Fitzwilliam, West Yorkshire

infobox UK place
country = England
latitude= 53.63249
longitude= -1.37556
map_type= West Yorkshire
official_name= Fitzwilliam
population = 6,160
metropolitan_borough= City of Wakefield
metropolitan_county = West Yorkshire
region= Yorkshire and the Humber
constituency_westminster= Hemsworth
post_town= PONTEFRACT
postcode_district = WF9
postcode_area= WF
dial_code= 01977
os_grid_reference= SE413152

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". [ [http://www.one2one-development.com/fitzwilliamarchive/history.aspx fitzwilliam archive ] ] It later changed its name to "Hemsworth colliery" and then merged with "South Kirkby" colliery in 1969. Other nearby mines were "Kinsley" and "Nostell", which closed in 1986 and 1987 respectively. "South Kirkby" colliery closed in 1988.

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, [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2660825.stm BBC NEWS | England | Plan to demolish pit village estate ] ] 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. [ [http://www.one2one-development.com/hemsworthpartnership/page.asp?idno=1 Hemsworth Coalfield Partnership : Welcome ] ] The economy has improved much in recent years; unemployment in the Hemsworth seat is now just 3% [http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2007/rp07-066.pdf] although there are no statistics on what the rate is 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 feels right, where the kids kill cats and the men kill kids".

References

External links

* [http://www.one2one-development.com/fitzwilliamarchive/ The Fitzwilliam Archive Online]