In "A History of Ackworth School" (1853), Ackworth was called as a "neat agricultural village, situate(d) about three miles from Pontefract, and closely bordering on the great Yorkshire manufactories." The book places importance on its location: "It is so completely removed from any great line of road, either of the old system or the new, that but for the world-wide celebrity it has obtained from the Society of Friends from its association with their school, it is probable that, at least as it regards them, it would have slumbered in undisturbed repose amidst the well cultivated lands by which it is surrounded."