Place:Todmorden, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

Watchers
NameTodmorden
Alt namesTodmordensource: from redirect
Cornholmesource: settlement in parish (Lancashire side)
Eastwoodsource: settlement in parish
Gauxholmesource: settlement in parish
Portsmouthsource: settlement in parish
Siddallsource: settlement in parish
Shadesource: settlement in parish
Walsdensource: settlement in parish (Lancashire side)
TypeUrban district, Borough (municipal)
Coordinates53.713°N 2.096°W
Located inWest Riding of Yorkshire, England     (1888 - )
Also located inWest Yorkshire, England     (1974 - )
Yorkshire, England     (1888 - )
Lancashire, England     (1888 - 1974)
See alsoAgbrigg and Morley Wapentake, West Riding of Yorkshire, Englandwapentake in which it was located
Rochdale, Lancashire, Englandancient parish covering western part of Todmorden until 1888
Calderdale, West Yorkshire, Englanddistrict municipality in which Todmorden has been located since 1974
the text in this article is based on one in Wikipedia

Todmorden is now a market town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It forms part of the Upper Calder Valley and has a total population of almost 15,000 in 2001. This is a reduction from 25,000 at the beginning of the 20th century (source: Wikipedia). Todmorden is located 17 miles from Manchester, and is served by Todmorden railway station and Walsden railway station.

Todmorden town centre occupies the confluence of three steep-sided Pennine valleys, which constrict the shape of the town. Todmorden is surrounded by moorlands with occasional outcrops of gritstone sandblasted by winds.

The historic county boundary between Yorkshire and Lancashire is marked by the River Calder and its tributary, the Walsden Water, which runs through the centre of the town. The administrative border was altered by the Local Government Act 1888 placing the whole of the town within the West Riding of Yorkshire. Consequently, today all of Todmorden lies within West Yorkshire, but until 1888 the western part of the town was the township of Todmorden and Walsden in the ancient parish of Rochdale in the Salford Hundred of Lancashire.

The town covers a wide area and includes the settlements of Blackshaw, Langfield (including Mankinholes), Stansfield, Colden and Slack (both part of Heptonstall), Walsden and Cornholme (formerly in Lancashire), Eastwood, Siddall, Gauxholme, Portsmouth. These places have been redirected here if not noted otherwise.

Historically, Todmorden was in the ecclesiastical parish of Halifax in the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley . It was also in the parish of Rochdale in Lancashire. From 1894 until 1974, Todmorden was an urban district within the West Riding of Yorkshire. Adjacent was Todmorden Rural District which changed into Hepton Rural District in 1939.

Image:Rochdale reduced B.png

History

The earliest written record of the area is in the Domesday Book (1086). Settlement in medieval Todmorden was dispersed. Most people living in scattered farms or in isolated hilltop agricultural settlements. Packhorse trails were marked by ancient stones of which many still survive.

For hundreds of years streams from the surrounding hills provided water for corn and fulling mills. Todmorden grew to relative prosperity by combining farming with the production of woollen textiles. Some yeomen clothiers were able to build fine houses, a few of which still exist today. Increasingly, though, the area's industry turned to cotton. The proximity of Manchester, as a source of material and trade, was undoubtedly a strong factor. Another was that the strong Pennine streams and rivers were able to power the machine looms. Improvements in textile machinery (by Kay, Hargreaves and Arkwright), along with the development of turnpike roads (1751–1781), helped to develop the new cotton industry and to increase the local population.

In 1801 most people still lived in the uplands; Todmorden itself could be considered as a mere village. During the years 1800–1845 great changes took place in the communications and transport of the town which were to have a crucial effect on promoting industrial growth. These included the building of: (1) better roads; (2) the Rochdale Canal (1804); and (3) the main line of the Manchester and Leeds Railway (1841), which became the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway in 1847. This railway line incorporated the (then) longest tunnel in the world, the Summit Tunnel. A second railway, from Todmorden to Burnley, opened as a single line in 1849, being doubled to meet demand in 1860. A short connecting line, from Stansfield Hall to Hall Royd, completed the "Todmorden Triangle" in 1862, thus enabling trains to travel in all three directions (Manchester, Leeds and Burnley) without reversing.

The Industrial Revolution caused a concentration of industry and settlement along the valley floor and a switch from woollens to cotton. One family in the area was particularly influential on the town; the Fielden family. They created a "dynasty" that changed the town forever by establishing several large mills, putting up assorted impressive buildings and bringing about social and educational change.

Throughout the first decade of the 20th century, the population of the Borough of Todmorden remained constant. The ten-yearly UK census returns show figures of 25,418 in 1901 and 25,404 in 1911. Like the rest of the Upper Calder Valley, Todmorden's economy experienced a slow decline from around 1920 onwards, accelerating after 1945 until around the late 1970s. During this period there was a painful restructuring of the local economy with the closure of mills and the demise of heavy industry.

On 1 January 1907, Todmorden Corporation became only the second municipality in the British Isles to operate a motor bus service. By the end of that year, the fleet had expanded to five double-deck vehicles. In 1931, the service became jointly operated by the Corporation and the LMS railway under the name "Todmorden Joint Omnibus Committee". At its maximum size in the 1940s and 1950s, the undertaking operated 40 vehicles over 50 route miles (80 km) through the rugged South Pennine terrain. Until 1938, the town was served by no fewer than six railway stations. Given its population, Todmorden is a very long town from northwest to southeast.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Todmorden.

Research Tips

  • GENUKI on Todmorden. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
  • The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Halifax provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time on Todmorden.:*A description of the township of Todmorden and Walsden (Lancashire) from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1911
  • A Vision of Britain through Time also provides links to three maps for what is now South Yorkshire, produced by the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey, illustrating the boundaries between the civil parishes and the rural districts at various dates. These maps all blow up to a scale that will illustrate small villages and large farms or estates.
  • Ordnance Survey West Riding 1888. The "Sanitary Districts (which preceded the rural districts) for the whole of the West Riding.
  • Ordnance Survey West Riding South 1900. The rural and urban districts, not long after their introduction. (the southern part of Bradford, the southern part of Leeds, the southern part of Tadcaster Rural District, the southern part of Selby, Goole Rural District, and all the divisions of Halifax, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Doncaster, Barnsley, Rotherham and Sheffield)
  • Ordnance Survey West Riding 1944. The urban and rural districts of the whole of the West Riding after the revisions of 1935.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Todmorden. 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.