Westbury in 1843

Westbury is in the hundred of Westbury, 102 miles from the General Post-Office, London, by the South-Western Railway to Basingstoke, and from thence by Andover, Ludgershall, Rushall, and Market Lavington. It is a place of considerable antiquity, and a number of Roman coins have been dug up in the neighbourhood. Some antiquarians have proposed to fix here the site of the Antonine station Verlucio, but the opinion is not general. Little is known of the ancient condition or history of Westbury : it was incorporated by Edward I by charter, and sent members to parliament in the time of Henry VI. The statistics of the parish in 1831 were as follows:-

The old borough comprehends only a part of the town ; it was augmented by the Boundary Act by the addition of the other parts of the parish. The town consists of one long crooked street and of some smaller streets, irregularly laid out. Westbury Leigh forms another street, separated by an interval of open road from the principal street of Westbury. The church is a large ancient building, with a central tower and a fine west window, and several monuments. A handsome town-hall was erected, A.D. 1815, by Sir M. M. Lopez, the then patron of the borough. The clothing manufacture is carried on in the parish, though not to the same extent as formerly ; it gave employment in the whole parish, in 1831, to 200 men, besides women and children. The market is on Friday, and there are two considerable yearly fairs for cattle, horses, pigs, sheep, and cheese.

The borough was formerly very close : the corporation is not noticed in the Municipal Corporations Reform Act. The living of Westbury is a vicarages united with the chapelries of Dilton and Bratton, of the joint clear yearly value of £238, with a glebe-house, in the rural deanery of Wylie, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Salisbury, but in the peculiar jurisdiction of the precentor of Salisbury cathedral. The. parish of Westbury contained in 1833 seventeen daily-schools of all kinds, with 578 scholars, namely, 363 boys and 215 girls, giving about one in thirteen of the population under daily instruction. One of the schools was an infant-school with 117 children, namely, 53 boys and 64 girls ; another was an endowed Lancasterian school, with 176 boys ; both these were partly supported by subscription ; the rest were private schools. There were also twelve Sunday-schools, with 1,564 scholars, namely. 753 boys and 811 girls, giving between one in four and one in five of the population under instruction on Sunday.

Bryan Edwards, the historian of the West Indies, was native of Westbury.