thumb|250px|Ancient extent of Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is an English county, founded in the Norse–Saxon wars of the 9th century, and developed through commerce serving London. It is a land-locked county that was several times the seat of Parliament. From origins in brewing and papermaking, through aircraft manufacture, the county has developed a wider range of industry in which pharmaceuticals, financial services and film-making are prominent. Today, with a population slightly over 1 million, Hertfordshire services, industry and commerce dominate the economy, with fewer than 2000 people working in agriculture, forestry and fishing.
Hertfordshire is one of the historic counties of England first recorded in the early 10th century. Its development has been tied with that of London, which lies on its southern border. London is the largest city in Western Europe; it requires an enormous tonnage of supplies each day and Hertfordshire grew wealthy on the proceeds of trade because no less than three of the old Roman roads serving the capital run through it, as do the Grand Union Canal and other watercourses. In the 19th century, rail links sprang up in the county, linking London to the north. Hatfield in Hertfordshire has seen two rail crashes of international importance (in 1870 and 2000).
Though nowadays Hertfordshire tends to be politically conservative, historically it was the site of a number of uprisings against the Crown, particularly in the First Barons' War, the Peasants' Revolt, the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War. The county has a rich intellectual history, and many writers of major importance, from Geoffrey Chaucer to Beatrix Potter, have connections there. Quite a number of prime ministers were born or grew up in Hertfordshire.
The county contains a curiously large number of abandoned settlements, which K. Rutherford Davis attributes to a mixture of poor harvests on soil hard to farm, and the Black Death which ravaged Hertfordshire starting in 1349.
Early history
The earliest evidence of human occupation in Hertfordshire come from a gravel pit in Rickmansworth. The finds (of flint tools) date back 350,000 years, long before Britain became an island.
thumb|alt=Image of a dry ditch overgrown with mature trees|[[Beech Bottom Dyke<br />constructed at the end of the Iron Age]]
People have probably lived in the land now called Hertfordshire for about 12,000 years, since the Mesolithic period in Ware (making Ware one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe). Settlement continued through the Neolithic period, with evidence of occupation sites, enclosures, long barrows and even an unusual dog cemetery in the region. Although occupied, the area had a relatively low population in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age, perhaps because of its heavy, relatively poorly drained soil. Nevertheless, just south of present-day Ware and Hertford there is some evidence of an increase in the population, with typical round huts and farming activity having been found at a site called Foxholes Farm. There is no evidence of settlement at Hertford itself from this period, although Ware and perhaps Hertford seem to have been occupied during Roman times.
In the Iron Age, a Celtic tribe called the Catuvellauni occupied Hertfordshire. Their main settlement (or oppidum) was Verlamion on the River Ver (near present-day St Albans). Other oppida in Hertfordshire include sites at Cow Roast near Tring, Wheathampstead, Welwyn, Braughing, and Baldock. Hertfordshire contains several Iron Age hill forts, including the largest example in Eastern England at Ravensburgh Castle in Hexton.
There is a wealth of Iron Age burial sites in Hertfordshire, making it a place of international importance in Iron Age study.
The Roman Invasion of Britain
thumb|right|alt=A commemorative plaque in a brick pillar surrounded by woods|The Devil's Dyke, probably the site of Caesar's defeat of the Catuvellauni
In 55 BCE when the Romans first attempted to invade Britain, the Catuvellauni (which is Brythonic for "Expert Warrior") were the largest British tribe. Caesar's report to the Senate said that "Cassivellaun" (Cassivellaunus) was leader of the Britons, and Cassivellaunus' headquarters were near Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire. On Caesar's second invasion attempt in 54 BCE, Cassivellaunus led the British defensive forces. The Romans besieged him at Wheathampstead, and partly because of the defection of the Trinovantes (whose King Cassivellaunus had had murdered), the Catuvellauni were forced to surrender. However, after the siege of Wheathampstead, Caesar returned to Rome without leaving a garrison.
Cunobelinus became king of the Catuvellauni in 9 or 10 CE and ruled for about thirty years, conquering such a large area of Britain that the Roman writer Suetonius called him Britannorum Rex ( "King of Britain"). which may be related to another Iron Age defensive earthwork, the Devil's Dyke, at Cassivellaunus' headquarters in nearby Wheathampstead. The Romans defeated the Catuvellauni again in July 43 CE and this time, garrisoned Britain. When the Romans took over, their settlement, laid out in 49 CE, became known as Verulamium. Alban, a Roman army officer who became Britain's first Christian martyr after his arrest at Chantry Island, died in the 3rd or 4th century and gave his name to the modern town of St Albans. Verulamium became one of Roman Britain's major cities, the third-largest and the only to be granted self-governing status. Strong though Verulamium's defences may have been, they were not enough to stop Boudica, who burned the city in 61 CE. Verulamium was rebuilt, with defences enclosing a site of some and was occupied into the 5th century.
Hertfordshire in the Early Middle Ages
After the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain, the Hertfordshire area formed parts of the Kingdom of Mercia and the Kingdom of Essex. The main early Saxon tribes there seem to have been the Hicce, Brahhingas and Wæclingas. Place names tend to derive from Celtic rather than Saxon, and there is a "singular lack of Early Saxon place names." The Synod of Hertford, which was the first national Synod of the English Church, took place on 26 September 672–3. It was at this Synod that the "question of Easter" was settled, and the church agreed how to calculate the date of Easter. The Synod also marked the end of the conflict between the Celtic Church and the Romanised church introduced by Saint Augustine.
King Offa of Mercia (died 796) built a church at Hitchin in Hertfordshire, but it burned down in 910 CE and the monks moved to St Albans. Offa defeated Beornred of Mercia at Pirton, near Hitchin and gave his name to the village of Offley ("Offa's Lea"). Some sources (including Matthew Paris, who was a monk at St Albans) suggest he died at Offley, One of Offa's last acts was to found St Albans Abbey.
Origins of the county
thumb|alt=Map of Great Britain showing the various ancient kingdoms|Great Britain
The word Hertfordshire (Saxon "Heorotfordscir" or "Heorotfordscír") is attested from 866. The first reference (as "Heoroford") in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is for 1011, but the county's true origins lie in the 10th century, when Edward the Elder established two burhs in Hertford in 912 and 913 respectively.
In 1795, a Dr Walker wrote a report on agriculture and forestry in the county. He said "Herts is justly deemed the first and best corn county in the kingdom", In a dispute with the Society of Paper-Makers in 1821, he dismissed the men involved and trained replacements. By 1825, Apsley and Nash Mills in Hemel Hempstead were using steam power to produce paper. Dickinson patented his silk threadpaper in 1829, which was used, among other things, for Exchequer Bonds, and had to be made under supervision from two excise men. He built Croxley Mills, near Rickmansworth, in 1830
In 1840, the Uniform Penny Post came in. Dickinson made paper for the stamps, and also for the Mulready envelopes. He built a private gas works at Apsley in 1851. In March 1886, John Dickinson & Co. Ltd. was incorporated with £500,000 in capital and of glass houses. By 1900, the company had of glass houses in the Cheshunt area. The Hertfordshire Regiment became the fourth battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment in 1891, and in March 1900, the 42nd (Hertfordshire) Company of the Imperial Yeomanry landed at Cape Town. Cecil Rhodes, who founded De Beers and the state of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), was born in South Street, Bishops Stortford, in 1853. The house is still standing, and has been adapted into a museum.
thumb|left|[[Peter de Wint, Cornfields near Tring Station, Hertfordshire, 1847, Princeton University Art Museum]]
The first branch railway line in England was the Aylesbury one, which opened in 1839. It had a station in Hertfordshire, at Marston Gate. Another rail line grew out from London towards Cambridge, reaching Broxbourne in 1840, Harlow in 1841,
Twentieth century
Pre World War II
The two flagship garden cities of Letchworth and Welwyn were central to the development of town planning in England. Ebenezer Howard bought nearly in 1919, and the first house in Welwyn Garden City was occupied in 1920.
In the First World War, the Hertfordshire Yeomanry mobilised in September 1914 and were almost immediately deployed to Egypt. The 2nd London Division of the Territorial Force had their headquarters at St Albans, On 13 October of that year, a Zeppelin raid hit North Road in Hertford, destroying houses there. who was killed on 18 September 1918, aged 23.
With the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Hertfordshire Regiment were mobilised. Together with the 6th Battalion of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment, they made up 162nd Infantry Brigade of the East Anglian Division. Hertfordshire was central to aircraft manufacture in the Second World War. De Havilland designed their Mosquito in Hatfield and constructed them at Leavesden, together with Halifax bombers.
Many RAF pilots were trained at Panshanger. About 4000 bombs, 107 V-1 flying bombs, and 47 V-2 rockets fell on Hertfordshire during the Second World War. The de Havilland Comet was developed in the town. The London Government Act 1963 created an enlarged Greater London in 1965 which took Barnet from Hertfordshire, but in exchange, the county gained Potters Bar and South Mimms from Middlesex. The county's boundaries were revised in the reforms accompanying the Local Government Act 1972, at which time Royston became fully a part of Hertfordshire. Camfield House, Hatfield, belonged to Barbara Cartland during this period, and Beatrix Potter lived there as well.
During the Second World War, sculptor Henry Moore moved to the village of Perry Green in Hertfordshire when his former home was bombed. The Henry Moore Foundation still operates from the village.
The character of Hertfordshire changed in the later part of the 20th century. In 1992, it was resolved to close the aircraft manufacturing site in Hatfield. Criticism of Railtrack after the accident was rife, and the company had to pay over £700 million in compensation. It ceased trading owing to insolvency in 2002.
The fire of 11 December 2005 at Buncefield, Hemel Hempstead, was a major disaster. Hertfordshire's Chief Fire Officer, Roy Wilsher, said it was "possibly the largest in peacetime Europe." About sixty million gallons of petrol burned,
Conservation
Hertfordshire has a larger number of listed buildings and village greens pre-dating 1700 than Greater London, see for example Grade II* listed buildings in Hertfordshire which tend to be in this category. All 10 District (or Borough) Councils have designated conservation areas.
Crime and criminals
King Stephen held court at St Albans in 1143. He arrested Geoffrey de Mandeville, who held shrievalty of London, Middlesex and Hertfordshire from the pretender Empress Matilda. De Mandeville surrendered his castles, including the one he had recently built at South Mimms, and went on to become a noted outlaw and bandit.
A seventeenth-century highwaywoman, called the "Wicked Lady", preyed on travellers on Nomansland Common along Watling Street to the far end of Wales. This may have been Lady Katherine Ferrers of Markyate Cell 1634-1660 who was married to a detached husband Thomas Fanshaw(e) and whose body was carried across the county to be buried at Ware. By the time of an 1840 fire at the large house, a folklore rhyme had arisen: Queen Anne pardoned Wenham, who "lived on in a cottage at Gilston". In 1751, John and Ruth Osborne of Gubblecot, Tring, were accused of witchcraft. A mob dragged them through the village pond until Ruth drowned. One Thomas Colley, a chimney sweep and apparently the ringleader, was hanged; but the people disapproved of the hanging and did not come to watch. In 1783 the vestry organised a watch to "put a stop to the daring robberies almost nightly committed in or near the town." The next year Vincenzo Lunardi's first balloon flight over Britain landed in Standon Green End where a stone commemorates the achievement. From this inn, Walter Clibborn, the "murderous pie man of Hertford", operated. He pretended to be deaf, so that people would talk freely while he moved among them selling pies, overhearing their destinations and the location of their valuables; The murderer, who was the Mayor of Norwich's son John Thurtell, a notorious gambler,
Authors of Hertfordshire
Jane Austen (1775–1817) wrote about Hertfordshire. Pride and Prejudice is set in a fictionalised Hertfordshire. Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), writer and Lord Chancellor, lived at Gorhambury near St Albans and is buried at St Michael's. J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) based his character Peter Pan on Peter Llewelyn Davies, his friend's son, after visiting their family in Berkhamsted. Dame Juliana Berners (1388-?) was the author of the Boke of St Albans, a guide to hunting, hawking and heraldry, which was printed by Abbey Press in 1486. John Bunyan (1628–1688) was linked to Hitchin, and although he was gaoled outside the county in Bedford, he was a member of the Baptist Church at Kensworth (at that time in Hertfordshire, though now in Bedfordshire). He preached extensively in Hertfordshire. George Chapman (c. 1559 – 1634), a poet and playwright remembered for his translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, was born in Hitchin and lived there. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 1400) was Clerk of the Works at Berkhamsted Castle in 1389.
thumb|left|alt=Outside of an old-style brick cottage|Shaw's corner
Sir Henry Chauncy (1632–1719), known for his Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire (pub. 1700), was made first Recorder of Hertford in 1680. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was educated at Christ's Hospital, Hitchin. William Cowper (1731–1800), poet, was born and lived in Berkhamsted. He was later institutionalised in an asylum in St Albans. Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was often in Hertfordshire (not least to visit his friend Edward Bulwer Lytton, who is mentioned below), and significant elements of his novels are set there. Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608–1666) was born at Ware Park and his memorial tablet is in Ware. E. M. Forster (1879-?) lived at Rook's Nest House between Stevenage and Weston. William Godwin (1756–1836), an anarchist philosopher, was a Chapel Minister in Ware; his feminist wife Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, gave him a daughter, Mary Shelley (1797–1851), who wrote Frankenstein. Graham Greene (1904–1991) was educated at Berkhamsted Grammar School, where his father was headmaster. Nobel prizewinning playwright George Bernard Shaw lived in Hertfordshire until his death in 1950. Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) lived in Waltham Cross. Thomas Walsingham (?-1422), author of the Historia Anglicana and chronicler of the Peasants' Revolt, was a monk in St Albans Abbey in the early 15th century.
<!-- Arts and-->Film-making in Hertfordshire
thumb|Arthur Melbourne-Cooper's A Dream of Toyland (1908), one of the earliest animation films
<!-- Lucy Kemp-Welch; Henry Moore. -->
Hertfordshire was the home of the pioneering British film maker Arthur Melbourne-Cooper, who was born in St Albans in 1874. He worked in Hertfordshire (but later what became the London Borough of Barnet), and witnessed the birth of the movies as an assistant/cameraman of Birt Acres (1854–1918). Acres, in 1895, co-developed the first British 35 mm moving picture camera under the guidance of British engineer R.W. Paul. Cooper, for the next 20 years, made contributions to the British moving picture industry. In 1908 Cooper set up the first permanent cinema in Hertfordshire, the Alpha Picture House in St Albans, and a cinema operated on this site for 87 years; the 1930s cinema building has recently been restored and re-opened as the Odyssey Cinema.
Elstree Studios nearby has risen to prominence; landmark films and television that have been produced there include the first and second Star Wars films (chronologically, i.e. Episodes IV and V), Indiana Jones, and Superman, The World's End and British television shows Dancing on Ice, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and Big Brother. Parts of the Harry Potter film series production took place at Leavesden Film Studios. Wild child was filmed in Balls park, Hertford.
Nobles and politicians of Hertfordshire
Æthelgifu was a Christian Saxon noblewoman who lived in the county in the late 980s, and her will is an important document for the study of the country as well as the county. It shows that Æthelgifu had three large estates in Hertfordshire. She left much of her land to the monks of St Albans, and her will shows the importance of Hitchin as a legal and administrative centre. Hitchin likely stayed in royal hands into the 10th century.
thumb|alt=Painting of a woman in 17th-century dress|Painting of Sarah Churchill, by Sir Godfrey Kneller
Edward Seymour was appointed Earl of Hertford in 1559. He married Lady Catherine Grey, who was Lady Jane Grey's sister, in 1560. As Catherine was in line for the throne, she needed Queen Elizabeth's permission to wed, and because this was not sought, the marriage was held in secret with Edward's sister, Lady Jane Seymour, as the only witness. However, when Catherine became visibly pregnant, she had little option but to reveal her marriage and, at her request, Lord Robert Dudley told the Queen. An angry Elizabeth had the Earl and Countess of Hertford interned in the Tower of London and annulled their marriage.
Sarah Churchill, one of the most influential women in English history, was born as Sarah Jennings in St Albans in 1660. She married the Duke of Marlborough, rose to high favour with Queen Anne, then fell out with the queen and was dismissed, but returned to court after the queen's death. She argued with many important people in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, grew very rich, toured the continent and built Blenheim Palace. Winston Churchill and Diana, Princess of Wales, were both descended from her.
A new title, the Earl of St Albans, was created in 1628 with a short and undistinguished history, effectively wiped out in the civil war shortly thereafter. Rather than revive the Earldom, Charles Beauclerk, illegitimate son of King Charles II and Nell Gwyn, was made Duke of St Albans in 1684. This peerage is as of on its fourteenth duke.
Robert Arthur Gascoyne Talbot Cecil, the Marquess of Salisbury, was born at Hatfield House on 3 February 1830. He also died there, 73 years later. In a distinguished political career, he would go on to become the prime minister three times and foreign secretary four times.
After the Local Government Act 1888, the first county councillors in Hertfordshire were elected on 17 January 1889.
Arthur Balfour, though born in Scotland, was educated in Hertfordshire before going to university at Cambridge. He served as MP for Hertford before being elected as prime minister in 1902. He resigned as prime minister in 1905, at which time he was the first prime minister to own a car.