Early development During the
Roman period, Roman roads passed close to what is now the centre of Preston. For example, the road from
Luguvalium to
Mamucium (now Carlisle to Manchester) crossed the
River Ribble at
Walton-le-Dale, south-east of the centre of Preston, and a Roman camp or station may also have been here. At Withy Trees, north of Preston, the road crossed another Roman road from
Bremetennacum (the Roman fort at
Ribchester) to the coast. An explanation of the origin of the name is that the Priest's Town refers to a priory set up by St Wilfrid near the Ribble's lowest ford. This idea is supported by the similarity of the
Paschal lamb on Preston's crest with that on St Wilfrid's. When first mentioned in the 1086
Domesday Book, Preston was already the most important town in
Amounderness (the area of Central Lancashire between the rivers Ribble and
Cocker, including
The Fylde and the
Forest of Bowland). When assessed for tax purposes in 1218–19, it was the wealthiest town in the county.
Guild Merchant The right to hold a
Guild Merchant was conferred by
King Henry II upon the
burgesses of Preston in a charter of 1179; the associated Preston Guild is a civic celebration held every 20 years, the last being in 2012. It is the only guild still celebrated in the UK. Before 1328, celebrations were held at irregular intervals, but at the guild of that year it was decreed that subsequent guilds should be held every 20 years. After this, there were breaks in the pattern for various reasons, but an unbroken series were held from 1542 to 1922. A full 400-year sequence was frustrated by the cancellation of the 1942 guild due to
World War II, but the cycle resumed in 1952. The expression "(Once) every Preston Guild", meaning 'very infrequently', has passed into fairly common use, especially in Lancashire. Guild week is always started by the opening of the Guild Court, which since the 16th century has traditionally been on the first Monday after the feast of the
Beheading of John the Baptist celebrated on 29 August. As well as concerts and other exhibitions, the main events are a series of processions through the city. Numerous street parties are held in the locality. In 1952, the emphasis was on the bright new world emerging after the war. The major event, held in the city's
Avenham Park, had every school participating, and hundreds of children, from toddlers to teenagers, demonstrated different aspects of physical education in the natural amphitheatre of the park. The 2012 guild formally opened on 2 September, with a mayoral proclamation and the return of "friendship scrolls" that had travelled the world. Highlights in the programme for the 2012 celebration included two concerts in Avenham Park – one by
Human League and another, a "Proms In The Park", featuring
José Carreras,
Katherine Jenkins and the
Manchester Camerata.
Pre-industrial in bringing
gas lighting to the town In the mid-12th century, Preston was in the hundred of
Amounderness, in the deanery of Amounderness and the archdeaconry of
Richmond. The name "Amounderness" is more ancient than the name of any other "Wapentake" or hundred in the County of Lancashire, and the fort at Tulketh, strengthened by
William the Conqueror, shows that the strategic importance of the area was appreciated even then. The location of the city, almost exactly midway between
Glasgow and London, led to many confrontations with
Scotland. Preston was burned by the Scots during
The Great Raid of 1322 but two years later had quickly recovered. Decisive battles were also fought here, most notably during the
English Civil War at the
Battle of Preston (1648), and then the first
Jacobite rebellion, whose invasion of England was brought to a conclusion by the defeat of the pro-Catholic and pro-monarchial Jacobite army at the
Battle of Preston (1715).
Letitia Elizabeth Landon alludes to this latter defeat in her poetical illustration,
Preston, to an engraving of a painting by
Thomas Allom, in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book 1834. In the last great Jacobite Rising, on 27 November 1745 the Jacobite Prince of Wales and Regent,
Bonnie Prince Charlie passed through Preston with his Highland Army on the way south through Chorley and Manchester to Derby intending to take London and the Crown. Preston was the first of quite a few places in England where the Prince was cheered as he rode by and where he was joined by some English volunteers for his Army. One Jacobite eyewitness noted that from Preston onwards, "at every town we were received with ringing of bells, and at night we have bonfires, and illuminations". Another Jacobite eyewitness noted in a private letter from Preston on 27 November 1745: "People here are beginning to join [us] very fast; we have got about sixty recruits today". From 10 to 12 December the Prince gave his retreating Army a rest in Preston on their long, last and fatal retreat from Derby through Lancaster and Carlisle to their dreadful day of destiny the following 16 April on
Culloden Moor, near
Inverness.
Industrial Revolution Merchants from Preston took part in the transatlantic slave trade in the 18th century. The 19th century saw a transformation in Preston from a small market town to a much larger industrial one. The innovations of the latter half of the previous century, such as Richard Arkwright's
water frame (invented in Preston), brought cotton mills to many northern English towns. With industrialisation came examples of both oppression and enlightenment. Preston was the first English town outside London to be lit by gas. The Preston Gas Company was established in 1815 by, amongst others, a Catholic priest: Rev. Joseph "Daddy" Dunn of the
Society of Jesus. The
Preston and Wigan Railway arrived in 1838, shortly afterwards renamed the
North Union Railway. The
Sheffield firm of
Thos. W. Ward Ltd opened a
ship breaking yard at
Preston Dock in 1894. The more oppressive side of industrialisation was seen during the
Preston Strike of 1842 on Saturday 13 August 1842, when a group of cotton workers demonstrated against the poor conditions in the town's mills. The
Riot Act was read and armed troops corralled the demonstrators in front of the
Corn Exchange on Lune Street. Shots were fired and four of the demonstrators were killed. A commemorative sculpture now stands on the spot (although the soldiers and demonstrators represented are facing the wrong way). In the 1850s,
Karl Marx visited Preston and later described the town as "the next
St Petersburg".
Charles Dickens visited Preston in January 1854 during
a strike by cotton workers that had by that stage lasted for 23 weeks. It is believed that the town of "Coketown" in the novel
Hard Times was inspired by this visit to Preston. In 1858, the
Preston Power Loom Weavers' Association was founded, and by 1920 it had more than 13,000 members in the town. in about 1904 The Preston Temperance Society, led by
Joseph Livesey pioneered the
Temperance Movement in the 19th century. Indeed, the term
teetotalism is believed to have been coined at one of its meetings. The website of the
University of Central Lancashire library has a great deal of information on Joseph Livesey and the Temperance Movement in Preston. Preston was one of only a few industrial towns in Lancashire to have a functioning corporation (local council) in 1835 (its charter dating to 1685), and was reformed as a
municipal borough by the
Municipal Corporations Act 1835. It became the
County Borough of Preston under the
Local Government Act 1888. In 1974, county boroughs were abolished, and it became part of the larger part of the new non-metropolitan district, the
Borough of Preston, which also included
Fulwood Urban District and much of
Preston Rural District. The borough acquired city status in 2002.
20th and 21st centuries By 1901, nearly 120,000 people were living in Preston, which was now a booming industrial town. New industries arrived in Preston during the inter-war years which helped ease the pain felt through the sharp decline of the cotton industry. Electrical goods manufacturing and engineering arrived in the town, and the building sector enjoyed a boom with nearly 3,000
council houses being built between 1920 and 1939; around 1,500 houses were built for private sale. Despite its heavy industry, Preston endured only a handful of
Luftwaffe air raids in
World War II and there were no fatalities in the town; however, an air crash in the
Freckleton district claimed the lives of 61 people in 1944. For some 20 years after 1948, Preston became home to a significant number of Asian and
Caribbean Commonwealth immigrants, who mostly worked in the manufacturing industry. However, an economic decline hit the town once again in the 1970s, capped by the closure of the
Courtaulds factory in 1979 (nearly 3,000 job losses) and the decline of the
docks on the
River Ribble, which finally closed in 1981. Mass unemployment was firmly back in Preston by the early 1980s, although it was now very much a national crisis due to the
recession of that time. The rehousing of families from town centre slums to new council houses continued after World War II, though it slowed down to a virtual standstill after 1975. The face of the town centre began to change in the 1960s, with old developments being bulldozed and replaced by modern developments such as the
St George's Shopping Centre, which opened in 1966, and the
Fishergate Shopping Centre which was built nearly 20 years later. The remains of the Victorian town hall, designed by
George Gilbert Scott and mostly destroyed by fire in 1947, were replaced by an office block (Crystal House) in 1962, and a modern-architecture
Guild Hall opened in 1973, to replace the Public Hall. The town was by-passed by
Britain's very first motorway, built and operated by engineer James Drake, which was opened by
prime minister Harold Macmillan in December 1958. Within a decade, this formed part of the
M6; it gave Preston a direct motorway link with Birmingham. Completion of the
M61, shortly thereafter, gave the town a direct link to Manchester. The late 1960s saw the completion of Ringway, a
bypass around the town centre, as well as a
new bus station. On 6 April 2012, the city's residents performed the
Preston Passion, a dramatised version of the
Passion of Christ, which was broadcast live by
BBC One.
Former railways Although Preston is now only served by its , there were a number of others in the preceding decades, which have since closed, with many demolished. The following is a list of former stations within the boundaries of the current City of Preston: • • Butler Street (goods only) •
Deepdale (Bridge) • •
Fishergate Hill • • Grimsargh WHR (a separate station for the Whittingham Hospital railway) • •
Maudland Bridge • • • (goods only, serviced Oxheys Cattle Market) • • Whittingham Hospital. With the industrialisation of the town in the 19th century, the Preston Dock branch line was built in 1846 from Preston's mail station to carry goods to and from
Victoria Quay on the River Ribble. With the opening of the Albert Edward Basin and the new
Preston Dock in 1892, the number and length of tracks increased and at their peak grew to over 25 miles. The lines to
Southport and
Longridge closed to passengers in 1965 and 1930 respectively. The disused tracks of the Longridge line are extant as far as
Deepdale. In 2010, plans were put forward to use part of this line for a demonstration tram system. With the closure of the docks in 1981 and its subsequent redevelopment, most of the tracks were removed and now only a small section remains, used by the
Ribble Steam Railway (RSR) and for
bitumen trains operating to the
Total refinery at the Riversway industrial park. A single station, , is operated by the RSR for its heritage railway trips. ==Governance==