Ibbertson's Directory Of Bradford 1845 Ibbertson's Directory Of Bradford 1845 [] - £6.99 : The Genealogy Store, The Home Of Genealogy

Home
Log In

New Products [more]

The Parish Registers Of Moreton Corbet Shropshire 1580-1812

£5.99

The Parish Registers Of Selattyn Shropshire 1557-1812

£5.99

The Parish Registers Of Pitchford Shropshire 1558-1812

£5.99

Manufacturers

£6.99

Please Choose:

Our products are available as a CD/DVD or as a Digital Download Please select which one you need

PDF File

Add to Cart:

Ibbertson's Directory of Bradford 1845 - Digital Download or CD-ROM

Unlock the industrial heritage of your West Riding ancestors with this premium digital facsimile reprint of Ibbertson’s landmark 1845 directory for Bradford and its surrounding townships. Capturing the world's booming textile capital at a defining moment in the early Victorian era, this invaluable genealogy resource maps out the woolstaplers, mill owners, mechanics, artisans, and everyday residents who transformed Bradford from a rural market town into a global manufacturing powerhouse.

This high-quality product is available immediately as a digital download or shipped directly to you on a physical CD.

Format & Navigation

Please note that these volumes consist of high-resolution scanned images of the original 1845 pages, meaning the raw files are not indexed or directly text-searchable out of the box.

Intuitive Alphabetical Layout: Finding your ancestors is remarkably straightforward because the resident, merchant, and trade listings are compiled in strict alphabetical order. You can scan pages by surname just like turning the pages of a book.
On-The-Fly OCR Support: Because these are crisp, high-contrast scans, modern PDF readers automatically perform OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the fly. Opening this document in updated versions of Adobe Acrobat, Apple Preview, or Google Chrome lets you search for names, streets, and occupations dynamically.

Directory Sections & Historical Insights

Ibbertson’s 1845 directory is far more than a basic address book; it serves as an intricate snapshot of a rapidly expanding Victorian community. The content features:

Bradford Alphabetical Directory: Names, precise professions, and street residences of Bradford's primary citizens and tradespeople.
Classification of Trades: A comprehensive business index grouping individuals by their craft, from master worsted spinners and woolstaplers to ironfounders, loom-makers, and local shopkeepers.
Adjacent Townships & Surrounding Villages: Detailed listings for the surrounding industrial communities that fed the town's growth, including Bowling, Horton, Manningham, Allerton, Thornton, and Shipley.
Civic, Public, & Parish Officers: Rosters for the local Magistrates, Board of Highways, Churchwardens, and overseers of the public institutions and poor law unions.
Victorian Transport & Commerce Logs: Practical timetables for regional railway links, canal fly-boats operating from the Bradford Canal basin, and local carrier carts connecting the town to Leeds, Halifax, and Manchester.

Bridging the Census Gaps

While the 1841 and 1851 UK national censuses are staples for family historians, they only offer rigid, single-night snapshots a decade apart. Ibbertson’s 1845 directory acts as a vital midpoint bridge, capturing the rapid movement, promotions, and house-to-house migrations of families during the massive population boom of the 1840s.

Crucially, the early Victorian period was marked by a wave of intense government distrust regarding state surveillance. The 1841 census had introduced unprecedented state inquiries into households, causing widespread anxiety among the working-class and independent traders who feared the forms were a covert tool for hidden wealth taxes, property seizures, or forced conscription. Because of this, many deliberately evaded census marshals. Commercial directories like Ibbertson's bypassed this political friction; individuals who hid from official government overseers were often proudly and willingly listed here to ensure their shops, workshops, and trades remained highly visible to their local customers and trading partners.

Local Identity, Industry, & Famous Figures

Bradford in 1845 was a booming economic miracle built on smoke, steam, and textiles.

Industrial Might: This directory maps out a town at the absolute forefront of the global worsted trade, documenting the massive expansion of steam-powered mills, wool-combing workshops, and the engineering firms that supplied them.
Famous Connections: The directory captures the exact urban landscape closely aligned with legendary regional figures. This includes the rising career of textile giant and social reformer Titus Salt, who was actively operating mills in Bradford before building Saltaire, and the early years of Bradford-born social pioneer and future cabinet minister W. E. Forster.
Cultural & Sporting Legacy: The tight-knit mill communities captured in these pages laid the foundations for Bradford's enduring cultural identity. This includes the early roots of the town's vibrant brass band movements, choral traditions, and the ancestral lineages that eventually birthed historic sporting clubs like Bradford City A.F.C. and the town's legendary rugby and cricket teams.

Disclaimer Regarding Maps

Please note: Due to variations in surviving original copies of this rare, 180-year-old Victorian volume, the regional folding maps originally published with some editions of Ibbertson's are occasionally missing from standard facsimiles. If your digital download or CD contains these supplementary structural maps of Bradford, please consider it an invaluable historical bonus!

Write Review

This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 01 April, 2026.