Lichfield District

Lichfield (UK /ˈlɪtʃˌfiːld/) is a local government district in Staffordshire, England. It is administered by Lichfield District Council, based in Lichfield.

The dignity and privileges of the City of Lichfield are vested in the parish council of the 14 km² Lichfield civil parish. The non-metropolitan district of Lichfield covers nearly 25 times this area and its local authority is Lichfield District Council.

The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, by a merger of the existing City of Lichfield with most of the Lichfield Rural District.

The town of Burntwood also makes up a major part of the Lichfield district.

Etymology

Legend has it that a thousand Christians were martyred in Lichfield around AD 300, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and that the name 'Lichfield' actually means 'field of the dead' (see Lich). There is however, no evidence to support this legend. At Wall, 3 miles (5 km) to the south of the present city, there was a Romano-British village called Letocetum from the British (Celtic) for "grey wood", from which the first half of the name Lichfield is derived. The second part of the name is derived from the Old English "feld", meaning 'open country'. In that sense 'Lichfield' would be 'common pasture in grey wood', 'grey' perhaps referring to varieties of tree prominent in the landscape, such as ash and elm.

Lichfield

Coordinates: 52°41′01″N 1°49′36″W / 52.6835°N 1.82653°W / 52.6835; -1.82653

Lichfield /ˈlɪtʃfiːld/ is a cathedral city and civil parish in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly 16 mi (26 km) north of Birmingham. At the time of the 2011 Census the population was estimated at 32,219 and the wider Lichfield District at 100,700.

Notable for its three-spired medieval cathedral, Lichfield was the birthplace of Samuel Johnson, the writer of the first authoritative Dictionary of the English Language. The city's recorded history began when Chad of Mercia arrived to establish his Bishopric in 669 CE and the settlement grew as the ecclesiastical centre of Mercia. In 2009, the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver metalwork, was found 5.9 km (3.7 mi) southwest of Lichfield.

The development of the city was consolidated in the 12th century under Roger de Clinton who fortified the Cathedral Close and also laid out the town with the ladder-shaped street pattern that survives to this day. Lichfield's heyday was in the 18th century when it developed into a thriving coaching city. This was a period of great intellectual activity, the city being the home of many famous people including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward, and prompted Johnson's remark that Lichfield was "a city of philosophers".

Lichfield (UK Parliament constituency)

Lichfield is a constituency in Staffordshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 1997 recreation by Michael Fabricant, a Conservative.

Boundaries

The constituency includes the northern and central parts of the Lichfield local government district, including the cathedral city of Lichfield itself, Burntwood, and also the south-western portion of East Staffordshire district, including Yoxall, Barton-under-Needwood, and Abbots Bromley.

Boundary changes

In boundary changes which came into force at the 2010 general election, the constituency was enlarged with the addition of the Needwood ward of East Staffordshire Borough Council, previously in the Burton constituency; the main settlement in the Needwood ward is the village of Barton-under-Needwood. The effect of this change is estimated to be relatively small, making the seat slightly more Conservative than before.

History

The city was represented at most parliaments between 1305 (10 years after the Model Parliament), in 1327 and again in 1353, but it then ceased to be represented until the mid 16th century, from when it sent two burgesses as members to Parliament until 1664, when representation was temporarily reduced to one member during The Protectorate (ended 1680), and again in 1868, when representation was permanently reduced to one. The constituency was abolished in 1950 but reconstituted, still as a single-member constituency, in 1997.

Lichfield (disambiguation)

Lichfield may refer to:

Places

People

Other

See also