Coventry
- For alternate meanings see: Coventry (disambiguation)
Coventry is a city in the West Midlands, England. With a population of 300,848 (2001 census), Coventry is the tenth largest city in England, and is a twin city to Dresden.
It is traditionally a centre of motor and cycle manufacture, the Triumph motorcycle having its origins in 1902 in a Coventry factory. Although the motor industry has declined, the Jaguar factory remains and a large Peugeot car factory is located in Ryton just outside the city.
Large areas of the city, including its cathedral, were destroyed during World War II in a massive German bombing raid (see below). The rebuilt Coventry Cathedral was opened in 1962 next to the ruins of the old. It was designed by Basil Spence and contains the tapestry, "Christ in Majesty" by Graham Sutherland and the aluminium statue of St Michael and the Devil by Jacob Epstein.
Coventry is the home of the University of Warwick and Coventry University. It is also home to the Museum of British Road Transport, where the world speed record breaking cars, Thrust2 and ThrustSSC are displayed.
In fiction, Coventry was the model for Middlemarch in the famous George Eliot novel.
Coventry is part of the traditional but not the modern county of Warwickshire, and has been administratively a metropolitan district of the West Midlands metropolitan county since 1974, after being a county borough. After the disbanding of the metropolitan council in 1986 it has remained a metropolitan district, administered as a unitary authority area.
Coventry's most famous resident was Lady Godiva, who according to legend, rode through the city naked on horseback, in protest at high taxes being waged on the cityfolk by her husband Leofric. According to the legend, the residents of the city were asked to look away as she rode, but one man didn't and was allegedly struck blind, he became known as the Peeping Tom thus originating the term. There is a statue of her in the city centre.
Of Coventry's most notably sons, Frank Whittle the father of the modern jet engine, was born in Coventry.
In football Coventry is represented by Coventry City F.C.
In Britain, to "send someone to Coventry" means to ostracise them.
Neighbouring towns: Bedworth, Rugby, Kenilworth, Warwick, Nuneaton
Coventry is believed to have been established in the year 1043 when a Benedictine Abbey was constructed. The abbey was founded by Leofric Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva. And soon afterwards a market and a settlement was established at the abbey gates.
By the 13th century Coventry had become a centre of many textile trades, especially those related to wool. Coventry's prosperity rested largely on the dyers who produced "Coventry blue" cloth, which was highly sought after across Europe due to its non-fading qualities. Coventry became one of the largest and most prosperous cities in Medieval England, and for many years was one of the few cities in England to have a protective wall.
Due to its importance, in 1451 King Henry VI granted Coventry a charter, which made Coventry a county in itself, a status it retained until 1842. It was restored as a county borough in 1889.
In the 16th century due to the restrictive practices and monopolies of the trade guilds, the cloth trade declined and the city fell upon hard times.
The phrase "sent to Coventry" originated during the English Civil War, when Coventry, a stronghold of the Parliamentarian forces, was used to house Royalist prisoners. Some claim that the phrase grew out of the hostile attitude of residents of the city to troops billeted there.
In the 18th century Coventry became home to a number of French immigrants, who brought with them silk and ribbon weaving skills, which became the basis of Coventry's economy. Coventry began to recover, and again became a major centre of a number of clothing trades.
During the 19th century Coventry became a centre of a number of industries, including watch and clock making, manufacture of sewing machines, and from the 1880s onwards bicycle manufacture. Due to this industrialisation Coventry's population grew rapidly.
Population growth in Coventry
History
By the 1930s Coventry had developed a large car manufacturing and motor industry, becoming the centre of the British motor industry. The city remained prosperous and largely immune to the economic slump of that decade.
Coventry's darkest hour came during World War II when Adolf Hitler singled out Coventry for heavy bombing raids, due to its historic architecture and the fact that it was a major industrial centre. Large areas of the city were destroyed in a massive German bombing raid on November 14, 1940. The city's medieval cathedral and centre were destroyed in that attack, along with 60,000 of the city's 75,000 buildings and 568 people were killed (although unofficial figures put the number of people killed far higher). The attack was carried out by 500 Luftwaffe bombers who dropped 150,000 fire bombs, 503 tons of high explosives, and 130 parachute mines.
For more detail see Here
The devastation was so great that the word Koventrieren -- to "Coventrate" or devastate by aerial bombing -- entered the German and English languages. In response, two days later the Royal Air Force began to bomb Hamburg (by war's end, 50,000 Hamburg residents had died in Allied attacks).
After the war, the city was extensively rebuilt. The new city centre built in the 1950s was considered one of the most modern of its time, and copied by city planners throughout the world. A new modern cathedral was also built. The rebuilt Coventry Cathedral was opened in 1962, next to the ruins of the old cathedral. It was designed by Basil Spence and contains the tapestry, "Christ in Majesty" by Graham Sutherland and the aluminium statue of St Michael and the Devil by Jacob Epstein.
The population of the city peaked in the late 1960s at around 335,000. However during the 1970s and 1980s the city fell into recession with factory closures and high unemployment, the population of Coventry also declined by around 10% during this time. In the early 1980s, a hit record was made about Coventry called "Ghost Town" by a local band called The Specials, which summed up the grim economic situation in the city.
In recent years Coventry has begun to recover, with new high tech industries locating in the city.
Coventry's main industries today include cars, electronic equpment, machine tools, agricultural machinery, man-made fibres, aerospace components and telecommunications equipment.
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