Lichfield

Lichfield, a municipal (and till 1885 parliamentary) borough of Staffordshire, and the seat of a bishopric, is pleasantly situated in a valley watered by an affluent of the Trent, 15 miles S.E. of Stafford and 118 N.W. of London. Population (1801) 4712; (1881) 8349. Its cathedral—a noble pile, measuring 411 feet by 66 (or 149 across the transepts), and surmounted by three towers with spires, the central 258 feet high—dates from the 13th century, when the Mercian see, founded in 656, and constituted an archbishopric 786-800, was after its translation to Chester in 1075, and subsequently thence to Coventry, re-established here at its original seat. Despoiled, and with its central tower beaten down during the siege of Lichfield by the parliamentarians (1643), the cathedral was subsequently (1661-70) effectively repaired, and of late years (1860-84) both the exterior and interior have been most ably restored at a cost exceeding £40,000, whilst in 1885 a statue of Queen Victoria by the Princess Louise was placed in a niche of the building. At the north-east angle of the Close, adjoining the cathedral, is the Bishop's Palace (1687), and hard by once stood the castle (of which no traces now remain) in which Richard II. held high revelry at Christmas 1397, and where two years later, after his deposition from the throne, he was confined a prisoner. Amongst other edifices may be noted the grammar-school, at which Addison, Dr Johnson, and Garrick were educated; two hospitals founded 1495 and 1504; the theological college (1857); and a concert hall occupying the site of the theatre at which Mrs Siddons made her first appearance after her marriage. In the history of the town the principal incidents, other than those noticed above, have been its partial destruction by fire (1291); five visitations of the plague, which in 1594 claimed 1100 victims, and 821 in 1645-46; a great storm (1593) which blew down the steeples of two of its churches; and seven royal visits. Its 87 bishops include St Chad, De Clinton (who commenced the cathedral), De Langton (who added the Lady Chapel, now thrown into the choir, and rich in stained glass brought in 1802 from the dissolved monastery of Herckenrode in Belgium), Abbot, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; Hackett (who carried out the restorations of 1661-70), Hurd (the tutor of George IV.), and George Augustus Selwyn. A statue of Dr Johnson was erected in 1838 in the market-place, opposite the house in which he was born, and which was bought by a Mr Johnson in 1887 'to save it from the hands of spoilers' (Notes and Queries, November 19, 1887). Among residents or natives have been Ashmole (founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford), Bishop Newton, Dr Darwin, and his biographer Miss Seward, and Honora Sneyd, afterwards Mrs Edgeworth. Lichfield gives the title of Earl to the family of Anson. See Harwood's Lichfield (1806), Edeswick's Staffordshire (revised ed. 1844), and Beresford's Lichfield ('Diocesan Histories' series, 1883).