Place:Bingley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia Bingley is now a civil parish and a market town in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, situated on the north side of the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. It had a population of 18,294 at the 2011 UK Census. Bingley railway station is in the town centre and Leeds Bradford International Airport 10 miles (16 km) away. The B6265 road connects Bingley to the nearby town of Keighley (to the west). Before 1974 Bingley was part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. [edit] History Bingley was probably founded by the Saxons, by a ford on the River Aire. This crossing gave access to Harden, Cullingworth and Wilsden on the south side of the river. In the Domesday Book of 1086 Bingley appears as "Bingheleia" where it is described as "In Bingheleia, Gospatric has a manor of four carucate of land to be taxed, land for two ploughs. Ernegis de Burun has it and it is waste. In the time of King Edward the Confessor it was valued at four pounds. Woodland pasture two leagues long and one broad. All the manor is four long and two broad." (This is a rough translation found in Wikipedia.)

The ford was superseded by the first wooden Ireland Bridge which was rebuilt in stone in 1686 and still exists today. Bingley was a manor which extended several miles up and down the Aire valley, extending upstream to Marley on the outskirts of Keighley and downstream to [[Place:Cottingley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England|Cottingley. Bingley became a market town with the grant of a Market Charter in 1212 by King John.

According to the poll tax returns of 1379, Bingley was the largest town in the area with 130 households, probably around 500 people. The nearby towns of Bradford, Leeds and Halifax had about half this population.

In 1592, Bingley was shown on a map by Yorkshire map-maker Christopher Saxton as a single street with about 20 houses on each side. The church sits at the west end of the street opposite a single large house, possibly a manor house. Since Bingley was a market town, the market stalls would have been set up on either side of the main street. One of the oldest buildings in Bingley is a coaching inn, the Old White Horse Inn, on the flatter north bank of the River Aire by Ireland Bridge.

Like many towns in the West Riding, Bingley prospered during the Industrial Revolution. The Bingley section of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was completed in 1774, linking the town with Skipton, and Bradford via the Bradford Canal. The canal passes through the town centre and ascends the side of the valley via the Bingley Five Rise Locks and Bingley Three Rise Locks.

Several woollen and worsted mills were built and people migrated from the surrounding countryside to work in them. Many came from further afield such as Ireland in the wake of the Irish Potato Famine. A railway and line goods yard were constructed bringing further trade. The villages of Gilstead and Eldwick became part of the Bingley conurbation.

The Beeching Axe of 1964 demolished the goods yard, although the station still has trains to Leeds, Bradford, Skipton, Morecambe and Carlisle. The textile mills have largely been closed, but some continue to trade as mail order warehouses.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Bingley.

Governance

Bingley was originally an ancient parish in the Skyrack Wapentake. It became a civil parish in 1866 and for 12 years (1882-1894) it was part of the Municipal Borough of Keighley. In 1894 it became a separate urban district. In 1974 it became part of Bradford Metropolitan Borough in the newly-formed administrative county of West Yorkshire.

Research Tips

• British History Online (Victoria County Histories) do not cover the West Riding of Yorkshire
• GENUKI has a page on all three ridings of Yorkshire and pages for each of the ecclesiastical parishes in the county. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. The list is based on a gazetteer dated 1835 and there may have been a number of alterations to the parish setup since then. However, it is worthwhile information for the pre civil registration era. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and the submitter is very firm about his copyright. This should not stop anyone from reading the material.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851 which gives the registration district and wapentake for each parish, together with statistics from the 1851 census for the area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, Yorkshire West Riding, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72.

• Map of the West Riding divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Map of West Riding divisions in 1917 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. In other counties, the map for 1900 has been used, but it is not coming up in Vision of Britain's list.
• Map of West Riding divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time

• The above three maps indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.
• Yorkshire has a large number of family history and genealogical societies. A list of the societies will be found on the Yorkshire, England page.
• In March 2018 Ancestry announced that its file entitled "Yorkshire, England: Church of England Parish Records, 1538-1873" has been expanded to include another 94 parishes (across the three ridings) and expected it to be expanded further during the year. The entries are taken from previously printed parish registers.