Wellington: A Potted History

With a lineage stretching back to at least the Seventh Century, Wellington can justifiably lay claim to being one of Shropshire’s oldest towns. Until medieval times, however, it was little more than a village scattered around the Green outside All Saints parish church. In 1244, the pace of life began to quicken when the settlement received its first Market Charter, ushering in an era of unparalleled expansion as a new town centre was laid out around Market Square — which has been the beating heart of Wellington ever since. Over the centuries, a host of notable figures have traversed its narrow, characterful streets, not least of all King Charles I, whose ‘Wellington Declaration’ effectively heralded the beginning of the English Civil War in 1642. A number of skirmishes took place around the town during that conflict but the next major upheaval arrived in the mid 1800s, when the railway cut a swathe through the centre of town. The transformatory affect of the iron horse proved to be just as imperative to Wellington’s fortunes as the granting of its first market charter, and the town quickly developed into a major regional commercial and industrial centre.

For a town of its size, Wellington has an extraordinary range of literary connections that would be the envy of far larger localities. It was the birthplace of the best-selling international Victorian novelist and social reformer Hesba Stretton, played a starring role in the foundation of the Bronte dynasty (father Patrick was a curate here), and was the location where the travel writer Bruce Chatwin, author of the evocative Marches-based opus On the Black Hill, was educated. Philip Larkin, one of the Twentieth Century’s great literary figures, also began his professional career as a librarian here, in which time his only two novels and first collection of poetry, The North Ship, were published. Doctor William Withering, one of the town’s most celebrated sons, was born here in 1741. He was responsible for publishing the first contemporary scientific account of British plantlife but is probably better known for his exhaustive studies into the properties of Digitalis, which helped establish a template for modern cardiac treatment.