Rawicz was founded in 1638 by Adam Olbracht Przyjma-Przyjemski, a magnate holding a function of the Great Crown Quartermaster. King Władysław IV issued a foundation act on 24 March 1638 in which he granted the town with numerous privileges and ensured the freedom for religious practices.
The urban layout of Rawicz, particularly the oldest part, was designed by Michał Flandrin, an architect from Wrocław, and has practically remained unchanged until nowadays. It corresponds with the greatest layout models typical of the towns in the Western Europe. Presently, the town’s outline has been included in the register of historical monuments. Seen from the birds eye view, it resembles a chessboard. It was arranged in a shape of a square with the market square in the centre and the streets coming out of it. As a result, a regular division of plots and streets crossing perpendicularly can be easily seen.
Quickly developing Rawicz by the end of the 18th century reached a population of 9 940 residents (comparing to Poznań with 11380 residents at the same time - currently the largest city in the voivodship), and still in the early decades of the 19th century it had a position of the second biggest city in the Greater Poland. Many people that settled in the town were craftsmen with high professional qualifications. They set up guilds, the largest of which were the guilds of clothiers and millers. Clothier craft was the most important craft branch during the first two centuries of Rawicz history and highly contributed into its development. Unfortunately, in 1815 the Polish Kingdom introduced high custom duty on baize commodities, and because of poor suport from the Prussian authorities, this craft branch collapsed.
There are a few buildings from the 18th century that even today confirm the greatness of the town and the wealth of the residents. The Town Hall has been the most important building throughout the centuries. In its original form, built just after the foundation of Rawicz, it was constructed of wood.
In 1771 Katarzyna Sapieżyna sold Rawicz to Jan Nepomucen Mycielski. It was a very hard period caused by the economic crisis of the Seven Years’ War and Bar Confederation.
In 1815 Rawicz became a part of The Grand Duchy of Greater Poland that belonged to Prussia. Because of the Prussians’ activity, Rawicz was a garrison town for long decades. There were about one thousand soldiers and officers stationed in the town. Also, owing to Prussians, Rawicz gained prison, which is even nowadays known nationwide. After Rawicz was taken over by the Second Reich in 1871, it encountered a rapid industrial development. At the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century there were numerous factories, such as cigar factories, snuff factories, breweries, steam mills, a cast iron foundry, a brewery machinery factory, a dairy, a linen rettery and a brush factory.
The World War I interrupted the process of Rawicz development. After it had finished, the division between the inhabitants was clearly visible. The majority of the town’s population were the Germans, who wanted the town to remain within the borders of the German state. Polish citizens wanted it to be located in the Revived Poland. In early Autumn 1918, a secret Komitet Obywatelski (Citizens’ Committee) was founded by an independence activist, priest Zdzisław Zakrzewski.
During the inter-war period, Rawicz was nationwide famous for Korpus Kadetów (Cadet Corps), a military secondary school (gymnasium), which was founded in 1925 as one of three, and later from 1936, one of two schools of such type in Poland.
During the World War II Rawicz encountered the tragedy of destruction. The Nazi occupiers destroyed every evidence of its national greatness. They demolished the monuments of the Polish Soldier, of Tadeusz Kościuszko, of St Stanisław Kostka (all of them were rebuilt after the war), liquidated the Jewish cemetery and pulled down the synagogue. The prison in Rawicz became the place of mass extermination of the Poles involved in the resistance movement.
On 22nd January 1945 the troops of the Red Army liberated Rawicz from the Nazi occupation. In the times of Stalinism, Rawicz gained its horrid reputation, mainly because of the Central Prison, which became the main destination of political prisoners.
In 1945, at the beginning of Rzeczypospolita Polska (The Republic of Poland), a paradoxically named non-sovereign state ruled by the communistic PPR, Rawicz was populated by 8500 inhabitants.