page_title: Exeter
section_title: Modern times
hierarchical_section_title: Exeter / History / Modern times
caption_attribution_description: A drawing of Exeter entitled Civitas Exoniae (vulgo Excester) urbs primaria in comitatu Devoniae in "Civitates Orbis Terrarum", Volume VI, 1617. The work of 6 volumes contains 546 prospects, bird-eye views and map views of cities from all over the world, edited by Georg Braun (1541-1622), a cleric of Cologne, and largely engraved by Franz Hogenberg, published at Cologne, 1572-1617, first volume published in Cologne in 1572, sixth and the final volume appeared in 1617.[1] This map of Exeter Re-published in Lysons, Daniel &amp; Lysons, Samuel, Magna Britannia, Vol.6, Devonshire, London, 1822, p.178[2] Identified on "List of Plates" as "from an old plan in Braun's Civitates Orbis Terrarum 1618". In the bottom left-hand corner are shown the arms of John Hooker (c. 1527–1601) (alias John Vowell) of Exeter, an English historian, writer, solicitor, antiquary, and civic administrator. From 1555 to his death he was Chamberlain of Exeter. He was twice MP for Exeter in 1570/1 and 1586 (Insignia Johannis Hooker, "Armorials of John Hooker"). At top right are the arms of the City of Exeter. At top left the royal arms of Queen Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603).
context_page_description: Exeter is a city in Devon, England, on the River Exe 36 miles northeast of Plymouth and 65 miles southwest of Bristol. It is the county town of Devon, and home to Devon County Council and the University of Exeter.
  In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal command of Vespasian. Exeter became a religious centre in the Middle Ages. Exeter Cathedral, founded in the mid 11th century, became Anglican in the 16th-century English Reformation. In the late 19th century, Exeter became an affluent centre for the wool trade, although by the First World War the city was in decline. After the Second World War, much of the city centre was rebuilt and is now a centre for business and tourism in Devon and Cornwall.
  The administrative area of Exeter has the status of a non-metropolitan district under the administration of the County Council; a plan to grant the city unitary authority status was scrapped by the 2010 coalition government.
context_section_description: Tudor and Stuart eras
  In 1537, the city was made a county corporate. In 1549, the city successfully withstood a month-long siege by the so-called Prayer Book rebels: Devon and Cornish folk who had been infuriated by the radical religious policies of King Edward VI. The insurgents occupied the suburbs of Exeter, burnt down two of the city gates and attempted to undermine the city walls, but were eventually forced to abandon the siege after they had been worsted in a series of bloody battles with the king's army. A number of rebels were executed in the immediate aftermath of the siege. The Livery Dole almshouses and chapel at Heavitree were founded in March 1591 and finished in 1594.
  When John Hooker was appointed to the city payroll in 1561, he created the Court of Orphans as a municipal government for families broken by the premature death of their major economic source. He also was made the Common Council as the legal owner of any estate left to the orphan children of Exeter, until they have reached the age of 21 to be partially paid back. The orphan tax was used to fund the construction of the Exeter canal.
  The city's motto, Semper fidelis, is traditionally held to have been suggested by Elizabeth I, in acknowledgement of the city's contribution of ships to help defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588; however its first documented use is in 1660. Schools in Exeter teach that the motto was bestowed by Charles II in 1660 at the Restoration due to Exeter's role in the English Civil War.
  When in 1638 Reverend John Wheelwright was exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and subsequently established a community on the banks of the Squamscott River, he named the region Exeter after its Devonian counterpart. During the American Revolution it became the capital of New Hampshire.
  Exeter was secured for Parliament at the beginning of the English Civil War, and its defences very much strengthened, but in September 1643 it was captured by the Cornish Royalist Army led by Prince Maurice. Thereafter, the city remained firmly under the king's control until near the end of the war, being one of the final Royalist cities to fall into Parliamentarian hands. The surrender of Exeter was negotiated in April 1646 at Poltimore House by Thomas Fairfax. During this period, Exeter was an economically powerful city, with a strong trade of wool. This was partly due to the surrounding area which was "more fertile and better inhabited than that passed over the preceding day" according to Count Lorenzo Magalotti who visited the city when he was 26 years old. Magalotti writes of over thirty thousand people being employed in the county of Devon as part of the wool and cloth industries, merchandise that was sold to "the West Indies, Spain, France and Italy". Celia Fiennes also visited Exeter during this period, in the early 1700s. She remarked on the "vast trade" and "incredible quantity" in Exeter, recording that "it turns the most money in a week of anything in England", between £10,000 and £15,000.
  Georgian and Victorian eras
  Early in the Industrial Revolution, Exeter's industry developed on the basis of locally available agricultural products and, since the city's location on a fast-flowing river gave it ready access to water power, an early industrial site developed on drained marshland to the west of the city, at Exe Island. However, when steam power replaced water in the 19th century, Exeter was too far from sources of coal (or iron) to develop further. As a result, the city declined in relative importance and was spared the rapid 19th-century development that changed many historic European cities. Extensive canal redevelopments during this period further expanded Exeter's economy, with "vessels of 15 to 16 tons burthen [bringing] up goods and merchandise from Topsham to the City Quay". In 1778 a new bridge across the Exe was opened to replace the old medieval bridge. Built at a cost of £30,000, it had three arches and was built of stone.
  In 1832, cholera, which had been erupting all across Europe, reached Exeter. The only known documentation of this 
caption: An illustration of Exeter in 1563, entitled Civitas Exoniae (vulgo Excester) urbs primaria in comitatu Devoniae
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