Fitzwilliam is a small village on the edge ofWest Yorkshire, England, in theCity of Wakefield district. The village falls within the Hemsworth ward of Wakefield City Council.
It is part of the town ofHemsworth and local government is in the hands of Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, with the Hemsworth Town Council as a mainly consultative body. However, the Post Office recognises it as a separate settlement from the town of Hemsworth.
Fitzwilliam is part of thehistoric county of theWest Riding of Yorkshire in theWapentake of Staincross. TheWapentake almost corresponds with the currentBarnsley Metropolitan Area, although a few settlements and townships within the Staincross Wapentake such as Fitzwilliam were put outside the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and have lain within the currentWest Yorkshire Metropolitan Area since April 1974.
Fitzwilliam was built as apit village. It has arailway station on theWakefield Line, providing it with connections toLeeds,Wakefield,Doncaster andSheffield. The railway station closed in 1967 and reopened in 1982 and the line was electrified in 1989.
The village provided housing for miners at thecolliery 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 evicted from their homes, which were owned by theFitzwilliam family; this became known as theKinsley eviction.[2][3]
The mine later changed its name to Hemsworth Colliery and closed in 1969. Kinsley Drift Mine was opened on the site of the old Hemsworth Colliery in 1977. In the long-runningminers' strike of 1984 to 1985, a riot took place in Fitzwilliam on 9 July 1984, and nine people ("The Fitzwilliam Nine") were convicted of public order offences as a result.[4][5]
Kinsley and nearby Nostell Pit were closed in 1986 and 1987 respectively. South Kirkby Colliery closed in 1988. As a result there was a high level of unemployment in the area and emigration led to it being labelled as aghost town. Between 2003 and 2006 part of the village was demolished, including the whole of the "City estate",[6] to clear derelict properties. In response Fitzwilliam was included in the Hemsworth Coalfield regeneration area and has received special funding to aid its recovery.[7] The economy improved much in the first decade of the 21st century and unemployment in theHemsworth seat fell to 3% in 2007,[8] although there are no statistics specifically for Fitzwilliam.
The bandChumbawamba recorded a song named after the village, which described its painful decline following the1984–1985 miners' strike. The village also plays a large role in the crime novelNineteen 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".[citation needed]
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Media related toFitzwilliam, West Yorkshire at Wikimedia Commons
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