The whole of this paper is a DRAFT.

A draft of Shrewsbury & Shropshire and the Marches Historical Timeline in three parts

The whole of this paper is a draft. All facts should be cross checked with other sources.

The author will not accept any costs or liability to anyone human or Artificial Intelligence Bot that incurs costs as a result of using any information herein on any page, whether it is correct or incorrect.

Index – Part 1 on Page 2.  520 AD Pengwern

The early foundation of the town Shrewsbury or Pengwern the town and county as it was known from 520 AD, until incorporated into Mercia.  From research done to create             https://thehistoryofwales.typepad.com/t/7.html

Part 2 on pages 3 – 60.  Preamble and Introduction to the formation of the kingdom of England through to the end of the life of Queen Victoria, with a focus on area of Shropshire and the Marches Royal Research from https://www.britroyals.com/timeline.asp

With edited content from www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/KingsQueensofBritain/

Items highlighted relate to added local input from Shropshire and Marches including entries from my own research and writings.

Part 3 – pages 61 – 76.  A draft timeline focusing on Victorian Shrewsbury, including some major events with extended commentary from my own researches. An additional supplement on the nineteenth century is also included and has been extensively edited from various sources and is based on my own research on the demise of the guilds in Shrewsbury and the arbours in Kingsland.

The whole of this paper is a DRAFT. All facts should be cross checked with other sources.

The author will not accept any costs or liability to anyone human or Artificial Intelligence Bot that incurs costs as a result of using any information herein on any page, whether it is correct or incorrect.

Page 2

520 AD -Pengwern (Thought to mean headwaters of the River Severn) This section from https://thehistoryofwales.typepad.com/t/7.html

Pengwern only appears as a kingdom in its own right in the sixth century, its’ first king was either Mawn or Iago ap Brochfael c570 – 613 ( Sons of Brochfael Ysgythrog of  Powys), it was originally part of Powys and stretched deep into the Midlands situated in what is now Shropshire,  its capital was originally Caer Guricon (modern Wroxeter), and was regarded as being the early seat of the kings of Powys , it was abandoned in around 520, for the more defendable location of  Llys Pengwern – the Court of Pengwern  (Shrewsbury).   From 577 onwards, Pengwern’s southern border came under pressure from the Hwicce, as the Brythonic kingdoms based around Caer Baddan (Bath), Caer Ceri,  (Cirencester) and Caer Gloui (Gloucester) all fell, separating Pengwern from the other British Kingdoms of Dumnonia (parts of Devon and Cornwall) and Caer Celenion (Silchester in Hampshire).  Caer Guricon was later sacked by the West Saxons in 584, but the kingdom survived and continued to resist Anglian expansion until the mid-seventh century.

603   A meeting between the Roman Church and the Celtic Church takes place at Abberley in Worcestershire, probably close to the Pengwern border with the Hwicce. It is attended by seven bishops of the Celtic Church, along with many monks from Bangor-is-Coed (in Pengwern). The Britons are not impressed with Augustine’s imperious manner and the meeting ends in disappointment for the Roman envoy.

c.612   This point marks the first appearance of the kings of Dogfeilion of Gwynedd in Powys and Pengwern, it seems likely that a Dogfeilion leader (probably Cyndrwyn Glas) married a daughter of the king of Powys, qualifying his descendants to govern Powys and Pengwern by the rules of descent of Gwynedd.

613   Several British kings form a coalition to halt Aethelfrith of Bernicia at the Battle of Caer Legion (Chester).  Selyf of Powys is killed, after which, Dogfeilion kings appear to rule Pengwern.

617    The fall of Elmet (West Riding of Yorkshire) to Edwin of Bernicia exposes the entire length of the northern border of Pengwern, making it vulnerable to the aggressive policy of Northumbrian expansion.

642   Cynyddlan (a king of Dogfeiling, also ruling Pengwern) joined forces with King Penda of Mercia to protect his realm, and together they fought and defeated the increasingly powerful Kingdom of Northumbrian at the Battle of Maes Cogwy (Oswestry), slaying their King Oswald.

c.654   Pengwern’s staunch ally, Penda of Mercia, defeats the East Angles at Blytheburgh, but is later killed by Oswiu of Northumbria at the Battle of Winwaed. Northern Mercia is annexed by Northumbria, exposing more of Pengwern to the aggressive Anglian kingdoms.

656   Pengwern is overrun by Oswiu of Northumbria, the royal family is destroyed and Cynyddlan killed.  The kingdom of Pengwern is shared between Mercia and Powys and Saxons migrate into the territory to form the minor kingdoms of the Wrocenset (Wroxeter) and Magonset (Kenchester near Hereford).

757 – 796   Mercia absorbs the whole territory after the construction of Offa’s dyke.

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Preamble – After the Ice Age transformed the landscape of Shropshire peoples began arriving from the East. Approx 4,000 B.C. Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age implements from Worfield, Claverley and Alveley.   Approx 2,000 B.C.  Burial mounds on Long Mynd, many along the Port Way      Approx 1,550 B.C.  Mitchell`s Fold and Hoarstones, stone circles Approx 800 B.C.  Iron Age Hillforts or Hill Top Towns including the Wrekin. 48   –   Prince Caratacus of the Cornovii tribe, based on Wrekin, was defeated by the Roman Army.     80   –    Roman army moved to Chester    90   –   Fortress was demolished Wroxeter became a civilian settlement, capital of Cornovii 122   –   Emperor Hadrian visited Wroxeter.

Introduction

410   – The Goths took Rome and Honorius, the Roman emperor in Britain returned to Rome to defend his home-land from attacks by Germanic tribes and the British were left to the responsibility of defending themselves from Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Picts and Scots.

420 – The economy collapsed and the princes of the Cornovii ruled Shropshire

449  Some 40 years after the Romans left, Vortigern a local ruler in Kent, invites Jutes from Jutland Denmark, as mercenaries to fight against the invading Picts and Scots. The alliance beats beats the Picts and Scots but the mercenaries turn on Vortigern and settle in Kent and choose the Jute war lords, Hengist and Horsa as their rulers. Some historians suggest Hengist and Horsa as the first post Roman Germanic Kings of England, but they only ruled in Kent. 

477   Ella, a southern Saxon, lands in Pevensey Bay and after a bloody war lasting some months, he kills most of the local Britains and forms Sussex. (South Saxons)

 495   The first Saxon king ruled in Wessex (around Winchester) was called Cerdic. This was some 90 years after the Romans left. The ancestry of all the Kings and Queens of England can be traced to Cerdic including the present king, Charles 3^rd.[1]

516  Battle of Badon Hill. A West-Saxon, Wessex expansion westwards is halted for some years by perhaps a King Arthur one of the last Romanised Britians in England.

547    The Angles who avoid the Saxons and settle north of the river Humber (North-Humbria) and create the Kingdom of Northumbria.

575    Two further tribes of Angles land in what is now called East Anglia. They settle in two groups forming Norfolk and Suffolk. (North Folk and South Folk) creating the Kingdom of East Anglia

586    The area now known as the East and West Midlands, was also overrun by Angles as they colonised the last remaining part of Romanised Britain. Creating the Kingdom of Mercia.

England is thus divided into 7 separate Kingdoms all ruled by separate Germanic Kings. Some 200,000 Angles, Saxons and Jutes (from Jutland) are now living in England and the majority of British males have been killed or have fled to Wales, Scotland or Cornwall. The new Germanic tribes spend much of their time fighting between themselves.[2]

[1] https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/KingsQueensofBritain/

[2] www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/KingsQueensofBritain/

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632-655 – Penda, (606-655) ruled Mercia, in 642, Penda and the Mercian army killed Oswald of Northumbria. Revenge was taken in 655 by Oswiu, brother of Oswald,

658 – Wulfhere, Penda`s son took control of the region for the Mercians.

670 – Ethelfrith an Angle ruled Northumbria.

By 690 – The Mercian royal house of King Merewalh endowed the monastery of St Milburga in Much Wenlock for his daughter, originally it had been a Saxon nunnery

 By 700 – The Mercians built Wats Dyke from the Dee estuary to Pentre-Coed south of Oswestry

King Offa b.730 (757 – 796)

757 – Offa an Angle seizes the Kingdom of Mercia after the murder of his cousin Aethelbald.

776 – Defeats the men of Kent at Otford

779 – Offa defeats Cynewulf of Wessex at Bensington in Oxfordshire.

784 – Offa defeats the Welsh. Around this time work on Offa’s Dyke is started marking the border with Wales.

785 – Egbert son of Ealhmund of Kent flees to Wessex and then to exile in the Frankish court of Charlemagne

787 – 1st recorded Viking raids on England

789 – Beorhtric of Wessex marries Offa’s daughter Eadburgh

792 – Aethelred king of Northumbria marries Offa’s daughter Aelfflaed

793 – St Albans Abbey founded. Offa annexes East Anglia and joins it to the kingdom of Mercia

793 – Vikings raid the Christian monastery on Lindisfarne

795 – Vikings raid the monastery on Iona in Scotland

796 – Offa’s dyke is completed. The death of Offa marks the end of Mercian supremacy in England.     His son Ecgfrith reigns for less than 6 months, before dying. Charlemagne negotiated a treaty with Offa, to permit Christians and merchants and traders to pass through his lands. Charlemagne gave Offa some expensive gifts and in return Offa gave him some woollen items.[1]  Offa legacy. Noted for having a good trading and religious relationship with Charlemagne, introducing a new currency, the Penny with the same silver content as a French coin thus being interchangeable for trade. Noted also for building a formidable, 26 foot high, 120-mile-long earth dyke to defend England from the “Britains” in Wales. Some say he was the first King of all England.

King Egbert (802 – 839)

800 – Around this time the Book of Kells is written in Ireland

802 – Death of King Beorthric of Wessex

 Page 5

802 – Egbert returns from exile in Charlemagne and becomes King of Wessex

820    England’s southern Kingdom, Wessex (Saxon) under King Egbert (802-839) breaks the military supremacy of Mercia (Angles) creating the powerbase to unify England. The only remaining Roman British stronghold (Cornwall) is also brought under Wessex control. Egbert is also considered by some historians to be the first king of all England. Egbert married a French princess, Redburga was a sister of Charlemagne and with her he secured the next generation, the future king Ethelwulf.

825 – King Egbert of Wessex wins a decisive victory over Beornwulf King of Mercia at Ellendun, near Swindon. Wessex becomes the dominant kingdom.

827 – Following his conquest of Mercia, Egbert controls all of England south of the Humber

829 – Egbert defeats the Northumbrian king at Dore near Sheffield

830 – Wiglif of Mercia revolts against Wessex rule

830 – Egbert subdues North Wales. He is recognized as overlord of other English kings

836 – Egbert is defeated by the Danes at Carhampton, near Minehead, Somerset

838 – Defeats Vikings and Cornish at Hingston Down in Cornwall

839 – Death of Egbert. He is succeeded by his son Aethelwulf

King Aethelwulf (839 – 856)

839 – Aethelwulf succeeds his father Egbert as King of Wessex

841 – Vikings raid Kent and East Anglia, and establish a settlement at Dublin

842 – Many die in London and Rochester during Viking raids

844 – Kenneth MacAlpine, King of the Scots, conquers the Picts; founds a unified Scotland

845 – Vikings are defeated by a Saxon force at the River Parrett

851 – Vikings forces enter Thames estuary and march on Canterbury

855 – Aethelwulf goes on a pilgrimage to Rome accompanied by his son Alfred

858 – Aethelwulf returns but finds his son Aethelbald has taken control of Wessex

858 – Aethelwulf dies at Steyning in Sussex. His son Aethelbald becomes king.

King Aethelbald (856 – 860)

858 – Aethelbald marries his father’s widow Judith

860 – Vikings land on Iceland

860 – Aethelbald dies and his brother Aethelbert become king.

King Aethelbert (860 – 866)

860 – Aethelbert becomes King of Wessex following the death of his brother Aethelbald

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860 – Winchester sacked by the Danes

865 – The Viking ‘Great Heathen Army’ commanded by Halfdan and Ivar the Boneless lands in East Anglia and sweeps across England

866 – Vikings take York (Jorvik) and establish a North British Kingdom

King Aethelred I (866 – 871)

866 – Aethelred becomes king on the death of his brother Aethelbert

869 – Edmund King of East Anglia resists the Vikings and is killed

870 – Aethelred defeated by the Danes (Vikings) at Reading

871 – Aethelred and his brother Alfred defeat the Danes at Ashdown

871 – Battle of Meretun, Hampshire. Aethelred is mortally wounded and dies.

King Alfred the Great (871 – 899)

871 – Alfred becomes King of Wessex following the death of his brother Aethelred

872 – London falls to Viking raiders

875 – After persistent attacks by Vikings the monks of Lindisfarne travel through Northumbria and Galloway with the Lindisfarne Gospels.

878 – Guthrum’s Danish army invades Wessex, and Alfred takes refuge on the isle of Athelney. Alfred defeats Guthrum at the battle of Ethandune (Edington) in Wiltshire.

878 – Treaty of Wedmore divides England into two. Guthrum accepts baptism as a Christian and agrees to leave Wessex and settle in East Anglia.

884 – Alfred defeats the Danes at Rochester

885 – Alfred imposes rules on South Wales

886 – Alfred takes London from the Danes. Danelaw – the territory occupied by the Danes in East Anglia is recognised by Alfred

890 – Guthrum dies. Alfred establishes a permanent army and navy

891 – Anglo Saxon Chronicle, source of much early British History, begun

893 – Asser, Bishop of Sherborne, completes his book The Life of Alfred the Great

894 – Northumbrian and East Angles swear allegiance to Alfred, but promptly break the truce attacking South West England.

896 – Naval victory over the Danes in the Solent

899 – Alfred dies and is buried at Winchester. His son Edward becomes king.

King Edward The Elder (899 – 924)

900 – Edward the Elder, son of Alfred, crowned at Kingston-upon-Thames

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901 – Edward the Elder takes the title “King of the Angles and Saxons”

          There is archaeological evidence in St Mary`s and St Chad`s Church that Shrewsbury was populated before this year but the earliest surviving historical document is a record of a land transaction made in civitate Scrobbensis, (Shrewsbury was a fortified place of authority).        

902 – Eric, ruler of the Danes in East Anglia, dies in the Battle of Holme

910 – Reconquest of Danelaw lands begins. The last great Viking army sent to ravage England is defeated by an army of Wessex and Mercia.

913 – Edward the Elder recaptures Essex from the Danes

915 – Edward is accepted as overlord by Ragnald ruler of the Viking Kingdom of York

916 – Edward’s sister Aethelflaed of Mercia attacks and conquers most of Wales

916 – Vikings establish settlements at Dublin and Waterford in Ireland

918 – Edward becomes ruler of Mercia following the death of his sister Aethelflaed

920 – Edward takes East Anglia from the Danes

               Coins were minted in Shrewsbury, at the mint that travelled with the King

923 – The Scottish King Constantine II submits to Edward

924 – Edward dies at Farndon-on-Dee near Chester leading an army against the Welsh. He is buried in Winchester.

King Athelstan (924 – 939)

924 – Athelstan becomes King of Wessex and Mercia on the death of his father Edward the Elder.

926 – Athelstan annexes Northumbria, and forces the kings of Wales, Strathclyde, the Picts, and the Scots to submit to him

926 – Athelstan marries his sister to Sihtric, the Viking King of York to cement his ties with the North

934 – Athelstan invades Scotland   

937 – Battle of Brunanburh, on the Wirral: Athelstan defeats alliance of Scots, Celts, Danes, and Vikings, and takes the title of King of all Britain

939 – Athelstan dies at Gloucester and is buried at Malmesbury.

King Edmund (939 – 946)

939 – Edmund becomes King. Scandinavian army from Northumbria overrun the East Midlands.

942 – Edmund re-establishes control over Northumbria and rules a united England.

943 – Edmund extends his rule into southern Scotland,

945 – Dunstan becomes abbot of Glastonbury Abbey

945 – Edmund conquers Strathclyde, but Cumbria is annexed by the Scots.

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946 – Edmund murdered at a party in Pucklechurch, Gloucestershire

King Edred (946 – 955)

946 – Edred succeeds his brother Edmund

954 – Expulsion of Eric Bloodaxe, last Danish king of York

955 – Edred dies and is buried at Winchester.

King Edwy (Eadwig) (955 – 959)

955 – Edwy crowned at Kingston-upon-Thames

956 – Dunstan sent into exile by Edwy

957 – Mercians and Northumbrians rebel against Edwy

959 – Edwy dies in Gloucester

King Edgar, The Peacemaker. (959 – 975)

959 – Edgar King of Mercia and Northumbria becomes King of all England.

960 – The origins of St Mary’s Church in Shrewsbury date from the early part of King Edgar,

 the Peacemaker’s reign. He founded a Church at the site and said it was to be under the jurisdiction of the crown and is therefore described as a Royal Peculiar.[1]

965 – Westminster Abbey is founded

973 – Northern Kings submit to Edgar at Chester

975 – Edgar dies at Winchester

King Edward. The Martyr (975 – 978)

975 – 13-year-old Edward succeeds to the throne

978 – Edward the Martyr murdered at Corfe Castle

King Aethelred II. The Unready (978 – 1016) Unready meant he would not listen to advice.

978 – Aethelred, son of Edgar, becomes King of England following the murder of his half-brother Edward

980 – Danes renew their raids on England attacking Chester and Southampton

985 – Sweyn I, Forkbeard, rebels against his father Harold Blue-tooth and deposes him

991 – Battle of Maldon: Byrhtnoth of Essex is defeated by Danish invaders; Aethelred buys off the Danes with 10,000 pounds of silver (Danegeld)

992 – Aethelred makes a truce with Duke Richard I of Normandy

[1] St Mary`s Church guidebook accessed on line 21 August 2025.

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994 – Danes under Sweyn and Norwegians under Olaf Trygvesson sail up river Thames and besiege London; bought off by Aethelred

1002 – Aethelred orders a massacre of Danish settlers. After the death of his first wife Elfleda he marries Emma of Normandy

1006 – The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that King Aethelred II, known as the Unready, had gone across the Thames into Shropshire and received there his food-rents in the Christmas season.

1012 – The Danes raid Kent, burning Canterbury Cathedral and murdering Archbishop Alphege

1013 – King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark lands in England and is proclaimed king; Aethelred II the Unready flees to Normandy

1014 – The English recall Aethelred II the Unready as King on the death of Sweyn at Gainsborough

1015 – King Canute II of Denmark & Norway invades England again

King Edmund II lronside (1016)

1016 – Edmund Ironside, son of Aethelred II the Unready of England, becomes King. At the battle of Abingdon, in Essex, King Canute II of Denmark defeats Edmund. They meet on the Isle of Alney in the Severn and agree to divide the kingdom into two. Canute takes the land North of the Thames and Edmund the South.

1016 – Edmund is assassinated a few months later and Canute takes the throne as King Canute of England.

King Cnut (Canute) (1016 – 1035)

1017 – Canute marries Emma of Normandy, the widow of Aethelred II. Canute divides England into four earldoms – Northumbria Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia.

1027 – Canute makes a pilgrimage to Rome to demonstrate his alliance with the Church, and attends the coronation of the Pope

1028 – In addition to his existing kingdoms Canute becomes King of Norway

He is remembered as the king who proved to his flattering courtiers he was not a god, by having his throne placed on the beach as the tide came in and commanded it to stop. He showed that the power of kings was empty compared to the power of God and nature.

1035 – Canute dies at the age of 40, and his huge Northern European empire disintegrates.

King Harold I Harefoot (1035 – 1040)

1035 – Canute’s illegitimate son Harold Harefoot usurps the throne from his half-brother, Harthacanute, the rightful heir who is away fighting in Denmark.

King Harthacnut (1040 – 1042)

1040 – Harold Harefoot dies and Harthacanute accedes to the throne

Page 10

He was the last Danish Viking to rule England as a son of Cnut. He nominated Edward as his successor recalling him from exile and ensuring a peaceful transition of the crown.

King Edward The Confessor (1042 – 1066)

1042 – Harthacanute dies and is succeeded by Edward the Confessor, son of Aethelred II. Noted as a very religious man and pious man.

1043 – Earl Leofric founds Coventry Abbey. His wife Lady Godiva according to legend rides naked through the streets of Coventry

1045 – Edward marries Edith, daughter of Earl Godwin of Wessex

1051 – Edward quarrels with Godwin and banishes the rebellious Godwin family from England. Edward promises the throne to William, Duke of Normandy.

1052 – Godwin, Earl of Wessex, returns to England.

1053 – Godwin’s son, Harold, becomes principal adviser to the King.

1056 – Welsh led by Gruffydd ap Llywelyn attack England and burn Hereford Cathedral

1057 – Edward, son of Edmund Ironside and potential heir to the throne, returns to England but dies mysteriously

1063 – Harold Godwinson (later Harold II) and his brother, Tostig of Northumberland, attack Wales. Gruffydd ap Llewellyn is killed by his own troops.

1064 – According to later Norman chroniclers Harold visits William of Normandy and swears on oath to support his claim to the throne

1065 – Northumbria rebels against Tostig who is exiled. Harold fails to support his brother and they become bitter enemies.

1066 – Edward dies and Harold Godwinson is chosen as successor, but William of Normandy declares the throne was promised to him.

King Harold II (1066)

1066 – Harold Godwinson becomes King Harold II

1066 – Harold II fights his brother Tostig and a Viking force under Harold Hadrada and defeats them at Stamford Bridge. He hastily marches South at the news that William Duke of Normandy with 100 ships has landed at Pevensey Bay and marched into Sussex.

1066 – Harold II is killed at the Battle of Hastings, according to legend with an arrow through his eye.

1066 – Edgar the Aethling, grandson of Edmund II is elected King, but rules for only a few weeks before submitting to William of Normandy

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King William I The Conqueror (1066 – 1087)

1066 – William and his Norman army defeat Harold II and the Anglo Saxons at the Battle of Hastings. Harold is killed and, after subduing the south of the country William is crowned King of England.

1067 – William suppresses a Saxon revolt in the southwest of England. William’s Earls are given lands driving out the Anglo-Saxon lords. Norman French becomes the language of government.

William, turned to another close friend and advisor, Roger de Montgomery, to control the middle range of the frontier (between England and Wales known as the marches or borderlands),here he built up a strong feudal enclave centred on his new castle of Shrewsbury. He consolidated his hold on land which was technically within England but not firmly under English control. He moved into territory which was unmistakably Welsh and he passed into the hands of his military tenants. Picot de Say was established at Clun; the family of Tournai, at Kinnersley, Reginald de Bailleul had his principal castle at Maesbury, and his lands became the lordship of Oswestry. The Corbets were masters of Caus, east and south of Shrewsbury.[1]

1068 – William puts down a revolt in the northern counties led by Edwin and Morcar and establishes fortifications. The region is laid waste in an action known as ‘Harrying the North’.

1069 – Swen Estrithson of Denmark lands in the Humber and is welcomed by northern English earls who join him in expelling the Norman garrison at York. William marches north and reoccupies York

 1069 – In Shrewsbury a local rebellion against the Norman invaders was started but as more Norman reserves arrived the attackers set fire to many buildings as they fled from town.

1070 – Hereward the Wake leads a revolt against the Normans.

1071 – William defeats the revolt led by Hereward the Wake in East Anglia, thus putting an end to Saxon resistance to his rule.

1072 – William invades Scotland and compels Malcolm III to pay homage to him.

1073 – William suppresses rebellion in Maine in France

1075 – 1142, Orderic Vitalis, was born 16^th February 1075 in Atcham, Shropshire, England, the eldest son of a French priest, Odelerius of Orléans. His mother’s name is not known but she was said to be English. He was followed by his two younger brothers Benedict and Everard. His father, Odelerius had entered the service of Roger de Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and had received the gift of a chapel in St Peters Church, from his patron in 1082. Orderic, became an English chronicler and Benedictine monk who wrote one of the great contemporary chronicles of 11th and 12^th century Normandy and Anglo-Norman England. Working out of the Abbey of Saint-Evroul, Normandy, he is credited with writing the Historia Ecclesiastica, a work detailing the history of Europe and the Mediterranean from the birth of Jesus Christ into the twelfth century. He was born into a noble family, claiming both English and Norman heritage. While he is known primarily for the Historia Ecclesiastica, he was able to ascend to various positions within the church including script master, librarian, and cantor. A prolific writer, he addressed various topics in his writings, both religious and secular. Modern historians view him as a reliable source.[2]

1078 – Work begins on the Tower of London

[1] Roger of Montgomery accessed 21 August 2025

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orderic_Vitalis

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1079 – William begins the construction of a Norman Cathedral at Winchester.

1079 – Robert, William’s eldest son, leads a rebellion in Normandy, but is defeated by his father at the Battle of Gerberoi and his life is spared.

1083 – The Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery, founded a Benedictine Monastery on the site of a former church, now known as Shrewsbury Abbey, just outside the English Bridge.

1085 – William orders a survey of the shires of England; the information is recorded in the Domesday Book, which is completed the following year.

1086 – William writes to the Pope that England owes no allegiance to the Church of Rome

1086 – Domesday survey of England completed

1087 – William dies of his injuries after falling from his horse while besieging the French city of Mantes.

King William II Rufus (1087 – 1100)

1087 – William Il accedes to the throne on the death of his father, William I.

1088 – William crushes a baronial rebellion in Normandy led by his uncle, Odo of Bayeux. William’s brother, Robert, supports the claims of Normandy to the English throne.

1089 – Ranulf Flambard, leading adviser to William, is appointed Justiciar (the King’s judicial officer). He begins to levy heavy taxes on the church.

1090 – William leads an invasion of Normandy in an attempt to subdue his brother, Robert.

1091 – William defeats an invasion of England led by Malcolm III of Scotland.

1092 – Carlisle is captured from Scotland and Cumberland is annexed.

1093 – Malcolm III and the Scots invade England again, but they are defeated and Malcolm is killed at the Battle of Alnwick.

1095 – William suppresses revolt in Northumbria.

1095 – First Crusade begins following a call by Pope Urban II to help free the Holy Land which has been captured by Muslims.

1098 – William suppresses a Welsh rebellion against the Norman border lords.

1099 – The Crusaders take Jerusalem. The first Crusade ends.

1100 – William is killed by an arrow while out hunting in the New Forest. Supposedly an accident, it has been suggested that he was shot deliberately on the instructions of his brother Henry

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King Henry I (1100 – 1135)

1100 – Henry, succeeded his brother, William II.

1100 – Henry issues a Charter of Liberties, pledging good governance.

1100 – Henry marries Edith, known as Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland.

1101 – Robert of Normandy invades England in an attempt to wrest the English throne from his brother, Henry. After failing, he signs the Treaty of Alton, which confirms Henry as King of England and Robert as Duke of Normandy.

1106 – War breaks out between Henry and Robert. Henry defeats Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai, imprisons him in Cardiff Castle, and takes control of Normandy.

1118 – Death of Henry’s wife Matilda.

1120 – Henry’s son and heir, William, is drowned at sea when returning from Normandy in The White Ship which strikes a rock and sinks. Henry’s daughter, Matilda, becomes heir.

1121 – Henry marries Adelicia of Louvain

1126 – Henry persuades the barons to accept Matilda as his lawful successor to the throne.

1128 – Matilda, Henry’s only surviving legitimate child, marries Geoffrey, Count of Anjou.

1135 – Henry I, dies in Rouen, France, as a result of food poisoning

King Stephen (1135 – 1154)

1135 – Stephen usurps the throne from Matilda, Henry’s daughter.

1136 – The Earl of Norfolk leads the first rebellion against Stephen starting civil war known as ‘The Anarchy’.

1136 – Owain Gwynedd of Wales defeats the Normans at Crug Mawr, in the Black Mountains of the Brecon Beacons. Sometimes referred to as the Battle of Cardigan, it took place in September or October 1136, as part of a struggle between the Welsh and Normans for control of Ceredigion, West Wales.

1138 – Robert, Earl of Gloucester, an illegitimate son of Henry I, deserts Stephen and pledges allegiance to Matilda.

1138 – David I of Scotland, invades England in support of his niece, Matilda, but is defeated at Northallerton.

1139 – Matilda leaves France and lands in England.

1141 – Matilda’s forces take Stephen prisoner at the Battle of Lincoln, and Matilda is proclaimed queen.

1141 – Earl Robert is captured and exchanged for Stephen’s freedom.

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1145 – Stephen defeats Matilda’s forces at the Battle of Faringdon.

1147 – Matilda’s son Henry Plantagenet (later Henry II) invades England but runs out of money. Stephen pays for Henry’s return to Normandy

1148 – Matilda abandons her cause and leaves England. This marked the end of her campaign, known as the Anarchy.

1151 – Matilda’s husband Geoffrey of Anjou dies and their son, Henry Plantagenet, succeeds his father as Count of Anjou.

1153 – Henry lands in England again, and gathers support for further war against Stephen.

1153 – Henry and Stephen agree terms for ending the civil war. Under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster, Stephen is to remain King for life, but thereafter the throne passes to Henry.

1154 – Stephen dies.

King Henry II (1154 – 1189)

1154 – Henry II accedes to the throne at the age of 21 upon the death of his second cousin, Stephen.

1154 – Pope Adrian IV (born Nicholas Breakspear) becomes the first English Pope 1154-1159.

1155 – Henry appoints Thomas a Becket as Chancellor of England, a post that he holds for seven years.

1155 – Pope Adrian IV issues the papal bull Laudabiliter, which gives Henry dispensation to invade Ireland and bring the Irish Church under the control of the Church of Rome.

1162 – On the death of Archbishop Theobald, Henry appoints Thomas a Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury in the hope that he will help introduce Church reforms.

1164 – Henry introduces the Constitutions of Clarendon, which place limitations on the Church’s jurisdiction over crimes committed by the clergy. The Pope refuses to approve the Constitutions, so Thomas a Becket refuses to sign them.

1166 – The Assize of Clarendon establishes trial by jury for the first time.

1166 – Dermot McMurrough, King of Leinster in Ireland, appeals to Henry to help him oppose a confederation of other Irish kings. In response to the appeal, Henry sends a force led by Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, thereby beginning the English settlement of Ireland.

1168 – English scholars expelled from Paris settle in Oxford, where they found a university.

1170 – Pope Alexander III threatens England with an interdict and forces Henry to a formal reconciliation with Becket. However, the two of them quarrel again when Becket publishes papal letters voiding Henry’s Constitutions of Clarendon.

1170 – Becket is murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December by four of Henry’s knights.

1171 – Henry invades Ireland and receives homage from the King of Leinster and the other kings. Henry is accepted as Lord of Ireland.

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1171 – At Cashel Henry makes Irish clergy submit to the authority of Rome

1173 – Canonization of Thomas a Becket.

1173 – Eleanor of Aquitaine and her sons revolt unsuccessfully against her husband Henry II.

1174 – Henry’s sons Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey lead an unsuccessful rebellion against their father

1176 – Henry creates a framework of justice creating judges and dividing England into six counties

1185 – Lincoln cathedral is destroyed by an earthquake.

1189 – Henry dies at Chinon castle, Anjou, France

King Richard I The Lion Heart (1189 – 1199)

1189 – Richard I, becomes King of England upon the death of Henry II

1189 – William Longchamp is appointed Chancellor of England and governs the country during Richard’s absence abroad

1189 – Richard sets out with Philip of France on the Third Crusade to the Holy Land

1191 – William Longchamp falls from power and Richard’s brother, John, takes over the government

1191 – Richard captures the city of Acre, Palestine, and defeats Saladin at Arsuf, near Jaffa

1192 – Richard reaches an agreement with Saladin to guarantee Christians safe pilgrimage to Jerusalem

1192 – On his way back to England from Palestine, Richard is captured and handed over to Henry VI, Emperor of Germany. Henry demands a ransom of 100,000 marks from England for Richard’s release from prison

1194 – The ransom is raised in England. Richard is released from captivity.

1195 – Richard returns to England for a brief period, before leaving to fight in France, never to return to his homeland.

1196 – The Assize of Measures standardizes weights including the lb (pound) and distance including the yard.

1199 – Richard is mortally wounded by an arrow from a crossbow in battle at Chalus, in France.

King John (1199 – 1216)

1199 – John accedes to the throne on the death of his brother, Richard I.

1204 – England loses most of its possessions in France.

1205 – John refuses to accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury

1208 – Pope Innocent III issues an Interdict against England, banning all church services except baptisms and funerals

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1209 – Pope Innocent III excommunicates John for his confiscation of ecclesiastical property
1209 – Cambridge University founded
1211 –The Welsh uprising of 1211 was a rebellion by several Welsh princes, orchestrated by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, with primary support from Gwenwynwyn of Powys, Maelgwn ap Rhys, and Madog ap Gruffydd Maelor against King John of England. Although technically defeated, this uprising resulted in increased independence from England for the Welsh.
1212 – Innocent III declares that John is no longer the rightful King
1213 – John submits to the Pope’s demands and accepts the authority of the Pope
1214 – Philip Augustus of France defeats the English at the Battle of Bouvines
1215 – Beginning of the Barons’ war. The English Barons march to London to demand rights which they lay down in the Magna Carta. King John meets the English barons at Runnymede, agrees to their demands, and seals the Magna Carta which set limits on the powers of the monarch, lays out the feudal obligations of the barons, confirms the liberties of the Church, and grants rights to all freemen of the realm and their heirs for ever. It is the first written constitution.
1215 – The Pope decrees that John need not adhere to the Magna Carta, and civil war breaks out
1216 – The barons seek French aid in their fight against John. Prince Louis of France lands in England and captures the Tower of London
1216 – John flees North and loses his war chest of cash and jewels in the Wash estuary
1216 – John dies of a fever at Newark and is buried Worcester Cathedral
King Henry III (1216 – 1272)
1216 – Henry III is crowned King at the age of nine. England is ruled temporarily by two regents, Hubert de Burgh and William the Marshal
1217 – The French lose the battles of Lincoln and Dover and are driven back to France
1220 – Building of Salisbury cathedral begun
1222 – De Burgh successfully puts down an insurrection supporting the French king Louis Vlll’s claim to the throne
1227 – Henry takes full control of the government of England, but retains de Burgh as his main adviser
1232 – Hubert de Burgh is dismissed as adviser
1232- Near St Marys Water Lane, Dominican or Black Friars (Black was the colour of their habit) began to set up their Friary. In 1403, wounded from the Battle of Shrewsbury were brought here for care and it is reported that noblemen who fell in the battle were brought to the friary to be buried in consecrated ground. The friary closed in 1540. In 1801, the site was partially levelled and skeletons uncovered included a man of 7’ 2”.
1236 – Henry marries Eleanor of Provence

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1237 – The Treaty of York with Alexander II of Scotland agrees the border between England and Scotland

1238 – Simon de Montfort marries Henry’s sister, Eleanor

          – Henry III moved his retinue and army to Shrewsbury to campaign against Prince Llewellyn of Wales and he chose Shrewsbury Abbey to host the royal staff and the Exchequer and he called the barons and earls to a “parliament” that was held in the Chapter House.[1]

1240 – Henry’s Great Council is called ‘Parliament’ for the first time

1245 – Henry lays the foundation stone for the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey

William Vaughan a wealthy merchant gave expression to his wealth by building a fine town house or mansion in the centre of the town.^[2] Construction of Vaughan`s Mansion began in 1250 and was added to by 1350, it is typical of buildings from this time. It consisted of a first-floor communal living space, the hall, an under- croft and had other domestic buildings attached to its side. Originally the building was built in a ‘U’ or half ‘H’ shape around a courtyard, and stood in between Princess Street and College Hill in Shrewsbury. Part of the first-floor hall is now incorporated into the buildings of the Shrewsbury Museum in the Square.

1258 – The English barons, led by de Montfort, rebel against Henry’s mis-government. They present a list of grievances to Henry, who signs the Provisions of Oxford, which limit royal power

1261 – Henry repudiates the Provisions of Oxford

1264 – The Baron’s War breaks out. De Montfort defeats Henry at Lewes. Henry is captured.

1265 – Simon de Montfort summons the first directly elected English Parliament

1265 – Some of the barons break their alliance with de Montfort and, led by Prince Edward, kill him at the Battle of Evesham

1266 – The Dictum of Kenilworth restores Henry’s authority and annuls the Provisions of Oxford

1267 – In the Treaty of Montgomery, Henry recognizes Llewellyn ap Gruffydd as ruler of Wales

1267 – Henry proclaims all Shrewsbury Bailiffs free of tolls in all English towns as a thank you for the support he received from them in earlier years.

1272 – Henry III dies in the Palace of Westminster

King Edward I Longshanks (1272 – 1307)

1272 – Edward learns that he has succeeded to the throne on his way home from the Crusade

1274 – Edward is crowned in Westminster Abbey

[1] Cromarty D., Everyday Life in Medieval Shrewsbury (Shrewsbury, 1991)  p. 8.

[2] Thacker A.T. & Cromarty D., (Editors) with contribution by W.A. (Bill) Champion & Robert Cromarty in VCH Shropshire. Vol VI, Part 1, p. 57.

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1275 Roger Pride is described as a merchant that exported wool beyond the sea.

1282 – Edward invades North Wales and defeats Llewellyn ap Gruffydd the last ruler of an independent Wales

1283 – 1284 – Independence of the Welsh is ended by the Statute of Rhuddlan

1290 – Edward’s wife Eleanor dies at Harby in Nottinghamshire. Her body is brought back to London and a cross erected at each stop along the journey – Geddington, Hardingston, Waltham, and the most famous at Charing Cross.

1290 – One of the earliest surviving records of a loan to the crown of England dates from 13^th July in that year and shows that arrangements were made for Laurence de Ludlow to be repaid 1000 Marks by Riccardi on behalf of Edward I.

1292 – Edward chooses John Balliol to be the new King of Scotland

1294 – Madog ap Llywelyn, the then heir of Lord of Merioneth (Merionethshire) led a Welsh revolt in 1294–95 against English rule in Wales, and was proclaimed “Prince of Wales”. On 29 September 1294, Madog put himself at the head of a national revolt. The revolt was a response to new royal administrators in north and west Wales and the imposition of taxes such as that levied on one fifteenth of all movables. As a royal prince descended directly from Owain Gwynedd and a distant cousin of the last Prince of Aberffraw, Dafydd ap Gruffudd, the executed brother of Llywelyn), Madog declared himself to be the lawful successor and assumed the royal titles of his predecessors including that of Prince of Wales (an example of which can be seen in the so-called Penmachno Document). The uprising had been planned for months and attacks occurred on the same day across Wales. While Madog acted in the north, the attacks in mid and south Wales were led by Cynan ap Maredudd, Maelgwn ap Rhys, and Morgan ap Maredudd of Gwynllwg in Glamorgan. The rebel leaders hoped that by the end of September King Edward and most of his forces would be in France on a planned campaign. However, due to bad weather Edward’s army had not yet sailed and he quickly cancelled the French campaign to deal with the Welsh uprising.

1294 – Edward was under pressure again, with the prospect of war against France, and he proposed a seizure of wool. Understandably, this was far from popular with the wool-merchants. Laurence de Ludlow suggested instead an increase in customs duty to 40s per sack,  and further suggested this should be passed on to the wool-growers, believing that the market would pay the increase. The object of all this money-raising was to pay 10,000 marks to Edward`s allies the Count of Bar and the Archbishop of Cologne and Laurence was commissioned to help with the delivery. He set sail to deliver the marks and wool in late November 1294, but did not reach land because the fleet was driven back to the English coast at Aldeburgh, where he drowned on 26^th November 1294. His body was recovered and taken back to Ludlow for burial. Much of the cargo of wool was also recovered and sold. His widow took over the business for a while and then married Simon de Leybourne, lord of Berwick near Shrewsbury.^[1]

[1] The Drapers’ chapel in St Mary`s is also known as the de Leybourne Chapel after the family that built the chapel. The chapel contains a tomb which may contain the remains of Simon de Leybourne. Although his effigy portrays a soldier who went on crusade there is some doubt about this. (There is some debate as to whether crossed legs imply a crusader or someone who paid another to go on his behalf.) He acquired the Berwick estate by marriage, and later married his second wife, the widow of Laurence de Ludlow.

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 1295 – Model Parliament is summoned

1295 – John Balliol reneges on his allegiance to Edward and signs alliance with King Philip IV of France

1296 – Edward invades Scotland, defeats the Scots at Dunbar and deposes Balliol. He then takes over the throne of Scotland and removes the Stone of Scone to Westminster.

1297 – Scots rise against English rule and, led by William Wallace, defeat Edward at the Battle of Stirling Bridge

1298 – Edward invades Scotland again and defeats William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk

1299 – Edward marries Margaret of France

1301 – Edward makes his son Prince of Wales, a title conferred on every first born son of the monarchy ever since.

1305 – William Wallace is executed in London.

1306 – Robert Bruce is crowned King of Scotland

1307 – Edward attempts to invade Scotland again, but dies on his way north

King Edward II (1307 – 1327)

1307 – Edward II accedes to the throne on the death of his father, Edward I.

1308 – Edward’s favourite, Piers Gaveston, is exiled for misgovernment.

1309 – Gaveston returns from exile in France.

1310 – Parliament sets up a committee of Lords Ordainers to control the King and improve administration. The King’s cousin, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, takes control

1312 – Piers Gaveston is kidnapped by the King’s opponents and is put to death.

1313 – Richard Stury elected as MP for Shrewsbury for third time and elected mayor of the wool staple in St Omar in Flanders.

1314 – Edward and the English army are defeated at the Battle of Bannockburn by Robert Bruce. Scottish independence is assured

1316 – Llywelyn Bren was a nobleman who led a revolt in Wales in the reign of King Edward II of England. When he was commanded to appear before the king, Llywelyn raised an army of Welsh Glamorgan men which laid siege to Caerphilly Castle. The rebellion spread throughout the south Wales valleys and other castles were attacked, but this uprising only lasted a few weeks.

1320 – Welsh border barons, father and son, both named Hugh Despenser, gain the King’s favour,

1320 – The Scots assert their independence by signing the Declaration of Arbroath

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1326 – In recognition of its importance in the wool trade, Shrewsbury became one of nine wool-staple towns in England, and thereby was authorised to hold a market for the sale of wool.^[1]

1322 – Barons’ rebellion, led by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, is crushed at the Battle of Boroughbridge in Yorkshire.

1326 – Edward’s wife, Isabella, abandons him and with her lover, Mortimer, seizes power and deposes Edward. Hugh Despenser, 1st Baron Despenser, rose to national prominence as royal chamberlain and a favourite of Edward II of England. Despenser made many enemies amongst the nobility of England. After the overthrow of Edward, he was eventually charged with high treason and ultimately hanged, drawn and quartered.

1327 – Edward is formally deposed by Parliament in favour of Edward III, his son, and is murdered in Berkeley Castle on the orders of his wife, Isabella.

King Edward III (1327 – 1377)

1327 – Edward III accedes to the throne after his father, Edward II, is formally deposed.

1328 – Edward marries Phillipa of Hanault

1329 – Edward recognizes Scotland as an independent nation

1330 – Edward takes power after three years of government by his mother, Isabella of France, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. He imprisons his mother for the rest of her life.

1332 – Parliament is divided into two houses, Lords and Commons. English becomes the court language replacing Norman French.

By 1332, the London port records show that eleven Shrewsbury merchants exported a total of 361 sacks of wool at 26 stone per sack that equates to 9,386 stone or 60 tons.^[2] In a reorganisation, ordered by Edward III, Shrewsbury was again one of ten towns authorised to collect customs duty on wool and hides.^[3]

1333 – Defeat of Scottish army at Halidon Hill.

By 1334 Shrewsbury was ranked as seventh wealthiest provincial town in England and, as north and central Wales became more settled, the town was well placed to benefit yet further from the increased trade that resulted.^[4]      1336 – The Trinity Chapel in St Mary`s Church, Shrewsbury is enlarged and receives a bequest from Thomas de la Clyve, town clerk, as he bequeathed 2s. to the fraternity or Guild of the Holy Trinity

[1] Thacker A.T. & Cromarty D., (Editors) with contribution by W.A. (Bill) Champion & Robert Cromarty in VCH Shropshire. Vol VI, Part 1, p. 59.

[2] Thacker A.T. & Cromarty D., (Editors) with contribution by W.A. (Bill) Champion & Robert Cromarty in VCH Shropshire. Vol VI, Part 1, p. 59.

[3] Thacker A.T. & Cromarty D., (Editors) with contribution by W.A. (Bill) Champion & Robert Cromarty in VCH Shropshire. Vol VI, Part 1, p. 59.

[4] Baker N., Lecture notes taken by Nigel J. Hinton.

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The link between St Mary`s and the de Ludlowe family was further strengthened when a Nicholas de Ludlowe became the incumbent on 28^th January 1327.^[1]   

1337 – French King Philip VI annexes the English King’s Duchy of Aquitaine. Edward III responds by laying claim to the French crown as a grandson of Philip IV, though his mother Isabella. This results in the so called 100 Years’ War with France.

1344 – Edward establishes the Order of the Garter

1346 – David II of Scotland invades England but is defeated at Neville’s Cross and captured.

1346 – French defeated at the Battle of Crecy.

1347 – Edward besieges and captures Calais.

1348 – -1350 The Black Death, bubonic plague which caused the skin to turn black, kills one-third of the English population. It leaves an acute shortage of labour for agriculture and armies.

1349 – The market for all commodities reduced after the summer of 1349, when the Black Death came to Shrewsbury and with a subsequent outbreak in 1360; the population reduced from an estimated 4,400 – 5,500 to an estimated 3,100 – 3900 (and it was to fall further to 3,000 by 1520).^[2]

1356 – Black Prince defeats the French at Poitiers capturing King John II of France who is held prisoner for four years. Most of South Western France is now held by the English.

1357 – David II of Scotland is released from captivity and returns home to Scotland.

1360 – King John II of France is released on promise of payment of a ransom and leaving his son Louis of Anjou in English-held Calais as hostage.

1364 – Louis escapes and John unable to pay the ransom returns to England where he dies.

1367 – England and France support rival sides in the civil war in Castille

1369 – War breaks out again as the French take back Aquitaine.

1370 – Edward, The Black Prince, sacks Limoges massacring 3,000 people.

1372 – French troops recapture Poitou and Brittany. Naval Battle at La Rochelle.

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1372 –In Paris in May, Owain Lawgoch, Owen with the red hand, announced that he intended to claim the throne of Wales. Owain set sail from Harfleur with money borrowed from Charles V, Owain first attacked the island of Guernsey, and was still there when a message arrived from Charles ordering him to abandon the expedition in order to go to Castile to seek ships to attack La Rochelle.

1373 – John of Gaunt leads an invasion of France taking his army to the borders of Burgundy.

1373 – John of Gaunt returns to England and takes charge of government. Edward and his son are ill.

1375 – Treaty of Bruges. English possessions in France are reduced to the areas of Bordeaux and Calais.

1376 – Parliament gains right to investigate public abuses and impeach offenders; the first impeachment is of Alice Perrers, Edward’s mistress, and two lords.

1376 – Death of Edward, the Black Prince, one of the most successful English commanders during the Hundred Years’ War, being regarded by his English contemporaries as a model of chivalry and one of the greatest knights of his age. Edward was made Duke of Cornwall, the first English dukedom.

He died before he could follow his father so his son Richard succeeded.

1377 – Edward III dies of a stroke at Sheen Palace, Surrey, aged 64 years

King Richard II (1377 – 1399)

1377 – Ten-year-old Richard II succeeds his grandfather, Edward III; the kingdom is ruled at first by the King’s uncles, John of Gaunt and Thomas of Gloucester.

1380 – John Wycliffe begins to translate the New Testament from Latin into English.

1380 – A Poll Tax is levied, a shilling a head for the entire male population

1381 – Poll Tax leads to the Peasants’ Revolt. Watt Tyler and John Ball march on London.

1382 – Richard promises that the taxes will be repealed, but as the rebels return they are hunted and executed.

1382 – William of Wykeham founds Winchester College

1387 – Led by the Duke of Gloucester, the Lords Appellant control the government

1387 – The King visits Shrewsbury as part of a progress around the Marches, with the Duke of Gloucester. Prior to the visit The King had been stripped of some powers and privileges in the “Wonderful Parliament.”[3]

1388 – Scots defeat Henry Hotspur at the Battle of Otterburn

1389 – Richard takes control of the government; William of Wykeham is Lord Chancellor

1393 –There was a catastrophic fire, caused by a plumber working on old St Chad’s Church, which destroyed most of the properties in St Julian`s parish from Belmont to the Stone or English bridge. Ten years later, Frankwell a suburb outside the walls was fired as part of a defence strategy in the run-up to the Battle of Shrewsbury, fought just north of the town in 1403.^[4] It is not surprising that an economic down-turn hit Shrewsbury around this time and, added to these local difficulties, there was a shortage of credit. A petition to Parliament in 1407 asked for relief of taxes to ease the situation.^[5]

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1394 – Richard leads English army to reconquer west of Ireland.

1396 – Richard marries Isabella’s daughter of the King of France and signs a 28-year truce with France.

1397 – Richard takes revenge against Lords Appellant and exiles Henry Bolingbroke

1398 – Richard (Dick) Whittington of Gloucester, becomes Lord Mayor of London. In 1402, at the age of 48, he married Alice FitzWaryn (d.1411), but she died without producing any children. She was one of the two daughters and joint heiresses of Sir Ivo FitzWaryn (1347–1414), of Caundle Haddon in Dorset. He was a son of Sir William FitzWaryn, Knight of the Garter, of Whittington Castle in Shropshire, he was probably a son of Fulk FitzWarin, 3rd Baron FitzWarin (c.1315–1349), also of Whittington Castle in Shropshire.[6]

1399 – Bolingbroke becomes Duke of Lancaster on the death of John of Gaunt, but Richard seizes his possessions. Bolingbroke returns from exile to claim his inheritance and seizes the throne.

1399 – Richard, who is away fighting at Leinster in Ireland, returns, but is deposed and imprisoned in Pontefract Castle, where he dies, some suggest he was starved to death by 1400

King Henry IV (1399 – 1413)

1399 – Henry returns from exile in France to reclaim his estates seized by Richard II; he claims the throne and is crowned. His coronation was the first since the Norman Conquest in which the King’s address was in English instead of Norman French.

1400 – Richard dies of starvation in Pontefract Castle.

1400 – Death of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer leaving The Canterbury Tales unfinished.

1401 – Owain Glyndwr leads Welsh revolt against English rule

1402 – State visit to England of Manuel II, the Byzantine emperor.

1402 – Prequel to the Battle of Shrewsbury. King Henry and Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland had fallen out in the aftermath of the Battle of Homildon Hill in 1402, a victory over an invading Scottish army by an English force led by the earl of Northumberland which succeeded in capturing a large number of Scottish nobles. As was the tradition of the day, a captured nobleman could buy his freedom though a ransom, and Northumberland stood to make a large sum of money from his success. However, King Henry demanded the ransom, as the country was suffering a financial crisis, due to the chaotic state of affairs following the coup, wars in Wales and Scotland, and the disobedience of several parts of England and Wales as they were still loyal to the deposed (and murdered) Richard II.[7]

[1] Information panels in St Mary`s Church.

[2] Champion W.A. (Bill), VCH Shropshire Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 104. (The Black Death would have certainly reduced the demand for goods and services but further analysis of the remaining records is beyond the scope of this book).

[3] The late Pauline Fisk. https://mytonightfromshrewsbury.blogspot.com/ Friday 15 November 2013, Richard II & The Revenge Parliament in Shrewsbury.  Accessed 21 August 2025.

[4] Champion W.A. (Bill), VCH Shropshire Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 106.

[5] For more details of this dramatic time see Champion W.A. (Bill). VCH Shropshire Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 103-117.

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Whittington

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bramham_Moor#:

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1403 – First rebellion by the Percy family from Northumberland, defeated at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Prior to the battle the suburb of Frankwell was fired as a precaution.

1404 – Glyndwr makes a treaty with the French, who send an army in 1405 to support the rebellion against the English.

1405 – Second Percy rebellion takes place. Northumberland emerged again in 1405 to a further defeat, before attempting one last time to seize the throne, gathering together an army of lowland Scots and loyal Northumbrians and marching south once more toward York

1406 – Henry contracts a leprosy-like illness

1408 – Third Percy rebellion takes place. In 1407, Henry Percy decided to take a long holiday in Scotland for the sake of his health. He took Hotspur’s son with him. The earl returned to England, where he managed to get himself killed at the Battle of Bramham Moor near Tadcaster.  This was the final battle in the Percy family rebellion against cousin Henry IV.

1413 – Henry dies at Westminster, worn out by constant revolts and shortage of money.

King Henry V (1413 – 1422)

1413 – Henry accedes to the throne at the age of 25 upon the death of his father, Henry IV

1414 – Henry adopts the claims of Edward III to the French crown

1415 – Henry thwarts the Cambridge plot, an attempt by a group of nobles to replace him on the throne with his cousin, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.

1415 – Henry renews the war against France in order to win back territories lost by his ancestors. After a five-week siege, he captures Harfleur the leading port in north-west France.

1415 – Battle of Agincourt, at which 6,000 Frenchmen are killed, while less than 400 English soldiers lost their lives.

1416 – Death of Owain Glyndwr, leader of the Welsh revolt.

1420 – Henry marries Catherine, daughter of Charles VI. Under the treaty of Troyes, Henry will become King of France on the death of Charles VI.

1421 – Birth of Prince Henry, later Henry VI.

1422 – Henry V dies in France of dysentery before he can succeed to the French throne. King Charles VI of France dies the following month, leaving Henry VI, Henry’s 10-month-old son, as King of France and England.

King Henry VI (1422 – 1461)

1422 – Henry aged 8 months becomes King of England on the death of his father, Henry V, and then, two months later, King of France on the death of his grandfather, Charles VI.

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1422 – John, Duke of Bedford, is appointed Regent of France; Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, becomes Regent of England.

1429 – Henry VI is crowned King of England

1429 – The young peasant girl Joan of Arc begins her campaign to expel the English from France. She inspires the French army which relieves Orleans besieged by English troops.

1431 – The English capture Joan of Arc. She is burned at the stake as a witch and heretic in Rouen on 30 May. She was born c. 1412, Domrémy, Bar, Rouen. She was canonized May 16, 1920; feast day May 30; French national holiday, second Sunday in May. She remains a national heroine of France, a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years’ War. Captured a year afterward, Joan was burned to death by the English and their French collaborators as a heretic. She became the greatest national heroine of her compatriots.[1]

John Talbot, 1st earl of Shrewsbury was the chief English military commander against the French during the final phase of the Hundred Years` War.

1431 – Henry VI of England is crowned King of France in Paris

1437 – Henry personal rule of England

1440 – Eton college founded giving free education to 70 scholars

1444- Degory Watur, a draper, was licensed by the Dean of St Mary`s, John Burdet, ‘to build in the western side of the cemetery, but beyond the limits of the procession thereof, a certain almshouse’. The licence was examined and witnessed by the most important men of the parish, including Nicholas Stafford, whose tomb lies in St Mary`s Church. Degory and his wife moved into the almshouses and lived with the inmates and he spent time each day in prayer. In 1404 he was admitted to the Merchants Gild as a burgess of Shrewsbury, a year after the Battle of Shrewsbury, along with his father John del Watur, whom he had followed into the trade with his brothers Richard, John and William, they paid a fine, or entry fee of £2/6s/8d.^[2]

1445 – Henry marries Margaret of Anjou

1453 – End of 100 Years’ War. Gascony and Normandy fall to the French. England retains only Calais and The Channel Islands. Talbot acted impetuously rushing to relieve the besieged fortress of Castillon in July 1453. Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury impetuously attacked the enemy without waiting for artillery cover. He was killed in the battle—the last of the war—and soon thereafter the English yielded almost all their French possessions.[3]

1453 – Henry becomes mentally ill. Richard, Duke of York, is made Protector during Henry’s illness

1453 – Battle of Heworth between supporters of the Neville and Percy families marks the beginning of the feud between the Houses of York and Lancaster

[1] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Joan-of-Arc

[2] Owen & Blakeway., A history of Shrewsbury, Vol II Fraternity of the Trinity (London, 1825) p. 334. 

[3] https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Talbot-1st-earl-of-Shrewsbury

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1454 – Henry regains his senses but disaffected nobles take matters into their own hands. Supporters of the Dukes of York and Lancaster take sides.

1455 – Beginning of the ‘Wars of the Roses’. Duke of York is dismissed. York raises an army and defeats the King’s Lancastrian forces at the Battle of St. Albans. The Lancastrian leader, the Duke of Somerset, is killed. York takes over the government of England.

1457 – Henry unsuccessfully tries to broker peace between the Yorkists and Lancastrians.

When the so-called War of the Roses began in 1455, Degory Watur supported the House of York, and thereby gained protection from Edward Plantagenet, Earl of March. As a young man, Edward had lived in Ludlow Castle which was owned by his father, Richard Duke of York.

Edward was over six feet tall and became an excellent leader of men on the battlefield. Two years into the ‘Wars’, in 1457, Degory Watur granted the almshouses to Edward. This was more than an act of generosity; it was a strategic move. Edward, as the son of the Duke of York, was in line to be crowned and there was no harm in being owed favours by the heir to the throne.

1459 – War is renewed and the Lancastrians are defeated at Blore Heath, near Market Drayton, the Yorkists are then defeated at Ludford Bridge near Ludlow. Parliament declares York a traitor and he escaped to Ireland.

1460 – Yorkist army led by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, defeats Lancastrians at the Battle of Northampton. Henry VI is captured and his wife, Margaret, escapes to Scotland. Richard of York is again Protector.

1460 – Margaret raises a Lancastrian army in the north and defeats and kills Richard of York at Wakefield. Henry VI captured by the Yorkists at Northampton. Earl of Warwick takes London for the Yorkists.

1461 – 2nd February, Yorkists win Battle of Mortimers Cross, near Leominster.[1] Queen Margaret marches her army South, defeats Earl of Warwick at St Albans, and frees Henry. Edward, son of Richard of York, defeats Margaret’s Lancastrian forces on 29 March at the Battle of Towton – the largest and bloodiest battle ever on British soil when 28,000 lose their lives. Margaret and Henry flee to Scotland. Henry is deposed by Edward who declares himself King Edward IV

King Edward IV (1461-1483)

1461 – Edward, son of Richard of York, is declared king by the Earl of Warwick following the Yorkist victory at the Battle of Towton.1462 – Degory Watur, travelled to London to apply to Edward IV for a charter that linked the Drapers Guild and the Guild of the Holy Trinity in St Mary`s.^[2] His strategy succeeded. The Shrewsbury Drapers Company was incorporated by charter signed by Edward IV on 12^th January 1462.In the charter they were given the title ‘A Fraternity or Gild of the Holy Trinity of the Men of the Mystery of Drapers in the town of Salop’. The title expresses the important religious aspect of the grant: under the terms of the charter, the Guild was required to appoint a chantry priest to say

[1]https://www.historyhit.com/locations/battle-of-mortimers-cross/ Accessed 22 August 2025

[2] The Guild of the Holy Trinity was established by 1336 in St Mary`s Church

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‘Mass for the Guild and to pray for the souls of Richard, Duke of York, and his son Edmund, Earl of Rutland’, both of whom had been killed in battles with the Lancastrians.^[1] 

1462 – Lancastrian revolts are suppressed.

1464 – Warwick defeats Lancastrians at Battle of Hexham; Henry VI is captured and brought to the Tower of London.

1464 – Edward marries, in secret, Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of a commoner, offending Warwick and society.

1469 – Warwick falls out with Edward IV, and defeats him at Edgecote. They are later reconciled but Warwick is banished. He makes peace with Margaret, returns to England with an army, and Edward flees to Flanders.

1470 – 3 October Henry VI is restored to the throne.

On hearing this news, local supporters of the House of Lancaster sprang into action, led by the Dowager Countess of Shrewsbury with support from Alan Stury. (Some time previously, Alan’s brother John had bequeathed his goods to Alan, but only on condition that Alan founded a chantry in St Mary’s Church). Alan and the Countess now seized the Drapers lands, the almshouses and the Trinity Chapel – to use as a chantry for the memory of John Stury.

1471 – the pendulum of power swung yet again. Edward IV returned, supported by his brother Richard Duke of Gloucester and they killed Warwick and defeated the Lancastrians at the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury. Henry VI was executed in the Tower of London.

With Edward reinstated, on 11^th April 1471, the Drapers took back their property and removed the Dowager Countess from Shrewsbury. Degory again sought protection from Edward. In a letter to Edward, he dictated: ‘the said Degory is fallen blind by Gode`s visitation and may not labour’. He requested that the Countess and Stury should desist from their claims to the Drapers’ Chapel, property and almshouses, and it was so ordered by Edward IV.

Degory Watur died in 1477, pious as ever. He left his goods to his heirs and ‘20s. yearly rent to the wardens of the crafte of Drapers for reprecions of the lights on Corpus Christie daie, and that his heirs use all his remaining possessions to fynde an honest and virtuous prieste to celebrate in the Leybourne chappell in St Mary`s Church for the salvation of my soule, the said rents shall sufficientlie sustaine poore people in an allmes house called St Mary allmes house’. He would have been in his nineties when he died, if one assumes that he was aged about twenty when he became a burgess. The exact position of his grave is unknown but he was buried in St Mary`s churchyard.^[2]

1471 – Margaret is defeated at the Battle of Tewkesbury and the Lancastrian heir, Prince Edward, is killed. Soon after, Henry VI is murdered in the Tower of London.

1472 – Edward sets up The Council of Marches and Wales with full authority to manage and control the principality of Wales and the border counties of England. They council met in Ludlow Castle and also met for a term in the Council House in Shrewsbury.

[1] Writing in 1896 in the Transactions of the TSAS Vol.VIII on page 175, the Rev C.H.Drinkwater stated that the ‘Ancient Charter’ had been destroyed by fire and that an office copy in English had been made from the records which had been deposited in the Tower of London.

[2] Owen and Blakeway History of Shrewsbury has been the main source for this section.

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1473 – Elizabeth Woodville was visiting Shrewsbury when her second son Richard of Shrewsbury, later Duke of York was born in the Dominican Friary at the bottom of in Water Lane. It is said Edward IV was with her and he had been recommended to the Dominican Friary as it was a safe place for a child to be born.

1474 – Edward grants privileges to the Hanseatic League of North German trading cities to conduct trade in England.

1476 – William Caxton sets up a printing press in Westminster, London

1478 – Edward falls out with his brother George, Duke of Clarence, who is then murdered in the Tower, supposedly in a butt of malmsey wine.

1483 – Death of Edward.

King Edward V (1483)

1483 – On the death of Edward, the crown passes to his 12-year-old son, Edward V

1483 – Edward is declared illegitimate and deposed in favour of his uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester.

1483 – Edward and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury Duke of York were imprisoned in the Tower of London. After a few months the princes disappear and are never seen again. It is believed they were murdered, on the orders of their uncle who became Richard III.

However, Phillipa Langley, a Ricardian who believes the story that Richard III murdered the princes is Tudor propaganda. She presented a TV program that suggested the princes survived and that Perkin Warbeck was indeed Richard of Shrewsbury as he claimed. The evidence was submitted to Judge Rinder who came to the conclusion, based on evidence collected from all over Europe that her proposition was correct.

King Richard III (1483 – 1485)

1483 – Richard III declares himself King after confining and possibly ordering the murder of his two nephews, Edward V and Richard Duke of York, in the Tower of London

1483 – The Duke of Buckingham is appointed Constable and Great Chamberlain of England

1483 – In October Richard crushes a rebellion led by his former supporter, the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham is captured, tried, and put to death, see 1485.Thomas Mytton, was elected bailiff of Shrewsbury 11 times between1464-1504,^[1] and acquired the Marcher Lordship of Mawddwy.^[2]  He became MP for Shrewsbury in 1472.^[3] Sheriff of Shropshire in 1483.

[1] Leighton W.A. Early Chronicles of Shrewsbury transcribed and annotated from Dr Taylor`s manuscript. Transactions May 1880, p239.

[2] VCH Shropshire. Thacker A.T., Cromarty D., contributions by Champion W.A., Cromarty R. in A History of Shropshire Vol VI, Part 1. (London, 2014) p. 90.

[3] Nimrod. Life of Mytton (London,1837) p.2. 

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This was a high point in his glittering career as whilst he was high-sheriff of Shropshire. He took part in the capture of the rebel Henry de Stafford, Duke of Buckingham and was rewarded with a generous gift from Richard III, of Caus Castle, previously owned by Buckingham.
1483 – At the cathedral of Rheims, Henry Tudor swears a solemn oath to marry Elizabeth of York in the presence of the Lancastrian Court in exile.
1484 – Richard establishes his military headquarters behind the battlements of Nottingham Castle.
1484 – Death of Richard’s only son and heir, Edward, aged 9 years.
1484 – A Papal Bull is issued against witchcraft.
1484 – Parliamentary statutes are written down in English for the first time and printed.
1485 – Death of Richard’s wife, Queen Anne.
1485 – Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, lands with soldiers at Milford Haven in West Wales in early August and gathers support as the Lancastrian claimant to the Yorkist-held throne.
Thomas Mytton became renowned for a well-known exercise in diplomacy, when he had to face a dramatic dilemma over his loyalty to Richard III, in 1485. There was a serious threat to the security of Shrewsbury when the army headed by Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, approached the town from Wales. Thomas had said earlier that Henry Tudor would only enter the town over his body. As the army approached closer Thomas gave instructions for the gates to be locked to keep Henry Tudor out.
When Henry Tudor duly arrived, he could not gain entrance, so he retired to regroup. But naturally he returned with his army the next day in a more belligerent mood and was determined to take Shrewsbury by force if necessary. The dilemma was to save the town or remain loyal to Richard and Thomas produced an elegant solution. He said that if the troops promised to behave well and agreed not to ransack the town, he would let them enter. He then lay down and Henry Tudor stepped over him and honour was satisfied as Thomas kept his oath of loyalty to Richard III.
1485 – Richard was defeated and killed by Henry Tudor’s army at Bosworth Field. The Wars of the Roses and the Plantagenet dynasty come to an end. Richard’s body is taken to Leicester where it is buried at Greyfriars Church.
His grave is rediscovered beneath a car park 527 years later in 2012 and his bones reburied in Leicester Cathedral in March 2015.
King Henry VII (1485 – 1509)
1485 – Henry becomes King after defeating Richard III of York at the Battle of Bosworth Field. The Wars of the Roses are ended.

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1486 – Henry marries Elizabeth of York, thereby uniting the houses of York and Lancaster.

1487 – Henry crushes a revolt by the Earl of Lincoln on behalf of Lambert Simnel, a claimant to the throne, at Stoke. The imposter had claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.

Abbot Thomas Mynde of St Peter`s, the Abbey Church, when he was granted a Royal license to found a perpetual fraternity in St Winifred`s honour.^[1] Thomas Mytton was one of the first to join the fraternity of St Winifred founded on 9 February 1487.

1491 – Henry invades France, but at the Treaty of Etaples he agrees to withdraw English forces in return for a large sum of money

1492 – Perkin Warbeck, an imposter who claimed he was Richard Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower attempts to overthrow Henry, but is defeated and put to death in 1499.

[1] Coulton B. Regime & Religion Shrewsbury 1400-1700 (Almeley, 2010) p.26.

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1492 – Christopher Columbus crosses Atlantic and lands in San Salvador, Cuba and Haiti which he calls the ‘West Indies’ in the belief that he has sailed around the World to India.

1497 – John Cabot sails west from Bristol on the Matthew and discovers New-found-land. He believed it was Asia and claimed it for England.

1499 – Perkin Warbeck is hanged in the Tower of London. The Earl of Warwick is also executed.

1500 – Richard Mytton MP (1500-1591) was born this year. A trained lawyer he became MP for Devises in 1529, later he was elected seven times for local seats. He became an alderman of Shrewsbury in 1538 and was a bailiff six times, also high sheriff of Salop and Merioneth. He acquired Halston by exchange of lands in 1551, this remained the home of this branch of Mytton until 1847.

1501 – In December, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, marries Prince Arthur, Henry’s eldest son. As was the then custom they lived in Ludlow Castle.

1502 – Prince Arthur dies, and Prince Henry (the future Henry VIII) becomes heir to the throne, later marrying Arthur’s widow, Catherine of Aragon in 1509. She returned to spend three winters between 1525 – 1528

1503 – Margaret, Henry’s daughter marries James IV of Scotland. The marriage gives James’ descendants a claim to the English throne.

1503 – Death of Elizabeth of York, Henry’s wife.

1509 – Henry VII dies at Richmond Palace, at the age of 52.

King Henry VIII (1509 – 1547)

1509 – Henry accedes to the throne on the death of his father, Henry VII.

1509 – Henry marries Catherine of Aragon, daughter of the Spanish King and Queen, and widow of his elder brother, Arthur

1511 – Henry joins the Holy League against the French. All men under the age of 40 are required to practise archery.

1513 – The English defeat the Scots at the Battle of Flodden Field. James IV of Scotland is killed.

1515 – Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, becomes Chancellor and Cardinal.

1516 – Catherine gives birth to Princess Mary (later Mary I).

1517 – Martin Luther publishes his 95 theses against the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church.

1518 – The Pope and the Kings of England, France, and Spain pledge peace in Europe

1520 – Henry holds peace talks with Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, but fails to get support against Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire.

1525 – Hampton Court Palace is completed. William Tyndale publishes The New Testament in English.

1526 – Cardinal Wolsey re-establishes the Council of the North

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1526 – Princes Mary visited the Old house on Dogpole- with interesting star-shaped chimneys and with a build date of the late 1490s Anthony Rocke, resided here. He was the servant of Catherine of Aragon, from whom he received £20 in her will. It was here the Princess Mary Tudor, aged ten, later Queen Mary, is supposed to have lodged in 1526, on her way to Ludlow castle to see her mother Catherine of Aragon. It is suggested the Rocke family had painted on a canvas covering the drawing room walls, the Tudor rose, a crown and a pomegranate. Other sources say Sir Thomas Bromley, a member of the council of the Marches, resided in the House from the late 1540s until his death in 1555. It has a very interesting carved wood mantlepiece dated 1553 and oak panelling throughout. In recent times it was left to the Shrewsbury Civic Society but now it has returned to private ownership.

1527 – Henry seeks permission from the Pope to divorce Catherine of Aragon but is refused.

1529 – Cardinal Wolsey is accused of high treason for failing to get the Pope’s consent for the divorce, but dies before he can be brought to trial.

1529 – Sir Thomas More becomes Chancellor. Henry starts to cut ties with the Church of Rome.

1531 – The appearance in the sky of Halley’s comet causes widespread panic and talk of holy retribution

1532 – Sir Thomas More resigns from the Chancellorship over the erosion of Papal authority.

1533 – Thomas Cranmer is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and annuls Henry’s 24-year marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

1533 – Henry marries Anne Boleyn.

1533 – Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth I) is born.

1533 – Pope Clement VII excommunicates Henry

1534 – The Act of Supremacy is passed, establishing Henry as head of the Church of England.

1535 – Sir Thomas More is executed after refusing to recognize Henry as Supreme Head of the Church of England.

1535 – Thomas Cromwell is made Vicar-General and starts plans to seize the Church’s wealth.

1535 – First complete English translation of the Bible by Miles Coverdale

1536 – Anne Boleyn is executed and Henry marries Jane Seymour

1536 – The Act of Union between Wales and England.

1536 – Thomas Cromwell begins the dissolution of the monasteries under the ‘Reformation’. .

1536 – Great northern rising, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace against the dissolution of monasteries.

1537 – Jane Seymour dies giving birth to Edward (later Edward VI).

1539 – Parliament passes the Act for the ‘Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries’. The abbots of Colchester, Glastonbury and Reading are executed for treason.

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1540 – The last of the monasteries to be dissolved was Waltham Abbey.

1540 – Henry marries Anne of Cleves in January but the marriage was annulled in July

1540 – Execution of Thomas Cromwell on a charge of treason.

1540 – Henry married Catherine Howard.

1541 – Beginning of the Reformation in Scotland under John Knox.

1542 – Catherine Howard is executed for treason.

1542 – James V of Scotland dies and was succeeded by his 6 day old daughter Mary Queen of Scots.

1543 – Henry marries the twice-widowed Catherine Parr, his sixth and last wife.

1543 – Treaty of Greenwich proposes marriage between Henry’s son Edward and Mary Queen of Scots. However, it was repudiated by the Scots 6 months later who wanted an alliance with France.

1545 – Henry’s flagship The Mary Rose sank in the Solent

1546 – Henry becomes increasingly ill with what is now believed to be syphilis and cirrhosis.

1547 – Death of Henry at the age of 55, survived by Catherine Parr

King Edward VI (1547 – 1553)

1547 – Edward VI accedes to the throne at the age of nine after the death of his father, Henry VIII. He was guided by a group or council set up by Henry VIII.

1547 – Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, uncle of Edward VI, was invested as Duke of Somerset and Protector of England.

1547 – The English army defeats the Scots at Pinkie Cleugh, Musselburgh, as part of an attempt to force a marriage between Edward VI and Mary Queen of Scots.

1548 – The French send over 6,000 troops to prevent the English from gaining control of the Scottish Borders.

1549 – The First Act of Uniformity is passed, making the Roman Catholic mass illegal. The clergy are ordered to remove icons and statues of the saints, and whitewash over wall paintings.

1549 – The First Book of Common Prayer was introduced, which changes the Church service from Latin to English.

1549 – Armed rebellions in the West Country against religious reform, and in Norfolk against land enclosures. The Norfolk rebellion led by Robert Kett takes Norwich but was defeated by the Earl of Warwick at Dussindale, near Norwich.

1550 – The Duke of Somerset was deposed as Protector of England, and was replaced by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who creates himself Duke of Northumberland.

1552 – The Duke of Somerset was executed

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1552 – Shrewsbury School was founded by Edward VI.

1552 – Archbishop Cranmer published the Second book of Common Prayer.

1553 – The Duke of Northumberland persuaded Edward to nominate his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey as his heir, in an attempt to secure the Protestant succession.

1553 – Edward VI died of tuberculosis at Greenwich Palace.

Queen Mary I (1553 – 1558)

1553 – Lady Jane Grey is proclaimed Queen by her father-in-law The Duke of Northumberland. After nine days, Mary arrives in London, Lady Jane Grey is arrested, and Mary is crowned Queen.

1554 – After Mary declared her intention to marry Philip of Spain, Sir Thomas Wyatt leads a revolt to depose her.

1554 – Wyatt’s rebellion is crushed. Sir Thomas Wyatt, Lady Jane Grey, and her husband are executed.

1554 – Mary’s half-sister Princess Elizabeth was sent to the Tower of London on suspicion of involvement in Wyatt’s rebellion

1554 – Mary married Philip of Spain heir to the Spanish throne.

1554 – Four months after Mary’s accession, Parliament meets to re-establish Catholicism in England

1554 – The persecution of Protestants began, the heresy laws are revived, and England is reconciled to Papal authority.

1555 – Protestant bishops are burned at the stake for heresy.

1555 – Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth I) is released from the Tower of London

1556 – Cardinal Reginald Pole is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

1556 – Thomas Cranmer, former Archbishop of Canterbury, is burned at the stake for heresy.

1556 – Philip becomes King Philip II of Spain; he leaves England, never to return

1557 – Philip II persuades Mary to declare war on France as an ally of Spain.

1558 – Port of Calais, the last English possession in France, is captured by the French.

1558 – Mary dies at St. James’s Palace, London.

Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603)

1558 – Elizabeth becomes Queen on the death of her half-sister, Mary. 1559 – Elizabeth is crowned Queen of England at Westminster Abbey in January

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1559 – Mary Queen of Scots in Paris declares herself Queen of France, Scotland and England when her husband Francis becomes King of France. He dies a year later and Mary returns to Scotland.

1559 – Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity restore the Protestant Church in England and make Elizabeth Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

1559 – The Revised Prayer Book of Elizabeth I is issued. It is less extreme than its predecessors

1560 – Elizabeth founds Westminster School

1562 – Hawkins and Drake make first slave-trading voyage to America.

1562 – Elizabeth gives aid to the Protestant Huguenots in the French Wars of Religion. English troops occupy Dieppe and Le Havre.

1563 – John Foxe’s The Book of Martyrs, the story of religious persecution, is published in England.

1563 – -1564 17,000 die of the Plague in London which is believed to have been brought back by troops returning from Le Havre.

1564 – Peace made between England and France at Troyes.

1565 – Sir Walter Raleigh brings potatoes and tobacco from the New World

1566 – Elizabeth forbids Parliament to discuss her marriage prospects.

1568 – Mary Queen of Scots, flees to England from Scotland and is imprisoned by Elizabeth.

1569 – Elizabeth I, approves Sunday sports

1570 – Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth from the Catholic Church.

1575/6 Drapers` Hall was built for The Shrewsbury Drapers`Company. Each member continued to trade on their own behalf as the drapers were not a trading company like for example, the East India Company. After a particularly profitable period following the Wool Act of 1566, the Company decided the old Hall of 1485 should be improved and so a new hall was built on the same site in 1575/6. From this new ‘headquarters’ the Drapers Company would be able to continue its domination of the town and the Guild would become yet more attractive to prominent men. Ever socially aspirant, the Drapers aimed to recruit their members from town and country, from burgesses, yeomen and from the ranks of the gentry. The new Drapers` Hall would make a statement and it would be in the most fashionable style available at the time, constructed with a timber frame with features in the so-called ‘Shrewsbury style’ of carpentry. The Hall has been rebuilt and refurbished and the Guild revived following the demise of trade in the very early nineteenth century when there were just a handful of trustees looking after the almshouses and the Hall which was let out to businesses and private tenants. Currently The Hall is let to Rhubarb, a family hotel and restaurant, the rent provides funds to maintain the building. The modern guild meets here for feasts and dines on original seventeenth century tables.

1577 – – 1580 Francis Drake sails around the world in the Golden Hind.

1579 – Francis, Duke of Alencon, secretly comes to England to try and marry Elizabeth.

1581 – Sir Francis Drake knighted by Queen Elizabeth on the deck of The Golden Hind.

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1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh founds the first American colony and names it Virginia after Elizabeth the Virgin Queen

1584 – Oakham School founded by Archdeacon Robert Johnson

1585 – William Shakespeare leaves Stratford for London to become an aspiring playwright

1586 – Babington Catholic plot to assassinate Elizabeth I

1586 – Mary Queen of Scots, who had fled from Scotland to England, is implicated in the Babington plot and is sent to trial.

1587 – Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed at Fotheringhay Castle on charges of treason.

1587 – Drake attacks the Spanish fleet in Cadiz.

1587 – Raleigh’s second expedition to New World lands in North Carolina. Drake destroys the Spanish fleet at Cadiz.

1588 – Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and a favourite of Elizabeth, dies.

1588 – John Perche, a draper and three times bailiff of the town, bought the house in 1581 for £43.10s. It is essentially a 16^th century house on a burgage plot, which would have fronted onto Castle Street. The walls are jettied at both first and second floor and are close studied.   The ground floor has been underfilled with brick. As bailiff he had to take a muster of all guild members, which was done again in 1588. Had the Spanish landed the men and women of Shrewsbury had to join with others to protect Queen Elizabeth I. The muster role is an interesting piece of social history which includes names of the members of the guild with details of their arms, armour and weapons, many of which were modified agricultural hand tools. Widows are included in the muster as they were allowed to take over their husbands businesses after death, usually for a limited time, the downside being they had to muster and risk their lives.

1588 – A Spanish Armada of 130 ships sailing against England is defeated by bad weather and the English fleet under Admiral Drake and John Hawkins using fireships. Many were wrecked trying to return by sailing round the north of the British Isles. The English dominance of the sea leaves the way open for English trade and colonisation of America and India.

1588 – Earl of Essex leads an expedition to Ireland.

1589 – An English Counter-Armada of around 140 ships under Drake sails for Spain aiming to destroy the remaining Spanish ships and install English influence in Portugal and the Azores. The expedition is a disaster. 40 ships and 15,000 men are lost.

1589 – John Harrington invents the first flushing water closet at his house at Kelston, Bath. He calls it ‘Ajax’ a pun on the Elizabethan slang word ‘Jakes’ for a privy. Elizabeth I orders a Harrington WC to be installed at Richmond Palace.

1590 – Shakespeare writes Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

1593 – 15,000 Londoners die of the Plague. All theatres are closed for one year. Playwright Christopher Marlow is murdered.

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1595 – Sir Walter Raleigh makes his first expedition to the South American continent. He explores 300 miles of the Orinoco searching for El Dorado.

1599 – Earl of Tyrone leads a rebellion against the English in Ireland.

1599 – The Globe Theatre is opened in London.

1600 – East India Company founded

1601 – Earl of Essex is executed for leading a revolt against Elizabeth.

1601 – Poor Law is passed introducing a poor relief rate on property owners.

1601 – First performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

1603 – Elizabeth I, dies at Richmond Palace, Surrey.

King James I (1603 – 1625)

1603 – James VI of Scotland becomes King James I of England, Scotland, and Ireland after the death of Elizabeth I uniting the thrones of Scotland and England.

1603 – The Millenary Petition is presented to James I. It expresses Puritan desires for reforms to the Church of England.

1603 – Plot against James to set his cousin Arabella Stuart on the throne. Sir Walter Raleigh is implicated and imprisoned.

1604 – The Somerset House Peace Conference results in peace between England and Spain.

1604 – The Hampton Court Conference fails to settle the doctrinal differences between the Anglican Church and its Puritan critics.

1604 – James proclaims that smoking is harmful to the lungs and imposes a tax on tobacco

1605 – Guy Fawkes and other Catholic dissidents attempt to blow up King and Parliament in The Gunpowder Plot. They are betrayed and arrested.

1606 – The Gunpowder plotters are executed. 120 colonists sail for America.

1607 – The Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell end their rebellion against English rule of Ireland and flee to Europe; Ulster is colonized by Protestant settlers from Scotland and England.

1607 – The English Parliament rejects Union with Scotland.

1607 – Common citizenship of English and Scottish persons is granted to those born after the accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne.

1607 – Jamestown found in America by the Virginia company

1609 – Scottish and English Protestants are encouraged to settle in Ulster

1609 – Shakespeare completes the Sonnets.

1611 – The King James Authorized Version of the Bible is published.

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1611 – Dissolution of the first Parliament of James I.

1611 – Arabella Stuart secretly marries William Seymour. When James finds out Seymour is imprisoned but escapes with Arabella. They are captured on the way to France and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Arabella starves herself to death there in 1615.

1612 – Henry, Prince of Wales, dies of typhoid. His younger brother, Charles, becomes heir to the throne.

1612 – Heretics are burned at the stake for the last time in England.

 One of the last was a former Draper, John Barnes Wightman, free of the Company in 1590. originally from Burton on Trent his mother had family connections in Shrewsbury where he was an apprentice of John Barnes. In 1611, he was tried in the Consistory Court in Lichfield, found guilty, and sentenced to burn. Full story in ODNB.

1613 – James’ daughter Elizabeth marries Frederick V, Elector of Palatine. Their descendants in House of Hanover will eventually inherit the British Throne.

1613 – The Globe Theatre in London burns during a performance of Henry VIII

1614 – Second Parliament of James I meet.

1614 – Scottish mathematician John Napier publishes his theory of logarithms simplifying calculations for navigators.

1615 – George Villiers becomes James’s favourite.

1616 – Playwright William Shakespeare dies.

1616 – Raleigh is released from prison to lead an expedition to Guiana in search of El Dorado

1617 – George Villiers becomes the Earl of Buckingham.

1618 – Raleigh fails in his expedition and on his return is executed for alleged treason at Westminster.

1620 – The Pilgrim Fathers set sail for America in the Mayflower. They land at Cape Cod and found New Plymouth.

1620 – The Gatehouse to the Council House wasrebuilt or refurbished in 1620, it is carved with elaborate ornamentation and is considered an architectural gem and is one of the most photographed buildings in the town.   It leads, under the arch, to the cobbled courtyard and the Old Council (of the Marches) House, which would have been guarded, when the King, or the Council of Wales and the Marches, founded in 1472 by Edward IV, was in residence. Whilst having many of the Shrewsbury School motifs it also has more up to-date renaissance features and the whole building is worthy of a close study.  On the front of the gatehouse is a fire-mark from the Shropshire and North Wales insurance Company.

               Beyond the gateway is the Old Council House where the Council of Marches members met when they visited Shrewsbury for one term each year from its main meeting place in Ludlow Castle.   Built in 1465/75 with the main hall in 1501 it consisted of two hall houses at right angles to each other.

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The Council was dissolved in 1689. and the building has been used for many years as private residences which have been sensitively modernised.  

1625 – Death of James I, aged 58.

King Charles I (1625 – 1649)

1625 – Charles I, succeeds his father, James I.

1626 – Parliament attempts to impeach the Duke of Buckingham and is dissolved by Charles.

1627 – England goes to war with France, but at La Rochelle the Duke of Buckingham fails to relieve the besieged Huguenots.

1628 – The Petition of Right a declaration of the “rights and liberties of the subject” is presented to the King, who agrees to it under protest.

1628 – Physician William Harvey demonstrates the circulation of blood in the body

1629 – Charles dissolves Parliament and rules by himself until 1640.

1630 – The colony of Massachusetts is founded in America

1633 – Work begins on the building which is now Buckingham Palace in London

1637 – Charles tries to force new prayer book on Scots, who resist by signing the National Covenant.

1638 – Thomas Jones, a Draper since 1592, became the first mayor of Shrewsbury nominated by King Charles I, having also granted the town a new charter setting up the mayoralty. Jones had been a bailiff six times, and also High Sheriff of Shropshire and chief magistrate. Thomas Jones and his wife portraits can be seen in the Shrewsbury Museum.

1639 – Act of Toleration in England established religious toleration

1640 – Charles summons the Short Parliament, which he dissolves three weeks later when it refuses to grant him money.

1640 – Long Parliament summoned, which lasts until 1660. It can only be dissolved by its members.

1641 – Abolition of the Star Chamber and Court of High Commission.

1642 – Charles fails in his attempt to arrest five MPs.

1642 – Outbreak of Civil War. Charles raises his standard at Nottingham. He heads west gathering an army and stops at Wellington and Shrewsbury. He gathers funds and soldiers and borrows money from Shrewsbury School.

 The Royalists win a tactical victory the Parliamentary army at the Battle of Edgehill but the outcome is inconclusive.

1643 – Royalists defeat Parliamentary army at Chalgrove Field, and take Bristol. Battle of Newbury is indecisive.

1644 – York is besieged by Parliamentary army until relieved by Prince Rupert. Royalists defeated at Marston Moor.

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1644 – Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans enforce and Act of Parliament banning Christmas Day celebrations

1645 – Parliament creates New Model Army, which defeats the Royalist army at Naseby on 16 June.

1646 – Charles surrenders to the Scots, who hand him over to Parliament.

1646 – Negotiations take place between King and Parliament. King conspires with Scots to invade England on his behalf.

1647 – Charles escapes to the Isle of Wight but is captured. He is tried by Parliament and found guilty of high treason.

1648 – A Scots army supporting Charles is defeated at Preston.

1649 – Charles I, is executed. After which there is 11 years of rule by Parliament as the Commonwealth under Cromwell.

King Charles II (1660 – 1685)

1651 – Charles II escapes to Boscobel House. After losing the disastrous battle at Worcester on Wednesday 3rd September Charles II fled and after various close encounters with Parliamentary forces arrived at Boscobel around 3am on the Saturday 6^th to find one of Charles’s officers from Worcester, Colonel Carlis, already hiding in the house. At daybreak Charles and Carlis climbed into a great oak tree in the wood 150 yards or so from the house, where they stayed all day. They took bread, cheese and beer with them and the thick, bushy tree gave them a view in all directions. Presently they saw Roundhead soldiers searching the wood, but fortunately the soldiers did not spot the fugitives.

1658 – Death of Oliver Cromwell. He is succeeded by his son Richard Cromwell

1659 – Richard Cromwell is forced to resign. The Rump Parliament is restored.

1660 – Charles II returns to England from Holland and is restored to the throne.

1662 – Act of Uniformity compels Puritans to accept the doctrines of the Church of England or leave the church.

1662 – Royal Society for the improvement of science founded

1664 – England seizes the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, changing its name to New York.

1665 – Outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

1665 – The Great Plague strikes London and over 60,000 people die.

1666 – The Great Fire of London rages for four days and three nights. Two thirds of central London is destroyed and 65,000 people are left homeless.

1667 – The Earl of Clarendon is replaced by a five-man Cabal.

1667 – Paradise Lost by John Milton published

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1667 – A Dutch fleet sails up the River Medway captures the English flagship The Royal Charles and sinks three other great ships

1670 – Secret Treaty of Dover, by which Charles agrees to declare himself a Catholic and restore Catholicism in England in return for secret subsidies from Louis XIV of France.

1670 – Hudson Bay Company founded in North America

1671 – Thomas Blood caught stealing the Crown Jewels

1672 – Outbreak of the Third Dutch War. Naval battle of Solebay.

1673 – Test Act keeps Roman Catholics out of political office.

1674 – Death of John Milton

1674 – Peace made with the Dutch

1675 – Royal Observatory founded at Greenwich

1677 – John Bunyan publishes The Pilgrims Progress.

1678 – The Popish Plot is fabricated by Titus Oates. He alleges a Catholic plot to murder the King and restore Catholicism. The Government over-reacts, and many Catholic subjects are persecuted.

1679 – Exclusion Bill attempts to exclude James, Charles’s Catholic brother, from the succession.

1679 – Habeas Corpus act passed which forbids imprisonment without trial

1682 – Pennsylvania founded in America by William Penn

1683 – The Rye House Plot a conspiracy to kill Charles and his brother James and return to parliamentary rule is uncovered.

1685 – Charles is received into the Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed.

King James II (1685 – 1688)

1685 – James succeeds his brother, Charles II.

1685 – Rebellion of the Earl of Argyll in Scotland designed to place the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s illegitimate son, on the throne is crushed and Argyll is executed.

1685 – The Duke of Monmouth rebels against James, but is defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor in Somerset.

1685 – Edict of Nantes allowing freedom of religion to Huguenot Protestants is revoked in France, resulting in thousands of Huguenot craft workers and traders settling in England.

1686 – Following their defeat at Sedgemoor, Monmouth and many of the rebels are hanged or transported by the ‘The Bloody Assizes’ under Judge Jeffreys.

1686 – James takes first measures to restore Catholicism in England, and sets up a standing army of 13,000 troops at Hounslow to overawe nearby London.

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1686 – Edmund Halley draws the first meteorological map showing weather systems

1687 – Isaac Newton publishes Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

1688 – James, believing his Divine Right as King, issues the Declaration of Indulgence to suspend all laws against Catholics and Non-Conformists and repeal the 1673 Test Act. He seeks to promote his Catholic supporters in Parliament and purge Tories and Anglican clergy .

1688 – James’ wife, Mary of Modena, gives birth to a son and Catholic heir. His daughters Mary, married to Dutch Stadtholder William of Orange, and Anne by his first wife Anne Hyde are Protestant. The Dutch Stadtholder was a key political figure in the Netherlands, serving as a provincial executive officer and often acting as the de facto head of state during the Dutch Republic.

1688 – Following discontent over James attempts to control politics and religion, seven leading statesmen invite William of Orange, son-in-law of James, to England to restore English liberties.

1688 – The ‘Glorious Revolution’. William of Orange lands at Torbay with an army of 20,000 and advances on London. Many Protestant officers in James’ army including Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and James’ own daughter Anne defect to support William and his wife Mary.

1688 – James abdicates and flees to exile in France.

King William III and Queen Mary II (1689 – 1702)

1689 – William and Mary become joint King and Queen. Having been assisted by Charles Talbot 1^st Duke of Shrewsbury. On his death he was buried in Albrighton, Shropshire in the family tomb.

1689 – Parliament draws up the Declaration of Right detailing the unconstitutional acts of James II.

1689 – Bill of Rights is passed by Parliament. It stipulates that no Catholic can succeed to the throne, and also limits the powers of the Royal prerogative. The King of Queen cannot withhold laws passed by Parliament or levy taxes without Parliamentary consent.

1689 – Jacobite Highlanders rise in support of James and are victorious at Killiekrankie but are defeated a few months later at Dunkeld.

1689 – Catholic forces loyal to James II land in Ireland from France and lay siege to Londonderry.

1690 – William defeats James and French troops at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. Scottish Jacobites defeated at Haughs of Cromdale

1690 – Anglo-Dutch naval force is defeated by the French at Beachy Head.

1691 – The Treaty of Limerick allows Catholics in Ireland to exercise their religion freely, but severe penal laws soon follow.

1691 – William offers the Scottish Highlanders a pardon for the Jacobite uprising if they sign allegiance him

1692 – Glencoe Massacre. MacDonalds are killed by Campbells for not signing the oath of allegiance

1694 – Bank of England founded by William Paterson

1694 – Death of Mary. William now rules alone.

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1696 – Newport House named after its builder, Francis, Lord Newport, later created the Earl of Bradford in 1694, he removed a timber-framed house to make way for this new build and relocated the old one outside the entrance of the Shrewsbury Castle. The porch with its Doric columns added in the early 19 century and made of iron. Forest Buildings of Shrewsbury states there is a subterranean passage from the back of the house to the town wall lined throughout with brick. It is conjectured that it communicated with Berrington House? 

After the Earl of Bradford the house then passed down through the Pulteney family until it was inherited by Sir William Pulteney (1729-1805) who lived in it for a few years in the early 19th century, when he was serving as the local member of parliament from 1775-1805. In 1810 Earl of Darlington successfully laid claim to the Pulteney Estate after the Countess of Bath died intestate in 1808. Newport House was then bought by William Hazledine, a Coleham ironmaster in 1821 and subsequently acquired by a Mr John Hughes in the 1840s. In the late 19th century, it served as the home of Edward Burd, a surgeon at the Salop Infirmary. In 1917, Newport House became the offices for Shrewsbury Borough Council who have now moved to new offices in Frankwell and it is now a private residence again.

1697 – Peace of Ryswick ends the war with France.

1697 – First Civil List Act passed

1701 – The Act of Settlement establishes Hanoverian and Protestant succession to the throne.

1701 – James II dies in exile in France. French king recognizes James II’s son James Edward (The Old Pretender) as “James III”.

1701 – William forms grand alliance between England, Holland, and Austria to prevent the union of the French and Spanish crowns.

1702 – William dies after a riding accident. Stuarts in exile toast ‘the gentleman in black velvet’ in the belief that his horse stumbled on a mole hill.

Queen Anne (1702 – 1714)

1702 – Anne succeeds her brother-in-law, William III.

1702 – England declares war on France in the War of the Spanish Succession

1704 – English, Bavarian, and Austrian troops under Marlborough defeat the French at the Battle of Blenheim and save Austria from invasion.

1704 – British capture Gibraltar from Spain.

1706 – Marlborough defeats the French at the Battle of Ramillies, and expels the French from the Netherlands.

1707 – The Act of Union unites the kingdoms of England and Scotland and transfers the seat of Scottish government to London. The country was known as Great Britain.

1708 – Marlborough defeats the French at the Battle of Oudenarde.

1708 – Anne vetoes a parliamentary bill to reorganize the Scottish militia, the last time a bill is vetoed by the sovereign.

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1708 – James Edward Stuart, ‘The Old Pretender’, arrives in Scotland in an unsuccessful attempt to gain the throne.

1709 – Marlborough defeats the French at the Battle of Malplaquet.

1710 – The Whig government falls and a Tory ministry is formed.

1710 – St Paul’s Cathedral, London, completed by Sir Christopher Wren

1711 – First race meeting held at Ascot

1713 – The Treaty of Utrecht is signed by Britain and France, bringing to an end the War of the Spanish Succession.

1714 – Queen Anne dies at Kensington Palace.

King George I (1714 – 1727)

1714 – George I, the first Hanoverian King, succeeds his distant cousin, Anne.

1714 – A new Parliament is elected with a strong Whig majority led by Robert Walpole.

1715 – The Jacobite rising begins in Scotland intending to place the ‘Old Pretender” James Edward Stuart, heir to James II on the throne. The rebellion is defeated at Sheriffmuir.

1716 – The Septennial Act allows for General Elections to be held

1717 – Townshend is dismissed from the government by George, causing Walpole to resign

1719 – Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe

1720 – South Sea Bubble bursts, leaving many investors ruined.

1721 – Sir Robert Walpole returns to government as First Lord of the Treasury where he remains in office until 1742. He is effectively the first Prime Minister.

1722 – Death of the Duke of Marlborough.

1724 – Death of Thomas Bowdler. Draper and former Mayor of Shrewsbury 1705 left money for a school which was built on Town Walls.

1726 – First circulating library in Britain opens in Edinburgh, Scotland.

1726 – Jonathan Swift publishes Gulliver’s Travels.

1727 – Death of the scientist, Isaac Newton.

1727 – George I, dies in Hanover, aged 67.

King George II (1727 – 1760)

1727 – George II succeeds his father, George I.

1729 – Charles Wesley founds the Methodists at Lincoln College Oxford.

1732 – A royal charter is granted for the founding of Georgia in America.

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1732 – Lord Frederick North born

1734 – Jethro Tull publishes essays on improving farming including the use of the seed drill.

1737 – Death of George’s wife, Queen Caroline.

1738 – John and Charles Wesley start the Methodist movement in Britain.

1739 – Dick Turpin, highwayman, hanged at York

1739 – Britain goes to war with Spain over Captain Jenkins’ ear, claimed to have been cut off in a skirmish at sea.

1740 – -1748 The War of Austrian Succession breaks out in Europe.

1742 – Walpole resigns as Prime Minister.

1743 – George leads troops into battle at Dettingen in Bavaria.

1745 – Charles Edward Stuart, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, lands in Scotland and raises his flag for the restoration of the Stuarts. 2,000 Jacobites enter Edinburgh. Scottish victory at Prestonpans. Charles and his Jacobite army march South into England and reach Derby before turning back.

1746 – Scots defeated at the Battle of Culloden. Duke of Cumberland, the King’s 2nd son, ruthlessly represses the rebels and Scottish traditions.

1748 – Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the war of Austrian Succession

1751 – Death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. His son, George, becomes heir to the throne.

1752 – Britain adopts the Georgian Calendar. 1st January replaces 25 March as the first day of the year.

1752 – Lieutenant Thomas Anderson of in Sir John Ligonier’s regiment of Dragoons was shot for desertion, on Monday 11 December. This followed a court martial in Worcester, from there he was brought to Shrewsbury then taken to Kingsland for sentence to be carried out. His body was buried in St Mary`s Church, Churchyard. Was he the last Jacobite supporter of Charles to be killed?? He hailed from Richmond.

1757 – Britain declares war against France. Start of the Seven Years’ War.

1757 – Robert Clive wins the Battle of Plassey and secures the Indian province of Bengal for Britain.

1757 – William Pitt becomes Prime Minister

1759 – Wolfe captures Quebec from the French and establishes British supremacy in Canada.

1759 – First botanical gardens laid out at Kew

1760 – George II dies.

King George III (1760 – 1820)

1760 – George III becomes king on the death of his grandfather, George II.

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1762 – The Earl of Bute is appointed Prime Minister. Bute proves so unpopular that he needs to have a bodyguard.

1762 – The trustees of Coram`s Foundling Hospital had plans to build on Kingsland, which over a century later became a new base for Shrewsbury School.

1763 – Peace of Paris ends the Seven Years’ War.

1765 – Stamp Act raises taxes in American colonies.

1766 – William Pitt the Elder becomes prime minister

1768 – Richard Arkwright invents the spinning frame

1769 – Captain James Cook’s first voyage to explore the Pacific.

1770 – Lord North becomes Prime Minister.

1770 – James Cook lands in Botany Bay, South East Australia.

1771 – Encyclopaedia Britannica is first published.

1772 – John Harrisons H4 clock allows navigators to accurately measure longitude enabling long distance sea travel

1772 – Warren Hastings is appointed Governor General of India.

1773 – The world’s first cast-iron bridge is constructed over the River Severn at Coalbrookdale. Later renamed Ironbridge. Shrewsbury architect John Farnolls Pritchard is credited with the idea of designing a bridge with the new technology of casting iron. Abraham Darby lll did the iron work

1773 – Boston Tea Party. American colonists protest against British taxes.

1775 – American War of Independence begins when colonists fight British troops at Lexington.

1775 – James Watt develops the steam engine.

1776 – On 4 July, the American Congress passes the Declaration of Independence.

1780 – Anti Catholic Gordon riots in London

1781 – Americans supported by the French fleet defeat British at Battle of Yorktown.

1782 – Ireland obtains a short-lived parliament.

1783 – On 3 Sept, The Treaty of Paris ends the American War of Independence. Britain recognizes American independence.

1783 – -1801 William Pitt the Younger serves as Prime Minister.

1783 – Robert (Robbie) Burns publishes his first book of poetry

1788 – George suffers his first attack of porphyria. Current opinion leans towards bi-polar diorder

1788 – Colony of New South Wales established in Australia

1789 – Outbreak of the French Revolution. Storming of the Bastille.

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1791 – Publication of James Boswell’s Life of Johnson and Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man.

1793 – King Louis XVI of France executed by guillotine

1793 – – 1802 War between Britain and France.

1797 – Charles Bage designs an iron framed Flax Mill in Shrewsbury

1798 – Nelson destroys French fleet at the Battle of the Nile

1798 – Wordsworth publishes Lyrical Ballads

1798 – Income Tax introduced to fund the war with France

1800 – Act of Union with Ireland unites Parliaments of England and Ireland. This union becomes known as Great Britain and Ireland

1803 – Beginning of Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon assembles a fleet for the invasion of England.

1805 – Nelson defeats French and Spanish fleets off Trafalgar, but is killed during the battle. Napoleon defeats the Russians at Austerlitz.

1807 – Slave Trade Act. William Wilberforce is successful in his campaign to abolish slave trade in the British Empire.

1808 – -1814 Peninsular War to drive the French out of Spain.

1809 – British defeat the French at the Battle of Corunna

1810 – Final illness of George III leads to his son becoming Regent in 1811.

1812 – Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated in the House of Commons by a disgruntled bankrupt

1812 – War of 1812 between the British and Americans. Several naval engagements. American forces stopped from invading Canada.

1813 – Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is published.

1813 – Monopoly of the East India company is abolished

1814 – Napoleon defeated at Laon and Toulouse. He abdicates but escapes from Elba, then he heads through France gathering an army.

1815 – The defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo marks the end the Napoleonic Wars. Lord Hill returned to Shrewsbury and later took over the role of Army chief from the Duke of Wellington.

1815 – Corn Laws passed by Parliament to protect British agriculture from cheap imports

1818 – The King’s wife, Queen Charlotte, dies.

1818 – Publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

1819 – Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, of political reform campaigners killed by troops.

1820 – Death of King George Ill, aged 81 years

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King George IV (1820 – 1830)

1785 – Before he was crowned the King secretly married Maria Fitzherbert (born July 1756, at Tong Castle in Shropshire, died March 29, 1837, Brighton, Sussex) She was the eldest child of Walter Smythe (c. 1721–1788) of Brambridge, Hampshire, younger son of Sir John Smythe, 3rd Baronet, of Acton Burnell, Shropshire. Her mother was Mary Ann Errington of Beaufort, Northumberland, maternal half-sister of Charles William Molyneux, 1st Earl of Sefton. married the then prince of Wales, the future George IV of Great Britain.

A biographer suggests Fitzherbert was born at Tong Castle in Shropshire. She was the eldest child of Walter Smythe (c. 1721–1788) of Brambridge, Hampshire, younger son of Sir John Smythe, 3rd Baronet, of Acton Burnell, Shropshire. Her mother was Mary Ann Errington of Beaufront, Northumberland, maternal half-sister of Charles William Molyneux, 1st Earl of Sefton.

 Of an old Roman Catholic family, she was educated at a French convent. Her first marriage, in 1775, was to Edward Weld, who died within a year, and her second, in 1778, was to Thomas Fitzherbert, who died in 1781, leaving her fairly wealthy. Within two years she had become a prominent figure in London society and ultimately attracted the passionate love of the prince of Wales. For state reasons a regular marriage was impossible: the Act of Settlement (1689) entailed his forfeiture of the succession if he married a Roman Catholic, apart from the fact that the Royal Marriage Act of 1772 made any marriage illegal without the king’s consent, which was out of the question.

 From Fitzherbert’s Roman Catholic point of view, any formal marriage ceremony would be ecclesiastically and sacramentally binding. The two were thus secretly married by the Reverend R. Burt, a clergyman of the Church of England, on December 15, 1785. The prince subsequently took up residence near Fitzherbert in both Brighton and London. They parted and drifted together again for what she would later call the happiest years of her life. They broke off the final time about 1808, as the prince became more dissolute. Nevertheless, on his death nearly a quarter of a century later, her miniature portrait was found around his neck.

NB. The link through her birth and her grandfather Sir John Smythe, 3rd Baronet, of Acton Burnell, Shropshire is possibly why it is said she lived on Castle Gates in Shrewsbury but this is not certain

1820 – George IV accedes to the throne, having spent the last nine years as Prince Regent for his blind and deranged father.

1820 – A radical plot to murder the Cabinet, known as the Cato Street Conspiracy, fails.

1820 – Trial of Queen Caroline, in which George IV attempts to divorce her for adultery. She has popular support and the divorce proceedings fail.

1821 – Queen Caroline is excluded from George’s coronation.

1821 – Michael Faraday begins his experiments with electromagnetism

1822 – Charles Babbage proposes his difference engine, a mechanical calculator and forerunner or future computers.

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1823 – The Royal Academy of Music is established in London.

1823 – The British Museum is extended and extensively rebuilt to house expanding collection.

1823 – Rugby schoolboy William Web Ellis, while playing football, picks up the ball and runs with it inventing Rugby Football.

1824 – The National Gallery was established in London.

1825 – Nash reconstructs Buckingham Palace.

1825 – Locomotion No.1, built by George Stephenson, pulls the world’s first passenger train for Stockton to Darlington.

1828 – Duke of Wellington becomes British Prime Minister.

1829 – The Metropolitan Police Force is set up by Robert Peel.

1829 – The Catholic Relief Act is passed, permitting Catholics to become Members of Parliament.

1830 – George IV dies at Windsor, aged 67.

King William IV (1830 – 1837)

1830 – William IV succeeds his brother, George IV, at the age of 64

1831 – The new London Bridge is opened over the River Thames.

1832 – The First Reform Act is passed, extending votes and redistributing Parliamentary seats on a more equitable basis.

1832 – Cholera spreads from Sunderland and runs rampant killing over 20,000 people.

1833 – Abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire following a campaign by Quakers and William Wilberforce.

1833 – Factory Act passed prohibiting children aged less than nine from working in factories, and reducing the working hours of women and older children.

1834 – Poor Law Act is passed, creating workhouses for the poor. Later Coram`s foundling Hospital becomes a House of Industry or work- house in Kingsland

1834 – The Tolpuddle Martyrs are transported to Australia for attempting to form a trade union.

1834 – Fire destroys the Palace of Westminster.

1835 – The Municipal Reform Act is passed, requiring members of town councils to be elected by ratepayers and councils to publish their financial accounts.

1836 – Births, marriages and deaths must be registered by law

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Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901)

1837 – Victoria succeeds her uncle, William IV

1838 – Publication of People’s Charter. Start of Chartism.

1839 – First Afghan War. British Forces capture the fortress of Ghazi in Afghanistan.

1839 – – 42 First Opium War. Britain gains Hong Kong.

1840 – Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

1840 – The Penny Post is introduced. First postage stamp is the Penny Black.

1840 – First colonist settlement in New Zealand

1841 – Sir Robert Peel becomes Prime Minister

1841 – Benjamin Disraeli becomes an MP for Shrewsbury

1842 – End of First Opium War. Britain gains Hong Kong

1843 – Launch of SS Great Britain the worlds first all metal ship.

1844 – Railway building mania starts. 5,000 miles of track are built in Britain by 1846

1845 – 1849 Irish Potato Famine kills more than a million people. Many emigrate to America.

1846 – Repeal of the Corn Laws

1848 – The railway line from Shrewsbury to Chester opens for passengers

1848 – Major Chartist demonstration in London.

1848 – Pre-Raphaelite movement begins

1849 – Harrods store in London is opened

1850 – Wenlock Olympians founded by Dr William Penny Brooks have their first meeting

1851 – Great Exhibition takes place in Hyde Park. Its success is largely due to Prince Albert.

1852 – Death of the Duke of Wellington

1853 – Vaccination against smallpox made compulsory.

1853 – Victoria uses chloroform during the birth of Prince Leopold.

1854 – 1856 Crimean War fought by Britain and France against Russia.

1854 – Charge of the Light Brigade

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1854 – 10,000 die of cholera from contaminated water in London.

1856 – The Victoria Cross is instituted for military bravery.

1856 – David Livingstone discovers the Victoria Falls

1857 – -1858 Indian Mutiny against British rule.

1858 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel launches The Great Eastern, the largest ship in the world and the first with a double iron hull.

1858 – First trans-Atlantic telegraph service

1859 – Publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of the Species.

1861 – Prince Albert dies of typhoid

1861 – – 65 Civil War in America. Southern states unsuccessfully seek to involve Britain which has sufficient cotton from Egypt and India, but needs the Union North’s grain.

1863 – The world’s first underground railway is opened in London

1863 – Edward, Prince of Wales, marries Alexandra of Denmark

1863 – The Salvation Army is founded.

1863 – The Football Association is founded.

1865 – Slavery is ended in America with Northern Union victory in the American Civil War

1867 – The Second Reform Bill doubles the franchise vote to two million.

1867 – Canada becomes the first independent dominion in the Empire.

1867 – Karl Marx publishes the first volume of Das Kapital

1868 – Gladstone becomes Prime Minister for the first time.

1869 – The Irish Church is disestablished.

1870 – First Education Act. Primary education becomes compulsory.

1870 – Death of Charles Dickens

1871 – Trade Unions are legalized

1872 – Secret voting is introduced for elections.

1872 – Henry Stanley finds David Livingstone who had been missing in Africa.

1874 – Disraeli becomes Prime Minister for the second time.

1875 – Suez Canal shares purchased for Britain.

1875 – Thomas Moy demonstrates his Aerial Steamer the worlds first flying machine at Crystal Palace, London

1876 – Victoria becomes Empress of India.

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1876 – Scots Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates the telephone

1878 – Second Afghan War. British defend the Kyber Pass.

1878 – William Booths Christian movement adopts the name The Salvation Army

1879 – Tay Bridge disaster

1879 – Zulu war, British troops massacred at Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift

1880 – Gladstone succeeds Disraeli as Prime Minister

1880 – – 1881 First conflict with Boers in South Africa

1883 – British occupy Egypt

1884 – Third Reform Act all adult males given the vote.

1884 – Greenwich Meridian and Mean Time adopted

1886 – First Irish Home Rule Bill fails to pass House of Commons. Gladstone resigns as Prime Minister.

1887 – Victoria celebrates her Golden Jubilee. She has ruled for 50 years.

1887 – Independent Labour Party is founded.

1890 – the Shropshire and North Wales Insurance Company merged with the Salop Company to be part of the Alliance Insurance Company, they built their new offices in the Square. Note the individual names over the two front doors.

1890 The Partnership Act was passed by Parliament

1891 – Free schooling is introduced. 11 years later school attendance becomes compulsory for all children.

1893 – Second Irish Home Rule Bill fails to pass the House of Lords.

1897 – Victoria celebrates her Diamond Jubilee.

1897 – Marconi demonstrates wireless transmission across the Bristol Channel

1899 – -1902 Boer War in South Africa. Siege of Mafeking

1900 – Labour party founded

1901 – Queen Victoria dies, aged 81.

King Edward VII (1901 – 1910)

1901 – Edward VII becomes King on the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.

1901 – Australia is granted dominion status.

1902 – Arthur Balfour becomes Prime Minister.

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1902 – First trans-Atlantic radio transmission

1902 – Edward VII institutes the Order of Merit.

1902 – Empire Day is celebrated for the first time.

1902 – Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories published.

1903 – Wilbur and Orville Wright of the US make the first manned and controlled aircraft flight.

1903 – The Women’s Social and Political Union, demanding votes for women, is founded by Emmeline Pankhurst.

1904 – Britain and France sign the Entente Cordiale, settling outstanding territorial disputes.

1904 – Sigmund Freud publishes Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

1904 – Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie is published.

1905 – Motor buses are first used in London.

1906 – Construction of HMS Dreadnought

1907 – Edward VII visits his cousin Tzar Nicholas II of Russia

1907 – Taxi-cabs are legally recognized in Britain for the first time.

1907 – Baden-Powell takes the first ever group of boy scouts on holiday to Brownsea Island, Dorset.

1907 – Parliament rejects Channel Tunnel scheme.

1907 – New Zealand is granted dominion status.

1908 – Production of Ford Motor cars begins.

1908 – Publication of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

1908 – The fourth Olympic Games are held in London.

1908 – Herbert Henry Asquith becomes Prime Minister.

1908 – The Triple Entente is signed between Russia, France, and Britain.

1908 – The Children’s Act establishes separate juvenile courts to try children.

1908 – Old Age Pensions established in Britain for all over 70 years old with an income of less than ten shillings per week.

1909 – The People’s Budget is introduced by Lloyd George

1909 – The Women’s Suffrage movement becomes more militant in their fight for votes for women.

1909 – Introduction of Labour Exchanges

1909 – French airman, Louis Blériot, makes the first cross-Channel flight from Calais to Dover.

1909 – First rugby match to be played Twickenham takes place.

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1909 – First Boy Scout Rally is held at Crystal Palace, London.

1910 – Constitutional Crisis is caused by the House of Commons’ attempt to curb the power of the House of Lords.

1910 – Edward dies of pneumonia at Buckingham Palace.

King George V (1910 – 1936)

1910 – George V becomes King and Emperor of India on the death of his father, Edward VII.

1911 – Parliament Act ensures the sovereignty of the House of Commons.

1911 – National Insurance Act provides sickness and unemployment benefits.

1912 – The luxury passenger ship S.S. Titanic sinks on her maiden voyage, drowning more than 1,500 people.

1913 – Suffragette Emily Wilding Davison throws herself under the Kings horse at the Epsom Derby

1914 – Anglican Church in Wales is disestablished.

1914 – The heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire is assassinated. Outbreak of World War I.

1914 – Battles of Mons, the Marne, and Ypres.

1915 – Second Battle of Ypres. Allied Gallipoli expedition fails to remove Turkey from the war.

1916 – Battle of the Somme. Naval Battle of Jutland between British and German fleets.

1916 – Easter Rising in Dublin in support of Irish independence.

1916 – David Lloyd George replaces Asquith as Prime Minister.

1917 – Battle of Passchendaele.

1917 – Russian Revolution.

1918 – Czar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra (both cousins of George V) and their royal family are shot in Ekaterinburg.

1918 – Kaiser Wilhelm II (cousin of George V) abdicates as Germany faces defeat in World War I.

1918 – The end of World War I. Armistice signed on 11 November.

1918 – Reform Act gives votes to women over 30.

1918 – General Election produces landslide victory for Sinn Fein MPs in Ireland, who refuse to take their seats in Westminster and form their own Dail Parliament in Dublin.

1919 – Lady Astor becomes the first woman MP to take her seat in the House of Commons

1919 – Third Afghan War. Afghanistan gains independence from Britain

1919 – A flu-pandemic (known as Spanish Flu) rages around the world killing over 50 million people.

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1919 – -1921 Ireland partitioned into the Free State and the province of Northern Ireland.

1920 – Marconi opens first radio broadcasting station in Britain

1920 – A flu epidemic continued to rage.

1922 – The British Broadcasting Company starts radio transmissions

1922 – The republic of Ireland leaves Great Britain to be known as the United Kingdom; this was formalised with legislation in 1927.

1923 – Prince Albert (later George VI) marries Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

1924 – Ramsay MacDonald becomes Prime Minister of the first Labour Government

1926 – General Strike fails to reverse wage cuts and imposition of longer hours.

1926 – John Logie Baird demonstrates world’s first television in London

1927 – British Broadcasting Corporation founded by Royal Charter

1928 – All women over the age of 21 get the vote.

1928 – George V falls seriously ill with blood poisoning of the lung.

1928 – Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin

1929 – Beginning of the Great Depression which lasted almost 10 years

1931 – The Statute of Westminster recognizes independence of. the dominions.

1931 – Great Depression leads to the formation of a national government of all three political parties under the leadership of Ramsay MacDonald.

1932 – George V makes the first annual Christmas broadcast on radio.

1935 – George V celebrates his Silver Jubilee.

1935 – Robert Watson-Watt demonstrates Radar

1935 – Stanley Baldwin replaces Ramsay MacDonald as prime minister

1936 – George V dies at Sandringham.

King Edward VIII (1936)

1936 – Edward VIII succeeds his father, George V, as King on 20 January.

1936 – Outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.

1936 – Germany, under Adolf Hitler, reoccupies the demilitarized left bank of the Rhine.

1936 – Britain begins to rearm as political tension increases in Europe and the prospect of military conflict in the region becomes more evident.

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1936 – Fire destroys Crystal Palace, once the home of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park but now located in Sydenham, south London.

1936 – J.M. Keynes publishes his book General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money an internationally influential study of modern economics.

1936 – Maiden voyage of luxury ocean liner the Queen Mary takes place.

1936 – Jarrow crusade of unemployed marches to London

1936 – The BBC inaugurates the world’s first television service at Alexandra Palace in London.

1936 – On 10 December Edward signs the Instrument of Abdication over his wish to marry Mrs Wallis Simpson. Witnessed by all his brothers, it is a simple declaration of his intent to renounce the throne for himself and all his descendants. He is subsequently created Duke of Windsor.

King George VI (1936 – 1952)

1936 – George VI accedes to the throne upon the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII

1937 – Frank Whittle invents the jet engine

1938 – Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signs agreement with Adolf Hitler at Munich in an attempt to stop outbreak of war in Europe

1938 – Nazi Germany annexes Austria

1939 – Germany invades Poland. Britain declares war on Germany which is the start of World War II.

1940 – Retreating British troops evacuated from beaches of Dunkirk as Germans advance.

1940 – Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister.

1940 – Battle of Britain fought in the skies over England between the RAF and German Luftwaffe.

1940 – German bombers blitz London, Coventry and other major cities

1941 – Hitler invades the Soviet Union

1941 – America enters the War after Japanese air raid on US fleet at Pearl Harbour.

1942 – Fall of Singapore to the Japanese

1942 – British victory at El Alamein.

1944 – D-Day landings in Normandy as the Allies push the German forces back across Europe.

1944 – Battle of Arnhem airborne landings

1945 – The defeat of Germany marks the end of World War II in Europe.

1945 – Japan surrenders, after US drops atomic bombs on two cities.

1946 – Start of the ‘Cold War’. Churchill speaks of the ‘Iron Curtain’ separating Western Europe from the Communist Eastern block

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1947 – India granted independence. Pakistan declared a separate nation.

1947 – Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) marries Philip Mountbatten

1948 – National Health Service establishes free medical treatment.

1948 – Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated.

1949 – Berlin Airlift relieves the Soviet blockade of Berlin

1950 – -1953 Korean War with Britain taking an active part

1951 – Winston Churchill becomes British Prime Minister again.

1952 – George VI dies.

Queen Elizabeth II (1952 – 2022)

1952 – Elizabeth accedes to the throne on the death of her father, George VI.

1952 – World’s first jet airliner passenger service inaugurated by BOAC in Comet I aircraft

1953 – Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climb Mount Everest just before Coronation Day

1953 – Francis Crick and James Watson unravel the mystery of DNA

1953 – – 1954 Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip embark on a 6-month world tour including Australia and New Zealand

1955 – Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister and is succeeded by Anthony Eden.

1955 – Laws restricting the burning of coal and establishing smokeless zones bring an end to London’s and other cities notorious fogs or smog

1956 – Anglo-French forces invade Egypt after the nationalization of the Suez Canal.

1957 – Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister

1957 – The Gold Coast becomes independent as Ghana, the first British colony in Africa to receive its independence.

1957 – Queen Elizabeth addresses the United Nations and opens the 23rd Canadian Parliament

1959 – Oil is discovered in the North Sea.

1959 – Queen Elizabeth tours Canada and the United States

1960 – Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister makes ‘winds of change’ speech in South Africa.

1960 – Union of South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth.

1962 – Jamaica gains independence

1963 – Alec Douglas-Hume replaces Harold Macmillan as the Prime Minister.

1963 – The Beatles release their first LP.

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1964 – Labour government of Harold Wilson takes office

1966 – Aberfan disaster leaves 116 children dead

1967 – Capital punishment abolished in the UK for murder, and one year later for all crimes

1969 – Prince Charles is invested as Prince of Wales.

1969 – Troubles break out in the North of Ireland

1970 – Edward Heath becomes Prime Minister.

1971 – Decimal currency is introduced.

1973 – The United Kingdom joins the European Economic Community (EEC)

1974 – Miners strike brings down Heath Government. Harold Wilson returns as Prime Minister.

1976 – Concorde begins first supersonic trans-Atlantic flights

1977 – Celebration of the Silver Jubilee of the Queens accession

1978 – The world’s first test-tube baby is delivered in Oldham, Greater Manchester

1979 – Margaret Thatcher succeeds James Callaghan, becoming Britain’s first woman Prime Minister.

1981 – Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

1982 – Unemployment in Britain tops three million.

1982 – Britain goes to war with Argentina over control of the Falkland Islands.      (NB.Nigel Hinton was on a ferry to IOW, from Gosport, when the fleet sailed on 5 April 1982)

1982 – Pope John Paul II is first reigning pope to visit the UK.

1984 – Miners strike again but is defeated by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

1986 – Queen Elizabeth II celebrates 60th birthday.

1988 – Pan Am flight 103 bombed and crashes on Lockerbie killing 270

1989 – Poll tax is introduced amid widespread protest.

1989 – Fall of the Berlin Wall. End of the ‘Cold War’.

1990 – Margaret Thatcher resigns as prime minister after 11 years and is succeeded by John Major.

1991 – The Allied forces liberate Kuwait during the Gulf War.

1992 – Princess Anne and Mark Phillips divorce. Windsor castle suffers severe fire damage.

1993 – Maastricht Treaty. The EEC becomes the European Union and the European Parliament comes into force.

1994 – Opening of the Channel Tunnel between England and France

1996 – Both the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Duke and Duchess of York divorce.

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1997 – Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister and ends 18 years of Conservative government.

1997 – Hong Kong reverts to China after 155 years of British rule.

1997 – Diana Princess of Wales dies in Paris car crash

1998 – Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland

1998 – Scotland and Wales vote for their own Assemblies

1999 – Edward, Earl of Wessex, marries Sophie Rhys-Jones.

2000 – Queen Mother celebrates her 100th birthday.

2001 – Twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York destroyed by Islamic terrorists.

2001 – – 2014. Fourth Afghan War. British and Allied troops in Afghanistan.

2002 – Queen Elizabeth II marks her Golden Jubilee of 50 years of rule. Deaths of Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.

2003 – British and US forces invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein

2005 – Prince Charles marries his second wife Camilla Parker-Bowles and she is given the title Duchess of Cornwall

2006 – Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 80th birthday.

2007 – Tony Blair resigns as Prime Minister

2007 – Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip celebrate 60 years of marriage

2007 – Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever reigning British monarch

2008 – World wide banking crisis. Government has to bail out two major British banks

2009 – Parliamentary integrity damaged by expenses scandal

2010 – David Cameron becomes Prime Minister

2011 – Prince William marries Catherine Middleton. They become Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

2011 – Queen Elizabeth II visits Dublin in the first state visit to the Republic of Ireland by a reigning British monarch.

2012 – Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Diamond Jubilee of 60 years since her accession to the throne.

2012 – Queen Elizabeth II opens the London 2012 Olympic Games

2013 – Birth of Prince George, son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

2014 – Scottish voters reject proposal by the Scottish National Party to leave the United Kingdom

2014 – End of 4th Afghan war. British forces leave Afghanistan.

2015 – Birth of Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

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2015 – Queen Elizabeth II becomes the longest ever reigning British monarch surpassing her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria.

2016 – Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 90th birthday.

2016 – The United Kingdom votes to leave the European Union.

2016 – David Cameron resigns as Prime Minister and is replaced by Theresa May.

2017 – The UK negotiates to regain sovereignty from the European Union.

2018 – Birth of Prince Louis, second son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

2018 – Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle. They become Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

2019 – Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister

2020 – Prince Harry and his wife exit royal duties and move to North America

2020 – The United Kingdom leaves the European Union

2020 – Worldwide coronavirus pandemic

2021 – The Queen’s husband Prince Philip died on the 9 April, aged 99 years, e was the longest serving consort in British history.

2022 – Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully on 8 September 2022 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland at the age of 96. The Queen reigned for 70 years and 214 days from her accession on 6 February,1952 until her death. This was the longest reign of any British monarch.

2022 – King Charles III acceded to the British Throne on his mother`s death 8 September 2022. At age 73 he was the oldest person to accede to the British throne, after having been the longest serving heir apparent in British history.  Queen Cammila had married Charles in 2005 and acceded at the same time as Charles.

2023 – King Charles and Queen Cammila were crowned on 6 May 2023

2024 – The Labour party wins a landslide victory in the General Election and Kier Starmer becomes Prime Miniter    

END of Section 2

Part 3 – Draft timeline on Victorian Shrewsbury, including some major events with extended commentary.

The Victorian era corresponds with the reign of Queen Victoria in England from 1837 to 1901. With sixty-three years as queen, this was the second-longest reign of any English monarch.

This era is remembered for its attention to high morals, modesty and proper decorum, as inspired by the Queen and her husband, Prince Albert. The Victorian era was also an optimistic time in which scientific and industrial invention thrived. Developments in printing produced a proliferation of kinds of literature such as Victorian scrap art, cards, and magazines, previously unknown to that period.

The importance placed on civic conscience and social responsibility gave rise to notable developments toward gender and racial equality, such as the legal abolishment of slavery in America.

In addition, humanitarian and religious organizations such as the Salvation Army reflected the Victorian concern for the poor and needy of the period.

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Timeline of Major Events in Victorian Times

1819— Birth of Victoria in same week as the Election of John (Mad Jack) Mytton as MP for Shrewsbury

1826— Joseph Niepce takes the first photo

!828—Lord Hill becomes Commander in Chief of British Army when Wellington became prime minister

1832— Voting system changed with the Great Reform Act

Victoria visits Wales via Shrewsbury

2nd August (Thursday) from Birmingham, Visited Pitchford Hall & The Treehouse

The famous Tree House at Pitchford, arguably the oldest in the world, is circa 17th Century origin – first mentioned in 1692. It was given a new image in 1760 and was renovated again in 1980. Situated in a large leaved lime tree (Tilia Platyphyllos) it is constructed in the same style as Pitchford Hall.
A part glazed door opens into the tree house to reveal a carved moulded cornice ceiling, stripped oak floor and gothic windows on all sides. There is evidence that the restoration in 1760 may have been the work of the Shropshire architect Thomas Farnolls Pritchard.

Queen Victoria recorded in her diary that she watched a visiting pack of foxhounds from the treehouse during her visit to Pitchford Hall as a young princess.

When it was first built in the 1600s the treehouse was supported entirely by the tree. Now, because of its great age the tree is held up by metal supports and wires, ensuring that the treehouse will remain standing for decades to come.

Lunch at the Talbot Hotel, recently a site of Loch Fyne, in Market St Shrewsbury

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Stayed the night at Powys castle, Welshpool

3rd August (Friday) Stayed at Powis castle

4th August (Saturday) Oswestry (Wynnstay Arms Hotel)

1834— Ban on Slavery with slavery abolition bill in British colonies

— Ebenezer Chapel, Town Walls. for The Methodist New Connection congregation

1837–67—Isambard Kingdom Brunel builds London to Bristol railway for the Great Western Railway. Clifton Suspension Bridge

1837—Victoria succeeds uncle William IV to throne at the age of 18

Dickens’s Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist.

1837–67—Construction of neo-Gothic Houses of Parliament.

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852)

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was born in London. He had little formal education, but learned to draw and paint from his father, who was an architectural draughtsman and watercolourist. At just 16 years old Pugin designed furniture for the newly restored Windsor Castle. He later tried various enterprises, including designing scenery at Covent Garden Opera House, and a stone masonry business specialising in Gothic carving.

When Charles Barry decided to enter the competition to rebuild the Palace of Westminster, he employed Pugin as a draughtsman on his designs. After winning the competition, Barry used Pugin to draw the plans in even greater detail, so he could estimate how much the ambitious project would cost. Sadly, these plans have not survived. Pugin then left the project for several years and pursued other professional work.

In 1844 Pugin was invited to design the interiors of the new Palace of Westminster. He embraced the task, producing a vast array of items including carved panelling, wallpaper designs, painted and gilded ceilings, various designs for encaustic floor tiles, and a huge range of furniture. But his increasing workload put a great strain on him, and he became physically ill and mentally exhausted. His mental deterioration led to a period in Bethlem Hospital, and he died in September 1852.

1840—Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Penny postage instituted.

1841/2 – Benjamin Disraeli, later the Earl of Beaconsfield elected as MP. for Shrewsbury

Conservative Prime Minister 1874 to 1880, 1868 to 1868

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics.” Nigel J Hinton There are three kinds of lies.   “There are lies, damn lies and history”

Born    December 1804, London

Died 19 April 1881, London

Dates in office 1868 defeated came back in 1874 on becoming Earl of Beaconsfield in 1879 leads the government from House of Lords to 1880, lost election to liberals and died next year .

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Political party Conservative Major acts Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875: decriminalised work of trade unions and allowed peaceful picketing. Public Health Act 1875: improved sanitation and filthy living conditions in urban areas.

Interesting facts He was the first and only Jewish Prime Minister to date.

Biography Politician, novelist and bon viveur, Benjamin Disraeli was a man with many interests, but it was as a Conservative politician that Disraeli achieved lasting fame. PM for almost 7 years, he initiated a wide range of legislation to improve educational opportunities and the life of working people.

Benjamin ‘Dizzy’ Disraeli was the son of Isaac, a Jewish Italian writer, and had an Anglican upbringing after the age of 12. With Jews excluded from Parliament until 1858, this enabled Disraeli to follow a career that would otherwise have been denied him. He was Britain’s first, and so far only, Jewish Prime Minister.

Aged 20 he lost money by gambling on the Stock Exchange, and helped to launch The Representative, a newspaper intended to usurp The Times, but it soon failed.

He went on to produce an anonymously-written satirical novel, Vivian Grey, which caricatured a former business partner. Success, however, turned to slander when his authorship was revealed. The stress caused by this, and by his continuing debts, drove him to suffer a nervous breakdown.

Disraeli was elected to represent Maidstone as a Peelite in 1837. Despite being mocked when he made his maiden speech, he defiantly pronounced “the time will come when you will hear me”.

He was then elected to represent Shrewsbury in 1841, and came to be regarded as witty and able. But Peel did not offer Disraeli a place in the Cabinet – and Disraeli never forgot it. After keeping his resentment private for a time, he attacked Peel bitterly over his decision to repeal the Corn Laws, eventually forcing the resignation of Peel’s government in June 1846. At last, in 1852 the Prime Minister, Lord Derby, offered Disraeli a place in government as Leader of the Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer. The defeat of Disraeli’s December Budget, though, torn to pieces by, Gladstone, caused the government’s downfall.

After Derby’s resignation in 1868, Queen Victoria invited Disraeli to become Prime Minister, and they soon struck up a remarkable rapport thanks to Disraeli’s charm and skilful flattery. He was later to tell a colleague, who had asked for advice on how to handle the Queen, “first of all, remember she is woman”.  On finally achieving his long ambition, Disraeli declared, “I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole”.

After defeat by the Liberals at the next election, his position as Conservative leader was at risk. His health was poor and his wife died in 1872, prompting him to write: “I am totally unable to meet the catastrophe”. Yet he carried on. Disraeli now faced Gladstone across the Dispatch Box, and it became Britain’s most famous parliamentary rivalry. The contrast in their physical appearances and their styles was stark, and the hatred was strong.

Disraeli became Prime Minister once again in 1874, aged 70. This was a successful premiership, though it has been said that the legislation of this time depended much less upon Dizzy himself than upon his Cabinet colleagues.

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The premiership saw the passing of a large amount of social legislation: the 1875 Climbing Boys Act reinforced the ban on employing juvenile chimney sweeps; the 1875 Artisans Dwelling Act allowed local authorities to destroy slums, though this was voluntary, and provided housing for the poor. In the same year the Public Health Act provided sanitation such as running water and refuse disposal.

On being made Earl of Beaconsfield by Victoria in 1879, Disraeli governed from the House of Lords. Foreign policy became increasingly important, especially the Eastern Question following Turkish atrocities against the Bulgarians.

The 1880 election was lost to the Liberals, a narrow loss in terms of votes cast. Disraeli threw himself into the job of Opposition, and was active until a month before his death from bronchitis in April 1881.

On his deathbed, he is reported to have said: “I had rather live but I am not afraid to die”.

 1843—Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. 1844—the Irish potato famine 1845—Brunel’s S. S. Great Britain, the first propeller-driven steamship. 1846—Repeal of Corn Laws, the beginning of free trade era 1847—Ten Hours Act puts a restriction on working hours of children in factories. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.1848—Founding of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto 1849—Dickens’s David Copperfield.

1850—First British Public Library Act, permitting the establishment of public libraries.

Tennyson named Poet Laureate.

1850 – Charlotte Sophia Burne was born on 2 May 1850 (1850–1923).

An interest in the local history and antiquities of her adopted county of Shropshire led her to folklore, but the defining moment came when her notes were shown to Miss Georgina Jackson in the early 1870s. Jackson had for many years been working on a projected book on Shropshire dialect, and had collected much folklore in the process, but failing health prompted her to hand the projects to Burne for completion. The latter thus brought out the planned Shropshire Word-Book (1879) and, after adding a great deal of her own material, Shropshire Folk-Lore (1883), which proved to be one of the best of the regional folklore collections and is still in demand today. Burne also joined the Folklore Society in 1883, and was soon involved on its Council and in various organizing roles, editing the journal Folk-Lore (1899–1908) and serving two terms as the Society’s President (1909–10). In her first presidential address (Folk-Lore 21 (1910) she claimed, probably correctly, to be the first female president of a learned society in Britain. She continued to contribute numerous articles and notes to folklore journals and to local Shropshire/Staffordshire periodicals for the rest of her life, and her other major publication was the second edition of the influential Handbook of Folk-Lore (1914), for the Folklore Society. Burne’s particular forte was fieldwork, in contrast to her fellow folklorists who were primarily library scholars and thinkers, basing their theories on other people’s books and manuscripts. Shropshire Folk-Lore demonstrated the wealth of material waiting to be collected, and also identified an important practical role available to those interested in the subject but unable to indulge in high theory. She became an advocate of fieldwork, urging systematic collecting programmes, offering advice on how to go about it, and urging high standards of documentation. In the process, she experimented with methods such as the geographical mapping of calendar custom variants, which were later to be adopted as normal practice. At the time of her death, she was working, with the

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Society’s ‘Brand Committee’, on an ambitious plan to publish a new comprehensive survey of customs, to serve as an updated and expanded edition of Brand’s Observations on Popular Antiquities.

Burne’s major articles were ‘The Collection of English Folk-Lore’, Folk-Lore 1 (1890), 313–30; ‘The Value of European Folklore in the History of Culture’, Folk-Lore 21 (1910), 14–41; ‘The Scientific Aspects of Folklore’, Folk-Lore 22 (1911), 14–32.

Obituary: Folk-Lore 34 (1923), between pp. 99 and 100;Dorson, 1968: 318–22;Gordon Ashman, Talking Folklore 1:1 (1986), 6–21 and in Davidson and Blacker, 2001: 33–44;Simon J. Bronner, Folklore Women’s Communication 24 (1981), 14–19.

From:  Burne, Charlotte Sophia  in  A Dictionary of English Folklore »

At Moreton vicarage^[2] in Staffordshire, near to the border with Shropshire, the first of Charlotte and Sambrooke Burne’s six children. Her parents had arrived the day before, after leaving Loynton Hall on an ancestral estate in Staffordshire, as the guests of the reverend Tom Burne. The family moved to Summerhill, Edgmond, Shropshire^[2] in 1854, having exhausted their welcome. Her father received debilitating injuries in a hunting accident several years later, causing to the family to move as the burden of his care was shared amongst the extended Burne family. She was sent to Loynton Hall for holidays, which was now occupied by mainly unmarried aunts who reported she was undisciplined. Lotty, as she was called, suffered several serious illnesses during her early years, conditions of ill health and obesity would impede her physical well-being throughout her life.

Works[edit]

Burne’s works include the large collection, Shropshire Folklore,^[3] and preparation of the second edition of the Folklore Society’s official Handbook of Folklore, she also contributed over seventy articles and reviews to its journals. Her appointment to various positions in the Society was unusual, having been previously held by its London members, and she was the first woman to become President or editor of its publications. A small amount of other material was published in newspapers and magazines.

Despite the firsts, penetrating gender and regional barriers, and serving the society for forty years, during a well-documented period of its history, details of her life and works are inadequately noticed. Some correspondence of Burne with leading members Alice Bertha and G. Laurence Gomme is contained in the Society’s archives, but her personal papers seem to have been destroyed. A vague and inaccurate portrait of her life and works was given in references to her in Richard Dorson‘s history of the British folklorists (1968); J. C. Burne, a great nephew, drew on letters and recollections of her family for a “tactful biography” published in 1975. An obituary was published by E. Sidney Hartland.

1851—First telegraph cable laid across the English Channel.

Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace.

Half of the population of Great Britain lives in cities.

London population grows from 1.1 million in 1801 to 2.7 million; reaches 6.6 million in 1901.

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1852—Opening of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Queen Victoria`s Second Flying or Training visit to Shrewsbury, following her first as Princess Victoria in 1838.

Charles Dickens in Shrewsbury, Dickens first visited this market town in 1838, with one of his closest friends. He returned in 1852 as part of a series of fund-raising amateur theatrical shows, Dickens organised across the country that year. Finally in 1858, as part of a national reading tour. The town was no doubt on Dickens’s mind when he came to write A Tale of Two Cities, featuring its famous school in the novel,

In October 1838, Charles Dickens, then aged 26, travelled with his friend, the illustrator Hablot Knight Browne (‘Phiz’) to the Midlands and Wales. He stopped off at Leamington Spa and Stratford-upon-Avon staying one night in each town before travelling on to the Shropshire town of Shrewsbury for another overnight stop.

Dickens arrived by coach around 4.30pm on 31 October 1838 after a journey of over seven hours from Stratford-upon-Avon. He had hoped to take a shorter journey but a lack of available coaches had meant he ended up going via Birmingham and Wolverhampton. He described his journey as passing through “miles of cinder-paths and blazing furnaces, and roaring steam-engines, and such a mass of dirt, gloom, and misery as I never before witnessed“.

Charles Dickens stayed at the Lion Hotel, a 16th Century coaching-inn in the centre of the town. In the evening he went to the Theatre Royal with Browne and saw productions of a ballet The Love Chase and a play A Roland for an Oliver.

Dickens’s wife Catherine had not travelled with her husband on this journey, instead staying at their Doughty Street home in London looking after their two children. The couple kept in contact by letter and Charles received a letter from Catherine at Shrewsbury. On the morning of 1 November, Dickens replied with a letter from the hotel to his wife, before continuing his journey to Llangollen in Wales.

1852.

Charles Dickens returned to Shrewsbury on Monday, 10 May 1852 to perform a benefit theatrical night. The show was part of a number Dickens put on, along with a number of friends, that year to raise money for the Guild of Literature and Art.

An account of the performance was given in the Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser on Wednesday, 19 May 1852:

The Amateur Company, under the management of Mr. Dickens, performed Monday night, in the Music Hall, Shrewsbury. Every seat in the different parts of the orchestra and the body of the hall appeared to be filled. Nothing could exceed the delight and satisfaction of the audience at the performance, which lasted five hours, and concluded amidst a storm of cheers and plaudits on the recall of the whole amateur corps dramatique. The persons present were about 600, and the receipts were about £300.

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1858.

Charles Dickens final visit to Shrewsbury was as part of a national reading tour he held in 1858. He held just one performance in the town, on the evening of Thursday, 12 August and again he appeared at the Music Hall.

An account of the night from the Shrewsbury Chronicle bemoans the venue, but not the performance:

Notwithstanding the wretched place to speak in which our Music-hall undoubtedly is, Mr Dickens’s reading was so effective that his audience wept with him over the pathetic history of Tiny Tim, and laughed as heartily over many of the highly humourous scenes in this enchanting story … On the whole, the audience were delighted, as was also Mr. Dickens, we should imagine, by the cordial and even enthusiastic reception he met with in Shrewsbury.

Dickens stayed again at the Lion Hotel that night.

Use of Shrewsbury in Dickens Literature.

In the Dickens historical novel A Tale of Two Cities (first published in instalments between April and November 1859) the characters Sydney Carton and Mr. Stryver were both educated at Shrewsbury School, before going on to study law in Paris and work as barristers in London. Shrewsbury School is an independent school founded under a Royal Charter in 1552 granted by King Edward VI. The school was originally in the centre of the town, where Dickens would have seen it. In 1882, Shrewsbury School moved to a much larger site on the outskirts of the town. In A Tale of Two Cities, the two characters refer back to their time at Shrewsbury School during one drinking session (Book 2 Chapter 5, The Jackal).

Filming of A Christmas Carol.

Shrewsbury was used as the setting for the 1984 film version of the Charles Dickens tale A Christmas Carol, which filmed many of its interior and exterior shots in and around the town. The gravestone prop of Ebenezer Scrooge (played by George C. Scott) that was used in the movie is still present in the graveyard of St Chad’s Church.

1853–56—Crimean War.

1854—Florence Nightingale goes to Crimea and organizes nursing during the war.

1855—Potter Bros new Rope and Tarpaulin Works on the site of the Stew, fish pond.

Balmoral Castle completed.

Newspaper stamp tax abolished

1856—Henry Bessemer invents blast furnace which helps in mass production of steel.

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His other light opera works include A Princess of Kensington, Fallen Fairies (on a libretto by W.S. Gilbert), and Merrie England, his best-known work. He also composed several orchestral works and songs. He was knighted in 1928.

1863–65— St. Pancras train station building

1863–72—Albert Memorial building

1863—First underground railway, Metropolitan Railway in London between Paddington & Farringdon St. (opens Jan. 10).

1865—Thomas Corbett started his business with Richard Chipchase on Whitchurch Road.

Founding of Salvation Army by William Booth (July 2).

from 1855, the metropolitan drainage system in London completed

1866 – Laying of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable.

1867–71—Construction of Royal Albert Hall.

1867—Second Reform Act, extended vote to tax-paying males of the urban working class.

1868—Disraeli as Prime Minister

Last public execution (May 26); public hangings stopped

Last shipment of convicts from England to Australia.

Metropolitan District Railway between Mansion House and South Kensington opens in London.

1868 (former] Swan Hill Congregational Chapel, Shrewsbury Apartments 2019

From at least 1672 until 1741 the Independent Church in Shrewsbury met in a building in the King’s Head Shutt in the High Street. The church ceased to exist in 1741 when the members joined with the Presbyterian Church in the High Street. However, in 1766 a doctrinal split occurred in this joint congregation, and an Independent Church was re-established. They built a chapel on Swan Hill in 1767. This remained their meeting place until it was substantially demolished in 1867 for the building of the present chapel in 1868. The new chapel, built at a cost of about £1,600, was designed by George Bidlake of Wolverhampton in the gothic style & built by Messrs. Nevett of Ironbridge. The building was used until 2016 as a Congregational Chapel, as the congregation decided not to join with the United Reformed Church in 1975. The church closed in 2016 due to a lack of members and the building was put up for sale and subsequently sold. In March 2018 plans were submitted to convert the chapel into four apartments, which were approved in June. The chapel has now (September 2019) been converted. All the stonework and brickwork on the front of the chapel had been cleaned and restored and looks good.

1869— Suez Canal built which dramatically reduced the journey time to & from Australia & Far East.                Extra Wing Added to RSI. A new purpose-built infirmary for Salop was designed by Edward Haycock and erected on high ground facing the River Severn between 1827 and 1830; the institution had occupied a converted house on the same site since 1747. The new hospital was a three- to four-storey Grecian-style building, faced with stone, and included large day-rooms and a terrace on the

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east front, overlooking the river. An extra wing was added in c.1869, a new steam laundry in 1897, and a pathological laboratory in 1898. The largest addition was the provision of a five-storey brick nurses’ home, designed by A. E. Lloyd-Oswell, and erected in 1908-10. A gynaecological and children’s department opened in 1927. The hospital closed in 1977 and has been converted into flats and a shopping arcade.

1870—Education Act, compulsory primary education until the age of 11.

A 1p ($1) fee per day for the schooling.

Married Women’s Property Act gives women the right to earn and keep money for their own use.

1872 – Rev Charles Drinkwater (1831-1923) (© Shropshire Historical and Archaeological Society)

After an inauspicious start, St George’s developed steadily, and was given a further boost with the appointment of Richard Drinkwater’s fifth son, Charles (1831 – 1923) as Vicar in 1872, a post he retained until his death, over 50 years later. He had spent 12 years in Ontario, Canada, the first 7 as a missionary. The area was then still wild and undeveloped, and he later recounted spending days at a time on horseback, and preaching one of his first sermons to a group of emancipated slaves. An outwardly brusque, but kindly man, he was an excellent preacher and good organiser, who, though scholarly, won the affection of ordinary people. He was also an antiquarian, doing much valuable work transcribing and translating old documents, and doing historical research. See Shropshire Archives and SHAS.

1875—First intelligible telephone communication made by Bell (June 5).

Disraeli buys Britain controlling interest in Suez Canal.

1875 – Formation of the Shropshire and West Midlands Agricultural Society

Plymley stated, in his review published in 1813, that there were no agricultural societies based in Shropshire, although Shifnal and Market Drayton had affiliations to Staffordshire based societies. This chapter will examine to what extent were Plymley`s recommendations were followed by the setting up of agricultural and related societies in Shropshire.  The second section of this chapter will examine how effective were agricultural shows, organised by some societies, as a method of communications of improvement ideas, and to ask if standards were improved by competition.  The final section of this study will examine the contribution made by agricultural implements to improvement in Shropshire 

One of the early references to an agricultural society in Shropshire Archive is the `Shropshire Agricultural Society in 1845` this is in the Eyton Family papers and there is an opportunity for further research. The Royal Agricultural Society of England, (RASE) was formed in 1838 had the motto `Practice with Science`. Supported by the nobility, the owners of the great estates and gentlemen farmers, the Royal Agricultural Society of England contributed greatly to improvement when it established prizes for essays on agricultural practice and published them its journal. Prizes were awarded at its annual show for other improvements, including livestock and the design of new implements.

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RASE visited Shrewsbury three times in the period under review and held agricultural shows in Shrewsbury. In four years leading up to the show in 1884 R. Jasper More reported the Shropshire membership of RASE as follows in 1880:420, 1881:396, 1882:382, 1883:371. The programme of the RASE meeting held on the Racecourse on Monkmoor Street in Shrewsbury in 1914 started on Saturday with the exhibition of implements and systems only. It was then open to the public on five days starting on Monday, on Wednesday there was a lecture on Bee Management and in the working dairy there was a demonstration of the butter making using French and Danish methods.

The start-up of RASE may have encouraged a number of other agricultural societies and groups to become interested in agricultural improvement, such as the Wenlock Farmers Club in 1843, the year before the Central Farmers Club of London. Other organisations arranged talks on agricultural topics, for example a talk on `Agricultural Chemistry` by the Reverend C.A.A. Lloyd and delivered on the 3^rd April 1840. Other individuals such as the Honourable Thomas Kenyon offered a two sovereigns prize to the cottagers of Oswestry if they would adopt a new plan for managing bees, this illustrates the trickle down of knowledge from Gentry to cottager.

Speeches made by members of parliament and agricultural leaders were printed and sold. Such as a speech in Parliament on 20^th February 1846 by Shrewsbury MP Benjamin Disraeli in the debate on `Free Trade`, he spoke against repeal of the Corn Laws and this was printed and sold on behalf of by the Shropshire Agricultural Protection Society.

At this time agricultural societies were being formed to discuss matters of agricultural interest, to support agricultural research and to lobby parliament. In 1866 the first meeting of the Central Chamber of Agriculture was held in London, and the first chairman was Mr A. Pell of the Northampton Chamber and Mr R. Jasper More, MP for south Shropshire, was elected Vice Chairman. The Shropshire Chamber of Agriculture, (SCofA) was formed two weeks later, it is now the only survivor of the many county Chambers of Agriculture that formed in the nineteenth century and affiliated to the Central Chamber of Agriculture in London.

The farmers of Shropshire gathered at the George Hotel, Shrewsbury in August 1866 to form the SCofA. A number of issues had been giving them cause for concern including, the commutation of tithes, the enclosure of common land and the repeal of the Corn Laws. But according to Ingleson, the tipping point had been reached in 1865, when the cattle plague hit Shropshire. It brought home to every farmer that they had no one to represent their interests inside or outside parliament. It was serious for Shropshire, as by March 1866 3,406 cattle had been slaughtered, 2,742 had died, 788 recovered and only 347 were unaffected, 

The Shropshire Chambers had two objectives set out by the Chairman Mr J Bowen Jones. 1) Political action to hold and improve our position with regard to other interests that have accomplished a reduction in taxes. 2)  General improvement of agriculture and the accompanying advancement of the respective interests concerned with the land. The Chamber grew to have 612 members, the largest membership in the country, and it supported the idea of an agricultural show in Shropshire. On 17^th December 1873, in Eddowe`s Shrewsbury Journal, the editor praised the quality of entries in a pre-Christmas show and sale of fatstock, held on the previous Friday. He mooted the idea of making an annual show of mutton and beef. He then commented on the positive support received from local landlords and traders who helped the promoter with prize money. The editor continued that Shrewsbury was the natural centre of a great feeding district unsurpassed for quality and

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quantity and that, surely, the breeders and feeders would prefer an exhibition in their own neighbourhood. The following week J. Bowen-Jones, a leading agriculturalist in the county, who later became president of the Shropshire Sheep Breeders` Association and Flock Book Society, supported the idea in a letter to the editor. He then commented the fact of Shropshire not having a county society, or forming part of an area of a still larger one, is a standing reproach to the agriculturalists of this important agricultural county. He ends his letter by saying that he is sure there would be co-operation between landowners and practical farmers, and that such a show would be of substantial benefit to agriculture of the north-west and west-midlands districts.

Thomas Corbett, proprietor of Corbett and Peek, Perseverance Ironworks, Shrewsbury, a manufacturer of agricultural implements and secretary of SCofA was in agreement with the idea of a show and he agreed to raise the matter at the next meeting of the SCofA. He offered to be secretary of the new show without charge for the first year. A meeting was held on Tuesday 20^th January 1874, the day of the annual dinner, with the president, Mr R Jasper More, in the chair, Mr J Bowen Jones spoke on the desirability of forming a large Agricultural Society for Shropshire and adjoining districts. After discussion some members said that it should not just be for Shropshire but is should be for the West Midlands.

A sub-committee of members was appointed to look at the whole question of a show. Eddowes`s Journal commented in the changing phases of practical agriculture:

Whether we like it or not, we shall be forced to regard it as a national industry and partially scientific profession. We have noticed that at local shows little encouragement to improved agricultural implements and too much attention paid to leaping contests for hunters.

According to Ritherdon not all of the public were thrilled to be having an agricultural show in the Quarry in Shrewsbury and one objected to using the most beautiful park in England half of which will be boarded up for months just for a two-day show.

On 26^th January 1875 the Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire, the Rt Hon. The earl of Bradford, was elected as patron and Thomas Corbett as honorary secretary and a list of over 1300 rules was approved and the Shropshire & West Midlands Agricultural Society was formed. The first show was to held in Shrewsbury in 1875 and needed the support of the Shrewsbury Council

They paid the agreed amount and the first show was a financial success. The writer would point out that analysis of the figures shows that there would be a substantial loss without the contribution from the host town and donations from other sponsors. The membership Income Subscriptions and Donations have been summarised for the first year and in 1874/5 there were 375 members who paid a subscription of £1. Other monies were received amounting to £41.77 and donations amounting to £403.18. 

!875 Formation of the Shropshire Horticultural Society

Shows and Pageants were introduced into Shrewsbury in the early eighteen hundreds by the Town burgesses in order to increase trade and income to the Town and its businesses. Country people living in the villages surrounding the town had no real need to come into the Town regularly because each village had its own range of local tradesmen who could produce almost

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everything which they needed. Many people never left their village in their lifetime and even into the mid twentieth century people would rarely venture into the Town.

Annual Fairs were organised, such as the Gooseberry and Carnation fairs to attract country people into the Town to sell their surplus produce but these fairs often degenerated into excess drinking and occasions of debauchery and quickly got out of hand.

The burgesses, craft guilds and freemen of the Town quickly began to organise the events and the Shropshire Horticultural Society held its first Show in 1857, just outside the Town near the Showground at Coton Hill.

Members of the old Society, who were mainly local business people finally regularised things by holding the first Show of the current Society in 1875. This was in spite of the Home Secretary banning such shows in 1878 and so a special dispensation was given to enable the Show to be held together with the Agricultural Society Show in the Quarry Park in the centre of the Town.

The Band of the Coldstream Guards played at that first event and in the many years up to the present time. Military Band performances have always been a central feature of the Show.

The flowers were exhibited in a “New Tent” 220ft long and 36ft high which was considered to be enormous in those days. This was made especially for the Show.

The takings for the two-day Show were £791-12s giving a profit of £409 for the Show.

The present Shropshire Horticultural Society was formally established in October of 1875, just after the first Show. High quality exhibits of Flowers and Horticulture have always been the main focus of the Show as depicted in its name but from the beginning the Show has provided family entertainment.

1881 – Mary Webb, née Meredith, (born March 25, 1881, Leighton-under-the-Wrekin, Shropshire, Eng.—died Oct. 8, 1927, St. Leonards, Sussex), English novelist best known for her book Precious Bane (1924). Her lyrical style conveys a rich and intense impression of the Shropshire countryside and its people. Her love of nature and a sense of impending doom within her novels invite comparison with those qualities in the works of Thomas Hardy.

Margaret was born on 20 June 1882 in Shrewsbury and died 71 years later on 6 December 1953. Her father, a doctor, was a High Church Anglican and determinedly anti-Catholic. But the mother and all but one of the six children converted to Catholicism after his early death. Margaret was by nature devout and in 1923 she entered the Carmelite order, spending her final days at Quidenham Carmel.

Very early Margaret also manifested exceptional artistic talent. From 1900 she attended the Birmingham Municipal School of Art. Henry Payne guided her studies in the art of stained glass. At this time she already attained artistic fame, winning scholarships and many awards in the National Competition for Schools of Art. Above all, her stained glass art was marked by a deeply religious inspiration.

As with all creative artists, Margaret left her indelible mark upon her work. Increasingly, a special “image of God” – the reflection of God’s creative gift to her – shines through her artistic creations.

So let us pursue and ponder the inspired imprint of Margaret’s creativity in stained glass in two of her finest gifts to the Shrewsbury Catholic community.

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The height and depth, the length and breadth of Margaret’s spiritual vision is revealed in the West Window of the cathedral. It is a window on to the universal dimensions of our holy religion, portrayed on several distinct but inter-related levels. At the apex is the symbol of Christ as the Lamb, slain yet standing above the heavenly Jerusalem, in the heavenly firmament. Below the entire universe is found – the vast oceans, celestial lights – sun, moon and stars; dry land, plants, seed-bearing trees with fruit; song birds and flying birds. Then too the angelic choirs and heavenly song: this is the full chorus of creation praising God.

The ever-present witness of the Church follows on the next level below with the depictions of the 11 English martyrs. They are the witnesses and fruits of the holiness gathered from the earthly – and English – Church as seen in glory with their halo-crowned heads. They are men and women from every walk of life, radiant with holiness, gazing upward to the unveiled divine glory.

1876—Victoria achieved the title of Ruler of India.

1879—Edison’s invention of the electric light bulb.

1881—Eye Ear & Throat Originating in a small dispensary which opened in 1818, this specialist institution moved to a new purpose-built hospital erected in 1879-81 on a site overlooking the Severn. The architect was C. O. Ellison, of Liverpool. The tall, Gothic-style building, faced in red brick and terracotta, contained an out-patients’ department, eight four-bed general wards, two small special wards and a top-storey operating theatre. There were also a flat roof area and garden court for convalescence. The building, with a striking corner tower (now minus its spire) was extensively decorated with stained-glass windows and relief terracotta panels. A wing for ophthalmic cases, designed in a similar style and materials by A. E. Williams, was added in 1925-6.

1883—Expansion of Married Women’s Property Act.

1884—Third Reform Act, extending voting rights to agricultural workers.

1885—Karl Benz’s invention of the first automobile.

               Shrewsbury Library opens following the move of Shrewsbury school too Kingsland.

1887—Golden Jubilee celebration of 50th anniversary of Victoria’s reign.

Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story – A Study in Scarlet

1888—Unsolved London murders of East End women by “Jack the Ripper.””

County Councils created in Britain.

The founding of The Star (absorbed by The Evening News in 1960).

1896—Marconi patented wireless telegraphy (June 2).

The speed limit for cars was increased from 4 to 20 mph.

The Savoy (January–September).

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1897—Official opening of the Tate Gallery, founded by Sir Henry Tate (July 21).

1890 – first comic book was published

1891 – Free education act 1891

1895 – Importance of Being Earnest published

1901— Death of Queen Victoria at age 82 (January 22, 6:30 am).

The population of Shrewsbury was 28,395 In 1801 the population of Shrewsbury was 14,739

An increase of over 100% in 100 years

The Arbours in Kingsland, Arbours was a corruption of Harbours and means a place of entertainment. They were similar internally, with a long table that extended for the whole length with benches on either side. There was a raised seat at the upper end with a canopy for the warden and the mayor and at the other end, behind a partition, a buttery for beer, wine, tobacco and the food. Other buildings were attached for use by caretakers, storage and maintenance. The buildings were usually set in a rectangle, surrounded by a hedge and ditch with an ornamental entrance or gateway.  The Shoemakers building was octagonal.

A fine example is that of the Shoemakers Arbour entrance, made of stone, with a Doric design in 1679, at a cost of £28 6s 7d, with the later addition of the statues of Crispin and Crispinianus set in the tympanum. This has survived and can be seen in The Dingle in the Quarry Park. Until 1796 the Shoemakers` Race existed as a labyrinth, of a measured mile, of walks within just a few yards. It was lost when a windmill was built and that was demolished in its turn in 1861.

Demise of Guilds and the end of The Old Shrewsbury Show

Industrial Revolution and Corporation Acts of 1835 saw off most Guilds however there are records of guild activity well into the 19 C.

The final acts of the Mercers, Ironmongers and Goldsmiths include in 1814 spending fifteen guineas towards the expense of introducing Lord Hill properly into Shrewsbury and regaling the populace. In 1816 The freedom of the Company was presented to the Right Honourable Rowland Lord Hill in a box of Heart of Oak. In 1827 £25 was given towards the erecting a new Salop Infirmary. In 1831 £30 was spent on a dinner on the Coronation of Wm 4^th & Adelaide. It was noted in 1836 the privileges of the Company came to an end. In 1859 the St Chad`s Almshouses were taken down, and in 1878 the property of the company was distributed to the combrethren and the Company dissolved.

The 18th century was a period of decline for the guilds and in the 19th century the Corporation Acts of 1835 should have been a death blow, as it ended all trading advantages of the remaining craft guilds.

In spite of this some continued to take part in the Shrewsbury Show until on the 6th March 1878, it was abolished by the Home Secretary, Richard Cross, using powers afforded him by the Fairs Act of 1871. This made way for the Shropshire Horticultural Society`s Flower Show which become the pre-eminent festival in the town and County. The remaining guilds sold their assets and equipment and the proceeds were shared amongst the remaining members or given away.

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Queen Victoria was born on May 24, 1819. She was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, minor son of the reigning King George III, and Victoire of Saxe-Coburg, a German princess. Both her father and grandfather died in 1820, the year her uncle succeeded as King George IV. Victoria became an heir to the throne when King George died without an issue in 1830, and also the daughter of her second royal uncle, King William IV, passed away in infancy.

King William himself died in 1837, and the eighteen-year-old princess became Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Ireland on June twenty that year.

On February 10, 1840, she married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. Queen Victoria bore nine children within the next seventeen years, including the future King Edward VII. Albert was an avid patron of the arts, sciences, and burgeoning industries, and he helped organize the famous Great Exhibition of 1851 at the “Crystal Palace.”

These early years of Victorian rule saw major reforms in British education, with the Grammar Schools Act of 1840 and the founding of Queen’s College for women in London in 1848. Prince Albert died in 1861; the Queen Victoria was devastated and went into deep mourning. Her absence from public events led to a demand for the abolition of monarchic powers. However, with the help of the Conservative party’s Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister in 1868 and again from 1874 to 1880, the queen eventually reassumed a more public and influential role in the government. Throughout the middle years of her reign, Queen Victoria presided over Britain’s involvement in the Crimean War (1854-56), non-intervention in the Prussia-Austria-Denmark war of 1864-1866, and the aversion of a Franco-German war in 1875.

She also presided over major domestic reforms in the British government, including the Second Reform Act of 1867 and the Representation of Peoples Act of 1884, both of which greatly expanded the population of her subjects permitted to vote in parliamentary elections. Victorian England also saw great advances in commerce and industry, aided by the spread of railroad lines throughout Great Britain and the laying of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable in 1866. She and the public celebrated both her Golden Jubilee in 1887 and her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. 

The Boer War in South Africa in 1999 overshadowed the end of her reign. Victoria reviewed her troops and visited hospitals; she remained undaunted by British reverses during the campaign: ‘We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat; they do not exist.’

Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901. She was eighty-one years old.