of Winchester and Lincoln. They owned a lot of property in other places and were not resident here. As a result Long Buckby became an 'open' village and over time families were able to move into the village. Initially they may have come as squatters but eventually set up permanent homes. This probably explains how the road from the main village to the nearby hamlet of 'Coten' became settled. It also explains how Buckby became known as Long Buckby and Coten became Coten End. These changes of name occurred during the Tudor period. The change of Coten End to Cotton End came later but had nothing directly to do with textiles.

The Coming of Industry

The presence of large numbers of people in the village eking out a living with little or no land made it an ideal place for industry to take hold. In the late 17th Century the East Anglian woollen industry spread into Northamptonshire and Long Buckby became a centre of weaving and, particularly, of woolcombing. For nearly a century the industry flourished although with occasional periods of depression, but by 1800 it had begun a decline from which it was never to recover. Industrialisation was bringing changes and the woollen trade was becoming concentrated in the north and the west country.

After a period of real poverty, the boot and shoe trade, strong in Northampton and growing in Daventry, came to the village. A number of entrepreneurs tried their luck here and for 150 years Long Buckby was to be an important footwear manufacturing village. It also became a busy canal wharf after the Grand Junction Canal and the Leicester arm were opened during the first 15 years of the 19th century.

The Radical Village

The tradition of absorbing incomers, the periods of serious poverty and the presence of many people working in industry and not on the land, gave rise to a village very radical in its politics and favouring the non-conformist churches. The Chartist movement was strong here in the 1830s and 1840s. A few years later (1858) the first co-operative society in Northamptonshire was set up and was to become a major influence in the village. In the mid 19th century there were three chapels which, between them, attracted more than four times as many in their congregations as attended the Church of England.

The gradual decline of the footwear industry in the village and of canal traffic saw Long Buckby stand still during much of the 20th century. However, it still continued to produce high class handsewn footwear. Although all the shoe factories had closed by the year 2000, there were still men in the village who could make a pair of shoes in their own homes.

A really big change in the village was brought about by the building of the M1 and M6 motorways, and the enormous growth in car ownership. Between 1971 and 2001 the population grew from about 2,500 to over 4,000. At the same time the village changed from being a largely self-contained industrial community into a residential area with large numbers of people commuting to their work.

Tracing Your Ancestors

As early as 1630 William Wadsworth, born in Long Buckby in 1595, sailed to Boston, America on 'The Lion' with his wife and four children. His name was carried by one of his more illustrious descendants, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In the 1830s the elders of the village ran a scheme of assisted passage, mostly to America, of which a number of families took advantage. These are only two examples of the Long Buckby diaspora which also involved people emigrating to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other parts of the world.

We're always interested to hear from the descendants of these people — even better to see them. If you would like to put a message on the Guestbook asking for information about your ancestors a member of the History Society will respond and other users may also be able to contribute information.

The Society has indexed versions of the following documents;

In addition to these documents there are a number of others such as land tax returns and marital records. These lists of names are not indexed but we may be able to check them for you.

If you have the name of an ancestor and the approximate time he or she lived in the village we will try to give you some help. If your enquiry is very specific and unlikely to be of wider interest you can contact us direct as follows;

Please e-mail phil@longbuckby.com


Long Buckby Local History Society

If you would like to know more about the local history society, the museum and our programme of events please go to;

http:\\www.longbuckbymuseum.co.uk