Year 9 Athenaeum Explores the Historical and Economic Geography of West Yorkshire
On Wednesday, 4th February, members of the Year 9 Athenaeum enjoyed hearing about the historical and economic geography of West Yorkshire in preparation for their upcoming visit. Mr Beattie, the School Archivist and Geography teacher, presented the places the students will be visiting and placed them in a geographical and historical context. The Five Rise Locks at Bingley, for example, demonstrated both a high degree of engineering skill and their importance to the region’s economy during the Industrial Revolution, particularly in relation to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal.
The students gained a sense of the changing fortunes of the county, from the rise and fall of the textile industry and coal mining to the contemporary resurgence of Leeds as a financial and tourist centre. This mixture of the old and the new was also evident in the discussion about the Utopian Village of Saltaire, where the old mill buildings now house one of the largest collections of David Hockney’s work.
The students will be staying in a youth hostel in Malham, and Mr Beattie was able to incorporate the importance of the Yorkshire Dales into his summary.
The session equipped the students with a meaningful sense of context ahead of their visit.
