The Annals of Willenhall

by Frederick William Hackwood

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.