Huddersfield Local History Society is a membership organisation for anybody and everybody interested in the history of the town. Our established activities include monthly talks from September to May; a summer outing; an autumn seminar; an annual journal, free to members; and a series of publications. We are keen to recruit new members and to develop opportunities for members to share their interests in local history and work together to find out more about our fascinating town. Please explore our website and contact us here for further information.
New Journal now out
The Society’s bumper 68-page 2013 Journal is now out. On other pages you can view the contents and find details of how to purchase.
Commemorating the Luddites
Huddersfield events to mark the Luddite bicentenary are now pretty much concluded. An event in York on 19 January 2013 commemorated the hangings there of convicted Luddite activists, and included a talk by Huddersfield historian Alan Brooke on The Luddite Legacy.
Our main contribution in 2012 was to publish a new and fully revised edition of Liberty or Death: Radicals, Republicans and Luddites, 1793-1823, by Alan Brooke and Lesley Kipling. For details, visit our publications page.
Also on the Luddite theme is William Horsfall’s last journey, a walking trail of about 3 miles, prepared, with Huddersfield University students, which can be downloaded here (two sides of A4).
Publications update
Our Huddersfield Town Centre heritage trail, published jointly with Huddersfield Civic Society and funded by Kirklees Council, is available on-line or in print at various town centre outlets.
Our colleagues at the University have published a splendid new book, Slavery in Yorkshire: Richard Oastler and the campaign against child labour in the industrial revolution, of which full details are here. The editors, Hilary Haigh and John Hargreaves, and four of the other six contributors, are HLHS members.
Our website offers a digitised version of Discovering Old Huddersfield, by Gordon & Enid Minter, offering over 600 pages of fully searchable information on Huddersfield history.
Supporting research
The Society is keen to encourage local history research both by individuals and community groups.
We cannot offer to research your local history queries, but we will do our best to point you in the right direction – check out our research resources page or contact us. You can also post queries on the forum of the Huddersfield & District Family History Society (which is a separate organisation) or make use of their family history search service; this charges £6 per hour for members, £7 for non-members, and you can contact their research team at <research[at]hdfhs.org.uk>. Huddersfield Local Studies Library have also set up links to a wide range of family history resources.
The University of Huddersfield has gained funding for a new Sound, Craft, Vision, Place project, which aims to help community groups to explore and articulate their heritage for themselves.
Our website
This website is always under development and we would like your feedback on how to improve it.
Header image courtesy of Kirklees Image Archive: www.kirkleesimages.org.uk
