The History of Leicester in 100 People

From Verecunda, a girl in love with a Roman gladiator, who etched his name on a love token, to the footballer and television presenter Gary Lineker, it has been the people of Leicester who created the town’s long and exciting history and sent its name around the world. It was in Leicester that DNA fingerprinting was invented, and where Thomas Cook pioneered his dream of tourism for the masses, where Sir David Attenborough met his first dinosaur, and where Alfred Russel Wallace formulated the concept of natural selection, possibly before Charles Darwin. Images now recognised around the world, such as Thomas the Tank Engine, and the polar bear that promotes Fox’s Glacier Mints, were created in Leicester, as were the diaries of Adrian Mole and Walker’s Crisps. Joseph Merrick, also known as the Elephant Man, was born in the town, and it was here that a young apprentice in Leicester’s largest textile factory learned how to build bicycles and gave his name to Curry’s retail stores. The stories of the men and women who were at the forefront of invention, scientific discovery and entertainment, politics and faith are inextricably linked with the bigger picture of the development and growth of a major English city over two thousand years, and are celebrated in this book.