Bradford
City in West Yorkshire, England / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Bradford is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the 1974 reform, the city status has belonged to the larger City of Bradford metropolitan borough. It had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 census; the second-largest subdivision of the West Yorkshire Built-up Area after Leeds, which is approximately 9 miles (14 km) to the east. The borough had a population of 546,976, making it the 9th most populous district in England.
Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city grew in the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture, particularly wool. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the "wool capital of the world"; this in turn gave rise to the nicknames "Woolopolis" and "Wool City".[3] Lying in the eastern foothills of the Pennines, the area's access to supplies of coal, iron ore and soft water facilitated the growth of a manufacturing base, which, as textile manufacture grew, led to an explosion in population and was a stimulus to civic investment. There is a large amount of listed Victorian architecture in the city including the grand Italianate city hall.[4]
From the mid-20th century, deindustrialisation caused the city's textile sector and industrial base to decline and, since then, it has faced similar economic and social challenges to the rest of post-industrial Northern England, including poverty, unemployment and social unrest. It is the third-largest economy within the Yorkshire and the Humber region at around £10 billion, which is mostly provided by financial and manufacturing industries. It is also a tourist destination, the first UNESCO City of Film and it has the National Science and Media Museum, a city park, the Alhambra theatre and Cartwright Hall. The city is the UK City of Culture for 2025 having won the designation on 31 May 2022.[5]
Toponymy
The name Bradford is derived from the Old English brad and ford the broad ford which referred to a crossing of the Bradford Beck at Church Bank below the site of Bradford Cathedral, around which a settlement grew in Anglo-Saxon times.[6] It was recorded as "Bradeford" in 1086.[7]
Early history
After an uprising in 1070, during William the Conqueror's Harrying of the North, the manor of Bradford was laid waste,[6] and is described as such in the Domesday Book of 1086. It then became part of the Honour of Pontefract given to Ilbert de Lacy for service to the Conqueror, in whose family the manor remained until 1311.[6] There is evidence of a castle in the time of the Lacys.[8] The manor then passed to the Earl of Lincoln, John of Gaunt, The Crown and, ultimately, private ownership in 1620.[6]
By the Middle Ages, Bradford had become a small town centred on Kirkgate, Westgate and Ivegate.[6][9] In 1316 there is mention of a fulling mill, a soke mill where all the manor corn was milled and a market. During the Wars of the Roses the inhabitants sided with House of Lancaster. Edward IV granted the right to hold two annual fairs and from this time the town began to prosper. In the reign of Henry VIII Bradford exceeded Leeds as a manufacturing centre.[8] Bradford grew slowly over the next two-hundred years as the woollen trade gained in prominence.
During the Civil War the town was garrisoned for the Parliamentarians and in 1642 was unsuccessfully attacked by Royalist forces from Leeds. Sir Thomas Fairfax took the command of the garrison and marched to meet the Duke of Newcastle but was defeated. The Parliamentarians retreated to Bradford and the Royalists set up headquarters at Bolling Hall from where the town was besieged leading to its surrender.[8] The Civil War caused a decline in industry but after the accession of William III and Mary II in 1689 prosperity began to return.[6] The launch of manufacturing in the early 18th century marked the start of the town's development while new canal and turnpike road links encouraged trade.
Industrial Revolution
In 1801, Bradford was a rural market town of 6,393 people,[10] where wool spinning and cloth weaving were carried out in local cottages and farms. Bradford was thus not much bigger than nearby Keighley (5,745) and was significantly smaller than Halifax (8,866) and Huddersfield (7,268).[10] This small town acted as a hub for three nearby townships – Manningham, Bowling and Great and Little Horton, which were separated from the town by countryside.[10]
Blast furnaces were established in about 1788 by Hird, Dawson Hardy at Low Moor and iron was worked by the Bowling Iron Company until about 1900. Yorkshire iron was used for shackles, hooks and piston rods for locomotives, colliery cages and other mining appliances where toughness was required. The Low Moor Company also made pig iron and the company employed 1,500 men in 1929.[11] when the municipal borough of Bradford was created in 1847 there were 46 coal mines within its boundaries. Coal output continued to expand, reaching a peak in 1868 when Bradford contributed a quarter of all the coal and iron produced in Yorkshire.[12]
The population of the township in 1841 was 34,560.[13]
In 1825 the wool-combers union called a strike that lasted five-months but workers were forced to return to work through hardship leading to the introduction of machine-combing.[14] This Industrial Revolution led to rapid growth, with wool imported in vast quantities for the manufacture of worsted cloth in which Bradford specialised, and the town soon became known as the wool capital of the world.[15]
A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Bradford Moor Barracks in 1844.[16]
Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and a county borough in 1888, making it administratively independent of the West Riding County Council. It was honoured with city status on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, with Kingston upon Hull and Nottingham. The three had been the largest county boroughs outside the London area without city status.[17] The borough's boundaries were extended to absorb Clayton in 1930, and parts of Rawdon, Shipley, Wharfedale and Yeadon urban districts in 1937.[18]
Bradford had ample supplies of locally mined coal to provide the power that the industry needed. Local sandstone was an excellent resource for building the mills, and with a population of 182,000 by 1850,[19] the town grew rapidly as workers were attracted by jobs in the textile mills.[15] A desperate shortage of water in Bradford Dale was a serious limitation on industrial expansion and improvement in urban sanitary conditions. In 1854 Bradford Corporation bought the Bradford Water Company[20] and embarked on a huge engineering programme to bring supplies of soft water from Airedale, Wharfedale and Nidderdale.[21] By 1882 water supply had radically improved. Meanwhile, urban expansion took place along the routes out of the city towards the Hortons and Bowling and the townships had become part of a continuous urban area by the late 19th century.[9]
A major employer was Titus Salt who in 1833 took over the running of his father's woollen business specialising in fabrics combining alpaca, mohair, cotton and silk. By 1850 he had five mills. However, because of the polluted environment and squalid conditions for his workers Salt left Bradford and transferred his business to Salts Mill in Saltaire in 1850, where in 1853 he began to build the workers' village which has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[22]
Henry Ripley was a younger contemporary of Titus Salt. He was managing partner of Edward Ripley & Son Ltd, which owned the Bowling Dye Works. In 1880 the dye works employed over 1000 people and was said to be the biggest dye works in Europe. Like Salt he was a councillor, JP and Bradford MP who was deeply concerned to improve working class housing conditions. He built the industrial Model village of Ripley Ville on a site in Broomfields, East Bowling close to the dye works.
Other major employers were Samuel Lister and his brother who were worsted spinners and manufacturers at Lister's Mill (Manningham Mills). Lister epitomised Victorian enterprise but it has been suggested that his capitalist attitude made trade unions necessary.[23] Unprecedented growth created problems with over 200 factory chimneys continually churning out black, sulphurous smoke, Bradford gained the reputation of being the most polluted town in England. There were frequent outbreaks of cholera and typhoid, and only 30% of children born to textile workers reached the age of fifteen. This extreme level of infant and youth mortality contributed to a life expectancy for Bradford residents of just over eighteen years, which was one of the lowest in the country.
Like many major cities Bradford has been a destination for immigrants. In the 1840s Bradford's population was significantly increased by migrants from Ireland, particularly rural County Mayo[24] and County Sligo, and by 1851 about 10% of the population were born in Ireland, the largest proportion in Yorkshire.[25] Around[26] the middle decades of the 19th century the Irish were concentrated in eight densely settled areas situated near the town centre. One of these was the Bedford Street area of Broomfields, which in 1861 contained 1,162 persons of Irish birth—19% of all Irish born persons in the Borough.[27]
During the 1820s and 1830s, there was immigration from Germany. Many were Jewish merchants and they became active in the life of the town. The Jewish community mostly living in the Manningham area of the town,[28] numbered about 100 families but was influential in the development of Bradford as a major exporter of woollen goods from their textile export houses predominately based in Little Germany and the civic life of Bradford. Charles Semon (1814–1877) was a textile merchant and philanthropist who developed a productive textile export house in the town, he became the first foreign and Jewish mayor of Bradford in 1864.[29] Jacob Behrens (1806–1889) was the first foreign textile merchant to export woollen goods from the town, his company developed into an international multimillion-pound business.[30] Behrens was a philanthropist, he also helped to establish the Bradford chamber of commerce in 1851.[31] Jacob Moser (1839–1922) was a textile merchant who was a partner in the firm Edelstein, Moser and Co, which developed into a successful Bradford textile export house. Moser was a philanthropist, he founded the Bradford Charity Organisation Society and the City Guild of Help. In 1910 Moser became the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Bradford.[32]
To support the textile mills, a large manufacturing base grew up in the town providing textile machinery, and this led to diversification with different industries thriving side by side.[15] The Jowett Motor Company founded in the early 20th century by Benjamin and William Jowett and Arthur V Lamb, manufactured cars and vans in Bradford for 50 years.[33] The Scott Motorcycle Company was a well known producer of motorcycles and light engines for industry. Founded by Alfred Angas Scott in 1908 as the Scott Engineering Company in Bradford, Scott motorcycles were produced until 1978.
Independent Labour Party
The city played an important part in the early history of the Labour Party. A mural on the back of the Bradford Playhouse in Little Germany commemorates the centenary of the founding of the Independent Labour Party in Bradford in 1893.[34]
The Bradford Pals
The Bradford Pals were three First World War Pals battalions of Kitchener's Army raised in the city. When the three battalions were taken over by the British Army they were officially named the 16th (1st Bradford), 18th (2nd Bradford), and 20th (Reserve) Battalions, The Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire Regiment).[35]
On the morning of 1 July 1916, the 16th and 18th Battalions left their trenches in Northern France to advance across no man's land. It was the first hour of the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Of the estimated 1,394 men from Bradford and District in the two battalions, 1,060 were either killed or injured during the ill-fated attack on the village of Serre-lès-Puisieux.[36]
Other Bradford Battalions of The Prince of Wales's Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) involved in the Battle of the Somme were the 1st/6th Battalion (the former Bradford Rifle Volunteers), part of the Territorial Force, based at Belle Vue Barracks in Manningham, and the 10th Battalion (another Kitchener battalion).[37][38] The 1/6th Battalion first saw action in 1915 at the Battle of Aubers Ridge before moving north to the Yser Canal near Ypres. On the first day of the Somme they took heavy casualties while trying to support the 36th (Ulster) Division.[39][40] The 10th Battalion was involved in the attack on Fricourt, where it suffered the highest casualty rate of any battalion on the Somme on 1 July and perhaps the highest battalion casualty list for a single day during the entire war. Nearly 60% of the battalion's casualties were deaths.[41][42]
The 1/2nd and 2/2nd West Riding Brigades, Royal Field Artillery (TF), had their headquarters at Valley Parade in Manningham, with batteries at Bradford, Halifax and Heckmondwike.[43] The 1/2nd Brigade crossed to France with the 1/6th Battalion West Yorks in April 1915. These Territorial Force units were to remain close to each other throughout the war, serving in the 49th (West Riding) Division.[44] They were joined in 1917 by the 2/6th Battalion, West Yorks, and 2/2nd West Riding Brigade, RFA, serving in the 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division.[45]
Recent history
Bradford's Telegraph and Argus newspaper was involved in spearheading the news of the 1936 Abdication Crisis, after the Bishop of Bradford publicly expressed doubts about Edward VIII's religious beliefs (see: Telegraph & Argus#1936 Abdication Crisis).
After the Second World War migrants came from Poland and Ukraine and since the 1950s from Bangladesh, India and particularly Pakistan.[46]
The textile industry has been in decline throughout the latter part of the 20th century. A culture of innovation had been fundamental to Bradford's dominance, with new textile technologies being invented in the city; a prime example being the work of Samuel Lister. This innovation culture continues today throughout Bradford's economy, from automotive (Kahn Design)[47] to electronics (Pace Micro Technology). Wm Morrison Supermarkets was founded by William Morrison in 1899, initially as an egg and butter merchant in Rawson Market, operating under the name of Wm Morrison (Provisions) Limited.[48]
The grandest of the mills no longer used for textile production is Lister Mills, the chimney of which can be seen from most places in Bradford. It has become a beacon of regeneration after a £100 million conversion to apartment blocks by property developer Urban Splash.[49]
In 1989, copies of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses were burnt in the city, and a section of the Muslim community led a campaign against the book. In July 2001, ethnic tensions led to rioting, and a report described Bradford as fragmented[50] and a city of segregated ethnic communities.[51]
The Yorkshire Building Society opened its new headquarters in the city in 1992.[52]
In 2006 Wm Morrison Supermarkets opened its new headquarters in the city, the firm employs more than 5,000 people in Bradford.[53]
In June 2009 Bradford became the world's first UNESCO City of Film and became part of the Creative Cities Network since then.[54] The city has a long history of producing both films and the technology that produces moving film which includes the invention of the Cieroscope, which took place in Manningham in 1896.[55]
In 2010 Provident Financial opened its new headquarters in the city. The company has been based in the city since 1880.[56]
In 2012 the British Wool Marketing Board opened its new headquarters in the city.[57] Also in 2012 Bradford City Park opened, the park which cost £24.5 million to construct is a public space in the city centre which features numerous fountains and a mirror pool surrounded by benches and a walk way.[58]
In 2015 The Broadway opened, the shopping and leisure complex in the centre of Bradford cost £260 million to build and is owned by Meyer Bergman.
In 2022, Bradford was named the UK City of Culture 2025, beating Southampton, Wrexham and Durham.[59][60] The UK City of Culture bid, as of 2023, was expected to majorly stimulate the local economy and culture as well as attracting tourism to the city. By 2025, the UK City of Culture bid is expected to support potential economic growth of £389 million to the city of Bradford as well as to the surrounding local areas, creating over 7,000 jobs, attracting a significant amount of tourists to the city and providing thousands of performance opportunities for local artists.[61]
The city played an important part in the early history of the Labour Party. A mural on the back of the Bradford Playhouse (visible from Leeds Road) commemorates the centenary of the founding of the Independent Labour Party in 1893, and quotes its motto "There is no weal save commonweal".[62]
The original Bradford Coat of Arms had the Latin words Labor omnia vincit below it, meaning "Work conquers all".[63] A new coat of arms was emblazoned in 1976, after local government reorganisation in 1974, with the English motto "Progress, Industry, Humanity". Bradford is represented by three MPs: for the constituencies of Bradford East (Imran Hussain, Labour Party), Bradford South (Judith Cummins, Labour), and Bradford West (Naz Shah, Labour Party).
Bradford was part of the Yorkshire and the Humber European constituency, which elected six Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) using the D'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation, until the UK exit from the European Union on 31 January 2020.
In the final European Parliament election, in 2019, 29.9% of voters in Bradford chose the Brexit Party, with 28.8% voting Labour and 14.1% voting Liberal Democrat. The Conservatives only polled 6.7% and UKIP 3.7%.[64]
The City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council has 90 councillors (2023). As of 2023, a political party must hold more than 45 seats in order to take control of the council. A minority-led administration occurs when all parties hold less than 45 seats on the council.[65] Following local elections on 5 May 2022, Labour had majority control over Bradford council with 56 seats, this was followed by Conservatives and the Green Party with 16 and 8 seats, respectively.[66] The council was led by council leader Susan Hinchliffe, representing the Windhill and Wrose ward, and chief executive Kersten England.[67]
Bradford is located at 53°45′00″N 01°50′00″W (53.7500, −1.8333)1. Topographically, it is located in the eastern moorland region of the South Pennines.
Bradford is not built on any substantial body of water but is situated at the junction of three valleys, one of them, that of the Bradford Beck which rises in moorland to the west, and is swelled by its tributaries, the Horton Beck, Westbrook, Bowling Beck and Eastbrook. At the site of the original ford, the beck turns north, and flows towards the River Aire at Shipley. Bradfordale (or Bradforddale) is a name given to this valley (see for example Firth 1997). It can be regarded as one of the Yorkshire Dales, though as it passes through the city, it is often not recognised as such. The beck's course through the city centre is culverted and has been since the mid 19th century. On the 1852 Ordnance Survey map it is visible as far as Sun Bridge, at the end of Tyrrell Street, and then from beside Bradford Forster Square railway station on Kirkgate. On the 1906 Ordnance Survey, it disappears at Tumbling Hill Street, off Thornton Road, and appears north of Cape Street, off Valley Road, though there are culverts as far as Queens Road.
The Bradford Canal, built in 1774, linking the city to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal took its water from Bradford Beck and its tributaries. The supply of water from the polluted Bradford Beck was often inadequate to feed the locks and heavily polluted the canal over time.[68] Due to the polluted state of the canal causing health problems, the council temporarily closed the canal in 1866.[69] In 1922, the canal was permanently closed due to it not being economically viable to maintain the canal. In modern times, remnants of the canal can still be found, including by Canal Road where the route of the old canal can be seen by car.[70]
Geology
The underlying geology of the city is primarily carboniferous sandstones. These vary in quality from rough rock to fine, honey-coloured stone of building quality. Access to this material has had a pronounced effect on the architecture of the city.[71] The city also lies within the north western parts of the Yorkshire Coalfield which is mostly composed of carboniferous coal measures.[72] The coal measures stimulated early urban development, in the modern day, geological extraction of minerals is heavily reduced in terms of scale.[73]
Climate
As with the vast majority of the UK, Bradford experiences a maritime climate (Köppen: Cfb), with limited seasonal temperature ranges, and generally moderate rainfall throughout the year.[74] Records have been collected since 1908 from the Met Office's weather station at Lister Park, a short distance north of the city centre. This constitutes one of the nation's longest unbroken records of daily data. The full record can be found on the council's website.[75]
The absolute maximum temperature recorded was 37.9 °C (100.2 °F) in July 2022.[76] In an 'average' year, the warmest day should attain a temperature of 27.5 °C (81.5 °F),[77] with a total of 6 days[78] rising to a maximum of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or above.
The absolute minimum temperature recorded was −13.9 °C (7.0 °F) during January 1940. The weather station's elevated suburban location means exceptionally low temperatures are unknown. Typically, 41.4 nights of the year will record an air frost.[citation needed]
Rainfall averages around 870 mm (34 in) per year with over 1 mm falling on 139 days.[79]
Sunshine, at little in excess of 1,250 hours per year is low, as one would expect of an inland location in Northern England located amongst upland areas. All averages refer to the 1981–2010 observation period.[citation needed]
Climate data for Bradford (Lister Park),[lower-alpha 1] elevation: 134 m (440 ft), 1991–2020 normals, extremes 1908–present | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Record high °C (°F) | 14.6 (58.3) |
18.4 (65.1) |
21.7 (71.1) |
23.9 (75.0) |
26.7 (80.1) |
30.0 (86.0) |
37.9 (100.2) |
32.2 (90.0) |
27.2 (81.0) |
25.6 (78.1) |
17.1 (62.8) |
15.8 (60.4) |
37.9 (100.2) |
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 6.8 (44.2) |
7.4 (45.3) |
9.5 (49.1) |
12.5 (54.5) |
15.7 (60.3) |
18.2 (64.8) |
20.4 (68.7) |
19.8 (67.6) |
17.2 (63.0) |
13.4 (56.1) |
9.6 (49.3) |
7.2 (45.0) |
13.1 (55.6) |
Daily mean °C (°F) | 4.3 (39.7) |
4.6 (40.3) |
6.2 (43.2) |
8.6 (47.5) |
11.5 (52.7) |
14.2 (57.6) |
16.3 (61.3) |
15.9 (60.6) |
13.5 (56.3) |
10.3 (50.5) |
6.8 (44.2) |
4.6 (40.3) |
9.7 (49.5) |
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 1.8 (35.2) |
1.8 (35.2) |
2.9 (37.2) |
4.7 (40.5) |
7.2 (45.0) |
10.1 (50.2) |
12.2 (54.0) |
12.0 (53.6) |
9.9 (49.8) |
7.1 (44.8) |
4.1 (39.4) |
2.0 (35.6) |
6.3 (43.3) |
Record low °C (°F) | −13.9 (7.0) |
−13.3 (8.1) |
−11.1 (12.0) |
−10.6 (12.9) |
−3.0 (26.6) |
0.6 (33.1) |
5.0 (41.0) |
2.8 (37.0) |
0.3 (32.5) |
−4.1 (24.6) |
−7.8 (18.0) |
−13.1 (8.4) |
−13.9 (7.0) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 88.4 (3.48) |
73.8 (2.91) |
64.0 (2.52) |
57.8 (2.28) |
52.0 (2.05) |
72.5 (2.85) |
64.2 (2.53) |
73.7 (2.90) |
69.5 (2.74) |
84.4 (3.32) |
90.3 (3.56) |
99.0 (3.90) |
889.6 (35.02) |
Average precipitation days (≥ 1.0 mm) | 14.4 | 12.1 | 11.3 | 10.6 | 9.9 | 10.1 | 10.3 | 11.5 | 10.7 | 12.5 | 14.3 | 14.5 | 142.1 |
Mean monthly sunshine hours | 43.2 | 67.7 | 105.2 | 142.1 | 173.3 | 159.4 | 167.2 | 156.1 | 122.8 | 89.7 | 54.9 | 38.0 | 1,319.4 |
Source 1: Met Office[lower-alpha 2][80] | |||||||||||||
Source 2: ECA&D[81] |
Green belt
Bradford is within a green belt region that extends into the borough and wider surrounding counties. It is in place to reduce urban sprawl, prevent the towns in the West Yorkshire Urban Area conurbation from further convergence, protect the identity of outlying communities, encourage brownfield reuse, and preserve nearby countryside. This is achieved by restricting inappropriate development within the designated areas, and imposing stricter conditions on permitted building.[82]
The green belt surrounds the Bradford built-up area, separating towns and villages throughout the borough. Larger outlying communities such as Bingley, Wilsden, Cottingley, and Thornton are also exempt from the green belt area. However, nearby smaller villages, hamlets and rural areas such as Brunthwaite, Keelham, Denholme Gate, Laycock Esholt, Micklethwaite, Goose Eye, Stanbury, Hainworth, Tong, and Harecroft are 'washed over' by the designation.[82] Much semi-rural land on the fringes is also included. The area in 2017 amounted to some 23,890 hectares (238.9 km2; 92.2 sq mi).[83]
A subsidiary aim of the green belt is to encourage recreation and leisure interests,[82] with rural landscape features, greenfield areas and facilities including Park Wood; Northcliffe park and woods; Heaton Woods; Chellow Dene woods and reservoirs; Horton Bank country park; Norr Hill; Gilstead recreation park; Stone Circle remains by Shipley Glen; Bracken Hall; River Aire valley; Leeds and Liverpool canal; and the Leeds Country Way.
This section may contain material not related to the topic of the article and should be moved to City of Bradford instead. (August 2011) |
At the 2011 UK census, Bradford had a population of 522,452.[84] There were 106,680 households in Bradford, and the population density was 4,560 inhabitants per square kilometre (11,820/sq mi). For every 100 females, there were 92.9 males.[85] Bradford has the youngest, fastest growing population outside London.[86]
The census showed that of Bradford's total population, 67.44% (352,317) was White, 26.83% (140,149) Asian, 2.48% (12,979) Mixed Race, 1.77% (9,267) Black and 1.48% (7,740) from other races.[87]
22.1% of the population are British South Asian (included in the 26.83% Asian figure above) the second-highest percentage of South Asians in a single settlement in England and Wales (behind the city of Leicester at 29.9%). Nearly half of all Asians living in Yorkshire and the Humber live in Bradford, with the central wards of Bradford Moor, City, Little Horton, Manningham and Toller having large majority Asian populations, whereas outlying wards of Bradford such as Thornton and Allerton, Idle and Thackley, Eccleshill, Wibsey, Wyke, Clayton, Wrose, Tong and Royds have predominantly white populations.[88][failed verification]
Bradford: Ethnicity: 2011 Census[89] | |||||||||||||
Ethnic group | Population | % | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
White | 352,317 | 67.5 | |||||||||||
Asian or Asian British | 140,149 | 26.8 | |||||||||||
Mixed | 12,979 | 2.5 | |||||||||||
Black or Black British | 9,267 | 1.8 | |||||||||||
Arab | 3,714 | 0.7 | |||||||||||
Other Ethnic Group | 4,026 | 0.8 | |||||||||||
Total | 522,452 | 100 |
The Office for National Statistics Regional Trends report, published in June 2009, showed that some parts of Bradford suffer from the highest levels of deprivation in the country, while other areas of Bradford are some of the least deprived in the country.[90][91] Infant mortality is double the national average,[92] and life expectancy is slightly lower than in other parts of the district.[93]
The long-term health study Born in Bradford studied more than 11,300 births in the city between 2007–2011 and found that the rate of birth defects was 3%, nearly twice the national average of 1.7%.[94] The study found the leading cause was the rate of consanguineous marriage among British Pakistanis, which had become more common than a generation earlier.[94][95] In total, of 5,127 children of Pakistani origin, 37% had been born to married first cousins.[94] The study also identified an increased risk for babies born to older women. Among the white British group 19% of birth defects were associated with women over the age of 34.[94]