Talk:History of Sheffield

Coat of Arms
In "industry" we describe the City Coat of Arms. It is proberbly worth placing an image of the arms on the page, as I understand the copyright laws this would be fair use, but do coats of arms have different rules? Andreww 03:13, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
 * At the bottom of that page it states that "The Coat of Arms should NOT be used without the Council's permission". I believe that they are quite defensive about other people using the Coat of Arms. Under US copyright law (which, I believe, governs wikipedia as the servers are in Florida) we could use the image under fair use, however, wikipedia now discourages uploading of images under fair use (you have to digitally sign a statement that you have the copyright holders permission to use the image). All fair use images may even be deleted from at some point in the future. There is an email address on the webpage for getting permission for use of the image, it may be worth sending them an email explaining what wikipedia is and asking to use the image&mdash;the worst that they can do is say no.  JeremyA 03:30, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
 * See High Court of Chivalry.217.44.136.210 (talk) 01:40, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Naming of Sheffield
I have made some changes to this article with respect to the naming of Sheffield as follows. Previously the article stated "The Saxons founded a settlement beside the River Sheaf sometime between 410 and 866, which was called Scafield or Escafeld", I have changed this to "The Saxons founded the settlement that was to become Sheffield in a clearing beside the confluence of the rivers Sheaf and Don sometime between 410 and 866" to reflect the fact that we really have no idea what the early settlers called their settlement&mdash;The earliest mention of Sheffield that I know of is the Domesday book. I have also changed the translation of the text from the Domesday book from "In Ateclive and Escafeld [Attercliffe and Sheffield], two manors" to "In Attercliffe and Sheffield, two manors"&mdash;the rest of the translation is in modern English spellings and so the names Attercliffe and Sheffield should also be in their modern spellings. There is a common misconception that the name of the town used to be Escafeld (pronounced as written), the Domesday book however uses two variants for the spelling of Sheffield, Escafeld and Scafeld, which likely the result of Norman (French speaking) scribes trying to write the Saxon name (which may have been something like IPA: ) phonetically. JeremyA 23:41, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Population graph
I have added a graph showing the population of Sheffield from 1700 to 2001. I'm in 2 minds as to whether it is a useful addition to this page. Comments would be welcome. JeremyA 04:50, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Coat of Arms--copyvio?
I have removed the text relating to the coat of arms of Sheffield as it appears to be mostly a copy-paste from the city council website. The removed text is as follows:


 * The Sheffield Coat of Arms, as shown on the Sheffield City Council website were granted to the Sheffield Borough Council on 16th July 1875, and subsequently to the present City Council on 1st September 1977.


 * The lion on the crest is taken from the Arms of the Dukes of Norfolk, lords of the manor of Sheffield; it appeared also in the Arms of the Talbot family, their predecessors in the lordship.


 * The sheaf of arrows was the main motif in the seals of the Burgery of Sheffield and the Twelve Capital Burgesses, the two bodies which bore the brunt of local government in Sheffield before the town's incorporation as a Borough in 1843.


 * The three wheatsheaves on a green field were probably chosen at the College of Arms as a play upon the name Sheffield.


 * The two supporters, Vulcan and Thor, were chosen for their aptness to represent a place whose prosperity was almost entirely founded on the working of metal. Thor on the left, the smith of the Scandinavian gods has his hand resting on a hammer, and Vulcan on the right, the smith of the Roman gods, is standing in front of an anvil and is holding a pair of pincers.


 * The motto Deo Adjuvante Labor Proficit may be roughly translated as "With God's help our labour is successful".

If no-one gets to doing it first I will rewrite this section at some point. JeremyA (talk) 04:55, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Fort(s)?
From the text:
 * This tribe constructed a fort in the 1st century AD at Wincobank, in what is now northeastern Sheffield

I think this is a confusion of two forts. David Hey's book "A history of Sheffield " says, if I can trust my memory, that the celtic hill fort was built 500 BC or something like that and that the romans built a fort opposite to the hill fort when they reached Sheffield (1st century AD). Gunnar Larsson 17:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that any date for the construction of Wincobank is probably mostly speculation. J Edward Vickers (1999) avoids dating it but states that Wincobank was probably the place that the Brigantes tried to fend off the Roman advance into their territory. Hunter (1819) actually attributed the building of Wincobank to the Romans. However, most sources seem to agree that it is Iron Age (~400BC - ~55AD) in origin. To reflect this uncertainty I have therefore altered the text so that it now states that it is an Iron Age fort, but does not date it.  JeremyA 05:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Bytham River
I have pulled out the following text:
 * The Bytham River is now considered to have been the route taken by the first humans to colonise Britain, around or before 500,000 years ago, when southern and eastern Britain was linked to continental Europe by a wide land bridge. Though many traces of the major river valley associated with the Bytham are thought to have vanished during the Anglian Ice Age it originally stretched from the area near Birmingham and drained the Midlands in the Early-Middle Pleistocene period. The Bytham flowed eastwards from the West Midlands and Southern Pennines and it's valley is probably the route which brought the first humans to the Pennines, Creswell Crags and what later became the Sheffield region.

To me, the link of this river to early human occupation in the Sheffield area seems to be very tenuous and mostly speculative. JeremyA 20:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Advice of link change
In References and Notes (no. 4) for this article, the page link for 'transcription' (referring to Leader's lecture of 1906) has changed. The transcript can now be found at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mossvalley/mv2/rl/highways1.html.

Failed GA Review
This article has been reviewed in line with the good article criteria. It has failed mainly because of a severe lack of references. Basically, an article of 3500 words needs more than eight footnotes.

'Well written: Pass. This article reads well. The use of the archaic grapheme æ is irritating in the medieval section, and in my opinion should be changed to standard modern English.

Factually accurate and verifiable: Fail. This article needs a lot of work to reference assertions and make it read less like a work of original resarch.

NPOV: Pass, although words such as "unfortunately" which occassionally creep in should be purged.

Bredth: Pass. The article covers everything I would expect it to.

Stable: Pass

Pictures: Pass, although the Bayeux Tapestry picture is bizarre in this context and should be removed.

Other than the referencing issue, these are minor problems, and the article can probably be expected to pass when they have been sorted out. I am not using 7 day hold in this case because I think the referencing will take a little longer than that to deal with totally. Thank you all for your work so far, and keep it up! Chrisfow 00:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Per second nomination, this is certainly a good candidate. I would like to see the citations adhere to WP:CITE, but that should not be a big hurdle. Unless someone comes in to present a different view in the meantime, please leave a message on my talk page when this has been completed, and I will pass the article. Dekimasu 09:05, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Passed GA review. As a final request, it would be nice if you could move "England" higher in the introduction, perhaps even starting with "The history of Sheffield, England" for the benefit of readers who lack the proper background. Dekimasu 19:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Adding a film?
The Full Monty, filmed in this town, is a good way to explain the crisis (economical and social) of 1980s and 1990s. It can be cited when the article speaks about the srike.--Ángel Luis Alfaro 19:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Change in Importance on Wikiproject:History
I have taken the liberty of lowering the Importance rating for this article on Wikiproject History, given that it is too specific and limited in scope to merit the previous, higher rating. Nautical Mongoose (talk) 13:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Expansion of the city
Some mention of the expansion of the city's boundaries would be useful. As far as I can make out, using A Vision of Britain Through Time and the historical census reports at Online Historical Population Reports, neither of which are completely trustworthy, the timeline is as follows:-
 * 1843 Municipal Borough of Sheffield created from the whole of the ancient parish
 * 1889 County Borough of Sheffield created from the whole of the municipal borough
 * 1893 County borough granted city status
 * 1901 Parts of Bradfield, Catcliffe, Ecclesfield, Norton and Tinsley civil parishes, and part of Handsworth urban district added
 * 1912 Part of Tinsley civil parish added
 * 1914 Part of Bradfield civil parish added
 * 1919 Part of Rotherham county borough added; part transferred to Rotherham county borough
 * 1921 Handsworth urban district, parts of Brinsworth and Ecclesfield civil parishes, and part of Rotherham county borough added
 * 1929 Parts of Derwent, Dore, Hathersage, Outseats and Totley civil parishes added
 * 1934 Beauchief and Dore civil parishes, and parts of Bradfield, Norton, Orgreave and Totley civil parishes added
 * 1938 Part transferred to Orgreave civil parish
 * 1967 Parts of Aston cum Aughton, Beighton, Ecclesfield, Eckington, Holmesfield, Killamarsh and Wales civil parishes, part of Dronfield urban district, and part of Rotherham county borough added; parts transferred to Chesterfield and Rotherham rural districts and Dronfield urban district
 * 1974 Abolished and incorporated into the Metropolitan Borough of Sheffield; Metropolitan borough granted city status

Skinsmoke (talk) 20:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Former councillor J.G. Harston has maps showing all the different boundary changes here: . On the population graph in the article I show the dates of significant boundary changes with arrows. But I agree that this would also be worth mentioning in the article prose. —Jeremy (talk) 20:35, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Cresswell Crags
I do not know how but the info on this page about creswell crags should not be there, its not part of sheffield , read the relevant page fpr further info. i have tried to delete but it gets undone and stated as vandalism which is untrue, im a creswell resident myself and in no way consider us part of sheffield , if anything we are closer to nottingham , could someone sort this please Damianhucker


 * The history of any given place did not occur in isolation and certainly does not respect modern political boundaries. The early human occupation at Cresswell Crags is given in the article as part of the background prehistory of the area in which modern Sheffield is located. At no point does the article say that Cresswell Crags is within the modern boundaries of Sheffield, indeed the article states that the crags are "east of the city".—Jeremy (talk) 17:23, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Five Mile Act
The article does not mention a reason for the rapid growth of Sheffield in the 18th century.

The Five Mile Act of 1665 forbade Roman Catholics from living within five miles of incorporated towns and cities. So many Catholic immigrants, particularly from Ireland, settled in the biggest towns legally available to them: one of these was Sheffield. Maproom (talk) 07:37, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110430144349/http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/s/stone_cross_shaft.aspx to http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_mla/s/stone_cross_shaft.aspx
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20050309015959/http://www.sheffield.gov.uk:80/your-city-council/lord-mayor/history-of-lord-mayor to http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/your-city-council/lord-mayor/history-of-lord-mayor
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070222041300/http://www.tuc.org.uk:80/the_tuc/tuc-2878-f6.cfm to http://www.tuc.org.uk/the_tuc/tuc-2878-f6.cfm

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External links modified
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Roman Road from Templeborough to Brough-on-Noe
Three routes are mentioned for the 'lost' Roman road in different articles. (Four if I include suggestions in articles about the Rivelin area). They include two at Redmires, the Long Causeway, a nearby route proposed by Ivan Donald Margaryand and a recently suggested route at Sheephill Farm, Ringinglow, (my edits) backed up by physical evidence so I might be making changes to this article. I do remember reading that core samples of the main Redmires route (Long Causeway) had excluded that as being Roman. Any refs would help as I can't locate what would be evidence to remove all claims about the Long Causeway. I think the Long Causeway came to be marked on maps as a Roman road because Hunter suggested it without any physical evidence. 217.44.136.210 (talk) 02:06, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Early history - duplicate links to Hordron Edge stone circle. Also another stone circle at Shirecliffe?
The article mentions a stone circle on Moscar Moor (Moscar Cross) and one on Hordron Edge. These are one and the same if you follow the link fom Moscar Cross so I have removed Moscar Moor and linked to Wyming Brook instead where I have put some information on Ash Cabin Flat stone circle. I do remember reading about a stone circle in a 19th Century book on Sheffield (found at the Internet Archive) but can't find the notes I made or remember the book's title. It mentioned a stone circle that once stood somewhere near or on the United training ground. It would be nice to mention Bronze age occupation near to the city centre. Does anyone else know which book it was? Thanks. 217.44.136.210 (talk) 06:05, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

FA in need of review
This is an older Featured Article that is in need of review. In particular: Needs work. RetiredDuke (talk) 15:24, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * There are several unsourced sentences throughout the body of the article;
 * The "centre for banking and insurance", "HSBC, Santander and Aviva" and the "25,000 now employed in the digital sector" bits in the lead are nowhere to be found in the body, and are unsourced;
 * The lead does not accurately reflect the body of the article, since I also cannot find mentions to the 1973 oil crisis or the European Economic Community restructuring in the body - is that OR?;
 * Not a single mention to the European Union (Sheffield (European Parliament constituency))? I know Brexit has arrived but the UK was a member for 47 years, and the lead claims that the EU precursor (EEC) negatively impacted many steel companies in Sheffield;
 * Are floods and film-settings that relevant to the history of an area that is 10,000 years old?
 * Needs update:
 * The city council is looking for partners to take a new version of the plan forwards. - that's a 2013 news article, did they reach a conclusion yet?
 * A series of other projects grouped under the title Sheffield One aim to regenerate the whole of the city centre. - that is chronologically set between 2003 and 2007 in the text, how is it going?


 * I agree with RD above that this article needs a review. There are numerous sentences and paragraphs, particularly in the 20th century to present section, that are uncited. The "Industrial Sheffield" section is quite large and should be trimmed or divided into subheadings (is it WP:UNDUE to have such a large section for that time period?). if no one wants to fix this up, are you interested in bringing this to FAR? I'm at my 5 limit already so it will take a few weeks for me to submit this. Z1720 (talk) 01:21, 17 November 2021 (UTC)