Toponymy The name
Wakefield may derive from 'Waca's field' – the open land belonging to someone named 'Waca' – or could have evolved from the
Old English word
wacu, meaning 'a watch or wake', and
feld, an open field in which a wake or festival was held. In the
Domesday Book of 1086, it was written
Wachefeld and also as
Wachefelt.
Early history Flint and stone tools and later
bronze and iron implements have been found at Lee Moor and Lupset in the Wakefield area showing evidence of human activity since prehistoric times. This part of Yorkshire was home to the
Brigantes until the Roman occupation in AD 43. A Roman road from
Pontefract passing Streethouse, Heath Common, Ossett Street Side, through
Kirklees and on to
Manchester crossed the
River Calder by a ford at Wakefield near the site of
Wakefield Bridge. A large group of coin moulds, the
Lingwell Gate coin moulds, representing Romano-British coin forgery were found at Lingwell Gate between 1697 and 1879. Wakefield was probably occupied again, this time by the
Angles, in the 5th or 6th century, and after AD 876 the area was controlled by the
Vikings who founded twelve hamlets or
thorpes around Wakefield. They divided the area into
wapentakes and Wakefield was part of the
Wapentake of Agbrigg. The settlement grew near a crossing place on the River Calder around three roads,
Westgate,
Northgate and
Kirkgate. The "gate" suffix derives from Old Norse '
meaning road and kirk, from ' indicates there was a church. Before 1066 the
manor of Wakefield belonged to
Edward the Confessor and it passed to
William the Conqueror after the
Battle of Hastings. After the
Conquest Wakefield was a victim of the
Harrying of the North in 1069 when William the Conqueror took revenge on the local population for resistance to Norman rule. The settlement was recorded as
Wachfeld in the
Domesday Book of 1086, and covered a much greater area than present day Wakefield, much of which was described as "waste". The manor was granted by
the Crown to
William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey whose descendants, the Earls Warenne, inherited it after his death in 1088. The construction of
Sandal Castle began early in the 12th century. A second castle,
Wakefield Castle, was built at Lawe Hill on the north side of the Calder but was abandoned. Wakefield and its environs formed the
caput of an extensive baronial holding by the Warennes that extended to
Cheshire and
Lancashire. The Warennes, and their
feudal sublords, held the area until the 14th century, when it passed to their heirs. Norman tenants holding land in the region included the
Lyvet family at Lupset. The Domesday Book recorded two churches, one in Wakefield and one in
Sandal Magna. The Saxon church in Wakefield was rebuilt in about 1100 in stone in the
Norman style and was continually enlarged until 1315 when the central tower collapsed. By 1420 the church was again rebuilt and was extended between 1458 and 1475. In 1203
William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey received a grant for a market in the town. In 1204
King John granted the rights for a fair at the feast of
All Saints, 1 November, and in 1258
Henry III granted the right for fair on the feast of Saint John the Baptist, 24 June. The market was close to the Bull Ring and the church. Wakefield was dubbed the "Merrie City" in the
Middle Ages. , killed in battle, 1460 During the
Wars of the Roses,
Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York was killed on 30 December 1460 in the
Battle of Wakefield near Sandal Castle. In
medieval times Wakefield became an inland port on the Calder and centre for the woollen and
tanning trades. In 1538
John Leland described Wakefield as, "a very quick market-towne and meately large; well served of flesch and fisch, both from the se and by rivers, whereof divers be thereabout at hande, so that al vitaile is very gode chepe there. A right honest man shal fare well for two pens a meale". As preparation for the impending invasion by the
Spanish Armada in April 1588, 400 men from the wapentake of Morley and Agbrigg were summoned to Bruntcliffe near
Morley with their weapons. Men from Kirkgate, Westgate, Northgate and Sandal were amongst them and all returned by August. At the time of the Civil War, Wakefield was a military front line between the
Parliamentarians and the
Royalists. An attack led by Sir
Thomas Fairfax on 20 May 1643 captured the town for the
Parliamentarians. Over 1500 troops were taken prisoner along with the Royalist commander,
Lieutenant-General Goring. In 1699 an Act of Parliament was passed creating the
Aire and Calder Navigation which provided the town with access to the
North Sea. The first Registry of Deeds in the country opened in 1704 and in 1765 Wakefield's cattle market was established and became the one of largest in the north of England. The town was a centre for cloth dealing, with its own piece hall, the Tammy Hall, built in 1766. In the late 1700s
Georgian town houses and St John's Church were built to the north of the town centre.
Industrial Revolution At the start of the 19th century Wakefield was a wealthy market town and inland port trading in wool and grain. The
Aire and Calder and
Calder and Hebble Navigations and the
Barnsley Canal were instrumental in the development of Wakefield as an important market for grain and more was sold here than at any other market in the north. Large warehouses were built on the river banks to store grain from
Norfolk,
Cambridgeshire and
Lincolnshire to supply the fast-growing population in the
West Riding of Yorkshire. Great quantities of barley were grown in the neighbourhood and in 1885 more
malt was made in Wakefield "than in any district of equal extent in the kingdom". The market developed in the streets around the Bull Ring, and the cattle market between George Street and Ings Road grew to be one of the biggest in the country. Road transport using
turnpiked roads was important. Regular
mail coaches departed to
Leeds,
London, Manchester,
York and
Sheffield and the 'Strafford Arms' was an important
coaching inn. The railways arrived in Wakefield in 1840 when
Kirkgate station was built on the
Manchester and Leeds Railway. When cloth dealing declined, wool spinning mills using steam power were built by the river. There was a glass works in Calder Vale Road, several
breweries including Melbourne's and Beverley's Eagle Breweries, engineering works with strong links to the mining industry, soapworks and brickyards in Eastmoor, giving the town a diverse economy. The
National Coal Board eventually became Wakefield's largest employer with Manor Colliery on Cross Lane and Park Hill colliery at Eastmoor surviving until 1982. Wakefield was also the site of the founding of the Miners' Association of Great Britain and Ireland, the country's first national trade union for miners, in 1842. During the 19th century Wakefield became the administrative centre for the
West Riding, when many familiar buildings were constructed. The first civic building in Wood Street,
Wakefield Court House, was built in 1810. The
West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum was built at Stanley Royd, just outside the town on Aberford Road in 1816. During the 19th century, the Wakefield Asylum played a central role in the development of British psychiatry, with
Henry Maudsley and
James Crichton-Browne amongst its medical staff. Most of it is now demolished. The old House of Correction of 1595 was rebuilt as
Wakefield Prison in 1847. Wakefield Union workhouse was built on Park Lodge Lane, Eastmoor in 1853 and Clayton Hospital was built in 1854 after a donation from Alderman Thomas Clayton. By 1885 the streets of the town were paved and flagged and lit with gas supplied by a company incorporated in 1822.
20th century On 2 June 1906,
Andrew Carnegie opened a new Wakefield Library on Drury Lane which had been built with a grant of £8,000 from the Carnegie Trust. There are seven
ex-council estates in Wakefield which the council started to build after the
First World War, the oldest is Portobello, the largest is Lupset and the rest are
Flanshaw, Plumpton, Peacock, Eastmoor and
Kettlethorpe. Homes not bought by occupants under the
Right to Buy scheme were transferred to a registered social landlord, Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) in 2005. The outlying villages of
Sandal Magna,
Belle Vue and
Agbrigg have become suburbs of Wakefield. The glass and textile industries closed in the 1970s and 1980s, and coal faced competition from alternative sources and demand decreased. The coal mines around Wakefield were amongst the first in Yorkshire to close under the government of
Margaret Thatcher, which altered the national energy policy from a reliance on British coal and opposed the political power of the
NUM. Between 1979 and 1983, the pits at Lofthouse, Manor, Newmarket, Newmillerdam, Parkhill and Walton all closed. As the Wakefield pits closed, the
Selby Coalfield was being opened, many colliers in Wakefield accepted offers to transfer to the new pits which were built to facilitate commuting. An April 2021 article in
The Guardian discussed nearby Heath (or Heath Common), the "village of the [200 year old] mansions", located "around the edge of the green". These housed the wealthy merchants and business owners. The local newspaper published specifics about one of the mansions in March 2021: Dower House was built ; it was constructed for John Smyth by
John Carr, of Yorkshire stone, and "retains many original features". It was intended to house widows. The Dower House is a Grade II*listed property; it was modified in the early 1800s. The nearby
Heath Hall, Heath, West Yorkshire, formerly known as Eshald House, was also built for the wealthy wool trader, John Smyth. The Hall was modified by John Carr between 1754 and 1780 for the original owner's nephew (also known as John Smyth). The Hall is a Grade I listed building. ==Governance==