[5] The town received a royal charter in 1312–1313 entitling it to a weekly Tuesday market and an annual two-day fair, but these were soon discontinued.

[4] About the turn of the 19th century, the poet and newspaper editor James Montgomery, resident at the time, called it "the Queen of Villages".

[9] The town lies over the South Yorkshire coalfield, where high-quality bituminous coal was dug from outcrops and near-surface seams in primitive bell pits for several centuries.

[8] The population swelled and local infrastructure developed round the coal-mining, but this reliance on one industry led to future problems.

Wath marshalling yard, built north of the town in 1907, was one of the biggest and for its time one of the most modern railway marshalling yards in the country, as one of the eastern ends of the trans-Pennine Manchester–Sheffield–Wath electrified railway (also known as the Woodhead Line), a project that spanned the Second World War and partly responded to the need to move large amounts of Wath coal to customers in North-West England.

The 1985 miners' strike was sparked by the impending closure of Cortonwood Colliery in Brampton Bierlow, a neighbouring village often seen as part of Wath.

Along with the whole of the Dearne Valley, Wath was classified as an impoverished area and received public money, including European funds.

It made the area more rural, as much land to the north of the town once used by collieries and marshalling yards was returned to scrubland and countryside, dotted with light industrial and commercial office parks.

Wath upon Dearne centres on Montgomery Square, with the town's main shops, the library and the bus station.

After a hiatus between the clearing of former colliery land and recent redevelopment, when the area felt rather rural, the construction of large distribution centres to the north of the town is restoring an industrial feel, but without the pollution issues of coal.

While festival events occur across the town, most larger concerts are held at the Montgomery Hall Theatre and Community Venue.

The event includes dancing by local morris and sword-dancing groups, street performances, workshops, children's events and a Saturday morning parade from Montgomery Hall through Montgomery Square and back to St James's Church, for a traditional throwing of bread buns from the parish church tower.

[16] Wath-upon-Dearne bus station in Montgomery Road in the town centre provides the main public-transport hub.

The bus station's one-way system down Montgomery Road is accessed from the B6097 Biscay Way to the north and feeds buses out into Church Street to the south.

As such, it is not listed as an official SYPTE Interchange, despite its relative size, and it lacks a ticket office, waiting room and toilet facilities.