History of Leicester

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the mythical king of the Britons King Leir founded the city of Kaerleir (Leicester). He was supposedly buried by Queen Cordelia in a chamber beneath the River Soar near the city dedicated to the Roman god Janus, and every year people celebrated his feast-day near Leir’s tomb. William Shakespeare’s King Lear is loosely based on this story.

In fact, Leicester is one of the oldest cities in England, with a history going back nearly 2000 years. The Roman city of Ratae Coritanorum was founded in AD 50 as a military settlement upon the Fosse Way Roman road. The city was named after the Corieltauvi, the Celtic tribe that dwelt in the area before the Romans arrived.

Ratae Coritanorum grew into an important trading and military centre and one of the largest towns in Roman Britain. The remains of the baths of Roman Leicester can be seen at the Jewry Wall, and other Roman artefacts are displayed in the Jewry Wall museum adjacent to the site.

According to the Venerable Bede Leicester city was the site of some of the earliest Christian Martyrdoms in Britain. The Dates are unknown, but in his Historia Ecclesiastica Bede describes how several people were persecuted and put to death for their faith in Christ in Leicester at the same time as St. Alban the first English martyr was killed in the Roman city of Verulamium (beside modern-day St Albans). As St Alban is supposed to have been executed some time between 303 and 313 AD, it is supposed that the Leicester Martyrs must also have died around this time.

“At the same time suffered Aaron and Julius, inhabitants of the city of Leicester [or Caerleon], and many others of both sexes, in other places; who, having been tormented on the rack till their members were dislocated, and having endured various other unheard-of cruelties, yielded their souls, after the conflict was over, to the joys of the city above.” - The History of the Primitive Church of England. Book One, Chapter Seven St Bede the Venerable.

The Roman town was largely abandoned when the Romans left Britain in the 5th century, but was later re-settled by Saxons. In the 9th century, Leicester was captured by the Danes (Vikings) and became one of the five boroughs (fortified towns) of Danelaw, although this position was short lived. The Saxon Bishop of Leicester fled to Dorchester-on-Thames and Leicester was not to become a bishopric again until the twentieth century.

It is believed the name “Leicester” is derived from the words castra (camp) of the Ligore, meaning dwellers on the ‘River Legro’ (an early name for the River Soar). In the early tenth century it was recorded as Ligeraceaster = “the town of the Ligor people". The Domesday book later recorded it as Ledecestre.

Leicester had become a town of considerable importance by Medieval times. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book as ‘civitas’ (city), but Leicester lost its city status in the eleventh century owing to power struggles between the Church and the aristocracy. It was eventually re-made a city in 1919, and the Church of St Martin became Leicester Cathedral in 1927. The tomb of King Richard III is located in the central nave of the church although according to local tradition he is not actually buried there. He was originally buried in the Greyfriars Church in Leicester, but his corpse was exhumed under orders from Henry VII and cast into the River Soar.

Leicester played a significant role in the history of England, when in 1265 Simon de Montfort forced King Henry III to hold the first parliament of England at the now-ruined Leicester Castle.

On 4 November 1530, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey was arrested on charges of treason and taken from York Palace. On his way south to face dubious justice at the Tower of London, he fell ill. The group escorting him were concerned enough to stop at Leicester. There, Wolsey’s condition quickly worsened and he died on 29 November 1530 and was buried at Leicester Abbey, now Abbey Park.

With the construction of the Grand Union Canal in the 1790s linking Leicester to London and Birmingham, Leicester began rapid industrialisation. The main industries being hosiery, footwear and, especially in the twentieth century, engineering. All are however in decline now.

By 1832 railways had arrived in Leicester with the opening of the Leicester and Swannington Railway, which provided a supply of coal to the town from nearby collieries. By 1840 the Midland Counties Railway had linked Leicester to the national railway network, which further boosted industrial growth. By the 1860s Leicester had gained a direct rail link to London (St Pancras) with the completion of the Midland Main Line. The Great Central Railway arrived in 1900, providing an alternative route to London. However this closed in 1966.

The borough expanded throughout the nineteenth century, most notably in 1892 annexing Belgrave, Aylestone, Knighton and North Evington. The city obtained its current boundaries in 1935, with the annexation of the remainder of Evington, Humberstone, Beaumont Leys, along with part of Braunstone. It became a county borough when these were established in 1889, but as with all county boroughs was abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in 1974, becoming an ordinary district of Leicestershire. It regained its unitary status in 1997.

In the decades after World War II Leicester gained a large population of immigrants from the Indian sub-continent, and from Uganda in the early 1970s. These immigrant groups make up around 40% of Leicester’s population, making Leicester one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the United Kingdom. Among the more recent arrivals are a group of Dutch citizens of Somali origin, apparently drawn by its free and easy atmosphere and by the number of mosques. In the U.K., Leicester today is widely regarded as a model of inter-communal tolerance, however for a short period in the 1970s the neo-fascist National Front recorded high votes in the city. Leicester is expected by 2012 to become the first major city in Britain in which the ethnic minority population will form a majority.