Borough of Luton: History
Luton is believed to have been founded by the Anglo-Saxons sometime in the 6th century. Its name first appears in the 8th century as Lygetun, meaning "town on the River Lea".
The Domesday Book records Luton as Loitone and as Lintone. Agriculture dominated the local economy at that time, and the town's population was around 700 to 800.
In 1121 Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester started work on St Mary's Church in the centre of the town. The work was completed by 1137. A motte-and-bailey castle which gives its name to the modern Castle Street was built in 1139 but demolished by 1154.
The hat making industry began in the 17th century and became synonymous with the town.
The town grew: in 1801 the population was 3,095, but by 1850 it was over 10,000 and by 1901 it was almost 39,000.
Newspaper printing arrived in the town in 1854. The first public cemetery was opened in the same year and Luton was made a borough in 1876.
Luton's hat trade reached its peak in the 1930s, but severely declined after the Second World War and was replaced by other industries.
In 1907, Vauxhall Motors opened the largest car plant in the United Kingdom in Luton, during the Second World War, it built Churchill tanks as part of the war effort. Despite heavy camouflage, the factory made Luton a target for the Luftwaffe and the town suffered a number of air raids. 107 died and there was extensive damage to the town (over 1,500 homes were damaged or destroyed).
The original town hall was destroyed in 1919 during Peace Day celebrations at the end of the First World War. Dr. John G. Dony, author of The Flora of Bedfordshire, told his history students (he taught at Luton Grammar, predecessor of Luton Sixth Form College) in the 1950s that he had broken the last intact window of the old town hall during the 1919 riots. Local people, including many ex-servicemen, were unhappy with unemployment and had been refused the use of a local park to hold celebratory events. They stormed Luton Town Hall, setting it alight. A replacement building was completed in 1936.
Luton Borough Corporation provided the borough with electricity since the early twentieth century from Luton power station, located adjacent to the railway. Upon nationalisation of the electricity industry in 1948, ownership passed to the British Electricity Authority and later to the Central Electricity Generating Board. Electricity connections to the national grid rendered the 23 megawatt (MW) coal and latterly oil-fired power station redundant. The station had a single chimney and two reinforced concrete cooling towers. The power station closed in 1968. In its final year of operation it delivered 3,192 MWh of electricity to the borough.
Luton Airport opened in 1938, owned and operated by the council. It is now one of the largest employers in the area.
The pre-war years, were something of an economic boom for Luton, as new industries grew and prospered. New private and council housing was built in the 1920s and 1930s, with Luton starting to incorporate nearby villages Leagrave, Limbury and Stopsley between 1928 and 1933.
Post-war, a number of substantial estates of council housing were built, notably at Farley Hill, Stopsley, Limbury, Marsh Farm and Leagrave (Hockwell Ring). The Marsh Farm area of the town was developed in the mid to late 1960s as a large council housing estate, mostly to house the overspill population from London. …