The Annals of Willenhall Part 24

The Plough Inn, Stafford Street, is less old than the others, and of more doubtful interest. It has been completely altered within recent years; in the old days when prisoners consigned to Stafford Gaol had to walk, it was the place of the final drink before starting, and marked the limits of the town till Little London began.

The Bull's head Inn, Wolverhampton Street, is supposed to be the alehouse referred to in Borrow's romantic tale of Romany life, "Lavengro."

The Waterglade Tavern marked the spot on the road between the two old-world villages of Willenhall and Bilston, where it dipped to the bed of the stream.

The Woolpack Inn, at Short Heath, is one of the oldest licensed houses in that locality.

The First and Last Inn, New Invention, was so dubbed because at one time it was the first licensed house when approaching from Wednesfield, and the last when going the other way out.

The sign rhymes of Willenhall belong to the hackneyed type. The Gate Inn, New Invention, has the well-known couplet:-

This Gate hangs well and hinders none: Refresh and pay and travel on.

The Lame Dog Inn, at Short Heath, is not very original with:-

Step in, my friends, and stop a while, To help a lame dog over the stile.

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.

[Picture: Decorative design]

x.x.xI.-Old Families and Names of Note.

To not a few of the old names of those who have lived their lives in Willenhall, and left their mark indelibly fixed upon its annals, attention has already been paid in treating of the various matters with which their respective life-work was a.s.sociated. It remains here only to add a few more names to our list of Willenhall worthies, and to supplement a few biographical details to those already mentioned.

The index to the names of landowners would be incomplete without that of Offley. In the year 1555 Alderman Offley, a citizen of London, acquired lands in "Willenhall, otherwise Wilnall." About the same date this opulent merchant became lord of the manor of Darlaston. (See History of Darlaston, pp. 3940.)

An important old Willenhall family, as may have been gathered in the course of these Annals, was that of Hincks. Their family residence still stands in Bilston Street, near to the Market Place; a descendant, and apparently the only representative of the Hincks family surviving is Mrs.

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.

John Austin, the tradesman, who first issued the "Willenhall farthings,"

mentioned in Chapter XXVII., was an enterprising tradesman, a man of handsome presence and of an alert mind. On leaving Willenhall he went to live at Manor House, Allscott, near Wellington, at which town he established artificial manure works, and where he manufactured sulphuric acid very extensively.

The issue of the Willenhall trade farthings was continued by Rushbrooke, his successor in the business (1853), though the original date, "1844"

was always retained upon them. They were sold to shopkeepers and traders all round the district at the rate of 5s. nominal for 4s. 9d. cash. When the new national bronze coinage came into circulation in 1860, large quant.i.ties of these copper farthing tokens were returned on to Mr Rushbrooke's hands, but he melted them down without sustaining the least loss.

[Picture: Josiah Tildesley, Senr. Prominent Wesleyan and Highly Esteemed Townsman]

The Hartill family has long been settled in Willenhall. George Hartill married Isabel Cross, at St. Peter's Church, Wolverhampton, in 1662. All their nine children were baptised at St. Giles's Church, Willenhall. The present Dr. J. T. Hartill is descended directly from Richard, fifth son of the above, and his grandfather, Isaac Hartill, inter-married with Ann Hartill, a descendant of the said George Hartill's second son.

[Picture: James Tildesley. Large Employer of Labour, Proprietor of Summerford Works]

The social rank of the Hartills since their residence in Willenhall has been that of tradesmen or professional men, manufacturers, or small property owners, but always educated up to the standard of the period in which they lived. In 1826 Jeremiah Hartill established himself in medical practice, joined in 1861 by his nephew, William Henry Hartill, and in 1869 by the latter's brother, Dr. J. T. Hartill. The arms and crest borne by the last-named were formally granted him in 1896; but the same coat without the crest had always been used by his uncle Jeremiah, and that on a claim of inheritance from the ancient lords of the manor of Hartill, in Ches.h.i.+re, to whom it had been granted by King John. These particular arms have not been officially recorded at the College of Heralds since 1580, but a very similar coat was used by a member of this family in 1703.

[Picture: Jeremiah Hartill, Surgeon. Agitated for Easier Enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of Copyholds]

The Willenhall Hartills migrated here from the neighbourhood of Kinver, Wolverley, and Kidderminster. There are still Hartills of the old stock resident in the Kinver district, and from them are descended Mrs.

Shakespeare, wife of the well-known Birmingham solicitor; and Mrs.

Showell, wife of the late Walter Showell, the founder of the eminent firm of Black Country brewers, who was once a Parliamentary candidate for one of the divisions of Birmingham. The Hartills of Kinver are related to the Hartills of Kingsbury, and there has always been a great similarity in the Christian names borne by the old Kingsbury, Kinver, and Willenhall Hartills. The steeple of Polesworth church was built by the last Sir Richard Hartill, 13771379, and below the tower battlements is carved upon a large s.h.i.+eld the arms of this benefactor, which are identical with those of the late Dr. Jeremiah Hartill of Willenhall.

[Picture: John Austin of the Albion Mill, who issued the Farthing Tokens]

Mr. Henry Vaughan, the founder of the largest business concern in the town, has done a large amount of public work in various capacities, but chiefly as a magistrate, a member of the defunct School Board, and more recently as a County Councillor.

[Picture: George Ley Pearce. Prominent Wesleyan and Philanthropic Worker]

Among the justices who have sat on the Willenhall Bench and possessed other connections with the place may be mentioned the late N. Neal Solly, ironmaster, two water-colour drawings by whom hang on the walls of the Free Library; the late Rev. G. H. Fisher, who was chairman; R. D. Gough, a brother of the late Colonel Foster Gough, and who married the rich and benevolent Mary Clemson, daughter of John Clemson, a corn miller, of this towns.h.i.+p; while among the most recent appointments are Clement Tildesley, Thomas Vaughan, and Thomas Kidson. The present Clerk to the Willenhall Bench is Samuel Mills Slater, in succession to his father, the late James Slater, of Bescot Hall.

A memorial tablet to the local men who fell in the Boer War has been erected at the gateway to the Old Cemetery.

[Picture: Decorative design]

x.x.xII.-Manners and Customs.

The Manners and Customs of the people of Willenhall have been those held in common with the populace of the surrounding parishes, and which have been dealt with too fully in the published writings of Mr. G. T. Lawley to need more than a brief review here.

The seasonal custom of Well Dressing has been alluded to in Chapter XVII., and of Beating the Bounds in Chapter V. Other ancient customs of minor import existed, but s.p.a.ce cannot be found to treat them in a general history.

The social calibre of the people a century or so ago may be gauged by a local ill.u.s.tration of the custom of Wife Selling.

This practice was once common enough everywhere, and amongst the ignorant and illiterate in some parts it is still held to be a perfectly legitimate transaction. From the "Annual Register" this local instance has been clipped:-

"Three men and three women went to the Bell Inn, Edgbaston Street, Birmingham, and made the following singular entry in the toll book which is kept there: August 31, 1773, Samuel Whitehouse, of the Parish of Willenhall, in the county of Stafford, this day sold his wife, Mary Whitehouse, in open market, to Thomas Griffiths, of Birmingham, value one s.h.i.+lling. To take her with all her faults.

(Signed) Samuel Whitehouse.

Mary Whitehouse.

Voucher, Thomas Buckley, of Birmingham."

The parties were all exceedingly well pleased, and the money paid down for the toll as for a regular purchase.

So much for the moral status of the people; now to consider them from the industrial side.

The older generation of Willenhall men were accustomed, ere factory Acts and kindred forms of parental legislation had regulated working hours and otherwise ameliorated the conditions of labour, to slave for many weary hours in little domiciliary workshops. Boys were then apprenticed at a tender age, and soon became humpbacked in consequence of throwing in the weight of their little bodies in the endeavour to eke out the strength of the feeble thews and bones in their immature arms.

In those days men worked when they liked, and played when it suited them; they generally played the earlier days of the week, even if at the end they worked night and day in the attempt to average the weekly earnings.

In this connection it has been suggested that in pre-Reformation times Willenhall folk duly honoured St. Sunday and well as St. Monday, consecrating both days to the sacred cause of weekly idleness. Or was Willenhall's Holy Well dedicated to St. Dominic, and came by grammatical error to be called St. Sunday? As thus-Sanctus Dominicus abbreviated first to Sanc. Dominic, and then extended in the wrong gender to Sancta Dominica, otherwise Saint Sunday? Who shall say? It may have been so.