Leicester is a

coastal The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

town in the

Western Area Rural District The Western Area Rural District is one of the sixteen districts of Sierra Leone. It is located mostly around the peninsula in the Western Area of Sierra Leone. The Western Area Rural District has a 2015 census population of 442,951. The district ...

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra ...

. The town lies approximately fifteen

miles The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a British imperial unit and United States customary unit of distance; both are based on the older English unit of length equal to 5,280 English ...

east of

Freetown Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and p ...

. The town has an estimated population of 18,678. Leicester is largely populated by the

Krio people The Sierra Leone Creole people ( kri, Krio people) are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are lineal descendant, descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Liberated African slaves who settled in t ...

. The

Krio language Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio is an English-based creole language that is lingua franca and de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 96 percent of the country's population, and it uni ...

is the primary language of communication in the town.

History

Leicester was founded in 1809 to provide accommodation for liberated enslaved Africans, who had been brought to

by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

West Africa Squadron The West Africa Squadron, also known as the Preventative Squadron, was a squadron of the British Royal Navy whose goal was to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa. Formed in 1808 after the British Parliame ...

. It was probably named by Thomas Ludlam, who ended his third term as Governor of Sierra Leone on 27 July 1808, and was born in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

, England.Anderson, Richard Peter (2020) ''Abolition in Sierra Leone: Re-Building Lives and Identities in Nineteenth-Century West Africa'', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p105. Online A hospital was founded here, and

John Macaulay Wilson John Macaulay Wilson was an African people, African King, and one of the first Africans to receive a European medical training. He was sent from Sierra Leone to Kingdom of Great Britain, Britain for medical training in either 1794 or 1796. He retur ...

, one of the first Africans to be given European medical training worked here as an Assistant Colonial Surgeon.

Notable people

* Dr. Oloh, musician

References

External links

Every Picture Tells a Story, BBC Radio Humberside
Populated places in Sierra Leone Western Area Sierra Leone Liberated African villages Populated places established by Sierra Leone Creoles {{SierraLeone-geo-stub