History of Sheffield

The history of Sheffield, a city in South Yorkshire, England, can be traced back to the founding of a settlement in a clearing beside the River Sheaf in the second half of the 1st millennium AD.

The area now known as Sheffield had seen human occupation since at least the last ice age, but significant growth in the settlements that are now incorporated into the city did not occur until the Industrial Revolution.

Sheffield remained a major industrial city throughout the first half of the 20th century, but the downturn in world trade following the 1973 oil crisis, technological improvements and economies of scale, and a wide-reaching restructuring of steel production throughout the European Economic Community led to the closure of many of the steelworks from the early 1970s onward.

Artefacts and rock art found in caves at this site have been dated by archaeologists to the late Upper Palaeolithic period, at least 12,800 years ago.

[3][4] The site's culture has similarities to Star Carr in North Yorkshire, but gives its name to unique "Deepcar type assemblages"[5] of microliths in the archaeology literature.

[8] Other Iron Age hill forts in the area are Carl Wark on Hathersage Moor to the southwest of Sheffield,[10] and one at Scholes Wood, near Rotherham.

The rivers Sheaf and Don may have formed the boundary between the territory of the Brigantes and that of a rival tribe called the Corieltauvi who inhabited a large area of the northeastern Midlands.

In recent years some scholars have cast doubt on this, with an initial survey of Barber Fields, Ringinglow, suggesting the Roman Road took a route over Burbage Edge.

[20][21] In April 1761, tablets or diplomas dating from the Roman period were found in the Rivelin Valley south of Stannington, close to what was possibly the course of the Templeborough to Brough-on-Noe road.

In 2011 excavations revealed remains of a substantial 1st or 2nd century AD Roman rural estate centre, or 'villa' on what is believed to be a pre-existing Brigantian farmstead site at Whirlow Hall Farm in South-west Sheffield.

[34] The names of many of the other areas of Sheffield likely to have been established as settlements during this period end in ley, which signifies a clearing in the forest, or ton, which means an enclosed farmstead.

As a result of this, in 1266 a party of barons, led by John de Eyvill, marching from north Lincolnshire to Derbyshire passed through Sheffield and destroyed the town, burning the church and castle.

[54] Other notable surviving buildings from this period include the Old Queen's Head pub in Pond Hill, which dates from around 1480, with its timber frame still intact, and Bishops' House and Broom Hall, both built around 1500.

[55] The fourth Earl of Shrewsbury, George Talbot took up residence in Sheffield, building the Manor Lodge outside the town in about 1510 and adding a chapel to the Parish Church c1520 to hold the family vault.

[59] Raw materials, like coal, iron ore, ganister and millstone grit for grindstones, found in the nearby hills, were used in cutlery and blade production.

As early as the 14th century, Sheffield was noted for the production of knives: Ay by his belt he baar a long panade, And of a swerd ful trenchant was the blade.

Round was his face, and camus was his nose; By 1600 Sheffield was the main centre of cutlery production in England outside London, and in 1624 The Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire was formed to oversee the trade.

Around a century later, Daniel Defoe in his book A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, wrote: This town of Sheffield is very populous and large, the streets narrow, and the houses dark and black, occasioned by the continued smoke of the forges, which are always at work: Here they make all sorts of cutlery-ware, but especially that of edged-tools, knives, razors, axes, &.

This prospered and in 1762–65 Hancock built the water-powered Old Park Silver Mills at the confluence of the Loxley and the Don, one of the earliest factories solely producing an industrial semi-manufacture.

[66] Bessemer had tried to induce steelmakers to take up his improved system, but met with general rebuffs, and finally was driven to undertake the exploitation of the process himself.

[67] Gradually the scale of production was enlarged until the competition became effective, and steel traders generally became aware that the firm of Henry Bessemer & Co. was underselling them to the extent of £20 a ton.

[70] These innovations helped Sheffield to gain a worldwide recognition for the production of cutlery; utensils such as the bowie knife were mass-produced and shipped to the United States.

[52] The Church Burgesses organised a public meeting on 27 May 1805 and proposed to apply to Parliament for an act to pave, light and clean the city's streets.

[n 6] In the 18th century turnpike roads were built connecting Sheffield with Barnsley, Buxton, Chesterfield, Glossop, Intake, Penistone, Tickhill, and Worksop.

Certain operations require the constant pressure of tools against the chest, and engender consumption in many cases; others, file-cutting among them, retard the general development of the body and produce digestive disorders; bone-cutting for knife handles brings with it headache, biliousness, and among girls, of whom many are employed, anæmia.

The unwholesomeness of this work lies in part in the bent posture, in which chest and stomach are cramped; but especially in the quantity of sharp-edged metal dust particles freed in the cutting, which fill the atmosphere, and are necessarily inhaled.

[92] Attempts to regenerate the city were kick-started by the hosting of the 1991 World Student Games[93] and the associated building of new sporting facilities such as the Sheffield Arena, Don Valley Stadium and the Ponds Forge complex.

[102] In July 2013 the Sevenstone project, which aimed to demolish and rebuild a large part of the city centre, and had been on hold since 2009, was further delayed and the company developing it was dropped.

[104] In April 2014 the council, together with Sheffield University, proposed a plan to reduce the blight of empty shops in the city centre by offering them free of charge to small businesses on a month-by-month basis.

Sheffield City Council declared a major incident as temperatures dropped below freezing in unheated homes, and aid was distributed to local residents.