In 1931 Corby was a small village with a population of around 1,500. Corby grew rapidly into a reasonable sized industrial town, when a Scottish steel firm located to the then village in the mid-1930s, bringing most of their Scottish employees with them. Due to this, many Corby residents today speak with a Scottish accent, despite being in the English Midlands. Steel production was for many years the town's main industry.
Corby was designated a new town in the 1950s and the town grew further. The steel industry went into decline in the 1980s.