Earliest history The earliest origins of Lincoln can be traced to remains of an
Iron Age settlement of round wooden dwellings, discovered by archaeologists in 1972, which have been dated to the 1st century BCE. It was built by
Brayford Pool on the
River Witham at the foot of a large hill, on which the
Normans later built
Lincoln Cathedral and
Lincoln Castle.
Lindum Colonia , a 3rd-century Roman gate The Romans conquered this part of Britain in 48 CE and soon built a legionary fortress high on a hill overlooking the natural lake, Brayford Pool, formed by the widening of the River Witham, and the northern end of the
Fosse Way Roman road (A46). Celtic
Lindon was later
Latinised to
Lindum and the title
Colonia added when it became settled by army veterans. The conversion to a
colonia occurred when the legion moved on to
York (
Eboracum) in 71 CE.
Lindum colonia or more fully,
Colonia Domitiana Lindensium, after the then Emperor
Domitian, was set up within the walls of the hilltop fortress by extending it with about an equal area, down the hillside to the waterside. It became a flourishing settlement accessible from the sea through the
River Trent and through the River Witham. On the basis of a patently corrupt list of British bishops said to have attended the
314 Council of Arles, the city is often seen as having been the capital of the
province of
Flavia Caesariensis, formed during the late 3rd-century
Diocletian Reforms. Subsequently, the town and its waterways declined. By the close of the 5th century, it was largely deserted, although some occupation continued under a
Praefectus Civitatis –
Saint Paulinus visited a man holding this office in Lincoln in 629 CE.
Lincylene Germanic tribes from the North Sea area settled Lincolnshire in the 5th to 6th centuries. The Latin
Lindum Colonia shrank in
Old English to Lindocolina, then to Lincylene. After the first
Viking raids, the city again rose to some importance with overseas trading ties. In Viking times Lincoln had its own mint, by far the most important in Lincolnshire and by the end of the 10th century, comparable in output to that of
York. After establishment of the
Danelaw in 886, Lincoln became one of the
Five East Midland Boroughs. Excavations at Flaxengate reveal that an area deserted since Roman times received timber-framed buildings fronting a new street system in about 900. Lincoln underwent an economic explosion with the settlement of the
Danes. Like York, the Upper City seems to have had purely administrative functions up to 850 or so, while the Lower City, down the hill towards the River Witham, may have been largely deserted. By 950, however, the Witham banks were developed, the Lower City resettled and the suburb of Wigford emerging as a trading centre. In 1068, two years after the
Norman conquest of England,
William I ordered Lincoln Castle to be built on the site of the old Roman settlement, for the same strategic reasons and controlling the same road, the
Fosse Way.
Green cloth During
the Anarchy, in 1141 Lincoln was the site of a
battle between
King Stephen and the forces of
Empress Matilda, led by her illegitimate half-brother
Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester. After fierce fighting in the city streets, Stephen's forces were defeated and Stephen himself captured and taken to
Bristol. By 1150, Lincoln was among the wealthiest towns in England, based economically on cloth and
wool exported to
Flanders; Lincoln
weavers had set up a
weavers' guild in 1130 to produce Lincoln Cloth, especially the fine dyed "scarlet" and "green", whose reputation was later enhanced by the legendary
Robin Hood wearing woollens of
Lincoln green. In the Guildhall, surmounting the city gate called the
Stonebow, the ancient Council Chamber contains Lincoln's civic insignia, a fine collection of civic regalia. Outside the precincts of cathedral and castle, the old quarter clustered round the Bailgate and down
Steep Hill to the
High Street and
High Bridge, whose
half-timbered housing juts out over the river. There are three ancient churches:
St Mary le Wigford and
St Peter at Gowts, both 11th century in origin, and
St Mary Magdalene, from the late 13th century. The last is an unusual English dedication to a saint whose cult was coming into vogue on the European continent at the time. Lincoln was home to one of five main
Jewish communities in England, well established before it was officially noted in 1154. In 1190,
anti-Semitic riots that started in
King's Lynn, Norfolk, spread to Lincoln; the Jewish community took refuge with royal officials, but their homes were plundered. The so-called
House of Aaron has a two-storey street frontage that is essentially 12th century and the nearby
Jew's House likewise bears witness to the Jewish population. In 1255, the affair called "
The Libel of Lincoln" in which prominent Lincoln Jews, accused of ritual murder of a Christian boy (
Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln in medieval folklore) were sent to the
Tower of London and 18 executed. In the
Second Barons' War, of 1266, the disinherited rebels attacked the Jews of Lincoln, ransacked the
synagogue and burned the records that registered debts.
Decline, dissolution and damage Some historians have the city's fortunes declining from the 14th century, but others argue that it remained buoyant in trade and communications well into the 15th. In 1409, the city became a
county corporate: the County of the City of Lincoln, formerly part of the
West Riding of Lindsey since at least the time of the
Domesday Book. Additional rights were then conferred by successive monarchs, including those of an assay town (controlling metal manufacturing, for example). The oldest surviving
secular drama in English,
The Interlude of the Student and the Girl (), may have originated from Lincoln. Lincoln's
coat of arms, not officially endorsed by the
College of Arms, is believed to date from the 14th century. It is
Argent on a cross gules a fleur-de-lis or. The cross is believed to derive from the Diocese. The fleur-de-lis symbolises the cathedral dedication to the Virgin Mary. The
motto is CIVITAS LINCOLNIA ("City of Lincoln"). The
dissolution of the monasteries cut Lincoln's main source of diocesan income and dried up the network of patronage controlled by the bishop. Seven monasteries closed in the city alone, as did several nearby abbeys, which further diminished the region's political power. A symbol of Lincoln's economic and political decline came in 1549, when the cathedral's great spire rotted and collapsed and was not replaced. However, the comparative poverty of post-medieval Lincoln preserved pre-medieval structures that would probably have been lost under more prosperous conditions. Between 1642 and 1651 in the
English Civil War, Lincoln was on a frontier between the
Royalist and
Parliamentary forces and changed hands several times. Many buildings were badly damaged. Lincoln now had no major industry and no easy access to the sea. It suffered as the rest of the country was beginning to prosper in the early 18th century, travellers often commenting on what had essentially become a one-street town. Many locations in the U.S. now bear the name Lincoln, such as
Lincoln, Nebraska. But the shared name with England's Lincoln is only coincidental, as the U.S. place names were named in honor of Abraham Lincoln. A permanent military presence came with the 1857 completion of the
"Old Barracks" (now held by the
Museum of Lincolnshire Life). They were replaced by the "New Barracks" (now
Sobraon Barracks) in 1890, when
Lincoln Drill Hall in Broadgate also opened. including the man responsible for the city's water supply, Liam Kirk of Baker Crescent. Near the beginning of the epidemic, Dr Alexander Cruickshank Houston installed a chlorine
disinfection system just ahead of the poorly operating, slow sand filter, to kill the fatal bacteria.
Chlorination of the water continued until 1911, when a new supply was implemented. Lincoln's chlorination episode was an early use of chlorine to disinfect a water supply.
Westgate Water Tower was built to provide new supplies. In the two
world wars, Lincoln switched to war production. The first ever
tanks were invented, designed and built in Lincoln by
William Foster & Co. in the
First World War and population growth provided more workers for greater expansion. The tanks were tested on land now covered by Tritton Road in the south-west suburbs. In the
Second World War, Lincoln produced an array of war goods: tanks, aircraft,
munitions and military vehicles. In World War II 26 high explosive bombs were dropped on the city, with around 500 incendiary bombs, over five occasions, with eight people killed. 50 houses were destroyed, with the worst night being 9 May 1941. Also much damage occurred in the Dixon Street area on Friday 15 January 1943. Two parachute mines landed in fields on South Common on the night of 19 November 1940, which exploded and broke many windows in the town, but with no more damage. On 8 May 1941, nine high explosive bombs were dropped on around Westwick Gardens in Boultham Park, east of the former
Ancaster High School, killing three people. A Spitfire and Hurricane, from
RAF Digby, collided over Lincoln. One pilot landed on allotments near Kingsway, and another landed near Branston Road. The Spitfire crashed on a house in Drake Street, and the Hurricane did a full circuit of the north of Lincoln, with no pilot aboard, and descended over the top of St Mary le Wigford church, to crash into a row of houses and shops, killing three people, and injuring nine.
Ruston & Hornsby produced
diesel engines for ships and
locomotives, then by teaming up with former colleagues of
Frank Whittle and
Power Jets Ltd, in the early 1950s, R & H (which became RGT) opened the first production line for
gas turbine engines for land-based and sea-based energy production. Its success made it the city's largest single employer, providing over 5,000 jobs in its factory and research facilities, making it a rich takeover target for industrial conglomerates. It was subsumed by
English Electric in November 1966, which was then bought by
GEC in 1968, with diesel engine production being transferred to the Ruston Diesels Division in
Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire, at the former
Vulcan Foundry. Pelham Works merged with
Alstom of France in the late 1980s and was then bought in 2003 by
Siemens of Germany as
Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery. This includes what is left of Napier Turbochargers. Plans came early in 2008 for a new plant outside the city at Teal Park,
North Hykeham. Still, Siemens made large redundancies and moved jobs to Sweden and the Netherlands. The factory now employs 1300. R & H's former Beevor Foundry is now owned by Hoval Group, making industrial boilers (
wood chip). The Aerospace Manufacturing Facility (AMF) in Firth Road passed from Alstom Aerospace Ltd to
ITP Engines UK in January 2009. Lincoln's second largest private employer is James Dawson and Son, a belting and hose maker founded in the late 19th century. Its two sites are in Tritton Road. The main one, next to the University of Lincoln, used Lincoln's last coal-fired boiler until it was replaced by gas in July 2018. New suburbs appeared after 1945, but heavy industry declined towards the end of the 20th century. Much development, notably around the Brayford area, has followed the construction of the University of Lincoln's Brayford Campus, which opened in 1996. In 2012, Bishop Grosseteste teaching college, now
Lincoln Bishop University was also awarded university status. ==Economy==