Dartford

Dartford, a thriving market-town of Kent, in the narrow valley of the Darent, 2 miles above its influx to the Thames, and 17 ESE. of London. Edward III. here founded an Augustinian nunnery (1355); St Edmund's chantry was a great place of pilgrimage; and at Dartford Wat Tyler commenced his rebellion (1381). The church, with a Norman tower, was restored in 1863; among its interesting monuments is one to Sir John Spielman, Queen Elizabeth's jeweller, who in 1588 established at Dartford what is said to have been the first paper-mill in England. Paper is still manufactured, besides steam-engines and machinery, gunpowder, &c. The modern buildings include a county courthouse (1859), assembly rooms (1860), and, in the neighbourhood, the City of London lunatic asylum (1866). Pop. of parish (1851) 6224; (1881) 10,163. See the local histories by Dunkin (1844) and Bayly (1876).