Rotherham The Unofficial Website An unofficial website about the Town and Borough of Rotherham

Rotherham Town & Borough

Rotherham is a small town and large metropolitan borough in the County of South Yorkshire, England. One or two people have taken exception, well perhaps exception is too strong a word, about my calling Rotherham a small town, since with a population of 100,000 is actually quite a large town really. However those of us that live here know that in attitudes, it is a very small town indeed.

In Roman times the settlement that would become the town of Rotherham is thought to have been near the confluence of the rivers Don and Rother. This area is prone to flooding so later inhabitants moved to higher ground further down the river Don. The parish church was founded in the 10th Century. During the Middle Ages the parish of Rotherham came under monastic control. Probably because of this, there was neither castle nor walls built here and the town does not seem to have been subject to siege or sackings during the various wars. It was a populous and moderately wealthy town at the end of the 15th. Century due to the influence of Thomas Rotherham who was born in the town and who became Archbishop of York and Chancellor of England. It went into a decline following the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1537) and the Suppression of Chantries in the 1540s. At this time the town consisted of two major settlements, the town and Manor of Rotherham on the east bank of the Don and Masbrough in the Manor of Kimberworth on the opposite bank.

The town of Rotherham expanded rapidly after the founding of ironworks on the Masbrough side in the 1740s, and in the 19th century it became part of a industrial belt extending along the Don Valley from Sheffield to Mexborough. The Census of 1801, which was the first British census, records the total population of the Parish of Rotherham (the Borough did not come into existence until much later) as 8,418, most of whom lived in Rotherham (3070) and Kimberworth (3326).

By 1841 the population had risen to 13,539, of whom 5505 lived in Rotherham and 5066 in Kimberworth. Until the 1850s much of Medieval Rotherham still existed. In Victorian time there must have been much wealth about to judge by the amount of building and re-building that took place in the town centre.

The power of the town has now extended to cover parishes and villages over the wide area that is the Borough of Rotherham, including the towns of Wath and Maltby. Up to the end of the 19th Century much of the area that is now the Borough of Rotherham was rural, with small, sleepy villages tied to the rhythm of the agricultural year. Then King Coal came along and as much of the Borough was sat above rich, thick seams of coal, vast complexes of mines, tips, slurry ponds, coking ovens and railways were developed. Their remains still disfigure large parts of the landscape.

You can find more about the History of the town by visiting onsite at The History of Rotherham.

Rotherham is not a pretty town, believe me. Except for a couple of very brief periods of its existence Rotherham has never been a rich town and moreover the town fathers have never sought to maintain its heritage, even to the present day. Up until recent times Rotherham was a centre of the Coal Mining and Iron and Steel Industries. Most of these have now gone and the town seems to be maintained now by the Call Centre Trade.

To have a closer look at the town please visit onsite at The Streets of Rotherham and In & Around Rotherham.

Besides the town, the metropolitan borough of Rotherham includes suburban areas, rural villages, open countryside and the coalmining towns of Maltby (Well I think they still mine coal there but only just) Dinnington and Wath upon Dearne. Please have a look onsite at In & Around Rotherham and Rotherham Villages.

The total area covered by the borough is 119 square miles (308 square km).

The population of the area served by the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council is about 250,000 and of that about 100,000 people live in the town of Rotherham proper. Don't rely on these figures they are old and probably wrong. If I discover newer ones I'll post them. I have found the information on Britannica that the estimated population of the borough in 1998 was 254,400, so I'm not so far out.

The Borough of Rotherham is the area under the local governance of Rotherham Council. It covers areas south of Sheffield like Dinnington which have Sheffield addresses. Just to confuse you, villages like Goldthorpe and Bolton on Dearne generally have Rotherham addresses but arein the Borough of Barnsley, whilst Braithwell, Clifton and Stainton also have Rotherham addresses but are in the Borough of Doncaster.

Top of Page