A brief history of Leicester

Dating back over 2000 years, Leicester is one ofLeicester, giving rise to its association with shoes
the oldest cities in England and has plenty toand footwear.
interest historians. The history of the origins ofIn 1464 trade was so strong that the cities
Leicester are, of course, lost in time. However,merchants managed to form a corporation and
there are two main theories concerning the originLeicester could from then on elect its own Mayor
of the settlement now known as Leicester.to run the town. By 1500 the population had
The first is that the name is derived from a Celticdoubled to 3000 and it continued to rise despite
one, Coriletav. This theory is supported by thethe frequent outbreaks of plague which could
name the Romans are known to have given thedecimate the population of a town. In 1619 the
settlement, Ratae Corieltauvorum. The othertown was granted a coat of arms. During the
theory is that a mythical British King, Leir, foundedEnglish Civil War Leicester declared itself for the
the settlement of Kaerleir around the same timeParliamentarians and was laid to siege by the
as the Celts were supposedly in the area. KingRoyalists in 1645 who, after breaching the town
Leir, is supposed to be buried under the Riverwall, again killed many of the inhabitants. At the
Soar!beginning of the 18th Century the population had
What we do know for sure is that around in 47again doubled to about 6000 and the birth of the
or 48 AD the Romans built a fort there and thenindustrial revolution saw both the population and
by about 50AD a city had grown up around it.prosperity of Leicester flourish. By the end of the
Ratae Corieltauvorum was important to the18th Century the opening of the Soar canal in
Romans as it was one of the key staging posts1794 quite literally fuelled the boom in industry, by
on a major Roman road, the Fosse Way, whichproviding cheap and quick methods of transporting
linked what are now Exeter and Lincoln. Rapidlycoal and iron into Leicester.
becoming a market town for local people andThe first national census of 1801 gives the
their produce, the settlement thrived on the tradepopulation of Leicester as 17,000. The town
that the Romans brought to the area. When theexpanded rapidly and places that were once rural
Romans left, moving North to conquer more offarms became subsumed in the city as boroughs.
England, the settlement was well enoughThe Victorian era is accepted as being an age of
established to continue to prosper. The mainenlightenment in terms of science and engineering.
feature still visible in Leicester of the RomanIn 1832 Leicester got its first railway line and in
occupation is the Jewry Wall and its Bath House.1857 got a line connecting it with London.
As with most of England, little is known of theLeicester got its first Public library in 1871, ten
history of Leicester during the Dark Agesyears later its first telephone exchange and in
following the departure of the Romans. The next1894 its first electric street lights. By the time of
significant event was in 680 when Leicester isthe 1901 census the population had grown to a
known to have been given a Bishop; life instaggering 210,000 with boot and hosiery
Leicester at this time seems to have been amanufacturing being the main source of
good one with the settlement continuing toemployment. Civic pride must have been at an all
prosper. Artefacts have been found showing thattime high during the Edwardian period when in
Leicester, alongside its farming community, had1919 Leicester was made a city by Royal
cloth weavers, potters, blacksmiths andCharter; in 1926 it regained its Bishop and a
carpenters. The ninth century saw a down-turn inCathedral and in 1928 had its first Lord Mayor. A
fortunes when the settlement fell to the Danishperiod of light engineering expansion took place
Viking invaders. The Bishop ran away which, forwhen the Imperial Typewriter Company set up
some canonical reason, left Leicester without apremises in the city and between 1908 and 1950
Bishop until the twentieth century.the number of people employed in Light
The Norman Conquest sees Leicester mentionedengineering in the city more than doubled from
in the Doomsday book as Ledcestre. This name is6,000 to 13,500.
thought to have been derived from Ligeraceaster;Leicester escaped any heavy bombing during the
a combination of Castra - Camp and Ligore -Second World War but a slum-clearance
Legro, an early name of the River Soar. Inprogramme was instigated in 1945 to rid the city
medieval times Leicester was a city of someof much of the old housing built in the boom
importance. With a population of some 1500 theyears of the previous century. At this time there
Normans deemed it important enough to build awere influxes of Jewish, Latvian and Polish
wooden fort, which in the 12th century wasrefugees into the city. These were followed in the
re-built with stone. As was custom in those days1950s by West Indian immigrants and then in the
Leicester was ruled by an Earl. Unfortunately, in1960s the population was swelled by the arrival of
1173 Robert - Earl of Leicester - rebelled againstAsian immigrants. The last major influxes of
the King (Henry II), causing the citizens muchimmigrants were mainly Indians who had been
suffering, indeed such was the King's wrath withforced to leave Uganda in the early 1970s.
Robert that many were killed. It was during theRecently there has been a small community of
Middle Ages that Leicester became well knownSomali refugees arriving in the city, apparently
for the quality of the wool cloth it produced anddrawn by its free and easy attitude and the
the hosiery it made from the wool. At this timenumber of Mosques within its boundaries.
leather was also an important industry in