Batley has a history of at least a thousand years of suffering..
Initially Batley must have been fairly pleasant.. It's name means 'place of bats', so it must have been relatively idylic in the pre-Norman era..
Probably settled casually by the Brigante in pre-history, it was founded by Anglo-Saxons, and then later settled by Viking invaders at around 900AD. It no doubt trundled along in relative peace for a while, until the early middle ages, when the culture of Saxon and Viking Britain was subjected to increasing pressure from the Norman French conquerors.
The land of the free peoples of the north was 'enclosed', forcing the people to become slaves to their new foreign lords, paying tributes and fighting wars on the continent. And life remained much that way throughout the middle ages... Yorkshire (the county in which Batley lies) did see many trials and tribulations.. It housed parliment briefly... Was home to a royal dynasty and fought a war with it's neighbour, Lancashire.. Which no doubt added to the misery of the inhabitants of Batley.. But though this time.. Batley itself remained relatively anonymous.. A poor backwater settlement.
It was only when the industrial revolution began in the late 18th century, that Batley began to become interesting... Batley is at the centre of what was 'the Heavy Woolen District'.. A region of the UK famous for it's textile industries.
Batley became a thriving mill town, boasting many magnificent mills, and it's population boomed.
Of course, the mill workers were largely exploited, and the living conditions were generally apalling.. Whole families squashed into 2 roomed houses, little sanitation and conditions that meant the life expectancy of the average working class Briton was around 40 years.
To give you some idea of what it must have been like... There is a district known as 'soothill', which is so called because the rich
took up residence there, in order to escape the perpetual smog of the valley.
Painfully slowly, the conditions of the workers began to improve.. Largely because of the altruism of some northern mill owners (Titus Salt etc.), but essentially, life was about drudgery, work and misery.
However, there was to be an end to the murkey existance of the workhouses and mills for most Batley citizens.............. in the trenches of WW1.
The people of Britain were encouraged to swap their 'flying shuttles' for 303's, to fight a war against Germany, for no good reason that they could discern.. Nor that most people can discern to this day for that matter..
Of course.. This wasn't just the fate of Batley.. But of most of the UK too.. Like lemmings, the people of the Britain threw themselves at the enemy guns.. Most that died were the impoverished mill workers.. But killed also, were the new breed of altruistic aristocrat, which was beginning to change the standard of living for the average Briton.
A whole generation of people, wiped out... A whole way of life.. A whole culture... A whole country.. Live in the UK would never be the same again.
It's hardly surprising then, following such a hard life in mill and trench, that the population began to become interested in politics and self determination.
The North 'fell' to socialism and communism following the war, and many of the great politician of our modern age were born from this climate.
(For example : Harold Wilson [Born 1916 in Huddersfield] who presided of the ending of capital punishment)
These were people who aimed to end the suffering of the people of Britain, start a new regime, based on Democracy and human rights.
It was in this climate that the hard pressed people of the mill towns were once again asked to lay down their lives.. This time to fight Nazism. A political ideal born from the same misery which had given rise to similar political movements in the UK, and one with which many in the north had sympathy (at least before the war)
After the war, there was pretty much nothing left of the once thriving mill towns.. The fortunes of the north begun to change. As reparation for loss of life, a few crumbs from the plates of those saved from the levelling axe of european socialism gave the people a national health system, and pensions....
But this new found fortune wasn't to last long.... Soon the policies of the right in the UK began to look at the north as a liability.. There was no call for this sort of industry in the modern world.. The far east would produce the steel and the cloth, and the silly French would sell us cheap subsidised coal.. Our mills would close.. Our mines would flood.. It wouldn't matter.....
Northern workers were to take pay cuts, and re-train.. Or their jobs would be done by immigrants from poorer countries (who hadn't had as good a time of it as the lazy arrogant northerners)...
The prosperity of the north finally began to decline.. And with it the prosperity of Batley itself.
And so we arrive at the modern day... The beautiful stone mills still exist.. Having escaped the bombs.. But are largely derelict.. There is little hope of their surviving the next 100 years. Particularly since they are not seen as being significant historically, in the eyes of the people who list buildings for preservation.
Batley did a win 27 Million pound grant from the EU in the early 90's.. Which is gone, but for a folly monument.
Still.. If you look carefully.. You can still see that Batley was once a great northern town.