The Annals of Willenhall by Frederick William Hackwood (13 ebook reader TXT) 📕

The son of the third Earl of Gosford disposed of it to James Toovey, the famous London bookseller, for 470 pounds in 1884; and soon afterwards Mr. Buckley obtained the folio. It measures 12.875in. by 8.25in., 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.

[Picture: Neptune Inn]

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.

[Picture: Bell Inn]

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).

[Picture: Old Bull's Head]

"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.

[Picture: The Plough]

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.

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 mediaeval 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