Dewsbury
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History
In Saxon times, Dewsbury was a centre of considerable importance. The parish of Dewsbury extended east of the Pennines to encompass Huddersfield, Mirfield and Bradford. Ancient legend records that in 627 Paulinus, the first bishop of York, preached in the church situated here. Numerous Saxon graves have been found in Dewsbury and Thornhill.[link]Dewsbury Minster lies near the banks of the Calder, traditionally on the site where Paulinus preached. Parts of the church are said to date to the 13th century.[link] It houses the "Devil's Knell", a bell rung each Christmas Eve, one toll for each year, in a tradition dating back to the 15th century. It was donated 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. [link]
Dewsbury market was established in the 14th century for local clothiers. Occurences of the plague in 1593 and 1603 closed the market until it was reopened in 1741.
Through 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. [link]
In 1770, a short branch of the Calder and Hebble Navigation canal was completed, linking Dewsbury to the main canal system and giving access to distribution centres in Manchester and Hull. By the time of the industrial revolution, Dewsbury was one of the centres for the "shoddy" industry, the recycling of old woollen items by mixing them with new wool and making them into 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 the coal mines. The railways arrived in 1848 when three stations were opened in the town, including Dewsbury Wellington Road, the only one which remains. This period saw a great increase in population, rising from 4,566 in 1801 to around 30,000 by 1890.
Dewsbury was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1862 [link], its first mayor being Dr George Farnley. The 1868 Reform Act constituted Dewsbury a parliamentary borough, its first MP being Mr Sergeant Simon. The fine Victorian town hall that stands in front of the old marketplace was built in 1848. Dewsbury's boundaries were expanded to include the urban districts of Ravensthorpe, Thornhill, Soothill Nether (Earlsheaton) and half of Soothill Upper in 1910 and it was elevated to county borough status in 1913. The covered market was opened in 1904 and during the 1920's trade moved from the original market place to the area around the covered market.
Starting in the late 1950s and continuing until the 1970s, many families from South Asia, particularly Pakistan, settled in Dewsbury. By 1966 around 2,000 immigrants from Commonwealth countries had made Dewsbury their home. Many worked in the woolen mills, making good the labour shortage in that sector. The mills were still often run as family businesses, and continued manufacturing after the wool crisis in 1950-51, which saw Australian sheep farmers begin to charge higher prices. However, 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. According to the 2001 census, some 13,000 of the population of Dewsbury are of Asian descent.
In 1974 responsibility for local government passed to Kirklees Metropolitan Council, with its headquarters in Huddersfield. Its population has remained broadly static over the past century - the 1911 census recorded 53,351 people [link].
In 2005, two high profile crimes brought the media spotlight on Dewsbury. In June, a girl of 12 was charged with grievous bodily harm following what was reported as the attempted hanging of a five year old boy from Chickenley[link]. The following month it emerged that Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the July 7th London bombers, had been living in Thornhill Lees, a suburb of Dewsbury.
Origin of the Name
The Domesday book of 1086 records the name of the town as Deusberia. There are a number of theories on the origin of the name. They are:- An Anglo-Saxon name referring to a watery "burgh", or fortified manor.[link]
- A Mercian name, after the founder of a fortified settlement in the area, named Dui, Dew or Deus - "beria" meaning strongold.[link]
- "God's Hill", from the old British word "Duw", meaning God, and "burg", meaning a hill.[link][link]
- "Tiu's Hill", as above, but derived from the Norse and Germanic god Tiu.[link]
Geography and Location
Dewsbury is situated between a number of larger towns and cities. Leeds and Bradford lie eight miles to the north, Huddersfield a similar distance to the south west, and Wakefield some six miles east. In recent years its proximity to these major urban centres, the M1 motorway and its position on the Huddersfield Line, served by the First TransPennine Express, have contributed to its rising popularity as a commuter town.Dewsbury is part of the West Yorkshire connurbation, and the natural boundaries of the town are not well defined, with built up areas of the town running into neighbouring Batley, Heckmondwike and Ossett.
Geologically, the town is situated on rock dated to the Carboniferous Period, consisting of coal measures and gritstones. Quaternary Period rock, glacial deposits and gravels exist in the Calder Valley. Coal, stone and gravel have all been exploited commercially. Average rainfall is 100cm per annum.[link]
The town is dominated by hills, notably Earlsheaton, Dewsbury Moor and Thornhill. The town centre is at 40m-55m above sea level, rising to 110m at Earlsheaton and Batley Carr, and 230m at Grange Moor. The approach down from Earlsheaton through the Wakefield Road cutting, constructed in 1830, is dramatic with the view of the town centre nestling in the Calder Valley opening up as you descend.
The majority of the older buildings were built in Yorkshire stone, many of which have recently been restored by sandblasting. Notable structures include the railway viaduct, and [Machell's Shoddy and Mungo mill], converted into apartments but still bearing the famous slogan of its original occupants.
Demographics and economy
The town now has a large Asian community - making up over 30% of the town's population. Savile Town and Ravensthorpe are populated mainly by people of Indian and Pakistani origin; most of the central and western areas of the town have a large Asian minority. Those areas of the town where mining was a sizeable employer, such as Chickenley and Thornhill, have remained almost entirely White. Race relations have been volatile at times, but there have been no major disturbances since the Asian riot of 1989. Local elections in 1999 sparked controversy, when it appeared that a section of the Asian community in Ravensthorpe had arranged so that several dead voters were down as having voted Labour, but the police abandoned the investigation. The BNP are active in the town and won the "Dewsbury East" ward in the local elections of 4th May 2006; their support is strongest in Chickenley. The British centre of the Islamic missionary organisation Tablighi Jamaat is located in Dewsbury.The town is listed as one of the most deprived areas of West Yorkshire by the government and the EU has made Dewsbury and its neighbour Batley into a "transformation zone". Some of the worst problems include housing, education and unemployment. Official government statistics estimate that almost a third of the houses in the town lack central heating.
The Dewsbury Moor, Ravensthorpe and Chickenley areas are classed among the 10% most deprived areas in the UK. [link]. In contrast to some UK towns and cities, the east side of the town is generally more affluent.
The town centre is starting to see a revival, and large retailers such as Sainsbury's and Halford's and Next. The local market comprising 400 stalls is one of the busiest in Yorkshire and today draws coach loads of visitors into the town. Wednesdays and Saturdays are open market days.
Sport and culture
The Dewsbury Rams rugby league team play in National League 2. They play on Owl Lane, towards Ossett, on the site of the old Savile & Shaw Cross colliery. Their original and famous ground Crown Flatts stood on Leeds Road at Earlsheaton for many years until it was burned down by arsonists in the late 1980's. It has been replaced with a modern housing estate.Dewsbury museum in Crow Nest Park features a permanent children's history section, including a 1940s classroom and an extensive toy collection, alongside temporary exhibits.
Nearby attraction include the National Coal Mining Museum for England and Bagshaw Museum in neighbouring Batley.
Education
In the recently released 2005 School League Tables Dewsbury's Eastborough Junior Infant and Nursery School was reported to have the most consistently improved results over the past four years. However, the head of the school, Nicola Roth, has been highly critical of School League Tables in the UK and has been reported to have said "It would be better if league tables did not exist".Batley College of Art and Design, which is part of Dewsbury College, has a strong reputation for print and textile-based art work.
Natives
The actor Patrick Stewart was born in nearby Mirfield. He worked for a very brief period as a journalist for the town's local paper the Dewsbury Reporter [link] and appeared on Friday the 4th of April 2003 in Dewsbury Town Hall to raise money for charity.The Reverend Patrick Brontë, the father of Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë, was rector of the parish church from 1809 to 1811. In Charlotte Brontë's novel "Shirley", Dewsbury features as Whinbury.
John Rudd, the Tudor cartographer, was vicar of Dewsbury and rector of Thornhill. His apprentice in map making was Christopher Saxton, who lived with Rudd in Dewsbury as his servant while a young man, and went on to complete the mapping of England.
John Michell, the 18th century scientist known for his pioneering work on magnetism, geology, and astronomy, especially his early postulation of the possibility of black holes, was rector of Thornhill from 1767 until his death in 1793.
Dewsbury was also the birth place of actors Frank Crawshaw, Valentine Pelka, Kazia Pelka, Mary Tamm, Rebecca Callard.
Tom Kilburn, a computer engineer and the co-inventor of the first stored-program computer, and Thomas Clifford Allbutt, inventor of the clinical thermometer, were both born in Dewsbury.
Sir Owen Willans Richardson, physicist, professor and Nobel Prize winner was born in Dewsbury.
Wallace Hartley, bandmaster on the RMS Titanic when it sank in 1912, called Dewsbury his home at the time of his death. A blue plaque marks the house on West Park Street he lived in.
Former Rugby league player and Sky Sports commentator Mike Stephenson was born in the town and captained Dewsbury to their only chamipnship success in 1973. Another Rugby league commentator Eddie Waring was born in Dewsbury and also managed the town's rugby league club,
Former Speaker of the British House of Commons, Betty Boothroyd and Andrew Morton, the biographer of Diana, Princess of Wales, were born in Dewsbury.
Betty Lockwood, Baroness Lockwood of Dewsbury, was born in the town in 1924 and attended Eastborough Girls School. She went on to become the first chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission and later Chancellor of the University of Bradford.
Sheffield United footballer, Leigh Bromby, was born in Dewsbury, as was Neil Redfearn, journeyman footballer with a 24 year playing career and 5th on the all time records for number of Football League matches played (790).
External links
- [Local newspaper, the Dewsbury Reporter]
- [Area profile and statistics]
- [Pigot & Co's National Commercial Directory, 1834 entry for Dewsbury]
- [Thomas Baine's "Yorkshire Past and Present", Chapter VI "The History of the Borough of Dewsbury" (1870)]
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