Dewsbury is a town in the county of West Yorkshire, England, to the west of Wakefield, in the borough of Kirklees. It lies by the River Calder and the Calder and Hebble Navigation. According to the 2001 census the Dewsbury urban sub-area had a population of 54,341. In Saxon times, Dewsbury was a centre of considerable importance. The parish of Dewsbury extended east of the Pennines to encompass Huddersfield, Mirfield and Bradford. Ancient legend records that in 627 Paulinus, the first bishop of York, preached in the church situated here. Numerous Saxon graves have been found in Dewsbury and Thornhill.
Dewsbury Minster lies near the banks of the Calder, traditionally on the site where Paulinus preached. Parts of the church are said to date to the 13th century. It houses the "Devil's Knell", a bell rung each Christmas Eve, one toll for each year, in a tradition dating back to the 15th century. It was donated by Sir Thomas de Soothill, in penance for murdering a servant boy in a fit of rage. The tradition was commemorated on a Royal Mail postage stamp in 1986.
Dewsbury market was established in the 14th century for local clothiers. Occurrences of the plague in 1593 and 1603 closed the market until it was reopened in 1741.
INFO ON DEWSBURY'S MARKET:
Dewsbury Covered Market
The Covered Market at Dewsbury consists of 33 shop type units selling an excellent range of goods from foods to clothes and household items. It is open 51/2 days per week (1/2 day closing on Tuesdays). The busiest days are Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in conjunction with the adjacent large Open Market.
Dewsbury Open Market
The Open Market at Dewsbury consists of 243 stalls with a further 52 enclosed stalls around the market. The market is open on Wednesday and Saturdays as a General Market, and Friday as a Second-hand Market. There is a Car Boot Sale every Sunday morning. Dewsbury Market is very popular with shoppers visiting from many surrounding towns it is also popular with coach parties.
Through the Middle Ages Dewsbury retained a measure of importance in ecclesiastical terms, collecting tithes from as far away as Halifax in the mid-14th century. John Wesley visited the area five times in the mid-18th century, and the first Methodist Society was established in 1746. Centenary Chapel on Daisy Hill commemorates the centenary of this event, and the Methodist tradition remained strong in the town.
In 1770, a short branch of the Calder and Hebble Navigation canal was completed, linking Dewsbury to the main canal system and giving access to distribution centres in Manchester and Hull. By the time of the industrial revolution, Dewsbury was one of the centres for the "shoddy" industry, the recycling of old woollen items by mixing them with new wool and making them into heavy blankets and uniforms. The town benefited economically from the canal, its location at the heart of the Heavy Woollen District, and its proximity to the coal mines. The railways arrived in 1848 when three stations were opened in the town, including Dewsbury Wellington Road, the only one which remains. This period saw a great increase in population, rising from 4,566 in 1801 to around 30,000 by 1890.
Dewsbury was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1862, its first mayor being Dr George Farnley. The 1868 Reform Act constituted Dewsbury a parliamentary borough, its first MP being Mr Sergeant Simon. The fine Victorian town hall that stands in front of the old marketplace was built in 1848. Dewsbury's boundaries were expanded to include the urban districts of Ravensthorpe, Thornhill, Soothill Nether and half of Soothill Upper in 1910 and it was elevated to county borough status in 1913. "Soothill Nether" refers to the current east end of the town, although, at the time, Chickenley and Chidswell were hamlets, and Earlsheaton formed the bulk of the area's population. The covered market was opened in 1904 and during the 1920's trade moved from the original market place to the area around the covered market.
Starting in the late 1950s and continuing until the 1970s, many families from South Asia, particularly Pakistan, settled in Dewsbury. By 1966 around 2,000 immigrants from Commonwealth countries had made Dewsbury their home. Many worked in the woolen mills, making good the labour shortage in that sector. The mills were still often run as family businesses, and continued manufacturing after the wool crisis in 1950-51, which saw Australian sheep farmers begin to charge higher prices. However, the recovery of the late 1960s was reversed by the 1973 oil crisis, and the textile industry in Dewsbury declined, with only bed manufacturing remaining a large scale employer. According to the 2001 census, some 13,000 of the population of Dewsbury are of Asian descent.
In 2005, two high profile crimes brought the media spotlight on Dewsbury. In June, a girl of 12 was charged with grievous bodily harm following what was reported as the attempted hanging of a five year old boy from Chickenley. The following month it emerged that Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the July 7th London bombers, had been living in Thornhill Lees, a suburb of Dewsbury.
myspace