4.—John Bates’s Charity.
This Charity consists of the sum of £5, which appears to have been left by John Bate some time before the year 1701; the interest to be yearly distributed among the Poor of Willenhall on St. Thomas’s Day.
The principal was placed at interest on 21 December, 1701, in the hands of Joseph Hincks, on the security of his bond; and the interest appears to have been duly paid by himself and his heirs successively. It is now paid by Thomas Hincks on St. Thomas’s Day annually to fifteen Poor Widows of the Township in shares of 4d. each.
The founders of the “lost” Prestwood Charity were doubtless members of the family mentioned in Chapter VII. as resident in Willenhall as early as 1409; Prestwood, be it noted, was also the name of an ancient moated farm and homestead in Wednesfield. The name of Prestwood is again mentioned, as are also the names of the other Willenhall benefactors, Bates and Tomkiss, in the endowment deeds of 1607, quoted in Chapter XXI. As to the
Welch family, their homestead in Willenhall stood in the location known as Welch End.
Concerning Pedley’s Charity, which has not been distributed these 50 years, the Churchwardens have, as recently as 1895, made earnest attempts at its recovery. The lands once chargeable for the dole were identified as Shares Acres, lying between the canal and the road leading to New Invention from Monmer Lane. The property, however, was found to be in the hands of the Trustees of the late W. E. Jones; and as, through the remissness of someone, the estate had been sold and conveyed without due provision for the payment of the annuity once charged upon it, the Trustees had not power to make such payment. While the minerals under this land have been yielding wealth, the Poor have been defrauded from their rightful share in the same.
Painstaking inquiries for the other “lost charities” have also been made, but with no success. For many years the Incumbent and Wardens have provided and distributed a Dole of 40 loaves, for which there has been no legal responsibility resting upon them.
In 1881 Jeremiah Hartill gave £200 to the Vicar and Wardens, which was invested in Consols, and the interest is annually distributed on January 1st amongst twenty poor people of the township. The Hartill Charity and the Tomkys and Welch Doles are the only ones now administered.
* * * * *
Thirty or more years ago a Mr. Stokes gave the Incumbent of Willenhall £500 to be applied in his absolute discretion for the benefit of St. Giles’s School. The interest until recently was applied by him for that purpose. The principal has recently been spent in purchase of an extended playground for the new Infant Schools, and in the part purchase of a site for a new Mixed Department, adjacent thereto.
A few years after the passing of Sir Robert Peel’s Act of 1847, advantage was taken of it to split the populous area of the ancient chapelry into new district parishes; and by 1855 the said chapelry was divided into three nearly equal parts, the new parishes of St. Stephen and Holy Trinity, leaving to St. Giles’s Church
Bentley and the remaining portion of the Willenhall township. The fourth daughter parish, St. Anne’s, came a few years later.
St Stephen’s Church, in Wolverhampton Street, was erected mainly through the exertions of its first vicar, the Rev. T. W. Fletcher, M.A., and opened in 1854, seven years after its ecclesiastical district had been formed. Mr. Fletcher died in 1890, and the living is now held by the Rev. Herbert Percy Stevens, M.A. This parish maintains a Parochial Hall and Mission at Portobello.
St. Anne’s Church, Spring Bank, was built largely as a memorial to his wife by Mr. H. Jeavon. It was consecrated in 1861.
Holy Trinity Church (Short Heath) Vicarage and Schools were all built by the Rev. Dr. Rosedale, the first vicar of the parish, and father of the present vicar of St. Giles’s. His labours commenced in a Mission Room at the Brown Jug Inn, Sandbeds, and he trained several very earnest men for the ministry, including the Rev. John Bailey, first vicar of the Pleck Church, Walsall, and the Rev. — Pritchard, vicar of Blakenall Church, Bloxwich. The jubilee of the building of the church was held about 1905. The Rev. — Wood was the second vicar, the Rev. G. W. Johnson the third, and the present vicar is the Rev. G. C. W. Pimbury.
A Mission Room at New Invention completes the list of Anglican Establishments in Willenhall.
In connection with St. Giles’s a Men’s and a Junior Men’s Club have recently been established; and among other projects for further developments in the parochial machinery is a Mission Room at Shepwell Green. This movement was initiated some years ago when the Rev. H. Edwards was acting as Curate during the illness of the Rev. Mr. Fisher; a site has recently been purchased, in the anticipation that the Mission in due time will develop into a new ecclesiastical parish.
Dr. Hartill, as Churchwarden, was instrumental in securing a grant of £700 from a bequest of £15,000 left for Church objects by a Miss Green, with which to increase the endowment of Holy Trinity Church, Short Heath; this was supplemented by another £700 from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; while in the following year a further sum of £700 from each source was also obtained for increasing the endowment of St. Anne’s Church.
XXIII.—The Fabric of the Church.
As already discovered (Chapter VII.), a church has existed in Willenhall since the 13th century. It was at first a small chapel-of-ease, and seems to have been dedicated in pre-Reformation times to a non-biblical patron, Saint Giles.
The first edifice, as a mere chapel of accommodation, was in all probability a very primitive structure, constructed entirely of timber cut from the adjacent forest of Cannock. But when it became a chantry also, the original structure may have been replaced by a more elaborate edifice, in the style which is generally known as half-timbered.
Soon after the Reformation the mother church of Wolverhampton was pewed on a plan for the specifically allotted accommodation of all the parishioners, when the centre aisle was given to the inhabitants of Wolverhampton, the south aisle was set apart for the people of Bilston, and the north aisle was appropriated to Wednesfield and Willenhall. In those days, as previously explained, the law supposed that every adult person attended church on Sundays; there was, in fact, a penalty for absence enforcible by law.
With regard to Willenhall’s timber-constructed church, there is evidence that in 1660 it was in a deplorable condition through fire ravages. After the Reformation it became a practice for collections to be made in the churches throughout the country to provide funds for the repair or rebuilding of parish churches which had fallen into a state of dilapidation beyond the means of its own parishioners to make good; or for other charitable purposes in which the needs of the one seemed to call for the help of the many. These collections were authorised to be made by Royal Letters Patent, through official documents known as Briefs; and entries of these are to be found in most Parish Registers till the middle of the 18th century, when their frequency through the complaisance of the Court of Chancery was considered such an abuse that it was ordered for the future that their issue should be granted only after a formal application to Quarter Sessions. Thus we find
records in the Tipton Registers of no less than seven collections made there between 1657 and 1661 for the relief of distress through fire and other causes in Desford, Southwold, Drayton (Salop), Oxford, East Hogborne, Chichester, and Milton Abbey.
Willenhall called for this form of national assistance in 1660, as entries of a Brief on its behalf have been found as far apart as Chatham, in Kent, and Woodborough, in Notts, and may doubtless be traced in various parish registers up and down the country. Here is a copy of the Nottinghamshire entry:—
September ye 23, 1660.
Collected at ye Parish Church and among ye Inhabitants of Woodbourogh for and towards the Reliefe of ye distressed inhabitants of Willenhall, in ye County of Stafford, being Commended hityr [hereto] by ye King’s Majestyes Letters Patents with ye gorat Sale [Great Seal] for and towards their loss by fire, ye sum of 4s. 10d.
Witness,
John Allatt,
Minister.
James Job,
Henry Moorelaw,Churchwardens.
[It has been romantically suggested by a local writer that the “burning of Willenhall” was an act of revenge perpetrated by the Puritans of Lichfield and the vicinity for the succour given at Bentley Hall in 1651 to the fugitive Charles II.; and that these church collections are evidence of the personal interest taken by that monarch on his Restoration, in the place which had afforded him shelter in his hour of direst need. Two considerations will immediately dispel any such illusion. First, the Briefs were very commonplace affairs, as already shown; secondly, displays of Stuart gratitude were just as rare. All the reward commonplace affairs, as already shown; secondly, displays of Stuart gratitude were just as rare. All the reward Charles vouchsafed to the devoted Lanes was the cheap honour of an augmentation of the family arms, and the scanty gift of £1,000 to Jane Lane. Allusion has been made (Chapter XIII.) to the Royal fugitive taking advantage of the hiding-place afford by the “priest’s hole” at Moseley Hall where Charles was loyally
secreted by Jesuitic and other priestly adherents, though they might have pocketed a reward of £10,000 by betraying him—yet in after years this ungrateful prince had no compunction in signing more than twenty death warrants against Romanist priests, merely for the crime of being priests!]
To resume our history of Willenhall Church: What was manifestly a “restored” chapel was in 1727 consecrated by Edward, Lord Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, on the same day that Bilston Chapel was consecrated; but the building could have been scarcely worth the attempt, as twenty years later it had to be entirely replaced.
On August 14th of the year 1727, the Bishop having first consecrated Bilston Chapel, in the presence of a large assembly of the local clergy, which included the Rev. R. Ames and two other prebendaries; the vicars of Walsall and Dudley; Mr. Tyrer, curate of Tettenhall; Mr. Gibbons, minister of Codsall; Mr. Varden, rector of Darlaston; Mr. Perry, curate of Wednesbury; and Mr. Holbrooke, curate of Willenhall; his lordship proceeded to Willenhall in a coach and four, where the ceremony of Consecration “in Latine” was repeated upon what was merely a renovated building. After which Squire Lane, of Bentley, gave a splendid entertainment in celebration of the event.
A “chappel-yard for the Burial of the Dead,” which had been added, was consecrated at the same time, and, strangely enough—as if the parishioners of Willenhall were eager to signalise their acquisition of such a parochial institution as a graveyard—the first interment was made the selfsame day.
About the middle of the eighteenth century there was a wave of zeal for church extension, on which we find Wolverhampton carried along rather freely; for within the short space of ten years, under the auspices of Dr. Pennistan Booth, the enterprising Dean, the building of four chapels-of-ease was projected. These daughter churches were:—
1746—Wednesfield (Advowson of which was vested in Walter Gough and his heirs).
1748—Willenhall.
1755—St. John’s (the new building was injured by fire, and not consecrated till 1760).
From the Registers is gleaned the following issue of a writ to release sequestration of fees:—
Memorandum. March 4, 1748.—The Faculty for Rebuilding and enlarging ye Chapel of Willenhall authorized ye then present Ministr, ye Revd. Titus Neve to charge and receive for Breaking up ye Ground or Building a Vault in ye said Chapel ye sum of two Guineas and also one Guinea for opening ye same at any time afterwards to him and his successors. The Intention of this Siquise was to prevent frequent interments which are a common annoyance to ye Living Votaries for whose use ye Chapel was erected.
From the Diary of Dr. Richard Wilkes is extracted the following illuminative entry—a contemporary record of the state of the ancient edifice:—
May 6, 1748.—This day I set out the foundation of a new church in this town; for the old one being half timber, the sills, pillars, etc., were so decayed that the inhabitants, when they met together, were in great danger of being killed. It appeared to me, that the old church must have been rebuilt, at least the middle aisle of it; and that the first fabrick was greatly ornamented, and must have been the gift of some rich man, or a number of such, the village then being but thin of inhabitants, and, before the iron manufacture was begun here, they could not have been able to erect such a fabrick; but no date, or hint relating to it, was to be found; nor is anything about it come to us by tradition.
Willenhall’s rebuilt church was completed in 1749, and had a formal re-opening on October 30th of that year. An entry in the Registers (which has already been quoted in Chapter XVIII.) seems to intimate that the regular services were not resumed till January 20th, 1750.
This edifice was a fair specimen of the crudities which went to make up the “churchwarden architecture” of the period; consisting
mainly of a plain, box-like nave, pierced on either side by half a dozen staring oblong windows, and having in the whole of its hulk not one curved line or rounded form by which relief could be afforded to the eye at any single point. At one end of this unimposing structure was a flattened scutiform excrescence which served as the chancel; from the others rose the tower, the only feature by which the building could be recognised as a church. The tower, not to put the rest of the church out of countenance, was equally crude; its window piercings being as debased in the Gothic style as was its cornice in quasi-classical; and topped as it was by a low-pitched hipped roof or squat pyramid, from the point of which rose high into the air the famous Willenhall weathercock—the brazen bird flaunting itself aloft, as if deriving its defiance from the aggressive-looking furcated finials which surrounded it at the four angles.
This church endured only for about a century, being replaced in 1867 by the present edifice, erected at a cost of £7,000, raised by public subscription. The Chairman of the Committee for the rebuilding was Mr. R. D. Gough, who, with his wife, contributed £1,700. Other large contributors were Mrs. Stokes (with £505), and the Vicar and Trustees (who gave £1,000).
St. Giles’s Church is now a substantial stone building in the Decorated style, consisting of nave, aisles, chancel and transepts, and having at the west end a lofty square tower, terminated with a pinnacle at each angle. The new fane was soon adorned by the insertion of a number of stained glass windows; the large east window was presented by Mr. R. D. Gough; others were given by the Lords of the Manor of Stow Heath (emblazoning the arms of Leveson-Gower and Giffard); by the Earl of Lichfield and the Rev. Charles Lane (also heraldically distinguished); one was put in as a memorial to members of the Clemson family; and another to commemorate Mrs. Anwell, a connection of the Gough family.
The work of enlarging the church was undertaken in 1897 in memory of the late Incumbent, Mr. Fisher; and a fine organ was installed in celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Also at the same time choir stalls were introduced, the choristers being
brought from the gallery, which latter feature was rightly removed altogether. Among the improvements promoted by the Incumbent and his energetic churchwardens, Dr. John T. Hartill and Mr. H. H. Walker, of Bentley Hall, were the enlargement of the churchyard and the scheme for providing a church house.
As the new incumbent, Mr. Rosedale, was a nephew of Mrs. Gough, the generous contributor to the rebuilding fund of 1865–7, just mentioned, it was suggested that the house she occupied might fittingly be transformed to serve as a Parsonage.
* * * * *
Almost from the time pews were first put into churches, seats became appurtenant to certain family mansions, and by custom descended from ancestor to heir, without any ecclesiastical concurrence. Instances of such proprietary pews having been bequeathed by will have occurred in Willenhall within comparatively recent times. Here is an extract from the will of Thomas Hartill, dated June 5th, 1777:—
I give and bequeath to my Son, Abraham Hartill, the fourth part of a seat in the Chapel, No. 4 in B row an all so one 4 part of a seat in F row near the Dore. . . . and I bequeath to my Daughter, Phœbe Read, one Fourth part of a seate No. 4 in B row and also one Fourth part of a seate in the Chapel in F row near the Dore.
Similar testamentary disposals appear in the will of Isaac Hartill, dated 27 May, 1818:—
I give and devise to my Son, Isaac Hartill, all that my moiety or half part of the seat or pew, being No. 10 in the South Aisle within the Church or Chapel of Willenhall aforesaid, to hold to him my said son, Isaac, his heirs and assigns tor ever. . . .
I give and devise unto my said Son, Ephraim Hartill, one moiety or equal half part of, and in my seat, or pew, being number 4 in the South Aisle within the Church or Chapel aforesaid, to hold to my said Son, Ephraim, his Heirs, and assigns for ever. And I also give and devise unto my daughter, Mary Atkins, the other moiety or equal half part or share of the said last mentioned seat or pew, to hold to my said Daughter Mary Atkins, her heirs and assigns for ever.
Of like purport is the following extract from codicil to the will of Samuel Hartill, dated June 9, 1821; probate Nov. 12, 1821:—
I give devise and bequeath to my nephew Henry Bratt, all that my seat or pew or part or share thereof being number eleven in A in Willenhall Church, to hold to him his heirs, executors administrators or assigns according to the tenure of the said property. I give devise and bequeath to my Brother-in-law, Isaac Hartill in my Will named all my other Seats or Pews or parts or shares of seats or pews in Willenhall Church aforesaid to hold to him his heirs executors administrators or assigns according to the tenure of the said property.
Thus much in witness of the heritable nature of Church Pews; now for documentary evidences of the trafficking in such properties (all relating to Willenhall Church):—
19, Jan., 1750. Recd. of Tho. Harthil, John Parker and Joseph Wood three pound one and sixpence for the seat behind ye Dore in F, sixteen shillings and sixpence being allow’d them for 6s. 8d. of ground by
Richd. Wilkes.
A 12.
6 Jan, 1750.—Recd. of Jos. Clemson, Jos. Chandler. Jo’n Buttler, Jo’n Turner, Jno. Smith, Stephen Perry, the Sum of two Ginnies for Wainscots and for 2ft. 3in. of Ground five and sevenpence halfpenny by
Richd. Wilkes.
£2 7s. 7½d.
“I hereby acknowledge that I have this day had and received from Abraham Hartill . . . the sum of One Pound Fifteen Shillings for the full and absolute purchase sale value and Consideration of all those my sittings kneelings Parts or shares of and in two different seats or pews and standing and being on the left-hand side in the first Ile and numbered with the figures 11 and 12 in the Church or Chapel of Willenhall aforesaid, and which said sittings kneelings Parts or shares of the said seats or pews I do hereby Warrant unto the said Abraham Hartill his Heirs Exors Admors and Assigns against me, my Heirs Exors Admors and Assigns and that I my Heirs Exors, Admors or Assigns shall and will at any time or times hereafter upon the request and Costs of the said Abraham Hartill His Heirs &c. . . . execute any further or other Conveyances and Assurance of the said sittings, &c. . . . unto and to the use of the said Abraham Hartill . . . free from all manner of Incumbrances whatsoever and the said Abraham Hartill Doth hereby agree for Francis Chandler and Ann his wife to use and enjoy that part or share of the above seat or pew numbered 11 for and during the term of their Natural lives and for the longest survivor of them without expence, but for no other privilege to be allowed to any other person Whatsoever. In Witness whereof the said Francis Chandler the seller of the above sittings kneelings parts or shares of the seats or pews above mentioned hath set his hand this nineteenth day of February 1790.
Witness
FRANCIS CHANDLER.
Wm. Perkin.
Saml Hartill.”“Received January 24 1783 of Isaac Hartill The Sum of Two Pounds in full for Halfe a Seat Number 10 in E In Willenhall Chappell
By mee The Mark X of Richd. Hartill.
Witness Jonah Hartill.”“Willenhall April 26th 1791 Received then of Abrm Hartill Thirteen Shillings For my Whole Right in a seat in the Chapel No. 12 in A Row.
Stephen Perrey.
Willenhall April 26th 1791 Received then of.”
Of this last voucher there is a duplicate copy bearing a twopenny receipt stamp.
XXIV.—Dissent, Nonconformity, and Philanthrophy.
Inasmuch as Bentley Hall lies within the confines of Willenhall, this place must always be associated with the rise and early history of Wesleyanism. The episode of John Wesley being haled by the Wednesbury rioters before Justice Lane at Bentley Hall (1743) belongs to the general history of the denomination, and there is no need to repeat the story here.
The reader may be referred to “The History of Methodism in the Wednesbury Circuit,” by the Rev. W. J. Wilkinson, published by J. M. Price, Darlaston, 1895; and for ampler detail to “Religious Wednesbury,” by the present writer, 1900.
That the evangelical missioning of John Wesley was peculiarly suited to the religious and social needs of the eighteenth century, and nowhere more so than among the proletariat of the mining and manufacturing Midlands, is now a generally accepted truism. There is no direct evidence that the great evangelist himself ever preached in Willenhall, but the appearance on the scene of some of the earliest Methodist preachers may be taken for granted. For were not the prevailing sins of cockfighting and bull-baiting, and all the other popular brutalities of the period, to be combated in Willenhall as much as in Darlaston or Wednesbury? And where the harvest was, were not the reapers always forthcoming?
According to Mr. A. Camden Pratt, in his “Black Country Methodism,” the earliest Methodist services were open-air meetings held round a big boulder at the corner of Monmore Lane. Then the nucleus of a Willenhall congregation was formed at a cottage in Ten House Row; outgrowing its accommodation here, a removal was next made to a farmhouse with a commodious kitchen at Hill End.
The leaders and preachers came from Darlaston, and it was not till 1830 that Willenhall was favoured with a resident “travelling preacher,” and the provision of a Wesleyan Chapel—it was on the site of the present Wesleyan Day Schools. The cause flourished
and grew mightily; chapels were established at Short Heath and Portobello, on the Walsall Road (1865), and on Spring Bank.
Mr. Pratt pays a high tribute to the efforts of the Tildesleys and the Harpers, but with a sense of justice he does not forget the mead of gratitude always due to those early pioneers from Darlaston, placing on the same bright scroll of fame the names of Foster, Wilkes, Rubery, Silcock, Bowen, and Banks.
In the earlier history of local Wesleyanism, one of its chief supporters was James Carpenter, founder of the existing firm of Carpenter and Tildesley. Another pillar of Wesleyanism was Jonah Tildesley, followed later in the good work by his two sons, Josiah and Jesse, his grandson Thomas, George Ley Pearce, and Isaac Pedley; and in a lesser degree by James Tildesley (who married Harriet Carpenter), and the late John Harper, founder of the Albion Works, now the largest place of employment in the town.
One outcome of the Wesleyan spirit was seen about the year 1820, when James Carpenter, George Pearce, William Whitehouse, and other leading inhabitants made a determined effort to put down some of the coarser sports by which the annual Wake was celebrated. Through their instrumentality many of the ringleaders in the brutal sports were summoned and brought to justice. The reformers dared to go even further—they lodged a complaint with the bishop of the diocese against “Parson Moreton” for encouraging these barbarous pastimes among the people. The bishop, however, professed that he was powerless to deal with the delinquent, owing to the exceptional manner in which he was appointed to the living. But the parson on his part was very wroth, and from his pulpit he solemnly forbade any one of the name of Carpenter, Pearce, or Whitehouse ever to enter the portals of Willenhall Church.
It cannot be said the injunction was enforced; but it is a fact that from that time many church-goers were driven into the Methodist fold.
The romantic side of the evangelisation of the Black Country has been idealised by Mr. J. C. Tildesley in his “Sketches of
Early Methodism,” a series of short stories founded on fact, and giving most graphic pictures of the moral and social condition of the neighbourhood at that time. This little volume may be regarded almost as one of the classics of the Wesleyan Book Room.
A short history of local Methodism, it may be mentioned, was deposited in the memorial stones of Wednesfield Chapel in 1885.
The existing Wesleyan Chapels, now under the direction of the Rev. A. Hann and the Rev. Walter Fytche, are five in number, namely, Union Street, Walsall Road, Monmer Lane, Short Heath, and High Street, Portobello. Though the denomination may be as strong as ever numerically, it can scarcely hope to rival its old-time membership in verve and vigour. In England fighting days never fail to produce fighting men.
Primitive Methodism first established itself at Monmer Lane, and then removed to Little London, but did not meet with much success at the outset, though it has now four flourishing chapels in the township. They are all at present under the direction of the Rev. C. L. Tack, and situated respectively at New Invention, Spring Bank, Lane Head, and Russell Street.
Nonconformity was first brought into Willenhall from Coseley, the brethren of the famous Darkhouse Chapel establishing a colony at Little London, where eventually they erected a pioneer Baptist Chapel. Of this chapel the Rev. A. Tettmar is now in charge; a second chapel in Upper Lichfield Street, at which the Rev. D. L. Lawrence ministers, and a third Baptist Chapel in New Road testify to the growth of the denomination in Willenhall. At one time the Baptists had day schools in the town.
The Roman Catholics first made their appearance in modern Willenhall some sixty years ago, when they established a small mission at the bottom of Union Street, afterwards building their resent chapel, which is dedicated to St. Mary, and of which the Rev. Walter Poulton (in succession to the Rev. W. P. Wells) is priest.
A mission of the Catholic Apostolic Brethren, served from Wolverhampton, completes the list of religious agencies now at work in Willenhall.
In the religious and social history of the place mention cannot be omitted of some few names which have earned the respect of the townspeople. Among them, James Tildesley, a large employer of labour, whose amiability, and kindness of heart exemplified that patriarchal relationship which once existed between master and men, anterior to the days of modern limited liability companies; George Ley Pearce, a Wesleyan of marked personality, and an eminently good man, whose memorial in the old Cemetery is thus inscribed:—
ERECTED
by voluntary subscription in memory of
GEORGE LEY PEARCE
(of Willenhall),
who died December 31st, 1873,
Aged 78;
And was buried in the adjacent vault.
For fifty years he zealously devoted himself to the work of visiting the sick and afflicted of this town, whether rich or poor, and was made a great blessing to many.
His work was the outward expression of that Christ-like charity which pervaded his soul.
The opportunity to do good to our fellowmen comes to all, irrespective of sect or sex. One to embrace it with goodwill was Edith Florence Hartill, daughter of William Henry Hartill, who worked long and steadfastly in connection with the Bible Reading Union, never relaxing her efforts for the uplifting of the very poorest and most helpless of the community.
In the Market Place stands a public clock mounted upon a stone pedestal, having a watering-trough for cattle at its base. This was erected, as an inscription upon it testifies, as a memorial to the late Joseph Tonks, surgeon, “whose generous and unsparing devotion in the cause of alleviating human suffering” was “deemed worthy of public record.” The memorialised, Mr. Joseph Tonks, M.R.C.S.E., L.A.H., was a native of the town, being a son of Mr.
Silas Tonks, of the Forge Inn, Spring Bank. He began to practise in Willenhall about 1879, and soon made himself extremely popular among the working classes, and particularly with the Friendly Societies, who initiated the movement to provide this public memorial.
Without sorting into sects and creeds, let it be acknowledged that Willenhall has been fortunate in the number of its townsmen whose lives have been usefully and commendably spent in the public service and for the public good. Among those whose influence on the social and moral well-being of the place has not been without appreciable benefit, may be named Joseph Carpenter Tildesley, R. D. Gough, Josiah Tildesley, Clement Tildesley, Jesse Tildesley, Isaac Pedley, Henry Hall, Thomas Kidson, Henry Vaughan, W. E. Parkes, and J. H. James. Other appreciations will occur in our concluding chapters, as the names more fittingly happen under the topics yet to be dealt with.
Having brought to a conclusion Willenhall’s ecclesiastical and religious history—and the largeness with which the church bulked on the lives of the people in past times must be held accountable for the lengthiness of this portion—we may now turn to the further consideration of its civil, social, and industrial history.
XXV.—Manorial Government.
Willenhall is a township of some 1,980 acres in extent, carved out of the ancient parish of Wolverhampton, and situated midway between that town and the town of Walsall, being about three miles distant from either. Strangely enough, Willenhall is included in the Hundred of Offlow, although Wolverhampton, of which it once formed a part, is in Seisdon Hundred. Willenhall has never been a civil parish (as previously explained), nor has it been a market town; the small open market held in its streets each week-end having grown up by prescription, but never legally established by grant of charter.
The place grew up as a hamlet on the banks of a little stream, just on the verge of Cannock Forest. As a village community it seems to have been subject, so soon as its outer limits had been defined, to three territorial lords. Reference to Chapter VI. will disclose that at Domesday (1086) three hides of land in Willenhall belonged to the king, and were part of the royal manor of Stowheath; two hides were the property of the Church of Wolverhampton, and constituted the prebendal manor of Willenhall; and a century or two later, the manor of Bentley, evidently carved out of the royal forest of Cannock, became included within this township.
Of Stowheath Manor, the portions lying within Willenhall are a small part of the modern township, together with Short Heath, New Invention, Lanehead, Sandbeds, Little London, and Portobello. The remainder of this manor stretches beyond the Willenhall boundary into Bilston and Wolverhampton.
To a manor or lordship was usually attached a Court Baron, or domestic court of the lord, for the settling of disputes relating to property among the tenants, and for redressing misdemeanours and nuisances arising within the manor. The business was transacted by a jury or homage elected by and from the tenants.
How far the customary officers were chosen every year by the Willenhall Court Baron cannot now be ascertained. Doubtless
appointments were made from time to time of such manorial tears as Hedgers and Ditchers, to look after the highways and byways, a Common Pinner to impound stray cattle, and Head boroughs or Petty Constables “to apprehend all vagrom men” whose room was esteemed more highly than their company.
The present lords of the Manor of Stowheath are the Duke of Sutherland, and W. T. C. Giffard, Esq., of Chillington; the Steward of the Manor is Mr. W. E. Stamer, of Lilleshall; and the Deputy-Steward Mr. Frederick T. Langley, of Wolverhampton. The Court Bailiff is Mr. H. G. Duncalfe, of Wolverhampton, but none of the ancient customary officers are now elected; and as most of the copyholds have been enfranchised, no Court Baron for Stowheath has been held in Willenhall since 22nd December, 1865; till then it had taken place annually for many years at the house of Mr. George Baker, the Neptune Inn. Subsequently this manorial court was held at the Bank, Cock Street, Wolverhampton, and now more privately at the offices of the Deputy-Steward, in that town, which was anciently within the jurisdiction of two manors, Stowheath and Wolverhampton.
THE Manor of Willenhall, which, though prebendal, is impropriate, comprises the rest of the township; of this manor the Baron Barnard is the present lord, and the sole recipient of all tithes from Willenhall, Short Heath, and Wednesfield.
A glimpse of the mediæval village of Willenhall was obtained in Chapters VIII. and XI.; it is clear the prebendal manor remained always a taxable area for the mere production of tithes, and it was the royal manor of Stowheath, when it had passed into the hands of a subject, which developed into the community in the midst of which the “mansum capitale,” or manor house, was erected.
By whom or when a manor house was first set up in Willenhall is not known; but it is not improbable that the lordship of Stowheath, soon after it passed out of the hands of the King, was acquired by a Leveson, who seated himself on the estate, reserving to himself the portion which lay nearest his mansion (demesne
lands), and distributing the rest among his tenants (tenemental lands).
The house in which the Levesons resided, as previously recorded, was situated on the east side of Stafford Street; the Midland Railway now runs through the site, but before the line was cut, and whilst the mines remained ungotten, traces of its ancient moat were clearly discernible.
The residence now known as the Manor House, and occupied by Dr J. T. Hartill, though it has no connection with the manorial mansion of the Leveson family, is not without some association with the manorial form of government. It appears that upwards of half a century ago, when the late Jeremiah Hartill (uncle of the present occupant of the house) was taking his full share in the public life of Willenhall, it was most difficult, if not next to impossible, to get copyhold land in this manor enfranchised.
At that time there was a very considerable amount of property in Willenhall held by this old-world tenure, and this induced Mr. Jeremiah Hartill to take a very prominent part in the local efforts which were then being made to introduce the principle of compulsory enfranchisement. As the result of a national movement in this direction an Act was passed in 1841 to provide a statutory method of enfranchisement; and the matter was carried still further in 1852 by another Act, which introduced the principle of compulsory enfranchisement.
Mr. Hartill had at that time recently built himself a new house (1847), when, as the local leader in a movement which had been brought so far on the road to success, he was invited to a public dinner in recognition of his public-spirited efforts. One of the speakers at the banquet, in proposing the health of the guest of the evening, suggested that as Mr. Jeremiah Hartill had fought so successfully in helping to overcome the opposition of the Lords of the Manor to this measure of land reform, his new house might not inappropriately be dubbed the Manor House. The suggestion was heartily (no pun intended) approved by all present, and by that name the house has ever since been known.
The names of the chief residents in Willenhall in 1327 may be gleaned from the Subsidy Roll given in Chapter IX.; very similar names occur in another list of the taxpayers to the Scotch War of 1333. Some few held land under certain specified rents and free services, and from these came the earliest freeholders; many more held by the baser tenure of the lord’s will, and having nothing to show except the copy of the rolls made by the Steward of the Lord’s Court, were known as copyholders.
The vast importance of these Court Rolls may be gathered from Chapter XXI. The Court Rolls of the Manor of Stowheath now in existence commence on 4 January, 1645; but in the chapter referred to mention of a “Leete” being held in Wolverhampton much earlier will be found.
The residue of the Manor being uncultivated, was termed the lord’s waste, and served for public roads, and for common or pasture to both the lord and his tenants. Reference to the enclosure of the last remnants of the “waste” was quoted in the Report of 1825 on the Tomkys and Welch Charities (Chapter XXII.).
There were two kinds of enclosures, however, all made in the last few centuries; the enclosure of the open commons or wastes, and the enclosure of the common fields. “Willenhall Field,” mentioned in the “Report on Prestwood’s Dole,” as lying along the highway towards Darlaston, was arable land, not pasture. For anciently there was a common field system in every parish, and “Willenhall Field” was the area cultivated co-operatively by the whole of the parishioners or group of individuals.
In 1377 the Manor of Bentley was held “in capite,” that is, direct from the King, by one who called himself after his estate, William de Bentley. He held it for rendering to Edward III. the feudal service of “Keeping” the King’s Hay of Bentley within the royal Forest of Cannock—the Forest was then divided into a number of “hays” or bailiwicks. (See “Chronicles of Cannock Chase,” p. 14.)
The estate seems to have descended to him from his grandfather, to whom it had been granted in the reign of Edward II.; and it is noteworthy that his wife, Alianora, was a Leveson.
In 1421 William Griffiths established his right to Bentley, and in 1430 it was conveyed to Richard Lone de la Hide. Of the family of this Richard Lone of the Hyde there were afterwards two branches; one, the Hamptons, of Stourton Castle, and the other, the Lanes, of Bentley.
The halo of romance which grew up around Bentley Hall during the seigniory of the Lanes is well known. It was the scene of Charles II.’s wonderful escape from the Roundheads, under the protection of Jane Lane, whom he was afterwards wont to call his “Guardian Angel”; it was the critical scene of John Wesley’s adventure in the hands of the Wednesbury mob. The mansion has since been rebuilt.
The Lanes sold the Manor of Bentley in 1748 to Joseph Turton, of Wolverhampton, and he in turn sold it to the first Lord Anson, ancestor of the present holder.
The Manor comprises 1,200 acres, none of which is now copyhold. There was formerly a Court Leet jurisdiction, but everything connected with ancient manorial government has disappeared. The Earl of Lichfield is sole owner, except for a few acres belonging to the church, and the portions which have been acquired by the local authority for the Cemetery and the Sewerage Works.
Bentley is a parish without a church, or a chapel, and until the Willenhall District Council recently made a Cemetery there, it was also without a burial ground.
Bentley has but a scant population, and contains not a single inn. Its living history seems to have centred almost entirely round the old family mansion of the Lanes.
In 1660 a tax was levied on the fire-hearth of every dwelling-house, and the amount collected under this grievous impost in Willenhall was returned as £9 14s. 3d., representing 97 hearths. These figures seem to indicate that in the reign of Charles II. the population of the place, including the large hall at Bentley, could not have exceeded 500.
XXVI.—Modern Self-Government.
For centuries the Manorial and the Parochial forms of government ran together side by side in this country, till these two antiquated ideas of feudal lordship and church temporalities had to give way before the growing democratic principle of elective representation, and they were eventually supplanted by the modern methods of popular self-government.
In the reign of Elizabeth—say, half a century after the suppression of the monasteries which had hitherto succoured the poor—we get the first of our Poor Laws, accompanied by the rise of the Overseer, and by much added importance to the office of Churchwarden, or, as he was called in Willenhall, the Chapel-warden. The establishment of Church doles goes a long way to explain how strenuously the community strove to evade its liability to the poor, and it is probable that Willenhall did not establish its small workhouse till the eighteenth century. This was superseded when the Wolverhampton Union was constituted in 1834.
In 1776 the sum of £294 14s. 3d. had to be collected for poor rates in Willenhall, a sum which by 1785 had grown to £548 14s. 2d., and which for some years later averaged upwards of £500.
The Vestry, or public assembly of parishioners, would supplement these feeble efforts at local government by choosing not only Chapelwardens, but Parish Constables and the Waywardens. The custody of the stocks was entrusted to the former, while the latter were supposed to superintend the amateur efforts of the parishioners to repair their own highways, every one being then liable to furnish either manual labour or team work for this laudable public purpose.
Publicly elected and unsalaried Waywardens were naturally but feeble instruments to work with; so in the early nineteenth century, when coaching was at its zenith, this antiquated and ineffective system was superseded in Willenhall, as in many other places, by an elected Highway Board, charged with the duty of
looking after all highways and common streets, ancient bridges, ditches, and watercourses. In a dilettante sort of way this Board was also a sanitary body.
In 1734 Willenhall is recorded to have suffered from a plague called the “Bloody flux,” which carried away its victims in a very few hours after the seizure. It is stated in the Parish Registers that there were buried in this year 82 persons, which was 67 in excess of the previous year. The population then was under 1,000.
Cholera and other epidemic scourges having made it apparent that beyond preserving the peace and mending the roads, the paramount duty of local self-government was to protect the people’s health, Willenhall in 1854 showed itself alive to this fact by adopting the new Public Health Acts and calling into being its first Local Board.
Nothing can convey an idea of the material blessings which resulted from this better than a glance at the vital statistics relating to Willenhall. The death-rate per thousand—
| From 1845 to 1851 was | 29 |
| ,, 1851 ,, 1860 ,, | 26.8 |
| ,, 1861 ,, 1870 „ | 23.8 |
| „ 1891 ,, 1900 ,, | 20.2 |
| „ 1901 „ 1906 „ | 16.9 |
It was not till 1866, however, that the Board appointed its first medical officer of health, Dr. Parke. He was shortly afterwards succeeded by Mr. William Henry Hartill, and upon his death, in 1888, the present medical officer of heath, Dr. J. T. Hartill, was appointed. The chief executive officers in succession have been Mr. E. Wilcox (who was not a solicitor), Mr. John Clark, and the present clerk, Mr. Rowland Tildesley, appointed in 1894.
In the meantime the population, particularly in the newer outlying districts, had been growing rapidly. The population of Willenhall at the first national census in 1801 was only 3,143, and the growth in the early decades was slow, as these figures disclose:
| In 1811 the population was | 3,523 |
| ,, 1821 | 3,965 |
| ,, 1831 | 5,834 |
| „ 1841 | 8,695 |
| ,, 1851 | 11,933 |
| ,, 1861 | 17,256 |
With the growth thus becoming so rapid, it was thought desirable, in 1872, to erect Short Heath into a separate Sanitary Authority. The area allotted to the Short Heath Board of Health was that north of the Birmingham Canal, but the village of Short Heath itself remained part of the Township of Willenhall.
The census returns for Willenhall, minus Short Heath, have
| 1871 it had a population of | 15,903 |
| 1881 | 16,067 |
| 1891 | 16,851 |
| 1901 | 18,515 |
After the passing of Sir H. H. Fowler’s Local Government Act in 1895, both authorities became Urban District Councils. Short Heath then as a separate township had its area extended to take in Short Heath village, with New Invention, Lanehead, Sandbeds, Lucknow, Fibbersley, in addition to the former Local Board district, together with a slice from the old Wednesfield Local Board district added on its Essington side.
No part of what used to be called Stow Heath was in Willenhall Township, the extreme western boundary of the latter being Stow Heath Lane.
Modern Willenhall, although without public parks or pleasure grounds, and not yet possessing public baths, is fairly well equipped for its size and rateable value. It has its Public Offices, but no Town Hall; it has a Free Library, established in 1875, and a full complement of efficient primary schools. In 1877 it established its own School Board under the Act of 1870, but under the later Act of 1902 its educational affairs became vested in the Staffordshire County Council.
Willenhall had its own Waterworks at Monmore Lane as early as 1852; it now takes its supply from the Wolverhampton Corporation, who purchased the old works in 1868. Its old Gas Works in Lower Lichfield Street have been taken over by Short Heath; and Willenhall is now supplied by the Willenhall Gas Company, the present system of public street lighting being that of the very efficient incandescent burner.
The Sewerage of the town was completed in 1890. There are two public cemeteries; the Old Cemetery provided about 1851 under the Burial Acts, and the newer one at Bentley, established under the Act of 1879.
The Police are, as in most townships, under the control of the Staffordshire County Council; and Petty Sessions are held once a week (on Mondays). Seventy years ago Willenhall had a Court of Requests for the recovery of debts up to £5.
For Parliamentary representation Willenhall formed a portion of Staffordshire till the great Reform Bill of 1832 made Wolverhampton a borough, when it became part of that more important urban constituency.
For communication with the outer world Willenhall has had the advantage of the London and North-Western Railway from the earliest possible time—since the “Grand Junction Railway” (commenced in 1835) was opened to public traffic on July 4th, 1837. Great were the rejoicings, and prodigious the wonderment when the first train passed through on that memorable day. Since the later decades of the last century the Midland Railway has also tapped Willenhall.
The town is equally well supplied with tramways; the Wolverhampton District Electric Tramways, Limited, controlling three lines, to Wolverhampton, to Bilston, and Darlaston respectively; while the Walsall Corporation afford facilities for communication with their thriving and go-ahead borough. It is worthy of note that the old-fashioned carrier’s cart is not obsolete in Willenhall; this is probably because its staple industries provide so many small
parcels for transmission to Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and other centres not too far distant.
The Wyrley and Essington Canal for heavy traffic was made in 1792, and is still a useful highway, particularly to the Cannock Chase Collieries.
XXVII.—The Town of Locks and Keys.
Willenhall is “the town of locks and keys”; its staple industry has been described in such graceful and felicitous terms by Elihu Burritt (see his “Walks in the Black Country,” pp. 206–214, written in 1868) that the present writer at once confesses the inadequacy of his poor pen to say anything new on the subject, engaging as it is.
The great American writer, be it noted, does not fail at the very outset to pay a well-deserved tribute to James Carpenter Tildesley, as the foremost authority on the subject, and compliments him on the versatility displayed in his article on Locks and Keys, contributed to that co-operative literary work, “Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District,” which was specially issued for the British Association meeting at Birmingham in 1865.
The lockmakers of antiquity worked in wood and not in metal, a key consisting of hard wood pegs being made to turn in a wooden lock of loose pegs. The Romans first introduced the iron key with wards instead of pegs.
The subject is full of interest; for lock-making is among the most ancient of the mechanical crafts, and has for centuries afforded a wide and ample scope as one of the branches of industrial art. As in many other industrial crafts the religious enthusiasm of the Middle Ages impelled the artist-mechanic to throw his whole soul into the manipulation and adornment of his keys, key-hole escutcheons, and other parts of door-fastening furniture. With his steel pencil and gravers, his chisels and his drills, the craftsman of olden times produced an article of utility which was at the same time a work of art. Will the Art Classes of modern Willenhall be able to achieve as much for the staple industry of the town as did the whole-souled enthusiasm of the Middle Ages?
The Gothic key, usually of iron or of bronze, was generally plain; but after the Renaissance the best efforts of the locksmiths’ art were directed to the decoration of the bow and the shaft, and
many finely wrought specimens of ornamental old keys are still in existence.
On the utilitarian side of our subject, industrial history records that we are indebted to the Chinese for unpickable locks of the lever and tumbler principle; and to the Dutch for the combination or letter-lock. The latter ingenious contrivance contained four revolving rings, on which were engraved the letters of the alphabet, and they had to be turned in such a way as to spell some pre-arranged word of four letters, as O P E N, or A M E N, before the lock could be opened.
Allusion to this complex contrivance is made by the poet Carew in some verses written in the year 1620—
As doth a lock
That goes with letters—for till every one be known
The lock’s as fast as if you had found none.
Mechanical ingenuity in lock making has also expanded itself along the line of marvellous miniatures, in the production of toy locks so small that they could be worn as pendants or personal ornaments. Allusion will presently be made to a Willenhall specimen.
Another ingenious variety of locks was contrived to grab and hold the fingers of pilferers.
The first patent granted in England for a lock was in 1774; ten years later Joseph Bramah, of London, “the Napoleon of locks,” patented his famous production, with which he challenged the whole world. The reward of 200 guineas which he offered to anyone who could pick his lock remained unclaimed for many years, till in the Exhibition year 1851 an American visitor named Hobbs took up the challenge, and succeeded, after a few days of persevering experiment, in overcoming the inviolability of it.
The sensation caused by this achievement was almost of national dimensions; but of more importance was the decided impetus it have to the inventive skill of lock makers, by demonstrating that Bramah had not yet arrived at finality in lock making; a great number of further improvements were soon forthcoming in the manufacture of these goods.
Chubb’s patent was granted in 1818; this inventor declared it was possible to have the locks on the doors of every house in London opened by a different key, and yet have a master-key that would pass the whole of them. Chubb’s world-famous concern is now located at Wolverhampton.
Dr. Plot, writing of this county in 1686, makes no mention of the trade being carried on in Willenhall, but gives some account of it in Wolverhampton; gossiping pleasantly on “sutes” of six or more locks, passable by one master-key, being sold round the country by the chapmen of his time; of the finely wrought keys he had seen; of the curious tell-tale locks which recorded the times they had been opened; and of one valuable Wolverhampton specimen containing chimes which could be set to “go” at any particular hour.
A local writer has said—on what authority is not stated—that Queen Elizabeth granted to the township of Willenhall the privilege of making all the locks required for State purposes; and argues from that profitable piece of State patronage the rapid growth of Willenhall, as evidenced by the fact that in 1660 when the Hearth Tax came to be levied this place paid on 13 more hearths than the mother town of Wolverhampton.
Dr. Wilkes has recorded that in his time Willenhall consisted of one long street, newly paved; and he then proceeds to say:—
“The village did not begin to flourish till the iron manufactory was brought into these parts in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.”
This may, or may not, refer to the making of locks and keys, but it certainly refers to the great devastation of Cannock Forest in providing charcoal for iron-smelting. The doctor continues:—
“Since that time this place is become very populous, and more locks of all kinds are made here than in any other town of the same size in England or Europe. The better sort of which tradesmen have erected many good houses.”
Some of these “good houses” are still standing; and as to the “populousness” of the place, there may have been 2,000 inhabitants at that time. A return has been given forth that in 1770 Willenhall contained 148 locksmiths, Wolverhampton 134,
and Bilston 8; while nearly a century later, in 1855, the numbers were Willenhall 340, Wolverhampton 110, and Bilston 2, which shows that the trade grew in Willenhall at the expense of the adjoining places. Yet lockmaking was carried on in Bilston as early as 1590, when the Perrys, the Kempsons, and the Tomkyses, all leading families, were engaged in the trade. In 1796 Isaac Mason, inventor of the “fly press” for making various parts of a lock, migrated from Bilston to Willenhall.
The Willenhall specimen of a miniature lock is thus mentioned in a diary of the Rev. T. Unett, “June 13, 1776, James Lees, of Willenhall, aged 63 years and upwards, showed me a padlock with its key, made by himself, that was not the weight of a silver twopence. He at the same time shewed me a lock that was not the weight of a silver penny; he was then making the key to it, all of iron. He said he would be bound to make a dozen locks, with their keys, that should not exceed the weight of a sixpence.”
Before the rise of factories into which workmen might be collected, and their labour more healthily regulated, Willenhall lock-making was always conducted in small domiciliary workshops. Had any one at the close of the eighteenth century peeped in at the grimy little windows of one of these low-roofed workshops, and made himself acquainted with the extreme dirtiness of the calling, he would scarcely have ventured to regard it as one befitting the dainty hands of the highest personage of the most fastidious of nations. Yet that unfortunate monarch, Louis XVI., prided himself not on his statesmanship, but upon his skill as a practical locksmith, and his intimacy with all the intricacies of the craft. He had fitted up in his palace at the Tuileries a forge with hearth and anvil, bellows and bench, from which it was his delight to turn out with his own hands all kinds of work in the shape of “spring, double bolt, or catch lock.”
He smokes his forge, he bares his sinewy arm,
And bravely pounds the sounding anvil warm.
Locks of every variety of principle and quality are produced in Willenhall; the chief kinds being the cabinet lock, the best qualities of which range from 10s. to £3 each, while the commoner
ones are sold at from 10s. to 3s. the dozen; the rim lock for doors having two or three bolts, and opening with knob and key; the stock or fine plate lock, imbedded in a wooden case to stand the weather when used on exposed yard or stable doors; the drawback lock for hill doors, with a spring bolt that can be worked from the inside with a knob or from the outside with a latch-key; the dead lock, having one large bolt worked by the key, but not catching or springing like the rim lock; the mortice lock, which is buried in the door, and may be of the dead, the rim, or the drawback variety; the familiar loose padlock made in immense quantities both of iron and of brass; and others less familiar.
The lock-producing centre includes Wolverhampton, Willenhall, Wednesfield, and some of the outlying rural districts like Brewood and Pendeford, where parts and fittings are prepared. In the mother parish the business is extensive and extending; at Wednesfield, iron cabinets and till locks, as well as various kinds of keys, are produced in great numbers, for keys are frequently made apart from the locks as a separate branch of the trade.
Willenhall produces most of the same kinds as Wolverhampton, except the fine plate, though oftener in the cheaper qualities; rim locks are very largely made, all on the Carpenter and Young patent, most of them for export. Willenhall locks are all warded, the wards varying in strength and complexity, known as common, fine round, sash, and solid wards.
It was the Carpenter and Young invention of 1830, making the action of the catch bolt perpendicular instead of horizontal, which renewed the vitality of the town’s staple industry.
As registered the patent was entered:—
“No. 5,880, 18 January, 1830. James Carpenter, of Willenhall, and John Young, of Wolverhampton, locksmiths. Improvements in locks.”
Mr. R. B. Prosser, a recognised authority on patents and inventions, records that in 1841 Carpenter brought an action against one Smith, but the verdict was given for the defendant, it being held that Carpenter’s lock was not a new invention (Webster’s Reports of Patent Cases, Vol. I., p. 530).
Notwithstanding this the lock has always been known, and is still known, as “Carpenter’s lift-up lock.”
James Carpenter, the founder of the business still carried on under the style of Carpenter and Tildesley, was not a native of Willenhall. His first place of business was in Walsall Street opposite the “Wake Field”; thence he removed to Stafford Street, occupying the premises now the Three Crowns Inn; subsequently building and occupying the Summerford Works (and Summerford House) in the New Road, where the concern is still carried on James Carpenter, the patentee, was a keen man of business, and distinguished for great decision of character. His daughter Harriet married James Tildesley, who became a partner in the business. Carpenter died in 1844, and Tildesley in 1876, and the concern has since been carried on by the two eldest sons of the latter in partnership, James Carpenter Tildesley (who is now permanently invalided, and of whom more anon), and Clement Tildesley. Mr. Clement Tildesley, who, like his brother, is a county magistrate, still lives at Summerford House, where he was born.
Mr. Rowland Tildesley, solicitor, and Clerk to the Willenhall Urban District Council, is the fourth son of James Tildesley.
James Tildesley’s eldest daughter, Louisa Elizabeth, married William Henry Hartill, surgeon, and J.P. for the county of Stafford, who died in 1889; his second daughter, Emily, married John Thomas Hartill, J.P., surgeon, who filled the office of President of the Staffordshire Branch of the British Medical Association in 1885, and again in 1907.
With these few biographical details of Willenhall’s chief inventor we pass on.
Other local patents in this branch of industry on the Register are:—
No. 8543—13th June, 1840—Joseph Wolverson, locksmith, William Rawlett, latch maker, both of Willenhall. “Locks and latches.”
No. 8903—29 March, 1841.—James Tildesley, of Willenhall, factor, and Joseph Sanders, of Wolverhampton, Lock manufacturer. “Locks.”
No. 10611—15th April, 1845.—George Carter, of Willenhall, jobbing smith. “Locks and latches.
No. 12604—8th May, 1849.—Samuel Wilkes, of Wednesfield Heath, brass founder. “Knobs, handles, and spindles for the same, and locks.”
[There are patents in the name of Samuel Wilkes, at Darlaston, ironfounder, in 1840, for hinges; and for vices in the same year. In 1851, Samuel Wilkes, of Wolverhampton, iron founder, took out a patent for hinges. In 1845, Samuel Wilkes, of Wolverhampton, brass founder, took out a patent for kettles. The Wilkes’ family hereabouts are manifestly as ingenious as they are numerous.]
At the present time there are some 90 factories and 143 workshop employers in Willenhall, besides nine factories and 47 workshops in the Short Heath district. The most important firms in the lock trade are Messrs. Carpenter and Tildesley, H. and T. Vaughan, William Vaughan, John Minors and Sons, J. Waine and Sons, Beddow and Sturmey, Legge and Chilton, and Enoch Tonks and Sons. In the casting trades are John Harper and Co., Ltd. (by far the largest concern), Wm. Harper, Son, and Co., C. and L. Hill, H. and J. Hill, T. Pedley, H. and T. Vaughan (under the style of D. Knowles and Sons), and Arthur Tipper. In this branch of the industry women are largely employed, and children to a slight extent, in attending to light hand and power presses. Female labour is now utilised in the making of parts of machine-made locks (a method of production introduced during the last generation), and for varnishing, painting, and bronzing both the machine and the hand-made goods.
The rate of wages for workmen in the lock trade now ranges from 20s. to 35s. per week, yielding an average of about 29s. Of the wares produced there are probably 300 varieties, many of them in several sizes each, the gross output running into thousands of dozens per week, and so great is their diversity that they range
from field padlocks to ponderous prison locks, and the selling prices vary from 1d. to 30s. each. They are exported all over the world, finding good markets in Australasia and South Africa.
Tradition forbids that we should omit here the two stock illustrations of the fact that lock-making ranks among the notoriously ill-paid industries. One is the familiar exaggeration that if a Willenhall locksmith happens to let fall the lock he is making, he never stoops to pick up because he can make another in less time.
The other is the hackneyed anecdote of the late G. B. Thorneycroft, who was once taunted with the sneer that some padlocks of local manufacture would only lock once; and who promptly retorted that as they had been bought at twopence each, it would be “a shame if they did lock twice” at such starvation prices of production. But Willenhall’s contributions to the hardware production of the Black Country are by no means limited to this endless variety of locks, some for doors and gates, some for carpet bags and travelling trunks, some for writing portfolios and jewel caskets; but extends to lock furniture and door furniture, latches, door bolts, hasps and keys, hooks and steel vermin traps, grid-irons and box-iron stands, files and wood-screws, ferrules and iron-tips for Lancashire clogs; and other small oddments of the hardware trade.
The making of currycombs, though shrunk to somewhat insignificant proportions within the last quarter of a century, was once a very prominent industry in Willenhall. In 1815 James Carpenter, whose name is now so prominent in the lock trade, took out a patent, which was registered as follows:—
No. 3956—23rd August, 1815.—James Carpenter, of Willenhall, curry comb maker. “Improvements to a curry comb, by inverting the handle over the back of the comb, and thus rendering the pressure, when in use, more equal.”
Another typical industry was the making of door-bolts, now represented by the firms of Joseph Tipper, and Jonah Banks and Sons. It is interesting to note that among the last of the old trade tokens circulating in this locality, were the Willenhall farthings issued by Austin, a miller, baker, and grocer, who carried on
business at the corner of Stafford Street (the same now conducted by Joshua Rushbrooke); the obverse of this coin bore as a design characteristic of the town a padlock, a currycomb, and a door-bolt, with the legend, “Let Willenhall flourish,” and the date 1844.
The Currycomb manufacture is now represented by D. Ferguson, and by W. H. Tildesley, the latter adding to it the making of steel traps.
But whatever loss has been incurred by the shrinkage of this industry has been more than made up by the enormous growth of the trade in stampings—keys are stamped—and in malleable castings.
The earliest Willenhall patent was taken out in this branch of trade, and thus specified: “No. 3,800. 7th April, 1814. Isaac Mason, Willenhall, tea tray maker. Making stamped front for register stoves and other stoves, fenders, tea trays, and other trays, mouldings, and other articles, in brass and other metals.”
In the stamping trades at the present time are Messrs. Armstrong, Stevens and Co., Vaughan Brothers, Alexander Lloyd and Sons, Baxter, Vaughan, and Co., and J. B. Brooks and Co. At the works of Messrs. John Harper and Co., by far the largest in the town, a variety of hardware articles are produced, besides locks, but the bulk of their trade is in the production of castings, especially in the form of gas and oil stoves and lamps. New developments continue to bring in fresh industries.
XXVIII.—Willenhall in Fiction.
A vivid picture of the social and industrial conditions which formerly prevailed in this locality has been drawn by the masterly pen of Disraeli, who evidently studied this side of the Black Country at close quarters. It occurs in his novel, “Sybil,” the time of action being about 1837.
The distinguished novelist discovered the well-known fact that many of the common people hereabout were ignorant of their own names, and that if they knew them few indeed were able to spell them. Of nicknames, which were then not merely prevalent, but practically universal, he gives us such choice examples as Devilsdust, Chatting Jack, and Dandy Mick; while in “Shuttle and Screw’s Mill,” and the firm of “Truck and Trett,” we recognise names significant of the methods of employment then in vogue.
But worse perhaps than the “truck system” of paying wages in kind instead of in coin, was the prevailing system of utilising an inordinate number of apprentices; and as these were almost invariably “parish apprentices,” the output of the local workhouses, the tendency was not only to lower the rate of wages, but to lower the morale of the people.
How this tendency worked out in everyday life is best seen in the following extract from “Sybil.” Under the fictional name “Wemsbury” may perhaps be read Wednesbury; “Hell House Yard” is evidently meant for Hell Lane, near Sedgley; and as to “Wodgate,” there can be no doubt about its interpretation as Wednesfield. This is Disraeli’s description of life here seventy years ago, no doubt viewed as it was approached from the Wolverhampton side:—
Wodgate, or Wogate, as it was called on the map, was a district that in old days had been consecrated to Woden, and which appeared destined through successive ages to retain its heathen character.
At the beginning of the revolutionary war Wodgate was a sort of squatting district of the great mining region to which it was contiguous, a place where adventurers in the industry which was rapidly developed settled themselves; for though the great veins of coal and ironstone cropped up, as they phrase it, before they reached this bare and barren land, and it was thus deficient in those mineral and metallic treasures which had enriched its neighbourhood, Wodgate had advantages of its own, and of a kind which touch the fancy of the lawless.
It was land without an owner; no one claimed any manorial right over it; they could build cottages without paying rent. It was a district recognised by no parish; so there were no tithes and no meddlesome supervision. It abounded in fuel which cost nothing, for though the veins were not worth working as a source of mining profit, the soil of Wodgate was similar in its superficial character to that of the country around.
So a population gathered, and rapidly increased in the ugliest spot in England, to which neither Nature nor art had contributed a single charm; where a tree could not be seen, a flower was unknown, where there was neither belfry nor steeple, nor a single sight or sound that could soften the heart or humanize the mind.
Whatever may have been the cause, whether, as not unlikely, the original squatters brought with them some traditionary skill, or whether their isolated and unchequered existence concentrated their energies on their craft, the fact is certain, that the inhabitants of Wodgate early acquired a celebrity as skilful workmen.
This reputation so much increased, and in time spread so far, that, for more than a quarter of a century, both in their skill and the economy of their labour, they have been unmatched throughout the country.
As manufacturers of ironmongery they carry the palm from the whole district; as founders of brass and workers of steel they fear none; while as nailers and locksmiths, their fame has spread even to the European markets whither their most skilful workmen have frequently been invited.
Invited in vain! No wages can tempt the Wodgate man from his native home, that squatters’ seat which soon assumed the form of a large village, and then in turn soon expanded into a town, and at the present moment numbers its population by swarming thousands, lodged in the most miserable tenements, in the most hideous burgh, in the ugliest country in the world.
But it has its enduring spell. Notwithstanding the spread of its civic prosperity, it has lost none of the characteristics of its original society; on the contrary, it has zealously preserved them. There are no landlords, head-lessees, main-masters, or butties in Wodgate.
No church there has yet raised its spire; and, as if the jealous spirit of Woden still haunted his ancient temple, even the conventicle scarcely dare show his humble front in some obscure corner. There is no municipality, no magistrate; there are no local acts, no vestries, no schools of any kind. The streets are never cleaned; every man lights his own house; nor does any one know anything except his business.
More than this, at Wodgate, a factory or large establishment of any kind is unknown. Here Labour reigns supreme. Its division, indeed, is favoured by their manners, but the interference or influence of mere capital is instantly resisted.
The business of Wodgate is carried on by master workmen in their own houses, each of whom possess an unlimited number of what they call apprentices, by whom their affairs are principally conducted, and whom they treat as the Mamlouks treated the Egyptians.
These master workmen indeed form a powerful aristocracy, nor is it possible to conceive one apparently more oppressive. They are ruthless tyrants; they habitually inflict upon their subjects punishments more grievous than the slave population of our colonies were ever visited with; not content with beating them with sticks, or flogging them with knotted ropes, they are in the habit of felling them with, or cutting their heads open with a file or lock.
The most usual punishment, however, or rather stimulus to increase exertion, is to pull an apprentice’s ears till they run with blood. These youths, too, are worked for sixteen or even twenty hours a day; they are often sold by one master to another; they are fed on carrion, and they sleep in lofts or cellars.
Yet, whether it be that they are hardened by brutality, and really unconscious of their degradation and unusual sufferings, or whether they are supported by the belief that their day to be masters and oppressors will surely arrive, the aristocracy of Wodgate is by no means so unpopular as the aristocracy of most other places.
In the first place, it is a real aristocracy; it is privileged, but it does something for its privileges. It is distinguished from the main body, not merely by name. It is the most knowing class at Wodgate; it possesses, in deed, in its way, complete knowledge; and it imparts in its manner a certain quantity of it to those whom it guides.
Thus it is an aristocracy that leads, and therefore a fact. Moreover, the social system of Wodgate is not an unvarying course of infinite toil. Their plan is to work hard, but not always. They seldom exceed four days of labour in the week. On Sunday the masters begin to drink; for the apprentices there is dog-fighting without any stint.
On Monday and Tuesday the whole population of Wodgate is drunk; of all stations, ages, and sexes, even babes who should be at the breast, for they are drammed with Godfrey’s cordial. Here is relaxation, excitement; if less vice otherwise than might be at first anticipated, we must remember that excesses are checked by poverty of blood and constant exhaustion. Scanty food and hard labour are in their way, if not exactly moralists, a tolerably good police.
There are no others at Wodgate to preach or to control. It is not that the people are immoral, for immorality implies some forethought; or ignorant, for ignorance is relative; but they are animals, unconscious, their minds a blank, and their worst actions only the impulse of a gross or savage instinct. There are many in this town who are ignorant of their very names; very few who can spell them.
It is rare that you meet with a young person who knows his own age; rarer to find the boy who has seen a book, or the girl who has seen a flower. Ask them the name of their Sovereign, and they will give you an unmeaning stare; ask them the name of their religion, and they will laugh; who rules them on earth, or who can save them in Heaven, are alike mysteries to them.
Such was the population with whom Morley was about to mingle. Wodgate had the appearance of a vast squalid suburb. As you advanced, leaving behind you long lines of little dingy tenements, with infants lying about the road, you expected every moment to emerge into some streets, and encounter buildings bearing some correspondence, in their size and comfort, to the considerable population swarming and busied around you.
Nothing of the kind. There were no public buildings of any sort; no churches, chapels, town hall, institute, theatre; and the principal streets in the heart of the town in which were situate the coarse and grimy shops, though formed by houses of a greater elevation than the preceding, were equally narrow, and, if possible, more dirty.
At every fourth or fifth house, alleys, seldom above a yard wide, and streaming with filth, opened out of the street. These were crowded with dwellings of various size, while from the principal court often branched out a number of smaller alleys, or rather narrow passages, than which nothing can be conceived more close and squalid and obscure.
Here, during the days of business, the sound of the hammer and the file never ceased, amid gutters of abomination, and piles of foulness; and stagnant pools of filth, reservoirs of leprosy and plague, whose exhalations were sufficient to taint the atmosphere of the whole kingdom, and fill the country with fever and pestilence.
Such were the conditions of life in Willenhall, at least from the industrial side; for Willenhall and Wednesfield were at that time almost identical in their industrial, social, and municipal economics. The novelist is, of course, incorrect in saying Wednesfield had no church; as we have seen in Chapter XXIII. it had possessed a small church or chapel since 1746.
Another novelist who has dealt with the same theme is Louis Becke. The hero of his tale, entitled “Old Convict Days” (published by T. Fisher Unwin), is a runaway apprentice from Darlaston; and Willenhall is alluded to in this work as “Wilnon.” Spirited descriptions are given of regular set fights between the apprentices of the two towns, which took place on the canal bridge that divided their respective territories near Bug Hole, and in the course of which drownings have not been unknown to occur. Allusions are also made to the dog-fighting, human rat worrying, and other brutal sports with which the populace of these two places were wont to amuse themselves; and particularly to the haunted Red Barn in which a murder had been committed.
Willenhall can lay a further claim to classic ground in the realm of fiction, though the exact spot has not yet been satisfactorily identified. It is the place called Mumper’s Dingle, in the works of George Borrow, the gipsy traveller and linguist, or as he calls himself in the Romany dialect, Lavengro, the “Word-Master.”
The word “mumper” signifies a tramp or roving beggar; but its slight likeness to the name Monmer has led certain local enthusiasts to identify Mumpers’ Dingle with Monmer Lane. Wherever this particular gipsies’ dingle may have been, it was certainly on the Essington side of Willenhall, though scarcely five miles out; in fact, the public-house mentioned in the narrative (“Lavengro,” chapter 89) is generally understood to be the Bull’s Head Inn, Wolverhampton Street, which is definitely stated to be two miles from Mumpers’ Dingle. It must have been a secluded and romantic spot about the year 1820, and quite a fitting scene for that interesting episode of the gipsy life described as being led
there by the unconventional Lavengro, in Platonic association with a strapping Gitano wench named Isopel Berners.
Since George Borrow has come to be recognised as a writer fitting to rank among our standard English authors, quite a Borrovian cult has grown up, which has naturally enough fortified itself by a literature of its own.
Our first extracts are the great writer’s own description of the place. (“Isopel Berners,” by George Borrow.)
The Dingle is a deep, wooded, and, consequently, somewhat gloomy hollow in the middle of a very large, desolate field. The shelving sides of the hollow are overgrown with trees and bushes. A belt of sallows crowns the circular edge of the small crater. At the lowest part of the Dingle are discovered a stone and a fire of charcoal, from which spot a winding path ascends to “the plain.” On either side of the fire is a small encampment. One consists of a small pony cart and a small hut-shaped tent, occupied by the Word-Master, on the other side is erected a kind of tent, consisting of large hoops covered over with tarpaulin, quite impenetrable to rain; hard by stands a small donkey cart. This is “the tabernacle” of Isopel Berners. A short distance off, near a spring of clear water, is the encampment of the Romany chals and chies—the Petulengres and their small clan.
The place is above five miles from Willenhall, in Staffordshire.
The time is July, 1825.
Our concluding quotation is taken from the “Life, Writings, and Correspondence of George Borrow,” by William J. Knapp (published in 1899).
1825.
On the 21st, he departs with his itinerant hosts towards the old Welsh border—Montgomery. Turns back with Ambrose Petulengro. Settles in Mumber Lane, Staffordshire, near Willenhall. My informant of Dudley caused it to be found, and wrote as follows:—
“‘Mumpers’ Dingle’ still exists in the neighbourhood of Willenhall, though it does not seem to be well known, as a native had to make inquiries about it. Willenhall itself is one of the most forlorn-looking places in the Black Country, ranking second to Darlaston, I should think.”
XXIX.—Bibliography.
From the merely allusive in literature, we proceed to the bibliography of Willenhall, which, though not extensive, is of fair average interest.
Recently (June, 1907) was put up for auction in London a First Folio Shakespeare of some local interest. It was the property of Mr. Abel Buckley, Ryecroft Hall, near Manchester. This folio appears to have been purchased about 1660 by Colonel John Lane, of Bentley Hall, Staffs, the protector of Charles II. after the Battle of Worcester. It remained in the possession of the family till 1856, when, at the dispersal of the library of Colonel John Lane, of King’s Bromley, whose book-plate, designed by Hogarth, is inserted, it was bought by the third Earl of Gosford for 157 guineas.
The son of the third Earl of Gosford disposed of it to James Toovey, the famous London bookseller, for £470 in 1884; and soon afterwards Mr. Buckley obtained the folio. It measures 12⅞in. by 8¼in., is throughout clean, but the fly-leaf and title are mounted and two leaves repaired. This is the volume’s interesting history, according to Mr. Sidney Lee.
In 1795, Stephen Chatterton, a Willenhall schoolmaster, published a book of poems of a humorous cast. One is “An epistle to my friend Mr. Thomas S—, who was married in July, 1783, to his third wife, on his fiftieth birthday.”
The bibliography of the Rev. Samuel Cozens, at one time minister of the Peculiar Baptists’ Chapel at Little London, Willenhall, is rather extensive if not very interesting. A full list of his pamphlets and other works will be found in G. T. Lawley’s “Bibliography of Wolverhampton,” and also in Simms’ “Bibliotheca Staffordiensis.” His first work, which appeared in the “Gospel Standard,” 1844, was “A short account of the Lord’s Gracious Dealings with One of the Elect Vessels of Mercy,” and is autobiographical.
From this title, and that of the second part of his life, which appeared in 1857, “Reminiscences: or Footsteps of Providence,”
the attitude of mind assumed by the writer may be easily guessed. His was a dogmatic creed, of stern unyielding Calvinism, which left him always self-satisfied, and often made him aggressive. He moved from Wolverhampton to Willenhall in 1848, where his first book was written, a scholarly volume in the form of “A Biblical Lexicon.”
Presently his combative nature found expression in a controversial pamphlet attacking the Primitive Methodists, “John Wesley, the Papa of British Rome, and Philip Pugh, the modern Pelagius, weighed in the Balance of Eternal Truth and found wanting” (Willenhall, printed and published by W. H. Hughes, 1852). The Rev. Philip Pugh was located at Darlaston, and made a gallant defence on behalf of his co-religionists; the Primitive Methodists of Willenhall acknowledging these services by presenting him with a handsome testimonial. The pamphlets containing his rejoinders bear the imprint of Stephen Hackett, Willenhall. Mr. Cozens died in Tasmania some years later.
The “Memoirs of G. B. Thorneycroft,” written by the Rev. J. B. Owen, and published (Wolverhampton: T. Simpson) in 1856, contain local allusions of minor interest. The subject of the memoir was the well-known South Staffordshire ironmaster, who in the earlier part of his commercial career had some works near the Waterglade, on the Bilston Road.
George Benjamin Thorneycroft, was born August 20th, 1791, at Tipton, where his grandfather kept the Three Furnaces Inn. His biographer claims his descent from the Thornicrofts of Cheshire. In his youth he was employed at Kirkstall Forge, near Leeds, returning to Staffordshire in 1809 to work at the Moorcroft Ironworks at Bradley, near Bilston, where, by his skill and industry he ultimately rose to the management.
It was in 1817 he founded a small ironwork at Willenhall, and seven years later joined his twin brother, Edward Thorneycroft, in establishing the Shrubbery Ironworks at Wolverhampton. The rise of the railways at that period, and the consequent larger demands for iron and steel, were among the causes which led to his great prosperity as an ironmaster.
His Willenhall residence was on the site now occupied by the Metropolitan Bank, in the Market Place: while his works, this first this iron magnate owned, were located near what is now known as Forge Yard, Waterglade Street. It was in this house his son, Colonel Thorneycroft, of Tettenhall Towers, was born.
His prominence as a public man may be estimated by the fact that when Wolverhampton was incorporated in 1848, Mr. Thorneycroft was selected for the honour of being first Mayor of the new borough. He was at all times a generous supporter of every local charity and benevolent institution, till the old quotation came to be fitted to him:—
There was a man—the neighbours thought him mad—
The more he gave away, the more he had.
In the Town Hall of Wolverhampton a statue has been set up to commemorate the public work of this estimable character.
Although during the greater portion of his career a great supporter of the State Church, in earlier life Mr. G. B. Thorneycroft had been an ardent Wesleyan; and in his memoirs (p. 134) it is recorded how he liquidated the burden of debt on the Willenhall Chapel belonging to that denomination. On his death, in 1851, among those who testified to his public usefulness, and the estimation in which he was held, was the Rev. G. H. Fisher, of Willenhall (memoirs pp. 263–5).
“The Willenhall Magazine” was the name of a monthly periodical launched in 1862, “published for the proprietors by J. Loxton, Market Place, Willenhall,” and having Messrs. J. C. and Jesse Tildesley as its chief contributors. The first number appeared in March, and twelve months afterwards this praiseworthy attempt to establish a local magazine in Willenhall had completely failed.
In 1866 appeared a religious novel written by a Primitive Methodist preacher of this town, and published by Elliot Stock, London. It: was entitled “Nest: A Tale of the Early British Christians,” by the Rev. J. Boxer, Willenhall. Mr. G. T. Lawley describes it as a well-written story dealing with the pagan persecution of the early British Christians by their Saxon conquerors.
A story of direct local interest was Mr. G. T. Lawley’s work “The Locksmith’s Apprentice; a Tale of Old Willenhall,” published serially some years ago in the columns of a Wolverhampton weekly newspaper.
Mr N. Neal Solly (of the firm of Fletcher, Solly, and Urwick, Willenhall Furnaces) wrote the Guide to the Fine Arts Section of the South Staffordshire Exhibition, held at Molineux House, Wolverhampton, in 1869. The writer was himself an artist, and he afterwards produced some valuable Memoirs of David Cox (1873), and of the Bristol painter, William James Muller (1875).
The most eminent litterateur Willenhall has produced is Mr. James Carpenter Tildesley, a lock manufacturer, as we have seen, and a life-long public man in the town. Reference has already been made to his writings on industrial subjects, and also to his works on the history of local Methodism. As a public man, he is a Justice of the Peace for the County, a chairman of Willenhall Petty Sessional Division, has been president of the Wolverhampton Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Willenhall Local Board, and chairman of the Willenhall Liberal Association. Since his retirement to Penkridge he has written a history of that parish, which was published by Steen and Co., of Wolverhampton, in 1886.
Mr. J. C. Tildesley was sub-editor of the “Birmingham Morning News” under the famous George Dawson, and has been a most diligent contributor to the Press for the last forty years. It was mainly by his efforts that the Willenhall Literary Institute was founded, that what is now the Public Hall was built, and that the Free Library was established.
In recognition of his work in connection with the Literary Institute, a public presentation was made to him, the inscription upon which bore this eloquent testimony—“Not to requite but to record services of great value to Willenhall . . . January 4th, 1869.” That Mr. J. C. Tildesley is now permanently invalided is a matter of regret not only to Willenhall, but to a wide circle of readers and admirers outside the township.
XXX.—Topography.
There is often a wealth of history to be unearthed from place-names. Localities often preserve the names of dead and gone personages, half-forgotten incidents, and matters of past history well worth recalling for their interest. Besides the pleasure to be derived from the right interpretation of place-names and old street names, great interest often centres around the social associations of old inns and taverns. Let us consider a few of the old-time inns and localities of Willenhall.
The site of the mediæval Holy Well, which in the later fashion of the 18th century blossomed forth as a Spa, was situated between the church and the present Manor House. In the remoter age we may imagine it as the haunt of the lame, the halt, and the blind (possibly the church was dedicated to St. Giles, the patron of cripples, on this account), and in the more recent period as the resort of fashionable invalids and wealthy valetudinarians.
In the Private Act of Parliament, dated 6th August, 1844, for disposing of the Willenhall Endowment properties, a number of field-names occur in the schedule which are pregnant with local history. Welch End is a name which seems to mark the locality where resided the family of Welch, who founded the church dole; the Doctor’s Piece was perhaps part of the estate of the celebrated Dr. Wilkes; the Clothers and the Little Clothiers are names which are said to indicate certain lands once belonging to the Cloth-workers’ Company of the City of London; Somerford Bridge Piece and the Hither Bathing were presumably located near the brook; while the Poor’s Piece, the Constable’s Dole, and the Dole’s Butty (query: does the last-named, interpreted in the dialect of the district, signify “the companion piece to the Dole?”), are names which suggest the identity of charity lands.
There is mention of a High Causeway, which manifestly indicates the position of some old paved road; and the Butts, doubtless, named the field where in ancient times archery was
practised by the men of Willenhall, as the men of Darlaston did at the Butcroft in their parish.
Reverting to the schedule, there are some names for which no explanation can be offered; as Ell Park, Berry Stile, the Stringes, and the Farther Stringes. Many of the properties named in the list are declared to be “uninclosed lands that lie dispersedly in the Common Fields there, intermixed with other lands.” How much, or rather, how little, common land is there in Willenhall to-day?
And yet the amount of “waste” land in and around Willenhall was once excessive, as the writings of George Borrow cannot fail to convey (Chap. XXVIII.). In Chap. XXII. we read of Canne Byrch, situated in “Willenhall Field,” lying in the highway towards Darlaston, where perhaps the village community of ancient times tilled their lands in common; and more directly of the “waste or common land” called Shepwell Green; a wide stretch of open land once apparently stretching away towards the wilderness and solitudes of that gipsy-land immortalised by George Borrow.
“Willenhall Green” is named by Dr. Plot, writing in 1686, as a place where yellow ochre was found a yard below the surface, and which after being beaten up was made into oval cakes to be sold at fourpence a dozen to glovers, who used it in combination with cakes of “blew clay,” found at Darlaston and Wednesbury, “for giving their wares an ash colour.”
The old highway between Walsall and Wolverhampton lay along Walsall Street, through Cross Street, and the Market Place; the new coach route, or the New Road, as it was called, was made in the early part of the nineteenth century.
New Invention is a place-name which originated not from any connection with the local industries, as one might be led to expect, but from nothing more serious than a nickname of derision. The tradition is that many years ago an inhabitant from the centre of the town was strolling out that way, when he was thus accosted by an acquaintance living in one of the few cottages which then comprised the neighbourhood, and who was standing on his own doorstep to enjoy the cool of the evening: “I say, Bill, hast
seen my new invention?” “No, lad; what is it?” “That’s it!” said the self-satisfied householder, pointing up to a hawthorn bush which was pushed out of the top of his chimney. “That’s it! It’s stopped our o’d chimdy smokin’, I can tell thee!” And ever after that the locality which this worthy honoured with his ingenious presence was slyly dubbed by his amused neighbours the “New Invention,” by which name it afterwards became generally known.
Portobello, on the outskirts of Willenhall, is said to have borrowed its name from that second-hand Portobello near Leith, which was named after Admiral Vernon’s famous victory of 1739. At the Scottish suburb a bed of rich clay, discovered in 1765, led to the development of the place through the establishment of brick and tile works; a similar discovery of a thick bed of clay outside Willenhall, and its subsequent industrial development on parallel lines led to the copying of that patriotic name, more particularly because a neighbouring coal-pit was already rejoicing in the name of Bunker’s Hill, conferred upon it by local patriots after the American victory of 1775. The Willenhall wags, however, have given quite another derivation. A man once passing a solitary farmhouse in that locality, say they, called and inquired if the farmer had any beer on tap. The reply was, as the man pointed cellarwards, “No—only porter below!”
Little London seems to be a locality which attempts to shine by the reflected glory of the capital’s borrowed name, and is appropriately approached by a thoroughfare called Temple Bar; but which of these metropolitan names suggested the other, the oldest inhabitant fails to recollect.
Among the old inns and taverns of the town the chief were the Neptune Inn, Walsall Street; the Bull’s Head, Wolverhampton Street; the Hope and Anchor, Little London; the Bell Inn, Market Place; and the Waterglade Tavern, Waterglade. The Neptune, situated on the main road between Wolverhampton and Walsall, and almost opposite the church, was formerly a posting-house kept in the 18th and early part of the 19th century by Isaac Hartill, one of those typical hosts of the coaching period; active,
genial, and obliging, a man of good conversational powers, and one who instantly made his guests feel at home, and was extremely popular with all the local gentry and regular travellers along the road. With the advent of the railway the character of the Neptune Inn gradually altered—the railway, by the way, was cut through the crescent, overlooking Bentley Hall, a property which had belonged to and had been the residence of the Hartill family since 1704, and part of which is now The Robin Hood Grounds, used for sports and recreations and other out-door assemblies.
It was from the balcony above the entry of the Neptune Inn, over which was then the public drawing-room, that the Right Hon. Charles P. Villiers first addressed the electors of the newly-enfranchised borough of Wolverhampton in 1835, and subsequently made many of his fervent Free Trade speeches; and in fact, from this place all public announcements were wont to be made. The room behind the balcony was formerly used as a Court Room, in which the magistrates administered justice; here too, the Willenhall Court Leet was held, and to this day Lord Barnard’s agents receive the tithes there.
The Neptune once served all the purposes of a lending inn as an acknowledged place of public rendezvous; and when the Stowheath farmers were accustomed to ride or drive in to attend church, its spacious stableyard was a scene of animation, even on Sundays.
The Bell Inn, in the Market Place, is perhaps the oldest in the market taverns, though the date 1660 painted upon its sign can scarcely refer to the projecting wing which bears it. The back portion of the house is unquestionably old; in fact, the family of Wakelam who kept the inn 25 years ago, were identified with this house and the Bull’s Head Inn for upwards of two centuries.
The Plough Inn, Stafford Street, is less old than the others, and of more doubtful interest. It has been completely altered within recent years; in the old days when prisoners consigned to Stafford Gaol had to walk, it was the place of the final drink before starting, and marked the limits of the town till Little London began.
The Bull’s head Inn, Wolverhampton Street, is supposed to be the alehouse referred to in Borrow’s romantic tale of Romany life, “Lavengro.”
The Waterglade Tavern marked the spot on the road between the two old-world villages of Willenhall and Bilston, where it dipped to the bed of the stream.
The Woolpack Inn, at Short Heath, is one of the oldest licensed houses in that locality.
The First and Last Inn, New Invention, was so dubbed because at one time it was the first licensed house when approaching from Wednesfield, and the last when going the other way out.
The sign rhymes of Willenhall belong to the hackneyed type. The Gate Inn, New Invention, has the well-known couplet:—
This Gate hangs well and hinders none:
Refresh and pay and travel on.
The Lame Dog Inn, at Short Heath, is not very original with:—
Step in, my friends, and stop a while,
To help a lame dog over the stile.
Enough has been said on the subject to arouse the interest of patriotic Willenhaleans. One reflection in conclusion—in the old days licensed houses were invariably kept by families of position and substance, and it is remarkable to discover the great number of professional and well-to-do men of the present day who were born in public-houses. It is so with regard to Wednesbury and Darlaston, and even more so with regard to Willenhall.
XXXI.—Old Families and Names of Note.
To not a few of the old names of those who have lived their lives in Willenhall, and left their mark indelibly fixed upon its annals, attention has already been paid in treating of the various matters with which their respective life-work was associated. It remains here only to add a few more names to our list of Willenhall worthies, and to supplement a few biographical details to those already mentioned.
The index to the names of landowners would be incomplete without that of Offley. In the year 1555 Alderman Offley, a citizen of London, acquired lands in “Willenhall, otherwise Wilnall.” About the same date this opulent merchant became lord of the manor of Darlaston. (See History of Darlaston, pp. 39–40.)
An important old Willenhall family, as may have been gathered in the course of these Annals, was that of Hincks. Their family residence still stands in Bilston Street, near to the Market Place; a descendant, and apparently the only representative of the Hincks family surviving is Mrs. Samuel Walker, of Bentley Hall.
Of Carpenter, Willenhall’s most famous inventor, a few more items of local and biographical interest are forthcoming. In early life James Carpenter was a Churchman, but, as many other Willenhall folk did, became a Wesleyan in consequence of the scandals caused by the Rev. Mr. Moreton’s mode of life. His remains lie in a vault on the east side of the Wesleyan Chapel in Union Street. He was a keen supporter of the Right Hon. C. P. Villiers when he first became a Parliamentary candidate for Wolverhampton.
John Austin, the tradesman, who first issued the “Willenhall farthings,” mentioned in Chapter XXVII., was an enterprising tradesman, a man of handsome presence and of an alert mind. On leaving Willenhall he went to live at Manor House, Allscott, near Wellington, at which town he established artificial manure works, and where he manufactured sulphuric acid very extensively.
The issue of the Willenhall trade farthings was continued by Rushbrooke, his successor in the business (1853), though the original date, “1844” was always retained upon them. They were sold to shopkeepers and traders all round the district at the rate of 5s. nominal for 4s. 9d. cash. When the new national bronze coinage came into circulation in 1860, large quantities of these copper farthing tokens were returned on to Mr Rushbrooke’s hands, but he melted them down without sustaining the least loss.
The Hartill family has long been settled in Willenhall. George Hartill married Isabel Cross, at St. Peter’s Church, Wolverhampton, in 1662. All their nine children were baptised at St. Giles’s Church, Willenhall. The present Dr. J. T. Hartill is descended directly from Richard, fifth son of the above, and his grandfather, Isaac Hartill, inter-married with Ann Hartill, a descendant of the said George Hartill’s second son.
The social rank of the Hartills since their residence in Willenhall has been that of tradesmen or professional men, manufacturers, or small property owners, but always educated up to the standard of the period in which they lived. In 1826 Jeremiah Hartill established himself in medical practice, joined in 1861 by his nephew, William Henry Hartill, and in 1869 by the latter’s brother, Dr. J. T. Hartill. The arms and crest borne by the last-named were formally granted him in 1896; but the same coat without the crest had always been used by his uncle Jeremiah, and that on a claim of inheritance from the ancient lords of the manor of Hartill, in Cheshire, to whom it had been granted by King John. These particular arms have not been officially recorded at the College of Heralds since 1580, but a very similar coat was used by a member of this family in 1703.
The Willenhall Hartills migrated here from the neighbourhood of Kinver, Wolverley, and Kidderminster. There are still Hartills of the old stock resident in the Kinver district, and from them are descended Mrs. Shakespeare, wife of the well-known Birmingham solicitor; and Mrs. Showell, wife of the late Walter Showell, the founder of the eminent firm of Black Country brewers, who was once a Parliamentary candidate for one of the divisions
of Birmingham. The Hartills of Kinver are related to the Hartills of Kingsbury, and there has always been a great similarity in the Christian names borne by the old Kingsbury, Kinver, and Willenhall Hartills. The steeple of Polesworth church was built by the last Sir Richard Hartill, 1377–1379, and below the tower battlements is carved upon a large shield the arms of this benefactor, which are identical with those of the late Dr. Jeremiah Hartill of Willenhall.
Mr. Henry Vaughan, the founder of the largest business concern in the town, has done a large amount of public work in various capacities, but chiefly as a magistrate, a member of the defunct School Board, and more recently as a County Councillor.
Among the justices who have sat on the Willenhall Bench and possessed other connections with the place may be mentioned the late N. Neal Solly, ironmaster, two water-colour drawings by whom hang on the walls of the Free Library; the late Rev. G. H. Fisher, who was chairman; R. D. Gough, a brother of the late Colonel Foster Gough, and who married the rich and benevolent Mary Clemson, daughter of John Clemson, a corn miller, of this township; while among the most recent appointments are Clement Tildesley, Thomas Vaughan, and Thomas Kidson. The present Clerk to the Willenhall Bench is Samuel Mills Slater, in succession to his father, the late James Slater, of Bescot Hall.
A memorial tablet to the local men who fell in the Boer War has been erected at the gateway to the Old Cemetery.
XXXII.—Manners and Customs.
The Manners and Customs of the people of Willenhall have been those held in common with the populace of the surrounding parishes, and which have been dealt with too fully in the published writings of Mr. G. T. Lawley to need more than a brief review here.
The seasonal custom of Well Dressing has been alluded to in Chapter XVII., and of Beating the Bounds in Chapter V. Other ancient customs of minor import existed, but space cannot be found to treat them in a general history.
The social calibre of the people a century or so ago may be gauged by a local illustration of the custom of Wife Selling.
This practice was once common enough everywhere, and amongst the ignorant and illiterate in some parts it is still held to be a perfectly legitimate transaction. From the “Annual Register” this local instance has been clipped:—
“Three men and three women went to the Bell Inn, Edgbaston Street, Birmingham, and made the following singular entry in the toll book which is kept there: August 31, 1773, Samuel Whitehouse, of the Parish of Willenhall, in the county of Stafford, this day sold his wife, Mary Whitehouse, in open market, to Thomas Griffiths, of Birmingham, value one shilling. To take her with all her faults.
(Signed) Samuel Whitehouse.
Mary Whitehouse.Voucher, Thomas Buckley, of Birmingham.”
The parties were all exceedingly well pleased, and the money paid down for the toll as for a regular purchase.
So much for the moral status of the people; now to consider them from the industrial side.
The older generation of Willenhall men were accustomed, ere factory Acts and kindred forms of parental legislation had regulated working hours and otherwise ameliorated the conditions of labour, to slave for many weary hours in little domiciliary workshops. Boys were then apprenticed at a tender age, and soon
became humpbacked in consequence of throwing in the weight of their little bodies in the endeavour to eke out the strength of the feeble thews and bones in their immature arms.
In those days men worked when they liked, and played when it suited them; they generally played the earlier days of the week, even if at the end they worked night and day in the attempt to average the weekly earnings. In this connection it has been suggested that in pre-Reformation times Willenhall folk duly honoured St. Sunday and well as St. Monday, consecrating both days to the sacred cause of weekly idleness. Or was Willenhall’s Holy Well dedicated to St. Dominic, and came by grammatical error to be called St. Sunday? As thus—Sanctus Dominicus abbreviated first to Sanc. Dominic, and then extended in the wrong gender to Sancta Dominica, otherwise Saint Sunday? Who shall say? It may have been so.
It is perhaps in their pleasures, more than in their pursuits, that the character of a people is to be best seen. Allusion has been made to the obsolete Trinity Fair in Chapter XII.; but the Wake has remained to this day, less loyally observed perhaps, but rich in traditions of past glories.
Willenhall Wake falls on the first Sunday after September 11th, the Feast of St. Giles, to whom the old church is dedicated.
Among the wakes of the Black Country none are richer in reminiscence of the old time forms of festivity than that of Willenhall. Although in later times the outward and visible sign of its celebration has dwindled down to an assemblage of shows and roundabouts, shooting galleries, and ginger-bread stalls, it was once accompanied by bull-baitings and cock-fighting, and all the other coarse and brutal sports in which our forefathers so much delighted.
At Wednesfield at one village wake
The cockers all did meet
At Billy Lane’s, the cock-fighter’s,
To have a sporting treat.For Charley Marson’s spangled cock
Was matched to fight a red
That came from Will’n’all o’er the fields,
And belonged to “Cheeky Ned.”Two finer birds in any cock-pit
Two never yet was seen.
Though the Wednesfield men declared
Their cock was sure to win.The cocks fought well, and feathers fled
All round about the pit,
While blood from both of ’em did flow
Yet ne’er un would submit.At last the spangled Wedgefield bird
Began to show defeat,
When Billy Lane, he up and swore
The bird shouldn’t be beat;For he would fight the biggest mon
That came from Will’n’all town,
When on the word, old “Cheeky Ned”
Got up and knocked him down.To fight they went like bull-dogs,
As it is very well known,
Till “Cheeky Ned” seized Billy’s thumb,
And bit it to the bone.At this the Wednesfield men begun
Their comrade’s part to take,
And never was a fiercer fight
Fought at a village wake.They beat the men from Will’n’all town
Back to their town again,
And long they will remember
This Wednesfield wake and main.
The site of the Willenhall Bull Ring, it may be added for the information of future generations, was opposite the Baptist Chapel, Little London, where Temple Bar joins the Wednesfield and Bloxwich Roads.
Among other Wake observances of the last century were the “Club Walkings” or processioning of the Friendly Societies, whose members first attended a brief service in the church, and then spent the rest of the day in feasting at the Neptune Inn opposite. Tradition hath it that further back, well into the Georgian era, and certainly before Mr. Fisher’s time, another Wake custom was that of “kissing the parson,” a privilege of which the women were said to be very jealous.
In the year 1857 the Right Hon. C. P. Villiers, Member of Parliament for the Borough of Wolverhampton, of which this township was part, inaugurated in Willenhall one of the first exhibitions of fine art and industry ever held in the Black Country.
It was opened on the Monday in the Wake week, and Mr. Villiers alluded to the fact that “they met in the midst of one of those old-fashioned wakes which it was the humour of their ancestors to establish and be pleased with,” and the right hon. gentleman proceeded to contrast the present with the past conditions of Willenhall Wake-time.
A flourishing Free Library—founded like many another in the face of great local opposition and prejudice—is one of the legacies of that exhibition, from the date of which may be traced the more rational observance of Wake-time.
With the advance of science and art and the spread of popular education, the future prosperity of an ingenious community, like that of the skilled mechanics and deft craftsmen of this township, is assured. Impressed with such certitude it is all but a work of supererogation to echo the patriotic sentiment of the old-time townsfolk—
“LET WILLENHALL FLOURISH!”
The End.