Batley is a small town in Kirklees Metropolitan Borough, in the county of West Yorkshire, England, north of Dewsbury, just off the M62.
In Victorian times, Batley was the centre of the "shoddy trade" in which wool rags and clothes were recycled by reweaving them into blankets, carpets, uniforms. The owners of the recycling businesses were known as the "shoddy barons" . There was a "shoddy King" and a "shoddy Temple", better known as the Zionist Chapel.
The large house that is now the Bagshaw Museum in Batley's Wilton Park was built by one of these "shoddy barons".
Batley Grammar School was attended by Sir Titus Salt, an industrialist who founded the model village of Saltaire, and by Joseph Priestley, a friend of Benjamin Franklin, Josiah Wedgwood and Captain James Cook.
Batley and its neighbour Dewsbury are a special E.U. transformation zone.
