Hemsworth, West Riding

Description
Hemsworth, a village and a parish in the W. R. Yorkshire. The village lies 7 1/2 miles SE of Wakefield, and has a station on a branch of the G.N.R., is well built and large, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Wake-field, a working men's reading-room, a church, a Roman Catholic and two dissenting chapels, a well-endowed hospital. a free grammar school, and a workhouse. The reading-room is a handsome edifice built in 1876, and contains a well-selected library. The church is Later English, and was re- stored and enlarged in 1867, consists of nave, aisles, and chance!, with porch and tower, and contains a font and a few ancient monuments. The hospital was founded in 1566 by Archbishop Holgate, was rebuilt in 1860, has an endowed income of £3200, and devotes one-fifth of that income to a master, who also has a separate house, and the rest to twenty men and twenty women and the grammar school. The old hospital buildings, erected in 1770, still remain near the church. The grammar school was founded in 1546 also by Archbishop Holgate, but was amalgamated in 1887 with that of Barnsley, and has an endowed income of about £400, in addition to which it receives £300 yearly from the hospital funds. The parish contains also Little Hemsworth, Rinsley, and Lane Ends hamlets. Acreage, 4161; population, 2887. Hemsworth Hall was the birthplace of the Right HOD. Sir Charles Wood, and bis residence till 1830, and is now the seat of the Leatham family. There is a steam corn mill. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in the collieries. The living is a rectory in the diocese of York; gross value, £624 with residence.