Place:Pudsey, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

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source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

The Districts of Leeds Metropolitan Borough established 1974

Morley Municipal Borough Pudsey Municipal Borough Aireborough Urban District Horsforth Urban District Otley Urban District Garforth Urban District Rothwell Urban District Tadcaster Rural District (parts) Wetherby Rural District (part) Wharfedale Rural District (part)

Pudsey is a market town in West Yorkshire, England. Once independent, it was incorporated into the City of Leeds metropolitan borough in 1974. It is located midway between Bradford and Leeds city centres. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it has a population of 32,391.

Pudsey consists of: the town centre and the areas of Fartown, Troydale, Littlemoor, Lowtown, Uppermoor and Chapeltown. There is also the village of Fulneck, the district of Stanningley and part of Tyersall (most of which is in Bradford).

Wool manufacture was its principal industry in the 19th century.

Governance

Pudsey was formerley within the division of Morley in the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley and the ecclesiastical parish of Calverley. During the era of the Poor Law and Sanitary Districts (1837-circa 1900), it was found in the Bradford Union. It became a Municipal Borough in 1889. For many years, despite being joined to the Leeds conurbation, it avoided being made part of Leeds County Borough. In 1937 the Farsley and Calverley urban districts were added to Pudsey. In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, it became part of the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds.

History

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

The place-name Pudsey is first recorded in 1086 in the Domesday Book as Podechesai(e). Its etymology is rather uncertain: it seems most likely to derive from a putative personal name *Pudoc and the word ēg meaning 'island' but here presumably referring metaphorically to an 'island' of good ground in moorland. Thus the name would mean 'Pudoc's island'. Other possibilities have been suggested, however. In the early sixth century the district was in the Kingdom of Elmet, which seems to have retained its Celtic character for perhaps as many as two centuries after other neighbouring kingdoms had adopted the cultural identity of the Angles.

Around 1775, a cache of a 100 silver Roman coins, many predating the time of Julius Caesar, was found by Benjamin Scholfield of Pudsey on Pudsey Common, to the north of the town, at a place traditionally known as "King Alfred's Camp".

The town was famous in the 18th and 19th centuries for wool manufacture, and, from the 19th century, for cricket. Yorkshire and England cricketers Sir Len Hutton, Herbert Sutcliffe, Ray Illingworth and Matthew Hoggard all learned to play in Pudsey. A 19th century Yorkshire cricketer, John Tunnicliffe, was born in Lowtown.

During the Industrial Revolution, Pudsey was one of the most polluted areas of the UK due to its position in a slight valley between the two industrial cities of Leeds and Bradford. As a result, whichever way the wind blew Pudsey became covered in thick soot. The temperature inversion created by the valley led to the soot becoming trapped leading to dense smogs. This is believed to have led to jokes that pigeons in Pudsey Park flew backwards in order to keep the soot out of their eyes.

Research Tips

• GENUKI on Pudsey. The GENUKI page gives numerous references to local bodies providing genealogical assistance.
• The FamilySearch wiki on the ecclesiastical parish of Calverley provides a list of useful resources for the local area.
• A Vision of Britain through Time on Pudsey.
• A Vision of Britain through Time provides links to maps of the West Riding, produced by the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey, illustrating the boundaries between the civil parishes and the rural districts at various dates. The location of individual settlements within the parishes is also shown. These maps all expand to a very large scale.

• Ordnance Survey West Riding 1888. The "Sanitary Districts (which preceded the rural districts) for the whole of the West Riding.
• Ordnance Survey West Riding North 1900 and Ordnance Survey West Riding South 1900. The rural and urban districts, not long after their introduction. NOTE: In 2022 the map of the southern section is not available through the Vision of Britain website. It is unknown if this omission is accidental or if the copy used by the university has been damaged in some way.
• Yorkshire West Riding South and Yorkshire West Riding North revised_1944. These two maps illustrate the urban and rural districts of the whole of the West Riding after the revisions of 1935.
• A further useful map on A Vision of Britain through Time is a boundary map dated 1917. This shows all the boundaries of villages, townships and parishes in the Holmfirth area.