Willenhall

“ But a chapel-of-ease like Willenhall, built by a resident in the locality, often had its minister, maintained by the subscriptions of persons living close around it, and they naturally claimed to elect their own ministers. The authorities at the mother church would reserve the right to approve and confirm, and would see that they suffered no loss of fees and other emoluments.
p. 99An old book in the Registry at Windsor (without date) contains this entry:—
The curacy of Willenhall is endowed with land to the value of £35. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Settles in Mumber Lane, Staffordshire, near Willenhall. My informant of Dudley caused it to be found, and wrote as follows:—
p. 174“‘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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The other side were employing forced labour for strengthening the defence of Dudley Castle, and not improbably the Leveson tenants from Wednesfield and Willenhall were impressed to go up there equipped with spade and mattock.
Doubtless troops and detachments of armed men were frequently to be seen passing through Willenhall; while Wolverhampton, owing to the influence of the Levesons and the Goughs, was almost a Royalist rallying place. ”

“ The Swynnerton interest in Willenhall transpires again in 1364, when John de Swynnerton is found suing two Willenhall men for forcibly and feloniously removing some of his goods and chattels from that place.
p. 39In the previous reign—that of Henry III.—numerous fines for illegal enclosures of Cannock Forest had been imposed upon landowners in this locality. Among them were Stephen de Hulton (or Hilton) , and John, his son, “of Wednesfield,” who had enclosed with a hedge and a ditch three acres of heath in Wednesfield, which they held under the Dean of Wolverhampton. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But Willenhall never was a parish. It is merely a member of a parish—of the extensive, the straggling, and loosely-knit parish of Wolverhampton. In Wolverhampton, three miles away, was located the mother church, to which it owed spiritual allegiance, and there was situated the Vestry for parochial assemblies, and all else that stood for self-government throughout the centuries. And those were the centuries when Church and State were indissolubly bound together; when a dominant church claimed, and was recognised as having an inalienable share in the government of the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Between Darlaston and Willenhall, particularly, there seems to have existed some sort of pretensions to a clerical inter-relationship.
The Rev. Titus Neve, who held the living of Willenhall from about 1748 to 1788, acted as Curate of Darlaston in 1760, and became Rector of that parish in 1764; while his son, the Rev. Charles Neve, was also Curate there from 1790 to 1793. The Willenhall record of his ministry and interment runs:—
The Revd. ”

“ Titus Neve, Minister, Curate, or Stipendiary Priest of Willenhall Chapelry, Prebendary of Hilton and Sacrist of the Collegiate Church of Wolverhampton, and Rector of Darlaston, in the County of Stafford, departed this life December 23rd, 1788, and was interred in the Chancel.
His successor, the Rev. William Moreton, went as Curate to Darlaston in 1786, and was sequestered to the vacant chapelry of Willenhall, December 24th, 1788, the day following Mr. Neve’s decease. ”

“ By this time the Leveson family seems to have been not only firmly established in and around Willenhall, Wednesfield, and Wolverhampton, but to have been very numerous as well. Originally yeomen of the first-named place, cultivating their lands within the precincts of the Royal Forest of Cannock, they gradually grew and prospered, one branch taking advantage of the greater commercial opportunities offered by the last-named town, and settling there as merchants and wool-staplers. ”

“ To these disturbing influences must be added the barbarous severity of the laws of the chase, the vindictive nature of which sometimes made the heavy feudal chains of the common people almost too grievous to be borne. As Willenhall was on the confines of the Royal Forest of Cannock, the oppressive nature of the Forest Laws was not unfelt by the inhabitants of this secluded hamlet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Willenhall’s most illustrous son was Dr. Richard Wilkes, Antiquary, whose house still stands on the Walsall Road. He came of good family of county rank, and his personal character raised him to the eminence of a notability in Staffordshire. His portrait appears in Shaw’s history of this county of which his (Wilkes’) valuable and voluminous MSS. formed the nucleus. Though settled in this locality, adding to their little patrimony from time to time for 300 or 400 years, the family came originally from Hertfordshire. ”

“ 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, p. 161and 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. ”

“ Willenhall was affected by the Reformation from two directions; first, through the mother church of Wolverhampton, of which collegiate establishment it formed a portion; secondly, through its own chapel and the endowed chantry established therein.
The great ecclesiastical upheaval of the sixteenth century had its precursor in the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII. The rumble of the coming storm warned the secular or non-monastic foundations that it would be prudent to set their houses in order if they were to safeguard their revenues ”

“ Heretofore, too, it was usual to pay their respect to such wells as were eminent for curing distempers (one of which was at Wolverhampton in a narrow lane leading to a house, called Sea-well; another at Willenhall; others at Monmore Green, near Wolverhampton; at Codsall and many other parts of Staffordshire) on the saint’s day whose name the well bore; diverting themselves with cakes and ale, and a little music and dancing ”

“ The sacrist was also a cleric, but his duties were more generally concerned with the college establishment.
A prebendary, it may be explained, is one who enjoys a prebend or canonical portion; that is, who receives in right of his place, a share out of the common stock of the church for his maintenance. Each prebend of Wolverhampton church was endowed with the income arising from the lands from which it took its name; as, the prebend of Willenhall. In the course of time the tithes derivable from these lands became alienated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to the adjoining hamlet, it may be mentioned that Domesday Book formally recorded the canons of Wolverhampton to possess “five hides of Wednesfelde; the arable land is three carucates; that there are six villeins, and six bordars, who have six carucates; and that there is a wood in which cattle are pastured, half a mile long and three furlongs broad.”
Such was life in Willenhall and Wednesfield at the Norman period, both places being then overshadowed in more senses than one by the severely protected royal preserves of Cannock Forest. ”

“ In founding her noble church at Wolverhampton, Wulfruna endowed it with thirteen estates, including lands in Willenhall, Wednesfield, Pelsall, Essington, Hilton, Walsall, Featherstone, Hatherton, Kinvaston, Bilston, and Arley. ”

“ He is to be approved of by the lords of the manor, and admonished by them when he does amiss; and if he does not amend in half a year, they may turn him out and nominate another.
This practice is believed to have existed in Willenhall since the time of James I.
The power of the parishioners to elect their own clergymen, though not common, exists in various parts of the country; as at Hayfield and Chapel-in-le-Frith, both in Derbyshire; and in this more immediate locality at St. John’s Deritend, Birmingham, and at Bilston and Bloxwich, nearer still. ”

“ 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. ”