The history of Market Harborough

Have you ever wondered what our town was like in the past?

Market Harborough was believed to have been called Hæfera-beorg, which means ‘oat hill’. Founded by the Anglo-Saxons, we were simply a small village. A market was established in 1204 and has been running ever since!

Market Harborough featured in the news in 1569 when the Privy Council debated whether a local girl had given birth to a cat. In the late 16th century, Robert Smyth walked from Harborough to London and later became the Comptroller of the City of London. He founded the Market Harborough Grammar School in 1607, which was only open to protestant (a type of Christianity) boys for nearly two centuries. Later, the County Grammar School of Edward VII was established on Burnmill Road and is what we know today as Robert Smyth Academy.

Nationally, Harborough served as the headquarters of the King’s army in the English Civil War in June 1645, when the Battle of Naseby was a decisive victory for Oliver Cromwell and his Parliamentary forces. Harborough Chapel became a temporary prison for the captured forces. Cromwell wrote a letter from ‘Haverbrowe’ to the House of Commons, announcing their victory. Following the Act of Uniformity (an Act that dictated religion) in 1662, an independent church was set up in Harborough.

In the 1800s, the canal was built, and Thomas Cook organised the first group travel by rail and eventually founded the famous travel agency that bore his name. Our town became a hub for fox hunting in the mid-19th century when Mr Tailby of Skeffington Hall established a hunt. The Grand National Hunt Steeple Chase was held in the area three times in the 1860s, and this would later become the Cheltenham Festival.
In 1850, William Symington established a factory for pea-flour, whilst his brother James sold sewing equipment. His sons would later acquire the corset factory in what we now know to be the Symington building.

There was a rapid expansion in the town’s population from 4,400 in 1861 to 7,700 in 1901, leading to overcrowding. Due to the 1875 Public Health Act after the revelation of Frenchman Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of 1861, a new sewage system was developed, and more housing was built.

In 1915, William Bragg and his son Lawrence Bragg won the Noble Prize in Physics for their analysis of crystal structure by means of X-ray.

Following on from then until today, we have seen the expansion of our town, the transformation of the Symington building and the development of our schools!

Sources:

Wikipedia 

www.ladyscience.com

www.specialcollections.le.ac.uk