Leicester

Leicester (lĕs`tər), city (1991 pop. 324,394) and district, Leicestershire, central England. The city is connected by canals with the Trent River and London, and it is also a railway center. Leicester was of industrial importance as early as the 14th cent.; the making of hosiery, knitwear, and shoes are long-established industries. Other manufactures are chemicals, aniline dyes, textiles, textile and woodworking machinery, and light-metal products. The University College, now the Univ. of Leicester, was founded in 1918 and chartered as a university in 1957. DeMontfort Univ. was established in 1992. Immigration since the 1970s has made Leicester Britain's most ethnically diverse city (in terms of the percentage of nonwhite residents).

Leicester was the Ratae Coritanorum, or Ratae, of the Romans, whose Fosse Way passes nearby. It was also a town of the ancient Britons and was one of the Five Boroughs of the Danes. Its antiquities include the Jewry Wall, a Roman structure 18 ft (5 m) high and 70 ft (21 m) long (near which extensive Roman relics have been found); remains of a Norman castle; and the ruins of an abbey founded in 1143, in which Cardinal Wolsey died in 1530. Several of the churches (St. Nicholas, St. Mary de Castro, and All Saints) show Norman work, and Trinity Hospital is a 14th-century foundation. Richard III stayed in Leicester the night before he was killed in the battle of Bosworth Field; his body was brought back to Leicester for burial.

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Leicester

City and unitary authority (pop., 2001: 279,921), geographic and historic county of Leicestershire, central England. Located on the River Soar, it was settled by Romans. A considerable community by Norman times, it was the site of a Norman castle and abbey built in 1143, the ruins of which still stand. King Richard III was killed near Leicester in the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485). It was incorporated in 1589 and became an industrial centre after the arrival of the railway in 1832. The University of Leicester (founded 1957) is nearby.