Acton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the English county of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. The parish also includes the hamlets of Cuckoo Tye and Newman's Green. It is located three miles North East of Sudbury.

Etymology

According to

Eilert Ekwall Bror Oscar Eilert Ekwall (8 January 1877 in Vallsjö – 23 November 1964 in Lund) was a Swedish academic, Professor of English at Sweden's Lund University from 1909 to 1942 and one of the outstanding scholars of the English language in the firs ...

the meaning of the name is "''Village by the Oaks''".

History

The

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

records the population of Acton in 1086 to be 83 households along with 50 acres for farming, wood for 40 pigs, 1 mill, 11 horses at hall, 31 cattle, 160 pigs, 423 sheep, and 7 beehives. The land was held by Ranulf Peverel, before the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

, the village was held by Siward Barn. It was located in Babergh Hundred. All Saints is the local church. Five bells are hung in the tower for

change ringing Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuning (music), tuned bell (instrument), bells in a tightly controlled manner to produce precise variations in their successive striking sequences, known as "changes". This can be by method ringing in ...

with the heaviest weighing 8 cwt-1qr-4lb (928 lb), and the oldest dating from 1659 cast by Miles Graye III, the tower is affiliated to the Suffolk Guild of Ringers.Dove's Guide
Retrieved 2012-03-21.

Historical writings

In 1870–72,

John Marius Wilson John Marius Wilson (c. 1805–1885) was a British writer and an editor, most notable for his gazetteers. The '' Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' (published 1870–1872), was a substantial topographical dictionary in six volumes. It was ...

's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described the village as: In 1887, John Bartholomew also wrote an entry on Acton in the Gazetteer of the British Isles with a much shorter description:

Industry

Between 2001 and 2002 the Reliant Robin was produced in the village's industrial estate.

Governance

Acton is part of the Suffolk County Council electoral division of Sudbury East and Waldingfield, and is represented by Philip Faircloth-Mutton (Conservative). It is also part of the Babergh District Council

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

called Long Melford, and is represented by Councillors Elisabeth Malvisi (Independent) and John Nunn (Independent).

Notable former residents

William Jennens was known as "William the Miser" and the "Acton Miser". Jennens made his money through business in London and loaning money to gamblers, and was Britain's richest man at the time of his death in 1798, but aged 97 he had outlived the nominated executors and beneficiaries under his will. According to the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

QI series, ''Jennens vs Jennens'' commenced in 1798 and was abandoned in 1915 (117 years later) when the legal fees had exhausted the Jennens estate of funds (worth c. £2 million). The case of ''Jennens v Jennens'' formed part of the inspiration for the '' Jarndyce and Jarndyce'' case at the centre of the plot of ''

Bleak House ''Bleak House'' is a novel by English author Charles Dickens, first published as a 20-episode Serial (literature), serial between 12 March 1852 and 12 September 1853. The novel has many characters and several subplots, and is told partly by th ...

'' by

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

. Another Acton resident, Catherine Foster, was the last woman to be

hanged Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...

, in 1847. At the age of 17 she

poison A poison is any chemical substance that is harmful or lethal to living organisms. The term is used in a wide range of scientific fields and industries, where it is often specifically defined. It may also be applied colloquially or figurati ...

ed her

husband A husband is a man involved in a marital relationship, commonly referred to as a spouse. The specific rights, responsibilities, and societal status attributed to a husband can vary significantly across different cultures and historical perio ...

John Foster by putting

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

in his

dumpling Dumplings are a broad class of dishes that consist of pieces of cooked dough (made from a variety of starchy sources), often wrapped around a filling. The dough can be based on bread, wheat or other flours, or potatoes, and it may be filled wi ...

s. The propriety of this case was discussed in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

and reported in

Hansard ''Hansard'' is the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printe ...

.HANSARD 1803–2005, 1840s, 1847, April 1847, 23 April 1847, Lords Sitting. THE EXECUTION OF CATHERINE FOSTER. (HL Deb 23 April 1847 vol 91 cc1240-1)
/ref>

Ronald Blythe Ronald George Blythe (6 November 1922 – 14 January 2023) was a British writer, essayist and editor, best known for his work ''Akenfield'' (1969), an account of agricultural life in Suffolk from the Fin de siècle, turn of the century to the ...

, writer, essayist and editor, best known for his work ''Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village'', was born in the village.

Population change

References

External links

* * {{authority control Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Babergh District