Stafford

County town of Staffordshire, England, population (2001) 60,500. Stafford lies on the River Sow, in the green belt between Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent; it is a rail centre, and is served by the M6 motorway. Its chief industries include electrical engineering, shoemaking, salt, adhesives, grinding wheels, concrete reinforcement, and other engineering products. The town is a centre for local government and law for Staffordshire.

Staffordshire University is located here. The town dates from the 10th century. The writer Izaak Walton, who wrote The Compleat Angler (1653), was born in Stafford. The cottage in which he was born is now a museum.

History Stafford is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of AD 913 as Betheney. A royal mint existed on the site in about 940. In the Domesday Book the town appears as Stadford. Stafford's first town charter was granted by King John in 1206. In 1643, during the English Civil War, Parliamentary forces destroyed the town walls and Stafford Castle after their victory at Hopton Heath. A later castle built on the same site has also been demolished. The High House, said to have been built in 1555, is the largest remaining timber-framed town house in England. Chetwynd House, now the head post office, has associations with the Irish dramatist Richard Sheridan, who was member of Parliament for the town 1780–1806.