A History is the story of Maldon, which is the second-oldest town in Essex, from pre-historic times until the present day. It has information on Bronze- and Iron-Age Maldon; Roman Maldon; Anglo-Saxon Maldon, including the Battle of Maldon; medieval Maldon, including the granting of the first charter of the borough in 1171 by King Henry II, its monastic institutions, Maldon the port, and its involvement in wars; Maldon at the time of the Reformation; its involvement in the civil war; its parliamentary representation; the town in the eighteenth and early centuries, including the building of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation, the dissolution and subsequent reinstatement of the town's charter, the Napoleonic wars, the building of the two railways to the town in the nineteenth century and their closure in the twentieth century, the rise of municipal institutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Maldon's police force, and abolition and subsuming into the Essex County Police force, industrial developments, including its iron foundries and salt works; Maldon during the two world wars, and the abolition of the borough in 1974. Both Heybridge, which subsequently became a part of the borough, and the hamlet of Beeleigh are also included.