The Annals of Willenhall Part 20

The estate seems to have descended to him from his grandfather, to whom it had been granted in the reign of Edward II.; and it is noteworthy that his wife, Alianora, was a Leveson.

In 1421 William Griffiths established his right to Bentley, and in 1430 it was conveyed to Richard Lone de la Hide. Of the family of this Richard Lone of the Hyde there were afterwards two branches; one, the Hamptons, of Stourton Castle, and the other, the Lanes, of Bentley.

The halo of romance which grew up around Bentley Hall during the seigniory of the Lanes is well known. It was the scene of Charles II.'s wonderful escape from the Roundheads, under the protection of Jane Lane, whom he was afterwards wont to call his "Guardian Angel"; it was the critical scene of John Wesley's adventure in the hands of the Wednesbury mob. The mansion has since been rebuilt.

The Lanes sold the Manor of Bentley in 1748 to Joseph Turton, of Wolverhampton, and he in turn sold it to the first Lord Anson, ancestor of the present holder.

The Manor comprises 1,200 acres, none of which is now copyhold. There was formerly a Court Leet jurisdiction, but everything connected with ancient manorial government has disappeared. The Earl of Lichfield is sole owner, except for a few acres belonging to the church, and the portions which have been acquired by the local authority for the Cemetery and the Sewerage Works.

Bentley is a parish without a church, or a chapel, and until the Willenhall District Council recently made a Cemetery there, it was also without a burial ground.

Bentley has but a scant population, and contains not a single inn. Its living history seems to have centred almost entirely round the old family mansion of the Lanes.

In 1660 a tax was levied on the fire-hearth of every dwelling-house, and the amount collected under this grievous impost in Willenhall was returned as 9 14s. 3d., representing 97 hearths. These figures seem to indicate that in the reign of Charles II. the population of the place, including the large hall at Bentley, could not have exceeded 500.

XXVI.-Modern Self-Government.

For centuries the Manorial and the Parochial forms of government ran together side by side in this country, till these two antiquated ideas of feudal lords.h.i.+p and church temporalities had to give way before the growing democratic principle of elective representation, and they were eventually supplanted by the modern methods of popular self-government.

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. This was superseded when the Wolverhampton Union was const.i.tuted in 1834.

In 1776 the sum of 294 14s. 3d. had to be collected for poor rates in Willenhall, a sum which by 1785 had grown to 548 14s. 2d., and which for some years later averaged upwards of 500.

The Vestry, or public a.s.sembly of paris.h.i.+oners, would supplement these feeble efforts at local government by choosing not only Chapelwardens, but Parish Constables and the Waywardens. The custody of the stocks was entrusted to the former, while the latter were supposed to superintend the amateur efforts of the paris.h.i.+oners to repair their own highways, every one being then liable to furnish either manual labour or team work for this laudable public purpose.

Publicly elected and unsalaried Waywardens were naturally but feeble instruments to work with; so in the early nineteenth century, when coaching was at its zenith, this antiquated and ineffective system was superseded in Willenhall, as in many other places, by an elected Highway Board, charged with the duty of looking after all highways and common streets, ancient bridges, ditches, and watercourses. In a dilettante sort of way this Board was also a sanitary body.

In 1734 Willenhall is recorded to have suffered from a plague called the "b.l.o.o.d.y flux," which carried away its victims in a very few hours after the seizure. It is stated in the Parish Registers that there were buried in this year 82 persons, which was 67 in excess of the previous year.

The population then was under 1,000.

Cholera and other epidemic scourges having made it apparent that beyond preserving the peace and mending the roads, the paramount duty of local self-government was to protect the people's health, Willenhall in 1854 showed itself alive to this fact by adopting the new Public Health Acts and calling into being its first Local Board.

Nothing can convey an idea of the material blessings which resulted from this better than a glance at the vital statistics relating to Willenhall.

The death-rate per thousand-

From 1845 to 1851 was 29 ,, 1851 ,, 1860 ,, 26.8 ,, 1861 ,, 1870 23.8 1891 ,, 1900 ,, 20.2 1901 1906 16.9

It was not till 1866, however, that the Board appointed its first medical officer of health, Dr. Parke. He was shortly afterwards succeeded by Mr.

William Henry Hartill, and upon his death, in 1888, the present medical officer of heath, Dr. J. T. Hartill, was appointed. The chief executive officers in succession have been Mr. E. Wilc.o.x (who was not a solicitor), Mr. John Clark, and the present clerk, Mr. Rowland Tildesley, appointed in 1894.

In the meantime the population, particularly in the newer outlying districts, had been growing rapidly. The population of Willenhall at the first national census in 1801 was only 3,143, and the growth in the early decades was slow, as these figures disclose:

In 1811 the population was 3,523 ,, 1821 3,965 ,, 1831 5,834 1841 8,695 ,, 1851 11,933 ,, 1861 17,256

With the growth thus becoming so rapid, it was thought desirable, in 1872, to erect Short Heath into a separate Sanitary Authority. The area allotted to the Short Heath Board of Health was that north of the Birmingham Ca.n.a.l, but the village of Short Heath itself remained part of the Towns.h.i.+p of Willenhall.

The census returns for Willenhall, minus Short Heath, have

1871 it had a population of 15,903 1881 16,067 1891 16,851 1901 18,515

After the pa.s.sing of Sir H. H. Fowler's Local Government Act in 1895, both authorities became Urban District Councils. Short Heath then as a separate towns.h.i.+p had its area extended to take in Short Heath village, with New Invention, Lanehead, Sandbeds, Lucknow, Fibbersley, in addition to the former Local Board district, together with a slice from the old Wednesfield Local Board district added on its Essington side.

No part of what used to be called Stow Heath was in Willenhall Towns.h.i.+p, the extreme western boundary of the latter being Stow Heath Lane.

Modern Willenhall, although without public parks or pleasure grounds, and not yet possessing public baths, is fairly well equipped for its size and rateable value. It has its Public Offices, but no Town Hall; it has a Free Library, established in 1875, and a full complement of efficient primary schools. In 1877 it established its own School Board under the Act of 1870, but under the later Act of 1902 its educational affairs became vested in the Staffords.h.i.+re County Council.

Willenhall had its own Waterworks at Monmore Lane as early as 1852; it now takes its supply from the Wolverhampton Corporation, who purchased the old works in 1868. Its old Gas Works in Lower Lichfield Street have been taken over by Short Heath; and Willenhall is now supplied by the Willenhall Gas Company, the present system of public street lighting being that of the very efficient incandescent burner.

The Sewerage of the town was completed in 1890. There are two public cemeteries; the Old Cemetery provided about 1851 under the Burial Acts, and the newer one at Bentley, established under the Act of 1879.

The Police are, as in most towns.h.i.+ps, under the control of the Staffords.h.i.+re County Council; and Petty Sessions are held once a week (on Mondays). Seventy years ago Willenhall had a Court of Requests for the recovery of debts up to 5.

For Parliamentary representation Willenhall formed a portion of Staffords.h.i.+re till the great Reform Bill of 1832 made Wolverhampton a borough, when it became part of that more important urban const.i.tuency.

For communication with the outer world Willenhall has had the advantage of the London and North-Western Railway from the earliest possible time-since the "Grand Junction Railway" (commenced in 1835) was opened to public traffic on July 4th, 1837. Great were the rejoicings, and prodigious the wonderment when the first train pa.s.sed through on that memorable day. Since the later decades of the last century the Midland Railway has also tapped Willenhall.

The town is equally well supplied with tramways; the Wolverhampton District Electric Tramways, Limited, controlling three lines, to Wolverhampton, to Bilston, and Darlaston respectively; while the Walsall Corporation afford facilities for communication with their thriving and go-ahead borough. It is worthy of note that the old-fas.h.i.+oned carrier's cart is not obsolete in Willenhall; this is probably because its staple industries provide so many small parcels for transmission to Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and other centres not too far distant.

The Wyrley and Essington Ca.n.a.l for heavy traffic was made in 1792, and is still a useful highway, particularly to the Cannock Chase Collieries.

[Picture: Decorative design]

XXVII.-The Town of Locks and Keys.

Willenhall is "the town of locks and keys"; its staple industry has been described in such graceful and felicitous terms by Elihu Burritt (see his "Walks in the Black Country," pp. 206214, written in 1868) that the present writer at once confesses the inadequacy of his poor pen to say anything new on the subject, engaging as it is.

The great American writer, be it noted, does not fail at the very outset to pay a well-deserved tribute to James Carpenter Tildesley, as the foremost authority on the subject, and compliments him on the versatility displayed in his article on Locks and Keys, contributed to that co-operative literary work, "Birmingham and the Midland Hardware District," which was specially issued for the British a.s.sociation meeting at Birmingham in 1865.

The lockmakers of antiquity worked in wood and not in metal, a key consisting of hard wood pegs being made to turn in a wooden lock of loose pegs. The Romans first introduced the iron key with wards instead of pegs.

The subject is full of interest; for lock-making is among the most ancient of the mechanical crafts, and has for centuries afforded a wide and ample scope as one of the branches of industrial art. As in many other industrial crafts the religious enthusiasm of the Middle Ages impelled the artist-mechanic to throw his whole soul into the manipulation and adornment of his keys, key-hole escutcheons, and other parts of door-fastening furniture. With his steel pencil and gravers, his chisels and his drills, the craftsman of olden times produced an article of utility which was at the same time a work of art. Will the Art Cla.s.ses of modern Willenhall be able to achieve as much for the staple industry of the town as did the whole-souled enthusiasm of the Middle Ages?

The Gothic key, usually of iron or of bronze, was generally plain; but after the Renaissance the best efforts of the locksmiths' art were directed to the decoration of the bow and the shaft, and many finely wrought specimens of ornamental old keys are still in existence.

On the utilitarian side of our subject, industrial history records that we are indebted to the Chinese for unpickable locks of the lever and tumbler principle; and to the Dutch for the combination or letter-lock.

The latter ingenious contrivance contained four revolving rings, on which were engraved the letters of the alphabet, and they had to be turned in such a way as to spell some pre-arranged word of four letters, as O P E N, or A M E N, before the lock could be opened.

Allusion to this complex contrivance is made by the poet Carew in some verses written in the year 1620-

As doth a lock That goes with letters-for till every one be known The lock's as fast as if you had found none.