The town that bought itself, on the face of it, sounds odd. And if odd means original then it certainly was odd, and I suppose odder than just the ‘face of it’, as this had never been done before. ‘Nothing ventured nothing gained’, ‘grasping the bull by the horns’, and more clichés that the then town council could muster. And so it was written that Huddersfield did just that, on the 29 September 1920.
There was once a chap called Huder (probably an immigrant from Scandinavia), who holds a small place in history for he owned a field mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 that went by the name of Huderfelt. Over the following centuries, place names, as with surnames, had subtle changes in spelling, probably depending on how they were spoken at the time and written phonetically. So over time, Huderfelt became known as Oderesfelt and Hudresfelt, and in a charter of 1297 it became Huderesfield which is but a small step to the Huddersfield as we now know and love.
John, son of William, son of John, son of William
The Ramsden’s rode into town in or around 1542, the town was then a hamlet, and either John or his brother William bought property belonging to their in-laws in Longley. The Ramsden’s quickly began to acquire neighbouring land greatly helped by the dissolution of the monasteries whereby vast amounts of land came on the market. The Ramsdens were never mill owners or industrialists, their wealth came from rents from their land.
Over the coming centuries they became very powerful and influential, becoming sirs and lords of the manor, it was always John succeeded by his son William, or his son John, or William succeeded by his son William or his son John. There was one heir in the late 1800s whose parents really pushed the imaginative boat out and named their son John William. To commemorate this momentous moment of imagination there is a street named John William Street in the centre of Huddersfield.
By this time the town of Huddersfield was not big enough for the Huders and the Ramsdens and as the Magnificent Seven were busy in the wild west, Huder had thought it prudent to move on some time earlier, leaving the Ramsdens to buy nearly all of Huddersfield. At one time they owned land the size of 2,150 kickerball pitches, or more appropriately, as Huddersfield is the birthplace of rugby league, 2,150 rugby pitches.
The most splendid railway station in England
Contrary to popular local belief, they did not own all of it, not even the town centre, but enough to persuade parliament to grant Huddersfield market town status, which in turn brought first the canal, then the railway and as it is geographically central to the north of England. Having natural resources such as coal and water nearby, it became the world’s centre for woollen production, and as a result became very wealthy. It has been said that Huddersfield had, at one time, more Rolls Royce motor cars per capita than anywhere in the world.
As did many local influential families of the time, the Ramsdens as did the Norcliffes, moved to north Yorkshire in the 17th or 18th century. York was at that time the power and influential hub of northern Britain. The Ramsdens had left the management of the Huddersfield estate to agents who in turn developed the town and constructed many magnificent Victorian buildings that are still proudly marking our history.
Handing over the keys to the city
It was Wilfred Dawson a local Newsome councillor who came up with the bright idea of buying the Ramsden estate for the people of Huddersfield so they could dictate their own future rather than rely on the unpredictable will of the lord of the manor.
The asking price was 1.3 million pounds and as the council could not find that sort of money immediately a friend of Wilfred Dawson called Sam Copley stepped in with the money until the council could pay him back. And they did, but I bet it was a worrying moment or two.
The sale to Huddersfield council was agreed by The 3rd Baronet Sir John Ramsden, the son of The second Baronet Sir John William Ramsden in 1920. The price was the equivalent to over nine million pounds in today’s money. I wonder how many of our rate payers would agree to spending that amount of money on something that they probably thought was theirs already or could see no benefit from the acquisition, they would still have a landlord who could kick them out on their ear.
I suppose it would eliminate the droit du siegneur (Lord’s Right) whereby the lord of the manor could first take a subordinate’s wife on her wedding night. Even after extensive research I have found no evidence that councillor Wilfred Dawson or his mate Sam Copley, nor indeed the baronets John or William or John William were into that sort of thing.
I suspect there was little truth in this ‘Lord’s rights’ story anyway. In my humble opinion it’s probably mostly another Hollywood myth.
