Batley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Batley is a small town in Kirklees Metropolitan Borough, in the county of West Yorkshire, England. It lies north of Dewsbury, just off the M62. After undergoing a period of major growth in the 19th century due to the success of the shoddy trade, Batley has more recently undergone a period of decline. Batley is part of a special EU transformation zone.
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[edit] History
Little is known of Batley in Saxon times. The name Batley is derived from Danish, meaning either valley or homestead of bats, or more likely, homestead of the locally prominent Batte family. It is recorded in the Domesday Book as 'Bateleia'. After the Norman conquest, the manor was granted to Ilbert de Lacy. It subsequently passed into the ownership of the de Batleys, and by the 12th century had passed by marriage to the Copley family. Their residence at Batley Hall was held directly from the Crown; at this time the district fell within the Duchy of Lancaster.[1] The population at this time was 30 to 40 people. By the late 14th century, the population has increased to around 100.
There has been a church in Batley since the 11th century. The present Batley Parish Church was built in the reign of Henry VI (1422-1461), and parts of the original remain. Although Batley is an ancient settlement, this is all that remains of any great antiquity.
Howley Hall at Soothill was built in the 1580s by Sir John Savile, a member of the great Yorkshire landowners, the Savile family. The house was besieged during the Civil War in 1643 prior to the Battle of Adwalton Moor but appears to have sustained no serious damage at the time. It continued to be occupied during the 17th century but fell into disrepair. Howley Hall was finally demolished in 1730. However, many ruins still exist including the cellars of the great hall.
Batley Grammar School was founded in 1612 by the Rev. William Lee and is still in existence today.
Methodism came to Batley in the 1740s and took a strong hold in the town which continued into the 20th century. John Nelson from neighbouring Birstall was a leading lay preacher in the early Methodist movement. Areas of the town, such as Mount Pleasant, were noted for their absence of public houses due to the Methodist leaning of the local population.
In the late 18th century the main occupations in the town were farming and weaving. The Industrial Revolution came to Batley in 1796 with the arrival of the first water powered mills for carding spinning. Over the next half century the population grew rapidly, from around 2,500 at the turn of the 19th century to 9,308 at the 1851 census. The parish of Batley at this point included Morley, Churwell and Gildersome, with a total population of 17,359.
A toll road built in 1832 between Gomersal and Dewsbury included a branch to Batley (the present day Branch Road) which allowed for "the growing volumes of wool, cloth and coal" to be transported. Previously there had only been foot and cart tracks. Around the same time there were strikes in the mills, which led to an influx of Irish workers who settled permanently in Batley. Initially this led to some antagonism from the locals, due to the cheaper wages demanded by the Irish workers and general anti-Roman Catholic sentiment, but this faded in time. By 1853 Catholic services were being held regularly in the town, although the first Roman Catholic church, St Mary of the Angels, was not built until 1870.
By 1848 there was a railway station in Batley, and in 1853 Batley Town Hall was erected. It was enlarged in 1905, and is in the Neoclassical style style, with a corbelled parapet and pilasters rising to a centre pediment. In 1868 Batley was incorporated as a municipal borough, the former urban district of Birstall being added to it in 1937.[2]
1853 also saw the establishment of a small confectionery shop by Michael Spedding. His business would expand, moving to larger premises in 1927 and later becoming Fox's Biscuits. Today, along with Tesco, it is one of the two largest employers in the town.
In the late 19th century, Batley was the centre of the "shoddy trade" in which wool rags and clothes were recycled by reweaving them into blankets, carpets, uniforms. In 1861 there were at least 30 shoddy mills in Batley. The owners of the recycling businesses were known as the "shoddy barons" . There was a "shoddy king" and a "shoddy temple", properly known as the Zion Chapel. This imposing building in the town centre was opened in 1870, and reflected the popularity of the Methodist movement in Batley. The library was built in 1907 with funds donated by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The library has recently been modernised, with a new microfilm viewer, and reels of the Batley News dating back over 120 years. The paper was founded by James Fearnsides - a reputable local printer. His son Clement, later went on to become the Mayor of Batley. There was also an active coal mining industry in Batley at this time. The first records of coal mining in Batley date back to the 16th century at White Lee; the last pit in the town closed in 1973.
From the end of the 1950s onwards, the need for cheap labour in the town's textile industries drew in migrant labourers from the Gujarat, the Punjab and parts of modern day Pakistan, mostly of Muslim origins. There are now successful and well-integrated communities that contribute to the economic and social life of the town. There is a growing community infrastructure that includes around six purpose-built mosques and a number of specialist shops and businesses catering for the culturally specific needs of local Asian people, who currently account for approximately 23% of the combined population of Batley, Birstall and Birkenshaw.
In 1974 responsibility for local government passed to Kirklees Metropolitan Council, with its headquarters in Huddersfield
[edit] Sport and culture
The town is home to the professional rugby league club Batley Bulldogs.
Wilton Park (known locally as Batley Park) is a large park between Batley town centre and Upper Batley. In its grounds are a butterfly house, the Milner K. Ford Observatory (built in 1966 and home to the Batley Astronomical Society) and Bagshaw Museum. The museum is located in a house built by one of the original "shoddy barons", George Sheard, and features local history, natural history, curios from around the world, and a Ancient Egypt exhibition. The museum (originally the Wilton Park Museum) is named after its first curator Walter Bagshaw, a Batley councillor and extensive traveller.
Batley also hosts the Yorkshire Motor Museum, with a small but varied collection of cars dating back to 1885, and reflecting local car makers as well as the more famous marques.
Batley Art Gallery, located in the impressive Batley Library building, features contemporary art, craft and photography. The cosmopolitan "Redbrick Mill" shopping development is also just outside the town centre.
Between 1966 and 1977 the Batley Variety Club was frequented by many high profile acts including Johnny Mathis, Eartha Kitt, The Bee Gees, Roy Orbison, The Hollies and Cliff Richard, among others. It is now the Frontier nightclub, and has been since the late 1970s. However there are many rumours at present that the Frontier is set to change back to the Batley Variety Club name and style. The Frontier was actually sold to a group of local businessmen in April 2005.While they are bringing back more variety putting on more live shows, the venue remains as the Frontier.
Professional snooker player Paul Hunter lived in Batley until his death on the 9th October 2006.
In cricket, Batley has several local teams, and is also part of the cricket association for the Heavy Woollen District. The original definition of the latter area was to within a six mile radius of Batley Town Hall. The Heavy Woollen Cup can now be entered by any team within eighteen miles of Batley, but there is an upper limit of sixty-four teams.
[edit] Natives
Batley Grammar School was attended by Sir Titus Salt, an industrialist who founded the model village of Saltaire, Joseph Priestley, a friend of Benjamin Franklin, Josiah Wedgwood and controversial writer Tim Fountain.
Pop singer Robert Palmer was also born in Batley.
Influential Oxford chemist John Bernard Roberts also hails from Batley. In 2004 a small plaque was erected on Upper Batley Low Lane to commemorate his pioneering work in the field of inorganic chemistry. There were calls in 2005 to remove this honour after allegations emerged that he embezzled large amounts of money from Batley's EU development grant. Although these claims were never proven, many locals link the allegations to the chemist's increasingly hedonistic lifestyle.
