Diocese of Wakefield - History

History

After discussions in the mid-1870s as to where a new diocese in the West Riding of Yorkshire should be, Wakefield with a population of under 30,000, was chosen before Leeds and Bradford and Huddersfield and Halifax. Wakefield was then the county town of the West Riding and had a large medieval church.

The new Diocese of Wakefield was taken out of the southern part of the Diocese of Ripon, which was formed in 1836 out of the vast Diocese of York, and divided the industrial area of the West Riding separating Wakefield, Huddersfield and Halifax from Leeds and Bradford which remained in Ripon. The diocese was enlarged in 1926 to include the deaneries of Hemsworth and Pontefract from the Diocese of York.

As constituted on 18 May 1888, the diocese comprised the archdeaconries of Halifax and Huddersfield. In 1927, the archdeaconries were reorganised into the archdeaconries of Halifax and of Pontefract. The old archdeaconry of Halifax, in the northwest, the deaneries of Halifax, Birstall and Dewsbury, became the archdeaconry of Pontefract, covering the deaneries of Barnsley, Birstal, Dewsbury, Pontefract and Wakefield in the east and the archdeaconry of Huddersfield, which covered the deaneries of Hemworth, Huddersfield, Pontefract, Silkstone and Wakefield, became the new archdeaconry of Halifax, covering the west (the deaneries of Halifax and Huddersfield).