Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for WAKEFIELD

WAKEFIELD, a town, a township, a parish, and a district, in W. R. Yorkshire. The town stands on the river Calder, at a convergence of railways, 9 miles SSE of Leeds; is supposed to date from the time of the Romans; was known at Domesday as Waehefeld; took that name, probably, from an early Saxon proprietor; was the head of an ancient manor, held by the Crown in both the Saxon and the Norman times, and extending several miles to the E and to the borders of the county on the W; adjoins the scene of a great battle, between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians, fought on 31 Dec. 1460; suffered severely from military operations in the civil wars of Charles I.; numbers among its natives Bishop Henry de Wakefield, of the 14th century, the scholar and vicar Robertson, 1507-60, the Roman Catholic writer H. Cressey, 1605-74, Dr. John Radcliffe, 1650-1714, Archbishop Potter, 1674-1747, the theologian T. Robinson. 1749-1813, the architect Harrison, 1744-1829, the Christian antiquary Bingham, 1668-1723, the ecclesiastical historian Dr. J. Burton, 1697-1771, and the theologian Dr. T. Touch: was made a parliamentary borough in 1832, and a municipal borough at a later date; sends one member to parliament, and is governed by a mayor, 8 aldermen, and 24 councillors; is a seat of petty sessions, quarter-sessions, and county-courts, and a polling place; contested with Leeds the claim of being constituted the assize-town for the West Riding; publishes three weekly newspapers; presents a well-aligned, well built, and handsome appearance; and has a head post-office,‡ three r. stations, telegraph offices, two banking offices, two chief hotels, and numerous good public buildings. A nine-arched bridge spans the Calder; was built in the time of Edward II.; and is surmounted by a beautiful later English chapel, 30 feet by 24, erected by Edward IV. in memory of his father, long used as a newsroom, but restored in 1847, and now used as a chapel of ease. A cross, in the Doric style, with a colonnade and a dome, stands in the old market place, and was built about 1720. The court-house is a handsome structure, with a tetrastyle Doric portico. The moot-hall is used for the manorial courts. The corn exchange was built in 1837, and greatly enlarged in 1862; and is ornamental and commodious. The new market house, market place, and slaughter-houses were erected at a cost of more than £20,000. The mechanics' institution contains a saloon or lecture-room, and a good library and newsroom; and stands over cold and warm baths. The Church institution is a handsome Gothic edifice of 1861. The theatre is a plain brick building. The county house of correction occupies a plot of nearly 20 acres; was twice enlarged since 1820, at a cost of £120,000; is divided into two departments, the one for the prisoners of the West Riding, the other as a Government convict establishment; and has capacity for 982 male and 244 female prisoners. The West Riding pauper lunatic asylum was opened in 1818, and enlarged at several periods; cost upwards of £100,000; has attached to it a recent handsome church, and many out-buildings; and, at the census of 1861, had 1,041 inmates. The workhouse is a brick structure, and has capacity for about 150 inmates. The Clayton hospital was erected in 1854, at the expense of T. Clayton, Esq.; contains a few beds for inpatients; and serves as a dispensary for very numerous out-patients. All Saints church is partly of the time of Henry III., partly of last century; measures 156 feet by 69; and has a tower and spire, 237 feet high, restored in 1861 at a cost of £5,000. St. John's church was built in 1791, at a cost of £10,000; St. Andrew's, in 1846, at a cost of £3,000; St. Marys, more recently, at a cost of £2,150; Trinity, in 1839; St. Michael's, in 1856. There are two Independent chapels, a Baptist, three Wesleyan, a Primitive Methodist, a U. Free Methodist, a Quakers', a Unitarian, and a Roman Catholic; and the last was built in 1828, and enlarged in 1852. A new ultra-mural cemetery lies on the road to Heath village, and is very tastefully laid out. The grammar-school was founded in 1592; has £335 from endowment, and 6 exhibitions at the universities; and had Archbishop Potter, Dr. Radcliffe, and Dr. Bentley, for pupils. The green-coat school has £732 a year from endowment; Horne's alms houses, £441; Bate's alms. houses, £46; Bromley's charity for pensions and other purposes, £705; and other charities £1,204. There are a Lancasterian school, three national schools, a British school, an industrial school, a house of refuge, and a number of miscellaneous institutions.

A weekly market for corn, vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish, is held on Friday; a weekly market for cattle and sheep, very largely attended, is held on Wednesday; and fairs for cattle and sheep are held on 4 and 5 July, and on 11 and 12 Nov. The woollen trade was so extensive in the time of Henry VIII. that Leland describes the town as standing all by clothing; and that trade, though greatly fallen off, is still carried on. Malting and brewing are very extensive; soap-making and artificial manuremaking also are extensive; and there are several iron foundries, several machine-making establishments, and very extensive corn mills. The manor was given by Henry I. to the Warrens of Sandal Castle; reverted afterwards to the Crown; was then given by Edward III., first to his son Edmund de Langley, next to Richard Duke of York, father of Edward IV.; passed, in 1554, to the duchy of Lancaster; went afterwards to the Earl of Holland, the Cliftons, and others; and belongs now to S. W. L. Fox, Esq. The rights of sokeage were leased by the late Sir T. Pilkington, Bart., and were purchased by the inhabitants in 1853 for £18,000.-The borough limits include all W. township, and parts of Stanley-with-Wrenthorpe and Alverthorpe-with-Thornes townships; but they include more of Stanley township municipally than parliamentarily. The police force, in 1864, comprised 27 men, at an annual cost of £2,030. The crimes committed in 1864 were 121; the persons apprehended, 89; the known depredators and suspected persons at large, 536; the houses of bad character, 80. Electors in 1833, 722; in 1863, 1,062. Pop. of the m. borough in 1851, 22,065; in 1861, 23,350. Houses, 4,781. Pop. of the p. borough in 1851, 22,057; in 1861, 23,150. Houses, 4,773.

The township comprises 630 acres. Real property, £59,224; of which £130 are in mines, and £2,000 in gasworks. Pop. in 1851, 16,989; in 1861, 17,611. Houses, 3,570.—The parish contains also Horbury, Stanley-with-Wrenthorpe, and Alverthorpe-with-Thornes townships; and is ecclesiastically divided into eleven charges. Acres, 9,311. Pop. in 1851, 33,117; in 1861, 35,739. Houses, 7,202. The living of All Saints is a vicarage, and the other livings are p. curacies, in the diocese of Ripon. Value of All Saints, £450;* of St. John, £168;* of St. Andrew and St. Mary, each £150;* of Trinity, not reported;* of St. Michael, £164. Patron of A. S., the Bishop of R.; of St. J., the Vicar of All Saints; of St. A. and St. M., alternately the Crown and the Bishop; of Trinity, Trustees; of St. Michael, the Incumbent of Alverthorpe. The p. curacies of Horbury, Outwood, Stanley, Alverthorpe, and Thornes are separately noticed. -The district comprehends the sub-districts of Wakefield, Horbury, Stanley, Alverthorpe, Ardsley, Oulton, Sandal, and Bretton. Acres, 42,060. Poor rates in 1863, £19,844. Pop. in 1851, 50,614; in 1861, 55,049. Houses, 11,229. Marriages in 1863, 439; births, 2,185, -of which 151 were illegitimate; deaths, 1,402,-of which 515 were at ages under 5 years, and 23 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 4,552; births, 18,586; deaths, 12,469. The places of worship, in 1851, were 24 of the Church of England, with 12,003 sittings; 7 of Independents, with 3,452 s.; 3 of Baptists, with 1,030 s.; 1 of Quakers, with 500 s.; 1 of Unitarians, with 500 s.; 23 of Wesleyans, with 5,559 s.; 4 of New Connexion Methodists, with 550 s.; 14 of Primitive Methodists, with 1,828 s.; 8 of Wesleyan Reformers, with 1,762 s.; and 1 of Roman Catholics, with 270 s. The schools were 47 public day-schools, with 4,867 scholars; 69 private day-schools, with 1,770 s.; 62 Sunday schools, with 7,283 s.; and 4 evening schools for adults, with 121 s.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a township, a parish, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Wakefield CP/AP       Wakefield RegD/PLU       Yorkshire AncC
Place names: WAEHEFELD     |     WAKEFIELD
Place: Wakefield

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