York is gearing up for a massive celebration next year to mark 800 years since the granting of its city charter. STEPHEN LEWIS can’t wait.

NOBODY in York needs much prompting to throw a good party. But if we did, next year provides the perfect excuse.

On July 9, 2012, it will be 800 years since King John signed the city’s charter.

So what? – you might think. Well, actually, it was a big moment. The charter gave the city the right to elect its own mayor, aldermen and council, and for that council to raise taxes.

Before then, York had been under the direct rule of the king through his sheriff in Yorkshire. The charter was the first step towards local democracy.

Of course, democracy didn’t spring into life fully-formed on that day. At first, the council was little more than a gathering of a wealthy local elite, who would have run the city pretty much to suit themselves.

The electorate was restricted to the freemen of York – master traders, guild members and successful businessmen – who elected from their number a ‘common council’. An inner council of 12 aldermen was elected from this, and the Lord Mayor was chosen from among them.

All very comfortable and establishment, no doubt: government of the wealthy, for the wealthy, by the wealthy. “But it was the beginnings of local democracy: of York taking control of its own destiny,” says Victoria Hoyle, of the city archives department at City of York Council.

It was the beginning of citizenship in York, in effect – although it took centuries for that citizenship to extend to all the city’s people.

Quite rightly, therefore, the ordinary citizens of York will be at the heart of the celebrations being planned for next year’s anniversary.

The main focus of the celebrations will be a ‘charter weekend’ from July 7 to 9. But the plan is for there to be celebrations running all year, to make 2012 a year not to be forgotten.

Some of those celebrations will be centrally organised, by the city council working with organisations such as the Minster, the city’s two universities and the York Museums Trust.

The Queen has been invited, in the year of her Diamond Jubilee, to visit York in its 800th year as an independent city: and we already know that the Olympic torch will be coming to York.

The Mystery Plays are being revived in the Museum Gardens; there will be a mass singing event called Ebor Vox, held at churches and church halls across the city; and, for next year’s Big City Read, author Susanna Gregory has been commissioned to write a medieval murder mystery set in York.

There are plans for an archaeological dig next to the Guildhall, the home of democracy in York; and the Yorkshire Museum will stage an exhibition of medieval artefacts. It is hoped there could even be a project telling the history of York in 80 artefacts – one for every decade of the last eight centuries.

The city’s contribution to science won’t be forgotten. There will be an Innovation Grand Tour for three months over next summer – a series of images on display in the city centre, celebrating science in York.

Other existing festivals, such as Illuminating York, the Festival of Ideas and Festival of Rivers, will be themed to fit in with the idea of York 800. There is talk, for example, of a huge regatta to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the charter, although it probably won’t feature 800 boats.

But the key to next year’s celebrations will be the people of York themselves, organisers say.

“It is really, really important that everybody should feel part of the celebrations,” says Sonja Crisp, the city council’s cabinet member for leisure, culture and social inclusion.

So it will be street parties all around, she says: with local neighbourhoods and communities being encouraged to hold their own street parties, and the council doing all it can to help, by providing tables and bunting, and helping with street closures.

Dianne Willcocks, the former vice chancellor of York St John University, who is now chair of the York 800 Advisory Board, agrees that the aim is to make sure no one feels left out. “Citizenship is about being part of your community, of making sure that you matter in your community,” she says.

Organisers are therefore keen to hear from people about how they would like to celebrate the anniversary.

There isn’t a big pot of money to spend, says Gill Cooper, the council’s head of arts and culture. But there is ward committee money, which could go towards street parties; and there will be bids to other findings bodies for specific projects.

“So we do want to ask people how they would like to celebrate, and also get them to tell us what they are doing. It is not necessarily about spending lots of money: it is about people and local communities and neighbourhoods coming together. So if you’ve got some great ideas, please let us know.”

• Anyone with ideas for how to celebrate 800 years of York’s city charter should email york800@york.gov.uk or write to Gill Cooper, Head of Arts, Heritage and Culture, CYC, 10-12 George Hudson Street, York YO1 6LP.

From the archives

FROM the city’s ‘House Books’, an unbroken series of volumes from 1476 to the present day, recording the decisions of the council and the story of the city of York (put into modern English but unedited):

July 8, 1541: Preparations for the visit of Henry VIII
“My Lord Mayor of this City, by the advice of all my masters, his brethren, Aldermen, Sheriffs and others of the Council of the City gives plain mention and warning unto all the inhabitants of this City that none of them from henceforth shall cast any manner of ramell, sweepings of houses, dung nor other filth or vile things into the water of the Ouse...”

August 23, 1485: Reaction to the death of Richard III at Bosworth
“...King Richard late mercifully reigning upon us was, through great treason of the Duke of Norfolk and many other that turned against him …was piteously slain and murdered to the great heaviness of the city.”

July 25, 1644, following the surrender of the city to Lord Fairfax’ Parliamentarian Army after the Siege of York
“Ordered that a butt of sack and a tunn of French wine be presented to the Lord Fairfax, General of the North, in regard the great love and affection he hath showed to the City.”

December 26, 1877, from the minutes of the York Watch
“To the Right Hon’ the Lord Mayor from tradesmen and residents on Fossgate and the vicinity. Complaint about the standards of public behaviour: “We the undersigned tradesmen and residents of Fossgate and the vicinity beg to call the attention of your Lordship as Chairman of the Watch Committee to the ineffective police arrangements with reference to the populace thoroughfare of Fossgate. The frequent brawls and disturbances of the public peace especially on Saturday evenings have become a public scandal and the continuous assembling of loose women and other disorderly persons on the footways opposite the passages leading into [Hungate?] seriously interfere with the thoroughfare and is a cause of great annoyance and complaint.”

800 years worth celebrating

IT IS easy today to think of York as a small historic city that looks to the past. But for a good bit of the last 800 years it was England’s capital in the north – and even when it lost that status, it was often at the forefront of new ideas.

John Goodrick, the astronomer who observed the first binary star, was a York man – and the city was at the centre of the railway industry and, through the Rowntrees, a social pioneer too.

With the success of Science City and the explosion of the science, technology and digital sectors in modern York, it remains a city of innovation today.

Here are key events from York’s history over the past 800 years.

1212

King John signs the York city charter, marking the beginning of local government in the city, and the first council tax

1319

York becomes the base of operations for King Edward I and Edward II in their wars with Scotland. In 1319 a Scottish army reaches York. A defence force sent out by the city is defeated, with 3,000 casualties.

1349

The whole of England is laid waste by the Black Death. In York, up to one in three of the population died.

1483

King Richard III comes to York and is received with love and affection.

1536

The Pilgrimage of Grace, a northern rebellion against the closure of the monasteries, arrives in York. The mayor and councillors surrender without a fight, allowing 5,000 men led by Robert Aske to take control of the city.

1541

After crushing the Pilgrimage of Grace, King Henry VIII visits York, where officials beg for his forgiveness.

1644

York is besieged by Parliamentary forces under Sir Thomas Fairfax during the Civil War. The royalist forces in York are forced to surrender after the King’s men are beaten at the Battle of Marston Moor. Sir Thomas Fairfax is thanked by city councillors for the protection he gives to the city’s people and churches after York’s surrender.

1710 onwards

York becomes the “social capital of the north”, with the Assembly Rooms (1732), the New Walk by the River Ouse for promenading (1730) and the Theatre Royal (1740 all being built). By the 1750s, Ebor race week is well established.

1839

The railway arrives in York and the first station is built.

1916

The zeppelin raids of the First World War kill nine and injure 40 in the city.

1942

92 people die and many historic buildings are damaged when York is bombed again in the Second World War.

1963

The University of York is founded.

2010

The oldest human brain is discovered during an archaeological dig at the new University of York campus at Heslington East.