Town in West Yorkshire, England
Halifax
Long before the guillotine, Halifax had its own beheading machine, then went on to give the world cat's eyes, Quality Street and a very big building society.
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Key information
- County
- West Yorkshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- The Piece Hall, the Halifax Gibbet, Quality Street, the Halifax building society and Wainhouse Tower
- What locals are called
- Haligonians
- Famous people
- Anne Lister, Percy Shaw, John Mackintosh
- Football clubs
- FC Halifax Town (The Shaymen), who play at The Shay
About Halifax
The town that had a guillotine before France did
Halifax's most grisly claim to fame is the Gibbet, a beheading machine that predates the French guillotine by centuries. A heavy axe blade ran down between two tall posts on a raised platform, and the town used it on thieves. Under Halifax Gibbet Law, anyone caught stealing goods worth 13½d or more could lose their head. The cloth trade was the town's lifeblood, and cloth left out on tenter frames to dry was an easy target. The law was meant to protect it. The machine was last used in 1650. A replica now stands on Gibbet Street, close to where the original did. The town's fearsome reputation travelled. A well-known old beggars' prayer went: "From Hell, Hull and Halifax, good Lord deliver us."
A courtyard built for 315 cloth merchants
Halifax grew rich on wool, and the proof is the Piece Hall. It opened in 1779 as a trading floor where handloom weavers brought their "pieces" of cloth, each about 30 yards long, to sell. The Georgian building is arranged around a huge open courtyard, with colonnaded galleries on several levels. Its 315 merchants' rooms made it the grandest cloth market of its kind. When the cloth trade moved into the mills, the Hall lost its purpose and was nearly demolished in the 1970s. Today it is the town's showpiece, reopened in 2017 after a major restoration. It holds shops, cafés and open-air concerts, and the courtyard fills with people on summer evenings. The mills tell the other half of the story. Dean Clough, once among the biggest carpet factories in the world, now houses offices, galleries and studios.
Toffee, cat's eyes and a bank
A remarkable number of everyday things began in Halifax. In 1890 John Mackintosh opened a small sweet shop and began selling a new buttery toffee that mixed hard toffee with caramel. It was a hit, and the business grew into a confectionery giant. In 1936 it launched Quality Street, named after a J. M. Barrie play. Percy Shaw, born in Halifax in 1890, invented the cat's eye road stud and patented it in 1934. He is said to have been inspired by the reflection of an animal's eyes at night. Millions of them have since marked roads around the world. Then there is the Halifax itself. The Halifax Permanent Benefit Building Society was founded here in 1853, and it grew into one of the largest building societies in the world. The name is still a high-street fixture across Britain.
Gentleman Jack and the folly with 403 steps
On the hills above town stands Shibden Hall, a timber-framed house and the home of Anne Lister (1791-1840). She was a landowner, traveller, diarist and mountaineer who wrote millions of words about her life, much of it in a private code. She also recorded her relationships with women. In 1834 she exchanged vows with Ann Walker in a ceremony often described as a marriage. Her story reached a global audience through the TV drama Gentleman Jack. Across town rises Wainhouse Tower, a Victorian chimney built for a dye works that became one of the world's tallest follies. It was built after a dispute over smoke from the works, and its builder John Wainhouse gave it a decorative design in place of a plain stack. It stands 253 feet high, and 403 steps climb to its balcony. Halifax's other great landmark is the Minster, the parish church of St John the Baptist. Local legend links the town's name to a holy head or hair, though nobody can prove the story.
Shaymen, Panthers and the people of Halifax
Locals are Haligonians, a name shared with the Halifax of Nova Scotia, which was named after an English earl. Sport here is a two-code affair. Halifax Panthers play rugby league, and the town's club was one of the founder members of the Northern Union in 1895. FC Halifax Town, nicknamed the Shaymen, play football at The Shay, a ground the two clubs have shared. Rugby league is the game of the Pennine mill towns, and Halifax fans take it seriously. Children come from across the country to Eureka!, the National Children's Museum, which opened in 1992 and invites them to touch, climb and experiment. Halifax is also a town of steep streets, soot-darkened stone and views over the Calder valley. The landscape was shaped by mills, and today it is a place of music, sweets and good stonework.