78-462: Bradford Beck is a river that flows through Bradford , West Yorkshire , England , (then Bradford Dale ) and on to the River Aire at Shipley . As it reaches Bradford city centre it runs underground after being built over in the 19th century. It is culverted as it runs from Bradford city centre to Queen's Road after which it runs mostly in an open channel to Shipley. The beck used to be known as
156-532: A UNESCO World Heritage Site . Henry Ripley was a younger contemporary of Titus Salt. He was managing partner of Edward Ripley & Son Ltd, which owned the Bowling Dye Works. In 1880 the dye works employed over 1000 people and was said to be the biggest dye works in Europe. Like Salt he was a councillor, JP and Bradford MP who was deeply concerned to improve working class housing conditions. He built
234-494: A 51,096 m² (570,000 sq ft) shopping centre containing Primark , Next , River Island, and over 90 shops and other leisure facilities. (BHS had a store in Broadway, but it demolished as part of the demolition of the previous development on the site and C&A also had a store on the old Broadway but closed all UK stores in 2001 and thus cancelled plans to be part of this redevelopment). The partnership sold it to Stannifer which
312-430: A decline in industry but after the accession of William III and Mary II in 1689 prosperity began to return. The launch of manufacturing in the early 18th century marked the start of the town's development while new canal and turnpike road links encouraged trade. In 1801, Bradford was a rural market town of 6,393 people, where wool spinning and cloth weaving were carried out in local cottages and farms. Bradford
390-587: A destination for immigrants. In the 1840s Bradford's population was significantly increased by migrants from Ireland, particularly rural County Mayo and County Sligo , and by 1851 about 10% of the population were born in Ireland, the largest proportion in Yorkshire . Around the middle decades of the 19th century the Irish were concentrated in eight densely settled areas situated near the town centre. One of these
468-479: A lack of anchor tenants and with many workmen still working on Westfield Derby , the start date for construction was pushed back. The delays led to Bradford Council threatening to take back control of the site from Westfield, if progress was not made. By 2006 demolition work had freed for development a site encompassed by Hall Ings, Well Street, the new Lower Kirkgate and Charles Street. In April 2010, after several years in which no construction had taken place,
546-515: A municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the 1974 reform , the city status has belonged to the larger City of Bradford metropolitan borough . It had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 census , making it the second-largest subdivision of the West Yorkshire Built-up Area after Leeds , which is approximately 9 miles (14 km) to the east. The borough had a population of 552,644, making it
624-483: A peak in 1868 when Bradford contributed a quarter of all the coal and iron produced in Yorkshire. The population of the township in 1841 was 34,560. 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
702-569: A performance area The funding for the park scheme was provided partly by central government, as part of a fund to help local councils invest after recession, Yorkshire Forward , and the developers Westfield. Work began on the park in April 2010. The park was a temporary measure; and was closed on 6 January 2014 as construction of the development was about to begin. When opened, the shopping centre included Marks and Spencer and Debenhams as its anchor retailers. HMV, Next and H&M were also tenants at
780-510: A political party must hold more than 45 seats in order to take control of the council. A minority-led administration occurs when all parties hold less than 45 seats on the council. Following local elections on 5 May 2022, Labour had majority control over Bradford council with 56 seats; this was followed by Conservatives and the Green Party with 16 and 8 seats, respectively. The council was led by council leader Susan Hinchliffe, representing
858-440: A temperature of 27.5 °C (81.5 °F), with a total of 6 days rising to a maximum of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or above. The absolute minimum temperature recorded was −13.9 °C (7.0 °F) during January 1940. The weather station's elevated suburban location means exceptionally low temperatures are unknown. Typically, 41.4 nights of the year will record an air frost. The Broadway, Bradford The Broadway
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#1732764961254936-594: Is a shopping and leisure complex in the centre of Bradford , West Yorkshire , England, which opened on 5 November 2015. It was built and was operated, in its first year, by the Westfield Corporation but is owned by New River. It is currently operated by Munroe K Asset Management Ltd. Buildings were demolished and roads rerouted to make way for the development in 2004; but because of continued failure to secure buy-in from enough businesses, construction did not begin in earnest until January 2014: for most of
1014-727: Is also a tourist destination, the first UNESCO City of Film and it has the National Science and Media Museum , a city park , the Alhambra theatre and Cartwright Hall . The city is the UK City of Culture for 2025 having won the designation on 31 May 2022. The name Bradford is derived from the Old English brad and ford the broad ford which referred to a crossing of the Bradford Beck at Church Bank below
1092-525: Is known as Goitside. A site north west of the parish church was the place where a ducking stool was kept on the beck. This was for the punishment of scolding and unruly women . On the eventual opening of the Bradford Arm of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal , the stool was removed and used on the canal instead. Water from Bradford Beck was used to supplement the low feedwaters going into the canal, however
1170-614: Is no weal save commonweal". The original Bradford Coat of Arms had the Latin words Labor omnia vincit below it, meaning "Work conquers all". A new coat of arms was emblazoned in 1976, after local government reorganisation in 1974, with the English motto "Progress, Industry, Humanity". Bradford is represented by three MPs: for the constituencies of Bradford East ( Imran Hussain , Labour Party), Bradford South ( Judith Cummins , Labour), and Bradford West ( Naz Shah , Labour Party). Bradford
1248-484: Is owned by Meyer Bergman . In 2022, Bradford was named the UK City of Culture 2025, beating Southampton , Wrexham and Durham . The UK City of Culture bid, as of 2023, was expected to majorly stimulate the local economy and culture as well as attracting tourism to the city. By 2025, the UK City of Culture bid is expected to support potential economic growth of £389 million to the city of Bradford as well as to
1326-416: Is too fast to sustain much of the wildlife that would normally inhabit a beck of this size. The Friends of Bradford's Becks are wanting to rectify this by remodelling some of the lower reaches of the beck where it is exposed to daylight and slowing the water flow down by adding in bends. The Environment Agency has determined that the watershed for Bradford Beck is 22 square miles (58 km) and has divided
1404-632: The 9th most populous district in England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire , the city grew in the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture , particularly wool . It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution , and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the "wool capital of the world"; this in turn gave rise to the nicknames "Woolopolis" and "Wool City". Lying in
1482-559: The Bradford Burns Unit , and by the world's longest-married couple Karam and Kartari Chand. In 2021 Debenhams closed following the firm's liquidation. In 2024 Marks and Spencer announced they intended to withdraw from the centre. In February 2010, almost 6 years after the start of demolition, Bradford Council announced a plan to convert part of the construction site into a temporary park. The park would include new footpaths, seating, grassed areas, urban allotments and
1560-508: The British Wool Marketing Board opened its new headquarters in the city. Also in 2012 Bradford City Park opened, the park which cost £24.5 million to construct is a public space in the city centre which features numerous fountains and a mirror pool surrounded by benches and a walk way. In 2015 The Broadway opened, the shopping and leisure complex in the centre of Bradford cost £260 million to build and
1638-664: The Civil War the town was garrisoned for the Parliamentarians and in 1642 was unsuccessfully attacked by Royalist forces from Leeds. Sir Thomas Fairfax took the command of the garrison and marched to meet the Duke of Newcastle but was defeated. The Parliamentarians retreated to Bradford and the Royalists set up headquarters at Bolling Hall from where the town was besieged leading to its surrender. The Civil War caused
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#17327649612541716-693: The Territorial Force , based at Belle Vue Barracks in Manningham , and the 10th Battalion (another Kitchener battalion). The 1/6th Battalion first saw action in 1915 at the Battle of Aubers Ridge before moving north to the Yser Canal near Ypres . On the first day of the Somme they took heavy casualties while trying to support the 36th (Ulster) Division . The 10th Battalion was involved in
1794-521: The Windhill and Wrose ward, and chief executive Kersten England. Bradford is located at 53°45′00″N 01°50′00″W / 53.75000°N 1.83333°W / 53.75000; -1.83333 (53.7500, −1.8333) . Topographically, it is located in the eastern foothills of the South Pennines moorland region. Bradford is not built on any substantial body of water but is situated at
1872-670: The Yorkshire Dales , though as it passes through the city, it is often not recognised as such. The beck's course through the city centre is culverted and has been since the mid-19th century. On the 1852 Ordnance Survey map it is visible as far as Sun Bridge, at the end of Tyrrell Street, and then from beside Bradford Forster Square railway station on Kirkgate. On the 1906 Ordnance Survey, it disappears at Tumbling Hill Street, off Thornton Road, and appears north of Cape Street, off Valley Road, though there are culverts as far as Queens Road. The Bradford Canal , built in 1774, linking
1950-405: The 1/6th Battalion West Yorks in April 1915. These Territorial Force units were to remain close to each other throughout the war, serving in the 49th (West Riding) Division . They were joined in 1917 by the 2/6th Battalion, West Yorks , and 2/2nd West Riding Brigade, RFA , serving in the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division . Bradford's Telegraph and Argus newspaper was involved in spearheading
2028-547: The 20th century. 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 (Kahn Design) to electronics ( Pace Micro Technology ). Wm Morrison Supermarkets was founded by William Morrison in 1899, initially as an egg and butter merchant in Rawson Market, operating under
2106-460: The Battle of the Somme . Of the estimated 1,394 men from Bradford and District in the two battalions, 1,060 were either killed or injured during the ill-fated attack on the village of Serre-lès-Puisieux . Other Bradford Battalions of The Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) involved in the Battle of the Somme were the 1st/6th Battalion (the former Bradford Rifle Volunteers ), part of
2184-534: The Bradford Water Company and embarked on a huge engineering programme to bring supplies of soft water from Airedale, Wharfedale and Nidderdale . By 1882 water supply had radically improved. Meanwhile, urban expansion took place along the routes out of the city towards the Hortons and Bowling and the townships had become part of a continuous urban area by the late 19th century. A major employer
2262-629: 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 centred on Kirkgate, Westgate and Ivegate. In 1316 there is mention of a fulling mill, a soke mill where all
2340-542: The Environment Agency re-opened an investigation into a company that had allowed pollution into the beck in August 2018. Whilst the company had already been prosecuted and remedial action taken, The Friends of Bradford's Becks asked for another investigation to be carried out, as in their opinion, the punitive measures taken against the company did not go far enough. The pollution incident was alleged to have turned
2418-545: The attack on Fricourt , where it suffered the highest casualty rate of any battalion on the Somme on 1 July and perhaps the highest battalion casualty list for a single day during the entire war. Nearly 60% of the battalion's casualties were deaths. The 1/2nd and 2/2nd West Riding Brigades , Royal Field Artillery (TF), had their headquarters at Valley Parade in Manningham, with batteries at Bradford, Halifax and Heckmondwike . The 1/2nd Brigade crossed to France with
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2496-450: The beck in its present condition. A trial was held on the beck in 2015 which utilised tampons as detection points for sewage entering the beck. As the tampons do not have optical brighteners, several were left along the beck and then checked under a UV light ; those that had absorbed optical brighteners did so from household pollution, which narrowed down where water company officials needed to search for causes of pollution. In April 2019,
2574-530: The beck into two sections; the upper part is actually Clayton Beck and the urban part (Bradford Beck proper) is from where Clayton Beck passes underneath Cemetery Road in Bradford at Lidget Green. From here to the outfall point into the River Aire at Shipley it is 6.8 miles (11 km). Where the route passes through Bradford city centre in a culvert, it is to be marked by a series of carved plaques set into
2652-403: The beck is mostly covered over until Queen's Road. Thereafter to Shipley, the beck is largely exposed and accompanied by signage warning of contaminated water. The Friends of Bradford's Becks have amended these signs to take away the negative effect of their warnings as the water is of a better quality now than when the signs were erected in the 1970s. The beck passes underneath the railway lines at
2730-458: The beck was polluted again. The beck is still unsuited to hosting wildlife, but after the Friends of Bradford's Becks set up a regeneration and cleaning programme for the beck in 2013, the waters are cleaner than they have been for a long time. The issue with the lack of wildlife now is that as the beck was culverted, it runs very fast through concrete and stone channels and as such the water flow
2808-496: The canal was only supposed to take water from Bowling Beck, but as this proved insufficient, the polluted waters from Bradford Beck were used also. This turned the Bradford Canal into an open sewer. The pollution in the beck during the 19th century was legendary with it being described as the filthiest river in England , and Friedrich Engels described the beck in the 1840s as a "coal-black, foul-smelling stream". The canal
2886-428: The canal. In modern times, remnants of the canal can still be found, including by Canal Road where the route of the old canal can be seen by car. The underlying geology of the city is primarily carboniferous sandstones . These vary in quality from rough rock to fine, honey-coloured stone of building quality. Access to this material has had a pronounced effect on the architecture of the city. The city also lies within
2964-445: The city to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal took its water from Bradford Beck and its tributaries. The supply of water from the polluted Bradford Beck was often inadequate to feed the locks and heavily polluted the canal over time. Due to the polluted state of the canal causing health problems, the council temporarily closed the canal in 1866. In 1922, the canal was permanently closed due to it not being economically viable to maintain
3042-456: The city's textile sector and industrial base to decline and, since then, it has faced similar economic and social challenges to the rest of post-industrial Northern England , including poverty, unemployment and social unrest. It is the third-largest economy within the Yorkshire and the Humber region at around £10 billion, which is mostly provided by financial and manufacturing industries. It
3120-523: The city, and a section of the Muslim community led a campaign against the book. In July 2001, ethnic tensions led to rioting , and a report described Bradford as fragmented and a city of segregated ethnic communities. The Yorkshire Building Society opened its new headquarters in the city in 1992. In 2006 Wm Morrison Supermarkets opened its new headquarters in the city, the firm employs more than 5,000 people in Bradford. In June 2009 Bradford became
3198-534: The city. When the three battalions were taken over by the British Army they were officially named the 16th (1st Bradford), 18th (2nd Bradford), and 20th (Reserve) Battalions, The Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) . On the morning of 1 July 1916, the 16th and 18th Battalions left their trenches in Northern France to advance across no man's land. It was the first hour of the first day of
Bradford Beck - Misplaced Pages Continue
3276-462: The development of Bradford as a major exporter of woollen goods from their textile export houses predominately based in Little Germany and the civic life of Bradford. Charles Semon (1814–1877) was a textile merchant and philanthropist who developed a productive textile export house in the town, he became the first foreign and Jewish mayor of Bradford in 1864. Jacob Behrens (1806–1889) was
3354-565: The east end of Shipley railway station and the A657 road at the same point and enters the south side of the River Aire at Dockfield in Shipley. The average flow into the River Aire is 21 cubic feet per second (0.6 m/s) with one extreme flood event in 1984 recording an outflow of 1,210 cubic feet per second (34.3 m/s). In 2009, the Environment Agency classified the beck as being of good chemical, but poor ecological quality. A 2012 survey of
3432-492: The eastern foothills of the Pennines , the area's access to supplies of coal, iron ore and soft water facilitated the growth of a manufacturing base, which, as textile manufacture grew, led to an explosion in population and was a stimulus to civic investment. There is a large amount of listed Victorian architecture in the city including the grand Italianate city hall . From the mid-20th century, deindustrialisation caused
3510-574: The filthiest river in England . Bradford itself is so named after a crossing on Bradford Beck (the Broad Ford) which was located near to what is present day Church Street in the city centre, with a crossing named as Broadstones. The beck is formed from a number of smaller watercourses, namely Pinch Beck, Pitty Beck, Middlebrook, Clayton Beck, Bull Greave Beck, Chellow Dene Beck, Westbrook, Dirkhill Beck, Bowling Beck, Eastbrook, Bolton Beck, Trap Sike, Northcliffe Beck and Red Beck. Anglo-Saxon Bradford
3588-423: The first foreign textile merchant to export woollen goods from the town, his company developed into an international multimillion-pound business. Behrens was a philanthropist, he also helped to establish the Bradford chamber of commerce in 1851. Jacob Moser (1839–1922) was a textile merchant who was a partner in the firm Edelstein, Moser and Co, which developed into a successful Bradford textile export house. Moser
3666-429: The ground by the Friends of Bradford's Becks. The first three plaques were unveiled inside and just outside The Broadway shopping centre at the end of 2015, and the rest are to be installed during 2016. The beck runs eastwards from the Bradford moorland and in the vicinity of the cathedral, it meets Bowling Beck and Eastbrook before it turns 90° to the north. After the city centre, there are some open air sections, but
3744-585: The industrial Model village of Ripley Ville on a site in Broomfields , East Bowling close to the dye works. Other major employers were Samuel Lister and his brother who were worsted spinners and manufacturers at Lister's Mill (Manningham Mills). Lister epitomised Victorian enterprise but it has been suggested that his capitalist attitude made trade unions necessary. Unprecedented growth created problems with over 200 factory chimneys continually churning out black, sulphurous smoke, Bradford gained
3822-605: The intervening years, the site had little apart from a deep excavation, though from 2010 the area round the edge of the site was laid out as an urban park. The "hole in the ground" was very unpopular in Bradford, and at one point the site was occupied by protestors. In 1998 the Forster Square Development Partnership was established between Magellan Properties, Caddick Developments and the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council . They planned
3900-487: 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
3978-489: The lines "I've seen snow drift down Bradford Beck/As black as ebony". Eddie Lawler has sung about Bradford Beck on his 2002 CD, 'Bradford Beck'. The Friends of Bradford's Becks held a poetry competition with the winning entry getting lines from their poem carved into 15 stone plaques that follow the route above ground in the city centre. Bradford Bradford is a city in West Yorkshire , England. It became
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#17327649612544056-510: The manor corn was milled and a market. During the Wars of the Roses the inhabitants sided with House of Lancaster . Edward IV granted the right to hold two annual fairs and from this time the town began to prosper. In the reign of Henry VIII Bradford exceeded Leeds as a manufacturing centre. Bradford grew slowly over the next two-hundred years as the woollen trade gained in prominence. During
4134-488: The manufacture of worsted cloth in which Bradford specialised, and the town soon became known as the wool capital of the world. A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Bradford Moor Barracks in 1844. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and a county borough in 1888, making it administratively independent of the West Riding County Council . It
4212-408: The name of Wm Morrison (Provisions) Limited . The grandest of the mills no longer used for textile production is Lister Mills , the chimney of which can be seen from most places in Bradford. It has become a beacon of regeneration after a £100 million conversion to apartment blocks by property developer Urban Splash . In 1989, copies of Salman Rushdie 's The Satanic Verses were burnt in
4290-531: The news of the 1936 Abdication Crisis, after the Bishop of Bradford publicly expressed doubts about Edward VIII 's religious beliefs (see: Telegraph & Argus#1936 Abdication Crisis ). After the Second World War migrants came from Poland and Ukraine and since the 1950s from Bangladesh , India and particularly Pakistan . The textile industry has been in decline throughout the latter part of
4368-562: The north western parts of the Yorkshire Coalfield which is mostly composed of carboniferous coal measures . The coal measures stimulated early urban development, in the modern day, geological extraction of minerals is heavily reduced in terms of scale. As with the vast majority of the UK , Bradford experiences a maritime climate ( Köppen : Cfb ), with limited seasonal temperature ranges, and generally moderate rainfall throughout
4446-416: The numerous combined sewer overflow (CSO) points and other misconnected foul and drainage sewers. In 2018, it was reported that the beck had turned yellow due to pollutive waste from some of the curry houses in the city. It was noted that the establishments in question were not actively throwing their waste into the beck, but the simple act of washing up combined with the misconnected wastewater pipes meant that
4524-469: The power that the industry needed. Local sandstone was an excellent resource for building the mills, and with a population of 182,000 by 1850, the town grew rapidly as workers were attracted by jobs in the textile mills . A desperate shortage of water in Bradford Dale was a serious limitation on industrial expansion and improvement in urban sanitary conditions. In 1854 Bradford Corporation bought
4602-521: The project was mothballed and work began on creating a temporary park on part of the site. The site was subsequently occupied by protesters unhappy about the lack of development. In January 2014, the park was demolished, and work resumed on the construction. The centre was opened at 10 am on 5 November 2015, by Alexandra Burke at the Forster Square entrance, and simultaneously at other entrances by representatives from Bradford City and
4680-412: The reputation of being the most polluted town in England. There were frequent outbreaks of cholera and typhoid, and only 30% of children born to textile workers reached the age of fifteen. This extreme level of infant and youth mortality contributed to a life expectancy for Bradford residents of just over eighteen years, which was one of the lowest in the country. Like many major cities Bradford has been
4758-633: The site of Bradford Cathedral , around which a settlement grew in Anglo-Saxon times. It was recorded as "Bradeford" in 1086. 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
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#17327649612544836-656: The surrounding local areas, creating over 7,000 jobs, attracting a significant amount of tourists to the city and providing thousands of performance opportunities for local artists. The city played an important part in the early history of the Labour Party . A mural on the back of the Bradford Playhouse (visible from Leeds Road) commemorates the centenary of the founding of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, and quotes its motto "There
4914-577: The water and its tributaries, found high levels of Phosphates, Ammonia and metals present in the water. Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) along the beck and crucially further upstream, allow runoff and pollutants to enter the watercourse particularly in times of high rainfall and flood. A study by the Wild Trout Trust in 2012 noted that the beck was of poor ecological quality in terms of supporting marine life. There are too many weirs and obstacles to prevent trout and other fish to navigate upstream of
4992-514: The water black and killed wildlife. The beck is not navigable to boats at any point, however because of its underground nature, it does attract people wishing to explore the subterranean environment beneath the city. It has even featured in a National Geographic article on the top 11 rivers forced underground, which includes watercourses in New York , Moscow and Vienna . F.W. Moorman 's nineteenth century dialect poem "A Dalesman's Litany" has
5070-558: The world's first UNESCO City of Film and became part of the Creative Cities Network since then. The city has a long history of producing both films and the technology that produces moving film which includes the invention of the Cieroscope, which took place in Manningham in 1896. In 2010 Provident Financial opened its new headquarters in the city. The company has been based in the city since 1880. In 2012
5148-535: The year. Records have been collected since 1908 from the Met Office's weather station at Lister Park, a short distance north of the city centre. This constitutes one of the nation's longest unbroken records of daily data. The full record can be found on the council's website. The absolute maximum temperature recorded was 37.9 °C (100.2 °F) in July 2022 . In an 'average' year, the warmest day should attain
5226-477: Was Titus Salt who in 1833 took over the running of his father's woollen business specialising in fabrics combining alpaca , mohair , cotton and silk. By 1850 he had five mills. However, because of the polluted environment and squalid conditions for his workers Salt left Bradford and transferred his business to Salts Mill in Saltaire in 1850, where in 1853 he began to build the workers' village which has become
5304-706: Was a philanthropist, he founded the Bradford Charity Organisation Society and the City Guild of Help. In 1910 Moser became the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Bradford. To support the textile mills , a large manufacturing base grew up in the town providing textile machinery, and this led to diversification with different industries thriving side by side. The Jowett Motor Company founded in the early 20th century by Benjamin and William Jowett and Arthur V Lamb, manufactured cars and vans in Bradford for 50 years. The Scott Motorcycle Company
5382-686: Was a well known producer of motorcycles and light engines for industry. Founded by Alfred Angas Scott in 1908 as the Scott Engineering Company in Bradford, Scott motorcycles were produced until 1978. The city played an important part in the early history of the Labour Party. A mural on the back of the Bradford Playhouse in Little Germany commemorates the centenary of the founding of the Independent Labour Party in Bradford in 1893. The Bradford Pals were three First World War Pals battalions of Kitchener's Army raised in
5460-568: Was bought out by the Westfield Group in December 2004. Planning permission for the development was approved on 10 September 2003, with the claim that 3,000 new jobs could be created. Demolition on the Forster Square site started on 18 March 2004 and by mid-2006 the site was empty apart from a large pile of rubble. It was originally hoped that the complex would be open by late 2007 (with construction commencing in early 2006 ), but with
5538-464: Was centred around a point where at least three streams converged. This was the site of two crossings – Ive Bridge and Church Bridge, where the parish church was located (later to become Bradford Cathedral ). In medieval times, the waters from one of the streams feeding Bradford Beck were redirected to power mills in what is now the Sunbridge and Thornton Road areas. This section west of the city centre
5616-491: Was honoured with city status on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, with Kingston upon Hull and Nottingham . The three had been the largest county boroughs outside the London area without city status. The borough's boundaries were extended to absorb Clayton in 1930, and parts of Rawdon, Shipley, Wharfedale and Yeadon urban districts in 1937. Bradford had ample supplies of locally mined coal to provide
5694-409: Was opened up at Esholt . The beck underwent a flood alleviation scheme in the early 1990s. A 12-foot (3.7 m) tunnel was constructed that runs west of Bradford Beck and the city centre and emerges in an open section into Bradford Beck near to Canal Road. Despite the re-direction of sewage into brick lined channels and pipes in the 19th century, the beck remains polluted still. This is because of
5772-839: Was part of the Yorkshire and the Humber European constituency, which elected six Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) using the D'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation , until the UK exit from the European Union on 31 January 2020. In the final European Parliament election , in 2019, 29.9% of voters in Bradford chose the Brexit Party , with 28.8% voting Labour and 14.1% voting Liberal Democrat. The Conservatives only polled 6.7% and UKIP 3.7%. The City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council has 90 councillors (2023). As of 2023,
5850-621: Was subject to sulphureted hydrogen ( hydrogen sulphide ) bubbling up to the surface (especially in summer) and this condition made it very dangerous with at least one occasion when the canal was set alight. After complaints, specifically from those living and working on the Aire just east of Shipley, the Bradford Corporation was forced to act. They first set up a sewage plant at Frizinghall and then when this proved insufficient (after more communities became part of Bradford) another plant
5928-536: Was the Bedford Street area of Broomfields , which in 1861 contained 1,162 persons of Irish birth—19% of all Irish born persons in the Borough. During the 1820s and 1830s, there was immigration from Germany . Many were Jewish merchants and they became active in the life of the town. The Jewish community mostly living in the Manningham area of the town, numbered about 100 families but was influential in
6006-401: Was thus not much bigger than nearby Keighley (5,745) and was significantly smaller than Halifax (8,866) and Huddersfield (7,268). This small town acted as a hub for three nearby townships – Manningham , Bowling and Great and Little Horton , which were separated from the town by countryside. Blast furnaces were established in about 1788 by Hird, Dawson Hardy at Low Moor and iron
6084-517: Was worked by the Bowling Iron Company until about 1900. Yorkshire iron was used for shackles, hooks and piston rods for locomotives, colliery cages and other mining appliances where toughness was required. The Low Moor Company also made pig iron and the company employed 1,500 men in 1929. when the municipal borough of Bradford was created in 1847 there were 46 coal mines within its boundaries. Coal output continued to expand, reaching
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