Huddersfield isn’t just a large, industrial town in Yorkshire, it’s also small and rather beautiful town in Jamaica.
And it’s no coincidence that Huddersfield, in the St Mary Parish of Jamaica, has the same name.
According to the historian John Maurice Brereton, the 33rd Regiment of Foot, recruited from the West Riding of Yorkshire, was stationed in Jamaica between 1822 and 1832.
When they had finished their duty 142 men, some of whom had come from Huddersfield, chose to remain in Jamaica, having married and raised families there. Hence, the area become known as Huddersfield or ‘Haddersfield’.
According to Wikipedia the settlement is next to the village of Retreat and 10 miles east of the famous Dunns River Falls.
It is nine miles west of James Bond Beach where scenes from Dr No were filmed.
While the place isn’t marked on Google Maps, there is a Huddersfield Avenue about a mile away. The street and surrounding area appears to be known as ‘Huddersfield’ locally.
With beautiful tropical scenery and views of the Caribbean sea, the area is a popular tourist destination. It’s a world away from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, or indeed a remote former sheep farm in Queensland, Australia, also called Huddersfield .
It is not clear how that Huddersfield got its name but Huddersfield (West Yorkshire) historian Roger Gill discovered that a Huddersfield (West Yorkshire)-born family named Sutcliffe emigrated to Australia in 1914 and were later registered as living in ‘Huddersfield, Nelia’.
Pictures of the 27,000-acre former farm , near the small outback town of Julia Creek, Queensland, from the 1970s exist.
But the area appears have since disappeared from maps.
