Leeds, seventeen miles from Huddersfield, is the centre of five railways, by which it has direct connection with Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, on the east, and Carlisle on the west coast, Sheffield, Nottingham, Derby, and Birmingham, in the Midland counties, possesses one of the finest central railway stations in the kingdom, and has also the advantage of being in the centre of inland navigation (a great advantage for the transport of heavy goods), as it communicates with the eastern seas by the Aire and Calder navigation to the Humber, and westward by the Leeds and Liverpool to the Mersey.  The town stands on a hill, which rises from the banks of the river Aire.  Leeds has claims to antiquity, but few remains.  When Domesday Book was compiled it appears to have been an agricultural district.

Wakefield was formerly the more important town.  Lord Clarendon, in 1642, speaks of Leeds, Halifax, and Bradford, “as three very rich and populous towns, depending wholly upon clothing.”

The first charter was granted to Leeds by Charles I., and the second by Charles II., on petition of the clothworkers, merchants, and others, “to protect them from the great abuses, defects and deceits, discovered and practised by fraudulent persons in the making, selling, and dyeing of woollen cloths.”

The principal manufacture of Leeds is woollen cloth.  Formerly the trade was carried on by five or six thousand small master clothiers, who employed their own families, and some thirty or forty thousand servants, and also carried on small farms.  But the extension of the factory system has somewhat diminished their numbers.  There are still, however, in connection with Leeds, several small clothing villages, in which the first stages of the operation are carried on, in spinning, weaving, and fulling.

Large quantities of worsted goods are brought to Leeds to be finished and dyed, which have been purchased, in an undyed state, at Bradford and Halifax.  The dye-houses and dressing-shops of Leeds are very extensive.  Goods purchased in a rough state in the Cloth Halls and Piece Halls are taken there to be finished.  There are also extensive mills for spinning flax for linen, canvas-sailing, thread, and manufactures of glass and earthenware.  In connection with Messrs. Marshall’s flax factory, the same firm are carrying on extensive experiments near Hull in growing flax.

Cloth Halls.—­Previous to 1711, the cloth market was held in the open street.  In 1755, the present Halls were erected, and in them the merchants purchase the half manufactured article from the country manufacturers.