Leicester joined by four places in the US and one more in Africa.
Leicester is famous across the UK and around the world for people, places and food such as King Richard III, Leicester City Football Club, Gary Lineker, the Attenborough brothers, Leicester Tigers rugby club, Melton Mowbray Pork Pies, Red Leicester cheese and more.
Iconic names such as these are regularly credited for ‘putting Leicester on the map’. But, many people may not know that the name of Leicester is already on the global map in the US and Africa.
There are actually four places named Leicester in America and one in Sierra Leone.
Leicester, New York
The small town of Leicester can be found in the state of New York with its 2,200 inhabitants. It was named after Leicester Phelps, an early inhabitant of the area, although this was clearly catering to the common American mispronunciation of the word, as the name on original documents was spelled Lester and later changed to the more familiar spelling. This area was originally settled by the Seneca people, part of the Native American Iroquois people.
Leicester, Vermont
Even smaller than this first town, with fewer than 1,000 people living there, Leicester in Vermont is the most northerly of the US namesakes (yet still on the same latitude as the south of France). Vermont’s Leicester would probably class as a village, but it is still home to a school and a town hall.
It is also near to one of the weird and wonderful roadside artworks that can be found throughout small town America, a Gorilla holding a VW Beetle. It also has an area called Satan’s Kingdom. Despite having such a small population, Leicester VT does have one famous son. Blacksmith John Deere, whose company now produces millions of tractors and agricultural machinery worldwide, had one of his first shops right there in Leicester.
Leicester, Massachusetts
Massachusetts is one of the earliest colonised states in the USA and its town of Leicester is in the centre of the state. The area was purchased from the Nipmuc native Americans in 1686 for just £15 but wasn’t settled for another 30 years. The name was suggested by First Selectman Thomas Green as it was from where his father came, and a Dr Samuel Green set up the first medical school in Massachusetts.
The town has an interesting link to the American Revolution in that Colonel William Henshaw, who was an assistant to George Washington’s second in command, coined the term ‘minutemen’ for the rapid response troops. It also had a key role in the industrialisation of the US, producing one-third of American hand cards, tools for straightening fibres for spinning and weaving, a link to the UK Leicester’s textile history. The town also had a role on the abolitionist Underground Railroad with pastor Samuel May hosting escaped slaves.
Leicester, North Carolina
Further south, you can find the town of Leicester in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge mountains. Originally named ‘Turkey Creek’, the town was named for Leicester Chapman who bought the land in the 1850s (the name was changed in 1859). Leicester’s father, Robert Chapman, a captain under the Earl of Leicester, was stationed in Wales and named his son as his commanding officer. The town is very rural, around 2,000 feet above sea level, with around 21,000 people living there.
Leicester in Africa
Sitting on the coast of Sierra Leone, just 15 miles east of the nation’s capital Freetown, Leicester has a population of around 18,678. It was founded in 1809 to provide a place for enslaved Africans to live, freed from bondage by the Royal Navy. It was likely named by Thomas Ludlam who was Governor of Sierra Leone up until 27 July 1808 after three terms of office and was born in Leicester.
Leicester is just to the north of the Tacugama Chimpanzee sanctuary which was founded in 1995 to provide a haven for these endangered animals. In Leicestershire in the UK, Twycross Zoo is the only place in the country where you can see all four species of great ape; Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Bonobos and Orangutans. The Zoo is committed to conservation, working with reservations and partners across the world to preserve these beautiful animals both in zoos and in the wild.
