some were inhabitants, others just had an impact...

Thomas Jones

Thomas Jones was the vicar of Wellingborough for 40 years.

During the Civil War, Jones was imprisoned in Northampton for his loyalty to Charles I and the Book of Common Prayer. Well over seventy, he was forced to walk to Northampton by the Roundhead soldiers.

As they walked along, according to the story, they came upon a barber with a bear. The soldiers killed the barber and sat Thomas Jones on the bear. However, the bear meekly submitted to carry the old man. It is also said that, when one of the Roundheads attempted to sit on the bear, the bear attacked and killed him.

On his second incarceration, in 1643 (not 1642, as the window has it), Thomas Jones died in Northampton prison.

Sir Paul Pindar

Sir Paul Pindar is a famous son of Wellingborough. Having made a fortune in the East he became ambassador to Turkey. The Pindar Plate, containing 256 ounces of silver, dates from 1634.

He gave more plate to Peterborough Cathedral and £10,000 to old Saint Paul's.

He was also, less happily, "generous" to Charles I and the Duke of Buckingham. Both of them borrowed money from him but "forgot" to give it back.

Hannah Sparke

An entry in the church register reads 'On July 28th, 1738 happened a terrible fire at 2 of ye clock in the afternoon and in less than 4 hours consumed the best part of the town, it was on a fryday.' So great was the heat that it melted the leads on the church roof. Hannah Sparke was the heroine of the day. Water being scarce, she ordered her cellars in Pebble Lane to be emptied of the 'malt liquors' and used them to quench the flames, These she stemmed by spreading blankets soaked in beer upon the roof of her house.

Hannah lived to well into her second century. On her hundredth birthday the people of the town carried her head-high around the town centre!

Her portrait is preserved in a print by Bartolozzi and her coffin was discovered in 1911 during the installation of the new heating system. This famous Wellingborough centenarian's remains were enclosed in a leaded coffin, about 18 inches below the slab. On the coffin lid was a crown, her name and age (107) standing up well in raised leaded letters. The coffin was moved 2ft. nearer the east end which indicates that it is now east of the heating channel where it crosses the centre aisle.

Christopher Hatton

Hatton, among other things, was patron of All Hallows. He was born in Holdenby, Northants in c. 1540. He was returned to Parliament as MP for Corfe Castle, among other places. More importantly, he became very close to Queen Elizabeth, becoming a Knight of the Garter and her Chancellor. Hatton was patron of Sir Francis Drake; Drake changing the name of his boat from "The Pelican" to "The Golden Hind", in honour of Hatton.

Hatton died in near-poverty. His son was a partisan of Charles I in the English Civil War.

King Charles I

Charles I made two visits to Wellingborough with his Queen, Henrietta Maria, to take the waters of the Red Well. Through his disagreement with Parliament, which culminated in the English Civil War, he had a few other major encounters with Northamptonshire. At Middleton Cheney, the Royalists had a great victory, and many of Cromwell's men sleep in Middleton Cheney cemetry. It was the battle of Naseby that proved decisive, with a Parliamentary victory. It is said that many of the wounded from Naseby were taken to Ecton to be tended; many of them dying there, the inn on the Wellingborough to Northampton road (A4500) is still known as the World's End.


An obituary of the Right Revd Michael Houghton, bishop of Ebbsfleet
1949 - 1999

What he taught in his life and works, he taught and expressed in his death.

The Times Obituary

THE RIGHT REV MICHAEL HOUGHTON, Bishop Suffragan of Ebbsfleet since 1998, died after a heart attack on December 18 aged 50. He was born on June 14, 1949.

The sudden death of Michael Houghton barely a year after his consecration as Bishop of Ebbsfleet is a great loss to the constituency within the Church of England which looks to the ministry of the Provincial Episcopal Visitors (or "Flying Bishops"). He was a much-loved pastor, and the warm welcome he received at October's Sacred Synod of traditionalist clergy underlined the impression he had made in a short time. It was perhaps significant that he suffered a massive heart attack on a train. Much of his episcopal ministry was spent travelling enormous distances between the parishes in his care in the western dioceses of England south of the Trent.

Michael Alan Houghton had his early education at King Edward's School, Birmingham. After Lancaster University and teacher training at Durham he taught, first in the Midlands and subsequently in Lesotho. However, the call to ordination persisted. Priestly formation at Chichester Theological College followed (which was to lead to a further degree from Southampton University) and he settled into parish life, serving his title at All Hallows, Wellingborough, in the final years of Douglas Feaver's time as Bishop of Peterborough.

In many ways Houghton reflected the prevailing churchmanship of that diocese. Passionately committed to the Catholic in faith in the Church of England, he was at home with Anglican liturgies and had a deep love of the traditional Anglican theologians. It pleased him greatly to be consecrated not far from the tomb of Lancelot Andrewes, the saintly 17th-century Anglican divine. Although happy to do most things in church, he sat relatively light to the minutiae of the liturgical textbooks. His own spirituality was rooted in the Tractarian Prayer Book tradition.

After six further years abroad serving in the tiny missionary diocese of St Helena he returned to England in 1990 to be vicar of St Peter's, Folkestone. In part through the prosecution for ritualism of an earlier vicar, St Peter's is one of the most famous Anglo-Catholic churches, but soon the old church was to be ravaged by fire. Arson was suspected. For many months the church was enveloped in scaffolding, but through Houghton's unflagging hard work and enthusiasm, and that of his determined congregation, it was completely rebuilt.

His years overseas meant much to him and he frequently talked and preached about them. He chaired the Kent Committee for the Welfare of Migrants. On his return to England he was also a tutor at the College of the Ascension, Selly Oak. This showed the breadth of his sympathies. Selly Oak is a foundation with a broadly evangelical tradition to which people come from all over the world. Ecumenism was to remain important to him. As a bishop he was keen to meet his clergy's ecumenical partners.

The decision of the Church of England in 1992 to ordain women to the priesthood saddened him greatly. He believed it unproven from scripture and tradition, ecumenically insensitive and ecclesiologically damaging to Anglicanism's Catholic claims. The General Synod's Act of Synod of 1993 recognised that there was a perceived degree of impairment in communion between the opponents and those bishops who ordained women.

Under Houghton's leadership, St Peter's placed itself in the care of the "Flying Bishops". He was determined, however, that the church should remain as close as possible to the mainstream life of the Church of England. Such concerns were shared on all sides and in 1994 he was appointed an honorary canon of Canterbury Cathedral.

In 1998 there was general delight when the Archbishop of Canterbury asked him to be Bishop of Ebbsfleet. Houghton was under 50, with an expected twenty years to retirement. The traditionalist lobby took this as a major vote of confidence in them and their leadership by the Anglican establishment. Houghton's predecessor, Bishop John Richards, had been appointed in his early sixties. Largely through Richards's tireless efforts it was seen that a young, energetic bishop who had a long tenure ahead of him would suit the job. Houghton was a tall, even slightly gaunt, figure with no obvious signs of ill-health and a passion for outdoor activities. He had been a county and university cross-country runner. Following his consecration by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Southwark Cathedral, Houghton set about getting to know his parishes, their priests and people. In his region approximately a hundred have passed the resolutions under which the Bishop of Ebbsfleet has formal pastoral care, but many more priests and parishes welcomed his ministry and looked to him for support.

Relatively lightly encumbered by committee work and General Synod obligations, Houghton adopted a pastoral approach was that of the parish priest writ large. He was usually to be seen dressed in black rather than purple, discreetly wearing the pectoral cross presented by his brethren in the Society of the Holy Cross. He was as good at a parish reception after a confirmation as he was with individuals agonising over difficult situations. Having moved to Bristol to be equidistant between the extremes of his area, which runs roughly from Stoke to Falmouth and Hereford to Coventry, he threw himself into the life of another famous parish church, All Saints', Clifton. The giant banner saying "Free to Evangelize" which dominated the platform at the Sacred Synod was made by the bishop himself on the hall floor at All Saints.

In 1970 Michael Houghton married Diana Knights. She survives him with their son and daughter.

This obituary appeared in The Times on Tuesday, December 21, 1999. It is reproduced here with kind permission.