Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire

Fitzwilliam
Fitzwilliam
	Fitzwilliam Location within West Yorkshire
OS grid reference	SE413152
Civil parish	Hemsworth ;
Metropolitan borough	City of Wakefield ;
Metropolitan county	West Yorkshire ;
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber ;
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	PONTEFRACT
Postcode district	WF9
Dialling code	01977
Police	West Yorkshire
Fire	West Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
UK Parliament	Hemsworth ;
	List of places UK England Yorkshire 53°37′57″N1°22′32″W / 53.63249°N 1.37556°W

Last updated May 18, 2024

Fitzwilliam is a small village on the edge of West Yorkshire, England, in the City of Wakefield district. The village falls within the Hemsworth ward of Wakefield City Council.

Governance

It is part of the town of Hemsworth and local government is in the hands of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, with the Hemsworth Town Council as a mainly consultative body. However, the Post Office recognises it as a separate settlement from the town of Hemsworth.

History

It was built as a pit village. It has a railway station on the Wakefield Line, providing it with connections to Leeds, Wakefield, Doncaster and Sheffield. The railway station closed in 1967, reopened in 1982 and the line was electrified in 1989.

The village provided housing for miners at the colliery originally named "Fitzwilliam Main".^[1] The name was taken from the family name of the colliery's proprietor. In 1905, a bitter industrial dispute led to all the miners being expelled from their homes, which were owned by the Fitzwilliam family; this became known as the "Kinsley eviction".^[2]^[3]

The mine later changed its name to Hemsworth Colliery which closed in 1969. Kinsley Drift Mine was opened on the site of the old Hemsworth Colliery in 1977. In the long-running miners' strike of 1984 to 1985, a riot took place in Fitzwilliam on 9 July 1984, and nine people ("The Fitzwilliam Nine") were convicted of public order offences as a result.^[4]^[5]

Kinsley and nearby Nostell Pit were closed in 1986 and 1987 respectively. South Kirkby Colliery closed in 1988. As a result, there was a high level of unemployment in the locality and migration led to it being labelled as a ghost town. Between 2003 and 2006, part of the village was demolished, including the whole of the "City estate",^[6] to clear derelict properties. In response, Fitzwilliam was included in the Hemsworth Coalfield regeneration area and has received special funding to aid its recovery.^[7] The economy improved much in the first decade of the 21st century and unemployment in the Hemsworth seat fell to 3% in 2007,^[8] although there are no statistics specifically for Fitzwilliam.

Notable residents

Geoffrey Boycott, cricketer
Cyril and Peter Knowles, footballers
Sir Albert Lamb commonly known as Larry Lamb, newspaper editor^[9]

The band Chumbawamba recorded a song named after the village, which described its painful decline following the 1984–1985 miners' strike. The village also plays a large role in the crime novel Nineteen Seventy Four , in which it is introduced in a list of "hard towns for hard men" and then later referred to as "a dirty brown mining town" and "where the night comes early and nowt [nothing] feels right, where the kids kill cats and the men kill kids".^{[ citation needed ]}

Related Research Articles

Walton is a village and civil parish in the City of Wakefield in the county of West Yorkshire, England, 4 miles south-east of Wakefield. At the time of the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 3,231. At the time of the 2011 Census the parish was part of the City of Wakefield's ward of Crofton, Ryhill and Walton. The population of this ward at the Census was 15,144.

Nostell is a village in the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, near Hemsworth. It is in the civil parish of Huntwick with Foulby and Nostell, which had a population of 90 in 2001, and 164 at the 2011 census.

The 1984–1985 United Kingdom miners' strike was a major industrial action within the British coal industry in an attempt to prevent colliery closures. It was led by Arthur Scargill of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) against the National Coal Board (NCB), a government agency. Opposition to the strike was led by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to reduce the power of the trade unions.

Ollerton is a town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Ollerton and Boughton, in the Newark and Sherwood district, in the county of Nottinghamshire, England, on the edge of Sherwood Forest in the area known as the Dukeries. The population of Ollerton and Boughton at the 2011 census was 9,840.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hemsworth</span> Town and civil parish in West Yorkshire, England

Hemsworth is a town and civil parish in the City of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. Historically within the West Riding of Yorkshire and had a population of 13,311 at the 2001 census, with it increasing to 13,533 at the 2011 Census.

Wakefield, also known as the City of Wakefield, is a local government district with city status and a metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Wakefield, the largest settlement, is the administrative centre of the district. The population of the City of Wakefield at the 2011 Census was 325,837.

Featherstone is a town and civil parish in the City of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, two miles south-west of Pontefract. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 2011 it had a population of 15,244. Featherstone railway station is on the Pontefract Line.

Woolley Colliery is a village on the border between the Barnsley and Wakefield districts in Yorkshire, England. The village is now in South Yorkshire, while the former colliery was in the Wakefield Rural Ward in West Yorkshire. The village is known locally as Mucky Woolley, as a tribute to its coalmining heritage and to distinguish it from the more affluent village of Woolley two miles away.

South Elmsall is a town and civil parish in the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England. South Elmsall lies to the east of Hemsworth. The town had a population in 2001 of 6,107, increasing to 6,519 at the 2011 Census.

South Kirkby is a town in the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England which is governed locally by South Kirkby and Moorthorpe Town Council. The town forms half of the civil parish of South Kirkby and Moorthorpe. The parish has a population of 10,979.

A pit village, colliery village or mining village is a settlement built by colliery owners to house their workers. The villages were built on the coalfields of Great Britain during the Industrial Revolution where new coal mines were developed in isolated or unpopulated areas. Such settlements were developed by companies for the incoming workers.

Netherton is a village in the City of Wakefield metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England. It lies about 4 miles south-west of Wakefield, 3 miles south of Ossett and 1 mile south of Horbury. The village is in the Wakefield Rural ward of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council. The village name is shown on map "Dvcatvs Eboracensis pars occidentalis" from 1646.

Outwood is a district to the north of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England. The district is centred on the A61 Leeds Road south of Lofthouse. It grew up as a pit village and was only a small settlement until the 1970s, when construction of new houses caused it to grow and merge with neighbouring settlements such as Wrenthorpe and Stanley. In 2001, it had a population of 7,623.

Denaby Main is a village situated between Mexborough and Conisbrough in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England. The village falls within the Doncaster MBC ward of Conisbrough and Denaby. It was built by the Denaby Main Colliery Company to house its workers and their families, and originally given the name Denaby Main Colliery Village, to distinguish it from the village of Denaby, about ⅔ mile away on the road to Hooton Roberts and Kilnhurst; from that time, the old village became known as Old Denaby. In due course the "Colliery Village" part of the name was lost, leaving the village to be known as Denaby Main.

The Maltby Main Colliery was a coal mine located 7 miles (11 km) east of Rotherham on the eastern edge of Maltby, South Yorkshire, England. The mine was closed in 2013.

The South Yorkshire Coalfield is so named from its position within Yorkshire. It covers most of South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and a small part of North Yorkshire. The exposed coalfield outcrops in the Pennine foothills and dips under Permian rocks in the east. Its most famous coal seam is the Barnsley Bed. Coal has been mined from shallow seams and outcrops since medieval times and possibly earlier.

The Lofthouse Colliery disaster was a mining accident in Lofthouse, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, on Wednesday 21 March 1973, in which seven mine workers died when workings flooded.

Kinsley is a village in the civil parish of Hemsworth, and the City of Wakefield district of West Yorkshire, England.

Hemsworth Colliery Football Club were a football club based in Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, England. The team played in the Sheffield and District Football League and Alliance. Formed as Hemsworth Association Football Club in 1890 the club were later to become affiliated with the colliery and changed their name to Hemsworth Colliery.

Barrow Colliery was a coal mine in Worsborough, South Yorkshire, England. It was first dug in 1873, with the first coal being brought to the surface in January 1876. It was the scene of a major incident in 1907 when seven miners died. After 109 years of coaling operations, the mine was closed in May 1985.

References

↑ fitzwilliam archive Archived 16 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine
↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 17 June 2007. Retrieved 16 March 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
↑ Tuffrey, Peter (3 June 2014). "Grim ordeal of evicted miners' families" . www.yorkshirepost.co.uk. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
↑ BBC report
↑ Full might of union was mobilised, Wakefield Express The Miners' Strike 25th anniversary special edition, page 9, 6 March 2009
↑ BBC NEWS | England | Plan to demolish pit village estate
↑ Dooris, Mark. "HEMSWORTH COALFIELD PARTNERSHIP SRB5 PROGRAMME" (PDF). uclan.ac.uk. p. 15. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 March 2009. Retrieved 16 June 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Bernard Shrimsley 2004, on-line version accessed 17 June 2012

External links

Media related to Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire at Wikimedia Commons

The Fitzwilliam Archive Online

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] tzwilliam archive Archived 16 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine

[2] "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 17 June 2007. Retrieved 16 March 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

[3] Tuffrey, Peter (3 June 2014). "Grim ordeal of evicted miners' families" . www.yorkshirepost.co.uk. Retrieved 3 February 2020.

[4] BBC report

[5] Full might of union was mobilised, Wakefield Express The Miners' Strike 25th anniversary special edition, page 9, 6 March 2009

[6] BBC NEWS | England | Plan to demolish pit village estate

[7] Dooris, Mark. "HEMSWORTH COALFIELD PARTNERSHIP SRB5 PROGRAMME" (PDF). uclan.ac.uk. p. 15. Retrieved 3 February 2020.

[8] "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 March 2009. Retrieved 16 June 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)

[ODNB-9] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Bernard Shrimsley 2004, on-line version accessed 17 June 2012

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]