A Brief Chronology of Leeds
Century :
11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th Current
| 8th Century | |
| AD 731 | Bede makes first mention of 'Loidis' |
| 11th Century | |
| 1069 | Leeds escapes the Harrying of the North; Bramley, Beeston etc destroyed |
| 1086 | Leeds Mentioned in Domesday Book |
| 1089 | Ralph Paynel gives property including the Parish church to Holy Trinity, York |
| 12th Century | |
| c1110 | Thomas is the first recorded Vicar of Leeds |
| 1152 | Kirkstall Abbey founded |
| 1155 | Knights Templar take over Newsam |
| 1185 | First fulling mill in England recorded at Temple Newsam |
| 13th Century Top of the page | |
| 1207 | Maurice Paynel grants Leeds a charter |
| 1258 | Market operating in Leeds |
| 14th Century Top of the page | |
| 1319 | First recorded murder in Leeds when Robert of North Hall murdered William de Wayte |
| 1341 | Market operating on a Monday |
| 1322 | Mention of the first bridge over River Aire - probably one since 11th century |
| 15th Century Top of the page | |
| 1469 | Woollen industry well established in Leeds |
| 16th Century Top of the page | |
| 1539 | Kirkstall Abbey dissolved |
| 1552 | Leeds Grammar School established |
| 1560 | First map of Leeds |
| 17th Century Top of the page | |
| 1615 | Moot Hall built in Briggate |
| 1624 | John Harrison builds new grammar school |
| 1626 | King Charles I grants charter |
| 1626 | First Leeds council met |
| 1628 | Thomas Metcalf built Red Hall, the first brick built house in Leeds |
| 1634 | John Harrison builds St John's Church |
| 1643 | Battle of Briggate; Parliamentary victory |
| 1645 | Bubonic plague kills 1325 people |
| 1647 | Charles I held prisoner in Leeds in Red Hall |
| 1654 | Adam Baynes becomes Leeds the first MP |
| 1661 | Second charter gives Leeds a mayor |
| 1663 | Farnley Wood Plot to overthrow Charles II |
| 1682 | Chapeltown Moor saw the first recorded horse race in Leeds |
| 1684 | Charles II grants the third charter |
| 1684 | Market moved from Leeds Bridge to Briggate |
| 1689 | William III and Mary II re-instate the second charter |
| c1690 | Ralph Thoresby establishes the first museum in Leeds |
| 1693 | The first actual race meeting on Chapeltown Moor |
| 1694 | George Sorocold constructs water supply in Leeds |
| 1699 | Act of Parliament permits building of the Aire & Calder Navigation |
| 18th Century Top of the page | |
| 1704 | Aire and Calder Navigation came into use |
| 1711 | New Moot Hall opened |
| 1715 | Ralph Thoresby publishes Ducatus |
| 1715 | First record of football in the town: played on frozen river Aire |
| 1718 | Leeds Mercury founded |
| 1718 | First record of football hooliganism when a man is killed on Boar Lane |
| 1742 | In Armley the first Methodist meeting place established in Leeds |
| 1744 | Moravians settle at Fulneck |
| 1745 | Mob attacks John Wesley in the town |
| 1749 | Josiah Fearn, the only lord of the manor of Leeds, to be executed |
| 1749 | Thomas Mawson, is the first recorded black person in Leeds |
| 1754 | Leeds Intelligencer, now Yorkshire Post, founded |
| 1755 | Street lighting introduced |
| 1758 | First railway act establishes Middleton Railway |
| 1767 | Joseph Priestley becomes minister at Mill Hill Chapel |
| 1768 | Leeds Library founded |
| 1770 | Act passes to allow Leeds and Liverpool Canal to be built |
| 1771 | Leeds Infirmary opens on Infirmary St. |
| 1775 | White Cloth Hall built in the Calls |
| 1777 | Assembly Rooms opened |
| 1780 | Lucas of Mabgate wins the first recorded boxing match in Leeds |
| 1781 | John Wesley preaches to over one thousand people in the town |
| 1784 | Sunday schools open for the first time Leeds |
| 1786 | Vincenzo Lunardi makes the first balloon ascent from Leeds from the White Cloth Hall yard |
| 1790 | First Roman Catholic church in Leeds since the Reformation opened in Lady Lane |
| 1792 | John Marshall moves his flax mill from Adel to Holbeck |
| 1792 | Benjamin Gott commenced building his mill at Bean Ing |
| 1798 | Edward Baines publishes the first magazine in Leeds for the Methodist New Connexion |
| 19th Century Top of the page | |
| 1801 | Edward Baines purchases the Leeds Mercury and makes regular use of editorials |
| 1808 | Northern Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts began meeting. |
| 1812 | Matthew Murray's steam engines begin operating on Middleton Railway |
| 1813 | John Bruce killed on Middleton Railway, probably the first steam railway casualty ever |
| 1816 | Turner paints, Leeds from Beeston Hill, the first ever panorama of an industrial scene |
| 1816 | Leeds and Liverpool Canal completed |
| 1818 | Surpliced choir sings at the Parish Church, the first in England since the Reformation |
| 1819 | Military barracks established at Buslingthorpe |
| 1819 | Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society established |
| 1822 | Joshua Tetley buys Sykes's Brewery |
| 1823 | First prosecution for animal cruelty in Leeds |
| 1823 | Commutation of tithes ended |
| 1825 | Miss Stocks makes first flight by a woman from Leeds |
| 1827 | Brunswick Chapel dispute erupts |
| 1832 | Cholera epidemic strikes in Leeds |
| 1832 | Leeds granted 2 members of Parliament - John Marshall jun and T B Macaulay elected |
| 1834 | First by-election in Leeds won by Edward Baines for the Whigs |
| 1834 | First railway from Leeds runs to Selby |
| 1835 | Sir John Beckett wins election and is the first Tory MP returned for a newly enfranchised borough |
| 1835 | Municipal Reform Bill gives town new corporation - George Goodman first mayor |
| 1838 | James Holdforth becomes the first Roman Catholic mayor in England since the Reformation |
| 1840 | On Gelderd Road the Jews open their first cemetery in Leeds |
| 1841 | New Parish Church opens |
| 1842 | Willian Huggon takes the first known photograph in Leeds at his studio in Park Row |
| 1842 | Chartists 'Plug Riots' in town |
| 1843 | Allotments provided for the first time in Leeds |
| 1847 | Band of Hope founded |
| 1847 | Typhus epidemic in Leeds |
| 1847 | Armley Jail opened |
| 1847 | First synagogue opened |
| 1848 | Some 2000 die in cholera epidemic |
| 1848 | Leeds Moral and Industrial Training School opened - will eventually become St James's |
| 1853 | The Leeds Anti-Slavey Association established |
| 1858 | John Barran commenced mass production of ready-made clothes |
| 1858 | Private John Pearson wins the first Leeds VC at Gwalior in Central India |
| 1858 | Queen Victoria opens Town Hall |
| 1861 | Cuthbert Brodrick’s Corn Exchange opened |
| 1863 | Edward Sheldon installs the first rented poster site in Britain |
| 1866 | Sir Clifford Albutt at Leeds Infirmary invented the first modern clinical thermometer |
| 1866 | First half day week holiday granted by Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society for its staff |
| 1867 | Leeds granted three MPs |
| 1868 | New Infirmary on Great George Street opened |
| 1870 | Librarian appointed and first public libraries in Leeds opened |
| 1870 | Women who qualified voted for the first time in the town in the School Board elections |
| 1871 | Leeds School Board formed |
| 1871 | First horse trams introduced |
| 1872 | First Board School schools opened in temporary premises |
| 1873 | Bewerley Street, the first School Board purpose-built school opened |
| 1874 | Yorkshire College of Science - eventually to become Leeds University - opened |
| 1874 | Leeds Fine Art Club founded |
| 1878 | John Barran opens Moorish-Venetian style ready-made clothing factory in Park Square |
| 1878 | First shopping arcade opened - Thornton's Arcade |
| 1878 | Roman Catholic diocese of Leeds created |
| 1878 | The first floodlight rugby game played on Cardigan Fields |
| 1880 | The first telephones established in the town |
| 1881 | Gladstone heard by a crowd of 30,000 in Coloured Cloth Hall |
| 1882 | Edward Lewis opens the first fish and chip shop in Leeds on Marsh Lane |
| 1884 | Michael Marks opens stall in Leeds market |
| 1885 | Leeds divided into five Parliamentary constituencies |
| 1885 | Central Higher Grade School opened |
| 1888 | County Borough of Leeds created |
| 1888 | From Leeds Bridge Louis le Prince takes some of the world’s first moving pictures |
| 1888 | Leeds Art Gallery opened |
| 1889 | Thoresby Society founded |
| 1889 | Headingley sports ground developed |
| 1890 | Yorkshire Evening Post established |
| 1893 | Leeds becomes a city |
| 1897 | Mayor becomes a Lord Mayor |
| 1891 | Eleven children burnt to death at New Year Day’s bazaar at St John’s Church Wortley |
| 1891 | The first overhead electric trams in Europe ran from Sheepscar to Roundhay |
| 1892 | Headingley, the first Leeds golf club founded |
| 1898 | First motoring offence prosecution in the city when Rowland Winn drove at 12mph |
| 1898 | Leeds Savage Club established in 1898 established for people interested in Art, Music and Literature. |
| 20th Century Top of the page | |
| 1900 | Films being shown at the Coliseum |
| 1903 | U1 becomes the first car registration in the city |
| 1903 | Labour Representation Committee, later the Labour Party, won its first council seat |
| 1903 | City Square opened |
| 1903 | Leeds Daily News becomes Yorkshire Evening News |
| 1904 | Leeds University established |
| 1904 | New St Anne's Cathedral opened |
| 1904 | Dr Laura Veale becomes the first female doctor appointed in the city |
| 1906 | The first buses began operating on a route between Adel and Headingley |
| 1906 | James O’Grady elected for Leeds East to become the first Labour MP for Leeds |
| 1908 | Mrs Pankhurst addresses mass meeting of suffragettes on Woodhouse Moor |
| 1909 | The first Leeds Babies’ Welcome opened on Ellerby Lane |
| 1910 | Francis Rushworth was the first woman to vote in a Parliamentary election in Leeds |
| 1911 | Children strike in Leeds schools |
| 1911 | The Picture House, the first purpose-built cinema opened; later known as the Rialto |
| 1911 | The first trolley bus service in Britain began running to Farnley |
| 1913 | Montague Burton sets up his clothing firm in Leeds |
| 1915 | Augusta Friend was the first woman to graduate in medicine from the University of Leeds |
| 1916 | Major disaster at Barnbow munitions factory when thirty-five women were killed |
| 1916 | Battle of the Somme - estimated virtually every street in Leeds lost one man killed |
| 1918 | Influenza epidemic strikes and by 1919 kills 1,800 Leeds people |
| 1918 | Florence Parrish becomes the first Leeds woman police officer |
| 1918 | George Ellison of Leeds is the last British soldier killed in the First World War |
| 1922 | The first Children’s Day held in Leeds |
| 1922 | Miss Mary Grant of the Liberal Party stood in Leeds South East and was the first woman to stand in a Parliamentary election in Leeds |
| 1923 | Moor Allerton is the first Jewish golf club to open in Europe |
| 1924 | 2LS begins broadcasting from Leeds |
| 1925 | Montague Burton's is the largest and most popular clothing factory in Europe |
| 1926 | General Strike - serious rioting in Vicar Land and Duncan Street |
| 1928 | At the junction of Park Row and Bond Street, the first traffic lights installed in the city |
| 1929 | At Moortown Golf Club the first ever Ryder Cup in Britain is played |
| 1931 | Leeds and Bradford take over Yeadon airport |
| 1933 | Civic Hall opened by George V |
| 1933 | BBC opens Broadcasting House on Woodhouse Lane |
| 1935 | Commercial flights from Leeds Bradford Airport commence |
| 1939 | The first British POW captured on 4 September is RAF Sergeant George Booth of Leeds |
| 1940 | The only Parliamentary election held in Leeds during the war |
| 1941 | Hyman Morris is elected the first Jewish lord mayor of Leeds |
| 1941 | Worst air raid on Leeds - 60 killed |
| 1945 | Alice Bacon [Lab] elected as city's first woman MP |
| 1946 | Referendum in Leeds votes to open cinemas on a Sunday |
| 1956 | The first comprehensive school opened at Foxwood |
| 1958 | The Jinnah Mosque is the first mosque in Leeds opened |
| 1959 | Trams cease to operate in the city |
| 1961 | Leeds Triennial Music Festival established |
| 1961 | Leeds International Pianoforte competition commenced |
| 1961 | Grandways is the first fully-fledged discount store to open in England |
| 1962 | Highest ever levels of sulphur dioxide recorded on Kirkstall Road during three days of fog |
| 1965 | Parking meters introduced in city |
| 1965 | Leeds Civic Trust established |
| 1965 | ASDA begins operations at Cross Gates |
| 1967 | Chapeltown Carnival launched |
| 1968 | Yorkshire Television opens its studios on Kirkstall Road |
| 1968 | Postcodes were first used in the city |
| 1968 | BBC Radio Leeds began broadcasting |
| 1969 | The first Hindu temple opened on Alexandra Road |
| 1970 | Leeds Polytechnic formed |
| 1974 | Leeds becomes a metropolitan borough |
| 1975 | Leeds Cassette, the first magazine for visually handicapped people, launched in the city |
| 1978 | Opera North based at the Grand Theatre |
| 1981 | Riots in Chapeltown |
| 1981 | Radio Aire begins broadcasting |
| 1982 | Queen opens Henry Moor Sculpture Gallery |
| 1983 | BBC TV ends the Good Old Days at City Varieties after 30 years |
| 1985 | Concord Multi-Faith Resources Centre opened |
| 1986 | The first Leeds International Film Festival launched |
| 1987 | The first Blue Plaque in Leeds unveiled; Burley Bar Stone on the Headrow |
| 1990 | West Yorkshire Playhousee opened |
| 1991 | Census shows 6% of population from ethnic minority groups |
| 1992 | Polytechnic becomes Leeds Metropolitan University |
| 1993 | Ujjal Singh Rayat becomes the first Sikh councillor |
| 1996 | Leeds one of the hosts for European Football Championships |
| 1996 | Royal Armouries Museum opened by Elizabeth II |
| 1998 | Super bus lanes introduced |
| 1998 | European Union funds experiment in car sharing on Stanningley Road |
| 1998 | David Blackburn becomes the first Green Party councillor in Leeds |
| 1999 | Hilary Benn is elected in a by-election for Leeds Central with a turnout of just 19.6% |
| 21st Century Top of the page | |
| 2001 | Super tram service announced |
| 2006 | Mohammed Iqbal becomes the first Muslim lord mayor |
| 2006 | Chris Beverley becomes the first BNP councillor; he is elected for Morley South |
| 2007 | Leeds celebrates the 800 year anniversary of the first charter |
| 2008 | Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, calls the first ever cabinet meeting to be held in Leeds Friday 28th November |
| 2010 | Councillor Andrea McKenna becomes the first serving councillor to become lady mayoress |
| 2012 | Leeds Parish Church becomes a minster |
| 2015 | Andrea Jenkyns is elected the first Conservative woman MP for Leeds for Morley & Outwood |
| 2016 | The Thoresby Society moved its library and archive into the Leeds Library on Commercial Street |
| 2020 | In March Leeds, like the rest of the United Kingdom, faced a complete lockdown in an attempt to combat the coronavirus infection. Universities, schools, places of entertainment and all businesses were closed with the exception of those such as food stores and pharmacies. |