Place:Shelf, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Shelf is now located in West Yorkshire, England. The village itself is situated halfway between Bradford and Halifax. It has a population of around 4,500.

In the Domesday Book of 1086 it is called Scelf. Shelf is a village impacted by the Industrial Revolution and retains mill buildings along with other artefacts.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Shelf from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"SHELF, a village, a township, and a chapelry, in Halifax parish, [West Riding of] Yorkshire. The village stands 2½ miles NNW of Lightcliffe [railway] station, and 3 NE of Halifax; and has a post-office under Halifax. The township comprises 1,350 acres. Real property: £7,610; of which £200 are in quarries, and £128 in mines. Population in 1851: 3,414; in 1861: 3,062. Houses: 656. [Shelf] Hall, Wade House, and Furnace House are chief residences. Free-stone, ironstone, and coal abound; and manufactures of worsted and damask are carried on.

"The chapelry was constituted in 1851. Population in 1861: 3,311. Houses: 712. The living is a [perpetual] curacy in the diocese of Ripon. Value: £200. Patron: the Bishop of [Ripon]. The church is modern. There are three dissenting chapels, a national school, and a British school."

Shelf was a township in the parish of Halifax until 1866 when it became a civil parish. It was an urban district from 1894 until 1937, when it joined with the urban district of Queensbury (a neighbour to the west) to form Queensbury and Shelf Urban District.

When the West Riding of Yorkshire became West Yorkshire in 1974, the urban district was split with the Shelf part going to the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, and Queensbury going to the Metropolitan Borough of Bradford.

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