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Rh and another of Henrietta, duchess of Orleans, given by her brother Charles II. Both are by Sir Peter Lely. The assize hall and sessions house dates from 1774. The Albert Memorial Museum contains a school of art, an excellent free library, a reading-room, and a museum of natural history and antiquities. There is a good collection of local birds, and some remarkable pottery and bronze relics extracted from barrows near Honiton or found in various parts of Devonshire. Of the castle, called Rougemont, the chief architectural remnant is a portion of a gateway tower which may be late Norman. Traces are also seen of the surrounding earthworks, which may have belonged to the original British stronghold. Beneath the castle wall is the pleasant promenade of Northernhay. The churches of Exeter are of little importance, being mostly small, and closely beset with buildings, but the modern church of St Michael (1860) deserves notice. The Devon and Exeter Institution, founded in 1813, contains a large and valuable library, and among educational establishments may be noticed the technical and university extension college, the diocesan training college and school; and the grammar school, which was founded under a scheme of Walter de Stapeldon, bishop of Exeter and founder of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1332, and refounded in 1629, but occupies modern buildings (1886) outside the city. It is endowed with a large number of leaving exhibitions, and about 150 boys are educated. There are two market-houses in the city, many hospitals and many charitable institutions, including the picturesque hospital or almshouse of William Wynard, recorder of Exeter (1439).

Exeter is one of the principal railway centres in the south-west, and it also has some shipping trade, communicating with the sea by way of the Exeter ship-canal, originally cut in the reign of Elizabeth (1564), and enlarged in 1675 and 1827. This canal is an interesting work, being the first canal carried out in the United Kingdom for the purpose of enabling sea-going vessels to pass to an inland port. The river Exe was very early utilized by small craft trading to Exeter, parliament having granted powers for the improvement of the navigation by the construction of a canal 3 m. long from Exeter to the river; at a later date this canal was extended lower down to the tidal estuary of the Exe. Previous to the year 1820 it was only available for vessels of a draft not exceeding 9 ft., but by deepening it, raising the banks, and constructing new locks, vessels drawing 14 ft. of water were enabled to pass up to a basin and wharves at Exeter. These works were carried out under the advice of Thomas Telford. A floating basin is accessible to vessels of 350 tons. Larger vessels lie at Topsham, at the junction of the canal with the estuary of the Exe; while at the mouth of the estuary is the port of Exmouth. Imports are miscellaneous, while paper, grain, cider and other goods are exported. Brewing, paper-making and iron-founding are carried on, and the city is an important centre of agricultural trade. The parliamentary borough returns one member. The city is governed by a mayor, 14 aldermen and 42 councillors. Area, 3158 acres. The eastern suburb of Heavitree, where is the Exeter city asylum, is an urban district with a population (1901) of 7529.

Exeter was the Romano-British country town of Isca Damnoniorum—the most westerly town in the south-west of Roman Britain. Mosaic pavements, potsherds, coins and other relics have been found, and probably traces of the Roman walls survive here and there in the medieval walls. It is said to be the Caer Isce of the Britons, and its importance as a British stronghold is shown by the great earthwork which the Britons threw up to defend it, on the site of which the castle was afterwards built, and by the number of roads which branch from it. Exeter is famous for the number of sieges which it sustained as the chief town in the south-west of England. In 1001 it was unsuccessfully besieged by the Danes, but in the following year was given by King Æthelred to Queen Emma, who appointed as reeve, Hugh, a Frenchman, owing to whose treachery it was taken and destroyed by Sweyn in 1003. By 1050, however, it had recovered, and was chosen by Leofric as the new seat of the bishops of Devon. In 1068, after a siege of eighteen days, Exeter surrendered to the Conqueror, who threw up a castle which was called Rougemont, from the colour of the rock on which it stood. Again in 1137 the town was held for Matilda by Baldwin de Redvers for three months and surrendered, at last, owing to lack of water. Three times subsequently Exeter held out successfully for the king—in 1467 against the Yorkists, in 1497 against Perkin Warbeck, and in 1549 against the men of Cornwall and Devon, who rose in defence of the old religion. During the civil wars the city declared for parliament, but was in 1643 taken by the royalists, who held it until 1646. The only other historical event of importance is the entry of William, prince of Orange, in 1688, shortly after his arrival in England. Exeter was evidently a borough by prescription some time before the Conquest, since the burgesses are mentioned in the Domesday Survey. Its first charter granted by Henry I. gave the burgesses all the free customs which the citizens of London enjoyed, and was confirmed and enlarged by most of the succeeding kings. By 1227 government by a reeve had given place to that by a mayor and four bailiffs, which continued until the Municipal Reform Act of 1835. Numerous trade gilds were incorporated in Exeter, one of the first being the tailors’ gild, incorporated in 1466. This by 1482 had become so powerful that it interfered with the government of the town, and was dissolved on the petition of the burgesses. Another powerful gild was that of the merchant adventurers, incorporated in 1559, which is said to have dictated laws to which the mayor and bailiffs submitted. From 1295 to 1885 Exeter was represented in parliament by two members, but in the latter year the number of representatives was reduced to one. Exeter was formerly noted for the manufacture of woollen goods, introduced in Elizabeth’s reign, and the value of its exports at one time exceeded half a million sterling yearly. The trade declined partly owing to the stringent laws of the trade gilds, and by the beginning of the 19th century had entirely disappeared, although at the time of its greatest prosperity it had been surpassed in value and importance only by that of Leeds.

See Victoria County History, Devon; Richard Izacke, Antiquities of the City of Exeter (1677); George Oliver, The History of the City of Exeter (1861); and E. A. Freeman, Exeter (“Historic Towns” series) (London, 1887), in the preface to which the names of earlier historians of the city are given.

EXETER, a town and one of the county-seats of Rockingham county, New Hampshire, U.S.A., on the Squamscott river, about 12 m. S.W. of Portsmouth and about 51 m. N. by E. of Boston, Mass. Pop. (1890) 4284; (1900) 4922 (1066 foreign-born); (1910) 4897; area, about 17 sq. m. It is served by the Western Division of the Boston & Maine railway. The town has a public library and some old houses built in the colonial period, and is the seat of Phillips Exeter Academy (incorporated in 1781 and opened in 1783). In its charter this institution is described as “an academy for the purpose of promoting piety and virtue, and for the education of youth in the English, Latin and Greek languages, in writing, arithmetic, music and the art of speaking, practical geometry, logic and geography, and such other of the liberal arts and sciences or languages, as opportunity may hereafter permit.” It was founded by Dr John Phillips (1719–1795), a graduate of Harvard College, who acquired considerable wealth as a merchant at Exeter and gave nearly all of it to the cause of education. The academy is one of the foremost secondary schools in the country, and among its alumni have been Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Lewis Cass (born in Exeter in a house still standing), John Parker Hale, George Bancroft, Jared Sparks, John Gorham Palfrey, Richard Hildreth and Francis Bowen. The government of the academy is vested in a board of six trustees, regarding whom the founder provided that a majority should be laymen and not inhabitants of Exeter. In 1909–1910 the institution had 20 buildings, 32 acres of recreation grounds, 16 instructors and 488 students, representing 38 states and territories of the United States and 4 foreign countries. At Exeter also is the Robinson female seminary (1867), with 14 instructors and 272 students in 1906–1907. The river furnishes water-power, and among the manufactures of the town are shoes, machinery, cottons, brass, &c.