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Leeds ARTICLES

Leeds The Prosperous City

14th November 2008

At the time of the writing of The Doomsday Book in1086 the population of Leeds, which was a Saxon village, was about 200. For this period of history this was seen as a significantly large village.

In 1207 trade and commerce was on the rise and new towns were being founded. The Lord of the Manor (Maurice De Gant) founded a new town Leeds and built a new street to the west of the of the pre-existing village.

The town saw butchers, bakers, carpenters and blacksmiths with the main industry being the manufacturing of wool. The population had increased to about 1,000, however in the Middle Ages Leeds was still a small and insignificant town.

In the 16th century wool manufacturing moved from East Riding to West Yorkshire and Leeds population increased to 3,000.

The middle of the 17th century saw the population increase to nearly 6000, leading Leeds to become one of the largest and wealthiest towns in Yorkshire.

The year 1642 saw the civil war between King and parliament. The majority of the people supported the King and the royalist army was brought in to protect the village. However parliamentary soldiers captured the town in January 1643 but by the summer they had abandoned Leeds after losing the battle in Yorkshire. They returned in 1644 and held on to Leeds until the end of the civil war.

During the 18th century Leeds also had a thriving pottery and brick making industry. There were also many coach makers, clockmakers, booksellers and jewellers. The first Leeds newspaper was also published at this time and also saw the introduction of the oil lamps for the streets.

In 1801 the first census of the population was carried out and was found to be 30,000, by 1851 it had increased to 101,000.

With the overcrowding and the dirty streets it is of no surprise that Leeds was hit by the first outbreak of the cholera epidemic in 1832 killing over 700. Seventeen years later a second epidemic killed over 2,000, which led to the introduction of council built sewers.

By 1901 the population of Leeds had reached 178,000. Leeds University was founded in 1904 and in the same year St Annes RC Cathedral was built.