History
The present town is originally a Roman settlement. In the Middle Ages there was a large castle here, owned by John of Gaunt, and a major medieval market. In 1835 Newcastle-under-Lyme Municipal Borough was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 which required that rate payers elected councillors. In 1932 it took in what had been the Wolstanton United Urban District, covering the parishes of Chesterton, Silverdale and Wolstanton, also taking the parish of Clayton from Newcastle-under-Lyme Rural District.
The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, as a merger of the Newcastle-under-Lyme Municipal Borough, the Kidsgrove Urban District, and Newcastle-under-Lyme Rural District.
Up to the time of the passing of the Municipal Reform Act an election a mock mayor occurred annually after the election of the real mayor.
Read more about this topic: Borough Of Newcastle-under-Lyme
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)