History
Rotherham has never figured greatly in the history of the British Isles. The Roman fort at Templeborough was a small stockade manned by auxilliary troops and we are not even certain of its Roman name. As for the town it probably consisted of a wooden fence and a few mud huts somewhere in the floodplain of the rivers Don and Rother.
During the Dark Ages there was the usual influx of invaders into the Rotherham area. Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Danes came to plunder, and later to settle into farming communities. The town of Rotherham came into being at some time during this period founded on the River Don a mile or so downstream from its confluence with the River Rother where there was some rising ground clear of floods. It was close to an accessible ford across the river and several old routeways converged there. It seems likely there was a market for the exchange of goods from early times.
By the beginning of the 10th Century Rotherham must have become a centre of some wealth and prosperity for the first church was built about 937 after the area was converted to Christianity. The battle of Brunanbugh in 936, mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, is believed to have been fought in the Rotherham area though no real evidence exists.
When the Normans arrived in 1066 Rotherham consisted of one manor with a priest, a church and a mill with various fields, woods and pastures. The parish of Rotherham however was extremely widespread and must have brought in sufficient income to begin the rebuilding of the church which incorporated some of the old Saxon remains. Further re-buildings and extensions took place through Medieval times. Rotherham received its formal grants of a market and a fair during this time.
Thomas Rotherham who had become Archbishop of York founded the Chapel of Jesus in the parish church in 1481 and founded the College of Jesus in 1481/82. The town's prosperity continued until the Reformation when much influence, property and wealth was lost to Henry VIII's commissioners after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1537 and to Edward VI's agents after the 1547 Act for the Suppression of Chantries.
During the late 16th Century and the early 17th Century Rotherham began to become an industrial town. Coal had been dug from bell pits in places all over what is now the Borough of Rotherham and became a cheap source of fuel for the inhabitants of many of the local towns and villages. Iron and steel production began in the area because of the proximity or easily mined ore, charcoal from the surrounding woodlands and water supply. This was the beginning of coal mining and the iron and steel industry across the borough which dominated the life of the town until the latter half of the 20th Century. If you read a history of Britain, any history will do, the only places you are likely to find Rotherham mentioned is somewhere in the pages about Coal Mining and Iron and Steel, and possibly under Potteries for the Rockingham Works existed at Swinton, which is now in the Borough of Rotherham.