Acton, Suffolk

Coordinates: 52°04′15″N 0°45′40″E / 52.07071°N 0.76102°E / 52.07071; 0.76102

Acton
All Saints church, Acton
Acton Acton shown within Suffolk
Population	1,780  [1]
OS grid reference	TL893449
District	Babergh
Shire county	Suffolk
Region	East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	SUDBURY
Postcode district	CO10
Dialling code	01787
Police	Suffolk
Fire	Suffolk
Ambulance	East of England
European Parliament	East of England
UK Parliament	South Suffolk
List of places: UK • England • Suffolk

Acton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk. The parish also includes the hamlets of Cuckoo Tye and Newman's Green. According to Eilert Ekwall the meaning of the name is Village by the Oaks.

The Domesday Book records the population of Acton in 1086 to be 83. All Saints is the local church.

Between 2001 and 2002 the Reliant Robin, the United Kingdom's best known three-wheel car, was produced in the village's industrial estate.

Notable former residents

William Jennens was known as the "Acton Miser." Jennens made his money loaning money to gamblers and was Britain's richest man at the time of his death, though he outlived his nominated executors and beneficiaries under his will. The case was litigated throughout the early 19th Century until the whole estate (worth c£2 Million) had disappeared in legal fees. The case of Jennens v Jennens formed part of the inspiration for the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case at the centre of the plot of Bleak House by Charles Dickens.^[2]

Another Acton resident, Catherine Foster, was believed to be the last woman to be hanged at Bury St Edmunds, in 1847. At the age of 17 she poisoned her husband by putting arsenic in his dumplings.

References