Rugby is a
market townMarket town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
in
WarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton in the far north of the county. The shape of the administrative area Warwickshire differs considerably from that of the historic county...
, in the West Midlands of
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, on the
River AvonThe River Avon or Avon is a river in or adjoining the counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire in the Midlands of England. It is also known as the Upper Avon, Warwickshire Avon or Shakespeare's Avon. The river has a total length of...
. The town has a population of 61,988
(2001 census) making it the
second largest town in the county. The larger
Borough of RugbyRugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England.The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town....
has a population of 91,600 (2005 estimate).
Rugby is 13 miles (21 km) east of
CoventryCoventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
, on the eastern edge of Warwickshire, near the borders with
NorthamptonshireNorthamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census...
and
LeicestershireLeicestershire or , abbreviation Leics.is a landlocked county in central England. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
.
The town is credited with being the birthplace of
rugby footballRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
.
History
- Main article History of Rugby
-Early history:In the Iron Age the Rugby area was settled. Rugby's site on a plateau at about 400 feet above sea level, overlooking the River Avon made it an important strategic post overlooking the Avon, which was a natural barrier between the Dobunni and the Corieltauvi tribes...
Early
Iron ageIn archaeology, the Iron Age is the prehistoric period in any area during which cutting tools and weapons were mainly made of iron or steel. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in society, including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles.The...
settlement existed in the Rugby area, and a few miles outside what is now Rugby, existed a
RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
settlement known as
TripontiumTripontium was a town in Roman Britain. It lay on the Roman road later called Watling Street at a site now chiefly within the civil parish of Newton and Biggin in the English county of Warwickshire and partly in Leicestershire, some 3.4 miles north-east of Rugby and 3.1 miles south of...
. Rugby was originally a small
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066...
farming settlement, and was mentioned in the
Domesday BookThe Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror...
of 1086 as
Rocheberie. Rugby obtained a charter to hold a market in 1255, and soon developed into a small country
market townMarket town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
.
The name's likeliest origin is
Anglo-SaxonOld English , also called Anglo-Saxon, is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary...
Hrōca burh or similar = "
Rook-Games:*Rook or castle, a piece in the board game of chess**Rook's graph, a graph of legal moves for the rook chess piece*Rook -People:*Alan Rook, editor of New Oxford Poetry, one of the Cairo poets*Jean Rook, British newspaper columnist...
fort", where Rook may be the birds or may be a man's name. Another theory is that the name is originally derived from an old Celtic name
Droche-brig meaning "wild hilltop". The change to -
by is because of
VikingA Viking is one of the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century. These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far...
influence: there are other place names ending in
-by in the area ('By' meaning town in
NorwegianNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants ...
,
SwedishSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish...
and
DanishDanish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the...
even today).
Rugby SchoolRugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
was founded in 1567 by money left in the will of
Lawrence SheriffLawrence Sheriff or Lawrence Sheriffe was an Elizabethan gentleman and grocer to Elizabeth I who founded Rugby School.Not much is known about Lawrence Sheriff's early life, but it thought that he was born near St. Andrew's Church in Rugby, Warwickshire...
, 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 SchoolLawrence Sheriff School is a selective boys' grammar school in Rugby in Warwickshire. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan man who founded Rugby School. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff' by boys at the school. In a recent OFSTED ...
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 centuryThe 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Ottoman, Holy Roman and Mughal empires...
and the coming of the railways. In 1838 the
London and Birmingham RailwayThe London and Birmingham Railway was an early railway company in the United Kingdom from 1833 to 1846 when it became part of the London and North Western Railway ....
was constructed around the town, and in 1840 the
Midland Counties RailwayThe Midland Counties Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom which existed between 1832 and 1844, connecting Nottingham, Leicester and Derby with Rugby and thence, via the London and Birmingham Railway, to London. The MCR system connected with the North Midland Railway and the...
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
engineeringEngineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or inventions.The American Engineers' Council...
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
motorwayThe OECD has defined a motorway as:Motorways are identical to freeways as a road type, and comparable to the United States's Interstate Highways as a classification....
network, with the
M1The M1 is a major north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...
and
M6The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It runs from junction 19 of the M1 in Catthorpe near Rugby in central England, passes between Coventry and Nuneaton, through Birmingham, Walsall and Stafford and near the major cities of Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent...
merging close to the town.
Fame
Rugby is most famous for the invention of
rugby footballRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
, which is played throughout the world. The game was invented by
William Webb EllisWilliam Webb Ellis , famous as the inventor of Rugby, was an English Anglican clergyman. Though credited with the invention of Rugby football while he was a pupil at Rugby School, the story of how he founded the game may be false; nevertheless, his name is firmly established in the folklore of...
in 1823 at
Rugby SchoolRugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
, 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 HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
's semi-autobiographical masterpiece
Tom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes first published in 1857. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s. Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
. A substantial part of the 2004 dramatisation of the novel, starring
Stephen FryStephen John Fry is a British actor, writer, comedian, author, television presenter and film director. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster...
, was filmed on location at Rugby School.
Rugby is also a birthplace of the
jet engineA jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet of fluid to generate thrust in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets and pump-jets...
. In April 1937
Frank WhittleAir Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force officer. Sharing credit with Germany's Dr. Hans von Ohain for independently inventing the jet engine, he is hailed as a father of jet propulsion.From an early age Whittle demonstrated an aptitude for...
built the world's first prototype jet engine at the
British Thomson-HoustonBritish Thomson-Houston was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England. They were known primarily for their electrical systems and steam turbines. They were merged with the similar Metropolitan-Vickers company in 1928, but the two maintained their own...
works in Rugby, and between 1936-41 based himself at
Brownsover HallBrownsover Hall is a 19th century mansion house in the old village of Brownsover, Rugby, Warwickshire which has been converted for use as an hotel...
on the outskirts of the town, where he designed and developed early prototype engines. Much of his work was also carried out at nearby
LutterworthLutterworth is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. The town is located in southern Leicestershire, 11 km north of Rugby, in Warwickshire and 24 km south of Leicester and has a population of approximately 8,300 inhabitants- Transport :Lutterworth lies on the A426...
.
HolographyHolography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that it appears as if the object is in the same position relative to the recording medium as it was when recorded...
was also invented in Rugby by the
HungarianHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
inventor
Dennis GaborDennis Gabor CBE, FRS, was a Hungarian electrical engineer and inventor, most notable for inventing holography, for which he later received the Nobel Prize in Physics.-Biography:He was born as Gábor Dénes, in Budapest, Hungary...
in 1947.
In the 19th century, Rugby became famous for its once hugely important railway junction which was the setting for
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print...
's story
Mugby JunctionMugby Junction was a set of short stories by Charles Dickens written in 1866. It was first published in a Christmas edition of the magazine All The Year Round. It includes the famous ghost story The Signalman concerning a spectre seen beside a tunnel entrance.It features in a thinly disguised form...
.
The town also inspired
Thomas HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
, (author of
Tom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes first published in 1857. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s. Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
) to set up a colony in America, for the young sons of the English gentry. He named the town Rugby. The town of
Rugby, TennesseeRugby is an unincorporated community in Morgan and Scott counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Founded in 1880 by English author Thomas Hughes, Rugby was built as an experimental utopian colony. While Hughes' experiment largely failed, a small community lingered at Rugby throughout the 20th...
still exists today.
Rugby today
The modern town of Rugby is an amalgamation of the original town with the former villages of
BiltonBilton is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire and a ward of the Borough of Rugby. It comprises much of the western half of the town.Historically a village in its own right , Bilton's name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Beolatun , and it was mentioned in the Domesday Book as both Beltone and...
,
HillmortonHillmorton is an area of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, it comprises most of the eastern half of the town.Hillmorton was historically a village in its own right, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book as land that belonged to Hugh de Grandmesnil, at one time a market was held in Hillmorton, and...
,
BrownsoverBrownsover is a small village about 1½ miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Since 1960, it has been further absorbed by the suburban expansion of Rugby.-'Old' Brownsover:...
and
Newbold-on-AvonNewbold-on-Avon is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, located around 1½ miles north-west of the town centre. Newbold was historically a village in its own right, but was incorporated into Rugby in 1932....
which were incorporated into Rugby in 1932 when the town became a
boroughMunicipal boroughs were a type of local government which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002...
; all except Brownsover still have their former village centres. Rugby also includes the areas of
New BiltonNew Bilton is a place in Rugby Warwickshire, in England. It is a suburb of Rugby, situated to the west of the town centre. The nearby village of Bilton has also been absorbed into Rugby....
and
OversladeOverslade is a political ward, as well as a general neighbourhood in the central south part of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the ward's population was 5,606. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Matthew and the local secondary school is Harris School...
. The spread of Rugby has nearly reached the villages of
Clifton-upon-DunsmoreClifton-upon-Dunsmore is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire in England.-Location:Clifton bears the distinction of being the most easterly village in Warwickshire . It is located roughly a mile east of Rugby, and is effectively a suburb of the town, although separated by...
,
CawstonCawston is a civil parish and village close to the south-east of Rugby, Warwickshire, on the A4071 . For hundreds of years the village was basically a hamlet and the two settlements remained separate despite Rugby's continued growth. However in 2003-04 a new housing estate, Cawston Grange, was...
,
DunchurchDunchurch is a civil parish and historic village on the south-western outskirts of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 2,842 in the village....
and
Long LawfordLong Lawford is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire, England, located just west of Rugby, in 2001 the parish had a population of 2,831....
.
The town centre is mostly
VictorianThe Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901. The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements...
and early 20th century, however a few much older buildings survive, along with some more modern developments. Rugby was described by
Nikolaus PevsnerSir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture. He is best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England .-Life:The son of a Jewish merchant, Pevsner was born in Leipzig,...
as 'Butterfieldtown' due to the number of buildings designed by
William ButterfieldWilliam Butterfield was an architect of the Gothic revival, and associated with the Oxford Movement .-Biography:...
in the 19th century, including much of Rugby School and the extension of St Andrews church.
Rugby town centre includes numerous restaurants of various kinds, many pubs, and a nightclub. In 2002, Brownsover Fish Bar on Hollowell Way, Brownsover, was named as the best seller of
Fish and ChipsFish and chips is a popular take-away food which originated in the United Kingdom. It consists of deep-fried fish in batter or breadcrumbs with deep-fried chipped potatoes.Popular tradition associates the dish with the United Kingdom; and fish and chips remains very popular in the UK and in...
in the country. The town centre is noted for its large number of pubs; in the 1960s it was recorded as 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 TowersThe Clock Towers is a shopping precinct in the town centre of Rugby, Warwickshire. It is managed by EFM Facilities Ltd. The shops in the precinct include several clothes stores, two game shops and a few thrift stores. The shopping centre was known in its previous existence as Rugby Shopping Centre...
which opened in 1980. A street
marketA market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons trade, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy. It is an arrangement that allows buyers and sellers to exchange things...
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
parkA park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment. It may consist of, rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas....
s, most notably
Caldecott ParkCaldecott Park is an urban park located in the centre of Rugby, England. Most of the land was purchased by the Rugby Urban District Council in 1903 from Thomas Caldecott, the last lord of the manor. There was additional land purchased to the north of the original park in 1911, bringing the park to...
near the town hall. The borough council along with Warwickshire County Council currently have plans to pedestrianise North Street, a busy road through the town centre as part of the town centre's regeneration. This has proved to be very controversial, with the town's major bus operator
Stagecoach in WarwickshireStagecoach in Warwickshire is the Stagecoach Group bus operator in and around the county of Warwickshire, England. While Stagecoach in Warwickshire is the brand image of the company, its legal name is Midland Red Ltd...
threatening that if the road is closed to all traffic, they will have to dramatically reduce many bus services because the main bus stops will have to be relocate further away meaning the services become less attractive to passengers. Thus meaning loss of patronage.
Politics and governance
Rugby is administered by two
local authoritiesThe pattern of local government in England is complex, with the distribution of functions varying according to the local arrangements. Legislation concerning local government in England is decided by the Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom, because England does not have a devolved...
:
Rugby Borough CouncilRugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England.The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town....
which covers Rugby and its surrounding countryside, and
WarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton in the far north of the county. The shape of the administrative area Warwickshire differs considerably from that of the historic county...
County CouncilA county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.-United Kingdom:...
. The two authorities are responsible for different aspects of local government. Rugby is an
unparished areaIn England, an unparished area is an area that is not covered by a civil parish. Most urbanised districts of England are either entirely or partly unparished. In some cases, a largely rural district will have one or two unparished areas in it...
and so does not have its own
town councilA town council is a democratically elected form of government for small municipalities or civil parishes. A council may serve as both the representative and executive branch....
.
In 1983 Rugby became part of the parliamentary constituency of Rugby and Kenilworth, one of the Midlands' most marginal seats. Between 1983 and 1997
Jim PawseyJames Francis Pawsey, , known as Jim Pawsey, is a retired British Conservative politician.Pawsey was Member of Parliament for Rugby from 1979 to 1983, then for Rugby and Kenilworth from 1983 until he lost the seat in the 1997 general election to Labour's Andy King.-References:*"Times Guide to the...
was the Conservative Member of Parliament, losing in 1997 to
Labour'sThe Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded at the start of the 20th century, it has been seen since 1920 as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where it has only recently begun to organise again...
Andy King.
At the 2005 general election
Jeremy WrightJeremy Paul Wright is a British Conservative Party politician, and current Member of Parliament for the constituency of Rugby & Kenilworth....
regained the seat for the
ConservativesThe Conservative and Unionist Party, more commonly known as the Conservatives, the Conservative Party, or Tory Party is a conservative political party in the United Kingdom...
.
From 1885 until 1983 Rugby was a constituency in itself. Following the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for England, Warwickshire was allocated a sixth parliamentary seat. At the next general election, the existing Rugby and Kenilworth constituency will be abolished and split in two. A new
Rugby constituencyRugby is a former parliamentary constituency in Warwickshire, England, which will be recreated for the next general election ....
will be created, and a new constituency of Kenilworth and Southam will be created to the south of Rugby, 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 marginal constituency and Jeremy Wright has indicated his intention of standing for the new Kenilworth and Southam seat at the next general election.
Nearby places
- Nearby cities: Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
, LeicesterLeicester is a city and unitary authority area in the East Midlands of England. It is the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
, BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
- Nearby towns: Lutterworth
Lutterworth is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. The town is located in southern Leicestershire, 11 km north of Rugby, in Warwickshire and 24 km south of Leicester and has a population of approximately 8,300 inhabitants- Transport :Lutterworth lies on the A426...
, DaventryDaventry is a market town in Northamptonshire, England, with a population of 22,367 . The town is also the administrative centre of the larger Daventry district, which has a population of 71,838. The town is 124 km north-northwest of London, 22.4 km west of Northampton and 16.4 km...
, HinckleyHinckley is a town in south-west Leicestershire, England. It has a population of 43,246 . It is administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council.-History:...
, KenilworthKenilworth is a town in central Warwickshire, England. In 2001 the town had a population of 22,582 . It is situated south of Coventry, north of Warwick and northwest of London.-History:...
, NuneatonNuneaton is the largest town in the Borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth and in the English county of Warwickshire.Nuneaton is most famous for its associations with the 19th century author George Eliot, who was born on a farm on the Arbury Estate just outside Nuneaton in 1819 and lived in the town for...
, Leamington SpaLeamington Spa, properly Royal Leamington Spa, commonly Leamington or "Leam" to locals, is a spa town in central Warwickshire, England. Formerly known as Leamington Priors, its expansion began following the popularisation of the medicinal qualities of its water by Dr Kerr in 1784, and by Dr...
, NorthamptonNorthampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. It is about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, and lies on the River Nene...
, SouthamSoutham is a small market town in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 6,509 in the town .The nearest sizeable town to Southam is Leamington Spa, located roughly 7 miles to the west...
- Nearby villages: Newbold
-People:* Charles Newbold, inventor* Gregory S. Newbold, U.S. general* Walton Newbold, British Member of Parliament* Joshua G. Newbold, Governor of Iowa 1877-78* William Newbold, objective artist-Places:* Newbold, Derbyshire, England...
, Harborough MagnaHarborough Magna is a village and parish in Warwickshire, England.Along with the adjoining hamlet of Harborough Parva and nearby Cathiron, the parish has a population of 461 ....
, PailtonPailton is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Its population in 2001 was recorded as 482. The village was originally known as Pailington....
, BrinklowBrinklow is a village and parish in the Rugby district of Warwickshire, England. It is about halfway between Rugby and Coventry, and has a population of 1,041 ....
, Monks KirbyMonks Kirby is a village and civil parish in north-eastern Warwickshire, England. The population of the parish is 434 .Monks Kirby is located around one mile east of the old Fosse Way, around 8 miles north-west of Rugby, seven miles north-east of Coventry and six miles west of Lutterworth...
, EasenhallEasenhall is a small village and parish in Warwickshire, England. It is located three miles north-west of the town of Rugby and a mile south of the M6 motorway. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the parish had a population of 231 in 96 houses....
, DunchurchDunchurch is a civil parish and historic village on the south-western outskirts of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 2,842 in the village....
Economy
Rugby's economy is mainly
industrialAn industry is the manufacturing of a good or service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw...
. It is an
engineeringEngineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or inventions.The American Engineers' Council...
centre and has a long history of producing gas and steam
turbineA turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid or air flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum, with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they...
s at the GEC and at the
AEIAssociated Electrical Industries was a British engineering company formed in 1959 by the merger of the British Thomson-Houston Company and Metropolitan Vickers. In 1967 AEI was acquired by GEC, to create the UK's largest electrical group....
. The AEI was earlier
British Thomson-HoustonBritish Thomson-Houston was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England. They were known primarily for their electrical systems and steam turbines. They were merged with the similar Metropolitan-Vickers company in 1928, but the two maintained their own...
or BTH. They used to dominate employment in the town. They are now amalgamated to form
AlstomAlstom is a large French multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets. According to the company website, in the years 2007-'08 Alstom had annual sales of over €16.9 billion, and employed more than 81,500 people in 70 countries. Alstom's...
. Engineering in Rugby is still the most important sector.
Another major industry in Rugby is
cementIn the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance which sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term "opus caementicium" to describe masonry which resembled concrete and was made from crushed...
making;
Rugby CementCEMEX S.A. de C.V. is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...
works, on the western outskirts of the town, makes cement from the local
JurassicThe Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Ma to Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the "Age of Reptiles". The start of the period is marked by...
LiasLias may refer to:* Lias , a troll drummer in the book Soul Music by Terry Pratchett* Lias Group, a stratigraphic group found in large parts of Europe, formed during the Early Jurassic epoch* Lias, Gers, a commune of the Gers département, in France...
limestone. The cement industry in Rugby dates back to the 1860s. In the 1990s the Rugby Cement works was dramatically expanded, and in 2000 other Rugby Cement plants at
SouthamSoutham is a small market town in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 6,509 in the town .The nearest sizeable town to Southam is Leamington Spa, located roughly 7 miles to the west...
and Rochester were closed, with all production moved to the Rugby plant, 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
warehousingA warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and...
and distribution have become major employers.
Further afield, within the
Rugby boroughRugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England.The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town....
is the
Rolls-RoyceRolls-Royce plc is a British aircraft engine maker, and the second-largest in the world, behind GE Aviation. The company has related businesses in the defence aerospace, marine and energy markets....
engineering works near
AnstyAnsty is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire with a population of 318 . The village is actually located just outside Coventry and was historically part of the County of the City of Coventry....
. This is nearer to
CoventryCoventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
than Rugby, but is a major employer to the Rugby population.
TourismTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other...
is also important to the town's economy, especially related to
Rugby footballRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
.
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.
Landmarks
One of the most notable landmarks around Rugby was, until August 2007, the
Rugby VLF transmitterRugby radio station was a large very low frequency transmission facility near the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England, situated just west of the A5 trunk road and in later years junction 18 of the M1 motorway. It came into service on January 1, 1926 and was originally used to transmit telegraph...
, a large radio transmitting station located just to the east of the town. The station was opened in 1926 and was used to transmit the MSF time signal. Several of the masts however were decommissioned and demolished by explosives in 2004, although a few including four of the biggest masts remained until 2007. (Firing the explosive charges was delayed by
rabbitRabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world. There are seven different genera in the family classified as rabbits, including the European rabbit , Cottontail rabbit , and the Amami rabbit...
s gnawing the wires). The remaining four 'tall' masts were demolished on the afternoon of August 2 2007 with no prior publicity.
Rugby Cement works, to the west of the town, can be seen for many miles. Standing at just 115 metres high, 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 4Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
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,
CemexCEMEX S.A. de C.V. is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...
, were fined £400,000 for excessive pollution after a court case brought by the
Environment AgencyThe Environment Agency is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and an Assembly Government Sponsored Body of the Welsh Assembly Government.-Purpose:...
.
The town has statues of three famous locals:
Rupert BrookeRupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War ; however, he never experienced combat at first hand...
,
Thomas HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
and
William Webb EllisWilliam Webb Ellis , famous as the inventor of Rugby, was an English Anglican clergyman. Though credited with the invention of Rugby football while he was a pupil at Rugby School, the story of how he founded the game may be false; nevertheless, his name is firmly established in the folklore of...
. The Rupert Brooke statue is situated at the forked junction of Regent Street on the green and commemorates his contribution to poetry. Thomas Hughes' statue stands in the gardens of the Temple Reading Rooms (the central library of Rugby school) on Barby Road. 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 churchA parish church, in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
. 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 ButterfieldWilliam Butterfield was an architect of the Gothic revival, and associated with the Oxford Movement .-Biography:...
. The expanded church included a new east tower, which has a
spireA spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from Anglo-Saxon, so it is related to "spear," rather than the Romance languages and "spirit."...
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
castleA castle is a defensive structure seen as one of the main symbols of the Middle Ages. The term has a history of scholarly debate surrounding its exact meaning, but it is usually regarded as being distinct from the general terms fort or fortress, in that it describes a residence of a monarch or...
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
fontIn typography, a font is traditionally defined as a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
.
Rugby's main Roman Catholic church is
St. Maries http://www.stmaries.co.uk on Dunchurch Road. It is one of the town's most well-known landmarks as it is quite dominant on the skyline. Its spire is the tallest in Warwickshire . The church was built in 1872, designed by
PuginPugin most commonly refers to Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin , English architect and designer.Other members of his family include:...
in the Early English style.
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 Rugby Art Gallery and Museum is a combined art gallery and museum located in central Rugby, Warwickshire, in England.The purpose built building housing it which was opened in 2000 also contains the town's library....
. The art gallery contains a nationally-recognised collection of contemporary art. The museum contains, amongst other things, RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
artefacts dug up from the nearby Roman settlement of TripontiumTripontium was a town in Roman Britain. It lay on the Roman road later called Watling Street at a site now chiefly within the civil parish of Newton and Biggin in the English county of Warwickshire and partly in Leicestershire, some 3.4 miles north-east of Rugby and 3.1 miles south of...
.
- The Rugby Football Museum
The Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum is a rugby football museum in the town centre of Rugby in Warwickshire, near Rugby School. It takes its name from William Webb Ellis who is credited with inventing the game of Rugby football....
, where traditional rugbyRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
balls are hand made. It contains much rugby football memorabilia.
- The commercial town centre is modest but noted for its Clinton Cards
Clinton Cards is a chain of stores in the UK founded in 1968 by Don Lewin. Mainly selling greeting cards, the chain claims to be "the largest specialist retailer of greetings cards, plush merchandise and related products in the UK with over 700 shops." They used to be represented by concessions...
Superstore, the third largest in England and Wales.
Places of interest around Rugby include:
- Brandon Marsh
Brandon Marsh is an SSSI and nature reserve in Warwickshire, England. It is situated adjacent to the River Avon, near the village of Brandon, a few miles east of Coventry....
- Coombe Abbey and Coombe Country Park
Coombe Abbey is a hotel which has been developed from a historic grade I listed building and former country house. It is located roughly midway between Coventry and Brinklow in the countryside of Warwickshire, England...
- Dunchurch
Dunchurch is a civil parish and historic village on the south-western outskirts of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 2,842 in the village....
- Historic village
- Draycote Water
Draycote Water is a reservoir and country park near the village of Dunchurch, 6 km south of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, owned and operated by Severn Trent Water...
- Reservoir and nature reserve
- Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a 78 mile long narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Coventry via Banbury and Rugby. It connects with the River Thames at Oxford, to the Grand Union Canal at the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill, and to the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury Junction in...
- Rugby School
Rugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
- Stanford Hall
Stanford Hall is a stately home in Leicestershire, England, near the village of Stanford on Avon and the town of Lutterworth.- History :Ancestral home of the Cave family, the hall was built in the 1690s for Sir Roger Cave on the site of an earlier manor house. It is considered a fine example of...
- Ryton Organic Gardens http://www.hdra.org.uk/gardens/ryton.htm
- Benn Hall
The Benn Hall is a conference, seminar, exhibition and party venue located in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. The hall, along with the town hall which is located next to it, was opened on 5 July 1961 by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. It is named after George Charles Benn who in his will of 1895...
- Conference centre and music venue
Suburbs
HillmortonHillmorton is an area of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, it comprises most of the eastern half of the town.Hillmorton was historically a village in its own right, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book as land that belonged to Hugh de Grandmesnil, at one time a market was held in Hillmorton, and...
,
OversladeOverslade is a political ward, as well as a general neighbourhood in the central south part of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the ward's population was 5,606. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Matthew and the local secondary school is Harris School...
,
BrownsoverBrownsover is a small village about 1½ miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Since 1960, it has been further absorbed by the suburban expansion of Rugby.-'Old' Brownsover:...
,
BiltonBilton is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire and a ward of the Borough of Rugby. It comprises much of the western half of the town.Historically a village in its own right , Bilton's name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Beolatun , and it was mentioned in the Domesday Book as both Beltone and...
,
New BiltonNew Bilton is a place in Rugby Warwickshire, in England. It is a suburb of Rugby, situated to the west of the town centre. The nearby village of Bilton has also been absorbed into Rugby....
,
Newbold-on-AvonNewbold-on-Avon is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, located around 1½ miles north-west of the town centre. Newbold was historically a village in its own right, but was incorporated into Rugby in 1932....
.
Transport
- By road, Rugby is near several major trunk routes including the M6
The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It runs from junction 19 of the M1 in Catthorpe near Rugby in central England, passes between Coventry and Nuneaton, through Birmingham, Walsall and Stafford and near the major cities of Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent...
, M1The M1 is a major north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...
and M45 motorwayThe M45 is a motorway in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, England and is 8 miles long. It runs from Junction 17 of the M1 motorway south east of Rugby and ends with a junction with the A45 road southwest of Rugby...
s and the A45 roadThe A45 is a major road in England. It runs east from Birmingham past the National Exhibition Centre and the M42, then bypasses Coventry and Rugby, where it briefly merges with the M45 until it continues to Daventry...
. Other less important main roads include the A426 roadThe A426 road is a road in England which runs from the city of Leicester to Southam in Warwickshire via Lutterworth and Rugby.-History:Until the M1 motorway was completed in the 1960s this route formed the main route between Rugby and Leicester, now much quieter as all but local traffic uses the...
and the A428 roadThe A428 road is a major road in central and eastern England. It connects the cities of Coventry and Cambridge by way of the county towns of Northampton and Bedford.-Coventry - Northampton:...
. Most traffic from the industrial estates & the cement works has to travel through the town centre, this should be alleviated with the current building of the Rugby Western Relief RoadThe Rugby Western Relief Road is a 3.7 mile road which is currently under construction on the outskirts of Rugby, Warwickshire, England...
, linking the A45 with the Leicester Road, that connects with the Motorway at Junction 1 of the M6.
- By rail Rugby is served by the West Coast Main Line
The West Coast Main Line is a busy mixed-traffic railway route in the United Kingdom. It provides fast, long-distance Intercity passenger services between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and southern Scotland....
railway, and has services to London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
- BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
and the North West of EnglandNorth West England is one of the nine official regions of England. It has a population of 6,853,200 and comprises five counties of England – Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and Cheshire....
(see Rugby railway stationRugby railway station serves the town of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. It opened during the Victorian era, in 1885, replacing earlier stations situated a little further west...
).
- The nearest airport to Rugby is Coventry Airport
Coventry Airport is located south southeaset of Coventry city centre, in the village of Baginton, Warwickshire, England, and about outside Coventry boundaries. Coventry Airport was a hub for Thomsonfly...
. The town also has a direct rail link to Birmingham International Airport.
- The Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a 78 mile long narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Coventry via Banbury and Rugby. It connects with the River Thames at Oxford, to the Grand Union Canal at the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill, and to the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury Junction in...
runs along the north edge of Rugby, but south of the new housing estateA housing estate is a group of buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance...
s round BrownsoverBrownsover is a small village about 1½ miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Since 1960, it has been further absorbed by the suburban expansion of Rugby.-'Old' Brownsover:...
.
- Buses run to Coventry, Southam, Leamington Spa, Daventry, Banbury, Leicester and Northampton as well as serving the major estates of the town on a regular basis.
Education
Schools in Rugby include the
Lawrence Sheriff SchoolLawrence Sheriff School is a selective boys' grammar school in Rugby in Warwickshire. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan man who founded Rugby School. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff' by boys at the school. In a recent OFSTED ...
for boys (which came top of the country in the 2009 GCSE League Tables) and
Rugby High School for GirlsRugby High School for Girls is a selective girls' grammar school situated in Bilton, Warwickshire, England...
, both of which are grammar schools. Perhaps the most renowned school is Rugby School, home of rugby football and the top co-educational boarding school in the country. There are also several
comprehensive schoolA comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. The term is commonly used in relation to the United Kingdom, where comprehensive schools were introduced in the late 1940s to the early 1970s. It corresponds broadly to the...
s, including
Ashlawn SchoolAshlawn School is a secondary school on Ashlawn Road, Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It also includes a grammar stream within it. Around 1,700 pupils attend the school educated by 90 full time teaching staff...
(formerly Dunsmore School for Boys and Dunsmore School for Girls),
Bilton SchoolBilton School Formerly Herbert Kay and Westlands School, and most recently Bilton High School is a major secondary school for pupils aged 11-16 situated within the village of Bilton within Rugby, Warwickshire...
(formerly Herbert Kay & Westlands School, and Bilton High School),
Avon Valley SchoolThe Avon Valley School and Performing Arts College is a self-governing specialist school in the British town of Rugby, Warwickshire. The school is non-selective, catering for students aged 11–16....
(formerly 'Newbold School'),
Bishop Wulstan SchoolBishop Wulstan School was situated on Oak Street in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England.-History:The school was best known for its history as it was once a practising monastery or Novitiate, associated with St.Marie's Church on Dunchurch Road. There is some debate as to the architect of the...
(now shut), and
Harris SchoolHarris School is a state run secondary school in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is a voluntary aided Church of England school that specialises in sports. It is co-educational, admits pupils between the ages of 11 and 16 and in 2006 had 685 pupils on the register. The school's colours are black,...
. Rugby is also home to a
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
, which is now a part of the
Warwickshire CollegeWarwickshire College is a large further and higher education college in England. It provides National Curriculum courses and vocational education in a broad range of subjects to students aged 16 and over...
group.
Sport
- Rugby has a number of rugby union
Rugby union is a full contact team sport, a form of football which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. It is played with an oval-shaped ball, outdoors on a level field, usually with a grass surface, 100 m...
teams including; the Rugby LionsThe Rugby Football Club, nicknamed the Lions, are a rugby union club based in Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Rugby currently compete in National Division Three South.-External links:* *...
, Rugby Welsh, Rugby St.Andrews RFC, Newbold and Old Laurentian RFC.
- Rugby also has a non-league football club, Rugby Town F.C.
Rugby Town FC is a football club based in Rugby, Warwickshire, which plays in the Southern League Premier Division. It is nicknamed The Valley, and plays its home matches at Butlin Road...
, (formerly known as VS Rugby) which currently plays in the Southern LeagueThe Southern League is an English football competition featuring semi-professional and amateur clubs from the South West, South Central and Midlands of England and South Wales....
Premier Division.
Notable people
Famous or notable people born in Rugby include the poet
Rupert BrookeRupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War ; however, he never experienced combat at first hand...
, actor
Tim Pigott-SmithTim Pigott-Smith is an English film and television actor.-Early life:Pigott-Smith was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, the son of Margaret Muriel and Harry Thomas Pigott-Smith, who was a journalist. He was educated at Wyggeston Boys' School, Leicester, King Edward VI School Stratford-upon-Avon, and...
and writer
Rose MacaulayDame Emilie Rose Macaulay, DBE , affectionately known as Emilie, was a writer...
.
The scientist
Joseph Norman LockyerSir Joseph Norman Lockyer, FRS was an English scientist and astronomer. Along with the French scientist Pierre Janssen he is credited with discovering the gas helium. Lockyer also is remembered for being the founder and first editor of the influential journal Nature.-Biography:Lockyer was born in...
who discovered
heliumHelium is the chemical element with atomic number 2, and is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
and founded the science journal
NatureNature is a prominent British scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. Most scientific journals are now highly specialized, and Nature is among the few journals that still publish original research articles across a wide range of scientific...
was born in Rugby, as was the inventor of the 'oval' football
Richard LindonRichard Lindon was instrumental in the development of the modern-day rugby football.Lindon set up home and shop at 6/6a Lawrence Sheriff Street, Rugby, England, immediately opposite the front doors of the Quadrangle of the Rugby School...
.
The band
Spacemen 3Spacemen 3 were an English rock band who formed in 1982 and whose career spanned from the post-punk to acid house and shoegaze eras.-Overview:...
and the related spin off bands from its various members
SpiritualizedSpiritualized are an English space rock band formed in 1990 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Jason Pierce after the demise of his previous outfit, space-rockers Spacemen 3...
(
Jason PierceJason Pierce , also known as J. Spaceman or Spaceman, is an English musician. He was formerly the joint leader – with Peter Kember – of the alternative rock band Spacemen 3, and is now the leader and sole permanent member of the band Spiritualized.In between his work with Spiritualized...
); Spectrum (
Peter KemberPeter Kember is a British musician, more usually known as Sonic Boom and was a founding member of Spacemen 3.Kember and Jason Pierce formed Spacemen 3 in 1985...
) Freelovebabies (Will Carruthers) arose from Rugby, as does the singer/songwriter
James MorrisonJames Morrison is a BRIT Award-winning English singer–songwriter and guitarist from Rugby, Warwickshire. In 2006, his debut single "You Give Me Something" became a hit in Europe, Australia, and Japan, peaking in the top five in the UK and New Zealand. His debut album, Undiscovered, debuted at the...
.
The sprinter
Katharine MerryKatharine Merry is a former English female sprinter.-Biography:A member of the Birchfield Harriers athletics club, Merry won a bronze medal for the 400 metre sprint at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.Merry had a unique career that spanned 20 years...
and British Judokas Neil and Christopher Adams were natives of Rugby. The former two both won
OlympicThe Olympic Games are a major international event of summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes compete in a wide variety of events. The Games are currently held every two years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in...
medals.
Many famous people attended
Rugby SchoolRugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
, including
Neville ChamberlainArthur Neville Chamberlain was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940...
,
Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer...
,
Salman RushdieSir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children , which won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his early fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent...
and
Matthew ArnoldMatthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
. Arnold's father
Thomas ArnoldThomas Arnold was a British educator and historian. Arnold was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement...
was a noted headmaster of the school.
England cricketer
Ian BellIan Ronald Bell MBE is an England Test cricketer. He also plays county cricket for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. He is a right-handed higher/middle order batsman, described by The Times as an "exquisite rapier," and occasional right-arm medium pace bowler...
was born in Dunchurch (near Rugby) and attended
Princethorpe CollegePrincethorpe College is a Catholic independent day school located in Princethorpe, near Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It was founded in the late 1950s as St Bede's College in Royal Leamington Spa, before moving to its current site in 1966. It occupies a former Benedictine monastery surrounded by ...
.
'Allo 'Allo actor
Arthur BostromArthur Bostrom is an English actor, most famous for his role as Officer Crabtree, in the long-running BBC sitcom Allo 'Allo!.-Biography:...
was born in Rugby and attended
Lawrence Sheriff SchoolLawrence Sheriff School is a selective boys' grammar school in Rugby in Warwickshire. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan man who founded Rugby School. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff' by boys at the school. In a recent OFSTED ...
.
Clive MasonClive Mason is a Deaf British television presenter born in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. He was the first person to use British Sign Language on television. It was not until 2003 that BSL was recognised by the government as a language in its own right.-Early life:Mason was born deaf, and at...
of the programme for the deaf
See HearSee Hear is a weekly magazine programme for deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, broadcast on Wednesday afternoons at 1pm. The programme focuses on the British and the worldwide deaf community and covers a broad range of topics from areas such as education, deaf people's rights, technology...
used to live in Rugby.
Bill MaynardWalter Frederick George Williams more commonly known as Bill Maynard, is an English comedian and actor....
(Claude Greengrass in the
Heartbeat TV seriesHeartbeat is a long running British TV police drama series set in 1960s Yorkshire. It is made by ITV Studios at The Leeds Studios, and on location, for broadcast on ITV. Heartbeat first aired on Friday 10 April 1992...
) lives locally.
Ben CroshawBenjamin Richard "Yahtzee" Croshaw is an English comedic writer, video game journalist and author of adventure games created using Adventure Game Studio software. He writes articles for Australia's Hyper magazine, a major games publication...
, better known as 'Yahtzee', a comedic video games reviewer in charge of his own
Zero PunctuationZero Punctuation is a video game review series created by comedy writer, video game journalist and gamer Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw and produced by online magazine The Escapist. Each week's review is previewed on The Escapist Show the Tuesday before it is released on Wednesday in the Zero Punctuation...
segment of
The EscapistThe Escapist is an online magazine covering video games, gamers, the gaming industry, and gaming culture. Published by the Themis Group, it is edited by Julianne Greer, and was first published on July 12, 2005. The Escapist, which claims "print-quality writing", runs weekly with a main edition...
was born in Rugby. He currently lives in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
.
Judy Simpson-Nightshade from the Uk Gladiators was born in Jamaica and lived in Rugby
Thomas HedleyTom Hedley, the former publisher of in London, is presently President and Publisher of in New York City. As a young editor of Esquire magazine, he edited and published essays by Federico Fellini, François Truffaut, Michelangelo Antonioni and Andy Warhol, among others...
, publisher and president of Hedley Media Group, was born in the town.
Paul Crabtree, composer, living in San Francisco, was born in Rugby and attended Dunsmore Boys School (now Ashlawn School).
John Bye - Musician and award winning arist. Known for his wild animal drawings.
Twin towns
Rugby is
twinnedSister cities, also known as town twinning, is an agreement between towns, cities and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties...
with:
ÉvreuxÉvreux is a commune in Haute-Normandie in northern France in the Eure department, of which it is the capital.Its inhabitants are called the Ébroïcienne and Ébroïciens .-History:...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
.
RüsselsheimRüsselsheim is the largest town in the Groß-Gerau district in the Rhein-Main region of Germany. It is one of seven special status towns in Hesse and is located on the Main, only a few kilometres from its mouth in Mainz. The suburbs of Bauschheim and Königstädten are included in Rüsselsheim...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
.
External links
Rugby is a
market townMarket town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
in
WarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton in the far north of the county. The shape of the administrative area Warwickshire differs considerably from that of the historic county...
, in the West Midlands of
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, on the
River AvonThe River Avon or Avon is a river in or adjoining the counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire in the Midlands of England. It is also known as the Upper Avon, Warwickshire Avon or Shakespeare's Avon. The river has a total length of...
. The town has a population of 61,988
(2001 census) making it the
second largest town in the county. The larger
Borough of RugbyRugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England.The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town....
has a population of 91,600 (2005 estimate).
Rugby is 13 miles (21 km) east of
CoventryCoventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
, on the eastern edge of Warwickshire, near the borders with
NorthamptonshireNorthamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census...
and
LeicestershireLeicestershire or , abbreviation Leics.is a landlocked county in central England. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
.
The town is credited with being the birthplace of
rugby footballRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
.
History
- Main article History of Rugby
-Early history:In the Iron Age the Rugby area was settled. Rugby's site on a plateau at about 400 feet above sea level, overlooking the River Avon made it an important strategic post overlooking the Avon, which was a natural barrier between the Dobunni and the Corieltauvi tribes...
Early
Iron ageIn archaeology, the Iron Age is the prehistoric period in any area during which cutting tools and weapons were mainly made of iron or steel. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in society, including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles.The...
settlement existed in the Rugby area, and a few miles outside what is now Rugby, existed a
RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
settlement known as
TripontiumTripontium was a town in Roman Britain. It lay on the Roman road later called Watling Street at a site now chiefly within the civil parish of Newton and Biggin in the English county of Warwickshire and partly in Leicestershire, some 3.4 miles north-east of Rugby and 3.1 miles south of...
. Rugby was originally a small
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066...
farming settlement, and was mentioned in the
Domesday BookThe Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror...
of 1086 as
Rocheberie. Rugby obtained a charter to hold a market in 1255, and soon developed into a small country
market townMarket town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
.
The name's likeliest origin is
Anglo-SaxonOld English , also called Anglo-Saxon, is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary...
Hrōca burh or similar = "
Rook-Games:*Rook or castle, a piece in the board game of chess**Rook's graph, a graph of legal moves for the rook chess piece*Rook -People:*Alan Rook, editor of New Oxford Poetry, one of the Cairo poets*Jean Rook, British newspaper columnist...
fort", where Rook may be the birds or may be a man's name. Another theory is that the name is originally derived from an old Celtic name
Droche-brig meaning "wild hilltop". The change to -
by is because of
VikingA Viking is one of the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century. These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far...
influence: there are other place names ending in
-by in the area ('By' meaning town in
NorwegianNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants ...
,
SwedishSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish...
and
DanishDanish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the...
even today).
Rugby SchoolRugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
was founded in 1567 by money left in the will of
Lawrence SheriffLawrence Sheriff or Lawrence Sheriffe was an Elizabethan gentleman and grocer to Elizabeth I who founded Rugby School.Not much is known about Lawrence Sheriff's early life, but it thought that he was born near St. Andrew's Church in Rugby, Warwickshire...
, 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 SchoolLawrence Sheriff School is a selective boys' grammar school in Rugby in Warwickshire. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan man who founded Rugby School. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff' by boys at the school. In a recent OFSTED ...
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 centuryThe 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Ottoman, Holy Roman and Mughal empires...
and the coming of the railways. In 1838 the
London and Birmingham RailwayThe London and Birmingham Railway was an early railway company in the United Kingdom from 1833 to 1846 when it became part of the London and North Western Railway ....
was constructed around the town, and in 1840 the
Midland Counties RailwayThe Midland Counties Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom which existed between 1832 and 1844, connecting Nottingham, Leicester and Derby with Rugby and thence, via the London and Birmingham Railway, to London. The MCR system connected with the North Midland Railway and the...
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
engineeringEngineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or inventions.The American Engineers' Council...
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
motorwayThe OECD has defined a motorway as:Motorways are identical to freeways as a road type, and comparable to the United States's Interstate Highways as a classification....
network, with the
M1The M1 is a major north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...
and
M6The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It runs from junction 19 of the M1 in Catthorpe near Rugby in central England, passes between Coventry and Nuneaton, through Birmingham, Walsall and Stafford and near the major cities of Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent...
merging close to the town.
Fame
Rugby is most famous for the invention of
rugby footballRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
, which is played throughout the world. The game was invented by
William Webb EllisWilliam Webb Ellis , famous as the inventor of Rugby, was an English Anglican clergyman. Though credited with the invention of Rugby football while he was a pupil at Rugby School, the story of how he founded the game may be false; nevertheless, his name is firmly established in the folklore of...
in 1823 at
Rugby SchoolRugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
, 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 HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
's semi-autobiographical masterpiece
Tom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes first published in 1857. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s. Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
. A substantial part of the 2004 dramatisation of the novel, starring
Stephen FryStephen John Fry is a British actor, writer, comedian, author, television presenter and film director. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster...
, was filmed on location at Rugby School.
Rugby is also a birthplace of the
jet engineA jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet of fluid to generate thrust in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets and pump-jets...
. In April 1937
Frank WhittleAir Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force officer. Sharing credit with Germany's Dr. Hans von Ohain for independently inventing the jet engine, he is hailed as a father of jet propulsion.From an early age Whittle demonstrated an aptitude for...
built the world's first prototype jet engine at the
British Thomson-HoustonBritish Thomson-Houston was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England. They were known primarily for their electrical systems and steam turbines. They were merged with the similar Metropolitan-Vickers company in 1928, but the two maintained their own...
works in Rugby, and between 1936-41 based himself at
Brownsover HallBrownsover Hall is a 19th century mansion house in the old village of Brownsover, Rugby, Warwickshire which has been converted for use as an hotel...
on the outskirts of the town, where he designed and developed early prototype engines. Much of his work was also carried out at nearby
LutterworthLutterworth is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. The town is located in southern Leicestershire, 11 km north of Rugby, in Warwickshire and 24 km south of Leicester and has a population of approximately 8,300 inhabitants- Transport :Lutterworth lies on the A426...
.
HolographyHolography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that it appears as if the object is in the same position relative to the recording medium as it was when recorded...
was also invented in Rugby by the
HungarianHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
inventor
Dennis GaborDennis Gabor CBE, FRS, was a Hungarian electrical engineer and inventor, most notable for inventing holography, for which he later received the Nobel Prize in Physics.-Biography:He was born as Gábor Dénes, in Budapest, Hungary...
in 1947.
In the 19th century, Rugby became famous for its once hugely important railway junction which was the setting for
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print...
's story
Mugby JunctionMugby Junction was a set of short stories by Charles Dickens written in 1866. It was first published in a Christmas edition of the magazine All The Year Round. It includes the famous ghost story The Signalman concerning a spectre seen beside a tunnel entrance.It features in a thinly disguised form...
.
The town also inspired
Thomas HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
, (author of
Tom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes first published in 1857. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s. Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
) to set up a colony in America, for the young sons of the English gentry. He named the town Rugby. The town of
Rugby, TennesseeRugby is an unincorporated community in Morgan and Scott counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Founded in 1880 by English author Thomas Hughes, Rugby was built as an experimental utopian colony. While Hughes' experiment largely failed, a small community lingered at Rugby throughout the 20th...
still exists today.
Rugby today
The modern town of Rugby is an amalgamation of the original town with the former villages of
BiltonBilton is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire and a ward of the Borough of Rugby. It comprises much of the western half of the town.Historically a village in its own right , Bilton's name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Beolatun , and it was mentioned in the Domesday Book as both Beltone and...
,
HillmortonHillmorton is an area of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, it comprises most of the eastern half of the town.Hillmorton was historically a village in its own right, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book as land that belonged to Hugh de Grandmesnil, at one time a market was held in Hillmorton, and...
,
BrownsoverBrownsover is a small village about 1½ miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Since 1960, it has been further absorbed by the suburban expansion of Rugby.-'Old' Brownsover:...
and
Newbold-on-AvonNewbold-on-Avon is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, located around 1½ miles north-west of the town centre. Newbold was historically a village in its own right, but was incorporated into Rugby in 1932....
which were incorporated into Rugby in 1932 when the town became a
boroughMunicipal boroughs were a type of local government which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002...
; all except Brownsover still have their former village centres. Rugby also includes the areas of
New BiltonNew Bilton is a place in Rugby Warwickshire, in England. It is a suburb of Rugby, situated to the west of the town centre. The nearby village of Bilton has also been absorbed into Rugby....
and
OversladeOverslade is a political ward, as well as a general neighbourhood in the central south part of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the ward's population was 5,606. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Matthew and the local secondary school is Harris School...
. The spread of Rugby has nearly reached the villages of
Clifton-upon-DunsmoreClifton-upon-Dunsmore is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire in England.-Location:Clifton bears the distinction of being the most easterly village in Warwickshire . It is located roughly a mile east of Rugby, and is effectively a suburb of the town, although separated by...
,
CawstonCawston is a civil parish and village close to the south-east of Rugby, Warwickshire, on the A4071 . For hundreds of years the village was basically a hamlet and the two settlements remained separate despite Rugby's continued growth. However in 2003-04 a new housing estate, Cawston Grange, was...
,
DunchurchDunchurch is a civil parish and historic village on the south-western outskirts of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 2,842 in the village....
and
Long LawfordLong Lawford is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire, England, located just west of Rugby, in 2001 the parish had a population of 2,831....
.
The town centre is mostly
VictorianThe Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901. The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements...
and early 20th century, however a few much older buildings survive, along with some more modern developments. Rugby was described by
Nikolaus PevsnerSir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture. He is best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England .-Life:The son of a Jewish merchant, Pevsner was born in Leipzig,...
as 'Butterfieldtown' due to the number of buildings designed by
William ButterfieldWilliam Butterfield was an architect of the Gothic revival, and associated with the Oxford Movement .-Biography:...
in the 19th century, including much of Rugby School and the extension of St Andrews church.
Rugby town centre includes numerous restaurants of various kinds, many pubs, and a nightclub. In 2002, Brownsover Fish Bar on Hollowell Way, Brownsover, was named as the best seller of
Fish and ChipsFish and chips is a popular take-away food which originated in the United Kingdom. It consists of deep-fried fish in batter or breadcrumbs with deep-fried chipped potatoes.Popular tradition associates the dish with the United Kingdom; and fish and chips remains very popular in the UK and in...
in the country. The town centre is noted for its large number of pubs; in the 1960s it was recorded as 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 TowersThe Clock Towers is a shopping precinct in the town centre of Rugby, Warwickshire. It is managed by EFM Facilities Ltd. The shops in the precinct include several clothes stores, two game shops and a few thrift stores. The shopping centre was known in its previous existence as Rugby Shopping Centre...
which opened in 1980. A street
marketA market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons trade, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy. It is an arrangement that allows buyers and sellers to exchange things...
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
parkA park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment. It may consist of, rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas....
s, most notably
Caldecott ParkCaldecott Park is an urban park located in the centre of Rugby, England. Most of the land was purchased by the Rugby Urban District Council in 1903 from Thomas Caldecott, the last lord of the manor. There was additional land purchased to the north of the original park in 1911, bringing the park to...
near the town hall. The borough council along with Warwickshire County Council currently have plans to pedestrianise North Street, a busy road through the town centre as part of the town centre's regeneration. This has proved to be very controversial, with the town's major bus operator
Stagecoach in WarwickshireStagecoach in Warwickshire is the Stagecoach Group bus operator in and around the county of Warwickshire, England. While Stagecoach in Warwickshire is the brand image of the company, its legal name is Midland Red Ltd...
threatening that if the road is closed to all traffic, they will have to dramatically reduce many bus services because the main bus stops will have to be relocate further away meaning the services become less attractive to passengers. Thus meaning loss of patronage.
Politics and governance
Rugby is administered by two
local authoritiesThe pattern of local government in England is complex, with the distribution of functions varying according to the local arrangements. Legislation concerning local government in England is decided by the Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom, because England does not have a devolved...
:
Rugby Borough CouncilRugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England.The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town....
which covers Rugby and its surrounding countryside, and
WarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton in the far north of the county. The shape of the administrative area Warwickshire differs considerably from that of the historic county...
County CouncilA county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.-United Kingdom:...
. The two authorities are responsible for different aspects of local government. Rugby is an
unparished areaIn England, an unparished area is an area that is not covered by a civil parish. Most urbanised districts of England are either entirely or partly unparished. In some cases, a largely rural district will have one or two unparished areas in it...
and so does not have its own
town councilA town council is a democratically elected form of government for small municipalities or civil parishes. A council may serve as both the representative and executive branch....
.
In 1983 Rugby became part of the parliamentary constituency of Rugby and Kenilworth, one of the Midlands' most marginal seats. Between 1983 and 1997
Jim PawseyJames Francis Pawsey, , known as Jim Pawsey, is a retired British Conservative politician.Pawsey was Member of Parliament for Rugby from 1979 to 1983, then for Rugby and Kenilworth from 1983 until he lost the seat in the 1997 general election to Labour's Andy King.-References:*"Times Guide to the...
was the Conservative Member of Parliament, losing in 1997 to
Labour'sThe Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded at the start of the 20th century, it has been seen since 1920 as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where it has only recently begun to organise again...
Andy King.
At the 2005 general election
Jeremy WrightJeremy Paul Wright is a British Conservative Party politician, and current Member of Parliament for the constituency of Rugby & Kenilworth....
regained the seat for the
ConservativesThe Conservative and Unionist Party, more commonly known as the Conservatives, the Conservative Party, or Tory Party is a conservative political party in the United Kingdom...
.
From 1885 until 1983 Rugby was a constituency in itself. Following the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for England, Warwickshire was allocated a sixth parliamentary seat. At the next general election, the existing Rugby and Kenilworth constituency will be abolished and split in two. A new
Rugby constituencyRugby is a former parliamentary constituency in Warwickshire, England, which will be recreated for the next general election ....
will be created, and a new constituency of Kenilworth and Southam will be created to the south of Rugby, 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 marginal constituency and Jeremy Wright has indicated his intention of standing for the new Kenilworth and Southam seat at the next general election.
Nearby places
- Nearby cities: Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
, LeicesterLeicester is a city and unitary authority area in the East Midlands of England. It is the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
, BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
- Nearby towns: Lutterworth
Lutterworth is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. The town is located in southern Leicestershire, 11 km north of Rugby, in Warwickshire and 24 km south of Leicester and has a population of approximately 8,300 inhabitants- Transport :Lutterworth lies on the A426...
, DaventryDaventry is a market town in Northamptonshire, England, with a population of 22,367 . The town is also the administrative centre of the larger Daventry district, which has a population of 71,838. The town is 124 km north-northwest of London, 22.4 km west of Northampton and 16.4 km...
, HinckleyHinckley is a town in south-west Leicestershire, England. It has a population of 43,246 . It is administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council.-History:...
, KenilworthKenilworth is a town in central Warwickshire, England. In 2001 the town had a population of 22,582 . It is situated south of Coventry, north of Warwick and northwest of London.-History:...
, NuneatonNuneaton is the largest town in the Borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth and in the English county of Warwickshire.Nuneaton is most famous for its associations with the 19th century author George Eliot, who was born on a farm on the Arbury Estate just outside Nuneaton in 1819 and lived in the town for...
, Leamington SpaLeamington Spa, properly Royal Leamington Spa, commonly Leamington or "Leam" to locals, is a spa town in central Warwickshire, England. Formerly known as Leamington Priors, its expansion began following the popularisation of the medicinal qualities of its water by Dr Kerr in 1784, and by Dr...
, NorthamptonNorthampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. It is about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, and lies on the River Nene...
, SouthamSoutham is a small market town in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 6,509 in the town .The nearest sizeable town to Southam is Leamington Spa, located roughly 7 miles to the west...
- Nearby villages: Newbold
-People:* Charles Newbold, inventor* Gregory S. Newbold, U.S. general* Walton Newbold, British Member of Parliament* Joshua G. Newbold, Governor of Iowa 1877-78* William Newbold, objective artist-Places:* Newbold, Derbyshire, England...
, Harborough MagnaHarborough Magna is a village and parish in Warwickshire, England.Along with the adjoining hamlet of Harborough Parva and nearby Cathiron, the parish has a population of 461 ....
, PailtonPailton is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Its population in 2001 was recorded as 482. The village was originally known as Pailington....
, BrinklowBrinklow is a village and parish in the Rugby district of Warwickshire, England. It is about halfway between Rugby and Coventry, and has a population of 1,041 ....
, Monks KirbyMonks Kirby is a village and civil parish in north-eastern Warwickshire, England. The population of the parish is 434 .Monks Kirby is located around one mile east of the old Fosse Way, around 8 miles north-west of Rugby, seven miles north-east of Coventry and six miles west of Lutterworth...
, EasenhallEasenhall is a small village and parish in Warwickshire, England. It is located three miles north-west of the town of Rugby and a mile south of the M6 motorway. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the parish had a population of 231 in 96 houses....
, DunchurchDunchurch is a civil parish and historic village on the south-western outskirts of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 2,842 in the village....
Economy
Rugby's economy is mainly
industrialAn industry is the manufacturing of a good or service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw...
. It is an
engineeringEngineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or inventions.The American Engineers' Council...
centre and has a long history of producing gas and steam
turbineA turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid or air flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum, with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they...
s at the GEC and at the
AEIAssociated Electrical Industries was a British engineering company formed in 1959 by the merger of the British Thomson-Houston Company and Metropolitan Vickers. In 1967 AEI was acquired by GEC, to create the UK's largest electrical group....
. The AEI was earlier
British Thomson-HoustonBritish Thomson-Houston was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England. They were known primarily for their electrical systems and steam turbines. They were merged with the similar Metropolitan-Vickers company in 1928, but the two maintained their own...
or BTH. They used to dominate employment in the town. They are now amalgamated to form
AlstomAlstom is a large French multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets. According to the company website, in the years 2007-'08 Alstom had annual sales of over €16.9 billion, and employed more than 81,500 people in 70 countries. Alstom's...
. Engineering in Rugby is still the most important sector.
Another major industry in Rugby is
cementIn the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance which sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term "opus caementicium" to describe masonry which resembled concrete and was made from crushed...
making;
Rugby CementCEMEX S.A. de C.V. is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...
works, on the western outskirts of the town, makes cement from the local
JurassicThe Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Ma to Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the "Age of Reptiles". The start of the period is marked by...
LiasLias may refer to:* Lias , a troll drummer in the book Soul Music by Terry Pratchett* Lias Group, a stratigraphic group found in large parts of Europe, formed during the Early Jurassic epoch* Lias, Gers, a commune of the Gers département, in France...
limestone. The cement industry in Rugby dates back to the 1860s. In the 1990s the Rugby Cement works was dramatically expanded, and in 2000 other Rugby Cement plants at
SouthamSoutham is a small market town in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 6,509 in the town .The nearest sizeable town to Southam is Leamington Spa, located roughly 7 miles to the west...
and Rochester were closed, with all production moved to the Rugby plant, 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
warehousingA warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and...
and distribution have become major employers.
Further afield, within the
Rugby boroughRugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England.The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town....
is the
Rolls-RoyceRolls-Royce plc is a British aircraft engine maker, and the second-largest in the world, behind GE Aviation. The company has related businesses in the defence aerospace, marine and energy markets....
engineering works near
AnstyAnsty is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire with a population of 318 . The village is actually located just outside Coventry and was historically part of the County of the City of Coventry....
. This is nearer to
CoventryCoventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
than Rugby, but is a major employer to the Rugby population.
TourismTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other...
is also important to the town's economy, especially related to
Rugby footballRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
.
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.
Landmarks
One of the most notable landmarks around Rugby was, until August 2007, the
Rugby VLF transmitterRugby radio station was a large very low frequency transmission facility near the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England, situated just west of the A5 trunk road and in later years junction 18 of the M1 motorway. It came into service on January 1, 1926 and was originally used to transmit telegraph...
, a large radio transmitting station located just to the east of the town. The station was opened in 1926 and was used to transmit the MSF time signal. Several of the masts however were decommissioned and demolished by explosives in 2004, although a few including four of the biggest masts remained until 2007. (Firing the explosive charges was delayed by
rabbitRabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world. There are seven different genera in the family classified as rabbits, including the European rabbit , Cottontail rabbit , and the Amami rabbit...
s gnawing the wires). The remaining four 'tall' masts were demolished on the afternoon of August 2 2007 with no prior publicity.
Rugby Cement works, to the west of the town, can be seen for many miles. Standing at just 115 metres high, 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 4Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
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,
CemexCEMEX S.A. de C.V. is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...
, were fined £400,000 for excessive pollution after a court case brought by the
Environment AgencyThe Environment Agency is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and an Assembly Government Sponsored Body of the Welsh Assembly Government.-Purpose:...
.
The town has statues of three famous locals:
Rupert BrookeRupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War ; however, he never experienced combat at first hand...
,
Thomas HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
and
William Webb EllisWilliam Webb Ellis , famous as the inventor of Rugby, was an English Anglican clergyman. Though credited with the invention of Rugby football while he was a pupil at Rugby School, the story of how he founded the game may be false; nevertheless, his name is firmly established in the folklore of...
. The Rupert Brooke statue is situated at the forked junction of Regent Street on the green and commemorates his contribution to poetry. Thomas Hughes' statue stands in the gardens of the Temple Reading Rooms (the central library of Rugby school) on Barby Road. 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 churchA parish church, in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
. 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 ButterfieldWilliam Butterfield was an architect of the Gothic revival, and associated with the Oxford Movement .-Biography:...
. The expanded church included a new east tower, which has a
spireA spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from Anglo-Saxon, so it is related to "spear," rather than the Romance languages and "spirit."...
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
castleA castle is a defensive structure seen as one of the main symbols of the Middle Ages. The term has a history of scholarly debate surrounding its exact meaning, but it is usually regarded as being distinct from the general terms fort or fortress, in that it describes a residence of a monarch or...
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
fontIn typography, a font is traditionally defined as a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
.
Rugby's main Roman Catholic church is
St. Maries http://www.stmaries.co.uk on Dunchurch Road. It is one of the town's most well-known landmarks as it is quite dominant on the skyline. Its spire is the tallest in Warwickshire . The church was built in 1872, designed by
PuginPugin most commonly refers to Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin , English architect and designer.Other members of his family include:...
in the Early English style.
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 Rugby Art Gallery and Museum is a combined art gallery and museum located in central Rugby, Warwickshire, in England.The purpose built building housing it which was opened in 2000 also contains the town's library....
. The art gallery contains a nationally-recognised collection of contemporary art. The museum contains, amongst other things, RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
artefacts dug up from the nearby Roman settlement of TripontiumTripontium was a town in Roman Britain. It lay on the Roman road later called Watling Street at a site now chiefly within the civil parish of Newton and Biggin in the English county of Warwickshire and partly in Leicestershire, some 3.4 miles north-east of Rugby and 3.1 miles south of...
.
- The Rugby Football Museum
The Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum is a rugby football museum in the town centre of Rugby in Warwickshire, near Rugby School. It takes its name from William Webb Ellis who is credited with inventing the game of Rugby football....
, where traditional rugbyRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
balls are hand made. It contains much rugby football memorabilia.
- The commercial town centre is modest but noted for its Clinton Cards
Clinton Cards is a chain of stores in the UK founded in 1968 by Don Lewin. Mainly selling greeting cards, the chain claims to be "the largest specialist retailer of greetings cards, plush merchandise and related products in the UK with over 700 shops." They used to be represented by concessions...
Superstore, the third largest in England and Wales.
Places of interest around Rugby include:
- Brandon Marsh
Brandon Marsh is an SSSI and nature reserve in Warwickshire, England. It is situated adjacent to the River Avon, near the village of Brandon, a few miles east of Coventry....
- Coombe Abbey and Coombe Country Park
Coombe Abbey is a hotel which has been developed from a historic grade I listed building and former country house. It is located roughly midway between Coventry and Brinklow in the countryside of Warwickshire, England...
- Dunchurch
Dunchurch is a civil parish and historic village on the south-western outskirts of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 2,842 in the village....
- Historic village
- Draycote Water
Draycote Water is a reservoir and country park near the village of Dunchurch, 6 km south of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, owned and operated by Severn Trent Water...
- Reservoir and nature reserve
- Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a 78 mile long narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Coventry via Banbury and Rugby. It connects with the River Thames at Oxford, to the Grand Union Canal at the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill, and to the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury Junction in...
- Rugby School
Rugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
- Stanford Hall
Stanford Hall is a stately home in Leicestershire, England, near the village of Stanford on Avon and the town of Lutterworth.- History :Ancestral home of the Cave family, the hall was built in the 1690s for Sir Roger Cave on the site of an earlier manor house. It is considered a fine example of...
- Ryton Organic Gardens http://www.hdra.org.uk/gardens/ryton.htm
- Benn Hall
The Benn Hall is a conference, seminar, exhibition and party venue located in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. The hall, along with the town hall which is located next to it, was opened on 5 July 1961 by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. It is named after George Charles Benn who in his will of 1895...
- Conference centre and music venue
Suburbs
HillmortonHillmorton is an area of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, it comprises most of the eastern half of the town.Hillmorton was historically a village in its own right, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book as land that belonged to Hugh de Grandmesnil, at one time a market was held in Hillmorton, and...
,
OversladeOverslade is a political ward, as well as a general neighbourhood in the central south part of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the ward's population was 5,606. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Matthew and the local secondary school is Harris School...
,
BrownsoverBrownsover is a small village about 1½ miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Since 1960, it has been further absorbed by the suburban expansion of Rugby.-'Old' Brownsover:...
,
BiltonBilton is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire and a ward of the Borough of Rugby. It comprises much of the western half of the town.Historically a village in its own right , Bilton's name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Beolatun , and it was mentioned in the Domesday Book as both Beltone and...
,
New BiltonNew Bilton is a place in Rugby Warwickshire, in England. It is a suburb of Rugby, situated to the west of the town centre. The nearby village of Bilton has also been absorbed into Rugby....
,
Newbold-on-AvonNewbold-on-Avon is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, located around 1½ miles north-west of the town centre. Newbold was historically a village in its own right, but was incorporated into Rugby in 1932....
.
Transport
- By road, Rugby is near several major trunk routes including the M6
The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It runs from junction 19 of the M1 in Catthorpe near Rugby in central England, passes between Coventry and Nuneaton, through Birmingham, Walsall and Stafford and near the major cities of Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent...
, M1The M1 is a major north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...
and M45 motorwayThe M45 is a motorway in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, England and is 8 miles long. It runs from Junction 17 of the M1 motorway south east of Rugby and ends with a junction with the A45 road southwest of Rugby...
s and the A45 roadThe A45 is a major road in England. It runs east from Birmingham past the National Exhibition Centre and the M42, then bypasses Coventry and Rugby, where it briefly merges with the M45 until it continues to Daventry...
. Other less important main roads include the A426 roadThe A426 road is a road in England which runs from the city of Leicester to Southam in Warwickshire via Lutterworth and Rugby.-History:Until the M1 motorway was completed in the 1960s this route formed the main route between Rugby and Leicester, now much quieter as all but local traffic uses the...
and the A428 roadThe A428 road is a major road in central and eastern England. It connects the cities of Coventry and Cambridge by way of the county towns of Northampton and Bedford.-Coventry - Northampton:...
. Most traffic from the industrial estates & the cement works has to travel through the town centre, this should be alleviated with the current building of the Rugby Western Relief RoadThe Rugby Western Relief Road is a 3.7 mile road which is currently under construction on the outskirts of Rugby, Warwickshire, England...
, linking the A45 with the Leicester Road, that connects with the Motorway at Junction 1 of the M6.
- By rail Rugby is served by the West Coast Main Line
The West Coast Main Line is a busy mixed-traffic railway route in the United Kingdom. It provides fast, long-distance Intercity passenger services between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and southern Scotland....
railway, and has services to London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
- BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
and the North West of EnglandNorth West England is one of the nine official regions of England. It has a population of 6,853,200 and comprises five counties of England – Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and Cheshire....
(see Rugby railway stationRugby railway station serves the town of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. It opened during the Victorian era, in 1885, replacing earlier stations situated a little further west...
).
- The nearest airport to Rugby is Coventry Airport
Coventry Airport is located south southeaset of Coventry city centre, in the village of Baginton, Warwickshire, England, and about outside Coventry boundaries. Coventry Airport was a hub for Thomsonfly...
. The town also has a direct rail link to Birmingham International Airport.
- The Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a 78 mile long narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Coventry via Banbury and Rugby. It connects with the River Thames at Oxford, to the Grand Union Canal at the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill, and to the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury Junction in...
runs along the north edge of Rugby, but south of the new housing estateA housing estate is a group of buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance...
s round BrownsoverBrownsover is a small village about 1½ miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Since 1960, it has been further absorbed by the suburban expansion of Rugby.-'Old' Brownsover:...
.
- Buses run to Coventry, Southam, Leamington Spa, Daventry, Banbury, Leicester and Northampton as well as serving the major estates of the town on a regular basis.
Education
Schools in Rugby include the
Lawrence Sheriff SchoolLawrence Sheriff School is a selective boys' grammar school in Rugby in Warwickshire. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan man who founded Rugby School. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff' by boys at the school. In a recent OFSTED ...
for boys (which came top of the country in the 2009 GCSE League Tables) and
Rugby High School for GirlsRugby High School for Girls is a selective girls' grammar school situated in Bilton, Warwickshire, England...
, both of which are grammar schools. Perhaps the most renowned school is Rugby School, home of rugby football and the top co-educational boarding school in the country. There are also several
comprehensive schoolA comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. The term is commonly used in relation to the United Kingdom, where comprehensive schools were introduced in the late 1940s to the early 1970s. It corresponds broadly to the...
s, including
Ashlawn SchoolAshlawn School is a secondary school on Ashlawn Road, Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It also includes a grammar stream within it. Around 1,700 pupils attend the school educated by 90 full time teaching staff...
(formerly Dunsmore School for Boys and Dunsmore School for Girls),
Bilton SchoolBilton School Formerly Herbert Kay and Westlands School, and most recently Bilton High School is a major secondary school for pupils aged 11-16 situated within the village of Bilton within Rugby, Warwickshire...
(formerly Herbert Kay & Westlands School, and Bilton High School),
Avon Valley SchoolThe Avon Valley School and Performing Arts College is a self-governing specialist school in the British town of Rugby, Warwickshire. The school is non-selective, catering for students aged 11–16....
(formerly 'Newbold School'),
Bishop Wulstan SchoolBishop Wulstan School was situated on Oak Street in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England.-History:The school was best known for its history as it was once a practising monastery or Novitiate, associated with St.Marie's Church on Dunchurch Road. There is some debate as to the architect of the...
(now shut), and
Harris SchoolHarris School is a state run secondary school in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is a voluntary aided Church of England school that specialises in sports. It is co-educational, admits pupils between the ages of 11 and 16 and in 2006 had 685 pupils on the register. The school's colours are black,...
. Rugby is also home to a
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
, which is now a part of the
Warwickshire CollegeWarwickshire College is a large further and higher education college in England. It provides National Curriculum courses and vocational education in a broad range of subjects to students aged 16 and over...
group.
Sport
- Rugby has a number of rugby union
Rugby union is a full contact team sport, a form of football which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. It is played with an oval-shaped ball, outdoors on a level field, usually with a grass surface, 100 m...
teams including; the Rugby LionsThe Rugby Football Club, nicknamed the Lions, are a rugby union club based in Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Rugby currently compete in National Division Three South.-External links:* *...
, Rugby Welsh, Rugby St.Andrews RFC, Newbold and Old Laurentian RFC.
- Rugby also has a non-league football club, Rugby Town F.C.
Rugby Town FC is a football club based in Rugby, Warwickshire, which plays in the Southern League Premier Division. It is nicknamed The Valley, and plays its home matches at Butlin Road...
, (formerly known as VS Rugby) which currently plays in the Southern LeagueThe Southern League is an English football competition featuring semi-professional and amateur clubs from the South West, South Central and Midlands of England and South Wales....
Premier Division.
Notable people
Famous or notable people born in Rugby include the poet
Rupert BrookeRupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War ; however, he never experienced combat at first hand...
, actor
Tim Pigott-SmithTim Pigott-Smith is an English film and television actor.-Early life:Pigott-Smith was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, the son of Margaret Muriel and Harry Thomas Pigott-Smith, who was a journalist. He was educated at Wyggeston Boys' School, Leicester, King Edward VI School Stratford-upon-Avon, and...
and writer
Rose MacaulayDame Emilie Rose Macaulay, DBE , affectionately known as Emilie, was a writer...
.
The scientist
Joseph Norman LockyerSir Joseph Norman Lockyer, FRS was an English scientist and astronomer. Along with the French scientist Pierre Janssen he is credited with discovering the gas helium. Lockyer also is remembered for being the founder and first editor of the influential journal Nature.-Biography:Lockyer was born in...
who discovered
heliumHelium is the chemical element with atomic number 2, and is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
and founded the science journal
NatureNature is a prominent British scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. Most scientific journals are now highly specialized, and Nature is among the few journals that still publish original research articles across a wide range of scientific...
was born in Rugby, as was the inventor of the 'oval' football
Richard LindonRichard Lindon was instrumental in the development of the modern-day rugby football.Lindon set up home and shop at 6/6a Lawrence Sheriff Street, Rugby, England, immediately opposite the front doors of the Quadrangle of the Rugby School...
.
The band
Spacemen 3Spacemen 3 were an English rock band who formed in 1982 and whose career spanned from the post-punk to acid house and shoegaze eras.-Overview:...
and the related spin off bands from its various members
SpiritualizedSpiritualized are an English space rock band formed in 1990 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Jason Pierce after the demise of his previous outfit, space-rockers Spacemen 3...
(
Jason PierceJason Pierce , also known as J. Spaceman or Spaceman, is an English musician. He was formerly the joint leader – with Peter Kember – of the alternative rock band Spacemen 3, and is now the leader and sole permanent member of the band Spiritualized.In between his work with Spiritualized...
); Spectrum (
Peter KemberPeter Kember is a British musician, more usually known as Sonic Boom and was a founding member of Spacemen 3.Kember and Jason Pierce formed Spacemen 3 in 1985...
) Freelovebabies (Will Carruthers) arose from Rugby, as does the singer/songwriter
James MorrisonJames Morrison is a BRIT Award-winning English singer–songwriter and guitarist from Rugby, Warwickshire. In 2006, his debut single "You Give Me Something" became a hit in Europe, Australia, and Japan, peaking in the top five in the UK and New Zealand. His debut album, Undiscovered, debuted at the...
.
The sprinter
Katharine MerryKatharine Merry is a former English female sprinter.-Biography:A member of the Birchfield Harriers athletics club, Merry won a bronze medal for the 400 metre sprint at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.Merry had a unique career that spanned 20 years...
and British Judokas Neil and Christopher Adams were natives of Rugby. The former two both won
OlympicThe Olympic Games are a major international event of summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes compete in a wide variety of events. The Games are currently held every two years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in...
medals.
Many famous people attended
Rugby SchoolRugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
, including
Neville ChamberlainArthur Neville Chamberlain was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940...
,
Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer...
,
Salman RushdieSir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children , which won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his early fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent...
and
Matthew ArnoldMatthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
. Arnold's father
Thomas ArnoldThomas Arnold was a British educator and historian. Arnold was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement...
was a noted headmaster of the school.
England cricketer
Ian BellIan Ronald Bell MBE is an England Test cricketer. He also plays county cricket for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. He is a right-handed higher/middle order batsman, described by The Times as an "exquisite rapier," and occasional right-arm medium pace bowler...
was born in Dunchurch (near Rugby) and attended
Princethorpe CollegePrincethorpe College is a Catholic independent day school located in Princethorpe, near Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It was founded in the late 1950s as St Bede's College in Royal Leamington Spa, before moving to its current site in 1966. It occupies a former Benedictine monastery surrounded by ...
.
'Allo 'Allo actor
Arthur BostromArthur Bostrom is an English actor, most famous for his role as Officer Crabtree, in the long-running BBC sitcom Allo 'Allo!.-Biography:...
was born in Rugby and attended
Lawrence Sheriff SchoolLawrence Sheriff School is a selective boys' grammar school in Rugby in Warwickshire. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan man who founded Rugby School. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff' by boys at the school. In a recent OFSTED ...
.
Clive MasonClive Mason is a Deaf British television presenter born in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. He was the first person to use British Sign Language on television. It was not until 2003 that BSL was recognised by the government as a language in its own right.-Early life:Mason was born deaf, and at...
of the programme for the deaf
See HearSee Hear is a weekly magazine programme for deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, broadcast on Wednesday afternoons at 1pm. The programme focuses on the British and the worldwide deaf community and covers a broad range of topics from areas such as education, deaf people's rights, technology...
used to live in Rugby.
Bill MaynardWalter Frederick George Williams more commonly known as Bill Maynard, is an English comedian and actor....
(Claude Greengrass in the
Heartbeat TV seriesHeartbeat is a long running British TV police drama series set in 1960s Yorkshire. It is made by ITV Studios at The Leeds Studios, and on location, for broadcast on ITV. Heartbeat first aired on Friday 10 April 1992...
) lives locally.
Ben CroshawBenjamin Richard "Yahtzee" Croshaw is an English comedic writer, video game journalist and author of adventure games created using Adventure Game Studio software. He writes articles for Australia's Hyper magazine, a major games publication...
, better known as 'Yahtzee', a comedic video games reviewer in charge of his own
Zero PunctuationZero Punctuation is a video game review series created by comedy writer, video game journalist and gamer Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw and produced by online magazine The Escapist. Each week's review is previewed on The Escapist Show the Tuesday before it is released on Wednesday in the Zero Punctuation...
segment of
The EscapistThe Escapist is an online magazine covering video games, gamers, the gaming industry, and gaming culture. Published by the Themis Group, it is edited by Julianne Greer, and was first published on July 12, 2005. The Escapist, which claims "print-quality writing", runs weekly with a main edition...
was born in Rugby. He currently lives in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
.
Judy Simpson-Nightshade from the Uk Gladiators was born in Jamaica and lived in Rugby
Thomas HedleyTom Hedley, the former publisher of in London, is presently President and Publisher of in New York City. As a young editor of Esquire magazine, he edited and published essays by Federico Fellini, François Truffaut, Michelangelo Antonioni and Andy Warhol, among others...
, publisher and president of Hedley Media Group, was born in the town.
Paul Crabtree, composer, living in San Francisco, was born in Rugby and attended Dunsmore Boys School (now Ashlawn School).
John Bye - Musician and award winning arist. Known for his wild animal drawings.
Twin towns
Rugby is
twinnedSister cities, also known as town twinning, is an agreement between towns, cities and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties...
with:
ÉvreuxÉvreux is a commune in Haute-Normandie in northern France in the Eure department, of which it is the capital.Its inhabitants are called the Ébroïcienne and Ébroïciens .-History:...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
.
RüsselsheimRüsselsheim is the largest town in the Groß-Gerau district in the Rhein-Main region of Germany. It is one of seven special status towns in Hesse and is located on the Main, only a few kilometres from its mouth in Mainz. The suburbs of Bauschheim and Königstädten are included in Rüsselsheim...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
.
External links
Rugby is a
market townMarket town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
in
WarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton in the far north of the county. The shape of the administrative area Warwickshire differs considerably from that of the historic county...
, in the West Midlands of
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, on the
River AvonThe River Avon or Avon is a river in or adjoining the counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire in the Midlands of England. It is also known as the Upper Avon, Warwickshire Avon or Shakespeare's Avon. The river has a total length of...
. The town has a population of 61,988
(2001 census) making it the
second largest town in the county. The larger
Borough of RugbyRugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England.The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town....
has a population of 91,600 (2005 estimate).
Rugby is 13 miles (21 km) east of
CoventryCoventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
, on the eastern edge of Warwickshire, near the borders with
NorthamptonshireNorthamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census...
and
LeicestershireLeicestershire or , abbreviation Leics.is a landlocked county in central England. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
.
The town is credited with being the birthplace of
rugby footballRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
.
History
- Main article History of Rugby
-Early history:In the Iron Age the Rugby area was settled. Rugby's site on a plateau at about 400 feet above sea level, overlooking the River Avon made it an important strategic post overlooking the Avon, which was a natural barrier between the Dobunni and the Corieltauvi tribes...
Early
Iron ageIn archaeology, the Iron Age is the prehistoric period in any area during which cutting tools and weapons were mainly made of iron or steel. The adoption of this material coincided with other changes in society, including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles.The...
settlement existed in the Rugby area, and a few miles outside what is now Rugby, existed a
RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
settlement known as
TripontiumTripontium was a town in Roman Britain. It lay on the Roman road later called Watling Street at a site now chiefly within the civil parish of Newton and Biggin in the English county of Warwickshire and partly in Leicestershire, some 3.4 miles north-east of Rugby and 3.1 miles south of...
. Rugby was originally a small
Anglo-SaxonAnglo-Saxons is the term usually used to describe the invading Germanic tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from the early 5th century AD, and their creation of the English nation, to the Norman conquest of 1066...
farming settlement, and was mentioned in the
Domesday BookThe Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror...
of 1086 as
Rocheberie. Rugby obtained a charter to hold a market in 1255, and soon developed into a small country
market townMarket town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...
.
The name's likeliest origin is
Anglo-SaxonOld English , also called Anglo-Saxon, is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary...
Hrōca burh or similar = "
Rook-Games:*Rook or castle, a piece in the board game of chess**Rook's graph, a graph of legal moves for the rook chess piece*Rook -People:*Alan Rook, editor of New Oxford Poetry, one of the Cairo poets*Jean Rook, British newspaper columnist...
fort", where Rook may be the birds or may be a man's name. Another theory is that the name is originally derived from an old Celtic name
Droche-brig meaning "wild hilltop". The change to -
by is because of
VikingA Viking is one of the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century. These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far...
influence: there are other place names ending in
-by in the area ('By' meaning town in
NorwegianNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants ...
,
SwedishSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. It is to a considerable extent mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish...
and
DanishDanish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the...
even today).
Rugby SchoolRugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
was founded in 1567 by money left in the will of
Lawrence SheriffLawrence Sheriff or Lawrence Sheriffe was an Elizabethan gentleman and grocer to Elizabeth I who founded Rugby School.Not much is known about Lawrence Sheriff's early life, but it thought that he was born near St. Andrew's Church in Rugby, Warwickshire...
, 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 SchoolLawrence Sheriff School is a selective boys' grammar school in Rugby in Warwickshire. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan man who founded Rugby School. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff' by boys at the school. In a recent OFSTED ...
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 centuryThe 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Ottoman, Holy Roman and Mughal empires...
and the coming of the railways. In 1838 the
London and Birmingham RailwayThe London and Birmingham Railway was an early railway company in the United Kingdom from 1833 to 1846 when it became part of the London and North Western Railway ....
was constructed around the town, and in 1840 the
Midland Counties RailwayThe Midland Counties Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom which existed between 1832 and 1844, connecting Nottingham, Leicester and Derby with Rugby and thence, via the London and Birmingham Railway, to London. The MCR system connected with the North Midland Railway and the...
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
engineeringEngineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or inventions.The American Engineers' Council...
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
motorwayThe OECD has defined a motorway as:Motorways are identical to freeways as a road type, and comparable to the United States's Interstate Highways as a classification....
network, with the
M1The M1 is a major north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...
and
M6The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It runs from junction 19 of the M1 in Catthorpe near Rugby in central England, passes between Coventry and Nuneaton, through Birmingham, Walsall and Stafford and near the major cities of Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent...
merging close to the town.
Fame
Rugby is most famous for the invention of
rugby footballRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
, which is played throughout the world. The game was invented by
William Webb EllisWilliam Webb Ellis , famous as the inventor of Rugby, was an English Anglican clergyman. Though credited with the invention of Rugby football while he was a pupil at Rugby School, the story of how he founded the game may be false; nevertheless, his name is firmly established in the folklore of...
in 1823 at
Rugby SchoolRugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
, 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 HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
's semi-autobiographical masterpiece
Tom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes first published in 1857. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s. Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
. A substantial part of the 2004 dramatisation of the novel, starring
Stephen FryStephen John Fry is a British actor, writer, comedian, author, television presenter and film director. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster...
, was filmed on location at Rugby School.
Rugby is also a birthplace of the
jet engineA jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet of fluid to generate thrust in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets and pump-jets...
. In April 1937
Frank WhittleAir Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, Hon FRAeS was a British Royal Air Force officer. Sharing credit with Germany's Dr. Hans von Ohain for independently inventing the jet engine, he is hailed as a father of jet propulsion.From an early age Whittle demonstrated an aptitude for...
built the world's first prototype jet engine at the
British Thomson-HoustonBritish Thomson-Houston was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England. They were known primarily for their electrical systems and steam turbines. They were merged with the similar Metropolitan-Vickers company in 1928, but the two maintained their own...
works in Rugby, and between 1936-41 based himself at
Brownsover HallBrownsover Hall is a 19th century mansion house in the old village of Brownsover, Rugby, Warwickshire which has been converted for use as an hotel...
on the outskirts of the town, where he designed and developed early prototype engines. Much of his work was also carried out at nearby
LutterworthLutterworth is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. The town is located in southern Leicestershire, 11 km north of Rugby, in Warwickshire and 24 km south of Leicester and has a population of approximately 8,300 inhabitants- Transport :Lutterworth lies on the A426...
.
HolographyHolography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that it appears as if the object is in the same position relative to the recording medium as it was when recorded...
was also invented in Rugby by the
HungarianHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
inventor
Dennis GaborDennis Gabor CBE, FRS, was a Hungarian electrical engineer and inventor, most notable for inventing holography, for which he later received the Nobel Prize in Physics.-Biography:He was born as Gábor Dénes, in Budapest, Hungary...
in 1947.
In the 19th century, Rugby became famous for its once hugely important railway junction which was the setting for
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens FRSA , pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print...
's story
Mugby JunctionMugby Junction was a set of short stories by Charles Dickens written in 1866. It was first published in a Christmas edition of the magazine All The Year Round. It includes the famous ghost story The Signalman concerning a spectre seen beside a tunnel entrance.It features in a thinly disguised form...
.
The town also inspired
Thomas HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
, (author of
Tom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes first published in 1857. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s. Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
) to set up a colony in America, for the young sons of the English gentry. He named the town Rugby. The town of
Rugby, TennesseeRugby is an unincorporated community in Morgan and Scott counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Founded in 1880 by English author Thomas Hughes, Rugby was built as an experimental utopian colony. While Hughes' experiment largely failed, a small community lingered at Rugby throughout the 20th...
still exists today.
Rugby today
The modern town of Rugby is an amalgamation of the original town with the former villages of
BiltonBilton is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire and a ward of the Borough of Rugby. It comprises much of the western half of the town.Historically a village in its own right , Bilton's name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Beolatun , and it was mentioned in the Domesday Book as both Beltone and...
,
HillmortonHillmorton is an area of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, it comprises most of the eastern half of the town.Hillmorton was historically a village in its own right, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book as land that belonged to Hugh de Grandmesnil, at one time a market was held in Hillmorton, and...
,
BrownsoverBrownsover is a small village about 1½ miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Since 1960, it has been further absorbed by the suburban expansion of Rugby.-'Old' Brownsover:...
and
Newbold-on-AvonNewbold-on-Avon is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, located around 1½ miles north-west of the town centre. Newbold was historically a village in its own right, but was incorporated into Rugby in 1932....
which were incorporated into Rugby in 1932 when the town became a
boroughMunicipal boroughs were a type of local government which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002...
; all except Brownsover still have their former village centres. Rugby also includes the areas of
New BiltonNew Bilton is a place in Rugby Warwickshire, in England. It is a suburb of Rugby, situated to the west of the town centre. The nearby village of Bilton has also been absorbed into Rugby....
and
OversladeOverslade is a political ward, as well as a general neighbourhood in the central south part of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the ward's population was 5,606. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Matthew and the local secondary school is Harris School...
. The spread of Rugby has nearly reached the villages of
Clifton-upon-DunsmoreClifton-upon-Dunsmore is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire in England.-Location:Clifton bears the distinction of being the most easterly village in Warwickshire . It is located roughly a mile east of Rugby, and is effectively a suburb of the town, although separated by...
,
CawstonCawston is a civil parish and village close to the south-east of Rugby, Warwickshire, on the A4071 . For hundreds of years the village was basically a hamlet and the two settlements remained separate despite Rugby's continued growth. However in 2003-04 a new housing estate, Cawston Grange, was...
,
DunchurchDunchurch is a civil parish and historic village on the south-western outskirts of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 2,842 in the village....
and
Long LawfordLong Lawford is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire, England, located just west of Rugby, in 2001 the parish had a population of 2,831....
.
The town centre is mostly
VictorianThe Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 until her death on the 22nd of January 1901. The reign was a long period of prosperity for the British people, as profits gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements...
and early 20th century, however a few much older buildings survive, along with some more modern developments. Rugby was described by
Nikolaus PevsnerSir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, was a German-born British scholar of history of art and, especially, of history of architecture. He is best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England .-Life:The son of a Jewish merchant, Pevsner was born in Leipzig,...
as 'Butterfieldtown' due to the number of buildings designed by
William ButterfieldWilliam Butterfield was an architect of the Gothic revival, and associated with the Oxford Movement .-Biography:...
in the 19th century, including much of Rugby School and the extension of St Andrews church.
Rugby town centre includes numerous restaurants of various kinds, many pubs, and a nightclub. In 2002, Brownsover Fish Bar on Hollowell Way, Brownsover, was named as the best seller of
Fish and ChipsFish and chips is a popular take-away food which originated in the United Kingdom. It consists of deep-fried fish in batter or breadcrumbs with deep-fried chipped potatoes.Popular tradition associates the dish with the United Kingdom; and fish and chips remains very popular in the UK and in...
in the country. The town centre is noted for its large number of pubs; in the 1960s it was recorded as 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 TowersThe Clock Towers is a shopping precinct in the town centre of Rugby, Warwickshire. It is managed by EFM Facilities Ltd. The shops in the precinct include several clothes stores, two game shops and a few thrift stores. The shopping centre was known in its previous existence as Rugby Shopping Centre...
which opened in 1980. A street
marketA market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons trade, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy. It is an arrangement that allows buyers and sellers to exchange things...
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
parkA park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment. It may consist of, rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas....
s, most notably
Caldecott ParkCaldecott Park is an urban park located in the centre of Rugby, England. Most of the land was purchased by the Rugby Urban District Council in 1903 from Thomas Caldecott, the last lord of the manor. There was additional land purchased to the north of the original park in 1911, bringing the park to...
near the town hall. The borough council along with Warwickshire County Council currently have plans to pedestrianise North Street, a busy road through the town centre as part of the town centre's regeneration. This has proved to be very controversial, with the town's major bus operator
Stagecoach in WarwickshireStagecoach in Warwickshire is the Stagecoach Group bus operator in and around the county of Warwickshire, England. While Stagecoach in Warwickshire is the brand image of the company, its legal name is Midland Red Ltd...
threatening that if the road is closed to all traffic, they will have to dramatically reduce many bus services because the main bus stops will have to be relocate further away meaning the services become less attractive to passengers. Thus meaning loss of patronage.
Politics and governance
Rugby is administered by two
local authoritiesThe pattern of local government in England is complex, with the distribution of functions varying according to the local arrangements. Legislation concerning local government in England is decided by the Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom, because England does not have a devolved...
:
Rugby Borough CouncilRugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England.The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town....
which covers Rugby and its surrounding countryside, and
WarwickshireWarwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton in the far north of the county. The shape of the administrative area Warwickshire differs considerably from that of the historic county...
County CouncilA county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.-United Kingdom:...
. The two authorities are responsible for different aspects of local government. Rugby is an
unparished areaIn England, an unparished area is an area that is not covered by a civil parish. Most urbanised districts of England are either entirely or partly unparished. In some cases, a largely rural district will have one or two unparished areas in it...
and so does not have its own
town councilA town council is a democratically elected form of government for small municipalities or civil parishes. A council may serve as both the representative and executive branch....
.
In 1983 Rugby became part of the parliamentary constituency of Rugby and Kenilworth, one of the Midlands' most marginal seats. Between 1983 and 1997
Jim PawseyJames Francis Pawsey, , known as Jim Pawsey, is a retired British Conservative politician.Pawsey was Member of Parliament for Rugby from 1979 to 1983, then for Rugby and Kenilworth from 1983 until he lost the seat in the 1997 general election to Labour's Andy King.-References:*"Times Guide to the...
was the Conservative Member of Parliament, losing in 1997 to
Labour'sThe Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded at the start of the 20th century, it has been seen since 1920 as the principal party of the Left in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where it has only recently begun to organise again...
Andy King.
At the 2005 general election
Jeremy WrightJeremy Paul Wright is a British Conservative Party politician, and current Member of Parliament for the constituency of Rugby & Kenilworth....
regained the seat for the
ConservativesThe Conservative and Unionist Party, more commonly known as the Conservatives, the Conservative Party, or Tory Party is a conservative political party in the United Kingdom...
.
From 1885 until 1983 Rugby was a constituency in itself. Following the recommendations of the Boundary Commission for England, Warwickshire was allocated a sixth parliamentary seat. At the next general election, the existing Rugby and Kenilworth constituency will be abolished and split in two. A new
Rugby constituencyRugby is a former parliamentary constituency in Warwickshire, England, which will be recreated for the next general election ....
will be created, and a new constituency of Kenilworth and Southam will be created to the south of Rugby, 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 marginal constituency and Jeremy Wright has indicated his intention of standing for the new Kenilworth and Southam seat at the next general election.
Nearby places
- Nearby cities: Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
, LeicesterLeicester is a city and unitary authority area in the East Midlands of England. It is the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
, BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
- Nearby towns: Lutterworth
Lutterworth is a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire, England. The town is located in southern Leicestershire, 11 km north of Rugby, in Warwickshire and 24 km south of Leicester and has a population of approximately 8,300 inhabitants- Transport :Lutterworth lies on the A426...
, DaventryDaventry is a market town in Northamptonshire, England, with a population of 22,367 . The town is also the administrative centre of the larger Daventry district, which has a population of 71,838. The town is 124 km north-northwest of London, 22.4 km west of Northampton and 16.4 km...
, HinckleyHinckley is a town in south-west Leicestershire, England. It has a population of 43,246 . It is administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council.-History:...
, KenilworthKenilworth is a town in central Warwickshire, England. In 2001 the town had a population of 22,582 . It is situated south of Coventry, north of Warwick and northwest of London.-History:...
, NuneatonNuneaton is the largest town in the Borough of Nuneaton and Bedworth and in the English county of Warwickshire.Nuneaton is most famous for its associations with the 19th century author George Eliot, who was born on a farm on the Arbury Estate just outside Nuneaton in 1819 and lived in the town for...
, Leamington SpaLeamington Spa, properly Royal Leamington Spa, commonly Leamington or "Leam" to locals, is a spa town in central Warwickshire, England. Formerly known as Leamington Priors, its expansion began following the popularisation of the medicinal qualities of its water by Dr Kerr in 1784, and by Dr...
, NorthamptonNorthampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. It is about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, and lies on the River Nene...
, SouthamSoutham is a small market town in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 6,509 in the town .The nearest sizeable town to Southam is Leamington Spa, located roughly 7 miles to the west...
- Nearby villages: Newbold
-People:* Charles Newbold, inventor* Gregory S. Newbold, U.S. general* Walton Newbold, British Member of Parliament* Joshua G. Newbold, Governor of Iowa 1877-78* William Newbold, objective artist-Places:* Newbold, Derbyshire, England...
, Harborough MagnaHarborough Magna is a village and parish in Warwickshire, England.Along with the adjoining hamlet of Harborough Parva and nearby Cathiron, the parish has a population of 461 ....
, PailtonPailton is a village and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Its population in 2001 was recorded as 482. The village was originally known as Pailington....
, BrinklowBrinklow is a village and parish in the Rugby district of Warwickshire, England. It is about halfway between Rugby and Coventry, and has a population of 1,041 ....
, Monks KirbyMonks Kirby is a village and civil parish in north-eastern Warwickshire, England. The population of the parish is 434 .Monks Kirby is located around one mile east of the old Fosse Way, around 8 miles north-west of Rugby, seven miles north-east of Coventry and six miles west of Lutterworth...
, EasenhallEasenhall is a small village and parish in Warwickshire, England. It is located three miles north-west of the town of Rugby and a mile south of the M6 motorway. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the parish had a population of 231 in 96 houses....
, DunchurchDunchurch is a civil parish and historic village on the south-western outskirts of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 2,842 in the village....
Economy
Rugby's economy is mainly
industrialAn industry is the manufacturing of a good or service within a category. Although industry is a broad term for any kind of economic production, in economics and urban planning industry is a synonym for the secondary sector, which is a type of economic activity involved in the manufacturing of raw...
. It is an
engineeringEngineering is the discipline, art and profession of acquiring and applying technical, scientific and mathematical knowledge to design and implement materials, structures, machines, devices, systems, and processes that safely realize a desired objective or inventions.The American Engineers' Council...
centre and has a long history of producing gas and steam
turbineA turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid or air flow and converts it into useful work.The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor assembly, which is a shaft or drum, with blades attached. Moving fluid acts on the blades, or the blades react to the flow, so that they...
s at the GEC and at the
AEIAssociated Electrical Industries was a British engineering company formed in 1959 by the merger of the British Thomson-Houston Company and Metropolitan Vickers. In 1967 AEI was acquired by GEC, to create the UK's largest electrical group....
. The AEI was earlier
British Thomson-HoustonBritish Thomson-Houston was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England. They were known primarily for their electrical systems and steam turbines. They were merged with the similar Metropolitan-Vickers company in 1928, but the two maintained their own...
or BTH. They used to dominate employment in the town. They are now amalgamated to form
AlstomAlstom is a large French multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets. According to the company website, in the years 2007-'08 Alstom had annual sales of over €16.9 billion, and employed more than 81,500 people in 70 countries. Alstom's...
. Engineering in Rugby is still the most important sector.
Another major industry in Rugby is
cementIn the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance which sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term "opus caementicium" to describe masonry which resembled concrete and was made from crushed...
making;
Rugby CementCEMEX S.A. de C.V. is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...
works, on the western outskirts of the town, makes cement from the local
JurassicThe Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Ma to Ma, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the "Age of Reptiles". The start of the period is marked by...
LiasLias may refer to:* Lias , a troll drummer in the book Soul Music by Terry Pratchett* Lias Group, a stratigraphic group found in large parts of Europe, formed during the Early Jurassic epoch* Lias, Gers, a commune of the Gers département, in France...
limestone. The cement industry in Rugby dates back to the 1860s. In the 1990s the Rugby Cement works was dramatically expanded, and in 2000 other Rugby Cement plants at
SouthamSoutham is a small market town in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 6,509 in the town .The nearest sizeable town to Southam is Leamington Spa, located roughly 7 miles to the west...
and Rochester were closed, with all production moved to the Rugby plant, 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
warehousingA warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and...
and distribution have become major employers.
Further afield, within the
Rugby boroughRugby is a local government district with borough status in eastern Warwickshire, England.The borough comprises the town of Rugby where the council has its headquarters, and the rural areas surrounding the town....
is the
Rolls-RoyceRolls-Royce plc is a British aircraft engine maker, and the second-largest in the world, behind GE Aviation. The company has related businesses in the defence aerospace, marine and energy markets....
engineering works near
AnstyAnsty is a village and civil parish in the Rugby borough of Warwickshire with a population of 318 . The village is actually located just outside Coventry and was historically part of the County of the City of Coventry....
. This is nearer to
CoventryCoventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
than Rugby, but is a major employer to the Rugby population.
TourismTourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other...
is also important to the town's economy, especially related to
Rugby footballRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
.
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.
Landmarks
One of the most notable landmarks around Rugby was, until August 2007, the
Rugby VLF transmitterRugby radio station was a large very low frequency transmission facility near the town of Rugby, Warwickshire in England, situated just west of the A5 trunk road and in later years junction 18 of the M1 motorway. It came into service on January 1, 1926 and was originally used to transmit telegraph...
, a large radio transmitting station located just to the east of the town. The station was opened in 1926 and was used to transmit the MSF time signal. Several of the masts however were decommissioned and demolished by explosives in 2004, although a few including four of the biggest masts remained until 2007. (Firing the explosive charges was delayed by
rabbitRabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world. There are seven different genera in the family classified as rabbits, including the European rabbit , Cottontail rabbit , and the Amami rabbit...
s gnawing the wires). The remaining four 'tall' masts were demolished on the afternoon of August 2 2007 with no prior publicity.
Rugby Cement works, to the west of the town, can be seen for many miles. Standing at just 115 metres high, 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 4Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
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,
CemexCEMEX S.A. de C.V. is the world's largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer. Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico...
, were fined £400,000 for excessive pollution after a court case brought by the
Environment AgencyThe Environment Agency is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and an Assembly Government Sponsored Body of the Welsh Assembly Government.-Purpose:...
.
The town has statues of three famous locals:
Rupert BrookeRupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War ; however, he never experienced combat at first hand...
,
Thomas HughesThomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
and
William Webb EllisWilliam Webb Ellis , famous as the inventor of Rugby, was an English Anglican clergyman. Though credited with the invention of Rugby football while he was a pupil at Rugby School, the story of how he founded the game may be false; nevertheless, his name is firmly established in the folklore of...
. The Rupert Brooke statue is situated at the forked junction of Regent Street on the green and commemorates his contribution to poetry. Thomas Hughes' statue stands in the gardens of the Temple Reading Rooms (the central library of Rugby school) on Barby Road. 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 churchA parish church, in Christianity, is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish, the basic administrative unit of episcopal churches....
. 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 ButterfieldWilliam Butterfield was an architect of the Gothic revival, and associated with the Oxford Movement .-Biography:...
. The expanded church included a new east tower, which has a
spireA spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from Anglo-Saxon, so it is related to "spear," rather than the Romance languages and "spirit."...
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
castleA castle is a defensive structure seen as one of the main symbols of the Middle Ages. The term has a history of scholarly debate surrounding its exact meaning, but it is usually regarded as being distinct from the general terms fort or fortress, in that it describes a residence of a monarch or...
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
fontIn typography, a font is traditionally defined as a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
.
Rugby's main Roman Catholic church is
St. Maries http://www.stmaries.co.uk on Dunchurch Road. It is one of the town's most well-known landmarks as it is quite dominant on the skyline. Its spire is the tallest in Warwickshire . The church was built in 1872, designed by
PuginPugin most commonly refers to Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin , English architect and designer.Other members of his family include:...
in the Early English style.
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 Rugby Art Gallery and Museum is a combined art gallery and museum located in central Rugby, Warwickshire, in England.The purpose built building housing it which was opened in 2000 also contains the town's library....
. The art gallery contains a nationally-recognised collection of contemporary art. The museum contains, amongst other things, RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
artefacts dug up from the nearby Roman settlement of TripontiumTripontium was a town in Roman Britain. It lay on the Roman road later called Watling Street at a site now chiefly within the civil parish of Newton and Biggin in the English county of Warwickshire and partly in Leicestershire, some 3.4 miles north-east of Rugby and 3.1 miles south of...
.
- The Rugby Football Museum
The Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum is a rugby football museum in the town centre of Rugby in Warwickshire, near Rugby School. It takes its name from William Webb Ellis who is credited with inventing the game of Rugby football....
, where traditional rugbyRugby football may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom. Today it refers to either rugby league or rugby union.- History :...
balls are hand made. It contains much rugby football memorabilia.
- The commercial town centre is modest but noted for its Clinton Cards
Clinton Cards is a chain of stores in the UK founded in 1968 by Don Lewin. Mainly selling greeting cards, the chain claims to be "the largest specialist retailer of greetings cards, plush merchandise and related products in the UK with over 700 shops." They used to be represented by concessions...
Superstore, the third largest in England and Wales.
Places of interest around Rugby include:
- Brandon Marsh
Brandon Marsh is an SSSI and nature reserve in Warwickshire, England. It is situated adjacent to the River Avon, near the village of Brandon, a few miles east of Coventry....
- Coombe Abbey and Coombe Country Park
Coombe Abbey is a hotel which has been developed from a historic grade I listed building and former country house. It is located roughly midway between Coventry and Brinklow in the countryside of Warwickshire, England...
- Dunchurch
Dunchurch is a civil parish and historic village on the south-western outskirts of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The 2001 census recorded a population of 2,842 in the village....
- Historic village
- Draycote Water
Draycote Water is a reservoir and country park near the village of Dunchurch, 6 km south of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, owned and operated by Severn Trent Water...
- Reservoir and nature reserve
- Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a 78 mile long narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Coventry via Banbury and Rugby. It connects with the River Thames at Oxford, to the Grand Union Canal at the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill, and to the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury Junction in...
- Rugby School
Rugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
- Stanford Hall
Stanford Hall is a stately home in Leicestershire, England, near the village of Stanford on Avon and the town of Lutterworth.- History :Ancestral home of the Cave family, the hall was built in the 1690s for Sir Roger Cave on the site of an earlier manor house. It is considered a fine example of...
- Ryton Organic Gardens http://www.hdra.org.uk/gardens/ryton.htm
- Benn Hall
The Benn Hall is a conference, seminar, exhibition and party venue located in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. The hall, along with the town hall which is located next to it, was opened on 5 July 1961 by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. It is named after George Charles Benn who in his will of 1895...
- Conference centre and music venue
Suburbs
HillmortonHillmorton is an area of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, it comprises most of the eastern half of the town.Hillmorton was historically a village in its own right, and was mentioned in the Domesday Book as land that belonged to Hugh de Grandmesnil, at one time a market was held in Hillmorton, and...
,
OversladeOverslade is a political ward, as well as a general neighbourhood in the central south part of the town of Rugby, Warwickshire. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 the ward's population was 5,606. The parish church is dedicated to Saint Matthew and the local secondary school is Harris School...
,
BrownsoverBrownsover is a small village about 1½ miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Since 1960, it has been further absorbed by the suburban expansion of Rugby.-'Old' Brownsover:...
,
BiltonBilton is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire and a ward of the Borough of Rugby. It comprises much of the western half of the town.Historically a village in its own right , Bilton's name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Beolatun , and it was mentioned in the Domesday Book as both Beltone and...
,
New BiltonNew Bilton is a place in Rugby Warwickshire, in England. It is a suburb of Rugby, situated to the west of the town centre. The nearby village of Bilton has also been absorbed into Rugby....
,
Newbold-on-AvonNewbold-on-Avon is an area of Rugby in Warwickshire, England, located around 1½ miles north-west of the town centre. Newbold was historically a village in its own right, but was incorporated into Rugby in 1932....
.
Transport
- By road, Rugby is near several major trunk routes including the M6
The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It runs from junction 19 of the M1 in Catthorpe near Rugby in central England, passes between Coventry and Nuneaton, through Birmingham, Walsall and Stafford and near the major cities of Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent...
, M1The M1 is a major north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...
and M45 motorwayThe M45 is a motorway in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, England and is 8 miles long. It runs from Junction 17 of the M1 motorway south east of Rugby and ends with a junction with the A45 road southwest of Rugby...
s and the A45 roadThe A45 is a major road in England. It runs east from Birmingham past the National Exhibition Centre and the M42, then bypasses Coventry and Rugby, where it briefly merges with the M45 until it continues to Daventry...
. Other less important main roads include the A426 roadThe A426 road is a road in England which runs from the city of Leicester to Southam in Warwickshire via Lutterworth and Rugby.-History:Until the M1 motorway was completed in the 1960s this route formed the main route between Rugby and Leicester, now much quieter as all but local traffic uses the...
and the A428 roadThe A428 road is a major road in central and eastern England. It connects the cities of Coventry and Cambridge by way of the county towns of Northampton and Bedford.-Coventry - Northampton:...
. Most traffic from the industrial estates & the cement works has to travel through the town centre, this should be alleviated with the current building of the Rugby Western Relief RoadThe Rugby Western Relief Road is a 3.7 mile road which is currently under construction on the outskirts of Rugby, Warwickshire, England...
, linking the A45 with the Leicester Road, that connects with the Motorway at Junction 1 of the M6.
- By rail Rugby is served by the West Coast Main Line
The West Coast Main Line is a busy mixed-traffic railway route in the United Kingdom. It provides fast, long-distance Intercity passenger services between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and southern Scotland....
railway, and has services to London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
- BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands county of England. Birmingham is the second-most populous British city, with a population of 1,006,500 ....
and the North West of EnglandNorth West England is one of the nine official regions of England. It has a population of 6,853,200 and comprises five counties of England – Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and Cheshire....
(see Rugby railway stationRugby railway station serves the town of Rugby in Warwickshire, England. It opened during the Victorian era, in 1885, replacing earlier stations situated a little further west...
).
- The nearest airport to Rugby is Coventry Airport
Coventry Airport is located south southeaset of Coventry city centre, in the village of Baginton, Warwickshire, England, and about outside Coventry boundaries. Coventry Airport was a hub for Thomsonfly...
. The town also has a direct rail link to Birmingham International Airport.
- The Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a 78 mile long narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Coventry via Banbury and Rugby. It connects with the River Thames at Oxford, to the Grand Union Canal at the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill, and to the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury Junction in...
runs along the north edge of Rugby, but south of the new housing estateA housing estate is a group of buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance...
s round BrownsoverBrownsover is a small village about 1½ miles north of Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Since 1960, it has been further absorbed by the suburban expansion of Rugby.-'Old' Brownsover:...
.
- Buses run to Coventry, Southam, Leamington Spa, Daventry, Banbury, Leicester and Northampton as well as serving the major estates of the town on a regular basis.
Education
Schools in Rugby include the
Lawrence Sheriff SchoolLawrence Sheriff School is a selective boys' grammar school in Rugby in Warwickshire. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan man who founded Rugby School. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff' by boys at the school. In a recent OFSTED ...
for boys (which came top of the country in the 2009 GCSE League Tables) and
Rugby High School for GirlsRugby High School for Girls is a selective girls' grammar school situated in Bilton, Warwickshire, England...
, both of which are grammar schools. Perhaps the most renowned school is Rugby School, home of rugby football and the top co-educational boarding school in the country. There are also several
comprehensive schoolA comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. The term is commonly used in relation to the United Kingdom, where comprehensive schools were introduced in the late 1940s to the early 1970s. It corresponds broadly to the...
s, including
Ashlawn SchoolAshlawn School is a secondary school on Ashlawn Road, Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It also includes a grammar stream within it. Around 1,700 pupils attend the school educated by 90 full time teaching staff...
(formerly Dunsmore School for Boys and Dunsmore School for Girls),
Bilton SchoolBilton School Formerly Herbert Kay and Westlands School, and most recently Bilton High School is a major secondary school for pupils aged 11-16 situated within the village of Bilton within Rugby, Warwickshire...
(formerly Herbert Kay & Westlands School, and Bilton High School),
Avon Valley SchoolThe Avon Valley School and Performing Arts College is a self-governing specialist school in the British town of Rugby, Warwickshire. The school is non-selective, catering for students aged 11–16....
(formerly 'Newbold School'),
Bishop Wulstan SchoolBishop Wulstan School was situated on Oak Street in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England.-History:The school was best known for its history as it was once a practising monastery or Novitiate, associated with St.Marie's Church on Dunchurch Road. There is some debate as to the architect of the...
(now shut), and
Harris SchoolHarris School is a state run secondary school in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is a voluntary aided Church of England school that specialises in sports. It is co-educational, admits pupils between the ages of 11 and 16 and in 2006 had 685 pupils on the register. The school's colours are black,...
. Rugby is also home to a
collegeCollege is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...
, which is now a part of the
Warwickshire CollegeWarwickshire College is a large further and higher education college in England. It provides National Curriculum courses and vocational education in a broad range of subjects to students aged 16 and over...
group.
Sport
- Rugby has a number of rugby union
Rugby union is a full contact team sport, a form of football which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. It is played with an oval-shaped ball, outdoors on a level field, usually with a grass surface, 100 m...
teams including; the Rugby LionsThe Rugby Football Club, nicknamed the Lions, are a rugby union club based in Rugby, Warwickshire in England. Rugby currently compete in National Division Three South.-External links:* *...
, Rugby Welsh, Rugby St.Andrews RFC, Newbold and Old Laurentian RFC.
- Rugby also has a non-league football club, Rugby Town F.C.
Rugby Town FC is a football club based in Rugby, Warwickshire, which plays in the Southern League Premier Division. It is nicknamed The Valley, and plays its home matches at Butlin Road...
, (formerly known as VS Rugby) which currently plays in the Southern LeagueThe Southern League is an English football competition featuring semi-professional and amateur clubs from the South West, South Central and Midlands of England and South Wales....
Premier Division.
Notable people
Famous or notable people born in Rugby include the poet
Rupert BrookeRupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War ; however, he never experienced combat at first hand...
, actor
Tim Pigott-SmithTim Pigott-Smith is an English film and television actor.-Early life:Pigott-Smith was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, the son of Margaret Muriel and Harry Thomas Pigott-Smith, who was a journalist. He was educated at Wyggeston Boys' School, Leicester, King Edward VI School Stratford-upon-Avon, and...
and writer
Rose MacaulayDame Emilie Rose Macaulay, DBE , affectionately known as Emilie, was a writer...
.
The scientist
Joseph Norman LockyerSir Joseph Norman Lockyer, FRS was an English scientist and astronomer. Along with the French scientist Pierre Janssen he is credited with discovering the gas helium. Lockyer also is remembered for being the founder and first editor of the influential journal Nature.-Biography:Lockyer was born in...
who discovered
heliumHelium is the chemical element with atomic number 2, and is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
and founded the science journal
NatureNature is a prominent British scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. Most scientific journals are now highly specialized, and Nature is among the few journals that still publish original research articles across a wide range of scientific...
was born in Rugby, as was the inventor of the 'oval' football
Richard LindonRichard Lindon was instrumental in the development of the modern-day rugby football.Lindon set up home and shop at 6/6a Lawrence Sheriff Street, Rugby, England, immediately opposite the front doors of the Quadrangle of the Rugby School...
.
The band
Spacemen 3Spacemen 3 were an English rock band who formed in 1982 and whose career spanned from the post-punk to acid house and shoegaze eras.-Overview:...
and the related spin off bands from its various members
SpiritualizedSpiritualized are an English space rock band formed in 1990 in Rugby, Warwickshire by Jason Pierce after the demise of his previous outfit, space-rockers Spacemen 3...
(
Jason PierceJason Pierce , also known as J. Spaceman or Spaceman, is an English musician. He was formerly the joint leader – with Peter Kember – of the alternative rock band Spacemen 3, and is now the leader and sole permanent member of the band Spiritualized.In between his work with Spiritualized...
); Spectrum (
Peter KemberPeter Kember is a British musician, more usually known as Sonic Boom and was a founding member of Spacemen 3.Kember and Jason Pierce formed Spacemen 3 in 1985...
) Freelovebabies (Will Carruthers) arose from Rugby, as does the singer/songwriter
James MorrisonJames Morrison is a BRIT Award-winning English singer–songwriter and guitarist from Rugby, Warwickshire. In 2006, his debut single "You Give Me Something" became a hit in Europe, Australia, and Japan, peaking in the top five in the UK and New Zealand. His debut album, Undiscovered, debuted at the...
.
The sprinter
Katharine MerryKatharine Merry is a former English female sprinter.-Biography:A member of the Birchfield Harriers athletics club, Merry won a bronze medal for the 400 metre sprint at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.Merry had a unique career that spanned 20 years...
and British Judokas Neil and Christopher Adams were natives of Rugby. The former two both won
OlympicThe Olympic Games are a major international event of summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes compete in a wide variety of events. The Games are currently held every two years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in...
medals.
Many famous people attended
Rugby SchoolRugby School, located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, is regarded as one of the UK's leading co-educational boarding schools and is one of the oldest public schools in England.-History:...
, including
Neville ChamberlainArthur Neville Chamberlain was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940...
,
Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer...
,
Salman RushdieSir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He achieved fame with his second novel, Midnight's Children , which won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his early fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent...
and
Matthew ArnoldMatthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...
. Arnold's father
Thomas ArnoldThomas Arnold was a British educator and historian. Arnold was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement...
was a noted headmaster of the school.
England cricketer
Ian BellIan Ronald Bell MBE is an England Test cricketer. He also plays county cricket for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. He is a right-handed higher/middle order batsman, described by The Times as an "exquisite rapier," and occasional right-arm medium pace bowler...
was born in Dunchurch (near Rugby) and attended
Princethorpe CollegePrincethorpe College is a Catholic independent day school located in Princethorpe, near Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It was founded in the late 1950s as St Bede's College in Royal Leamington Spa, before moving to its current site in 1966. It occupies a former Benedictine monastery surrounded by ...
.
'Allo 'Allo actor
Arthur BostromArthur Bostrom is an English actor, most famous for his role as Officer Crabtree, in the long-running BBC sitcom Allo 'Allo!.-Biography:...
was born in Rugby and attended
Lawrence Sheriff SchoolLawrence Sheriff School is a selective boys' grammar school in Rugby in Warwickshire. The school is named after Lawrence Sheriff, the Elizabethan man who founded Rugby School. The school's name is often shortened to 'LSS', or often just 'Sheriff' by boys at the school. In a recent OFSTED ...
.
Clive MasonClive Mason is a Deaf British television presenter born in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. He was the first person to use British Sign Language on television. It was not until 2003 that BSL was recognised by the government as a language in its own right.-Early life:Mason was born deaf, and at...
of the programme for the deaf
See HearSee Hear is a weekly magazine programme for deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, broadcast on Wednesday afternoons at 1pm. The programme focuses on the British and the worldwide deaf community and covers a broad range of topics from areas such as education, deaf people's rights, technology...
used to live in Rugby.
Bill MaynardWalter Frederick George Williams more commonly known as Bill Maynard, is an English comedian and actor....
(Claude Greengrass in the
Heartbeat TV seriesHeartbeat is a long running British TV police drama series set in 1960s Yorkshire. It is made by ITV Studios at The Leeds Studios, and on location, for broadcast on ITV. Heartbeat first aired on Friday 10 April 1992...
) lives locally.
Ben CroshawBenjamin Richard "Yahtzee" Croshaw is an English comedic writer, video game journalist and author of adventure games created using Adventure Game Studio software. He writes articles for Australia's Hyper magazine, a major games publication...
, better known as 'Yahtzee', a comedic video games reviewer in charge of his own
Zero PunctuationZero Punctuation is a video game review series created by comedy writer, video game journalist and gamer Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw and produced by online magazine The Escapist. Each week's review is previewed on The Escapist Show the Tuesday before it is released on Wednesday in the Zero Punctuation...
segment of
The EscapistThe Escapist is an online magazine covering video games, gamers, the gaming industry, and gaming culture. Published by the Themis Group, it is edited by Julianne Greer, and was first published on July 12, 2005. The Escapist, which claims "print-quality writing", runs weekly with a main edition...
was born in Rugby. He currently lives in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
.
Judy Simpson-Nightshade from the Uk Gladiators was born in Jamaica and lived in Rugby
Thomas HedleyTom Hedley, the former publisher of in London, is presently President and Publisher of in New York City. As a young editor of Esquire magazine, he edited and published essays by Federico Fellini, François Truffaut, Michelangelo Antonioni and Andy Warhol, among others...
, publisher and president of Hedley Media Group, was born in the town.
Paul Crabtree, composer, living in San Francisco, was born in Rugby and attended Dunsmore Boys School (now Ashlawn School).
John Bye - Musician and award winning arist. Known for his wild animal drawings.
Twin towns
Rugby is
twinnedSister cities, also known as town twinning, is an agreement between towns, cities and even counties in geographically and politically distinct areas to promote cultural and commercial ties...
with:
ÉvreuxÉvreux is a commune in Haute-Normandie in northern France in the Eure department, of which it is the capital.Its inhabitants are called the Ébroïcienne and Ébroïciens .-History:...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
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RüsselsheimRüsselsheim is the largest town in the Groß-Gerau district in the Rhein-Main region of Germany. It is one of seven special status towns in Hesse and is located on the Main, only a few kilometres from its mouth in Mainz. The suburbs of Bauschheim and Königstädten are included in Rüsselsheim...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
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External links