Retford

Retford, EAST, a market-town of Nottinghamshire, on the right bank of the Idle, an affluent of the Trent, 24 miles E. by S. of Sheffield and 138 NNW. of London by the Great Northern Railway. It has a handsome town-hall (1867), a grammar-school (1552; rebuilt 1858), paper-mills, iron-foundries, &c. It was first formally incorporated by James I., the municipal boundary being extended in 1878. The parliamentary borough was extended in 1829 to take in the whole wapentake of Bassetlaw—since 1885 one of the four county divisions. Pop. of municipal borough (1851) 2943; (1881) 9748; (1891) 10,603. See Piercy's History of Retford (1828).