HUDDERSFIELD, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 164 m. S.W. of Leeds and 190 m. N.N.W. of London. Pop. (1931), The town is situated on fairly steep slopes on the left bank of the river Colne, a tributary of the Calder. It is served by the L.M.S. railway and has connection by rail with all the important towns of industrial northern England. The Sir John Ramsden's canal links it, by water, with the Calder Navigation, giving water communication with the extensive canal system of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Huddersfield (Odersfelte) rose to importance only after the introduction of the woollen trade in the 17th century. After the Conquest, William I. granted the manor to Ilbert de Lacy, of whom the Saxon tenant Godwin was holding as underlord at the time of the Domesday Survey. From the Lacys it passed to Thomas Plantagenet, duke of Lancaster, through his marriage with Alice de Lacy, and so to the crown, on the accession of Henry IV. In 1599 Queen Elizabeth sold it to William Ramsden, whose de scendants still own it. To John Ramsden, in 167o, Charles II. granted a market in Huddersfield to be held every Wednesday. By the beginning of the 18th century Huddersfield had become a "considerable town," chiefly owing to the manufacture of woollen kersies, and towards the end of the same century, trade was in creased by two events—the opening of navigation on the Calder in 1780 and the completion of the cloth-hall or piece-hall, built and given to the town by Sir John Ramsden in 1784.
The town is almost entirely modern, the chief buildings being great warehouses and business premises, built principally of grey stone. The parish church of St. Peter was rebuilt in 1837 and is believed to occupy a site which has carried a church since the 11th century. The cloth-hall dates from 1784, when it was erected as a clothiers' emporium, but it now serves as an exchange news room. Huddersfield college was opened in 1838, the Longwood school was founded in 1731. There is a sulphurous spa in the district of Lockwood. Huddersfield is the chief seat of the fancy woollen trade in England, but plain and fancy woollen goods of every description, including worsteds, are manufactured there. Fancy goods in silk and cotton are produced in great variety. Coal is abundant in the vicinity and there are iron foundries, en gineering works and silk and cotton spinning mills in the town. Since 1832 Huddersfield has had representation in parliament and returns one member. The town possesses no charter before 1868, when it was created a municipal borough. The county borough was created in 1888.