Within Victorian days, Batley was a centre of the "shoddy trade" in which wool rags and textile were recycled by reweaving the two into blankets, rug, uniforms. A owners of a recycling businesses were referred to as the "shoddy barons" . There was the "shoddy King" & the "shoddy Temple", better called a Zionist Chapel.

A big home that is okay, a Bagshaw Museum around 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 a exemplary village of Saltaire, and by Joseph Priestley, a friend of Benjamin Franklin, Josiah Wedgwood and Captain James Cook.

Pop Singer Robert Palmer was also natural inside Batley.

Batley & its neighbour Dewsbury are part of the favorite E.U. transformation zone.

A title Batley is from either Anglo-Saxon meaning valley or even homestead of bats, & is recorded in the Domesday book as 'Bathelie'.