22/06/2026
📸 Sheaf Bank Works, Heeley, Sheffield, pictured after the fire which destroyed it, in April 1921. The blaze, on April 23 that year, has been described as the largest ever peacetime fire in the city.
Sheffield’s population more than tripled between 1851 and 1951, from 161,475 to 577,050, during the steel industry’s boom days.
It then fell to 513,234, as the collapse of heavy industry saw people leave in search of jobs elsewhere, before recovering to 556,500 in 2021, when the last census took place.
These pictures chronicle the remarkable changes in population across a century and a half, from 1851 to 2001, as the population first exploded and then shrank slightly.
They show how the streets have changed over the years, as traffic grew and the tram system expanded, before being axed as car ownership soared, and then revived in the 1990s.