These trade directories were the Yellow Pages of the day, listing the businesses and tradespeople in a village, along with details of the local gentry, landowners, charities and facilities. You can view these directories in full on the University of Leicester’s searchable database of historical directories. Some of these directories make reference to there having been a hospital for leprous persons in Cottingham in the time of King Henry III. However, according to Dr Peter Hill in his book Rockingham Forest Revisited, this is incorrect, with Cottingham having been mistaken for nearby Coton, a village just on the outskirts of Rockingham that has since disappeared. The 1914 Kelly’s Directory is the last reference we have to the villages being located in the Corby Hundred.
Oddfellows Hall
The 1903 and 1906 Kelly’s Directories also list an Oddfellows Hall in Cottingham. In 1903, the secretary was Henry Blissett and in 1906 William Baker, but we are not sure where this was located.
The Oddfellows Society dates back as far as 1730, and was like an early kind of trade union, but was actually an illegal organisation during much of the 18th Century. At a time when there was no welfare state, no NHS and no trade unions, the society was established to look after its members as and when they needed help, but it was viewed by government and politicians as a potential hotbed of revolt.
It is thought that the term Oddfellows evolved from a description of members of a guild from a variety of trades. The Oddfellows were legalised in 1850, and are still going strong today. See www.oddfellows.co.uk