[1] The diocese was based in Wakefield in West Yorkshire, covering the City of Wakefield, Barnsley, Kirklees and Calderdale.
The see was centred in the City of Wakefield where the bishop's seat (cathedra) was located in the Cathedral Church of All Saints, a parish church elevated to cathedral status in 1888.
The office existed from the founding of the diocese in 1888 under Queen Victoria until its dissolution on 20 April 2014.
The cathedral contains a memorial to Walsham How, first Bishop of Wakefield.
Upon the creation of the Diocese of Leeds[2] on 20 April 2014, the see was dissolved and its territory added to the new diocese, within which the suffragan see of Pontefract has since been translated to the area Bishop of Wakefield.