Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

The writer gives a list of the “houses, cottages, mills, warehouses, etc.,” then in the course of erection, or which had been erected since the beginning of 1842. To this list the following remarks are appended: “We suspect that we have not fully stated all the tangible brick-and-mortar facts which attest the rapid increase of our borough. But it certainly is a great fact that in the course of two seasons, 545 dwelling-houses and 40 hives of business and industry should spring or are fast springing into existence. So far as we are aware, such an increase is unprecedented in the history of English towns; certainly there has been nothing to match it in Yorkshire these two past years.” The writer goes on to say: “Calculating only five persons to a house, here is accommodation for 2,725 persons; and as in 1842 every tenth house was empty; and as now almost every one is full, we may conclude that other 2,725 persons are accommodated; making an increase in the population of the borough since 1842, of 5,420, about an increase of 10 per cent in the short space of two years.”

Order the book

Subscribe to the free daily email

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Comment

Ibbetson also quotes census data 1801-1841 for the borough and for the 12 other townships that constitute the parish of Bradford, showing an increase in the century of 253% and in the decade 1831-1841 of 32%:

POPULATION IN A.D.	1801	1811	1821	1831	1841
Allerton township	809	1093	1488	1733	1914
Bierley North township	3820	4766	6070	7254	9511
Bowling township	2055	2226	3579	5958	8918
BRADFORD township	6393	7767	13054	23223	34560
Clayton township	2040	2469	3609	4459	4347
Ecclesoill township	1351	1608	2176	2570	3008
Haworth chapelry	3164	3971	4668	5835	6303
Heaton township	951	1088	1217	1452	1573
Horton chapelry	3459	4423	7192	10782	17618
Manningham township	1357	1596	2474	3594	5662
Shipley township	1008	1214	1606	1926	2413
Thornton chapelry	2474	4016	4100	5968	6788
Wilsden township	913	1121	1711	2242	1684
Totals	29794	36358	52954	76976	105259

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

In the Bradford Observer of May 2nd, 1844, there is an article headed “New Buildings in Bradford,” in which the writer gives a list of the “houses, cottages, mills, warehouses, etc.,” then in the course of erection, or which had been erected since the beginning of 1842. To this list the following remarks are appended: “We do not pledge for the completeness of our survey: at all events we have not overstated, but we suspect that we have not fully stated all the tangible brick-and-mortar facts which attest the rapid increase of our borough. But it certainly is a great fact that in the course of two seasons, 545 dwelling-houses, and 40 hives of business and industry, should spring or are fast springing, into existence. So far as we are aware, such an increase is unprecedented in the history of English towns; certainly there has been nothing to match it in Yorkshire these two past years.” The writer goes on to say: “Deducting the warehouses, sheds, mills, &c., from the sum total of new buildings, we have somewhere about 545 new dwelling-houses within the last eighteen months. Calculating only five persons to a house, here is accommodation for 2,725 persons; and as in 1842 every tenth house was empty; and as now almost every one is full, we may conclude that other 2,725 persons are accommodated; making an increase in the population of the borough since 1842, of 5,420, about an increase of 10 per cent. in the short space of two years.”

246 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• 📌Allerton, West Yorkshire (2) ·
• Bierley, West Yorkshire (1) ·
• 📌Bradford (72) ·
• Clayton, West Yorkshire (3) ·
• East Bowling (1) ·
• Eccleshill, Bradford (1) ·
• 📌Haworth (6), village 10 miles west of Bradford, known for the Brontës and the Keighley and Worth Valley heritage railway ·
• Heaton, West Yorkshire (3) ·
• Industrial Revolution (22) ·
• Manningham, Bradford (2) ·
• Population growth (2) ·
• 📌Shipley, West Yorkshire (8) ·
• Textile manufacturing (59) ·
• Thornton, West Yorkshire (5) ·
• Urban sprawl (1) ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (147) ·
• Wilsden (5) ·
• Wool (28) ·
• Worsted (3) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 20 April 1835: A teetotallers’ tea-party at the first, great, Wilsden Temperance Festival
• 22 May 1711: Leeds’s first white-cloth hall is opened on Kirkgate, replacing the outdoor market on Briggate, and competing with Wakefield’s 1710 building
• 3 July 1643: The Royalists take Bradford after the Second Siege, but are warned off massacring the inhabitants by a ghost
• 26 November 1980: Following the Headingley murder of Jackie Hill, West Yorkshire Police receive a letter from Trevor Birdsall clearly identifying his friend Peter Sutcliffe of Heaton (Bradford) as the Yorkshire Ripper
• 30 October 1744: Landowners form a partnership to pipe water from Little Horton to Bradford, facilitating urban growth
• 29 February 1824: Prophet John Wroe is baptised on the Leap Day in the Aire near Apperley Bridge before an audience of 30,000
• 11 March 1974: Bradford councillor and would-be property developer John Foers denies trying to “Poulson” Gary Rawnsley, chair of the planning committee
• 18 April 1906: Easter trippers to Shipley Glen cause fires on Ilkley Moor, imperilling grouse shooting later in the year
• 3 May 1804: Settlement of an absurdly modest legal bill from Joseph Bentley of Bradford
• 13 September 1816: The greatness of Great Britain