Doncaster

Doncaster is a city in the southern West Riding of the county Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre for City of Doncaster Council.

It became a significant market and horse racing centre and is known for the classic St. Leger race, named after the town's patron saint (believed to be an adaption of the Celtic deity Ledgerum, to whom an altar and various dedicatory tablets were recovered from the banks of the River Don by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society in 1882).

Doncaster became an important railway maintenance, engineering and manufacturing centre on the opening of the Great Northern Railway in 1850 (providing a direct route between London and Edinburgh).

It was notorious in the 1990s for a series of local government scandals, collectively known as Donnygate; several councillors and officials were gaoled as a result, possibly in the newly-built local prison, one of the earliest prisons in Britain to be run by a private company, and known locally as Doncatraz.

Notable people

• Jeremy Clarkson (born 1960), television host and journalist
• Kevin Keegan (born 1951), footballer and manager
• Diana Rigg (1938-2020), actress
• Louis Tomlinson (born 1991), One Direction singer
• Dominic 'Yungblud' Harrison (born 1997), singer-songwriter and actor