Bosworth, Market (St. Peter)
The town, which is pleasantly situated on an eminence, contains some respectable houses, and is well supplied with water. The manufacture of worstedstockings is carried on here, and in the adjacent villages, to a considerable extent; and great facility has been given to trade by the Ashby and Coventry canal, which, passing within a mile of the town, affords a medium for supplying it with coal and other articles. The soil is good, but often clayey; it rests on gravel, with a substratum of sand, and it is remarkable that the best land is on the hills. There is a market on Wednesday; and fairs are held on May 8th, for horses, horned-cattle, and sheep, and July 10th, which is called the Cherry fair: there are also statute-fairs on Oct. 2nd and about a fortnight before Martinmas. The powers of the county debt-court of Market-Bosworth, established in 1847, extend over the registration-district of Market-Bosworth.
The living is a rectory, valued in the king's books at £55. 18. 4.; net income, £903; patron, Sir W. W. Dixie, Bart., of Bosworth Hall: the tithes were commuted for land and money payments in 1794. The church is a spacious ancient structure, with a beautiful spire, and contains many interesting monuments, among the finest of which is one to some members of the Dixie family. There are chapels of ease at Barleston, Carlton, Shenton, and Sutton-Cheney; also places of worship in the parish for Baptists and Independents. The free grammar school, which is open to all boys of the parishes of Bosworth and Cadeby, was founded in 1593, by Sir Wolstan Dixie, Knt., who endowed it with lands, and with two fellowships of £30 and four scholarships of £10 per annum each, at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In consequence of some abuses, the affairs were in chancery for nearly 50 years, during the greater part of which time the establishment was discontinued; but in 1827 new premises were begun, which were opened on the 1st of Feb. 1830, and form a very handsome pile. The Rev. Anthony Blackwall, an eminent classical scholar, was master, and the celebrated Dr. Johnson, for a short time, usher; Richard Dawes, the learned critic, was educated here under the former. The poor law union of Bosworth comprises 28 parishes or places, and contains a population of 13,600. This is the birthplace of Thomas Simpson, the eminent mathematician, who died here in 1761, and was interred at Sutton-Cheney, where a tablet has lately been erected to his memory.
Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.