CalderNet.org.uk
Title
CALDERNET - Calderdale online - Home
Description
Halifax is now the administrative centre of Calderdale. The Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale was formed by the amalgamation of the County Borough of Halifax, the Borough of Brighouse, the Borough of Todmorden, the Elland Urban District, the Hebden Royd Urban District, the Ripponden Urban District, the Sowerby Bridge Urban District and part of the Queensbury and Shelf Urban District.
Probably as a result of the shifting base of the textile industry from the east to the west of Yorkshire, Halifax had become possibly centre of the clothing industry in the county. Its early cloth hall, wool merchants and markets all point to an important late medieval textile town, yet it had no self-governance nor even a market charter.
Halifax was to continue much in this position throughout the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. But by the end of the 18th century it possessed one of the finest, if not the finest, cloth hall in England (the Piece Hall), several well- appointed merchants' houses, a well-developed central area and some cultural institutions - a public baths, assembly rooms, coffee houses and producers of luxury goods. However, it remained in one respect as the Rev. Pococke commented in 1750, for tho' it is so large a town it is no corporation, a pronouncement on its medieval origins (Cartwright 1888 p50).
