NANTWICH, a market town in the Crewe parliamentary division of Cheshire, England, 161 m. N.W. of London, on the London & North-Western and Great Western railways. Pop. of urban district (1901) 7722. It lies on the river Weaver, in the upper part of its flat, open valley. The church of St Mary and St Nicholas is a cruciform building in red sandstone, of the Decorated and Perpendicular periods, with a central octagonal tower. The fine old carved stalls are said to have belonged to Vale Royal Abbey, near Winsford in this county. Nantwich retains not a few old timbered houses of the 16th and 17th centuries, but the town as a whole is modern in appearance. The grammar school was founded in 1611. The salt industry, still the staple of several towns lower down the vale of the Weaver, was so important here in the time of Henry VIII. that there were three hundred salt-works. Though this industry has lapsed, there are brine baths, much used in cases of rheumatism, gout and general debility, and the former private mansion of Shrewbridge Hall is converted into a hotel with a spa. Nantwich has tanneries, a manufacture of boots and shoes, and clothing factories; and corn-milling and iron-founding are carried on. The town is one of the best hunting centres in the county, being within reach of several meets.
From the traces of a Roman road between Nantwich and Middlewich, and the various Roman remains that have been found in the neighbourhood, it has been conjectured that Nantwich was a salt-town in Roman times, but of this there is no conclusive evidence. The Domesday Survey contains a long account of the laws, customs and values of the salt-works at that period, which were by far the most profitable in Cheshire. The salt-houses were divided between the king, the earl of Chester and certain resident freemen of the neighbourhood. The name of the town appears variously as Wych Manbank, Wie Malban, Nantwich, Lache Mauban, Wysmanban, Wiens Malbanus, Namptewiche. About the year 1070 William Malbedeng or Malbank was created baron of Nantwich, which barony he held of the earl of Chester. In the 13th century the barony fell to three daughters and co-heiresses, and further subdivisions followed. This probably accounts for the lack of privileges belonging to Nantwich as a corporate town. The only town charter is one of 1567–1568, in which Queen Elizabeth confirms an ancient privilege of the burgesses that they should not be upon assizes or juries with strangers, relating to matters outside the town. It is stated in the charter that the right to this privilege had been proved by an inquisition taken in the 14th century, and had then already been held from time immemorial. There was a gild merchant and also a town bailiff, but the latter office was of little real significance and was soon dropped. There is documentary evidence of a castle at Nantwich in the 13th century. There is a weekly market on Saturday, held by prescription. In 1283 a three-days’ fair to be held at the feast of St Bartholomew was granted to Robert Burnell, bishop of Bath and Wells (then holder of a share of the barony of Nantwich). This is the “Old Fair” or “Great Fair” now held on the 4th of September. Earl Cholmondeley received a grant of two fairs in 1723. Fairs are now held on the first Thursday in April, June, September and December, and a cheese fair on the first Thursday in each month except January. The salt trade declined altogether in the 18th century, with the exception of one salt-works, which was kept open until 1856. There was a shoe trade in the town as early as the 17th century, and gloves were made from the end of the 16th century until about 1863. Weaving and stocking trades also flourished in the 18th century. The one corn-mill of Nantwich was converted into a cotton factory in 1789, but was closed in 1874.
See James Hall, A History of Nantwich or Wich Milbank (1883).
NAOROJI, DADABHAI (1825– ), Indian politician, was born at Nasik on the 4th of September 1825, the son of a Parsi priest. During a long and active life, he played many parts: professor of mathematics at the Elphinstone college (1854); founder of the Rast Goftar newspaper; partner in a Parsi business firm in London (1855); prime minister of Baroda (1874); member of the Bombay legislative council (1885); M.P. for Central Finsbury (1892–1895), being the first Indian to be elected to the House of Commons; three times president of the Indian National Congress. Many of his numerous writings are collected in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901).
NAP, the pile on cloth, the surface of short fibres raised by special processes, differing with the various fabrics, and then smoothed and cut. Formerly the word was applied to the roughness on textiles before shearing. “Nap” in this sense appears in many Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Noppe, Dutch nop, Nor. napp; the verbal form is noppen or nappen, to trim, cut short. The word nap also means a short sleep or doze (O. Eng. hnappian). In “napkin,” a square of damask or other linen, used for wiping the hands and lips or for protecting the clothes at meals, the second part is a common English suffix, sometimes of diminutive force, and the first is from “nape,”[1] Low Lat. napa or nappa, a corrupt form of mappa, table-cloth. Nape still survives in “napery,” a name for household linen in general.
NAPHTALI, in the Bible, the name of an Israelite tribe, the “son” of Jacob by Bilhah, Rachel’s maid, and the uterine brother of Dan (Gen. xxx. 8). It lay to the south of Dan in the eastern half of upper Galilee (Josh. xix. 32-39), a fertile mountainous district (cf. Gen. xlix. 21; Deut. xxxiii. 23), open to the surrounding influences of Phoenicia and Aram. Apart from its share in the war against Sisera (Judg. iv. seq., see Deborah), little is known of it. It evidently suffered in the bloody conflicts of Damascus with Israel (1 Kings xv. 20), and was depopulated by Tiglath-Pileser IV. (2 Kings xv. 29; Isa. ix. 1). Naphtali and Dan are “brothers,” perhaps partly on geographical grounds, but Dan also had a seat in the south (south-west of Ephraim), and the name of the “mother” Bilhah is apparently connected with Bilhan, an Edomite and also a Benjamite name (Gen. xxxvi. 27; 1 Chron. vii. 10).
For the view connecting Naphtali (perhaps a geographical rather than a tribal term), or rather its Israelite inhabitants, with the south see the full discussion by H. W. Hogg, Ency. Bib. iii. col. 3332 sqq. with references.
NAPHTHA, a word originally applied to the more fluid kinds of petroleum, issuing from the ground in the Baku district of Russia and in Persia. It is the νάφθα of Dioscorides, and the naphtha, or bitumen liquidum candidum of Pliny. By the alchemists the word was used principally to distinguish various highly volatile, mobile and inflammable liquids, such as the ethers, sulphuric ether and acetic ether having been known respectively as naphtha sulphurici and naphtha aceti.
The term is now seldom used, either in commerce or in science, without a distinctive prefix, and we thus have the following:
1. Coal-tar Naphtha.—A volatile commercial product obtained by the distillation of coal-tar (see Coal-Tar).
2. Shale Naphtha.—Obtained by distillation from the oil produced by the destructive distillation of bituminous shale (see Paraffin).
3. Petroleum Naphtha.—A name sometimes given (e.g. in the United States) to a portion of the more volatile hydrocarbons distilled from petroleum (see Petroleum).
4. Wood Naphtha.—Methyl alcohol (q.v.).
5. Bone Naphtha.—Known also as bone oil or Dippel’s oil. A volatile product of offensive odour obtained in the carbonization of bones for the manufacture of animal charcoal.
6. Caoutchouc Naphtha.—A volatile product obtained by the destructive distillation of rubber. (B. R.)
NAPHTHALENE, C10H8, a hydrocarbon discovered in the “carbolic” and “heavy oil” fractions of the coal-tar distillate (see Coal-tar) in 1819 by A. Garden. It is a product of the action of heat on many organic compounds, being formed when the vapours of ether, camphor, acetic acid, ethylene, acetylene, &c., are passed through a red-hot tube (M. Berthelot, Jahresb., 1851), or when petroleum is led through a red-hot tube packed with charcoal (A. Letny, Ber., 1878, 11, p. 1210). It may be synthesized by passing the vapour of phenyl butylene bromide over heated soda lime (B. Aronheim, Ann., 1874, 171, p. 219);
and by the action of ortho-xylylene bromide on sodium ethane tetracarboxylic ester, the resulting tetra-hydronaphthalene tetracarboxylic ester being hydrolysed and heated, when it yields hydronaphthalene dicarboxylic acid, the silver salt of which decomposes on distillation into naphthalene and other products (A. v. Baeyer and W. H. Perkin, junr., Ber., 1884, 17, p. 451):—
C6H4  |
CH2Br | + | Na·C(CO2R)2 | → C6H4 |
CH2·C(CO2R)2 |
| CH2Br | Na·C. (CO2R)2 | CH2·C. (CO2R)2 | |||
| ↓ | |||||
| C10H8←C6H4 |
CH2·CH·CO2H | ←C6H4 |
CH2·C(CO2H)2 | ||
| CH2·C. H·CO2H | CH2·C. (CO2H)2 | ||||
- ↑ “Nape,” the back of the neck, is of doubtful origin; it may be a variant of “knap,” a knob or protuberance.
