Congregationalists.
The Congregationalists erected a church here in 1874, at a cost of £1,400. It was opened in January 1875, and has an average congregation—Morning, 50; Evening 100. Sunday School 80 on the books. Mothers service 20 attend. Two weekly services; average attendance 30. Amount raised for all purposes in connection with the Church £130.
Besides these well recognised institutions in connection with various religious bodies there are other useful institutions, some of a religious, and others of an educational but unsectarian character, such as Union Prayer Meetings at Ironbridge, the Severn side School, various Literary Societies and Reading Rooms, in connection with which large sums are annually raised; and by means of which at Madeley, and Coalbrookdale more particularly, a large amount of information is disseminated.
The Madeley Wood Works.
William Reynolds having at his death left a share in the Madeley Wood works to his nephew, William Anstice (father of the present William Reynolds Anstice) whom he also appointed one of his executors, and by whom, in partnership with William Reynolds’s surviving son, the late Joseph Reynolds, the works were carried on until the decease of Mr. Anstice in the year 1850.
Mr. Anstice was a young man, not more than twenty-one, when he succeeded to the management of these works, and although he possessed little practical knowledge gained in connection with this branch of industry, he possessed a mind well stored with knowledge. He was a fair amateur chemist of the school of Dr. Black and his contemporaries, under whom Mr. Reynolds had previously studied, and the friend of the tale Sir Humphrey Davy, then a young man, with whom he spent some time with Dr. Beddows, at one time of Shifnal, but then of Bristol, assisting him in a course of experiments he was conducting on pneumatic chemistry and galvanism. He was also a fair amateur geologist, and his early studies led him, on succeeding to the management of the works, to observe, and to apply his knowledge to account. The old hearths and “bears,” as accumulations in the blast-furnaces were called, on occasions of renewal, were carefully scrutinized and searched by him for metallic substances and salts not usually known to exist in iron-ores; and we remember him giving us some remarkably fine cubes of titanium, taken from one he had had blown to pieces. He inherited the very fine collection of fossils Mr. Reynolds had collected, and added thereto by encouraging his men to bring anything they found of a rare character in the clay ironstones. Sir R. Murchison, Mr. Buckland, and Mr. Prestwich occasionally came down to Madeley Wood Hall to study this collection, and derived much information. Mr. Buckland pronounced them at that time the finest collection of fossils of the coal-measures in the kingdom, and nearly the whole of the figures found in Mr. Prestwich’s paper, prepared with great care and research, on the coalfield, were from specimens in this collection.
In consequence of the mines being exhausted on the Madeley Wood side of the field he had new shafts sunk to the east, the first of importance being the Hills Lane pits. The Halesfield pair of pits followed, and the mines having been thus proved on that side, the idea first suggested by William Reynolds, of removing the works to that place, was acted upon by Mr. William Anstice, who built his first furnace at Blisser’s Hill, in 1832. A second was built in 1840 and a third in 1844.
The offices of the Madeley Wood Works were at the Lloyds, but a land-slip, or series of slips rather, which have been going on for years, bringing down rocks and trees from the high ground, have swept away these, and also some houses and orchards near them. In these offices on one occasion an explosion took place, occasioned by recklessness on the part of a youth entrusted with the task of giving out powder for blasting, candles, &c., for the pits. A lad named Brown had filled a horn of powder and was crossing the office to go to play at marbles, when finding the fire did not burn brightly, he stooped to poke out the ashes with the horn under his arm, and some grains igniting, he was blown a black and apparently lifeless mass against the door, whilst the windows went flying as far as the water-engine. Although shorn of his arms above the elbows, and with only two short stumps remaining, “Stumpy Brown,” as the boys still call him, managed to learn to write a good clear hand, became a schoolmaster, a Sunday-school teacher, a preacher, and a capital wood-turner of bedsteads and children’s dolls, which at the present moment are in great request in very many towns in the Midland Counties, where they are well known as “John Brown’s Dolls.” [175]
Upon the death of Mr. Anstice he was succeeded by his son John, who, having been brought up under his father, in close proximity to the works, was in every respect well qualified for the task; and to him his partner, Joseph Reynolds, at his death left his shares of the works, and the general residue of his property. John Anstice at once generously transferred to his brother, William Reynolds Anstice, a share in the Madeley Wood concern, but retained the sole management of the works during his life. He entered on no great new enterprise beyond sinking a new pair of pits to the east of the field, an enterprise on which he several times consulted the writer long before the men had headed to prove the mines in that direction. He was a man whose amiable qualities and generous nature won for him general admiration.
As an employer Mr. Anstice was on good terms with his workpeople. He aimed at being so, and in bad times he kept his men employed whether others did or not. He had a fellow-feeling with them, and tried to understand and to be understood by them; he knew them by their names, and generally had a joke, a kind word, or a cheerful recognition for each. We believe he spared no expense to secure the safety of life and limb in his works; and if by some unforeseen circumstances, or some act of carelessness on their part, accidents did occur, his grief knew no bounds, and he would often weep like a child with the bereaved. Equally liberal with his means and time, he was accessible to all those who sought aid, counsel, or protection; and his good sense and timely aid availed in lightening many cares, in drying many tears, and in allaying many sorrows. The county though benefited by his philanthropy, but daily-occurring acts of kindness and usefulness less widely known taxed still more his talents and his means. Nor did his acts partake of ostentation, or seem selfishly aimed to win the tribute of applause. On the contrary he dedicated his energies less to the service of his peers than to those in a condition to require them.