- published: 08 Mar 2013
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Coordinates: 52°48′24″N 2°07′02″W / 52.8066°N 2.1171°W / 52.8066; -2.1171
Stafford (/ˈstæfəd/) is the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands of England. It lies approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of Wolverhampton, 18 miles (29 km) south of Stoke-on-Trent and 24 miles (39 km) north-west of Birmingham. The population in 2001 was 63,681 and that of the wider borough of Stafford 122,000, the fourth largest in the county after Stoke-on-Trent, Tamworth and Newcastle-under-Lyme.
Stafford means 'ford' by a 'staithe' (landing place). The original settlement was on dry sand and gravel peninsula that provided a strategic crossing point in the marshy valley of the River Sow, a tributary of the River Trent. There is still a large area of marshland northwest of the town, which has always been subject to flooding, such as in 1947, 2000 and 2007.
It is thought Stafford was founded in about 700 AD by a Mercian prince called Bertelin who, according to legend, established a hermitage on the peninsula named Betheney or Bethnei. Until recently it was thought that the remains of a wooden preaching cross from this time had been found under the remains of St Bertelin's chapel, next to the later collegiate Church of St Mary in the centre of the town. Recent re-examination of the evidence shows this was a misinterpretation – it was a tree trunk coffin placed centrally in the first, timber, chapel at around the time Æthelflæd founded the burh, in 913 AD. The tree trunk coffin may have been placed there as an object of commemoration or veneration of St Bertelin.
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps CH PC FRS (24 April 1889 – 21 April 1952) was a British Labour politician of the first half of the 20th century. During World War II he served in a number of positions in the wartime coalition, including Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Minister of Aircraft Production. After the war he served in the Attlee Ministry, firstly as President of the Board of Trade and between 1947 and 1950 as Chancellor of the Exchequer. In the latter position, Cripps was responsible for laying the foundations of Britain’s post-war economic prosperity, and was, according to historian Kenneth O. Morgan, “the real architect of the rapidly improving economic picture and growing affluence from 1952 onwards.” The economy improved after 1947, benefiting from the American money given through the Marshall Plan, but was hurt by the forced devaluation of the pound in 1949. He kept rationing in place to hold down consumption during an "age of austerity," promoted exports, and maintained full employment with static wages. A leading spokesman for the left and cooperation in a Popular Front with Communists before 1939, he grew wary of the Soviet Union after his term as ambassador, 1940–42. He failed in his efforts to resolve the wartime crisis in India, where the proposals he drafted himself were too radical for Churchill and the cabinet, and too conservative for Gandhi and his people. The public especially respected "his integrity, competence, and Christian principles."