Place:Marsden, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

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

Marsden is a large village in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, West Yorkshire, England. It is in the South Pennines close to the Peak District which lies to the south. The village is west of Huddersfield at the confluence of the River Colne and Wessenden Brook. It was an important centre for the production of woollen cloth. In 2020, the village had an estimated population of 3,768. Marsden is 7 miles (11.3 km) west of Huddersfield.

Historically, Marsden was in the ecclesiastical parish of Almondbury in the Agbrigg Division of the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley. From 1894 until 1937, it was an urban district. From 1937 until 1974 it was part of Colne Valley Urban District.

Notable People

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

Marsden was the birthplace of Henrietta Thompson, the mother of General James Wolfe who consolidated British power in North America by taking Quebec from the French in 1759.

Marsden is also where Enoch Taylor was buried. Enoch Taylor was the blacksmith who built the first automatic croppers. The name Enoch was used for the hammers that the Luddites used to smash them. The Luddites used the slogan "Enoch made them, and Enoch shall break them."

• Simon Armitage, born 1963, Poet Laureate and playwright.
• Samuel Laycock, 1826–1893, dialect poet.
• Dora Marsden, 1882-1960, English suffragette.

Geography

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

Marsden is the last significant settlement on the West Yorkshire side of the Standedge Pennine crossing into Greater Manchester. The village is in the southern edge of the South Pennines with the boundary of the Peak District National Park to the south. It is surrounded on three sides by the moorland of Marsden and Meltham Moors with Saddleworth Moor nearby. Marsden has low level access only from the east along the Colne Valley.

The Marsden Moor Estate, which surrounds Marsden to the west and south, includes several reservoirs, and is in the care of the National Trust. The trust is developing techniques to rehabilitate the moor. Butterley Reservoir with its distinctive spillway is near Marsden inside the Peak District National Park. The Peak District Boundary Walk runs across the moors and into Marsden.

In chronostratigraphy, the British sub-stage of the Carboniferous period, the Marsdenian derives its name from Marsden.

Research Tips

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