Wakefield
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the larger local government district, see City of Wakefield.
For other uses, see Wakefield (disambiguation).
| Wakefield | |
 Wakefield city centre viewed from Sandal Castle | |
  Wakefield Wakefield shown within West Yorkshire | |
| Population | 76,886 |
|---|---|
| Yorkshire | |
| EU Parliament | Yorkshire and the Humber |
| UK Parliament | Wakefield,Hemsworth |
| List of places: UK • England • Yorkshire | |
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, ametropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is 2,062 hectares (5,100 acres) and had a population of 76,886 in 2001.[1]
Wakefield was dubbed the "Merrie City" in the Middle Ages[2] and in 1538 John Leland described it as, "a very quick market town and meately large; well served of fish and flesh both from sea and by rivers ... so that all vitaile is very good and chepe there. A right honest man shall fare well for 2d. a meal. ... There be plenti of se coal in the quarters about Wakefield".[3]
The site of a battle during the Wars of the Roses and a Royalist stronghold during theCivil War, Wakefield developed in spite of setbacks to become an important market townand centre for wool, exploiting its position on the navigable River Calder to become aninland port.
During the 18th century Wakefield continued to develop through trade in corn, coal mining and textiles and in 1888 its parish church, with Saxon origins, acquired cathedralstatus. The county town became seat of the West Riding County Council in 1889 and the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Council in 1974.
History
Toponymy
The name "Wakefield" may derive from "Waca's field" – the open land belonging to someone named "Waca" or could have evolved from the Old English word wacu, meaning "a watch or wake", and feld, an open field in which a wake or festival was held.[4][5] In theDomesday Book of 1086, it was written Wachefeld and also as Wachefelt.
Early history
Flint and stone tools and later bronze and iron implements have been found at Lee Moor and Lupset in the Wakefield area showing evidence for human activity since prehistoric times.[6]This part of Yorkshire was home to the Brigantes until the Roman occupation in 43 AD. A Roman road from Pontefract passing Streethouse, Heath Common, Ossett Street Side,Kirklees and on to Manchester crossed the River Calder by a ford at Wakefield near the site of Wakefield Bridge.[7] Wakefield was probably settled by the Angles in the 5th or 6th century and after 867 the area was controlled by the Vikings who divided the area into wapentakes. Wakefield was part of the Wapentake of Agbrigg. The settlement grew up near a crossing place on the River Calder around three roads, Westgate, Northgate and Kirkgate.[8] "Gate" derives from Old Norse gata meaning road[9] and kirk, from kirkja indicates there was a church.[10]
Before 1066 the manor of Wakefield belonged to Edward the Confessor and it passed toWilliam the Conqueror after the Battle of Hastings.[11] After the Conquest Wakefield was a victim of the Harrying of the north in 1069, William the Conqueror's revenge for resistance to Norman rule by the local population. It was recorded as Wachfeld in the Domesday Book of 1086, and covered a much greater area than present day Wakefield, much of which was described as "waste".[12] The Manor of Wakefield, was granted by the crown to William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey whose descendants, the Earls Warenne, inherited it when he died in 1088.[13] The building of Sandal Castle began early in the 12th century and it became the stronghold of the manor.[14] A second castle was built at Lawe Hill on the north side of the Calder but was abandoned.[15] Wakefield and its environs formed the caput of an extensive baronial holding by the Warennes that extended to Cheshire and Lancashire. The Warennes, and their feudal sublords, continued to hold the area until the 14th century, when it passed to Warenne heirs.[16] Norman tenants holding land in the region included the Lyvet family at Lupset.[17]
In 1086 the Domesday Book recorded two churches, one in Wakefield and one in Sandal Magna.[18] The Saxon church in Wakefield was rebuilt in about 1100 in stone in the Norman style and was continually enlarged until 1315 when the central tower collapsed. By 1420 the church was again rebuilt and was extended between 1458 and 1475. In 1203 William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey received a grant to have a market in Wakefield.[19] In 1204 King John granted the rights for a fair to be held at the feast of All Saints, 1 November, and in 1258 Henry III granted another fair to be held on the feast of St. John the Baptist, 24 June. The market was situated close to the Bull Ring and the church.[19] The townsfolk of Wakefield amused themselves in games and sports earning the title "Merrie Wakefield", the chief sport in the 14th century was archery and the butts in Wakefield were at the Ings, near the river.[20]
In 1460, during the Wars of the Roses, the Duke of York was killed on 30 December 1460 in the Battle of Wakefield near Sandal Castle. As preparation for the impending invasion by the Spanish Armada in April 1558, 400 men from the wapentake of Morley and Agbrigg were summoned to Bruntcliffe near Morley with their weapons. Men from Kirkgate, Westgate, Northgate and Sandal were amongst them and all returned by August.[21] At the time of the Civil War Wakefield was a Royalist stronghold, an attack led by Sir Thomas Fairfax on 20 May 1643 captured the town for theParliamentarians. Over 1500 troops were taken prisoner along with the Royalist commander, Lieutenant-General Goring.[22]
In medieval times Wakefield had become a port on the River Calder and centre for the woollen and tanning trades. In 1699 an Act of Parliament was passed creating the Aire and Calder Navigation which provided Wakefield with access to the North Sea.[23] The first Registry of Deeds in the country opened in 1704 and in 1765 Wakefield's cattle market was established and became the one of largest in the north. The town was a centre for cloth dealing with its own piece hall, the Tammy Hall, built in 1766.[3] In the late 1700s Georgiantown houses were built around St John's Church which was built in 1795.[23][24]
Later history
At the start of 19th century Wakefield was already a wealthy market town and inland port trading in wool and corn.[25] The Aire and Calder and Calder and Hebble Navigations and theBarnsley Canal were instrumental in the development of Wakefield as an important market for corn from Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire supplying the fast growing population in the West Riding. The Corn Exchange opened in Westgate in 1838.[26] The market developed in the streets around the Bull Ring and the cattle market between George Street and Ings Road grew to be one of the biggest in the country.[27] Road transport using turnpiked roads was also important. Regular mail coaches departed to Leeds, London, Manchester, York andSheffield and the 'Strafford Arms' was an important coaching inn.[28] The railways arrived in Wakefield in 1840 when Kirkgate Station was built on the Manchester to Leeds line.
When cloth dealing declined, wool spinning mills using steam power were built by the river. There was a glass works in Calder Vale Road, several breweries including Melbourne's and Beverley's Eagle Brewery, engineering works with strong links to the mining industry, soapworks and brickyards in Eastmoor giving the town a diverse economy.[29][30] On the outskirts of the town coal had been dug since the 15th century and 300 adult males were employed in the town's coal pits in 1831.[3] During the 19th century more mines were sunk so that there were 46 in Wakefield and the surrounding area by 1869.[30][31] The National Coal Board eventually became Wakefield's largest employer with Manor Colliery on Cross Lane and Park Hill colliery at Eastmoor surviving until 1982.[32]
During the 19th century Wakefield became the administrative centre for the West Riding and much of what is familiar today in Wakefield was built at that time.[33] The court house was built in 1810, the first civic building to be constructed in Wood Street.[34] The West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum was built at Stanley Royd, just outside the town on Aberford Road in 1816. During the nineteenth century, the Wakefield Asylum played a central role in the development of British psychiatry, with both Henry Maudsley and James Crichton-Browne amongst its medical staff. The old House of Correction of 1595 was rebuilt as Wakefield Prison in 1847.[35] Wakefield Union Workhouse[36] was built on Park Lodge Lane, Eastmoor in 1853 and Clayton Hospital was begun in 1854 after a donation from Alderman Thomas Clayton.[33] Up to 1837 Wakefield relied on wells and springs for its water supply, supply from the River Calder was polluted, and various schemes were unsuccessful until reservoirs on the Rishworth Moors and a service reservoir at Ardsley were built providing clean water from 1888.[37] On 2 June 1906 Andrew Carnegie opened the library on Drury Lane which had been built with a grant of £8,000 from the Carnegie Trust.[38]
There are seven ex-council estates in Wakefield which the council started to build after World War I, the oldest, Portobello, the largest, Lupset in the west, Flanshaw, Plumpton, Peacock, Eastmoor and Kettlethorpe which were transferred to registered social landlord Wakefield and District Housing, WDH, in 2005.[39] The outlying villages of Sandal Magna, Belle Vue and Agbrigg became suburbs of Wakefield.
The glass and textile industries closed in the 1970s and 1980s. During Margaret Thatcher's contraction of the coal industry six pits within a two mile (3 km) radius of the city centre closed between 1979 and 1983. At the time of the 1984 miners' strike there were 15 pits in the district and demonstrations of support took place in the city. The West Riding County Council, based in Wakefield, was abolished in 1974 and the West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council, also based in Wakefield from its inception in that same year, was abolished in 1986.
Governance
Wakefield was anciently a market and parish town in the Agbrigg Division of the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It became a parliamentary borough with one Member of Parliament by the Reform Act 1832. In 1836 the Wakefield Poor Law Union was formed following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 with an elected Board of Guardians.[40] The town was incorporated as amunicipal borough with elected councillors in 1848 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.[41]Wakefield had been the de facto seat of regional government in Yorkshire for two centuries and became the county headquarters of the new West Riding County Council created by the Local Government Act of 1888.[42] After the elevation of Wakefield to diocese in 1888, Wakefield Council immediately sought city status and this was granted in July 1888.[43] Wakefield was made a county borough in 1913.[44] In 1974, under the terms of the Local Government Act 1972, the county borough of Wakefield became defunct as it merged with surrounding authorities to become the City of Wakefield district. Today the city is the headquarters of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, Local Government Yorkshire and Humber and theWest Yorkshire Police.[45][46]
Wakefield is covered by five electoral wards, Wakefield East, Wakefield North, Wakefield Rural, Wakefield South and Wakefield West, of the Wakefield Metropolitan District Council. Each ward elects three councillors to the 63-member metropolitan district council, Wakefield's local authority. As of 2009, nine ward councillors are members of the Conservative Party and six ward councillors are members of the Labour Party who control the council.[47]
Wakefield's MP is Mary Creagh who has represented the parliamentary seat for Wakefield for the Labour Party since the 2005 General Election. From 10 June 2009 until the 2010 election she was an Assistant Whip.[48] She was re-elected in 2010 with a reduced majority.[49]
Sandal,Kettlethorpe, Agbrigg and Belle vue in the South of the city are represented by Labour's Jon Trickett who has been MP forHemsworth since 1996. He was re-elected in May 2010.[50]
No comments:
Post a Comment