A history of Wolverhampton written in 1985 to celebrate the town's millennium, by Keith Farley with special reference to Frank Mason and Geoff Pennock
The year 985AD, saw the foundation of Wolverhampton. It was in that year that the Anglo Saxon King Aethelred made a grant of land at Heantune (Wolverhampton) to the town's benefactoress Lady Wulfruna. It is generally thought that the Lady Wulfruna was the sister of the old King, Edgar, who had died in 976.
The king's grant covered an area of land bounded by Bilsatena (Bilston), Seeges League (Sedgley) and Tresel (Trysull).
Nine years after the original grant the Lady Wulfruna endorsed a minster church which stood on the present site of St. Peter's Church.
While the original Charter gave Lady Wulfruna the absolute right to nominate an heir to her lands, it was only eightyone years after the charter that the complete map of England and Wales had to be redrawn following the Norman conquest.
The new king rewarded his faithful followers with grants of land, and one of his retainers, Samson of Bayeaux received Heantun or Hantone as the Domesday Book records the name in 1086. According to the entry in the Domesday Book the Canons of Hantone held the land from Samson and at Hantone were to be found fourteen slaves, six villagers and thirty smallholders with a total of nineteen ploughs.
Most of the people mentioned in the return would have had families and there would have been the canons and other church people, making a probable total of over two hundred people - a fair sized community for the time.
During the next two hundred years the ownership of the lands of Hantone underwent numerous changes including the Prior and monks of St. Mary's Worcester, Roger, the Bishop of Salisbury, the Bishop of Chester and once again St. Mary's at Worcester.
It was during the reign of King Stephen (1135-1154) that there is reference to the church of Wulfrunhampton.
The dedication of the church remained to St. Mary's, although there was a brief change to St Peter and Paul during the early part of the the thirteenth century - it was during the fifteenth century that the dedication was permanently altered to St. Peter.
While Wolverhampton was still a relatively small settlement surrounded by dense forests, it was also developing as a centre for trade.
The earliest known date of the existence of some form of market in Wolverhampton is 1179 and there is another reference in 1204 when King John took great exception to the existence of a market without a royal charter. It was on the fourth day of February 1258 that King Henry III granted a charter for a market and fair to the Lord of the Manor, Giles de Erdington, the Dean of Wolverhampton.
The charter conferred the right of a weekly market to be held on Wednesdays and a fair to be held every year commencing on the vigil of the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul and to last eight days.
It was five years later that the same Dean of Wolverhampton created a borough out of his manor (not including the other manor in Wolverhampton at that time, namely Stowheath Manor). It is interesting to note that after the series of demographic crises that struck England during the following three hundred years the market of Wolverhampton was still in existence while most of the neighbouring communities had ceased to hold weekly markets.
The reason may have been the continuing importance of the wool trade.
While there is little corroborative evidence it has been traditionally held that Wolverhampton was one of the 'staple' towns involved in the wool trade of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Indeed, in 1859 the coats of arms of the City of London, the Drapers' Company and the Merchants of the Staple were found on a building in Lichfield Street during its demolition.
It is also no accident that a journey around the town centre takes a visitor past Blossoms Fold, Townwell Fold and Farmers Fold. Also in the national archives there are numerous references to local families being involved in the wool trade, notably the Levesons, the Ridleys and the Cresswells.
The Levesons prospered from the wool trade to such a degree that by the fifteenth century they were the wealthiest family in the area. Virtually every change in land ownership around the town involved them in some way or other.
By the end of the century the manor of Stowheath, which included parts of Bilston, Willenhall and Wolverhampton, was almost totally in their hands.
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| The Old Hall, home of the Levesons, built about 1550, being demolished in 1883. |
The wealth amassed by some of the local families from the wool trade resulted in a major reconstruction programme for St. Peter's church, so that by the end of the fifteenth century the church had been converted to a cruciform plan, a clerestory had been added and the tower was completed.
Much of the stone used in the work was quarried from the rock on which the church was built.
It was also wealth from the woollen cloth trade that resulted in the foundation of the town's grammar school.
Sir Stephen Jenyns had moved away from Wolverhampton and settled in London where he had become a member of the Merchant Tailor's Guild, and at one time the Lord Mayor of London. However he did not forget his birthplace and in 1512 he founded the grammar school, providing the funds for its building and a further sum of money, the yearly interest on which would pay for the continued running of the school.
The school was built near the edge of the town in John's Lane (now St. Johns Street). The building was demolished and replaced by a new one in 1714 which was itself also demolished at the time of the building of the Mander Centre.
By this time the Grammar School had already been rebuilt on its present site on Compton Road.
Very little evidence remains of the Wolverhampton of the Tudor period although two buildings, 19 Victoria Street (Lindy-Lou's) and 44 Exchange Street, are still standing.
| "Lindy Lou", 19 Victoria Street, in a photograph taken in the 1870's. It is known that the property belonged to Sir Walter Leveson in 1609. Throughout the 17th century is was an inn, the Hand. |
The former is probably a result of the rebuilding which occurred after the first great fire in Wolverhampton in April 1590.
The fire began in Barn Street (Salop Street) and resulted in the destruction of 104 houses, 30 barns and a large quantity of grain. The fire lasted for five days and left nearly 700 people homeless. It is known that "Lindy-Lou's" was the Hand Inn, Tunwall Street and was owned by Sir Walter Leveson who received an annual rent of £2.17.4d from his tenant Nicholas Worthington. Little is known of the history of 44 Exchange Street.
The second great fire in Wolverhampton's history began at about 4pm on September 10, 1696. Once again the fire started in Barn Street and within five hours 60 houses had been destroyed.
The total cost of the damage was assessed at over £8500, a vast amount for the end of the seventeenth century. In September 1703 the inhabitants of Wolverhampton purchased a fire engine and twenty-four buckets for the water.
The engine involved a simple box pump with a leather hose mounted on two wheels from which water was pumped out by a force of six men, three on each side. A similar engine was still in use over one hundred years later.
| The Fire Brigade c1900. |
The situation was further improved by the Town Improvement Act of 1814 which banned the use of thatched roofing, although in 1871 the last thatched building in Wolverhampton, a cottage in Canal Street (Broad Street), still stood.
| Rotten Row, then Canal Street and finally Broad Street with the last thatched cottage in town (the second one in the row). |
During the seventeenth century Wolverhampton and its people began to have some connections with important national events.
The accession of James I after the death of Elizabeth I was soon followed by a major Catholic plot to kill the new king. Although the Gunpowder Plot is closely associated with London and the Houses of Parliament, the final act took place near to Wolverhampton, at Hobeach House in Himley. A number of the conspirators including Robert Catesby, the leader, had taken refuge in the house.
Two other men named Thomas Smart and John Holyhead of Rowely Regis were subsequently charged with sheltering the renegades. They were tried in Wolverhampton by a judge, specially bought from Ludlow, and executed in High Green (Queen Square) on or about January 27 1606.
Little concern would probably have been shown about the accession of Charles 1 in 1625, but the new King was to visit Wolverhampton three times during his reign of twenty four years. For the majority of his reign the king and parliament were at loggerheads, and during the years 1629-1640 no parliament was summoned.
As a result, the king needed to raise money by unusual means and introduced some measures which affected Wolverhampton.
It had long been the custom for towns on the coast to provide the monarch with ships for the navy or money in place of the ships at times of need. Charles decided that this was a time of need but he extended the duty, known as Ship Money, to inland towns as well. During the years 1635-1639 the communities at Willenhall, Wednesfield and Wolverhampton each contributed a sum in ship money.
The amount for Wolverhampton was £72 which was collected from the richer inhabitants with contributions varying from a shilling to about 6s 8d.
A second source of revenue for Charles was 'knighthood fines'. This involved anyone who held freehold land to the value of £40 per year and should therefore undertake the duties of knighthood, or pay a fine of £10 if the duties were not to be undertaken. Charles managed to raise £120 from Wolverhampton's freeholders.
When the civil war broke out in 1642 the great families of the area were divided with the Levesons and the Giffards fighting for the King, and the Wrottesleys and the Lanes fighting for parliament. Most of the ordinary townsfolk were probably disinterested although some observers regard the town as having had royalist sympathies.
The district saw a good deal of marching armies, many Royalists armies, but little in the way of fighting.
Although there were two garrisons at Wolverhampton, there were no battles or skirmishes in the town.
There had been one unfortunate event prior to the outbreak of fighting when a number of "persons broke into the parish church and broke down the rail about the communion table standing in the chancel, and pulled up a mat there within the rail, and about the communion table, and did at the same time pull it to pieces, and did remove the communion table out of the chancel into the body of the church."
The first blow in the Civil War in Wolverhampton was struck when Thomas Leveson called on John Tanner a 'stinking rogue' and struck him about the head with a stick making "a great knob in the skin thereof".
The reason for the attack was that Tanner, an armourer, refused to return armour to Leveson because he knew him to be a Catholic, and a Royalist sympathiser. The blow to John Tanner was not only the first but also the last show of force during the war in the town.
The King himself arrived in the town on Saturday October 15 1642. He had marched from Shrewsbury, by way of Bridgnorth, Trescote and Compton and took up residence at the house of a Madame St. Andrew which was situated in Cock Street (Victoria Street) on the site of the former Star and Garter. Prince Rupert, who was accompanying his uncle, stayed in a house in Lichfield Street. lt was during this visit that a wealthy merchant of the town, Henry Gough, craved a personal interview and presented £l200 in gold to the King for the Royalist cause.
On the advice of Thomas Bushell, the King took the opportunity of rewarding his men for their endeavours. He presented each colonel with a medal of a 20s piece in silver, all other officers received half a crown.
Thomas Bushell's reasoning was probably, that, without reward, the King's soldiers could well desert. It proved wise advice since the Battle of Edgehill took place on Sunday, October 23rd 1942.
Prince Rupert made another visit to the town early in 1643 on his way to Lichfield. It was during this visit that the Prince used a very persuasive method of recruiting. He threatened to "hang, draw and quarter anyone between the ages of 16 and 60 who did not choose to fight for their King."
After the battle of Hopton Heath in March 1643 a Parliamentarian force led by Sir William Brereton entered the town at about three o'clock in the morning and "captured" it. The victors met with no resistance. Thomas Leveson, the Royalist Commander in the town, had left his family home at the Great Hall, later known as Old Hall Street, and took up residence at Dudley Castle.
Leveson had not been too popular during his stay in Wolverhampton especially when his soldiers were lodged in St Peter's Church where they did a great deal of damage and showed very little reverence for their surroundings.
The Parliamentarians took their revenge by seizing all of Leveson's property, in the area including Bilston where the steward Will Tomkys, came very close to being killed for refusing to give any information about his master to the Parliamentarians.
The next visit to Wolverhampton by the King happened in May 1645 when he and Prince Rupert were on their way to the last great battle of the first Civil War, at Naseby. While the Prince slept in the town, the King stayed at "a private sweet village where Squire Grosvenor lives" (the King's own words).
The village was Bushbury.
After the Royalist defeat at Naseby the King made his last visit to the town when he stayed overnight at the home of a Mrs. Barnford in Cock Street (Victoria Street).
In February 1646 Sir William Brereton and Colonel Sanderson assembled a Parliamentary force of three thousand men (1800 infantry and 1200 cavalry) in the town. The intention was to use the force against Lichfield and other local fortresses.
The execution of King Charles I happened on January 30, 1649 and two years later his eldest son, Charles Stuart, returned from exile determined to regain his father's throne.
However the army of the Stuarts was defeated at Worcester on Wednesday, September 3 1651 and the Prince became a fugitive. It was after the battle that the area around Wolverhampton once again played a part in national history.
On the evening of the battle Prince Charles and a few friends left the city of Worcester and rode north. When he arrived at Kinver he rested for a few minutes and then continued his journey north. He planned to try and get to Wales and raise another army there. He rode on to Stourbridge and through Himley and then he cut across country by way of Wombourne and Pattingham, finally arriving at White Ladies Priory near Tong at about 3 o'clock in the morning.
George Penderel, a servant at White Ladies, let Charles' party into the Priory and then sent for two of his brothers, Richard and William.
The Prince was then disguised and made to look like a Country fellow. His name was to be William Jones and his job a woodcutter.
He was then taken by Richard into Spring Coppice, a wood nearby, where he spent the day.
Less than one hour after the Prince left While Ladies, a group of Parliamentary soldiers arrived. After a search, they left without finding any trace of Charles.
That evening Charles, escorted by Richard, George and Humphrey Penderel, was taken to Richard's home, Hobbat Grange.
There, Jane Penderel. the mother of the five brothers, gave Charles a meal. Still disguised as the woodcutter, he set out with Richard as his guide to walk to Madeley. He hoped to cross the Severn and escape into Wales.
At Evelith Mill the miller called after them and wanted to know who they were but they did not stop to answer questions. Having reached Madeley Charles discovered that the river was too heavily guarded to make a crossing.
The Prince hid all day in the barn adjoining Upper House, Madeley. Then Charles disguised himself again and after a meal returned with Richard towards Boscobel.
The two men avoided Evelith Mill and crossed the Warfe a little further down, arriving at Boscobel in the early hours of Saturday September 6, 1651. It was at Boscobel that Charles met Major Careless.
According to popular belief Charles and Major Careless spent most of the day in an oak tree whilst Parliamentarian soldiers searched the surrounding area for any sign of the "tall man above two yards high, with dark brown hair".
The oak tree was probably a secure hiding place since Boscobel was surrounded by woods and it would have been extremely difficult to find anyone in those woods.
That night Charles learned that a reward of £1000 had been placed on his head and a penalty of death for anyone who aided or abetted him in his escape.
During the Sunday evening Charles, once again accompanied by the Penderels, travelled to Moseley Old Hall. The Hall belonged to the Whitgreve family and it was their family priest, Father John Huddleston, who led the Prince to the back door of the Hall.
As a Catholic family the Whitgreves were prepared for any searches of the house, and so the Prince was hidden in one of the priest's holes in the house. He stayed at Moseley for two days.
| Moseley Old Hall |
On the evening of Tuesday September 7th Charles and a Colonel Lane left Moseley and travelled to Bentley Hall.
The Prince only stayed long enough for a brief rest at Bentley before he left for Bristol, where he hoped to get a ship to France. He dressed himself up as the servant of a Miss Jane Lane and gave himself the name of Will Jackson.
Six days later Charles was in France, not to return until May 1660 when he was restored to the throne of England.
In 1750 Isaac Taylor produced the most detailed map of early Wolverhampton depicting a town very much smaller than its modern counterpart. The map shows a cluster of houses around St. Peter's Church stretching out for some short distance along the lines of the present main roads leading from the centre.
You may download a larger version of the above map - please note it is a 9.5Mb file
According to Isaac Taylor there were 1440 houses and 7454 people in Wolverhampton in 1750.
If you entered the town along Stafford Street, which then existed, the first house you would see would be on your right, somewhere just above present day Camp Street.
There were a few more houses near what was Charles Street and then you would have reached North Street, then called Tup Street.
The name Tup Street is another reminder of the town's past history as 'tup' is an old fashioned word, still used in some parts of the north of England, meaning a ram.
In Tup Street you would see two outstanding large houses built in the Georgian style. The first of these houses was built by John Molineux and his son, Benjamin, between 1740 and 1750.
The second house, a little nearer to the town centre, was built a little earlier by Peter Giffard. The work began in either 1727 or 1728.
Molineux House was built on land purchased by the ironmasters, John Rotten and Richard Wilkes in 1744 for the sum of £700. Although Benjamin Molineux died in 1772, the family remained there until 1856.
| Molineux House |
Three years later an advert for the sale of the property appeared in the Wolverhampton Chronicle describing the estate as Molineux House, a coach house, greenhouse, conservatory and stables, set in eight acres of land.
It was during the residence of a W.O.E. McGregor that the grounds were opened to the public and became Wolverhampton's first park of its kind. The grounds included a boating lake and a fountain with amenities for sports including football, and cricket.
In 1889 the Molineux Hotel (as it had become known) became the headquarters of the Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club after they had left their original Dudley Road premises.
| Giffard House was the centre of the Roman Catholic Church and Bishop Milner's residence in the early 19th century. |
Giffard House was built as a Mass House and priest's residence by the Giffard family. They had long been famous as an important local Catholic family and since the Toleration Act of 1689, the Catholics had been allowed to worship in their own way and so Peter Giffard decided to demolish the old family home of Elizabeth Giffard and build the present house.
The intention was for the house to be used by two Catholic priests the one administering to the needs of Catholics in Wolverhampton and the second administering to Catholics in Bilston, Dudley, Gornal and Sedgley.
It is believed that a Warwick architect named Francis Smith designed the building (the same architect designed Chillington Hall) and William Hollis was the builder. Hollis was paid £3-10s-0d for knocking down the old building and the new house cost £1069-2s-2½d.
Many of the bricks were made on the site from clay dug out when the cellars were excavated, most of this work being done by Thomas Birch who received £57-8s-5½d for the job. The wood for the house came from Norway.
St. Peter and St. Paul's Church adjoins Giffard House and was built as a replacement for the existing chapel situated inside the house itself.
| St Peter and St Paul's Church |
The church was built at the direction of Bishop John Milner who lived at Giffard House from 1804 until his death in 1826. While the Bishop set aside £1000 for the church's building, he died before it was completed.
According to Taylor's map the centre of the town was High Green, which became known as Queen Square after the visit of Queen Victoria in 1866. High Green was larger in extent than present day Queen Square but it was not a wide, open space.
| High Green - the market place until 1853, the forty foot gas light pillar commemorated the lighting of the town by gas in 1821, one year prior to this drawing. It was removed in 1840. |
There were buildings in the middle of the 'Green' and these are shown on the 1750 map as the Town Hall and the Charity School.
| Queen Square in 1860 showing the Russian cannon which was replaced by the statue of Prince Albert in 1866. The cannon had been captured from Sebastapol in the Crimea in 1855. |
The Town Hall had been completed in 1703 but it was not a town hall in the modern sense of the words. We think of the Town Hall as the place where local administration is carried out but in the eighteenth century it was more of a parish hall - a place for meetings and entertainment. Records show this hall being hired by actors, auctioneers, rope dancers, puppet shows and a "waxman" (whatever he was!)
The one regular hirer was Thomas Lilly, who hired it "to teach writing and accounts, at 20 shillings a year".
The Charity School was built around 1710 and the money for it was provided by amounts left by will "in trust" for the education of the town's poor.
The staff of the school, in 1716, were a master (paid £26 per year), a mistress (paid £12 per year) and a "dame" or governess (paid £7-10s-0d per year).
The most usual means of keeping discipline was by way of a birch rod and a record dated 1757 shows that boys who were late for school would receive six strokes of the birch, and girls would be whipped! Eight senior boys were appointed to report those who "cursed, swore, told lies or spoke unmannerly".
One of the early subscribers to the Charity School was Button Gwinnett, a merchant from Bristol who married a local girl named Anne Bowne in April 1757.
The importance of Gwinnett however lies in the fact that after business failures in England he went to North America and in 1776 was one of the fifty-six signatories of the American Declaration of Independence.
Two other important buildings stood at the east end of High Green. They were the two greatest of Wolverhampton's coaching inns, the 'Angel' and the 'Swan'.
The Angel stood where Lloyds Bank now stands and the Swan was a little further in the present day Dudley Street.
These were not ale houses or public houses, they were the eighteenth century counterparts of modern hotels. Quite close to the sites of the coaching inns was to be one of Wolverhampton's earliest examples of town planning. Between 1751 and 1753 much of King Street was built including the present day Old Still Inn which was known originally as 14 King Street.
| The Old Still Inn |
The title deeds of the properties 15, 16 and 17 King Street states that they were to be constructed "in a direct line and the same in front with the messuages or dwelling houses very lately erected in the said street". Isaac Taylor's map relates to the intended construction work as follows, "the Prick'd lines shew the Plan of A New Street" and showing it as the section of land between Clarkes Lane (now Princess Street) and Dudley Street.
Salop Street then marked the edge of the town in the direction of the Penn Road, although Taylor's map shows a few houses struggling towards present day School Street.
In the direction of Dudley, "Bilstone Street" and the Great Hall of the Levesons marked the edge of the town and the present day Wednesfield Road had no houses in it beyond the present railway line.
Shortly after the publication of Taylor's map a new church was opened for worship.
The church was built, standing on its own in the open spaces which lay between present day Worcester Street and Snowhill.
The church was St. Johns built of brick "cased" in Perton sandstone.
| St John's Church was opened for worship in 1760. |
Some interesting facts emerge from the early records of this church. One is that its first minister, the Reverend Benjamin Clement, was also minister of Braunton in Devon.
It was not unusual for a parson at that time to hold two or more "livings". The practice was known as "Pluralism" and it is difficult to guess where the Reverend spent most of his time. Next it was in 1762 that the church acquired the 'Renatus Harris' organ.
The organ bad been built around 1633 and installed in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin. During a journey for repair the organ was "stranded" in Wolverhampton when the owner died in the town.
The church purchased the organ from the owner's widow for £500.
Finally, the only other church official mentioned in these early years is William Shaw, the dog whipper. He was paid six shillings a year to "expel from the church such dogs as do not behave well".
The job was usually performed by gripping the dog around the neck with a pair of wooden tongs kept in the church for the purpose. In l778 the church records show the payment of one shilling for "a pair of second-hand breeches for old Shaw". Apparently Mr. Shaw had been "whipping" for at least twenty years.
There are buildings within the modern boundaries of Wolverhampton which would not have appeared on Taylor's map but which existed before 1750.
Such buildings include Graiseley Old Hall which is situated behind the Royal Wolverhampton School and is believed to date back to about 1485.
It was originally, the property of Nicholas Ridley, a merchant of the Staple, who was involved in exporting raw and processed wool through Calais to the continent.
By 1665 the house was occupied by a John Whitehead who had to pay Health Tax for the property. The site was purchased by the Royal School in 1930.
Gorsty Hayes Cottage in Tettenhall was originally built as a foresters lodge, when Tettenhall was on the boundary of the three Royal forests of Cannock, Brewood and Kinver. It is possible that the building was completed in the sixteenth century.
| Gorsty Hayes |
Bilston's Greyhound and Punchbowl Inn dates from about 1450 and was originally built as a manor house by John de Mollesley when he married the daughter of Edwin de Bilston and called Stowheath Manor. It was at the Manor house that the Royal Commissioners stayed in 1508 when they visited the area to enquire into the state of St. Leonard's Church.
| Greyhound and Punchbowl |
As mentioned earlier Isaac Taylor had assessed the population of Wolverhampton in 1750 to be just under seven and a half thousand.
The first official census of 1801 found over twelve and a half thousand, a great increase in just fifty years. The growth in population was bringing problems as the streets were unpaved, uncleared and unlit, drains or sewers, other than open ditches, did not exist and the water supply was inadequate.
Yet it was no one person's duty to do anything about these things and nobody had the necessary power. In 1777 Parliament passed an Improvement Act for Wolverhampton which appointed 125 Commissioners to run the town, together with the stewards of the old manor of the Deanery and Stowheath.
The Commissioners were named and were all local people with property worth more than £12 per year and owning land or goods worth more than £1000.
Regular meetings were organised for the Commissioners at the Red Lion inn (later to be purchased and demolished to provide the site for the Town Hall next to the Civic Hall).
Each Commissioner was expected to pay sixpence "to be spent in drink for the good of the house."
Despite the "conviviality" of the meetings, the Commissioners did a lot of useful work, including the prohibition of animal slaughtering in the streets, the provision of scavengers to go round the town once a week and "by bell, loud voice or otherwise" inform the inhabitants in courts, passages or places into which carts cannot pass, to bring forth their ashes etc."
By the end of the century the Commissioners had something to show for the work, street lighting had been provided in the form of an oil lamp at every street corner and over the doorway of every inn, householders had to clean the street in front of their houses every Thursday and Saturday (helped by paupers from the poor house) and the streets had been named and John Smith had been paid 2/6d per street for painting the names in white lettering on black boards six inches high.
Water supply had been improved by the sinking of ten new wells and the provision of a great water tank in the market place. Policing had been improved with the appointment of ten watchmen at 8/- per week each, although the watchmen were probably, quite elderly gentlemen.
Despite the 'success' of the Commissioners, more of the people of Wolverhampton were demanding the right to choose who should run the town.
The 1832 Reform Act resulted in Wolverhampton sending two members of Parliament to Westminster for the first time. Encouraged by this, many of the town's leading citizens began to demand borough status for the town.
After a town meeting a "Petition of the householders of the township of Wolverhampton" was duly presented "To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty". On March 15th 1848 Wolverhampton was granted a Charter and officially became a borough governed by a council consisting of a mayor, 36 councillors and 12 aldermen.
The first municipal election was held on May 12th 1848, and an ironmaster, Mr. G.B. Thorneycroft became the first Mayor. It was Mr. Thorneycroft who purchased the mace from St. Haves in Cornwall which became, and still is, the Wolverhampton mace.
It was during the year of the Reform Act that Wolverhampton was affected by its first serious epidemic of cholera with the first case reported on August 8th, four days after the first case reported in Bilston.
Wolverhampton's epidemic was to be far less severe than the Bilsion epidemic.
There had been reports of cholera on the continent during 1831 and as a result Boards of Health were established. The Wolverhampton Board was under the chairmanship of Reverend Clare of St. George's Church.
Also as a further prevention streets were cleared up and lime was made freely available from a coach house owned by Mr. Hills in Pigstye Walk. Unfortunately the measures did not prevent the outbreak.
The first case reported was a man who lived in Brickkiln Street and the whole number of reported cases was 578 with 193 deaths. There were 220 male cases, 219 female cases and 139 children under the age of twelve.
The deaths were 73, 72 and 38 respectively. Many of the dead were buried in St. George's churchyard. This compares "favourably" with the figures for Bilston where there were 3568 cases with 742 deaths.
The distribution of cholera cases in Wolverhampton varied with the more squalid living areas being particularly affected.
One example was the Carribee Island district off Stafford Street, a small alleyway, with a stagnant ditch running along it filled with resident's sewage.
The lane was inhabited by mainly Irish immigrants and the deaths and cases reported were high.
Foundry workers were a group who also suffered heavily from cholera despite their better wages and reasonable living conditions. They worked in extremely, high temperatures and close atmospheres for up to twelve hours and so these men were at risk.
In 1849 there was another cholera epidemic, as a result of which the new Council decided to buy up the Waterworks Company and take charge of the town's water supply. However the Company refused to hand over its lucrative business and a legal wrangle ensued.
The Town Council lost and faced a bill for £6,500.
The amount had to be found by the members of the Council but not one of the members was willing to pay. And so, bailiffs were instructed to seize the property of the town.
At one time or another the bailiffs seized the Town Hall furniture, the Mayor's robes and the mace, even the Town Clerk's pen.
They seized the police barracks, including the policemen's helmets, uniforms and handcuffs. It was said "the policemen were unable to get up for lack of uniforms, or to stay in bed for lack of beds."
The town's fire engine was seized and the whole thing became rather a joke. It was in 1855 that Councillor Edward Perry took on the duties of Mayor and determined to put an end to the activities of the bailiffs. He succeeded by way of a voluntary rate of one shilling in the pound.
By 1868 the town had taken over the water undertaking without any difficulty.
The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had profound effects on Wolverhampton as a part of the Black Country, the industrial heartland of Britain (the workshop of the world).
The successful development of industry depended on many factors one of which was an efficient communication system, and Wolverhampton was at the centre of many of the developments in communication.
The main roads into the town in the late 18th and early 19th centuries were turnpike roads administered by Turnpike Trusts who were allowed to levy a toll which was collected at the Tollgate or Turnpike. Some of the Tollgates into Wolverhampton were the Tettenhall Gate (Chapel Ash), Bilston Street Gate, Willenhall Gate and Compton Gate.
In 1824 the gates at Tettenhall and Bilston Street showed profits of over £1200 each.
The improvement in roads resulted in an increase in the number of stagecoaches and mail coaches. Wolverhampton was served by many famous coaches including Red Rover, Shropshire Hero, Beehive, Royal Dart and Wonder. The Wonder ran daily, from Shrewsbury to London via Wolverhampton, Coventry and St. Albans.
It came up the Tettenhall Road, into Salop Street, round the corner into Cock Street and under the archway entrance into the yard of the New Hotel. Within sixty seconds the passengers would climb aboard, parcels packed, the horses changed and the coach would be out of the yard once again. One Monday in 1838 the Wonder left its London terminus at the same time that a new steam train left Euston. The Wonder beat the train to Birmingham by twenty minutes.
The regular timetable of the Wonder involved its departure from the Bull and Mouth Inn in London at 6.30am, arrival at Coventry at 4.02pm and Wolverhampton at 7.36pm. The fare from Wolverhampton to London was 34/- inside and 17/- outside.
In 1827 coaches were leaving daily, from Wolverhampton for many destinations including Chester, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Holyhead, Newcastle, Bristol, Gloucester and Southampton. However the days of the stage coach were numbered once the railways began to be developed.
While the railways heralded the end of the stage coaches, it encouraged the development of the omnibus since the companies boasted that they met every train.
The communication developments were taking place at a time when the town's industrial involvement was increasing and Wolverhampton was becoming heavily industrialised. However, the industrial history of the town stretches back to a time prior to the Industrial Revolution.
The earliest record of coal mining in the area was in 1273 at Sedgley and in 1665 Dud Dudley estimated that the area was producing about 25,000 tons of coal a year.
By 1750 the area was experiencing the growth of the iron industry and this transformed the coal trade as coal was needed in the production of iron. Canal networks were developed to carry the coal to the furnaces of the Black Country. By 1790 the metal industries of the area alone consumed 845,000 tons of coal and the ironmaster John "Iron Mad" Wilkinson of Bilston was using 800 tons of coal each week.
Before the end of the nineteenth century coal production in the area was over 8 million tons a year. However by the twentieth century many small pits had disappeared.
| The Wolverhampton Art and Industrial exhibition held in West Park in 1902. Local artist, George Phoenix turned his hand to a cartoon to depict local aldermen and councillors "cooling off" on the water chute. (see photograph below) |
In 1709 Abraham Darby succeeded in turning coal into coke for the smelting of iron at Coalbrookdale, and just under fifty years later John Wilkinson introduced coke at his Bradley Furnace at Bilston.
He also used steam power to provide the blast for his furnaces and later, with James Watt and Matthew Boulton, he adapted the steam engine in the forge and rolling mill. Wilkinson was a local hero and after his death local people gathered at Monmore Green and awaited the return of his ghost.
During the nineteenth century there were over 100 furnaces in regular action in the Wolverhampton area, and after 1856 the Bessemer process for making steel was introduced into the area with new steelworks built by Alfred Hickman in Bilston (later to become part of Stewarts and Lloyds).
Tinplate is sheet steel (mild) coated with tin to prevent it from rusting. By the early nineteenth century Wolverhampton was the most important centre for the making of articles from this material. Sometimes these articles were simply painted a plain colour but "japanned" ware became very popular.
Japanning means painting with lacquer and varnishing with a hard varnish (japan). The lacquer was usually black but the goods were decorated with elaborate colourful designs.
One useful sideline for the japanners was the production of papier-mâché work which was not really papier-mâché but the pasting together of sheets of special paper to form a hardboard-like substance. These goods were japanned in the same way as tinplate ware.
They prospered and moved to larger premises, the old workhouse in Horseley Fields. In 1847 John Chubb was appointed "patent lock maker" to Queen Victoria.
At the time of the Great Exhibition (1851) Chubbs were making 30,000 locks a year without using machinery.
| The water chute at the Exhibition of 1902 |
One curious old Wolverhampton industry was the making of steel jewellery. Dr. Plot who was the first great historian of Staffordshire wrote in 1686 that Wolverhampton made things like buckles, sword hilts and jewellery from burnished steel.
In 1770 the first Trade Directory for the town listed 30 "steel toy makers" with "toy" meaning small fashion article or trinket.
The trade flourished until about 1795 and one of the best known jewellery makers, John Worralow, was appointed steel jeweller to George III in 1782. By the end of the century, however, cheaper and quicker methods had been devised, especially at Boulton and Watt's Soho Works in Birmingham.
Once again there are many interesting examples of the work at Bantock House Museum.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century a number of Wulfrunians became
closely involved in the fast developing transport industries including: John
Marston, his son Charles, the Stevens Brothers (see section on Cars/Motorcycles/
Cycles).
First hot-air event
In 1862 two balloonists, Dr. James Glaisher and Henry Tracy Coxwell, rose approximately seven miles into the air, the first major event in Wolverhampton's air history.
| The 1862 ascent - the site of Wolverhampton's
Science Park picture by courtesy of Wolverhampton Library |
However it was in the area of powered flight that the town made its mark. Between the two world wars four airports were opened in the area, at Perton, Cosford, Pendeford and Halfpenny Green.
On the edge of Pendeford airfield the Boulton and Paul factory was opened in 1936 and produced a number of planes and aircraft parts used in World War II.
| The Boulton Paul Defiant. A two-seat fighter with the four-gun armament concentrated in a powered turret. The Defiant was a fine aircraft, but the tactical concept was bad and the weight of the gun turret detoriated performance. After the initial success heavy losses followed; it was then used as a night fighter for some time and later as a target tug. 1064 were built. |
Since the early 1980's both Perton and Pendeford airfields have been the sites of major housing developments.
The town was honoured by the presence of Queen Victoria on only one occasion, in November 1866. However her presence was particularly important since it marked possibly her first public appearance after the death of Prince Albert.
Wolverhampton, like many other towns, erected a statue in honour of the dead Prince Consort and invited the Queen to unveil the sculpture.
Thomas Thorneycroft the sculptor completed the statue on October 1, 1866 at a cost of £l,150 and then it was sent away to be cast in bronze. The statue was put in position on High Green (Queen Square) at the beginning of November.
On November 21, 1866 the Queen accepted the invitation which left just eight days for the visit to be organised.
Houses along the route to be followed were painted and cleaned up. Flags, banners and wreaths were positioned, chinese lanterns were hung, clock faces were decorated and one electric light even appeared outside one shop.
Just outside the Low Level Station a great archway made of lumps of coal and iron bars was erected. One of the lumps of coal weighed four tons.
| The coal arch at the top of Railway Drive on Wednesfield Road. |
Just after 1 p.m. on the afternoon of November 30th, 1866 the royal train arrived, the Royal Standard was erected on St. Peter's Church and a cannon on the racecourse boomed out the news of the Queen's arrival.
The Queen followed a route from the station to Snowhill, down towards Chapel Ash and finally up Darlington Street and into High Green (Queen Square).
A speech was read for the Queen and then she did a most unexpected thing by knighting the Mayor, John Morris.
| Queen Victoria visited Wolverhampton on November 30th 1866 to unveil the statue to Prince Albert. |
After unveiling the statue, and thanking the sculptor, the Queen returned to the station and lunched on roast chickens, boars' heads, oysters, hams, turkeys, veal, pheasants, roast partridges and rabbits. The Queen's train, the Lord of the Isles, left Wolverhampton at 3.30 p.m.
The history of the development of Wolverhampton in the Victorian era has been chronicled by John Wallis.
| Victoria Street as it appeared in 1910, looking down towards Worcester Street. |
During the twentieth century Wolverhampton has continued to grow both in population and in size. The census of 1901 showed the town's population to be 94,187 and by 1951 the figure was 162,672.
One result of the increase in population was a major housing programme which saw a number of council estates being constructed including Warstones and Underhill.
In 1965 it was decided to enlarge the boundaries of several West Midland towns. Thus, in the spring of 1965 five new West Midland towns emerged, Wolverhampton, Walsall, West Bromwich, Dudley and Warley (Sandwell).
The population figures for the new Wolverhampton rose to over a quarter of a million.
Since the growth of Wolverhampton the redevelopment programme has continued with particular examples being the construction of the Mander and Wulfrun Centres as large, comfortable shopping areas, a large number of new secondary schools and the Civic Centre which has brought the administration of the town back to its beginnings on the site of Lady Wulfruna's Heantun.
Sir Richard Leveson
(1570-1605)
Serving as a volunteer under Sir. Francis Drake on the Ark Royal in 1588, Richard Leveson took part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. In 1596 he was knighted by Elizabeth I after taking part in the expedition in which his father-in-law, Lord Howard, attacked and laid seige to Cadiz for two weeks, and in 1603 he was given the title 'Vice Admiral of the Fleet' for life. The same year he was sent to Madrid as a member of the delegation which concluded the peace between England and Spain.
Sir Charles Marston
(1867-1946)
The eldest son of John Marston (the founder of both the Sunbeam Cycle and Motor Car Companies), he entered into the family business in 1885 and was eventually put in charge of the Villiers Cycle Components Company in Villiers Street. This became the mainstay of Charles's business interests and its success enabled him to indulge in his many creative and charitable interests.
Sir Henry Hartley Fowler
(1830-1911)
A former Mayor of the Borough, he became an MP for the town in 1880. He was instrumental in proposing the Wolverhampton Corporation Act which was passed in 1891 and he was made the first Freeman of the Borough the same year. In 1894, he became Secretary of State for India, a position which saw him decorated with the order of the Grand Commander of the Star of India by Queen Victoria.
John Wilkinson
(1728-1808)
Born in Cumberland, John Wilkinson or 'Ironmad Wilkinson' as he became known, was one of the great figures of the early iron industry. He built the first steam powered blast furnace at the Bradley Ironworks, Bilston in 1767 and also helped in the construction of the 'Iron Bridge' which was cast at Coalbrookdale. He was also a great friend of James Watt and helped him with experiments which resulted in the development of the steam engine. His business interests made him a very wealthy man and at one time he offered to pay off the National Debt with his fortune. When he died in 1808, an iron coffin, which he had designed was used to bury him in.
Button Gwinnett
(1735-1777)
One of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, Button Gwinnett lived in Wolverhampton between 1755 and 1762. He married a local girl, Anne Bourne and in 1762 he moved to America. Election as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776 enabled him to become one of the fifty-six signatories of the Declaration.
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Sir Charles Wheeler
(1892-1974)
The first sculptor ever to be elected President of the Royal Academy of Arts, he was born in Codsall in 1892. He first studied at the Wolverhampton School of Art under Robert Emerson and later at the Royal College of Art. Examples of his work can he seen addorning many London buildings including the Bank of England, India House and South Africa House. He also sculpted the statue of Lady Wulfruna which stands outside St. Peter's Church in Wolverhampton.
Jonathan Wild
(1683-1725)
Self-penned Chief Thieftaker General of Great Britain and Ireland, Jonathan Wild was born in Wolverhampton in 1683 and lived here until 1709 when he moved to London. He became famous as a dealer in stolen property and later as an organiser of gangs of thieves, by informing on certain criminals the authorities were prepared to tolerate his activities (hence the nickname). His past eventually caught up with him and he was executed on May 24th 1725.
Sir Charles Villiers
(1802-1898)
A Member of Parliament for sixty three years, Charles Pelham Villiers holds the record for being the longest serving MP in Parliamentary history. From 1835-1885, he sat as MP for the single constituency of Wolverhampton and then from 1885 until his death in 1898 as MP for Wolverhampton South (Bilston).
Dame Maggie Teyte
(1888-1876)
One of the great opera singers of the 20th Century. Her father, owned the Old Still Inn in King Street, Maggie was sent to the Royal College of Music and later to Paris to study under Jean de Reszke. In 1908 she was selected to sing the title role of Melisande at the Opera de Comique in Paris, a role which was effectively the beginning of an opera career which lasted for nearly sixty years.
