Bingley, United Kingdom

According to the poll tax returns of 1379, Bingley had 130 households, and probably around 500 people. The nearby towns of Bradford, Leeds and Halifax had about half this population. Therefore, at this time Bingley was the largest town in the area.

No records tell of how Bingley fared in the Black Death that swept Europe in the 14th century. Approximately one third of all the people in Europe died of this plague, sometimes wiping out whole towns and villages. According to the 1379 Poll tax records, the nearby town of Boulton had no survivors worth taxing.

In 1592, Bingley was shown on a map by Yorkshire map-maker Christopher Saxton as a single street with about 20 houses on each side. The church sits at the west end of the street opposite a single large house, possibly a manor house. Since Bingley was a market town, the market stalls would have been set up on either side of the main street. One of the oldest buildings in Bingley is a coaching inn, the Old White Horse Inn, on the flatter north bank of the River Aire by Ireland Bridge.

Like many towns in the West Riding, Bingley prospered during the Industrial Revolution. The Bingley section of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was completed in 1774, linking the town with Skipton, and Bradford via the Bradford Canal. The canal passes through the town centre and ascends the side of the valley via the Bingley Five Rise and Bingley Three Rise Locks. Several woollen and worsted mills were built and people migrated from the surrounding countryside to work in them. Many came from further afield such as Ireland in the wake of the Great Famine. A railway and line goods yard were constructed bringing further trade. The villages of Gilstead and Eldwick became conurbated with Bingley. The Bingley Building Society was also founded in this period.

Bingley Teacher Training College opened in 1911 with Helen Wodehouse as principal. The first intake of students was 102 women from in and around the then West Riding of Yorkshire. Before its closure in 1979, the college produced approximately 16,000 teachers.

The Beeching Axe demolished the goods yard, although the station still has trains to Leeds, Bradford, Skipton, Morecambe and Carlisle. The textile mills have largely been closed. The Damart mill still stands and trades in textiles. Since 1995 the tannery, Bingley Mill & Andertons, have been converted into flats. The most cramped and outdated terraced housing was partly replaced with council housing, Bingley Arts Centre and the headquarters of the Bradford & Bingley Building Society. Further council housing was built up the hill towards Gilstead including three tower blocks, which were later demolished in 2020. In the wake of Margaret Thatcher's reforms of council housing much of the council estate was sold and a substantial portion has been knocked down and rebuilt as private housing. The Bingley Permanent Building Society merged with the Bradford Equitable Building Society to form the Bradford & Bingley Building Society in 1964. It was decided to site the corporate headquarters in Bingley. This brought several thousand jobs to the town, but the building itself did not meet with universal acclaim and was demolished in 2015. The Bradford and Bingley collapsed in the 2008 credit crunch.

Bingley's most infamous son is Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, who was convicted of the murders of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven others.

Mark Rowntree, a spree killer, started his murderous campaign in Bingley before moving on to Eastburn and Leeds. He was convicted in 1976 of four murders.

In 1966, bookie Fred Craven was brutally murdered in his betting shop on Wellington Street, Bingley. Craven, who was well known in the area because of his short stature (he was 4 ft 7in tall), had gone into his shop to collect papers despite there being no racing that day. It is believed that he had £200 in his wallet (£3,200.00 in 2015 prices) which went missing. Mr Craven suffered extensive injuries at the hands of the killer. Because the local constabulary had a very narrow time frame for the murder, and the fact the killer must have been covered in blood, they anticipated a quick arrest. The Craven murder remains unsolved, but rumours that Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was responsible for his murder resurfaced in 2017. ITV Calendar News asked Sutcliffe about Craven's death and also that of a taxi driver on Bingley Moor. In what was described as a "bizarre letter", Sutcliffe responded that he was not responsible for either crime to presenter Christine Talbot.