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Rugby is a market town in the county of Warwickshire in the West Midlands of England, on the River Avon. The town has a population of 61,988 (2001 census). The larger borough of Rugby has a population of 91,600 (2005 estimate). Residents of Rugby are called 'Rugbeians'.

Rugby is located 13 miles (21 km) east of Coventry, on the eastern edge of Warwickshire, near the borders with Northamptonshire and Leicestershire.

Claims to fame

Rugby is most famous for the invention of rugby football, which is played throughout the world. Legend has it that the game was invented by William Webb Ellis in 1823 at Rugby School, which is near the centre of Rugby.

Rugby School is one of England's oldest and most prestigious public schools, and was the setting of Thomas Hughes's semi-autobiographical masterpiece Tom Brown's Schooldays. A substantial part of the 2004 dramatisation of the novel, starring Stephen Fry, was filmed on location at Rugby School.

Rugby is also a birthplace of the jet engine. In April 1937 Frank Whittle built the world's first prototype jet engine at the British Thomson-Houston works in Rugby, and between 1936-41 based himself at Brownsover Hall on the outskirts of the town, where he designed and developed early prototype engines. Much of his work was also carried out at nearby Lutterworth. Holography was also invented in Rugby by the Hungarian inventor Dennis Gabor in 1947.

In the 19th century, Rugby became famous for its once hugely important railway junction which was the setting for Charles Dickens's story Mugby Junction.

Famous or notable people born in Rugby include the poet Rupert Brooke, writer Rose Macaulay, the scientist Norman Lockyer who discovered helium, the athlete Katharine Merry and the inventor of the 'oval' football Richard Lindon. The bands Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized both led by Jason Pierce come from Rugby, as does the singer/songwriter James Morrison. British Judokas Chris and Neil Adams were also natives of Rugby.

Also, many famous names attended Rugby School, including Neville Chamberlain, Lewis Carroll, Salman Rushdie and Matthew Arnold. Arnold's father Thomas Arnold was a noted headmaster of the school.

History

Main article History of Rugby

Early Iron age settlement existed in the Rugby area, and a few miles outside what is now Rugby, existed a Roman settlement known as Tripontium. Rugby was originally a small Anglo-Saxon farming settlement, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Rocheberie. Rugby obtained a charter to hold a market in 1255, and soon developed into a small country market town.

Rugby School was founded in 1567 by money left in the will of Lawrence Sheriff; a locally born grocer, who moved to London and earned his fortune. Rugby School was originally intended as a school for local boys, but over time became a mostly fee paying private school. The Lawrence Sheriff School was eventually founded in the late 19th century to carry on Sheriff's original intentions.

Rugby remained a sleepy country market town until the 19th century and the coming of the railways. In 1838 the London and Birmingham Railway was constructed around the town, and in 1840 the Midland Counties Railway made a junction with the London and Birmingham at Rugby. Rugby became an important railway junction, and the proliferation of rail yards and workshops attracted workers to the town. Rugby's population grew from just 2,500 in 1835, to over 10,000 by the 1880s

In the 1890s and 1900s heavy engineering industries began to set up in the town, and Rugby rapidly grew into a major industrial centre. Rugby expanded rapidly in the early decades of the 20th century as workers moved into the town. By the 1940s, the population of Rugby had grown to over 40,000

In the postwar years, Rugby became well served by the motorway network, with the M1 and M6 merging close to the town.

Rugby today

The modern town of Rugby is an amalgamation of the original town with the former villages of Bilton, Hillmorton, Brownsover and Newbold-on-Avon which were incorporated into Rugby in 1932 when the town became a borough; all except Brownsover still have their former village centres. Rugby also includes the areas of New Bilton and Overslade. The spread of Rugby has nearly reached the villages of Clifton-upon-Dunsmore, Cawston, Dunchurch and Long Lawford.

The town centre is mostly Victorian and early 20th century, however a few much older buildings survive, along with some more modern developments. Much architecture in Rugby including Rugby School and St Andrews church, was designed by William Butterfield in the 19th century.

Rugby town centre includes numerous restaurants of various kinds, many pubs, and two nightclubs. In 2002, Brownsover Fish Bar on Hollowell Way, Brownsover, was named as the best seller of Fish and Chips in the country. The town centre is noted for its large number of pubs, and was for many years in the Guinness Book of Records for having the second highest number of pubs per square mile in England .

The main shopping area in Rugby is in the streets around the Clock Tower, two of which: High Street and Sheep Street are pedestrianised. The town centre has an indoor shopping centre called The Clock Towers which opened in 1980. A street market is held in the town centre several days a week. In recent years several out-of-town retail centres have opened to the north of the town. Rugby also contains several large parks, most notably Caldecott Park near the town hall.

Places of interest

Places of interest in the town include:

• The Rugby School Museum which has audio visual displays about the history of Rugby School and of the town.
• The combined art gallery and museum. the art gallery contains a nationally recognised collection of contemporary art. The museum contains, amongst other things, Roman artefacts dug up from the nearby Roman settlement of Tripontium.
• The Rugby Football Museum, where traditional rugby balls are hand made. It contains much rugby football memorabilia.

Places of interest around Rugby include:

• Brandon Marsh
• Coombe Abbey
• Dunchurch - Historic village
• Draycote Water - Reservoir and nature reserve
• Oxford Canal
• Rugby School
• Stanford Hall
• Ryton Organic Gardens

Notable buildings and landmarks

• One of the most notable landmarks around Rugby is the Rugby VLF transmitter, a large radio transmitting station located just to the east of the town. The station was opened in 1926 and has been used to transmit the MSF time signal. Several of the masts however were decommissioned and demolished by explosives in 2004, although a few including 4 of the biggest masts still remain. (Firing the explosive charges was delayed by rabbits gnawing the wires.)

• Another local landmark is the giant Rugby Cement works on the west of the town, which can be seen for many miles. The landmark is not a popular one - in 2005 it came in the top ten of a poll of buildings people would like to see demolished on the Channel 4 television series Demolition. The works are also the subject of certain local controversy, as some residents believe the emissions from the works have caused health problems for local people. In October 2006, the owners of the Rugby Cement works, Cemex, were fined £400,000 for excessive pollution after a court case brought by the Environment Agency.

• Several statues stand in Rugby of three famous locals; Rupert Brooke, Thomas Hughes and William Webb Ellis. The Rupert Brooke statue is situated at the forked junction of Regent Street on the green commemorating his contribution to poetry. Since England won the Rugby World Cup, the William Webb Ellis Statue outside Rugby School is one of the most visited parts of the town.

• St Andrew's Church in the town centre is Rugby's original parish church. A church has stood on the site since the 13th century. The church was extensively re-built and expanded in the 19th century, designed by William Butterfield. The expanded church included a new east tower, which has a spire 182 feet (55 metres) high. However some parts of the older medieval church were retained, most notably the 22 metre high west tower which bears strong resemblance to a castle turret. The west tower was probably built during the reign of Henry III (1216-1272) to serve a defensive as well as religious role, and is Rugby's oldest building. The church has other artefacts of medieval Rugby including the 13th century parish chest, and a medieval font.

• Rugby's main Roman Catholic church is St.Maries on Dunchurch Road. It is one of the town's most well known landmarks as it is quite dominant in the skyline. It's spire has the tallest in Warwickshire. The church was built in 1872, designed by Pugin in the Early English style.
  

Transport

• By road, Rugby is near the M6, M1 and M45 motorways and the A45 road.
• By rail Rugby is served by the West Coast Main Line railway, and has services to London - Birmingham and the North West of England (see Rugby railway station).
• The nearest airport to Rugby is Coventry Airport. The town also has a direct rail link to Birmingham International Airport.
• The Oxford Canal runs along the north edge of Rugby, but south of the new housing estates round Brownsover.
• Buses run to Coventry, Leamington Spa, Leicester and Northampton as well as serving the major estates of the town on a regular basis.

Economy

Rugby's economy is mainly industrial. It is an engineering centre and has a long history of producing gas and steam turbines at the GEC and at the AEI. The AEI was earlier British Thomson-Houston or BTH. They used to dominate employment in the town. They are now amalgamated to form Alstom. Engineering in Rugby has declined in recent years and the future of the Alstom works looks shaky, but it is still the largest private employer in Rugby. Alstom have now sold of the power conversion division of the business to become Converteam, which remains a large private employer in Rugby.

Another major industry in Rugby is cement making; the giant Rugby Cement works on the western outskirts of the town makes cement from the local Jurassic Lias limestone. The cement industry in Rugby dates back to the 1860s. In the mid-1990s the Rugby Cement plant at nearby Southam was closed, and all production was moved to the Rugby plant which was dramatically enlarged and is now one of the largest of its type in Europe.

Since the 1980s several large industrial estates have been built to the north of the town, and warehousing and distribution have become major employers.

Further afield, within the Rugby borough is the Rolls-Royce engineering works near Ansty. Both of these are nearer to Coventry, but are also major employers in Rugby.

Tourism is also important to the town's economy, especially related to Rugby football.

A link to Rugby's rural past can still be found in the cattle market held near the railway station. A cattle market has been held in Rugby since medieval times.

Rugby is to some extent a dormitory town for nearby places such as Coventry, Leicester, and Birmingham .

Politics

Rugby is administered by two local authorities: Rugby Borough Council which covers Rugby and its surrounding countryside, and Warwickshire County Council. The two authorities are responsible for different aspects of local government. Rugby is unparished and so does not have its own town council.

In 1983 Rugby became part of the parliamentary constituency of Rugby and Kenilworth, one of the Midland's most marginal seats. Between 1983 and 1997 Jim Pawsey was the Conservative Member of Parliament, losing in 1997 to Labour's Andy King.

At the 2005 general election Jeremy Wright regained the seat for the Conservatives.

From 1885 until 1983 Rugby was a contituency in itself. Following the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for England that Warwickshire be allocated a sixth parliamentary seat, a new constituency of Kenilworth and Southam has been created to the south of Rugby with effect from the next general election, and as a result the town will regain its pre-1983 status of returning its own member of parliament. The new Rugby constituency is expected to continue to be a margin constituency and Jeremy Wright has indicated his intention of standing for the new Kenilworth and Southam seat at the next general election.

Education

Schools in Rugby include the Lawrence Sheriff School for boys (which recently came 4th in the country for all schools, on 2006 GCSE results, and Rugby High School for Girls, both of which are grammar schools. There are also several comprehensive schools, including Ashlawn School (formerly Dunsmore School for Boys and Dunsmore School for Girls), Bilton School (formerly Herbert Kay & Westlands School, and Bilton High School), Avon Valley School (formerly 'Newbold School') and the Harris School. Rugby is home to a college, which is now a part of the Warwickshire College group.

Sport

• Rugby has a small football team Rugby Town F.C. (formerly known as VS Rugby) which currently plays in the Southern League.

• Unsurprisingly Rugby also has a number of rugby union teams including; the Rugby Lions, Newboldand Old Laurentian RFC, in fact the town boasts more rugby teams per capita than any other in the UK .

Nearby places and twin towns

• Nearby cities: Coventry, Leicester, Birmingham
• Nearby towns: Lutterworth, Daventry, Hinckley, Kenilworth, Nuneaton, Leamington Spa, Northampton, Southam
• Twin towns: Évreux (France), Rüsselsheim (Germany)

See also

• Rugby, North Dakota
• Rugby, Tennessee

References

1. 2001 urban areas headcounts
2. http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0014%2FWHTL The Papers of Sir Frank Whittle
3. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1971/gabor-autobio.html Nobel Prive Winner Deniis Garbor, inventor of holography
4. Rugby local history group
5. Rugby local history group
6. http://www.seafish.org/plate/fishandchips.asp?p=gf184 Fish & Chip Shop of the Year Competition
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/3823335.stm BBC News 20 June, 2004. Rabbits delay masts' demolition
8. http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/D/demolition/worst2.html C3 Demolition
9. http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/news/1483240?lang=_e&region=Midlands%20Region EA Court Case details
10. http://www.rugby.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=973 Rugby BC Action on Tourism
11. http://education.guardian.co.uk/gcses/table/0,,1858159,00.html Gardian league table

Additional reading

• Rugby, Aspects of the Past. Rugby Local History Group.
• Timmins, E.W. (1990). Rugby: A Pictorial History. ISBN 0-85033-700-3.
• Elliot, Peter H (1985). Rugby's Railway Heritage. ISBN 0-907917-06-2.
• Rawlins, Eddy (1988). Rugby Growth Of A Town. ISBN 0-907917-06-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• Yourhomepagein Rugby Local Community Website
• Rugby Observer The Local Rugby Newspaper
• Visit Rugby
• Rugby Tourism
• Rugby Borough Council
• Rugby Advertiser - Local newspaper
• Rugby Local History Group
• Subterranea Britannica on Rugby Radio Station

• Railway towns in England
• Towns in Warwickshire
• Market towns in England
• People from Rugby