Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a market town in the borough of East Staffordshire in the county of Staffordshire, England, close to the border with Derbyshire. At the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,270. The demonym for residents of the town is Burtonian. Burton is located on the River Trent south-west of Derby and south of the Peak District National Park.
Burton is known for its brewing. The town grew up around Burton Abbey. Burton Bridge was also the site of two battles, in 1322, when Edward II defeated the rebel Earl of Lancaster and in 1643 when royalists captured the town during the First English Civil War. William Lord Paget and his descendants were responsible for extending the manor house within the abbey grounds and facilitating the extension of the River Trent Navigation to Burton. Burton grew into a busy market town by the early modern period.
The town is served by Burton-on-Trent railway station. The town was also the start and terminus of the now defunct South Staffordshire Line which linked it to Lichfield, Walsall, Dudley and Stourbridge.
Toponymy The name Burton upon Trent derives from the meaning "a settlement at a fortified place" along the River Trent and dates from the 8th century.
According to the town's charter the official name of the town is Burton upon Trent. However, the form 'Burton-on-Trent' is used for the post town by Royal Mail and for the town's railway station.
History Rykneld Street, a Roman road, ran north-east through what later became the parish of Burton, linking settlements at Letocetum (Wall), near Lichfield and Derventio (Little Chester) near Derby.
Between 666 and 669 Wilfrid, the pro-Roman bishop of York, exercised episcopal functions in Mercia, whose Christian king, Wulfhere, gave him land in various places, on which he established monasteries. Burton was almost certainly one of the sites: the name Andresey given to an island in the river Trent near the parish church means "Andrew's isle" and refers to a church there dedicated to St Andrew. The island is associated with the legend of St Modwen or Modwenna, an Irish abbess. It is likely that any surviving religious house would have been destroyed during the Danish incursion into the area in 874. Place names indicate Scandinavian influence, and several personal names of Scandinavian origin were still used in the area in the early 12th century. In 1003 a Benedictine abbey was established on a new site on the west bank of the Trent at Burton by Wulfric Spott, a thegn. He is known to have been buried in the abbey cloister in 1010, alongside his wife.
Burton Abbey was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it was said to control lands in Appleby Magna in Leicestershire, and Mickleover, Winshill, Stapenhill, Coton in the Elms, Ca(u)ldwell (in Stapenhill Parish) and Ticknall, all then in Derbyshire. The monastery was the most important in Staffordshire and by the 1530s had the highest revenue. It is known that there were frequent Royal visits to the abbey, including those by William I, Henry II and Edward I. In the 12th and 13th centuries, streets were laid out off the west side of High Street, the earliest being New Street, which stretched from the abbey gates towards the line of Ryknild Street. Horninglow Street at the north end of High Street was part of a major east–west route using the bridge over the river.
A royal charter was granted on 12 April 1200 by King John to the Abbot to hold a market in Burton every Thursday. This charter was later renewed by King Henry III and King Edward IV. There were four annual fairs for trade in horses, cattle and produce: on Candlemas Day, 5 April, Holy Thursday, and 29 October (the feast of St Modwen) although as in other British towns this practice has died out.
While Burton's great bridge over the Trent was in poor repair by the early 16th century, it served as "a comen passage to and fro many countries to the grett releff and comfort of travellyng people", according to the abbot.Letter from the abbot of Burton describing Burton Bridge in C.H. Underhill, A History of Burton on Trent (Burton, 1941), p. 168. The bridge was the site of two battles, first in 1322 when Edward II defeated the rebel Earl of Lancaster and also in 1643 when the Royalists captured the town during the First English Civil War.
Under Henry VIII the abbey was dissolved in 1539, to be refounded in 1541 as a collegiate church for a dean (who had been the last abbot) and four prebendaries. It was again dissolved in 1545 and granted to Sir William Paget. Paget began planning to expand the manor house within the abbey precincts, known to have existed since at least 1514, into a grand mansion. To provide the materials for this project, the old abbey buildings were to be cannibalised. There were major alterations to the house over the next three centuries. Sir William died in 1563.
In 1585 it was suggested that Mary, Queen of Scots might stay at Burton while Tutbury Castle was cleaned, but it was said that it was "a ruinous house, the buildings scattered and adjoining a very poor town, full of bad neighbours".William Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1585–1586, vol. 8 (Edinburgh, 1914), p. 61. The Paget family was implicated in Catholic plots against Queen Elizabeth I, the manor house along with most of the family estates were confiscated, with the manor house leased to Richard Almond in 1612. Parts of the abbey church may have been retained for parish use, however these were demolished and replaced by a new church in 1719–1726. Some fragments remain of the chapter house nearby, but little of the rest remains. Two buildings were converted to residential use—a part known as the manor house and the former infirmary. The infirmary became known as The Abbey and is now an inn.
Canals and breweries The Paget family's lands and title were restored to them by James I in 1604 and they owned considerable estates around Burton for over 150 years. In 1699, William Lord Paget obtained an Act of Parliament to extend navigation on the River Trent from Nottingham up to Burton, but nothing was immediately done. In 1711 Lord Paget leased his rights to George Hayne, who in 1712 opened the River Trent Navigation and constructed a wharf and other buildings in the precinct of the old abbey. This led to the development of Burton as the major town for brewing and exporting beer, as it allowed Burton beer to be shipped to Hull, and on to the Baltic Sea and Prussia, as well as to London, where it was being sold in 1712. A number of breweries opened in the second half of the 18th century. The Napoleonic blockade badly affected overseas trade, leading to some consolidation and a redirection of the trade to London and Lancashire via canals. When Burton brewers succeeded in replicating the pale ale produced in London, the advantage of the water's qualities, in a process named Burtonisation allowed the development of the trade of Burton India Pale Ale (an ale specially brewed to keep during the long sea voyage to India). New rail links to Liverpool enabled brewers to export their beer throughout the British Empire.
Burton came to dominate the brewing trade, and at its height one quarter of all beer sold in Britain was produced here. In the second half of the 19th century, there was a growth in native breweries, supplemented by outside brewing companies moving into the town, so that over 30 breweries were recorded in 1880. However at the beginning of the 20th century there was a slump in beer sales, causing many breweries to fail; the industry suffered from the Liberal government's anti-drinking attitudes. This time no new markets were found and so the number of breweries shrank by closure and consolidation from 20 in 1900 to 8 in 1928. After further mergers and buy-outs, just three main breweries remained by 1980: Bass, Ind Coope and Marston's.
Burton was home to the Peel family, who played a significant role in the Industrial Revolution. The family home is still visible in the town as Peel House on Lichfield Street. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II visited the town on 3 July 2002 during her Golden Jubilee celebrations.
Governance There are three tiers of local government covering Burton, at county, district and parish level: Staffordshire County Council, East Staffordshire Borough Council, and a number of parish councils covering different parts of the urban area. There is a parish called Burton which just covers the central part of the town.
Burton is the administrative centre for the borough of East Staffordshire and forms part of the Burton and Uttoxeter constituency. The local Member of Parliament (MP) is the Labour Party's Jacob Collier, who has represented the constituency since the 2024 general election, winning the seat from Kate Kniveton of the Conservative Party.
Administrative history Burton upon Trent was an ancient parish, which historically straddled the boundary between Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The parish was divided into five townships, being Winshill in Derbyshire, and Branston, Horninglow, Stretton and a Burton upon Trent township (covering the central part of the parish) in Staffordshire. The rural parts of the Burton township became a separate township called Burton Extra in the sixteenth century. Such townships were all reclassified as civil parishes in 1866.
Burton had been an ancient borough from the twelfth century, giving some degree of self-government for the town, but by the seventeenth century its borough corporation had ceased to operate and its borough status lapsed, with the town being administered by the parish vestry and manorial courts instead. More urban forms of local government returned to the town in 1779 when a body of improvement commissioners was established, initially just covering the Burton township. Their district was extended in 1853 to take in parts of the townships of Burton Extra and Horninglow, and again in 1878 to take in the rest of Burton Extra, more of Horninglow (including the village), parts of Branston and Winshill, and part of the neighbouring Derbyshire parish of Stapenhill.
Later in 1878 the improvement commissioners' district was incorporated as a municipal borough called Burton upon Trent. When elected county councils were created in 1889 boroughs were no longer allowed to straddle county boundaries, and so the Derbyshire parts of the borough (Stapenhill and Winshill) were transferred to Staffordshire.Local Government Act 1888 Six years later the Local Government Act 1894 said that parishes could no longer straddle borough boundaries, and so the parts of Stapenhill parish outside the borough were transferred to the neighbouring parishes of Bretby and Drakelow, the rural parts of Winshill went to Newton Solney, the rural part of Horninglow became a new parish called Outwoods and the parts of Branston inside the borough were transferred to Burton Extra. The five urban parishes inside the borough were then Burton upon Trent, Burton Extra, Horninglow, Stapenhill and Winshill, which were amalgamated into a single Burton upon Trent parish in 1904.
In 1891 the council was given the former St Paul's Institute and Liberal Club on King Edward Place, which had been built in 1878. They substantially extended the building to serve as their headquarters, renaming it Town Hall.