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England Yorkshire  Bradford

Guide to Bradford history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



History
Bradford is in the Metropolitan Borough of the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England, in the foothills of the Pennines 8.6 miles (14 km) west of Leeds, and 16 miles (26 km) northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897. Following local government reform in 1974, city status was bestowed upon the wider metropolitan borough.

Bradford is not built on any substantial body of water but is situated at the junction of three valleys, one of them, that of the Bradford Beck which rises in moorland to the west, and is swelled by its tributaries, the Horton Beck, Westbrook, Bowling Beck and Eastbrook. At the site of the original ford, the beck turns north, and flows towards the River Aire at Shipley. Bradfordale (or Bradforddale) is a name given to this valley (see for example Firth 1997). It can be regarded as one of the Yorkshire Dales, though as it passes though the city, it is often not recognized as such.

After an uprising in 1070, during William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North, the manor of Bradford was laid waste and is described as such in the Domesday Book of 1086. It then became part of the Honour of Pontefract given to Ilbert de Lacy for service to the Conqueror, in whose family the manor remained until 1311. There is evidence of a castle in the time of the Lacys. The manor then passed to the Earl of Lincoln, John of Gaunt, The Crown and, ultimately, private ownership in 1620.

By the middle ages Bradford, had become a small town centered on Kirkgate, Westgate and Ivegate. In the reign of Henry VIII Bradford exceeded Leeds as a manufacturing center. Bradford grew slowly over the next two-hundred years as the woolen trade gained in prominence.

In 1801, Bradford was a rural market town of 6,393 people. Blast furnaces were established in about 1788. Yorkshire iron was used for shackles, hooks and piston rods for locomotives, colliery cages and other mining appliances where toughness was required, and this allowed Bradford to start growing to an industrial entity.

Bradford was also a center for the local wool industry. In 1825 the wool-combers union called a strike that lasted five-months but workers were forced to return to work through hardship leading to the introduction of machine-combing. This Industrial Revolution led to rapid growth, with wool imported in vast quantities for the manufacture of worsted cloth in which Bradford specialized, and the town soon became known as the wool capital of the world. Bradford had ample supplies of locally mined coal to provide the power that the industry needed.

One unique aspect of the development of Bradford as a source of woolen goods was the fact that during the 1820s and 1830s, there was immigration from Germany. Many were Jewish merchants and they became active in the life of the town. They were a major influence in developing the marketing skills that allowed Bradford to export to the world.

The textile industry went into decline throughout the latter part of the 20th century. However a culture of innovation had been fundamental to Bradford's dominance, with new textile technologies being invented in the city; a prime example being the work of Samuel Lister. This innovation culture continues today throughout Bradford's economy, from automotive design centers (Kahn Design), to electronics (Pace Micro Technology)to Food Supermarket development such as Wm Morrison Supermarkets which was founded by William Morrison in 1899, initially as an egg and butter merchant in Rawson Market, operating under the name of Wm Morrison (Provisions) Limited. Morrisons is now a major UK chain of Supermarkets. Morrisons alone employs more than 5,000 persons in the community.

Cemeteries (Civil)
Bradford Office, Cemeteries and Crematoria:


 * Unit 7, Mitre Court
 * Cutler Heights Lane
 * Bradford BD4 9JY


 * Bradford UK Gov; Cemeteries

Scholemoor Cemetery & Crematoria


 * Cemetery Lodge
 * Necropolis Road
 * Bradford BD7 2PS.

Bowling Cemetery


 * 64 Sangster Way
 * Bradford BD5 8LQ

North Brierley Cemetery


 * Cemetery Road
 * North Brierley, Bradford BD6 2NG

Thornton Cemetery


 * Thornton Road
 * Thornton, Bradford BD13 3JX

Queensbury Cemetery


 * West End
 * Queensbury, Bradford BD13 2AH

Clayton (Undercliffe) Cemetery


 * The Lodge
 * Undercliffe Lane
 * Bradford BD3 0DW

Tong Cemetery


 * Toftshaw Lane
 * Bradford BD46RB

Parishes
Bradford has a number of Anglican churches and Chapelries. The following list includes those specifically in Bradford City itself, and are shown with the appendage (Bradford). To provide assistance, all other Anglican churches in the area are listed. These are in the following local towns and villages:

Allerton, North Bierley, Bowling, Bradford, Clayton, Eccleshill, Heaton, Manningham, Shipley, and Wilsden, and the chapelries of Haworth, Horton, and Thornton. The churches dedicated to St. James and St. John are listed under Horton, St. Jude's church is listed under the township of Manningham.


 * All Saints Church, Bradford 
 * Christ Church, Bradford 
 * Holy Trinity, Bradford 
 * St Andrews, Bradford 
 * St Chrysostom Bradford
 * St Clement's, Bradford
 * St John, Bradford 
 * St Jude, Bradford 
 * St Michael, Bradford 
 * St Phillip's Church, Bradford 
 * St Thomas, Bradford Moor 
 * St Augustine's Church, Bandfoot 
 * St Matthew's, Bierley, 
 * St John the Evangelist Bierly 
 * Bowling St. John
 * Buttershaw St Paul
 * Clayton St John the Baptist
 * Cullingworth
 * Daisy-Hill
 * Denholme-Gate 
 * Denholme St Paul's
 * Eccleshill 
 * Fairweather Green St. Saviour's
 * Great Horton St. John the Evangelist - 1809
 * Greengates St. John the Evangelist
 * Haworth St. Michael and all All Angels
 * Horton All Saints - 1840
 * Horton St. James - 1840
 * Laister-Dyke
 * Little Horton All Saints
 * Low Moor St. Mark's
 * New Leeds
 * Manningham St. Jude
 * Manningham St. Luke
 * Manningham St. Mary Magdalene 
 * Manninghame St. Paul's 
 * Oxenhope St. Mary the Virgin
 * Shearbridge St Columba's
 * ShipleySt. Paul's
 * Stanbury St. Gabriel's
 * Thorpe Edge St. John the Divine 
 * Thornton St. Jame's
 * West Bowling St. Stephen's
 * Wibsey St. Paul's

Non Conformists
Bradford is very diverse, ethnically. There have been waves of immigrants over the past hundred years, and they are represented by the following Christian Groups:


 * Baptists
 * Chinese Christian
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
 * Greek Orthodox
 * Jehovah's Witnesses
 * Methodist
 * Presbyterian
 * Roman Catholic
 * Salvation Army Church
 * Seventh Day Adventists

Non Christian faiths include the following:


 * Buddhist
 * Hindu
 * Jewish
 * Muslim
 * Sikh

Online Records
Online data content from the parish registers of St Peter Bradford and its attached chapelry registers within its ancient boundary exists at some of the following websites and for the specified ranges of years:

To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

This ancient parish (AP) was created before 1813. Church of England records began in 1599.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The following article civil registration tells more about these records.

Registration of Births, Marriages and Deaths:

Bradford Register Office


 * 22 Manor Row
 * Bradford, West Yorkshire BD1 4QR


 * Bradford Registry


 * Yorkshire BMD


 * Freebmd

Local Histories

 * localhistories.org: Bradford


 * walking through Bradford's History by Mark Alexander Jackson


 * The Book of Bradford by F M McDonnell

Maps and Gazetteers

 * Google maps; Bradford


 * Bradford Metropolitan District Council Maps


 * old maps uk


 * Leeds and Bradford Yorkshire gazetteer


 * genuki Yorkshire gazetteers

Newspapers

 * The Telegraph and Argus


 * Bradford local and historical newspapers


 * The Yorkshire Standard on line newspaper

Occupations
Bradford's textile industry has been in decline for many years and the city has suffered from de-industrialisation. Some areas of Bradford are among the worst levels of social deprivation in the UK, with widespread pockets of exclusion, and rates of unemployment in some wards exceeding 25%.

However the city council has made great strides in diversification, and the city is home to several major companies, notably in finance (Yorkshire Building Society, Provident Financial, Santander UK), textiles ( British Wool Marketing Board, Bulmer and Lumb Group), chemicals (BASF, Nufarm UK), electronics (Pace Micro, Filtronic), engineering (NG Bailey, Powell Switchgear), and manufacturing, (Denso Marston, Bailey Offsite, Hallmark Cards UK and Seabrook Potato Crisps). Supermarket chain Morrisons has its head office in Bradford as does the water utility company Yorkshire Water.

Bradford also has opportunities for employment in the education field, particularly with the growth of the University of Bradford.

Societies

 * Bradford Family History Society


 * Yorkshire Family History Societies

Archives
West Yorkshire Archive Service:


 * Margaret McMillan Tower
 * Prince's Way
 * Bradford BD1 1NN


 * Telephone: 0113 393 9785


 * Bradford Archives


 * The National Archives; Bradford


 * Telegraph and Argus Newspaper Archive

Web Sites

 * Bradford UK Council