Dewsbury

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Dewsbury
Market Place in Dewsbury
Market Place in Dewsbury
Coordinates 53 ° 39 ′  N , 1 ° 47 ′  W Coordinates: 53 ° 39 ′  N , 1 ° 47 ′  W
Dewsbury (England)
Dewsbury
Dewsbury
Residents 54,341 (as of 2001)
administration
Post town DEWSBURY
ZIP code section WF
prefix 01924
Part of the country England
region Yorkshire and the Humber
Shire county West Yorkshire
District Kirklees
British Parliament Dewsbury

Dewsbury is a middle town in the metropolitan borough of Kirklees in the English county of West Yorkshire . According to the 2001 census, Dewsbury had a total of 54,341 residents.

geography

On the River Calder within the West Riding of Yorkshire countryside , Dewsbury is surrounded by a number of major towns that serve as a commuter community: Leeds and Bradford are approximately 12 km to the north, Huddersfield to the southwest, and Wakefield approximately 10 km to the east. In terms of transport, the city is connected via the M 1 motorway and the Huddersfield Line. The town center is 40-55 m above sea level, the hilly area rises to 230 m at Grange Moor.

history

Dewsbury was first mentioned in 627 when Paulinus , the first Bishop of York , preached here. Numerous grave finds in Dewsbury and Thornhill show that the area was densely populated in Anglo-Saxon times, when it belonged to the Kingdom of Deira and Northumbria . After the Norman conquest of the town in is the Domesday Book of 1085 as Deusberia mentioned; the exact origin of this name is unclear - the first part of the name can refer to a first settler named Dui, Dew or Deus or to the god Tiu, the second part probably means castle or hill. In the 13th century the Minster of Dewsbury was built on the banks of the Calder, supposedly at the place where Paulinus had already preached. In the church there is the Devil's Knell bell , which annually on Christmas Eve uses its peal to indicate how many years have passed since the birth of Christ. H. in 2006 the bell rings for Christmas 2006. This tradition has existed since the 15th century when Sir Thomas de Soothill donated the bell; an act of remorse after killing a boy in anger.

Dewsbury has been a marketplace for the local textile industry since the 14th century. Due to the occurrence of the plague in 1593 and 1603 , this market was closed for a long time and only reopened in 1741 . In the middle of the 18th century Methodist Church founder John Wesley preached five times in Dewsbury; the Methodist Society of Dewsbury was founded in 1746 and the Centenary Chapel was built to mark the centenary of the event.

In 1770 Dewsbury was connected to the Calder and Hebble canal network through a branch canal, so that the goods produced in Dewsbury could henceforth be shipped to Hull and Manchester . The city was primarily known for the production of shoddy textiles, and coal mining flourished here, as in the neighboring cities. In 1848 Dewsbury finally got a rail connection. Industrialization also brought about a surge in population; In 1801 there were 4566 inhabitants, in 1890 there were already around 30,000. In 1862 , Dewsbury Municipal Borough became a separate constituency six years later in the general election. The buildings of the Victorian period include the town hall from 1848. As a result, Ravensthorpe, Thornhill and Soothill Nether and half of Soothill Upper were incorporated. In 1913 Dewsbury was promoted to county borough. In 1911 Dewsbury had 53,351 inhabitants, since then this number has largely stagnated. Towards the end of the 19th century, v. a. many Irish workers in the city, which is among other things the name of the local rugby club Dewsbury Celtics . Immigration from Pakistan and other South Asian countries has increased since the 1950s ; this group of people mainly provided workers for the textile industry, which until then had suffered from a labor shortage. Of the 54,341 inhabitants in 2001, around 13,000 people are of Asian origin, according to the census.

economy

While retail chains such as Sainsbury's, Halfords, Next and Matalan provide economic revitalization in the city center and the east of the city is also considered affluent, other quarters are rather run-down, so that the city is receiving EU funding for their renovation. Dewsbury Moor, Ravensthorpe and Chickenley are among the 10% of the poorest areas in Britain. A third of the apartments in the city have no central heating, and unemployment is also above average. Despite the high proportion of migrants, Dewsbury has been largely spared from race riots. Nevertheless, the right-wing extremist BNP has some popularity here. Dewsbury is also the British seat of the Islamic mission organization Tablighi Jamaat .

Sports

The town is home to the Dewsbury Rams rugby club, whose stadium is located on Owl Lane. The original Crown Flatts stadium was arson in the late 1980s.

education

The 2005 statistics show Dewsbury's Eastborough Junior Infant and Nursery School to be the school whose performance had improved the most in the previous four years. The Batley College of Art and Design, which is part of Dewsbury College, is known for its achievements in the field of printing and textile-related arts.

Personalities

Web links

Commons : Dewsbury  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BBC NEWS | UK | Education | The best and worst results. In: news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved December 8, 2016 .