Bradford

Bradford city (1991 pop. 293,336) and metropolitan district, N central England, on a small tributary of the Aire River. It is a center of the worsted industry, which dates from the Middle Ages. Bradford has an important wool exchange, along with the making of other fabrics (including synthetics). Electroplating, electrical engineering, and the manufacture of machinery and automobiles are also important. Stone quarries are nearby. The city of Bradford is home to a large number of Britain's Pakistani population. District landmarks include the memorial hall, dedicated to Edmund Cartwright , inventor of the power loom; St. Peter's Church (1458), now the cathedral of the diocese of Bradford; and the Conditioning House, a unique textile-testing establishment. The Univ. of Bradford, Bradford Technical College, Bradford Regional College of Art, and Margaret McMillan Memorial College of Education are there.

Bradford Though Bradford received a charter as early as 1251, it remained a cloth town of local importance. During the 17th cent. it lost ground. Celia Fiennes in the 1690s did not mention it and Defoe in the 1720s ignored it, though he devoted a long description to Leeds. Its revival was due to the development of the worsted trade and the growth of the canal network. Bradford canal, completed in 1774, and the link to the Leeds and Liverpool canal (1777), gave access to the east and west coasts. By the early decades of the 19th cent., Bradford had begun its prodigious growth. By 1851 it was the seventh largest town in the country, with a population of well over 100,000. From 1846 onwards it was also joined to the rapidly growing railway system. In the 20th cent. Bradford was less well served. It suffered comparatively little from the attentions of the Luftwaffe but severely at the hands of post‐war town planners. Many evocations of Edwardian Bradford, when wool was still king, are to be found in the works of J. B. Priestley, particularly Bright Day, a threnody for ‘Bruddersford’ trams.