Dothill meets Downing Street

What connects the home of the prime minister, a Cambridge college, and the Wellington suburb of Dothill?

 

 

Wellington in the Age of George III

George III is less well known than some of his fellow monarchs, but his was a long reign in which Britain went through massive social, economic and industrial change. Find out what happened to Wellington in the era of 'Farmer George'...

 

 

Pageants and pleasure-seekers in Georgian Wellington

Whether they were dressing up as Greek gods for the annual Jubilee or fighting for the 'rights of the hill' at the Wrekin Wakes, Wellington folk knew how to have fun in the 18th century...

 

 

 

1805: Trafalgar round The Wrekin

Land-locked Shropshire doesn't have much of a naval past, but that didn't stop locals celebrating Nelson's great victory at Trafalgar in 1805. Wellington's reforming vicar, however, wasn't too impressed by their drink-fuelled exuberance...

 

 

 

Shropshire Bound: Houlstons' publishers

One hundred years ago, the London publisher Houlston and Sons closed their doors. They had begun life over a century earlier in Wellington's Market Square, from where they went on to become one of the most influential publishers of religious books in Victorian Britain...

 

 

Pulling out all the stops: Henry Gauntlett

Born in Wellington in 1805, Henry Gauntlett became one of the best known organists and hymn writers of his age. Admired by Mendlessohn, for whom he played in 1855, his is a name still familiar to church musicians today - and you probably know at least one of his tunes as well...

 

 

Music to watch hills by: Songs of The Wrekin

The Wrekin has always inspired poets and artists. In the mid-19th century that inspiration, married with rising civic pride and a booming market for piano sheet music, resulted in a clutch of songs and dances with an uncommonly local flavour...

 

 

Shropshire Chartism (see parts 1 & 2 below for links to articles)

In the early 1840s, an industrial depression was hitting East Shropshire's mining communities hard. Attempting to rally the unemployed and disenchanted to their banner, the Chartists began campaigning in the area in 1842. And as revealed by a stack of letters now held at the National Archive, the Chartists were getting Wellington's police chief very hot under the collar...

 

Part 1) Radicals on the Wrekin

The Chartists made a display of strength by parading up The Wrekin. But was this a whiff of revolution or just revelry...?

 

Part 2) A Summer of Discontent

Summer drew on and so did the hardship for Shropshire's industrial workers. But how successful would the Chartists be...?