West Calder, United Kingdom

In 1792, the residents of West Calder submitted a Petition against the Slave Trade to the House of Lords. In 1797, Hermand House on the western edge of the village was built for George Fergusson, Lord Hermand, a Scottish Judge. The main building, coach-house and stables are Category B listed. West Calder became an important centre of the oil shale industry during the Victorian era. The closest Shale Mine to the village was Burngrange mine owned by Young's Paraffin Light & Mineral Oil Co., Ltd, which at the time was a subsidiary of Scottish Oils Ltd and was one of the group of 12 nearby shale production facilities working the oil shales in the Counties of Midlothian and West Lothian. Other nearby shale mines and works included Westwood Oil Works, Addiewell Oil Works, Hermand Oil Works and East Hermand oil works.

The village has a long association with several Cooperative organisations, now defunct. There were several early cooperative associations in the village, known as friendly societies, which were founded in 1799 and 1812, however they eventually ceased operation. The principal West Calder Co-operative Society (WCCS) was founded in 1875 by a group of shale miners. The former WCCS Co-operative building of the town at 13 to 19 Main Street was built in 1913 to a design by William Baillie. It is Category B listed, stone fronted with an unusual ironwork crown and two crowstepped gables. Two previous cooperative buildings existed in the town; the Peoples Palace and clocktower was replaced by the Royal Bank in 1885 to a design by J G Fairley and another building demolished to make way for Union Square. The former co-operative bakery building on Society Place was built in 1910. The bakery in Society Place closed in 1982 when WCCS merged with Bathgate Cooperative Society.

In the late 19th century, West Calder was one of the first villages in Scotland to have electric street lighting with electricity supplied by the local Co-operative Society, which had its own generating station. In 1879, William Ewart Gladstone visited the village and made a key speech on foreign policy and free trade.

The West Calder Drill hall was a local drill hall built before the First World War and in 1914 was the base for "G" Company, 10th Battalion, Royal Scots. The West Calder War Memorial was unveiled in 1921 by General Sir Francis Davies. It sits opposite the library in a small garden and consists of a square base, with memorial plaques, crowned by a stone obelisk. By the early 20th century, the Shale industry production around the village entered a period of decline.

The Regal cinema was a local cinema that was built in 1938 and served the community, before closing in the 1980s. Most housing in the village dates from the mid-20th century onwards. The population of West Calder and Polbeth was 5,337 in 2020.

Burngrange, an area west of the village, was the site of the Burngrange mining disaster in January 1947. At the northeast corner of Union Square in the village, there is a pedimented memorial clock in memory of the 15 men who died in the Burngrange disaster.