Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for HEMSWORTH

HEMSWORTH, a village, a parish, and a district in W. R. Yorkshire. The village stands adjacent to the Wakefield and Doncaster railway, 7¾ miles SE of Wakefield; is well built and large; and has a post office under Pontefract, a r. station, a working men's readingroom, a church, three dissenting chapels, a well endowed hospital, a free grammar school, a national school, and a workhouse. The reading room is a recent and handsome edifice, and contains a well selected library. The church is later English; consists of nave, aisles, and chancel, with porch and tower; and contains a font and a few ancient monuments. The hospital was founded in 1555, by Archbishop Holgate; has now a new building, and an endowed income of £3, 200; and devotes one-fifth of that income to a master, and the rest to twenty men and twenty women. The grammar school was founded in 1546, also by Archbishop Holgate, who was a native; and it now has an endowed income of about £400. Other charities have £15. The workhouse is recent; and was erected in consequence of the separation of Hemsworth district from that of Pontefract.—The parish contains also Little Hemsworth hamlet, ½ a mile E of the village, and comprises 4, 120 acres. Real property, £7, 487. Pop., 975. Houses, 214. The property is chiefly divided among five. Hemsworth Hall was the birthplace of the Right Hon. Sir Charles Wood, and his residence till 1830; and is now the seat of W. H. Leatham, Esq. Newstead Hall is the seat of the Rev. Peter Jackson. Building stone is quarried; bricks are made; and there is a steam corn mill. The living is a rectory in the diocese of York. Value, £880.* Patron, W. B. Wrightson, Esq.—The district contains also the parishes of Ackworth, Wragby, Felkirk, Badsworth, Kirk-Smeaton, and South Kirby, two townships of Womersley, two of Darfield, and the extra-parochial tract of Foulby, Nostell, and Huntwick. Acres, 33, 870. Poor rates in 1863, £4, 026. Pop. in 1851, 8, 158; in 1861, 7, 793. Houses, 1, 657. Marriages in 1862, 39; births, 238, -of which 17 were illegitimate; deaths, 154, -of which 34 were at ages under 5 years, and 7 at ages above 85. Marriages in the ten years 1851-60, 415; births, 2, 319; deaths, 1, 292. The places of worship, in 1851, were 10 of the Church of England, with 3, 189 sittings; 1 of Quakers, with 850 s.; 18 of Wesleyan Methodists, with 2, 296 s.; 7 of Primitive Methodists, with 257 s.; 2 undefined, with 50 s.; and 1 of Roman Catholics, with 70 s. The schools were 18 public day schools, with 1, 187 scholars; 17 private day schools, with 305 s.; and 21 Sunday schools, with 1, 045 s.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village, a parish, and a district"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Hemsworth AP/CP       Hemsworth RegD/PLU       Yorkshire AncC
Place: Hemsworth

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