Devonport, Devon
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Devonport ( ), formerly named Plymouth Dock or just Dock, is a district of
Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...
in the English county of
Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...
, although it was, at one time, the more important settlement. It became a county borough in 1889. Devonport was originally one of the "
Three Towns Three Towns is a term used to refer to several groups of towns. United Kingdom There are several groups of towns in the United Kingdom referred to as the Three Towns, many of which form contiguous settlements, or are in close proximity to each ...
" (along with Plymouth and
East Stonehouse East Stonehouse was one of three towns that were amalgamated into modern-day Plymouth. West Stonehouse was a village that is within the current Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in Cornwall. It was destroyed by the French in 1350. The terminology use ...
); these merged in 1914 to form what would become in 1928 the City of Plymouth. It is represented in the
Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...
as part of the Plymouth Sutton and Devonport constituency. Its elected
Member of Parliament (MP) A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members often ...
is
Luke Pollard Luke Pollard (born 10 April 1980) is a British politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport since 2017. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, he has been Shadow Minister for the Armed For ...
, who is a member of the Labour Party. The population of the ward at the 2011 census was 14,788.


History


Plymouth Dock

In 1690 the Admiralty gave a contract to Robert Waters from Portsmouth to build a stone dock at Point Froward on the east bank of the
Hamoaze The Hamoaze (; ) is an estuarine stretch of the tidal River Tamar, between its confluence with the River Lynher and Plymouth Sound, England. The name first appears as ''ryver of Hamose'' in 1588 and it originally most likely applied just to a ...
at the mouth of the
River Tamar The Tamar (; kw, Dowr Tamar) is a river in south west England, that forms most of the border between Devon (to the east) and Cornwall (to the west). A part of the Tamar Valley is a World Heritage Site due to its historic mining activities. T ...
. Plymouth Dock, as Devonport was originally called, began around 1700 as a small settlement to house workers employed on the new naval base that was being built around Waters' dock. By 1733 its population had grown to around 3,000, and by 1801 it was already larger than both the nearby towns of Plymouth and Stonehouse together.


Devonport

By 1811 the population of Plymouth Dock was just over 30,000 and the residents resented the fact that its name made it sound like an adjunct of Plymouth. In 1823 a petition to King George IV requested the town should be renamed, and suggested "Devonport". The king agreed, and to celebrate, the town built
Devonport Column Devonport Column is a monument designed by John Foulston in Devonport, Plymouth, England. It is situated next to Devonport Guildhall, also designed by Foulston. History Devonport Column was built in 1824 as part of the development of the town ...
next to the recently completed
guildhall A guildhall, also known as a "guild hall" or "guild house", is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commonly become town halls and in som ...
; both were designed by
John Foulston John Foulston (1772 – 30 December 1841) was an English architect who was a pupil of Thomas Hardwick and set up a practice in London in 1796.Peter Leach, ''Foulston, John (1772–1841)'', rev., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Un ...
. Devonport was first incorporated as a
municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...
in 1837 under the
Municipal Corporations Act 1835 The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 (5 & 6 Will 4 c 76), sometimes known as the Municipal Reform Act, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in the incorporated boroughs of England and Wales. The legisl ...
. In July, 1849, the first outbreaks in what became a
cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
epidemic arose on Union Street which connected Plymouth to Devonport, and were initially attributed to blockage of several house drains during construction of a new Millbay railway station. Devonport became a
county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent ter ...
under the
Local Government Act 1888 Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...
.


Dockyard defences

In the mid-eighteenth century a defensive earthwork was constructed around the town and dockyard. Within these dockyard '
lines Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Arts ...
', six square barracks were built between in 1758–63 to accommodate the garrison of troops required to man the defences. A series of
redoubt A redoubt (historically redout) is a fort or fort system usually consisting of an enclosed defensive emplacement outside a larger fort, usually relying on earthworks, although some are constructed of stone or brick. It is meant to protect soldi ...
s were also constructed, forward of the lines, in the 1770s, including that at Mount Pleasant (of which there are substantial remains). In the early nineteenth century, the dockyard lines were strengthened with stone ramparts and armed with guns, and the adjacent ditches were deepened. These defences became largely redundant with the building of a series of Palmerston Forts around Plymouth in the second half of the nineteenth century. Much of the open land forming the
glacis A glacis (; ) in military engineering is an artificial slope as part of a medieval castle or in bastion fort, early modern fortresses. They may be constructed of earth as a temporary structure or of stone in more permanent structure. More genera ...
beyond the lines became Devonport Park in the late 1850s. Three of the six small barracks were replaced in 1854-6 by the sizeable Raglan Infantry Barracks, designed by Captain
Francis Fowke Francis Fowke (7 July 1823 – 4 December 1865) was an Irish engineer and architect, and a captain in the Corps of Royal Engineers. Most of his architectural work was executed in the Renaissance style, although he made use of relatively new ...
(who later designed the
Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no governm ...
); today only its gatehouse remains (and that in a derelict state), the rest having been demolished in the 1970s.


Mount Wise

The high ground south of the town is called Mount Wise. Enclosed within the town ramparts, it was given its own redoubt in the 1770s, with eight guns and two mortars protecting the coastal approach to the dockyard. In earlier times, a gun wharf had been established on the quayside here to the south-east; the gun wharf was removed (and re-established at Morice Yard alongside the Dockyard) in 1724, but the area remained dominated by the armed forces up until the present century. From the late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth century both the
military Governor A military government is generally any form of government that is administered by military forces, whether or not this government is legal under the laws of the jurisdiction at issue, and whether this government is formed by natives or by an occup ...
and naval Commander-in-Chief of Plymouth were accommodated in large houses on Mount Wise (in
Government House Government House is the name of many of the official residences of governors-general, governors and lieutenant-governors in the Commonwealth and the remaining colonies of the British Empire. The name is also used in some other countries. Gover ...
and Admiralty House respectively). In 1805 a
Royal Laboratory The Royal Arsenal, Woolwich is an establishment on the south bank of the River Thames in Woolwich in south-east London, England, that was used for the manufacture of armaments and ammunition, proofing, and explosives research for the Bri ...
(an outpost of the Woolwich Arsenal) was established just north-west of the redoubt;
small-arms A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions). The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...
ammunition and explosives were manufactured here, until the compound was converted into barracks accommodation (Mount Wise Barracks) in the 1830s.


21st-century Devonport

During the millennium decade, Devonport received government
New Deal for Communities New Deal for Communities was a regeneration programme led by the government of the United Kingdom for some of the England's most deprived neighbourhoods. The programme was established by Tony Blair's Labour Government and was overseen by the Neigh ...
funding of £48.7 million; this enabled an extensive Regeneration programme to be carried out. Since 2009, the investments have begun to transform Devonport – physically, socially, demographically. Where once the area was run-down, depressed, and classified as 'deprived' in many categories, the 21st-century Devonport is beginning to achieve the city’s vision of … "The recreation of Devonport as a distinct place in modern Plymouth; a vibrant self sustaining community; a place of real quality, variety and interest, the pride of residents, attractive to visitors and a model of 21st Century living, working and playing." The Admiralty's release of several land plots in Devonport has assisted the Regeneration project. One ex-MoD area, where new homes will be available from 2011, is the Admiralty House site at Mount Wise. Although there are pockets of regeneration work remaining to be completed, the waterfront district of Devonport is becoming one of the desired residential areas of the city of Plymouth. In 2011, the Devonport Heritage Trail was introduced, complete with over 70 waymarkers outlining the route.


Facilities

Devonport has its own shopping street, a
railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
, a swimming pool, park and a sports ground,
The Brickfields Brickfields Recreation Ground is a sports stadium and multi-sport complex in Devonport, Devon, Devonport, Plymouth, England, Plymouth, England. It is run by EveryoneActive on behalf of Plymouth City Council, and is the home ground of Rugby Union ...
. Since 2003, it has been the home of
Plymouth Albion Plymouth Albion Rugby Football Club are a rugby union club who play in Plymouth, England. The present club was founded in 1920 from a merger between Plymouth RFC (founded 1876) and Devonport Albion RFC (founded 1876). Since 2003 they have pl ...
, the city's
Rugby Union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...
club located near Plymouth City College. Devonport is also home to the Devonport Playhouse, a
theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
located in the former
Methodist Central Hall The Methodist Central Hall (also known as Central Hall Westminster) is a multi-purpose venue in the City of Westminster, London, serving primarily as a Methodist church and a conference centre. The building, which is a tourist attraction, also ho ...
in Fore Street. The space was purchased and converted into a performance venue by the Plymouth Theatre Company back in 1987. It is a popular venue with the local Amateur Dramatic companies, choirs and dancing schools in Plymouth especially, since the closure of the Athenaeum in central Plymouth.
UTC Plymouth UTC Plymouth is a university technical college (UTC) that opened in the Devonport area of Plymouth, Devon, England in September 2013. The college is located on the site of the former Parkside Community College on Park Avenue. The campus was ex ...
is a
university technical college A university technical college (UTC) is a type of specialist secondary school in England that is led by a sponsor university and has close ties to local business and industry. These university and industry partners support the curriculum developm ...
(UTC) which opened in September 2013 near
Devonport Park Devonport Park is a public park located in Devonport, Devon. The historic park dates back to the 1850s and is situated on former military land. The park is home to many historic monuments including a war memorial to the 2,000 Devonport citizens ...
. The UTC is situated on the former site of Parkside Community College, which closed in August 2008 due to falling enrolment. The
Torpoint Ferry The Torpoint Ferry is a car and pedestrian chain ferry connecting the A374 which crosses the Hamoaze, a stretch of water at the mouth of the River Tamar, between Devonport in Plymouth and Torpoint in Cornwall. The service was established in 17 ...
service across the
Hamoaze The Hamoaze (; ) is an estuarine stretch of the tidal River Tamar, between its confluence with the River Lynher and Plymouth Sound, England. The name first appears as ''ryver of Hamose'' in 1588 and it originally most likely applied just to a ...
(
River Tamar The Tamar (; kw, Dowr Tamar) is a river in south west England, that forms most of the border between Devon (to the east) and Cornwall (to the west). A part of the Tamar Valley is a World Heritage Site due to its historic mining activities. T ...
) operates from Devonport to Cornwall. Devonport Naval base/Dockyard has, over the years, been known as "Guz" by naval ratings. There are various explanations for the nickname: the
Royal Naval Museum The National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth, formerly known as the Royal Naval Museum, is a museum of the history of the Royal Navy located in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard section of HMNB Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. The ...
says it is short for ''Guzzle'' and refers to Devon
cream tea A cream tea (also known as a Devon cream tea, Devonshire tea, or Cornish cream tea) is an afternoon tea consisting of tea, scones, clotted cream (or, less authentically, whipped cream), jam, and sometimes butter. Cream teas are sold in tea ro ...
s.


Notable people

* N. T. Carrington (1777–1830), schoolmaster and poet. *
Charles Mathews Charles Mathews (28 June 1776, London – 28 June 1835, Devonport) was an English theatre manager and comic actor, well known during his time for his gift of impersonation and skill at table entertainment. His play ''At Home'', in which he pla ...
, theatre manager and comic actor, lived here for several months before his death in 1835. *
Leslie Hore-Belisha, 1st Baron Hore-Belisha Leslie Hore-Belisha, 1st Baron Hore-Belisha, PC (; 7 September 1893 – 16 February 1957) was a British Liberal, then National Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) and Cabinet Minister. He later joined the Conservative Party. He proved highly suc ...
(1893–1957) was born in Devonport. In the 1945 general election he stood for the seat as a National Independent candidate, but was defeated by
Michael Foot Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...
. In 1954 he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Hore-Belisha, of Devonport in the County of Devon. *
Ralph Alger Bagnold Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, OBE, FRS, (3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990) was an English 20th-century desert explorer, geologist and soldier. In 1932, he staged the first recorded East-to-West crossing of the Libyan Desert. His work in the fi ...
(1896–1990) was born here. He was a pioneer of desert exploration, and was the founder and first commander of the British Army's Long Range Desert Group. He also made significant contributions to the scientific understanding of desert structures. *
Guy Burgess Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 ...
(1911–1963), one of the
Cambridge Five The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for ...
spy ring that betrayed Western secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War, was born here.
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
spent two months in Devonport from October 1831 waiting for the weather to improve so that HMS ''Beagle'' could begin its journey to South America. The ship finally left on 27 December and Darwin later wrote that those two months were "The most miserable which I ever spent".


References


Sources

* {{Authority control Plymouth, Devon Former towns in Devon Suburbs of Plymouth, Devon