Between 1891 and 1908, Frederick William Bull, a solicitor then living at Kettering, wrote three books on aspects of the history of the town. They provide important accounts from a period of great change - Kettering’s population of 5,198 in 1851 had soared to 28,653 by 1901. The books are all now available to download free of charge.
Major topics featuring in them include the history of the town and manor, workhouse, church, chapels and grammar school. There are also notes about street names and place names used at the time of the enclosure, as well as accounts of prominent local ‘worthies’. The illustrations include a map of the whole town from about 1720, the manor in 1728 and details of the location of businesses at the Market Place in 1785.
You can download PDFs of these books, which the Record Society has paid to digitise, by using the following links: