Halifax (West Yorkshire)
| Halifax | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Coordinates | 53 ° 44 ′ N , 1 ° 52 ′ W | ||
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| Residents | 82,056 (as of: 2001) | ||
| administration | |||
| Post town | HALIFAX | ||
| ZIP code section | HX1-7 | ||
| prefix | 01422 | ||
| Part of the country | England | ||
| region | Yorkshire and the Humber | ||
| Shire county | West Yorkshire | ||
| District | Calderdale | ||
| British Parliament | Halifax | ||
Halifax is a middle town in the English county of West Yorkshire and the administrative seat of the metropolitan borough Calderdale . According to the 2001 census, Halifax had a total of 82,056 residents.
geography
Halifax is located in the southeast of the South Pennines moorland near the towns of Bradford , Huddersfield and Rochdale . Liverpool and Hull are 100 km away and London , Edinburgh , Belfast , Dublin and Cardiff are around 300 km away. The city is traversed by the Calder River.
history
The name Halifax probably comes from the old English words for "holy" and "face", which indicates the old legend that the head of John the Baptist is said to be buried here after his execution. The legend has also been carried over to the city coat of arms, which depicts the saint.
The first Earl of Halifax was George Savile , who had previously been raised to margrave and appropriated this title in 1677. George Montagu-Dunk was named President of the Board of Trade in 1748 . In 1749 he was the co-founder of the city of Halifax in Canada , which was named after its English model.
The history of the Halifax Minster dates back to the 12th century. The cathedral was dedicated to John the Baptist. The astronomer and discoverer of Uranus , Wilhelm Herschel , was the first organist in the church in 1766. Halifax was notorious for its guillotine , a precursor to the guillotine that was last used in 1650. A replica of it was built in Gibbet Street (" Gallows Street "). Daniel Defoe spent most of his life in Halifax.
politics
With the Local Government Act 1888 , Halifax was declared a county borough from 1889 . Since 1974 Halifax has been the administrative seat of the Metropolitan Borough Calderdale .
Town twinning
Halifax is twinned with Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia .
Culture and sights
music
- The bands Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride are based in Halifax.
- Ed Sheeran spent the first years of his life in Halifax.
Buildings
- The Heath High School is 1585 and the Piece Hall was opened with 300 rooms in 1779 for the display and sale of substances.
- The market square is lined with Victorian buildings.
- The North Bridge is an iron and stone Victorian road bridge. It crosses the River Hebble valley and connects the city with the roads to Bradford and Leeds.
- The town hall, built in 1863, was designed by the famous architect Charles Barry , who also designed the Palace of Westminster .
Sports
Halifax is home to the rugby league club Halifax RLFC , which plays in the second-rate Rugby Football League Championship . The FC Halifax Town is the successor of the football club Halifax Town , which went bankrupt in 2008 and was disbanded. The club currently plays in the seventh-class Northern Premier League Premier Division . The two clubs share The Shay stadium , which has a capacity of 14,000 spectators.
The speedway sport was first held in Halifax in 1928. From 1949 to 1951, the races were held at The Shay Stadium. It was the home of the Halifax Dukes , who rode in the National League Third Division until 1949 and rose to the Second Division in 1950 . In 1952 they moved to Odsal Stadium in Bradford and The Shay was converted into a pure rugby and football stadium. In 1965 the Dukes were a member of the newly formed British League .
Economy and Infrastructure
The city is the founding site of Bank Halifax , which has been part of the Lloyds Banking Group since 2008 . In addition to finance, confectionery production is an important industry in Halifax that has traditionally grown since 1890. In 1969 the York-based Rowntree’s merged with the Halifax-based family business of John Mackintosh to form Rowntree Mackintosh . In 1988 the manufacturer was taken over by Nestlé . He produces different types of confectionery, for example under the brand name Quality Street .
Previously, Halifax was an industrial city that focused on mechanical engineering, the textile industry, and carpet manufacturing. The workers' settlements from this period still exist today and are now a listed building.
traffic
Halifax is on the A58 ( Prescot - Wetherby ) and A629 ( Rotherham - Skipton ) roads . The A6036 connects Halifax with Bradford. Connection to the M62 is five kilometers south via the A629 towards Manchester and Liverpool and ten kilometers east via the A58 towards Leeds and Hull.
In addition to some inner-city bus routes, there are bus connections to Dewsbury , Wakefield , Bradford, Leeds, Rochdale and Burnley .
Halifax Station is on the Caldervale Line with direct links to Manchester Victoria Station , York , Selby via Bradford and Leeds, Blackpool , Huddersfield and Wakefield via Brighouse and London's King's Cross Station . The London connection is operated by East Coast , all others by Northern Rail .
The former railway line north to Keighley , which had another branch to Bradford via Queensbury , was closed in 1955. The route has many tunnels and high viaducts and is now used as a hiking and cycling route.
Personalities
sons and daughters of the town
- David Hartley (1705–1757), philosopher and psychologist, founder of association psychology
- William Fawcett (1728-1804), officer
- Jesse Ramsden (1735–1800), optician and manufacturer of mathematical and optical instruments
- Benjamin Frobisher (1742–1787), fur trader
- James Stansfield (1820–1898), politician
- William Edward Soothill (1861–1935), missionary and sinologist
- Herbert Akroyd Stuart (1864–1927), inventor
- John Henry Whitley (1866–1935), British Liberal Party politician , Speaker of the House of Commons and Chairman of the BBC
- Ernest Lister (1870–1919), American politician, 1913–1919 Governor of Washington (state)
- George Dyson (1883–1964), composer
- Percy Shaw (1890–1976), inventor of the cat's eye
- Arthur Edward Ellis (1914-1999), football referee
- Oliver Smithies (1925–2017), geneticist and winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine
- John Alan Robinson (1930–2016), philosopher and logician
- Barry Seal (born 1937), politician, Labor member
- Patrick Woodroffe (1940-2014), artist
- John E. Walker (* 1941), molecular biologist and 1997 Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry
- John Lawton (born 1946), rock and roll singer
- John Pawson (* 1949), architect
- Peter FE Sloane (* 1954), business educator
- Kate Thompson (born 1956), writer
- Steven Croft (born 1957), cleric and bishop
- Kenny Carter (1961–1986), speedway driver
- Craig Fleming (born 1971), football player
- Andy McDermott (born 1974), thriller writer
- Paddy Kenny (born 1978), soccer player
- Charlie Hodgson (born 1980), rugby player
- Nathan Clarke (born 1983), football player
- Catherine Ashcroft (* 1988), instrumental musician
- Lee Tuck (born 1988), soccer player
- Ed Sheeran (born 1991), musician
Individual evidence
- ↑ 2004 Calderdale Ward Digest - Census 2001. (PDF; 1.6 MB) (No longer available online.) Calderdale Council, August 2004, archived from the original on March 27, 2009 ; accessed on January 31, 2012 (English).
