History of Derry - 18th and 19th Centuries

18th and 19th Centuries

The city was rebuilt in the 18th century with many of its fine Georgian style houses still surviving. George Berkeley, Ireland's most important philosopher, was dean of Derry (1724–33), and another well-known and eccentric cleric, Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, was Bishop of Derry (1768–1803). It was Hervey, the so-called Earl Bishop, who was responsible for building the city's first bridge across the River Foyle] in 1790. During the 18th and 19th centuries the port became an important embarkation point for Irish emigrants setting out for North America. Some of these founded the colony of Nutfield, later Londonderry, in the state of New Hampshire. By the middle of the 19th century a thriving shirt and collarmaking industry had been established here, giving the city many of its fine industrial buildings. Four separate railway networks emanated from the city, the interesting history of which can be examined at the Foyle Valley Railway Centre. The city became a university city when its Magee College was incorporated into the Royal University of Ireland in 1880. Magee College continues university scholarship today, as a campus of the University of Ulster.