Wadsley is a suburb of the City of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It stands north-west of the city centre at an approximate grid reference of . At the 2011 Census the suburb fell within the Hillsborough ward of the City. Wadsley was formerly a rural village which was engulfed by the expansion of Sheffield in the early part of the 20th century.
History
The origin of the name Wadsley is thought to come from a personal or mythological name, possibly Wad, Wadde, Wade or Wada, in conjunction with the Old English word “leah” which means an open space or glade in a wood. A feudal manorial system existed in Wadsley in the Early Middle Ages under the control of Aldene. The Anglo-Saxon estate of Wadesleah is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 in its genitive form of Wadesleia. After the Norman conquest of England Waltheof, the last of the Saxon lords retained Hallamshire of which Wadsley was a part; however he was beheaded in 1076 for rebellion against William the Conqueror and his lands passed to his wife Judith of Lens, with Roger de Busli, first Lord of Hallamshire, holding power.
Wadsley eventually became a manor under the control of the De Wadsley family; they were a knightly family of some power in southern Yorkshire. The family had manorial rights and built a manor hall, a deer park and chapel within the parish of Ecclesfield. Their surname was first recorded in 1227,there are still Wadsleys today. The ownership of the manor of Wadsley changed many times over the following centuries.
Eventually all indications of the former medieval way of life were slowly eradicated; the deer were removed from the park in 1621, Wadsley Hall was rebuilt in 1722 and the chapel was replaced by Wadsley Parish Church in 1834. In 1790 Joseph Clay bought the manor of Wadsley from Michael Burton, upon his death in 1797 he bequeathed it to his daughter, Ellen, the wife of George Bustard Greaves, of Page Hall. As Lord of the Manor, Greaves commissioned a survey of the manor in 1802, this was carried out by the Sheffield surveyors Fairbanks. The survey revealed 200 people as landowners within the manor and between them they possessed almost 2,400 acres. The largest landowner at the time was Samuel Turner who owned almost 650 acres, most individuals held smallholdings of between one and three acres.
From the 16th century up to the 1920s Wadsley’s main industry was cutlery manufacturing; at the end of the 19th century there were over 100 cutler's shops in the village. The industry declined as the small workshops of Wadsley lost business to the large cutlery works of Sheffield. It is generally believed that the last little mester operating as a knife maker in Wadsley was Harry Horsfield who died in 1938. In 1901 Sheffield extended its boundaries and part of Wadsley came within the city; a further expansion in 1923 brought the rest of the village inside the city boundary. The recent history of Wadsley has been its development as a residential suburb with many houses built, especially in the area between Wadsley Lane and Langsett Avenue, in the 1930s. The original manor house that stood on Laird Road was controversially sold and demolished in 1958 to make way for the Laird Road Flats - after this happened the Wadsley conservation campaign ceased to be a coherent force. Over the next fifteen years most of the small old shops, houses and workshops of Wadsley were demolished virtually without opposition - culminating in the City Council's Wadsley redevelopment programme in 1968.
Historical buildings and eminent residents
Due to its former rural setting Wadsley has several country houses which are still standing within the now built-up suburb.
Wadsley House
Wadsley House () is a grade two listed building which stands on a cul-de-sac called The Drive. George Calvert Holland M.D. lived in the house in the mid-19th century; his writings include “The Philosophy of Animated Nature” and “Vital Statistics of Sheffield”. George Miller, a railway contractor who was involved in building the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway bought the house in 1851 and lived there till his death in 1884. The house is now a social club with a bowling green attached.