ROMSEY, or RUMSEY, a large market and borough town of the county of Hants, seventy-three miles from London. It is in the division of Andover, of the hundred of King's Somborne, and stands on the river Test, on the road between Southampton and Salisbury, and is surrounded by pleasant meadows, which, by irrigation, are rendered highly fertile. It is divided into two parishes; with one church in common, a spacious building in the form of a cross, which, in ancient times, was the chapel of a richly endowed abbey. All the early abbesses were of royal blood, and so distinguished by their piety as to be deemed saints. The trade, which formerly consisted in making woolen stuffs, has nearly been annihilated; by the late law it elected annually four aldermen and twelve counsellors, who chuse the mayor. The population was in 1801, 4274; in 1811, 4297; in 1821, 5128; and in 1831, 5432.