East Midlands
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The East Midlands is one of nine official regions of England. It comprises the eastern half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It consists of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire (except for North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire), Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, and Rutland. The region has an area of 15,627 km2 (6,034 sq mi), with a population over 4.5 million in 2011. With a sufficiency-level world city ranking, Nottingham is the only settlement in the region to be classified by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network.[6]
East Midlands | |
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Coordinates: 52.98°N 0.75°W / 52.98; -0.75 | |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Country | England |
Districts | |
Counties | |
Government | |
• Type | Local authority leaders' board |
• Body | East Midlands Councils |
• House of Commons | 46 MPs (of 650) |
Area | |
• Total | 6,105 sq mi (15,811 km2) |
• Land | 6,032 sq mi (15,624 km2) |
• Water | 8 sq mi (20 km2) |
• Rank | 4th |
Population (2021)[2] | |
• Total | 4,880,094 |
• Rank | 8th |
• Density | 810/sq mi (312/km2) |
Ethnicity (2021) | |
• Ethnic groups | |
Religion (2021) | |
• Religion | List
|
GSS code | E12000004 |
ITL code | TLF |
GVA | 2021 estimate[4] |
• Total | £118.4 billion |
• Rank | 8th |
• Per capita | £24,261 |
• Rank | 8th |
GDP (nominal) | 2021 estimate[5] |
• Total | £134.2 billion |
• Rank | 8th |
• Per capita | £27,505 |
• Rank | 8th |
The region is primarily served by East Midlands Airport, which lies between Derby, Leicester and Nottingham. The main cities in the region are Derby, Leicester, Lincoln and Nottingham. The largest towns in these counties are Boston, Chesterfield, Coalville, Corby, Glossop, Grantham, Kettering, Loughborough, Northampton, Mansfield, Oakham, Swadlincote and Wellingborough.
The highest point at 636 m (2,087 ft) is Kinder Scout, in the Peak District of the southern Pennines in northwest Derbyshire near Glossop. Other hilly areas of 95 to 280 m (312 to 919 ft) in altitude, together with lakes and reservoirs, rise in and around the Charnwood Forest north of Peterborough, Leicester, and in the Lincolnshire Wolds.[citation needed]
The region's major rivers, the Nene, the Soar, the Trent, and the Welland, flow in a northeasterly direction towards the Humber and the Wash. The Derwent, conversely, rises in the High Peak before flowing south to join the Trent some 2 miles (3 km) before its conflux with the Soar,[citation needed] and the Witham flows in an arch, first north to Lincoln before heading south to the Wash.
The centre of the East Midlands area lies roughly between Bingham, Nottinghamshire and Bottesford, Leicestershire. The geographical centre of England lies in Higham on the Hill in west Leicestershire, close to the boundary between the Leicestershire and Warwickshire. Some 88 per cent of the land is rural in character, although agriculture accounts for less than three per cent of the region's jobs.[citation needed]
Church Flatts Farm in Coton in the Elms, South Derbyshire, is the furthest place from the sea in the UK (70 miles; 110 km). In April 1936 the first Ordnance Survey trig point was sited at Cold Ashby in Northamptonshire. The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts and The Wildlife Trusts are based next to the River Trent and Newark Castle railway station. The National Centre for Earth Observation is at the University of Leicester.
Geology
The region is home to large quantities of limestone, and the East Midlands Oil Province. Charnwood Forest is noted for its abundant levels of volcanic rock, estimated to be approximately 600 million years old.[7]
A quarter of the UK's cement is manufactured in the region, at three sites in Hope and Tunstead in Derbyshire, and Ketton Cement Works in Rutland.[8] Of the aggregates produced in the region, 25 per cent are from Derbyshire and four per cent from Leicestershire. Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire each produce around 30 per cent of the region's sand and gravel output.[9]
Barwell in Leicestershire was the site of Britain's largest meteorite (7 kg; 15 lb) on 24 December 1965. The 2008 Lincolnshire earthquake was 5.2 in magnitude.
Environment
Areas of the East Midlands designated by the East Midlands Biodiversity Partnership as Biodiversity Conservation Areas include:[10]
- Charnwood Forest
- Coversand Heaths
- Derbyshire Peak Fringe and Lower Derwent
- Humberhead Levels
- Leighland Forest
- The Lincolnshire Limewoods and Heaths
- The Lincolnshire coast
- The Peak District
- Rockingham Forest
- Sherwood Forest
- Rutland, SW Lincolnshire and N Northamptonshire
- The Wash
Areas of the East Midlands designated by the East Midlands Biodiversity Partnership as Biodiversity Enhancement Areas include:[10]
- The Coalfields
- The Daventry Grasslands
- The Fens
- The Lincolnshire Coastal Grazing Marshes
- The Lincolnshire Wolds
- The National Forest
- The Yardley-Whittlewood Ridge
Two of the nationally designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are:[citation needed]
- The Peak District
- The Lincolnshire Wolds
Forestry
Several towns in the southern part of the region, including Market Harborough, Desborough, Rothwell, Corby, Kettering, Thrapston, Oundle and Stamford, lie within the boundaries of what was once Rockingham Forest – designated a royal forest by William the Conqueror and was long hunted by English kings and queens.[citation needed]
The National Forest is an environmental project in central England run by The National Forest Company. Areas of north Leicestershire, south Derbyshire and south-east Staffordshire covering around 200 square miles (520 km2; 52,000 ha) are being planted in an attempt to blend ancient woodland with new plantings. It stretches from the western outskirts of Leicester in the east to Burton upon Trent in the west, and is planned to link the ancient forests of Needwood and Charnwood.[citation needed][11]
Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire attracts many visitors, and is perhaps best known for its ties with the legend of Robin Hood.[12]
Regional financial funding decisions for the East Midlands are taken by East Midlands Councils, based in Melton Mowbray. East Midlands Councils is an unelected body made up of representatives of local government in the region. The defunct East Midlands Development Agency was headquartered next to the BBC's East Midlands office in Nottingham and made financial decisions regarding economic development in the region. Since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government launched its austerity programme after the 2010 general election, regional bodies such as those have been devolved to smaller groups now on a county level. As a region today, there is no overriding body with significant financial or planning powers for the East Midlands.
The East Midlands Combined Authority will be established in 2024.
The East Midlands region contains many urban areas which include:
- Greater Nottingham (includes the Derbyshire towns of Alfreton, Belper, Heanor, Ilkeston, Long Eaton, Ripley and Sandiacre as well as the city of Derby. It also covers Nottingham, Mansfield, Arnold, Beeston, Bulwell, Carlton, Hucknall and West Bridgford. This means it spans parts of both Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.) (Pop: 729,977)
- Leicester Urban Area (Pop: 650,000)
- Derby Urban Area (Pop: 270,468)
- Mansfield Urban Area (Spanning Mansfield, Sutton-in-Ashfield and Kirkby-in-Ashfield) (Pop: 158,114)
- Lincoln Urban Area (Spanning Lincoln, North Hykeham and other villages) (Pop: 115,000)
- Burton upon Trent and Swadlincote Green Belt (Which although isn't an urban area itself, it spans two counties between Staffordshire and Derbyshire near the towns of Burton-upon-Trent and Swadlincote to restrict building)
Major towns and cities in the East Midlands region include:[13]
- Bold indicates city status.
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Nine per cent of all jobs in the region are in logistics. Traffic in the region is growing at two per cent per year – the highest growth rate of all UK regions. It is estimated that about 140,000 heavy goods vehicle journeys are made inside the region each day.
Road
The M1 (part of the E13 European route) serves the four largest urban areas in the region and affords a motorway link between London, Yorkshire, and North East England. Additionally, the M6 begins on the south-western edge of the region, providing links to the West Midlands and North West England. Both connect to other major routes providing further links to other parts of the UK.
To the east of the largest cities lies the A1 (part of the European route E15), which is important for journeys to and from ports on England's north-east coast and the capital, and is a major artery for the United Kingdom's agricultural industry. The A46 largely follows the Fosse Way, which has linked the south-western and north-eastern parts of England since Roman times. The A43 dual carriageway connects the East Midlands via the M40 motorway corridor with the university city of Oxford, as well as South of England and Solent ports further afield. The historically important A5 runs along the south-west Leicestershire boundary to the south of Lutterworth and Hinckley. The A14 runs through the north of Northamptonshire, serving the settlements of Kettering and Corby alongside surrounding areas, and is a major route between the region and the East of England, including the university city of Cambridge, and the major port of Felixstowe.
Airports
East Midlands Airport in North West Leicestershire is situated in proximity to the region's largest cities; some 14 miles from the centres of Derby and Nottingham, with central Leicester being some 21 miles away and Lincoln further north east being 43 miles away. The airport is the region's biggest public airport, used by over 4 million passengers annually.
Rivalry between the region's three biggest cities has led to a long-running discussion about the identity of both the airport, and region, with the East Midlands rarely found on any non-political map of the UK. The name was at one point changed to Nottingham East Midlands Airport so as to include the name of the city that is supposedly most internationally recognisable. However, the airport has a Derby phone number and postcode, and is in Leicestershire, but is officially assigned to Nottingham by IATA. As a result of the dispute, the name change reverted.
Three of the world's four main international air-freight companies (integrators) have their UK operations at EMA: DHL, UPS and TNT Express (TNT bought by UPS); FedEx have theirs at Stansted. It is the second-largest freight airport in the UK after Heathrow, but most freight from EMA is carried on dedicated planes, whereas most freight from Heathrow is carried on passenger planes (bellyhold). Royal Mail have their main airport hubs at Heathrow and EMA, as EMA is conveniently near the M1, A42 and A50. Heathrow takes some 60 per cent of UK air freight, and EMA some 10 per cent, with Stansted, Manchester and Gatwick next. Air freight has grown at EMA from 1994 to 2004 from about 10,000 to over 250,000 tonnes. The main hours of cargo flying are from 20:00–05:00; domestic cargo flies into the airport in the evening, then from 23:30 to 01:30 cargo flies to European capitals and from 03:00–05:00 from Europe to EMA. It is the UK's twelfth-largest passenger airport; the runway is the UK's sixth-longest at 2,900 metres (9,500 ft). Royal Mail flights from EMA go to Belfast, Edinburgh, Inverness, Aberdeen, Newcastle, Exeter and Bournemouth, and it is the largest UK Royal Mail air hub, with eleven flights per night. DHL is the main route carrier at EMA by far with 20 flights per night, UPS have 6, and TNT have 2 (Belfast and Liège); for hubs in Europe, DHL flies to Leipzig, UPS to Cologne, and TNT at Liège.
Smaller airports in the region include Retford Gamston Airport, Nottingham Airport, Leicester Airport, Hucknall Airfield, Sywell Aerodrome, Bruntingthorpe Aerodrome and Humberside Airport. Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield lies just outside the East Midlands in South Yorkshire.
Railway
Three of the United Kingdom's mainline railways serve the region: the Midland Main Line, the East Coast Main Line, and the West Coast Main Line (Northampton Loop) providing services terminating at London St Pancras, London King's Cross and London Euston respectively. The three lines provide regular high-speed services to London, at up to 125 mph (200 km/h), serving Wellingborough, Kettering, Corby, Market Harborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Derby, East Midlands Parkway, Nottingham, Chesterfield, Grantham, Newark North Gate and Retford. Northampton and Long Buckby are served by the Northampton Loop of the West Coast Main Line. England's primary south-west to north-east Cross Country Route runs through Derby and Chesterfield. Worksop, Mansfield, Lincoln, Matlock, Melton Mowbray, Skegness, Boston, Spalding and Oakham are served by regional services The Chiltern Main Line also serves the western fringe of the region, at Kings's Sutton.
A land speed record for trains was broken in the region. Although the record was set in 1938, the current world speed record for steam trains is held by 4468 Mallard, which clocked 126 mph (203 km/h) between Grantham and Peterborough, pulling six coaches on the East Coast Main Line near Little Bytham in Lincolnshire, on 3 July 1938. The Mallard record was unbroken by any British rail train until 6 June 1973, when an InterCity 125 between Northallerton and Thirsk reached 131 mph (211 km/h). Mallard in 1938 had six carriages and a dynamometer car. The national electric-train speed record (pre-High Speed 1) of 162 mph (261 km/h) was set on the same stretch as the Mallard record, on 17 September 1989 by Class 91 91010.
There are plans to bring a new high-speed rail line through the East Midlands as part of the High Speed 2 project, of which Phase 2 would bring a new line connecting Birmingham to Leeds, with a proposed station in Toton known as the East Midlands Hub It would also serve the region via "classic-compatible" tracks serving Chesterfield and Sheffield, the latter of which is just outside the region in Yorkshire & the Humber.
Water
The Trent is a navigable river used to transport goods to the Humber, as well as passing by many power stations. The Trent is the only river in England able to supply cooling water for power stations for most of its length; it has the largest water capacity in England, although it is not the longest.
Several rivers in the region gave their name to early Rolls-Royce jet engines, namely the Nene, the Welland, and the Soar.
Trams
Nottingham is the only city in the region served by a light railway system, operated by Nottingham Express Transit.
Transport policy
As part of the transport planning system, the now defunct Regional Assembly was under statutory requirement to produce a Regional Transport Strategy to provide long term planning for transport in the region. This involved region wide transport schemes such as those carried out by the Highways Agency and Network Rail.[14]
Local transport authorities in the region carry out planning through a Local Transport Plan (LTP).[15] The most recent LTPs are for the period 2006–11. The following East Midland transport authorities published an LTP online: Derbyshire,[16] Leicestershire.[17] Lincolnshire,[18] Northamptonshire,[19] Nottinghamshire[20] and Rutland U.A.[21] The unitary authorities of Derby,[22] Leicester[23] and Nottingham[24] They have each written a joint LTP in collaboration with their respective local county councils.
Romans
A historical basis for such a region exists in the territory of the Corieltauvi tribe. When the Romans took control, they made Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) one of their main forts. The main town in the region in Roman times was Lincoln, at the confluence of the Fosse Way and Ermine Street.
Anglo-Saxons and the Danelaw
After the withdrawal of the Romans, the area was settled by Angles, a Germanic people who gave the East Midlands most of the place-names it has today. They eventually founded the Kingdom of Mercia, meaning “borderlands,” as it borders the Welsh people to the west. The region also corresponds to the later Five Boroughs of the Danelaw, the area that Vikings from Denmark controlled. In about 917 the region was subdivided between Danelaw (Vikings) to the north, and Mercia (Anglo-Saxons) to the south. By 920 this border had moved north to the River Humber. Evidence of the Danelaw can be seen in place-name endings of the region's villages, particularly towards the east. The Danes under Canute recaptured the area between about 1016 and 1035, but it came back under English control after Canute's death that same year.
Civil War
The region's two main battles in the English Civil War were the Battle of Naseby in northern Northamptonshire on 14 June 1645, and the Battle of Winceby on 11 October 1643 in eastern Lincolnshire.
Scientific heritage
Isaac Newton, born in Grantham in 1642, is perhaps the most prolific scientist. His accomplishments include calculus, Newton's laws of motion, and Newton's law of universal gravitation, among many others. There is a shopping centre named in his honour in Grantham. Thomas Simpson from Leicestershire is known for Simpson's rule. Roger Cotes invented the concept of the radian in 1714, but the term was not so-named until 1873.
Henry Cavendish, loosely connected with Derbyshire, discovered hydrogen in 1766 (although the element's name came from Antoine Lavoisier), and Cavendish was the first to estimate an accurate mass of the Earth in 1798 in his Cavendish experiment. The Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge is named after a relative. Herbert Spencer coined the term "survival of the fittest" in 1864, which was once strongly linked with social Darwinism. Sir John Flamsteed was the first Astronomer Royal of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in 1675. Robert Bakewell, of Dishley in Leicestershire and known for his English Leicester sheep, arrived at selective breeding; his English Longhorn were the first ever cattle bred for beef.
George Boole, pioneer of Boolean logic (upon which all digital electronics and computers depend), was born in Lincoln in 1815. The application of Boole's theory to digital circuit design would come in 1937 by Claude Shannon. Boole's grandson, the physicist G. I. Taylor, made significant experimental contributions to quantum mechanics. The first practical demonstration of radar was near Daventry in 1935. Robert Robinson, of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, invented the circular symbol in 1925 for the pi bonds of the benzene ring, as found on all structural diagrams of aromatic compounds. Nicola Pellow, a maths undergraduate at Leicester Polytechnic, whilst at CERN in November 1990, wrote the world's second web browser.
Silicone was discovered in 1899 by Prof Frederic Kipping at University College, Nottingham. Michael Creeth of Northampton discovered the hydrogen-bonding mechanism between DNA bases, allowing the structure of DNA to be discovered. Nottinghamshire's Ken Richardson was in charge of the team at Pfizer in Sandwich, Kent that in 1981 discovered Fluconazole (Diflucan), the world's leading antifungal medication, especially useful for those with weakened immune systems. It has few side effects. Richardson is now one of the few Britons in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Don Grierson at the University of Nottingham was the first to produce a Genetically modified tomato, which became the first GM food on sale in the UK and in the United States.
Louis Essen, a Nottingham physicist, made advances in the quartz clock in the 1930s at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, to produce the quartz ring clock in 1938, and the caesium clock, known as the atomic clock, in 1955. During the war he invented the cavity resonance wavemeter to find the first accurate value of the speed of light. The atomic clock works on differences in magnetic spin. Before Essen's invention, the second was defined in terms of the orbit of the Earth round the Sun; he changed it in 1967 to be based on the hyperfine structure of the caesium-133 atom. Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), in Paris, takes the average of 300 atomic clocks around the world.
On the early morning of Tuesday 26 February 1935 the radio transmitter at Daventry was used for what became known as the "Daventry Experiment" which involved the first-ever practical demonstration of radar, by its inventor Robert Watson-Watt and Arnold Frederic Wilkins. They used a radio receiver installed in a van at Litchborough (just off the A5 about 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Daventry) to receive signals bounced off a metal-clad Handley Page Heyford bomber flying across the radio transmissions. The interference picked up from the aircraft allowed its approximate navigational position to be estimated, and therefore proved that it was possible to detect the position of aircraft using radio waves. The success of the experiment persuaded the British government to fund the development of a network of full scale radar stations on the south coast of England, which became known as Chain Home, which provided a decisive advantage to the RAF in the Battle of Britain in 1940.[25]
Culture and identity
Language and dialect
Parts of the East Midlands use a distinctive form of spoken dialect and accent. It also has some history in the beginnings of Received Pronunciation and southern England accents. However, spoken dialect and accent in the northern area of the East Midlands is far more similar to Northern English.
Identity
There is no modern Midlander, or East Midlander, identity. As Robert Shore wrote: "no one is more sceptical about the existence of an overarching Midland identity than Midlanders themselves."[26] Inhabitants of the East Midlands tend to identify themselves either on a county or town basis, regarding the East Midlands as simply a bureaucratic area that lumps together dissimilar places. In the North of the region, in areas such as North Nottinghamshire and North Derbyshire, people culturally identify as Northerners. For example, a study by YouGov in 2018 found that a quarter of the inhabitants of the region identified as Northerners.[27]
A new area of the North Midlands has been proposed, but this has not taken off. In Bassetlaw, the most northern local authority in the East Midlands area, many of the shared services such as NHS are with South Yorkshire, not with other Midlands areas. The television signal comes mainly from the Emley Moor transmitting station, which broadcasts local news from BBC Look North and Calendar News. And its officially designated BBC Local Radio station in terms of radio coverage is BBC Radio Sheffield. In 2016 Bassetlaw District Council voted to become part of the Sheffield City Region because of the strong local ties.[28]
Food and cuisine
The area is known historically for its food, examples of which include Red Leicester, the Lincolnshire sausage, the Melton Mowbray pork pie, Stilton, the Bakewell pudding, and the Bramley apple.
The arts
Lord Byron and D. H. Lawrence are perhaps the region's best known authors, although the latter only gained full recognition in the late 20th century. The Key Words Reading Scheme (Peter and Jane) was first produced in 1964 by Ladybird of Loughborough and is still in print. The books originated in 1948 with an idea from Douglas Keen of Heanor; the first was British Birds and Their Nests. Ladybird Books were published in Loughborough throughout their 1960s and 1970s heyday, with the site closing in 1998.
Joseph Wright of Derby was an artist whose paintings symbolised the struggle between science and religious values in the Age of Enlightenment. He was also suggested to be "the first professional painter to express the spirit of the Industrial Revolution".
Charles Frederick Worth, born in Lincolnshire in 1825, is considered to be the founder of Parisian haute couture, ostensibly as the world's first true fashion designer.
Religion
William Booth of Nottingham founded The Salvation Army in 1865. Another religious order, the Pilgrim Fathers, originated from Babworth near Retford. The Quakers, also known as the Religious Society of Friends, were founded by Leicestershire-born (Fenny Drayton) George Fox, who had an inspiration whilst living in Mansfield in 1647. Thomas Cranmer from Aslockton compiled the Church of England Book of Common Prayer.
Industrial heritage
The region can claim the world's first factory, Sir Richard Arkwright's Cromford Mill. Additionally, the world's oldest working factory can also be found in the area, producing textiles at Lea Bridge, owned by John Smedley. Both sites are part of the region's only World Heritage Site, the Derwent Valley Mills. An opportunist employee of the Derbyshire textile factories, Samuel Slater of Belper saw his chance and (illegally) eloped in 1789 to Rhode Island in the US after memorising the layout of the textile machinery while working at Jedediah Strutt's Milford Mill. He was warmly welcomed by the inhabitants of the newly formed USA, so much so that he was later named the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution".
Britain's hosiery and knitwear industry was largely based in the region, and in the 1980s it had more textile workers than any other British region. The stocking frame was invented 1587 in Calverton, Nottinghamshire by Rev William Lee; these were the first known knitting machines and heralded the industrial revolution by providing the necessary machinery. The world's first (horse-powered) cotton mill was built in central Nottingham in 1768. Marvel's Mill in Northampton was the first cotton mill to be powered by water.
John Barber of Nottinghamshire had invented a simple gas turbine in 1791 (when living in Nuneaton). Lincoln was the site of the first tank (first built on 8 September 1915, Little Willie was the first tank, and is the oldest surviving tank in the world, originally called the No.1 Lincoln Machine), and Grantham the first diesel engine (in 1892). The jet engine was first developed in the region in Lutterworth and Whetstone, with the VTOL engine also (initially) developed in Hucknall. The first jet aircraft flew from RAF Cranwell in May 1941. During the Second World War, Derby was an important strategic location, as it was in Derby that Rolls-Royce developed and manufactured their iconic Merlin aero-engine. During the Second World War, all of R-R's engineering staff had been transferred to Belper.
Derby was home to two railway workshops, Derby Works and Derby Litchurch Lane Works initially for the Midland Railway, then the London, Midland & Scottish Railway, and finally British Rail. British Rail Research Division in Derby invented the APT (British Rail Class 370) and Maglev. The first ever steel rails were laid in 1857 at Derby railway station for the Midland Railway. Derby Litchurch Lane Works remains in operation under the ownership of Alstom
At its peak, Corby Steelworks was the largest in Britain. The collapsible baby buggy was invented in 1965 at Barby, Northamptonshire by Owen Maclaren. Ford's £8 million Daventry Parts Distribution Centre (Ford Parts Centre) was fully opened on 6 September 1972, the first southern section opened in 1968, and was the UK's largest building by floor area for many years at 36.7 acres (149,000 m2), and is situated opposite the Cummins factory.
The largest camera in the world was built in 1957 in Derby for Rolls-Royce, which weighed 27 tonnes and was around 8 feet (2.4 m) high, 8 feet (2.4 m) wide and 35 feet (11 m) long, with a 63-inch (1,600 mm) lens made by Cooke Apochromatic. Cooke Optics and Taylor-Hobson were major supplier of lenses for Hollywood; Star Wars was filmed with their lenses, filmed in England. Horace W. Lee invented the inverted telephoto lens (known as the Angénieux retrofocus) in 1931, lengthening the back focal length of the camera for the 1930s Technicolor Process and for vignetting.
Arthur Warmisham of Taylor & Hobson invented the first non-telescopic 35 mm zoom lens, the Cooke Varo 40– 120mm Lens, in a camera manufactured by Bell & Howell of the US. The popular 35 mm Eyemo film camera came with Cooke lenses. Much of World War II aerial photography, where definition was important, was through Cooke lenses, due to their Apochromatic process. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Cooke Speed Panchro lenses were the most popular choice for cinema films, then from the 1970s their Varotal zoom lens, which would win Gordon Henry Cook the 1988 Gordon E. Sawyer Award at the Oscars. Harold Hopkins (physicist), of Leicester, also did important work on the zoom lens (he largely invented it) and fibre-optics.
J. P. Knight of Nottingham is credited with inventing green and red traffic lights, installed in London on 9 December 1868, but these lasted only three weeks; traffic lights would be introduced only from the 1920s, again in London (from an American-led design scheme). The first modern-day traffic lights were installed in Piccadilly from August 1926. Edgar Purnell Hooley, a Nottinghamshire surveyor, in 1901 was in Denby and found a stretch of road surface that was smooth from an accidental leak of tar over the surface. He patented a process of mixing tar with chipped stones in 1902, forming Tarmac, a name which he patented. Radcliffe Road (A6011) in West Bridgford in 1902 was the first tarmac road (5 miles or 8.0 kilometres long) in the world.
Mettoy was a famous firm in the St James area of Northampton, which from 1933 produced Corgi toys (mostly made in Swansea and designed in Northampton), and in the 1970s it made the space hopper; the company collapsed in 1983, moving to Swansea. In Leicestershire was Palitoy, another world-famous firm in Coalville; General Mills bought it in 1968, but production ceased in 1984 and the site was closed by Hasbro in 1994. Pedigree Dolls & Toys (Sindy) was in Wellingborough, closing in 1982. The first plastic DVD case was made in Corby by Amaray. Britain's first out-of-town shopping centre was opened in November 1964 by GEM at West Bridgford, on a site now owned by ASDA.
Much integrated circuit and semiconductor research was carried out by Plessey at Caswell near Towcester, ahead of much of what was being achieved in America by Jack Kilby; Plessey invented a model of the integrated circuit in 1957. Caswell was later a site for manufacturing monolithic microwave integrated circuits in the 1990s by Marconi. On 15 December 1966, the first electronic telephone exchange in Europe opened at Ambergate in Derbyshire.
Torksey railway viaduct, built across the Trent in 1849, is considered to be the first box girder bridge, designed by Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet. The tallest freestanding structure in the region is the chimney of West Burton power station (north Nottinghamshire) at 200 m (656 ft). Nottingham Combined Heating and Power Scheme is the largest district heating system in the UK, centred on the Eastcroft incinerator, opened in 1973.[29]
Second World War
Most of the region was protected by a solitary RAF station, RAF Digby near Sleaford, part of No. 12 Group RAF and controlled from RAF Watnall. Within the East Midlands, only Nottingham was heavily bombed during the Second World War's Blitz, due to the presence of a large Royal Ordnance factory. However, much of the aerial obliteration of Germany was directed from the region, with two bomber groups based in Lincolnshire (No.1 and No.5), and a few squadrons in South Nottinghamshire. The proliferation of Second World War airfields in Lincolnshire has led to it being known as Bomber County.
Regional governance
This article needs to be updated. (February 2023) |
The current government office region was created in 1994. Government funding decisions moved from Melton Mowbray (the East Midlands Regional Assembly) to Nottingham (the East Midlands Development Agency) in April 2010.
For teenage pregnancy rates in the region, Nottingham is the top-tier authority. Of the council districts, Corby has the highest rate. Of the top-tier authorities, Rutland has the lowest rate for any district in England. The council district with the lowest rate is South Northamptonshire, although it has a rate greater than that of Rutland. Rutland has the highest total fertility rate for British counties (top-tier authorities). The borough of Boston has the highest TFR for district councils.
The region has the second-lowest overall population density in England (after South West England), eased by the low population density of Lincolnshire and Rutland. In 2007, the region had a lower percentage of degree-educated people than the English average.[30] Of the region's population, 29.5 per cent live in rural areas.
Ethnicity
Ethnic Group | 1981 estimations[31] | 1991[32] | 2001[33] | 2011[34] | 2021[35] | |||||
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Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
White: Total | 3,598,625 | 96.2% | 3,765,389 | 95.2% | 3,900,380 | 93.48% | 4,046,356 | 89.26% | 4,179,774 | 85.7% |
White: British | – | – | – | – | 3,807,731 | 91.26% | 3,871,146 | 85.39% | 3,882,390 | 79.6% |
White: Irish | – | – | – | – | 35,478 | 0.85% | 28,676 | 0.63% | 27,130 | 0.6% |
White: Gypsy or Irish Traveller[note 1] | – | – | – | – | – | – | 3,418 | – | 4,620 | 0.1% |
White: Roma | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 7,196 | 0.1% |
White: Other | – | – | – | – | 57,171 | 1.37% | 143,116 | 3.15% | 258,438 | 5.3% |
Asian or Asian British: Total | – | – | 135,257 | 3.4% | 181,846 | 4.35% | 293,423 | 6.47% | 391,103 | 8% |
Asian or Asian British: Indian | – | – | 98,859 | 122,347 | 2.93% | 168,928 | 3.72% | 229,831 | 4.7% | |
Asian or Asian British: Pakistani | – | – | 17,407 | 27,859 | 0.66% | 48,940 | 1.07% | 71,038 | 1.5% | |
Asian or Asian British: Bangladeshi | – | – | 4,161 | 6,928 | 0.16% | 13,258 | 0.29% | 20,980 | 0.4% | |
Asian or Asian British: Chinese[note 2] | – | – | 7,588 | 12,900 | 0.3% | 24,404 | 0.53% | 22,973 | 0.5% | |
Asian or Asian British: Other Asian | – | – | 7,242 | 11,812 | 0.28% | 37,893 | 0.83% | 46,281 | 0.9% | |
Black or Black British: Total | – | – | 38,566 | 1% | 39,477 | 0.94% | 81,484 | 1.79% | 129,986 | 2.6% |
Black or Black British: African | – | – | 3,467 | 9,186 | 0.22% | 41,768 | 0.92% | 83,161 | 1.7% | |
Black or Black British: Caribbean | – | – | 24,431 | 26,671 | 0.63% | 28,913 | 0.63% | 30,828 | 0.6% | |
Black or Black British: Other Black | – | – | 10,668 | 3,620 | – | 10,803 | 0.23% | 15,997 | 0.3% | |
Mixed: Total | – | – | – | – | 43,148 | 1.03% | 86,224 | 1.9% | 117,247 | 2.4% |
Mixed: White and Black Caribbean | – | – | – | – | 20,657 | 0.49% | 40,404 | 0.89% | 46,400 | 1.0% |
Mixed: White and Black African | – | – | – | – | 3,429 | – | 8,814 | 0.19% | 14,341 | 0.3% |
Mixed: White and Asian | – | – | – | – | 11,176 | 0.26% | 21,688 | 0.47% | 30,803 | 0.6% |
Mixed: Other Mixed | – | – | – | – | 7,886 | 0.18% | 15,318 | 0.33% | 25,703 | 0.5% |
Other: Total | – | – | 14,160 | 0.4% | 7,345 | 0.17% | 25,735 | 0.56% | 61,944 | 1.3% |
Other: Arab[note 3] | – | – | – | – | – | – | 9,746 | 0.21% | 13,360 | 0.3% |
Other: Any other ethnic group | – | – | 14,160 | 0.4% | 7,345 | 0.17% | 15,989 | 0.35% | 48,584 | 1.0% |
Non-White: Total | 140,991 | 3.8% | 187,983 | 4.8% | 271,816 | 6.5% | 486,866 | 10.7% | 700,280 | 14.3% |
Total | 3,739,616 | 100% | 3,953,372 | 100% | 4,172,196 | 100% | 4,533,222 | 100% | 4,880,054 | 100% |
Social deprivation
The region as a whole is less deprived than the West Midlands and regions in the North of England.[36] By measurement of Lower Layer Super Output Areas, the East Midlands has more in common with the South of England (except London) than the North, in that it has more areas in the 20 per cent least deprived areas than the 20 per cent most deprived areas, but less so than regions in Southern England. This has been explained by academic statisticians, who claim the area straddles the north–south divide.[37]
The region does not show typical economic characteristics of Northern England (which the West Midlands does), although it is not as affluent as large parts of the South of England. Economically, the East Midlands bears a similarity to South West England.
In March 2011, the average unemployment claimant count for the region was 3.6 per cent. Nottingham and Leicester were the highest with 5.8 per cent each. Next were Corby and Lincoln with 4.9 per cent. The lowest were Rutland and South Northamptonshire with 1.4 per cent each, and Harborough, with 1.6 per cent.[38]