Place:Huddersfield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Huddersfield is a large market and university town now in the Kirklees (metropolitan borough), West Yorkshire, England. It is the 11th largest town in the United Kingdom, with a population of 162,949 at the 2011 UK census. It lies 14 miles (23 km) southwest of Leeds and 24 miles (39 km) northeast of Manchester.

Huddersfield is near the confluence of the River Colne and the River Holme. It is the largest urban area in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees and the administrative centre of the borough. The town is known for its role in the Industrial Revolution, and for being the birthplace of rugby league football. Before 1974 it was a county borough within the historic county boundaries of the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Huddersfield is a town of Victorian architecture. Huddersfield railway station is a Grade I listed building described by John Betjeman as "the most splendid station façade in England", second only to St Pancras Station in London. The station in St George's Square was renovated at a cost of £4 million and subsequently won the Europa Nostra award for European architecture.

Governance

the following text is also based on an article in Wikipedia

Huddersfield was incorporated as a municipal borough in the ancient West Riding of Yorkshire in 1868. The borough comprised the parishes of

• Almondbury,
• Dalton,
• Huddersfield,
• Lindley cum Quarmby and
• Lockwood.

When the West Riding County Council was formed in 1889, Huddersfield became a county borough, exempt from county council control.

Huddersfield expanded in 1937, including parts of the urban districts of Golcar, Linthwaite, and South Crosland. The county borough was abolished in 1974 and its former area was combined with that of other districts to form the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in the new administrative county of West Yorkshire.

GENUKI provides a description of the ancient or ecclesiastical parish of Huddersfield from a gazetteer from the 1820s. The town was in the Agbrigg division of the Agbrigg and Morley Wapentake.

History

Early history

There has been a settlement in the area for over 4,000 years. The remains of a Roman fort were unearthed in the mid 18th century at Slack near Outlane, west of the town. Castle Hill, a major landmark, was the site of an Iron Age hill fort. Huddersfield was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Oderesfelt and Odresfeld. Indeed, the modern name Huddersfield is pronounced without a word-initial /h/ in the local dialect, suggesting that the standard English pronunciation has influenced the commonly accepted spelling.

Huddersfield has been a market town since Anglo-Saxon times. The market cross is on Market Place.

The manor of Huddersfield was owned by the de Lacy family until 1322, at which it reverted to royal ownership. In 1599, William Ramsden bought the manor, and the Ramsden family continued to own the manor, which came to be known as the 'Ramsden Estate', until 1920. During their ownership they supported the development of the town, building the Huddersfield Cloth Hall in 1766 and the Sir John Ramsden's Canal in 1780, and supporting the arrival of the railway in the 1840s.

Industrial Revolution and Cloth Production

Huddersfield was a centre of civil unrest during the Industrial Revolution. In a period where Europe was experiencing frequent wars, where trade had slumped and the crops had failed, many local weavers faced losing their livelihood due to the introduction of machinery in factories. Luddites began destroying mills and machinery in response; one of the most notorious attacks was on Cartwright – a Huddersfield mill-owner who had a reputation for cruelty – and his Rawfolds Mill. In his book Rebels Against the Future, author Kirkpatrick Sale describes how an army platoon was stationed at Huddersfield to deal with Luddites. At its peak, there were about a thousand soldiers in Huddersfield and ten thousand civilians. In response, Luddites began to focus attacks on nearby towns and villages, which were less well-protected; the largest act of damage that they committed was the destruction of Foster's Mill at Horbury – a village about 10 miles (16 kilometres) east of Huddersfield. The government campaign that crushed the movement was provoked by a murder that took place in Huddersfield. William Horsfall, a mill-owner and a passionate prosecutor of Luddites, was killed in 1812. Although the movement faded out, Parliament began to increase welfare provision for those out of work, and introduce regulations to improve conditions in the mills.

Political history

Two Prime Ministers spent part of their childhood in Huddersfield: Harold Wilson and Herbert Asquith. Wilson is commemorated by a statue in front of the railway station.

The town has substantial Labour Party, Conservative Party, and Liberal Democrats presences.

Historical landmarks

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Huddersfield-Landmarks and Architecture.

Research Tips

• Kirklees office of the West Yorkshire Archives Service (WYAS) includes archives for the whole of the area now in Kirklees Metropolitan Borough including Huddersfield

Address: WYAS Kirklees, Central Library, Princess Alexandra Walk, Huddersfield HD1 2SU

Telephone: +44 (0)1484 221966

Email: kirklees@wyjs.org.uk

• 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.