Preston

Preston, city (1991 pop. 166,675) and district, Lancashire, N England, on the Ribble River. Preston has an active port and is a center of cotton and rayon manufacturing. Some mills have closed, but work has been created in the areas of engineering, as well as aircraft, motor vehicle, industrial machinery, and electrical appliance production. A guild-merchant festival has been held in Preston every 20 years for more than four centuries. One of the oldest administrative regions in England, Preston has sent representatives to Parliament since the 13th cent. It was the scene of a victory by Oliver Cromwell in 1648 and of the surrender of the Jacobites after the rising of 1715. The Gothic town hall was completed in 1867 from designs by George Gilbert Scott. The Harris Museum and Art Gallery is a notable attraction. The city is the birthplace of Richard Arkwright and Francis Thompson.

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Preston

City and borough (pop., 2001: 129,642), county seat of Lancashire, England. On the River Ribble, Preston grew near the site of a Roman fort and received its first charter in 1179. As a market centre, it became known for its wool and linen weaving and its cotton mills. It was the site of the Lancashire Royalist headquarters during the English Civil Wars. The Royalists were defeated there by Oliver Cromwell in 1648. Despite the decline of the cotton textile industry, the economy has remained strong through diversification, and it produces aircraft and motor vehicles.

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Preston

a city in NW England, administrative centre of Lancashire, on the River Ribble: developed as a weaving centre (17th--18th centuries); university (1992). Pop.: 184 836 (2001)

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Preston 

a city in Great Britain, in the county of Lancashire, northwestern England. Port in the estuary of the Ribble River, near the point where it flows into the Irish Sea. Population, 97,400 (1971). Important railroad junction. Preston is one of the major centers of the Lancashire textile industrial region, producing cotton, wool, and synthetic fabrics. Industries include airplane and locomotive construction, electrical engineering, leather footwear, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. Nearby, at Leyland, automobiles are manufacturered.

In the Preston area on Aug. 17, 1648, during the period of the second civil war in the English Bourgeois Revolution of the 17th century, a decisive battle took place between General O. Cromwell’s revolutionary army and the Anglo-Scottish royalists headed by the Duke of Hamilton and M. Langdale. Despite the numerical superiority of the enemy (more than 20,000 men against 9,000), Cromwell took advantage of the lack of coordination between the royalist detachments and used combined infantry-cavalry tactics to rout first Langdale’s English royalists and then Hamilton’s Scottish forces. During his pursuit of the royalist troops, which began on August 19, Cromwell completed the rout of their infantry. The outcome of the battle was the decisive factor in the revolutionary army’s total victory in the second civil war.