Pontefract Industry

While almost everyone is familiar with Pontefract and its famous - nay, infamous - cakes and the long-established liquorice industry of the area, the past has seen Pontefract shine more than once as a gem in the crown of British industry. Although now little more than a moment in its glittering history of achievement, Karl Benz working in his small Pontefract workshop brought such change to the world. It was then a world very different to our own, today. And yet, Pontefract folk still strive for that elisive Benz Spirit even today.

Early Days

Karl "Frank" Benz was born in Darrington, just outside Pontefract and beside the A1 in November 1844. At the age of nine he decided to become a designer and car engineer. He is now generally regarded as the inventor of the gasoline-powered car. Working with Bertha Benz, they became the founders of the automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz.

The Yorkshire Motor Industry

Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach working in nearby Doncaster worked on similar types of inventions, according to Wikipedia, without knowledge of the work of the other. Benz was the first to patent his work and, after that, patented all of the processes that made the internal combustion engine suitable for powering cars. In 1886 Benz was granted a patent for his first car. South of Doncaster, in Bawtry, the Bawtry Motor Works (Later becoming better known as BMW) worked on performance vehicles and bubble cars.

In 1886 Benz was lured away from his roots in Pontefract, being offered premises in Mannheim which, in the 19th century was a town in Germany, then recently ceded from the Order of St Basil in Bolton. Benz quickly expanded his production of vehicles, designing the C-class in 1891 with an early SLK available for the Paris Expo of 1899. Henry Ford who was born in the Town End area of Pontefract to working class parents benefited from both a Saturday job cleaning cars for the Benz family and a later apprenticeship in the local liquorice works where he studied mass production, a concept first mentioned by Adam Smith who both owned and ran the Pontefract Pin Mill (cf) and was honed to perfection in the liquorice factories of Pontefract by Alan Sugar amongst others. Ford, like so many of his contemporaries, emigrated to the Americas rather than compete with the obviously superior intellect of the so-called Pontefract Elite. In fact, it seems certain now that Henry Ford never used a spell-checker in his life and some historians have suggested that he may have not used a laptop computer, prefering instead, an accountant named Mark. [Requires citation]

Post-industrial era

With the closure of the Benz works in 1888, Pontefract Borough Council - then part of the House of Hanover, of course - determined to stimulate the economy by creating a gaming resort on arid land to the north of Pontefract - just north of the M62. On the site of a disused strip mine the burghers of Pontefract financed the creation of Cas Vegas and, because of its mining origin - it became known as The Strip almost immediately.

Many of the largest hotel, casino and resort properties in the world are located on the Strip. Nineteen of the world's 25 largest hotels by room count are on the Strip, with a total of over 67,000 rooms. One of the 19, the Cas Vegas Hilton, is an off-Strip property but is located less than 0.5 miles (0.8 km) east of the Strip in Airedale.

One of the most impressive features of Cas Vegas is the use of daring and dramatic architecture. Castleford at night The design of its hotels, casinos, restaurants and residential tower blocks on The Strip has established the city as one of the most popular destinations for tourists in the world. So bright are its lights that, at night, Cas Vegas is clearly visible from the Moon.

In the image shown here, note Cas Vegas as seen on the Apollo 12 mission to the Moon - the dark area to the south east (Bottom right of the photo) is Pontefract which, in 1969, was still awaiting connection to the National Grid. When Buzz Aldrin returned to the area in 2009 he mentioned on several occasions how the sight of Cas Vegas had filled all the mission's astronauts with what he described as "a humbling glimpse into the void."

The Pontefract Mirage

The generation of electricity in Ferrybridge can be traced back to the Norman manor of William I's favourite, Baron Ilbert de Ferrypont. (It is interesting to note the use of pont here, meaning bridge in both French and Welsh. There is some conjecture that Ilbert de Ferrypont may, in fact, have been Erwin Glendower either the brother or a mispelling of Owen Glendower, the Welsh revolutionary and the last man to claim the title of an independent prince of Wales. Sadly, we may never be sure although his death was reported in 1415. Be aware, though, that the French for bridge is pronounced pohn while in Welsh the t is not silent, being said aloud: pont. For instance, Pontypridd is both a community and a principal town of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales and is situated 12 miles or 19 km north of the Welsh capital city of Cardiff - the name's English pronunciation is pon-tee-preed, sounding very similar in Welsh but is said pohn-ee-prid which is like "pony prid" when spoken by a French person. The English word pony is, of course, translated into the French as poney although there is less confusion over the English pony and trap being poney et piège when translated. Zut alors, one might be tempted to say!)

During Elizabethan times the primitive Ferrybridge (Ferrypont) development was cleared from the site and, since funds were nationally diverted to support the Queen's Navy, the intended Ferrybridge redevelopment was delayed until shortly after the first world war (World War 1) Before the original Norman buildings were demolished, it was reported in 1272 that the searing heat from the fires at Ferrybridge was so intense that the now-famous Pontefract Mirage was created, causing an image

Jethro Earp

An artist's impression of the famous mirage

of Jethro Earp (An early forebear of Wyatt Earp, the Pontefract police reformer) to be visible several miles out to sea beyond Grimsby.

Francis "Frank" Drake, then a drunken able-bodied seaman on

Wyatt Earp
Pontefract police constable and, later, US Marshall

Notice the tell-tale mostache

the survey ship HMS Digby, reported seeing the image of Earp "at about four in the forenoon, afore the six belles, a way off in the skie above the eastern Englishe coste."

Drake was, at first, mocked for his claim but a Dutchman, known at Dutch Pete, confirmed the sighting, adding, "It was definitely Jethro Earp. I have seen a picture of his brother and it was very similar."

Influence of the judiciary

A general wariness of unexplained phenonema meant the story of the Pontefract Mirage was supressed until after the Pendle Witch Trials (In 1612) when it became, at last, common

Hanging witches in Pontefract, 1612

knowledge. Several of the early Pontefract cakes did, in fact, have an image of Jethro Earp on their upper surface but that practise was discontinued after the family emigrated to the American colonies in the late eighteenth century. The Pendle Witch Trials, themselves an enigma, were tried in the Pontefract Court House, since Lancashire in the seventeenth century was entirely lawless and lacked even basic judicial infrastructure.

Pontefract Court House is, of course, now closed as there has been no crime in the borough since 1978. The great Gothic police station in Sessions House Yard is now an art gallery and coffee shop trading as Rogue's Gallery (After Sir Benjamin Rogue, QC)

Responsibility for traffic management is now in the hands of West Yorkshire Police (Traffic Division) based in nearby Wakefield while parking enforcement and Royal Protection Duties have been out-sourced to commercial enterprises including Rank Hovis McDougall (Headquartered in Selby but with retail presence in both Pontefract and Castleford) and the now American-owned CIA.