St Neots Museum
The Old Court
8 New Street
St Neots PE19 1AE
01480 214163
manager@stneotsmuseum.org.uk
Opening and admission
We’re open Tuesday to Saturday, 11am to 4pm.
Free entry to the museum for local residents. Non-residents: Adults £5, seniors £4 and children £2.
Fees apply for some events.
The local economy and employment
/in Images from the warThe local economy and employment
The town’s economy was largely based on farming and rural crafts and trades, with many local men working as agricultural labourers, or in related trades such blacksmiths or horse harness makers. Other local employers included Paine and Co. brewers and millers, Jordan and Addington, corn merchants and millers, the St Neots Paper Mill and also Ibbett’s engineering works. A growing number of people worked in one of the increasing number of shops in the town centre.
Women also worked as domestic servants or at the Paper Mill or undertook seasonal work such as willow stripping for basket weaving.
Paine & Co. brewery workers, about 1910
Paine & Co. newspaper advert, St Neots Advertiser, 1914
Ibbett’s Agricultural Engineering workers and families, 1895
St Neots Paper Mill, Rag Room workers, about 1920
Harvesting wheat in Eaton Socon, about 1910
The St Neots area in 1914
/in Images from the warNorth side of St Neots Market Square, about 1910
Eaton Socon Village, about 1905
St Neots was a small rural market town on the River Great Ouse at the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. In 1911 the population of St Neots and Eynesbury was about 5,300, with another 7,500 people living in the surrounding rural area. The Eaton Socon area had a population of about 3,500 and was still in Bedfordshire at this time. Today the town has a population of about 38,000.
In 1914 many of the villages surrounding St Neots had very small populations, for example the village of Waresley had only 216 residents in 1901.