Our recent visit to Halifax reminded me of the years which Dorothy Worsdworth spent in the town. In her Journal she wrote of Halifax "that dear place which I shall ever consider as my home".
After leaving the town, she often came back for visits and in 1794 her brother William came with her. By this time 'Aunt' Threlkeld had married William Rawson and had moved to Mill House in Triangle. The Wordsworths stayed for nine months, over Christmas and Dorothy’s 22nd birthday.
More close friends from her Halifax childhood were daughters of the Pollard family, who had moved to Ovenden Hall. Jane Pollard's wedding provided the chance of another visit, this time with another of her four brothers, Christopher.
There are records of three other visits. In 1807, she came with William and his wife, Mary, to Savile Green, where the Rawsons had moved. She made another visit in 1816, staying for five months. The last time we know she came back was in 1818. Each visit was a busy round of meeting her old friends in homes across the Halifax district.
The image (above) shows Halifax town centre as Dorothy would have known it. Part of John Moore's Map of the Town and Township of Halifax 1797.
In later years she wrote "the country here is varied and beautiful, if it were not for the cotton and woollen mills, which are really now no more than encumbrances, trade being so bad. The wealthy keep their mills going chiefly for the value of employing workmen. Few get more than half work, great numbers none at all. A great part of the population is reduced to pauperism, a dreadful evil".
I'm sure that Halifax has changed a great deal since Dorothy Wordsworth's time living there, but as we walked around the Piece Hall and the Minster it is easy to imaging the Wordsworth siblings in the town. The Piece Hall must have been under construction when Dorothy first moved to Halifax, and she must have watched its construction and completion.