| Fitzwilliam | |
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Fitzwilliam
Fitzwilliam shown within West Yorkshire |
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| OS grid reference | SE413152 |
|---|---|
| Parish | Hemsworth |
| Metropolitan borough | City of Wakefield |
| Metropolitan county | West Yorkshire |
| Region | Yorkshire and the Humber |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | PONTEFRACT |
| Postcode district | WF9 |
| Dialling code | 01977 |
| Police | West Yorkshire |
| Fire | West Yorkshire |
| Ambulance | Yorkshire |
| EU Parliament | Yorkshire and the Humber |
| UK Parliament | Hemsworth |
| List of places: UK • England • Yorkshire | |
Fitzwilliam is a small village on the edge of West Yorkshire, England. It is located in the City of Wakefield district. Technically, it is part of the town of Hemsworth and governed by Hemsworth Town Council as well as Wakefield M.D.C., but the Land Registry and Post Office recognise Fitzwilliam as a separate place from Hemsworth. It was built as a pit village. It has a railway station on the Wakefield line, providing it with connections to Leeds, Wakefield, Doncaster and Sheffield.
The village was originally built to provide housing for miners at the colliery that was originally named "Fitzwilliam Main".[1] The name was taken from the family name of the colliery's proprietor. In 1905, a bitter industrial dispute led to all the miners being expelled from their homes, which were owned by the Fitzwilliam family; this became known as the "Kinsley eviction".[2][3]
The mine later changed its name to Hemsworth Colliery and was then closed in 1969. Kinsley Drift Mine was opened on the site of the old Hemsworth Colliery in 1977. Kinsley and nearby Nostell Pit were closed in 1986 and 1987 respectively. South Kirkby Colliery closed in 1988. During the UK Miners' Strike (1984-1985), there was a riot in Fitzwilliam on 9 July 1984; nine were convicted as a result (The Fitzwilliam Nine). [4][5]
The large levels of migration out of the village earned it the label of a ghost town. Between 2003 and 2006, much of the village was demolished, including the whole of the "City" estate,[6] to clear derelict properties. In response to this situation, Fitzwilliam is included in the Hemsworth Coalfield regeneration area and has received special funding to aid its recovery.[7] The economy had improved much in the first decade of the 21st century; unemployment in the Hemsworth seat fell to 3% in 2007,[8] although there are no statistics on the rate in Fitzwilliam itself.
Its most notable sons are Geoffrey Boycott, the cricketer, and Cyril and Peter Knowles, the footballers. The band Chumbawumba recorded a song named after the village, which described its painful decline following the 1984-85 miners' strike. The village also plays a large role in the crime novel Nineteen Seventy Four, in which it is introduced in a list of "hard towns for hard men" and then later referred to as "a dirty brown mining town" and "where the night comes early and nowt [nothing] feels right, where the kids kill cats and the men kill kids".
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Fitzwilliam,_West_Yorkshire Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire] at Wikimedia Commons