In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Southam like this:
SOUTHAM, a small town, a parish, a district, and a division in Warwick. The town stands on a branch of the river Ichene, 2¾ miles NE of Harbury r. station, and 7½ miles ESE of Leamington; was known, at Domesday, as Sucham; gave a night's lodging to Charles I. and his two sons, on the eve of the battle of Edgehill; is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place; and has a post-office‡ under Rugby, two banking offices, a hotel, several inns, a church, Independent and Methodist chapels, endowed national schools with £61 a year, an eye and ear infirmary, a mineral spring similar to the waters of Leamington, another spring with intensely cold water, a workhouse, town lands £180, a weekly market on Monday, and a fair on the first Monday of every month. ...
The church is partly decorated English; was repaired and partly rebuilt in 1854; and has a beautiful broach spire.The parish comprises 2,770 acres. Real property, £9,175. Pop., 1,674. Houses, 253. The manor is divided into 32 shares. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Worcester. Value, £600.* Patron, the Crown.The district contains 19 parishes, and 7 extra-parochial tracts. Acres, 50,409. Poor rates in 1863, £5,490. Pop. in 1851,10,504; in 1861, 10,392. Houses, 2,279. Marriages in 1863, 59; births, 314,-of which 22 were illegitimate; deaths, 190,-of which 66 were at ages under 5 years, and 5 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 657; births, 3,457; deaths, 1,959. The places of worship, in 1851, were 19 of the Church of England, with 4,527 sittings; 3 of Independents, with 469 s.; 5 of Wesleyans, with 699 s.; 4 of Primitive Methodists, with 303 s.; 1 of Moravians, with 70 s.; and 1 undefined, with 70 s. The schools were 17 public day-schools, with 1,022 scholars; 22 private day-schools, with 425 s.; and 28 Sunday schools, with 1,783 s.-The division is mainly identical with the district, but less extensive; and is part of Knightlow hundred. Acres, 44,730. Pop. in 1851,9,362. Houses, 2,010.
A Vision of Britain through Time includes a large library of local statistics for administrative units. For the best overall sense of how the area containing Southam has changed, please see our redistricted information for the modern district of Stratford on Avon. More detailed statistical data are available under Units and statistics, which includes both administrative units covering Southam and units named after it.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Southam, in Stratford on Avon and Warwickshire | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
Date accessed: 31st May 2016
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