BRADFORD, an important manufacturing town in West Riding, Yorkshire, on a trib utary of the Aire, at the meeting of three vales, 8 m. w. of Leeds. Pop. in '71, 145,827; of whom considerably more than one half are immigrants from other districts. The area of the parish is 34,146 acres, extending to the confines of Lancashire. It returns two members to parliament, having been created a parliamentary borough in 1832. It became a municipal borough in 1847. B. is the chief seat in England of the spinning and weav ing of worsted yarn,.and the great mart for the long wools used in worsted fabrics. Cottons are also manufactured. There are More than 200 mills, employing 40,000 per sons. Notwithstanding the large population, and the nature of their employment, the annual rate of mortality is now only 24 per 1000. Twenty years ago, the rate was 30. The Saltaire alpaca and mohair mills, on the Aire. 3 m. from B., cover more than 6 acres. This establishment, erected by Sir TituS Salt, brat., is the most splendid manufacturing concern in England. Here is also the largest silk-mdl in England, built by Mr. S. C. Lister. Coal and iron mines occur near Bradford. There are over 20 churches belong ing to the establishment in the borough, and many 'dissenting and Roman Catholic churches. The gross estimated rental of the borough is £600,000, and the ratable value L'500,000. It has two public parks, each containing more than 50 acres; besides smaller ones, and also many excellent charities. The Romans seem to have worked iron mines
here, Roman coins having been found in foundry refuse near the town. The early his tory of B. is connected with the castle of the Laceys here. ,In the civil wars, the people of B. took the parliament side, and twice defeated the royalists, but were afterwards themselves defeated by the earl of Newcastle. In a viol at B., against the introduction of worsted power-looms. in 1826, two of the rioters were shot dead by the defenders of the mill which contained the obnoxious machinery, and ninny more were wounded, In 1823. a strike for increased wages, in which 20,000 persons were concerned. lasted six months. The Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyans have colleges near Bradford. This town is the seat of the first English temperance society. At Fulneck, 3 in. e. of B., is a Moravian settlement, founded in 1748, where Montgomery the poet was educated. B. has been latterly much improvtx1 in its buikhngs, 'and possesses a spacious and elegant public hall, in which the national association for promoting social science met in 1839, and the British association in 1873. The merchants of B. are distinguished by their lib erality and enterprise. Their warehouses form the great wholesale market in the worsted and alpaca trade. •