Editing Tonbridge (section)

===19th century to present===
[[File:Tonbridgemap 1946.jpg|thumb|right|250px| A map of Tonbridge from 1946]]
During the March 1880 parliamentary election, Tonbridge was the scene of a riot.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kent-police-museum.co.uk/core_pages/pasttimes_early_days_pt3.shtml |title=Past Times – Articles on Kent Police History |publisher=Kent Police Museum |access-date=26 March 2014 |archive-date=2 January 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140102195841/http://www.kent-police-museum.co.uk/core_pages/pasttimes_early_days_pt3.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> On the announcement of the results, several thousand people started to hurl stones and cobbles at each other in the High Street near the Rose and Crown Hotel. The county's [[Chief Constable]] Captain Ruskin, with over a hundred policemen, charged the crowds many times during the evening, only to end up as the target of the crowd, who started hurling stones and cobbles at them instead of each other. Many people, including twelve policemen, were seriously injured before the crowd finally dispersed at midnight.

The United Kingdom's first<ref>{{cite book|last=Winn|first=Christopher|title=I Never Knew That About England|publisher=Ebury Press|year=2005|isbn=978-0-09-190207-0}}</ref> speeding fine was handed out by Tonbridge Petty Sessions court in 1896. The guilty driver was a Mr Walter Arnold of [[East Peckham]], who was fined one [[shilling]] for speeding at {{convert|8|mph|0}} in a {{convert|2|mph|0|abbr=on}} zone in [[Paddock Wood]], in his [[Karl Benz]] powered car. Mr Arnold was apprehended by a policeman who had given chase on his bicycle.

During [[World War II]] a prisoner of war camp was built at the junction of Tudeley Lane and Pembury Road on land belonging to [[Somerhill House]].<ref name=School>{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006040751/http://www.schoolsatsomerhill.com/project/uploaded-media/somerhill-history.pdf|archive-date=6 October 2011|url=http://www.schoolsatsomerhill.com/project/uploaded-media/somerhill-history.pdf |title=SOMERHILL HISTORY |first=Diane |last=Huntingford |publisher=The Schools at Somerhill |date=February 2009 |access-date=8 December 2010}}</ref> It held German pilots who had been shot down, and captured Italian soldiers. After the war the camp was used as temporary housing for people made homeless by [[the Blitz]].{{Citation needed|date=October 2015}} The site is now occupied by the Weald of Kent Girls' Grammar School.

[[Ruth Ellis]], the last woman in the United Kingdom to be hanged, was married<ref>{{cite web |last=Jones |first=Thomas L. |url=http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/women/ellis/5.html |title=The Mad Scientist – RUTH ELLIS: THE LAST TO HANG — Crime Library |publisher=Crimelibrary.com |access-date=26 March 2014 |archive-date=4 December 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141204212735/http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/women/ellis/5.html |url-status=live }}</ref> at the registry office in Tonbridge on 8 November 1950.