User:Duffit5/sandbox/History of Norwich summary

History

See also: Timeline of Norwich history

There are two suggested models of development for Norwich. It is possible that three separate early Anglo-Saxon settlements, one on the north of the river and two either side on the south, joined together as they grew, or that one Anglo-Saxon settlement, on the north of the river, emerged in the mid-7th century after the abandonment of the previous three. The settlement was a thriving centre for trade and commerce in East Anglia in 1004 AD when it was raided and burnt by Swein Forkbeard, King of Denmark. Mercian coins and pottery from the Rhineland dating to the 8th century suggest that long distance trade was happening long before this. Between 924–939 AD Norwich became fully established as a town because it had its own mint. The word Norvic appears on coins across Europe minted during this period, in the reign of King Athelstan. The Vikings were a strong cultural influence in Norwich for 40–50 years at the end of the 9th century, the town having its own Anglo-Scandinavian district. At the time of the Norman Conquest the city was one of the largest in England. The Domesday Book states that it had approximately 25 churches and a population of between five and ten thousand.

Norwich Castle was founded soon after the Norman Conquest. The Domesday Book records that 98 Saxon homes were demolished to make way for the castle. The Normans established a new focus of settlement around the castle and the area to the west of it: this became known as the "New" or "French" borough, centred on the Normans' own market place which survives to the present day as Norwich Market. In 1096, Herbert de Losinga, the Bishop of Thetford, began construction of Norwich Cathedral. The chief building material for the cathedral was limestone, imported from Caen in Normandy. To transport the building stone to the cathedral site, a canal was cut from the river (from the site of present-day Pulls Ferry), all the way up to the east wall. Herbert de Losinga then moved his See there to what became the cathedral church for the Diocese of Norwich. Norwich received a royal charter from Henry II in 1158, and another one from Richard the Lionheart in 1194. Following a riot in the city in 1274, Norwich has the distinction of being the only English city to be excommunicated by the Pope.

Due to the concentration of ecclesiastical and secular authority in Norwich by the 13th century it had become an extremely important industrial town and administrative centre. Norwich had over 60 parish churches, 30 monastic institutions and an estimated population of 20,000 people. The city's fortifications, which included a 5km (3.1 miles) long defensive wall, enclosed an area larger than the City of London, and there were five bridges, the most of any medieval English city. However, when the city walls were constructed it was made illegal to build outside them, inhibiting expansion of the city. Around this time, the city was made a county corporate and became capital of one of the most densely populated and prosperous counties of England.

Norwich's main industry was the wool trade. The wealth generated financed the construction of many fine churches throughout the Middle Ages; consequently, Norwich still has more medieval churches than any other city in Western Europe north of the Alps. Throughout this period Norwich established wide-ranging trading links with other parts of Europe, its markets stretching from Scandinavia to Spain and the city housing a Hanseatic warehouse. To organise and control its export to the Low Countries, Great Yarmouth, as the port for Norwich, was designated one of the staple ports under terms of the 1353 Statute of the Staple.

The city suffered economic decline in the 16th century, compounded by a major fire in 1507 and upheaval experienced during the Reformation. In 1549 Kett's rebels camped outside Norwich on Mousehold Heath and took control of the city for several weeks, with the support of many of its poorer inhabitants. The arrival of Dutch and Flemish "Strangers" fleeing Catholic persecution saw a revival in the cloth industry, which formed the basis of the city's extraordinary wealth during the 17th and 18th centuries. But unlike other cloth-manufacturing regions like the West Country and Yorkshire, Norwich weaving brought greater urbanisation; being substantially concentrated in the surrounds of the city itself, creating an urban society, with features such as leisure time, alehouses, and other public fora which provided opportunities for debate and argument. Between 1660 and 1730 Norwich was known as England's Second City.

By the late 18th century, Norwich intellectual life flourished. In 1701 the Norwich Post was published, Britain's first provincial newspaper. Harriet Martineau wrote of the city's literati of the period, which included such people as William Taylor, one of the first German scholars in England. The city "boasted of her intellectual supper-parties, where, amidst a pedantry which would now make laughter hold both his sides, there was much that was pleasant and salutary: and finally she called herself The Athens of England." In this period the manufacture of Norwich shawls became an important industry and remained so for nearly one hundred years. By the 1790s the wool trade experienced intense competition and by the early 19th century the city experienced wage cuts and deindustrialisation. Norwich's geographical isolation was such that until 1845 when a railway connection was established by Morton Peto, it was often quicker to travel to Amsterdam by boat than to London.

In the early part of the 20th century Norwich still had several major manufacturing industries. Among these were the manufacture of shoes, clothing, joinery, and structural engineering as well as aircraft design and manufacture. Important employers included Boulton & Paul, Barnards, and electrical engineers Laurence Scott and Electromotors. Norwich also has a long association with chocolate manufacture, primarily through the local firm of Caley's, and other food brands such as Colman's Mustard and Kettle Foods. Norwich suffered extensive bomb damage during World War II as part of the Baedeker raids, affecting large parts of the old city centre and Victorian terrace housing around the centre. Lord Haw-Haw made reference to the imminent destruction of Norwich's new Art Deco City Hall completed in 1938, although in the event it survived unscathed.

HMSO, once the official publishing and stationery arm of the British government moved most of its operations from London to Norwich in the 1970s. Jarrolds, established in 1810, was a nationally well-known printer and publisher. In 2004, after nearly 200 years, it passed out of family ownership. Today, the Jarrold name is now best-known and recognised as being that of Norwich's only independent department store. In 1963, the University of East Anglia opened. The city was home to a long-established tradition of brewing, with several large breweries continuing in business into the second half of the century, however, by 1985 the last brewery had closed. Small-scale brewing continues in Norwich in "microbreweries". From 1980 to 1985 the city became a frequent focus of national media due to the squatting of Argyle Street. Completed in 2001, the Forum, containing the city's library among other things, was built as a millennium project for the East of England. Historically a manufacturing economy, in recent decades Norwich has become a primarily service based economy, with business and financial services and the public sector accounting for over half of employment.