History
[edit]
Main article: History of Coventry
Origins and toponymy[edit]
The Romans founded a large fort on the outskirts of what is now Coventry at Baginton, next to the River Sowe; it has been excavated and partially reconstructed in modern times and is known as the Lunt Fort. The fort was probably constructed around AD 60 in connection with the Boudican revolt and then inhabited sporadically until around 280 AD.
The origins of the present settlement are obscure, but Coventry probably began as an Anglo-Saxon settlement. Although there are various theories of the origin of the name, the most widely accepted is that it was derived from Cofa's tree; derived from a Saxon landowner called Cofa, and a tree which might have marked either the centre or the boundary of the settlement.
Medieval[edit]
St Mary's Guildhall, dating from the 14th century, one of the surviving medieval buildings in Coventry
Around c. AD 700 a Saxon nunnery was founded here by St Osburga, which was later left in ruins by King Canute's invading Danish army in 1016. Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva built on the remains of the nunnery and founded a Benedictine monastery in 1043 dedicated to St Mary. It was during this time that the legend of Lady Godiva riding naked on horseback through the streets of Coventry, to protest against unjust taxes levied on the citizens of Coventry by her husband, was alleged to have occurred. Although this story is regarded as a myth by modern historians, it has become an enduring part of Coventry's identity.
A market was established at the abbey gates and the settlement expanded. At the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, Coventry was probably a modest sized town of around 1,200 inhabitants, and its own minster church.
Coventry Castle was a motte and bailey castle in the city. It was built in the early 12th century by Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester. Its first known use was during The Anarchy when Robert Marmion, a supporter of King Stephen, expelled the monks from the adjacent priory of Saint Mary in 1144, and converted it into a fortress from which he waged a battle against the castle which was held by the Earl. Marmion perished in the battle. It was demolished in the late 12th century. St Mary's Guildhall was built on part of the site. It is assumed the name "Broadgate" comes from the area around the castle gates.
The Bishops of Lichfield were often referred to as the Bishops of Coventry and Lichfield, or Lichfield and Coventry (from 1102 to 1541), and in the medieval period Coventry was a major centre of pilgrimage of religion. The Benedictines, Carthusians, Carmelites and Franciscans all had religious houses in the city of Coventry. The Carthusian Priory of St Anne, known as Coventry Charterhouse, was built between 1381 and 1410 with royal patronage from King Richard II and his queen Anne of Bohemia. Coventry has some surviving religious artworks from this time, such as the doom painting at Holy Trinity Church which features Christ in judgement, figures of the resurrected, and contrasting images of Heaven and Hell.
By the 13th-century, Coventry had become an important centre of the cloth trade, especially blue cloth dyed with woad and known as Coventry blue. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was one of the largest and most important cities in England, which at its Medieval height in the early 15th century had a population of up to 10,000, making it the most important city in the Midlands, and possibly the fourth largest in England behind London, York and Bristol. Reflecting its importance, in around 1355, work began on a defensive city wall, which, when finally finished around 175 years later in 1530, measured 2.25 miles (3.62 km) long, at least 12 feet (3.7 m) high, and up to 9 feet (2.7 m) thick, it had two towers and twelve gatehouses. Coventry's city walls were described as one of the wonders of the late Middle Ages. Today, Swanswell Gate and Cook Street Gate are the only surviving gatehouses and they stand in the city centre framed by Lady Herbert's Garden.
Map of Coventry by John Speed, published around 1610, showing the street layout and the city walls
Coventry claimed the status of a city by ancient prescriptive usage, and was granted a charter of incorporation and coat of arms by King Edward III in 1345. The motto "Camera Principis" (the Prince's Chamber) refers to Edward the Black Prince. In 1451 Coventry became a county in its own right, a status it retained until 1842, when it was reincorporated into Warwickshire.
Coventry's importance during the Middle Ages was such, that on two occasions a national Parliament was held there, as well as a number of Great Councils. In 1404, King Henry IV summoned a parliament in Coventry as he needed money to fight rebellion, which wealthy cities such as Coventry lent to him. During the Wars of the Roses, the Royal Court was moved to Coventry by Margaret of Anjou, the wife of Henry VI, as she believed that London had become too unsafe. On several occasions between 1456 and 1459 parliament was held in Coventry, including the so-called Parliament of Devils. For a while Coventry served as the effective seat of government, but this would come to an end in 1461 when Edward IV was installed on the throne.
Tudor period[edit]
Ford's Hospital Almshouse
In 1506 the draper Thomas Bond founded Bond's Hospital, an almshouse in Hill Street, to provide for 10 poor men and women. This was followed in 1509 with the founding of another almshouse, when the wool merchant William Ford founded Ford's Hospital and Chantry on Greyfriars' Lane, to provide for 5 poor men and their wives.
Throughout the Middle Ages Coventry had been home to several monastic orders and the city was badly hit by Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. Between 1539 and 1542, monasteries, priories and other properties belonging to the Carmelites, Greyfriars, Benedictines and Carthusians, were either sold off or dismantled. The greatest loss to the city was of Coventry's first Cathedral, St Mary's Priory and Cathedral which was mostly demolished, leaving only ruins, making it the only English Cathedral to be destroyed during the dissolution. Coventry would not have another Cathedral until 1918, when the parish church of St Michael was elevated to Cathedral status, and it was itself destroyed by enemy bombing in 1940. Coventry therefore has had the misfortune of losing its Cathedral twice in its history.
William Shakespeare, from nearby Stratford-upon-Avon, may have witnessed plays in Coventry during his boyhood or 'teens', and these may have influenced how his plays, such as Hamlet, came about.
Civil War and aftermath[edit]
Swanswell Gate, one of the remaining fragments of Coventry's city walls
During the English Civil War Coventry became a bastion of the Parliamentarians: In August 1642, a Royalist force led by King Charles I attacked Coventry. After a two-day battle, however, the attackers were unable to breach the city walls, and the city's garrison and townspeople successfully repelled the attack, forcing the King's forces to withdraw. During the Second Civil War many Scottish Royalist prisoners were held in Coventry; it is thought likely that the idiom "sent to Coventry", meaning to ostracise someone, derived from this period, owing to the often hostile attitude displayed towards the prisoners by the city folk.
Following the restoration of the monarchy, as punishment for the support given to the Parliamentarians, King Charles II ordered that the city's walls be slighted (damaged and made useless as defences) which was carried out in 1662.
Industrial age[edit]
A Daimler Grafton Phaeton; one of the earliest cars to be built in Coventry in 1897In the 18th and early 19th centuries, silk ribbon weaving and watch and clock making became Coventry's staple industries. In the 1780s, the silk ribbon weaving industry was estimated to employ around 10,000 weavers in Coventry, and its surrounding towns like Bedworth and Nuneaton. Coventry's growth was aided by the opening of the Coventry Canal in 1769, which gave the city a connection to the growing national canal network. Nevertheless, during the 18th century, Coventry lost its status as the Midlands' most important city to nearby Birmingham, which overtook Coventry in size. During the same period, Coventry became one of the three main British centres of watch and clock manufacture and ranked alongside Prescot, in Lancashire and Clerkenwell in London. By the 1841 census the population was 30,743.
By the 1850s, Coventry had overshadowed its rivals to become the main centre of British watch and clock manufacture, which by that time employed around 2,000 people. The watch and clock industry produced a pool of highly skilled craftsmen, who specialised in producing precision components, and the Coventry Watchmakers' Association was founded in 1858.
As the city prospered industrially in the 18th and early 19th centuries, several Coventry newspapers were founded. These include Jopson's Coventry Mercury, first issued by James Jopson of Hay Lane in 1741; the Coventry Gazette and Birmingham Chronicle, first published in 1757; the Coventry Herald, first published in 1808; the Coventry Observer, first published in 1827; and the Coventry Advertiser, first published in 1852.
The ribbon weaving and clock industries both rapidly collapsed after 1860, due to cheap imports following the Cobden–Chevalier free trade treaty, which flooded the market with cheaper French silks, and Swiss Made clocks and watches. For a while, this caused a devastating slump in Coventry's economy.
A second wave of industrialisation, however, began soon after. Coventry's pool of highly skilled workers attracted James Starley, who set up a company producing sewing machines in Coventry in 1861. Within a decade, he became interested in bicycles, and developed the penny-farthing design in 1870. His company soon began producing these bicycles, and Coventry soon became the centre of the British bicycle industry. Further innovation came from Starley's nephew, John Kemp Starley, who developed the Rover safety bicycle, the first true modern bicycle with two equal-sized wheels and a chain drive in 1885. By the 1890s Coventry had the largest bicycle industry in the world, with numerous manufacturers, however bicycle manufacture went into steady decline from then on, and ended entirely in 1959, when the last bicycle manufacturer in the city relocated.
By the late-1890s, bicycle manufacture began to evolve into motor manufacture. The first motor car was made in Coventry in 1897, by the Daimler Company. Before long Coventry became established as one of the major centres of the British motor industry. In the early-to-mid 20th century, a number of famous names in the British motor industry became established in Coventry, including Alvis, Armstrong Siddeley, Daimler, Humber, Jaguar, Riley, Rootes, Rover, Singer, Standard, Swift and Triumph. Thanks to the growth of the car industry attracting workers, Coventry's population doubled between 1901 and 1911.
For most of the early-20th century, Coventry's economy boomed; in the 1930s, a decade otherwise known for its economic slump, Coventry was noted for its affluence. In 1937 Coventry topped a national purchasing power index, designed to calculate the purchasing power of the public.
Great War (1914–1918)[edit]
Cenotaph at the War Memorial Park
Many Coventry factories switched production to military vehicles, armaments and ammunitions during the Great War. Approximately 35,000 men from Coventry and Warwickshire served during the First World War, so most of the skilled factory workers were women drafted from all over the country. Due to the importance of war production in Coventry it was a target for German zeppelin attacks and defensive anti-aircraft guns were established at Keresley and Wyken Grange to protect the city.
In June 1921, the War Memorial Park was opened on the former Styvechale Common to commemorate the 2587 soldiers from the city who lost their lives in the war. The War Memorial was designed by Thomas Francis Tickner and is a Grade II* building. It was unveiled by Earl Haig in 1927, with a room called the Chamber of Silence inside the monument holding the roll of honour. Soldiers who lost their lives in recent conflicts have been added to the roll of honour over the years.
Urban expansion and development[edit]
Broadgate, Coventry, in 1917
With many of the city's older properties becoming increasingly unfit for habitation, the first council houses were let to their tenants in 1917. With Coventry's industrial base continuing to soar after the end of the Great War in 1918, numerous private and council housing developments took place across the city in the 1920s and 1930s to provide housing for the large influx of workers who came to work in the city's booming factories. The areas which were expanded or created in this development included Radford, Coundon, Canley, Cheylesmore and Stoke Heath. Coventry city centre being redeveloped in 1936 during modernisation
As the population grew, the city boundaries underwent several expansions, in 1890, 1928, 1931 and 1965, and between 1931 and 1940 the city grew by 36%.
The development of a southern by-pass around the city, starting in the 1930s and being completed in 1940, helped deliver more urban areas to the city on previously rural land. In the 1910s plans were created to redevelop Coventry's narrow streets and by the 1930s the plans were put into action with Coventry's medieval street of Butcher Row being demolished. even before the war, the plans had been put in place to destroy the medieval character of Coventry.
The London Road Cemetery was designed by Joseph Paxton on the site of a former quarry to meet the needs of the city.
German bombing of Coventry[edit]
Main article: Coventry Blitz
Coventry city centre after the massive air raid of 14/15 November 1940
Coventry suffered severe bomb damage during the Second World War. The most severe was a massive Luftwaffe air raid that the Germans called Operation Moonlight Sonata. The raid, which involved more than 500 aircraft, started at 7pm on 14 November 1940 and carried on for 11 hours into the morning of 15 November. The raid led to severe damage to large areas of the city centre and to Coventry's historic cathedral, leaving only a shell and the spire. More than 4,000 houses were damaged or destroyed, along with around three quarters of the city's industrial plants. Between 380 and 554 people were killed, with thousands injured and homeless.
Aside from London, Hull and Plymouth, Coventry suffered more damage than any other British city during the Luftwaffe attacks, with huge firestorms devastating most of the city centre. The city was probably targeted owing to its high concentration of armaments, munitions, aircraft and aero-engine plants which contributed greatly to the British war effort, although there have been claims that Hitler launched the attack as revenge for the bombing of Munich by the RAF six days before the Coventry Blitz and chose the Midlands city because its medieval heart was regarded as one of the finest in Britain. Following the raids, the majority of Coventry's historic buildings were demolished by a council who saw no need of them in a modern city, although some of them could have been repaired and some of those demolished were unaffected by the bombing.
Post-Second World War[edit]
A helicopter placing the Flèche (spire) on top of the new Coventry Cathedral in 1962
Redevelopment[edit]
In the post-war years Coventry was largely rebuilt under the general direction of the Gibson Plan, gaining a new pedestrianised shopping precinct (the first of its kind in Europe on such a scale) and in 1962 Sir Basil Spence's much-celebrated new St Michael's Cathedral (incorporating one of the world's largest tapestries) was consecrated. Its prefabricated steel spire (flèche) was lowered into place by helicopter.
Further housing developments in the private and public sector took place after the Second World War, partly to accommodate the growing population of the city and also to replace condemned and bomb damaged properties. Several new suburbs were constructed in the post-war period, including Tile Hill, Wood End, and Stoke Aldermoor.
Boom and bust[edit]
Market Way, 1964
Coventry precinct with spire of ruined cathedral in the background, part of the post-war redevelopment of the city centre
Coventry's motor industry boomed during the 1950s and 1960s and Coventry enjoyed a 'golden age'. In 1960 over 81,000 people were employed in the production of motor vehicles, tractors and aircraft in Coventry. During this period the disposable income of Coventrians was amongst the highest in the country and both the sports and the arts benefited. A new sports centre, with one of the few Olympic standard swimming pools in the UK, was constructed and Coventry City Football Club reached the First Division of English Football. The Belgrade Theatre (named in recognition of a gift of timber from the Yugoslavian capital city) was also constructed along with the Herbert Art Gallery. Coventry's pedestrianised Precinct shopping area came into its own and was considered one of the finest retail experiences outside London. In 1965 the new University of Warwick campus was opened to students, and rapidly became one of the country's leading higher-education institutions.
Coventry's large industrial base made it attractive to the wave of Asian and Caribbean immigrants who arrived from Commonwealth colonies after 1948. In 1950, one of Britain's first mosques—and the very first in Coventry—was opened on Eagle Street to serve the city's growing Pakistani community.
The 1970s, however, saw a decline in the British motor industry and Coventry suffered particularly badly, especially towards the end of that decade. By the 1970s, most of Coventry's motor companies had been absorbed and rationalised into larger companies, such as British Leyland and Chrysler which subsequently collapsed. The early 1980s recession dealt Coventry a particularly severe blow: By 1981, Coventry was in an economic crisis, with one in six of its residents unemployed. By 1982, the number of British Leyland employees in the city had fallen from 27,000 at its height, to just 8,000. Other Coventry industrial giants such as the tool manufacturer Alfred Herbert also collapsed during this time.
In the late-1970s and early-1980s, Coventry also became the centre of the Two-tone musical phenomena. The two-tone style was multi-racial, derived from the traditional Jamaican music genres of ska, reggae and rocksteady combined with elements of punk rock and new wave. Bands considered part of the genre include the Specials, the Selecter, Madness, the Beat, Bad Manners, the Bodysnatchers and Akrylykz. Most famously the Specials 1981 UK no.1 hit 'Ghost Town' reflected the unemployment and desolation of Coventry at the time.
21st century[edit]
Some motor manufacturing continued into the early 21st century: One of the research and design centres of Jaguar Land Rover is in the city at their Whitley plant and although vehicle assembly ceased at the Browns Lane plant in 2004, the head office of the Jaguar brand returned to the city in 2011, and is also sited in Whitley. The closure of the Peugeot factory at Ryton-on-Dunsmore in 2006, ended volume car manufacture in Coventry. By 2008, only one motor manufacturing plant was operational, that of LTI Ltd, producing the popular TX4 taxi cabs. On 17 March 2010 LTI announced they would no longer be producing bodies and chassis in Coventry, instead producing them in China and shipping them in for final assembly in Coventry.
Since the 1980s, Coventry has recovered, with its economy diversifying into services, with engineering ceasing to be a mass employer, what remains of manufacturing in the city is driven by smaller more specialist firms. By the 2010s the biggest drivers of Coventry's economy had become its two large universities; the University of Warwick and Coventry University, which between them, had 60,000 students, and a combined annual budget of around £1 billion.
In 2021 Coventry became the UK City of Culture. A range of artistic and local history events and projects took place over the next year, including "Coventrypedia" and the creation of the Coventry Atlas local history map.
