Rugeley, United Kingdom

Rugeley was an agricultural community for hundreds of years and held regular sheep, cattle and horse fairs. This reached its peak in the mid 19th century and lasting until the 1930s. The Rugeley annual horse fair was known internationally and attracted trade from far and away. To this day there is a main road in Rugeley town centre called Horsefair honouring this, as well as another street honouring the sheep fair.

St. Augustine's Church in Rugeley has memorials to the Levett family, who live at nearby Milford Hall and who established the Rugeley Home and Cottage Hospital on Church Street in 1866.

From 1894 to 1974 the town was administered by Rugeley Urban District Council which was based at Rugeley Town Hall; the town hall was largely demolished in 1978 and all that remains of the building now is the clock tower.

Between 1793 and 1967 Rugeley Grammar School provided selective secondary education for the town and also for Hednesford. Historical characters who were educated at RGS include the banker and railway promoter Edward Charles Blount and the Australian pioneer and politician Charles Bonney.

Although smaller pits had existed beforehand, the town became a centre of industrial scale deep-shaft coal mining from the 1950s, to access similar coal seams to those under Cannock Chase. The Lea Hall Colliery that opened in July 1960 was the first modern coal mine opened by the National Coal Board, which managed the United Kingdom's nationalized coal industry. Nearby the Central Electricity Generating Board built the two Rugeley power stations. With the construction of Rugeley A and B power stations Rugeley became a major centre for electricity generation. These developments led to the town growing very quickly in the 1960s. The Rugeley A power station was designed to take its fuel directly from Lea Hall by conveyor belt (although the coal was of poor quality not suitable for Rugeley B). This was the first such arrangement in Britain. Rugeley power station was shut in 2016 and demolished in stages in 2021. Rugeley was once home to an Amazon fulfilment centre, which was built at the Tower Business Park. The centre closed permanently on 3 March 2024.