Winchester is a small suburban town located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, eight miles north of downtown Boston. It is an affluent bedroom community for professionals who work in the greater Boston area. The population was 21,374 at the 2010 United States Census.

History

The land on which Winchester now sits was purchased from Native Americans by representatives of the settlement of Charlestown in 1639, and the area was first settled by Europeans in 1640. In the early years of the settlement, the area was known informally as Waterfield, a reference to its many ponds and to the river which bisected the central village. In its second century, the area was referred to as Black Horse Village, after the busy tavern and hostelry in its center.

Until the middle of the 19th century, parts of Arlington, Medford, Cambridge, and Woburn comprised what is now Winchester. The movement toward incorporation of what, by this time, was called South Woburn was likely precipitated by the rise of the Whig Party in Massachusetts (History of Winchester, Massachusetts by H. S. Chapman and Bruce W. Stone, 1936, 1975).

Coordinates: 51°03′48″N 1°18′29″W / 51.0632°N 1.308°W / 51.0632; -1.308

Winchester is a city and the county town of Hampshire. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs National Park, along the course of the River Itchen. It is situated 61 miles (98 km) south-west of London and 13.6 miles (21.9 km) from Southampton, its closest city. At the time of the 2011 Census, Winchester had a population of 45,184. The wider City of Winchester district which includes towns such as Alresford and Bishop's Waltham has a population of 116,800

Winchester developed from the Roman town of Venta Belgarum, which in turn developed from an Iron Age oppidum. Winchester's major landmark is Winchester Cathedral, one of the largest cathedrals in Europe, with the distinction of having the longest nave and overall length of all Gothic cathedrals in Europe. The city is home to the University of Winchester and Winchester College, the oldest public school in the United Kingdom still to be using its original buildings.

HM Prison Winchester is a Category B men's prison, located in Winchester, Hampshire, England. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

History

There has probably been a prison in Winchester, mainly known as Winchester gaol, since the thirteenth century.

Winchester Prison was built to a Victorian radial design, with five 'spokes' radiating from a central hub. Four of these are used for prisoner accommodation and one for administration.

Between 1900 and 1963, 16 executions took place at the prison. The last was that of Dennis Whitty, convicted of capital murder at Cornwall Assizes, and hanged on 17 December 1963.

In 1995 serial killer Rosemary West, wife of Fred West, was held in Winchester on remand for the duration of her trial in Winchester Crown Court. Each day she was driven from her specially built unit within the male segregation block half a mile down the road to the court.

In December 2001, a convicted murderer escaped from Winchester Prison by scaling the wall. The prisoner went on the run after using a home-made handsaw to saw through the bars of his ground floor cell window. He then used a rope and grappling hook to scale the 30-feet wall of the prison. The prisoner was recaptured days later.

The .32-40 Ballard (also called .32-40 Winchester) is an American rifle cartridge.

Introduced in 1884, the .32-40 was developed as a black powder match-grade round for the Ballard single-shot Union Hill No. 8 and 9 target rifles. Using a 165-grain (10.7 g) bullet over 40 grains (2.6 g) of black powder (muzzle velocity 1,440 ft/s (440 m/s), muzzle energy 755 ft·lbf (1,024 J)), the factory load gained a reputation for fine accuracy, with a midrange trajectory of 11 inches (28 cm) at 200 yd (180 m). It was available in Winchester and Marlin lever rifles beginning in 1886. It stopped being a factory chambering around 1940.

It provides performance sufficient for deer at up to 300 yards (270 m) in a modern rifle, for which it can be loaded to about equal the .30-30. It is more than enough for varmints, including coyotes and wolves, or medium-sized game.

The .32-40 also served as the basis for Harry Pope's wildcat .33-40.

See also

"Massachusetts (Because of You Our Land is Free)," words and music by Bernard Davidson, was made the official patriotic song of Massachusetts on October 23, 1989.

External links

The Massachusett language is an Algonquian language of the Algic language family, formerly spoken by several tribes inhabiting coastal regions of Massachusetts, including Cape Cod and the Islands. It was also commonly referred to as the Natick, Wômpanâak (Wampanoag), Pokanoket, or Indian language. The language was used by John Eliot to print the first Bible in the Americas in 1663. The adoption of the orthography of the Bible led to widespread literacy amongst the indigenous peoples of southern New England. The language went extinct in the late 19th century, but is currently being revived by Wampanoag tribal member Jessie Little Doe Baird, who started work on the Wômpanâak Language Reclamation Project in 1993. Classes for learners have been set up in four Wampanoag communities, and a handful of native speakers are now growing up in the language. An immersion charter school is set to open in 2015, with Wampanoag as the language of instruction for core subjects. As the school is a charter school, it will be available to both tribal and non-tribal citizens of regional Massachusetts.