Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 1 (2008), p. 95

Midgley is a Pennine township and part of the parish of Halifax in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The village is situated on a hillside with the township boundary running along the river Calder in the valley below. In terms of the industrial development of the area, much of the action takes place on or near the valley floor. It is suggested that the population of Midgley grew from about 25 in 1332–3 to c.348 in 1545 to 1,209 in 1801 and reached its peak in 1871 at 3,193. As its title suggests, this is not a comprehensive history of Midgley. The stated aims of the book are to increase public awareness of the range and depth of sources in the public domain and to draw attention to the value of such sources for our understanding of the rich heritage of local communities. The publication evolved out of an initial WEA course from which the Midgley History Group was formed. Pennine perspectives. Aspects of the history of Midgley comprises the reflections of 25 members of that group on different facets of Midgley’s past. The result is an interesting but uneven volume of 23 chapters with some frustratingly short snippets of useful information that are not placed in a broader context. However, once the reader accepts that, at best, s/he is going to get only a tantalizing taster of Midgley, there is much that is of interest both for the mainstream historian and those researching narrower fields. Fascinating chapters range from prehistory, geology, medieval settlement, and early farming to more esoteric topics, such as the uses of water on Midgley Moor, the development of local public houses, radicalism, boundary disputes, and local sports and pastimes including the annual Pace Egg play. Other chapters include self-help, religion, use of child labour, and the Luddenden Valley Railway.

It is difficult to get a sense of continuity. For example, there is a detailed analysis of farming before the nineteenth century, but there is nothing on the topic thereafter. The chapter on ‘Population and People’ which is the work of three contributors is interesting but very uneven. It provides a useful outline up to the late eighteenth century but also examines in great detail family names for one short period (1538–1624). Some interesting sources are used but are not always fully exploited. For example, the names of people who were part of a levy in 1588 are presented but it would have been helpful if this could have been accompanied by some analysis in terms of population and the distribution of wealth. The period from the late eighteenth to the twentieth century is accorded five lines and part of a graph. A little more information is given on this latter period in the chapter ‘Village Trades and Services in the Victorian Era’. Continuity is found within some of the chapters such as the study of Murgatroyd’s textile mill which follows the family’s involvement in textiles from pre-factory days through the commencement of building the mill in 1846 and onto its final closure in 1982. The excellent study is based on detailed research using an extensive archive deposited in the local record office. Murgatroyd’s mill was the only textile mill constructed in the township and it is argued that it gave stability and economic security to the community for over a hundred years.

Other contributory factors in the unevenness of the book are the writing style of authors and the length of chapters. In a conventionally edited book the editors can exercise strong editorial control and standardize the submissions. This control has been kept to the minimum here. Some of the contributions demonstrate a thorough researching of the topic with clear detailed analysis, historiography, references and supporting tables and figures. Other chapters are presented in narrative form, some based on oral sources and others from observations with little or no accompanying academic apparatus. Chapters vary in length from what is little more than a comment of six pages to almost article length of 24 pages. The chapter ‘Of Meres and Bounders: Disputes, Maps and Boundaries’, is very brief. It is well written and referenced but with fewer than three pages of text and five of maps, it is little more than a comment. In order to give the reader some context and a sense of continuity, more benefit might have been gained if it had been incorporated into the earlier chapters dealing with field boundaries

The book is published privately. It is beautifully presented on excellent quality paper and all the maps, photographs and graphs are reproduced to a very high standard. Some chapters conclude with a useful select bibliography. Unfortunately, there is no comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book, though there is a helpful index. Also included within the back cover are two lovely pullout maps.

Overall, despite its flaws, it is a book to be recommended to anyone interested in the history of a small rural community.