Place:Dent, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Dent is a village and civil parish located since 1974 in Cumbria, England. It lies in Dentdale, a narrow valley on the western slopes of the Pennines within the Yorkshire Dales National Park. It is about 4 miles (6 km) south east of Sedbergh and about 8 miles (13 km) north east of Kirby Lonsdale.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Historically, Dent was part of the Ewecross wapentake in the West Riding of Yorkshire. From 1894 to 1974 it was part of Sedbergh Rural District. In 1974 it became part of the new county of Cumbria.

The origin of the name is debated. Older forms include Denet (1200). It may have been taken from the hill now known as Dent Crag (2,250 ft), to be compared with another hill named Dent near Cleator in Cumberland, in which case it would derive from a pre-English Celtic term related to Old Irish dinn, dind "a hill". Alternative derivations see the name preserving the memory of the dark age kingdom known in Latin as Regione Dunutinga, founded and named after King Dunot the Great of the North Pennines.

Both place name and dialect evidence indicate that this area was settled by the Norse in the 10th century. Geoffrey Hodgson, in 2008, argued that this invasion accounts for the high frequency of the Hodgson surname in the area.

Dent was the birthplace of Thomas de Dent, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, in the early 14th century.

Dent was the birthplace of the geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1785.

Dentdale was one of the last Yorkshire Dales to be enclosed, Dent's Enclosure Award being made in 1859.

Whilst fishing on the Dee at Dentdale in the 1840s, William Armstrong saw a waterwheel in action, supplying power to a marble quarry. It struck Armstrong that much of the available power was being wasted and it inspired him to design a successful hydraulic engine which began the accumulation of his wealth and industrial empire.

Dent, then in Yorkshire, was one of the sites for the Survey of English Dialects in the 1950s. A recording of the broadest local speech is available on the British Library's website.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Dent. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Dent.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Sedbergh provides a list of useful resources for the local area.