Place:Craven District, North Yorkshire, England

Watchers
NameCraven District
TypeDistrict municipality
Coordinates53.962°N 2.017°W
Located inNorth Yorkshire, England     (1974 - )
Also located inYorkshire, England    
See alsoSkipton, West Riding of Yorkshire, Englandurban district contributing to the Craven District
Settle Rural, West Riding of Yorkshire, Englandrural district contributing to the Craven District
Skipton Rural, West Riding of Yorkshire, Englandrural district contributing to the Craven District
source: Family History Library Catalog
NOTE: In common parlance, the Craven District is spoken of as "Craven". In order to differentiate Yorkshire local government districts formed in 1974 from other types of districts employed earlier in the county, here in WeRelate the word "District" has been added to all modern govenment districts outside a metropolitan borough.


the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Craven is the name of a local government district in North Yorkshire, England, centred on the market town of Skipton. The Craven District was formed as the merger of Skipton Urban District, Settle Rural District and most of Skipton Rural District, which were all in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It comprises the upper reaches of Airedale, Wharfedale, Ribblesdale, and includes most of the Aire Gap and Craven Basin.

The area covered by the Craven District was all located in the West Riding of Yorkshire prior to the local government reorganization of 1974. The borders between North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire are different to those of the North Riding and the West Riding of the pre-1974 period. The boundary between the North Riding of Yorkshire and the adjoining County of Lancashire was also altered in 1974.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Craven. Wikipedia provides a long article on the history and geography of the district.

In the 19th century Craven was a "deanery", or group of ecclesiastical parishes, which was situated in West Riding of Yorkshire in the area between Bradford and Clapham. The parishes/areas included were: Addingham. Arncliffe , Barnoldswick, Bingley, Bolton-Bowland, Bracewell, Broughton, Burnsall, Carlton, Gargrave. Giggleswick, Gisburn, Horton, Ilkley, Keighley, Kettlewell, Kildwick, Kirkby Malhamdale. Linton, Long Preston, Marton, Mitton, Skipton, Slaidburn and Thornton. These are, for the most part, the larger civil parishes found in a modern list. A large majority of the civil parishes, communities with an elected council in charge of maintenance of the area, appear to have been introduced in 1866

It has been announced that all the administrative districts of North Yorkshire will be abolished in 2023 when the whole of North Yorkshire becomes a single unitary authority.

Research Tips

  • The History of Craven by Rev. Thomas Dunham Whitaker has been produced on CD-ROM. See description
  • 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.
  • 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.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Craven. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.