The town's early industries included millinery, silk weaving, and coal mining, but despite its proximity to the Potteries it did not develop a ceramics trade.

This ultimately derives from a Brythonic word related to the modern Welsh "llwyf", meaning elm.

Elm trees covered an extensive area across the present day counties of Cheshire, Staffordshire and parts of Derbyshire.

The new castle superseded an older fortress at Chesterton, about 2 miles (3 km) to the north, whose ruins were visible up to the end of the 16th century.

In 1265 Newcastle was granted by the Crown to Simon de Montfort and later to Edmund Crouchback, through whom it passed to Henry IV.

[citation needed] However, it was the home town of Major General Thomas Harrison, a Cromwellian army officer and leader of the Fifth Monarchy Men.

[10] When Stoke-on-Trent was formed by the 1910 amalgamation of the "six towns" (Stoke, Hanley, Fenton, Longton, Burslem and Tunstall), Newcastle remained separate.

[citation needed] After the Local Government Act 1972, Newcastle became the principal settlement of the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme.

Like neighbouring Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle's early economy was based around the hatting trade, silk and cotton mills.

The manufacture in the borough of clay tobacco-smoking pipes started about 1637 and grew rapidly, until it was second only to hatting as an industry.

Newcastle's 20th-century industries include: iron-working, construction materials, clothing (especially military, police and transport uniforms), computers, publishing, electric motors and machinery.

Fanny Deakin was a campaigner for better nourishment for babies and young children and better maternity care for mothers.

writer, feminist (and mother of Labour Party Minister and later Liberal Democrat Shirley Williams) was born in the town.

The town was once served by the North Staffordshire Railway, its station being on a branch from Stoke-on-Trent via Newcastle, Silverdale and Keele, to Market Drayton in Shropshire.

First defined in 1967,[15] most of the area extends into the wider borough, but some landscape features and places of interest within that are covered or surrounded.

They include the Michelin Sports Facility, Newcastle golf course, Keele University, Apedale Winding Wheel, Watermills Chimney and Bignall Hill.

As part of its Sustainable Environment Strategy, it processes household and business waste through a 'waste to energy' plant and partnered with Advantage West Midlands in the development of Blue Planet Chatterley Valley, a sustainable logistics facility on the site of a former colliery completed in 2008.

Newcastle-under-Lyme railway station, which was not within the town but towards Water Street on the Stoke to Market Drayton Line, closed in 1964 under the Beeching cuts.

[27] The town features several parks, including the Queen's Gardens at the east end of Ironmarket, which won the Britain in Bloom Judges' Award for Horticultural Excellence in 2003.

Queen Elizabeth Garden is located outside the town centre and was due for refurbishment using National Lottery Heritage Fund money.

[31] The market was originally held on Sunday; in the reign of John it was changed to Saturday; by the charter of Elizabeth it was fixed on Monday.

In 1882 W. H. Dalton bought the Barracks and settled them in trust for use by the Rifle Volunteers of Newcastle, which became the Territorial Force in 1907.

[36] Just outside the town centre, it offers a programme that includes modern and classic plays and concert performances.

[37][38] Notable residents who contributed to the arts and entertainment include Philip Astley, founder of the modern circus.

Dinah Maria Mulock, who wrote under her married name of Mrs Craik, lived in the town (in Lower Street and Mount Pleasant) and attended Brampton House Academy.

[43] Newcastle was home to Dr Philip Willoughby-Higson (1933–2012), poet, translator, historian, and author of 33 books.

Regional local news and television programmes are BBC West Midlands and ITV Central.

[56] There are several Catholic churches, notably Holy Trinity,[57][58] whose style is Gothic in blue engineering bricks, described as "the finest modern specimen of ornamental brickwork in the kingdom" at the time.

In the 18th century John Wesley made repeated visits to the area, which was becoming industrialised, and recruited many residents to Methodism.

Accordingly, a school in the South African town benefited in 2004 from gifts of computing equipment surplus to Newcastle-under-Lyme's needs.