Place:Dewsbury, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

GENUKI provides a description of the ecclesiastical parish of Dewsbury from a gazetteer from the 1820s. It was in the Agbrigg division of the Agbrigg and Morley Wapentake.

Dewsbury is now a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation man-made waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, east of Huddersfield and south of Leeds. Until 1974 it was a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. After undergoing a period of major growth in the 19th century as a mill town, Dewsbury went through a period of decline. Dewsbury is the largest town of the heavy woollen district. The population of the built-up area was 63,722 at the 2021 UK Census.

History

Early history

In Anglo-Saxon times, Dewsbury was a centre of considerable importance. The ecclesiastical parish of Dewsbury encompassed Huddersfield, Mirfield and Bradford. Ancient legend records that in 627 Paulinus, the Bishop of York, preached here on the banks of the River Calder. Numerous Anglian graves have been found in Dewsbury and Thornhill.

Dewsbury Minster

Dewsbury Minster lies near the River Calder, traditionally on the site where Paulinus preached. Some of the visible stonework in the nave is Saxon, and parts of the church also date to the 13th century. The tower houses "Black Tom", a bell which is rung each Christmas Eve, one toll for each year since Christ's birth, known as the "Devil's Knell", a tradition dating from the 15th century. The bell was given by Sir Thomas de Soothill, in penance for murdering a servant boy in a fit of rage. The tradition was commemorated on a Royal Mail postage stamp in 1986.

In the Domesday Book of 1086, Dewsbury was in Morley Wapentake, but with a recorded population of only nine households it was a relatively small settlement at that time. The Agbrigg and Morley Wapentakes were administratively combined into the Agbrigg and Morley Wapentake in the 13th century. When they were separated for administrative purposes in the mid-19th century, Dewsbury parish had grown to straddle the border between the two, but was mainly in the "Lower Division of the Wapentake of Agbrigg".

Dewsbury market was established in the 14th century for local clothiers. Occurrences of the plague in 1593 and 1603 closed the market and it reopened in 1741.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Dewsbury retained a measure of importance in ecclesiastical terms, collecting tithes from as far away as Halifax in the mid-14th century. John Wesley visited the area five times in the mid-18th century, and the first Methodist Society was established in 1746. Centenary Chapel on Daisy Hill commemorates the centenary of this event, and the Methodist tradition remained strong in the town.

Industrial Revolution

In 1770, a short branch of the Calder and Hebble Navigation canal was completed, linking Dewsbury to the canal system and giving access by barge to Manchester and Hull. By the time of the Industrial Revolution, Dewsbury was a centre for the shoddy and mungo industries which recycled woollen items by mixing them with new wool and making heavy blankets and uniforms. The town benefited economically from the canal, its location at the heart of the "heavy woollen district", and its proximity to coal mines. The railway arrived in 1848 when Dewsbury Wellington Road railway station on the London and North Western Railway opened. This is now Dewsbury's only railway station.

Other stations were Dewsbury Central on the Great Northern Railway which closed in 1964 and Dewsbury Market Place on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway which closed in 1930. A fourth goods-only railway station was built in the early 20th century at Savile Town by the Midland Railway. In 1985 a bypass road was built on the site of Central Station and its adjacent viaduct, and nothing remains of Market Place railway station. The 19th century saw a great increase in population, rising from 4,566 in 1801 to around 30,000 by 1890.

The town's rapid expansion and commitment to industrialisation resulted in social instability. In the early 19th century, Dewsbury was a centre of Luddite opposition to mechanisation in which workers retaliated against the mill owners who installed textile machinery and smashed the machines which threatened their way of life. In the 1830s, Dewsbury was a centre of Chartist agitation. In August 1838, after a speech by Chartist leader Feargus O'Connor, a mob of between five and seven thousand people besieged the Dewsbury Poor Law Guardians in the town's Royal Hotel. The mob was dispersed by troops.

Trouble flared again in 1840 when radical agitators seized control of the town, and troops were stationed to maintain order. This radical tradition left a legacy in the town's political life: its first elected Member of Parliament (MP) in 1867 was John Simon, a Jewish lawyer from Jamaica and a Liberal. The tradition of firing the "Ten o'Clock" gun dates from 1815 and was a hangover from the Luddite problems. It was fired from Wormald and Walker's Mill to reassure that all was well, and could be heard all over the area. Eventually the actual gun was replaced with a specially made firework, but the tradition was discontinued in 1983 with the closure of the mill.

The mills were family businesses and continued manufacturing after the wool crisis in 1950–51, which saw Australian sheep farmers begin to charge higher prices. The recovery of the late 1960s was reversed by the 1973 oil crisis, and the textile industry in Dewsbury declined, with only bed manufacturing remaining a large scale employer.

Governance

Dewsbury was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1862. The Reform Act of 1868 constituted Dewsbury a parliamentary borough. The Victorian town hall standing in front of the old marketplace dates from 1886 to 1889.

Dewsbury's boundaries were expanded to include the urban districts of Ravensthorpe, Thornhill, as well as the townships of Soothill Nether, and part of Soothill Upper. In 1913 Dewsbury was elevated to county borough status. "Soothill Nether" refers to the current east end of the town, although at that time Chickenley and Chidswell were hamlets, and Earlsheaton contained the bulk of the area's population.

In 1974, responsibility for local government passed to Kirklees Metropolitan Council, its headquarters being in Huddersfield. The population of Dewsbury has remained broadly static over the past century: the 1911 census recorded 53,351 people, and the 1971 census 51,326 people, making it the fourth-least populous county borough in England (after Canterbury, Burton upon Trent and Great Yarmouth).

Geography

Dewsbury is situated between Leeds and Bradford (8 miles (13 km) to the north); Huddersfield (a similar distance to the southwest); and Wakefield (6 mi (10 km) to the east). Its proximity to these major urban centres, the M1 and [[wikipedia:M62 motorway|M62 motorways] and its position on the Huddersfield Line, served by the TransPennine Express, have contributed to its growth.

Dewsbury is part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area, although its natural boundaries are not well-defined, with built up areas of the town running into Batley, Heckmondwike and Ossett.

Geologically, the town is situated on rocks of the Carboniferous Period, consisting of coal measures and gritstones. Quaternary Period rock, glacial deposits and gravels exist in the Calder Valley. Coal, sandstone and gravel have been exploited commercially. Average rainfall is 100 cm per annum. The town is dominated by hills, notably Earlsheaton, Dewsbury Moor, Staincliffe and Thornhill. The town centre is between 130 and 180 feet (40 and 55 metres) above sea level, rising to 360 ft (110 m) at Earlsheaton and Batley Carr, and 755 ft (230 m) at Grange Moor. The approach from Earlsheaton through the Wakefield Road cutting, constructed in 1830, is dramatic with the view of the town centre in the Calder Valley opening up.

Divisions and suburbs

Dewsbury has a number of districts with different geographical and socio-economic patterns, they are, Chickenley, Crackenedge, Dewsbury Moor, Earlsheaton, Eastborough, Eightlands, Flatts, Ravensthorpe, Savile Town, Shaw Cross, Scout Hill, Thornhill Lees, Westborough, and Westtown. Batley Carr, Hanging Heaton and Staincliffe have areas which lie in both Dewsbury and neighbouring Batley. Thornhill, Briestfield and Whitley Lower are part of Dewsbury unparished area. Thornhill was annexed in 1910.

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.