Transcribed from the 1908 Whitehead Bros. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

[Copyright]

The
Annals of Willenhall

—by—

Frederick Wm. Hackwood

AUTHOR OF

“The Chronicles of Cannock Chase,” “Wednesbury Ancient and Modern,”
“The Story of the Black Country,” “Staffordshire Stories,”
&c., &c.

“I cannot tell by what charm our native soil captivates us,
and does not allow us to be forgetful of it.”

—Ovid.

Wolverhampton:
whitehead bros.,
St. John’s Square and King Street.

1908.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

I.—Its Name and Its Antiquity

Willenhall, vulgo Willnal, is undoubtedly a place of great antiquity; on the evidence of its name it manifestly had its foundation in an early Saxon settlement. The Anglo-Saxon form of the name Willanhale may be interpreted as “the meadow land of Willa”—Willa being a personal name, probably that of the tribal leader, the head of a Teutonic family, who settled here. In the Domesday Book the name appears as Winehala, but by the twelfth century had approached as near to its modern form as Willenhal and Willenhale.

Dr. Oliver, in his History of Wolverhampton, derives the name from Velen, the Sun-god, and the Rev. H. Barber, of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, who tries to find a Danish origin for nearly all our old Midland place-names, suggests the Norse form Vil-hjalmr; or perhaps a connection with Scandinavian family names such as Willing and Wlmer.

Dr. Barber fortifies himself by quoting Scott:—

Beneath the shade the Northmen came,
Fixed on each vale a Runic name.

Rokeby, Canto, IV.

Here it may not be out of place to mention that Scandinavian influences are occasionally traceable throughout the entire basin of the Trent, even as far as this upper valley of its feeder, the Tame. The place-name Bustleholme (containing the unmistakable Norse root, “holme,” indicating a river island) is the appellation of an ancient mill on this stream, just below Wednesbury. In this connection it is interesting to recall Carlyle’s words. In his “Hero Worship,” the sage informs us of a mode of speech still used by the barge men of the Trent when the river is in a highly flooded state, and running swiftly with a dangerous eddying swirl.

The boatmen at such times will call out to each other, “Have a care! there is the Eager coming!” This, says Carlyle, is a relic of Norse mythology, coming down to us from the time when pagan boatmen on the Trent believed in that Northern deity, Aegir, the God of the Sea Tempest, whose name (as he picturesquely puts it) “survives like the peak of a submerged world.” This by the way.

Willenhall, however, was situated outside the Danelagh, the western boundary of which was the Watling Street; indeed, the place nomenclature of this locality affords very few examples which are really traceable to the Danish occupation—an almost solitary specimen being the aforementioned name of Bustleholme, near the Delves.

The etymological derivation which has found most favour in times past is that based on the erroneous Domesday form, Winehala. Perhaps Stebbing Shaw is responsible for this, as in his history of the county, written 1798, he says:—“As Wednesbury is but two miles, and Wednesfield but one mile from hence, it is probable that this name might be changed for that of Winehale, from the Saxon word for victory, when that great battle was fought hereabout in 911.”

Of this battle, and the victory or “win” which the founding of Willenhall was supposed to commemorate, some account will be given in the next chapter. But the hypothesis of Shaw, and those who adopted his view, apparently involved the supposition that the earliest mention of Willenhall was of a date subsequent to 911 a.d.; but thanks to the recent researches of our eminent local historiographer, Mr. W. H. Duignan, F.S.A. (of Walsall), that position is no longer tenable.

There is in existence a couple of charters dated a.d. 732 (or 733; certainly before the year 734) which were executed by Ethelbald, King of Mercia, at a place named therein as “Willanhalch.”

Mr. Duignan says the Mercian kings frequently reside in this part of their dominions, as at Kingsbury, Tamworth, and Penkridge; probably for the convenience of hunting in Cannock

Forest, within the boundaries of which Willenhall was anciently located.

Virtually the two charters are one, the same transaction being recorded by careful and punctilious scribes in duplicate; and their purport was to benefit Mildrith, now commonly called St. Mildreda, one of the grand-daughters of King Penda, and probably one of the few canonised worthies who can be claimed as natives of this county-area. She was the Abbess of Minstrey, in the Isle of Thanet, and “sinful Ethelbald,” as he humbly styles himself, remits certain taxes and makes certain grants to her newly-founded abbey, all for the good of his soul. These duplicated documents were published in the original Latin in Kemble’s “Codex Diplomaticus” in 1843, by Thorpe in his “Diplomatarium Anglicum” in 1865, and again in Birch’s “Chartularium Saxonicum” in 1885.

The internal evidence contained in them is to this effect:—“This was executed on the 4th day of the Kalends of November, in the 22nd year of my reign, being the fifteenth decree made in that place which is called Willanhalch.” Not one of these three authorities, although in the habit of doing so wherever they can offer an opinion with any reasonable degree of certainty, has ventured to suggest the modern name and identity of the “place called Willanhalch.” But Mr. Duignan, with the ripe knowledge and almost unerring judgment he possesses in such matters, has no hesitation whatever in identifying the place as Willenhall. As he says, there is no other place-name in Mercia, or even in England, which could possibly be represented by Willanhalch.

Undoubtedly there is another Willenhall. It is a hamlet in the parish of Holy Trinity, Coventry, and its name was anciently spelt Wylnhale. But the history of the place is naturally involved in that of the city of Coventry, as the hamlet never had any separate and independent existence like that of our Staffordshire township. Any charter emanating from this place would indubitably be dated “Coventry.”

The suggestion of Shaw that the name was changed cannot be entertained for one moment; the Anglo-Saxons were not in the

habit of changing place-names, but they were very much addicted to the practice of “calling their lands after their own names.” Dr. Willmore, in his “History of Walsall” (p. 30) adopts the now discarded derivation of the name of Willenhall. He says “After the defeat a great feast of rejoicing was held by the Saxons at Winehala, the Hall of Victory, and the event was long celebrated by the national poets.”

To identify the “Hall of Victory” with Willenhall the Walsall historian proceeds:—“At Lowhill may still be seen the remains of a large tumulus, while in Wrottesley Park are the vestiges of a large encampment, believed by some authorities to be of Danish construction, and to have been occupied by them about the time of these engagements.”

Yet in the next paragraph it is admitted that the Danes never gained a permanent footing in this locality, and that there is scarce a name of purely Danish origin in the neighbourhood.

“Willenhalch,” then, may be accepted as signifying in Anglo-Saxon “the meadowland of Willan,” Willan (not Willen) being a personal name, and halch being a form of healh, signifying “enclosed land on the banks of a stream,” as, for instance, on the Willenhall Brook.

Any ancient place-name terminating in “halch” would, in the course of time, terminate in “hall,” a termination now commonly construed as “hall,” or “mansion.” There is nothing inherently improbable in Willenhall having been a temporary royal residence. King John in much later times had his hunting lodge at Brewood. Bushbury, originally Bishopsbury, was so called because one of the early Mercian bishops is said to have made this place his episcopal residence. Attention has been called to the fact that in this vicinity a number of place-names end in “hall,” as Willenhall, Tettenhall, Walsall, Pelsall, and Rushall. The inference drawn is that each of these places marks the settlement of some pioneer Anglican chieftain, or, as Dr. Oliver puts it, the mansion and estate of some Saxon thane.

II.—The Battle of Wednesfield.

Although it cannot be admitted that the Battle of Wednesfield, or the great national victory gained on that occasion, provided Willenhall with its name, the event itself may certainly be regarded as the chief historical episode which has occurred in this immediate vicinity. This was “far back in the olden time” when, says the local poetess—

The Danes lay camped on Woden’s field.

Dr. Willmore, in his “History of Walsall” (p. 30), quotes an authority to the effect that the battle fought at Wednesfield in the year 911 “had the important consequence of freeing England from the attacks of these formidable invaders.”

This engagement was one of the many which took place between the Saxon and the Dane for dynastic supremacy. Even the mighty prowess of Alfred the Great had failed to give the quietus to Danish pretensions, and his son, Edward the Elder, was engaged in a life-long struggle with the Danes, in the course of which the Princess Ethelfleda, who was Edward’s sister, and Great Alfred’s daughter, erected castles at Bridgnorth, Stafford, Warwick, Tamworth, and Wednesbury. Edward the Elder had to combat Welsh invasions as well as Danish aggressiveness, and hence the erection of these castles in Mercia, where most of the minor fighting in that disturbed period occurred. For nine years Ethelfleda fought side by side with her husband Ethelred, Earl of Mercia, in the pitiless struggle; and upon his death, continuing as her brother’s viceroy, she proved herself one of the ablest women warriors this country has ever known.

In 910 (the Saxon Chronicle informs us) a battle of more than ordinary moment was fought at Tettenhall. The Danes were returning from a raid, laden with rich spoils, when they were overtaken at this spot by the Angles, on the 5th day of August, and there signally defeated. It was to avenge this disaster that the Danes swooped down the following summer from the north, and met their antagonists exactly on the same day of the year, and almost on the same ground. The latter fact may possibly

indicate that there was some strategic importance in the locality. Wednesfield being almost within hail of Tettenhall; though the better informed writers, including Mr. James P. Jones, the historian of Tettenhall, have been led to consider the two battles as one engagement.

As a matter of fact, the exact site of the Tettenhall engagement is not known, yet one historian has not hesitated to represent the nature of the conflict as being “so terrible that it could not be described by the most exquisite pen.” It seems to have been an engagement of that old-time ferocity which is so exultantly proclaimed in the ancient war song:—

We there, in strife bewild’ring,
Spilt blood enough to swim in:
We orphaned many children,
We widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen:
The heroes and the cravens,
The spearmen and the bowmen.

According to Fabius Ethelwerd it was a national and a most memorable fight which occurred at Wednesfield, where three Danish chieftains fell in the conflict; in support of which statement it is mentioned that the Lows, or monumental burial grounds, of the mighty dead are to be found at Wednesfield and Wrottesley. But Wrottesley is nearer to Tettenhall than to Wednesfield. The number of tumuli which once lay scattered over the entire range of this district may perhaps be accountable for the variations in the mediæval chronicles. As we shall see, while it is well agreed that the country lying between Tettenhall and Wombourn on the one hand, and Wednesfield and Willenhall on the other, was the scene of a great struggle, the details of the conflict vary very materially at the hands of different chroniclers. A valuable collection of old records and historical documents relating to this locality was made by John Huntbach, of Featherstone and Seawall, near Wolverhampton, nephew and pupil to that noted antiquary, Sir William Dugdale. The Huntbach MSS. related more directly to Seisdon; and it was this collection which inspired similar efforts on the part of the Willenhall Antiquary, Dr. Richard Wilkes, and ultimately led to the

writing of the Rev. Stebbing Shaw’s “History of Staffordshire” (1798–1801).

Speaking of the treatment of the battles of Tettenhall and Wednesfield by the old monkish historians, Huntbach says:—“There is very great reason to confirm their testimony who say the battle was here fought; for there are many tumuli or lows there, that shew some great engagement hereabouts, viz., the North Lowe, the South Lowe, Little Lowe, Horslowe, and Thrombelow.

“The first four being yet visible, the North Lowe, near in lands to croft-lodge, the South Lowe near Mr. Hope’s windmill, the great and little lowe in the heath grounds; but Horslowe is not discernible by reason of the coal-works that have been here, only it giveth name to the Horselowe Field, since called Horsehull Field, now Horseley Field.

“And there are not only these, but several others, partly in the way betwixt this place and Tottenhall, as at Low Hill, near Seawall, a very large one, and at Hampton Town; and another which giveth name to a field called Ablow Field, upon which stands a bush now called Isley Cross.” Ablow Field covered 40 acres of unenclosed ground near Graiseley Brook, and the tumulus once occupied the site now covered by St. Paul’s Church.

Dr. Plot believes the ancient remains in Wrottesley Park to be “those of the old Tettenhall of the Danes, who, having resided there for some time, built themselves this city, or place of habitation, which, in the year 907, was finally demolished by Edward the Elder in a most signal and destructive victory. To revenge this fatal quarrel, another army of Danes collected in Northumbria, and invaded Mercia in the same year, when King Edward, with a powerful force of West Saxons and Mercians overtook them at the village of Wednesfield, near Theotenhall (Tettenhall), and vanquished them again, with much slaughter.”

Another account, given by the aforementioned Dr. Wilkes, Willenhall’s most eminent son, and no mean authority on such matters, says that:—“In the year 895, King Alfred having by a stratagem forced them to leave Hereford on the Wye, they came

up to the River Severn as far as Bridgnorth, then called Quat, Quatbridge, or Quatford, committing great enormities, and destroying all before them. We hear no more of them hereabout for thirteen years, but then they raised a great army and fought two bloody battles with King Edward.”

The contemporary Saxon annals tell us that the Danes were beaten in Mercia in 911, but do not say where. Doubtless from time to time the whole plain rang with “the din of battle bray,” the shout of exultation, and the groan of pain; with the clash of steel on steel, and the dull thud of mighty battleaxe on shields of tough bull hide, all through that disturbed period. It would appear from a later account that at the earlier engagement of 910, which by this writer has been confidently located between Tettenhall and the Wergs, King Edward was himself in command of the Saxon forces, and that he not only gained a decisive victory, but pursued the enemy for five weeks, following them up in their northern fastnesses beyond the Watling Street, from one Danish village to another, burning and utterly wasting every one of them as they had been mere hornets’ nests.

At the encounter of the following year (a.d. 911) the Danes, after a great pillaging expedition, having strongly posted themselves at Wednesfield, little advantage was gained by either side after many hours of hard fighting, till at last the Saxons were reinforced by Earl Kenwolf. Victory then fell to the Saxons.

This Kenwolf, who is said to have been the greatest notable of the locality, and seated on a good estate at Stowe Heath, was mortally wounded in the fray; and on the opposite side there fell Healfden and Ecwills, two Danish kings; Ohter and Scurfar, two of their Earls; a number of other great noblemen and generals, among them Othulf, Beneting, Therferth, Guthferth, Agmund, Anlaf the Black, and Osferth the tax-gatherer, and a host of men. The name of a third slaughtered king, Fuver, is given by another old chronicler. It is to the quality rather than to the quantity of the slain that the locality is indebted for the number of tumuli on which so much of this superstructure of quasi-history seems to be raised.

The historians who restrict themselves to “two” kings specify the North Lowe at Wednesfield as the sepulchral monument of one, and the South Lowe of the other. “There was,” says Shaw, the county historian, “a little to the south of the Walsall Road, half a mile south-west of the village of Nechels, a great low called Stowman Hill.”

Dr. Plot, writing in 1686, declares “the bank above Nechels, where now is a stone pit, Stowman Low, now removed to mend the roads, and Northfield, to be the genuine remains; but the bank where the windmill stood was a hard rock, several yards below the surface of the earth, and there was nothing remarkable found upon the removing of Stowman Low, so that all this is uncertainty.”

Although the precise location of the Tettenhall battleground has always puzzled the antiquaries, there are, says one authority, “three lows on the common between Wombourn and Swin, placed in a right line that runs directly east and west, and about half a mile to the north of them is another, by the country people called Soldiers’ Hill. They are all large and capable of covering a great number of dead bodies.

“There cannot be the least doubt but this place was the scene of action, for King Edward, to perpetuate the memory of this signal victory, I presume, here founded a church, called by the name of the place Wonbourn, now Wombourn; and took this whole parish out of the parish of Tettenhall, which, before this battle, extended as far as the forest of Kinver.” It may be added, for whatever such support is worth, that in times past a number of ancient weapons have been dug up at Wombourne.

Coming to the latest and most reliable authority, Mr. W. H. Duignan, of Walsall, here is what he writes in his admirable work, “Staffordshire Place Names,” under the heading “Low Hill,” which is the name of an ancient estate at Bushbury:—

“Huntbach the antiquary, wrote in the 17th century that there was then a very large tumulus here. Much, if not the whole of it, has been since destroyed. The hill is lofty and a place likely to be selected for the burial of some prehistoric magnate. In

911 a battle was fought between the Saxons and the Danes, called in the Chronicles the battle of Tettenhall, but which was really waged on Wednesfield Heath (now Heath Town).

“The dead were buried as usual under mounds, which in Huntbach’s time still remained, and were known as North Low, South Low, the Little Low, the Great Low, Horselow, Tromelow, and Ablow (many of these names survive), besides others which had then disappeared. It is therefore difficult to say whether the low here was a prehistoric tumulus or a battle mound.”

Dr. Langford, in his “Staffordshire and Warwickshire” (p. 177), writing less than forty years ago, says that “a large number of tumuli exist near Wednesfield”; but the utilitarianism of the farmer and the miner would make it difficult to find many of these grass-crowned records on the Willenhall side of the battleground now. Dr. Windle, in his able work, “Remains of the Prehistoric Age in England” (published in 1904) gives a list of existing Barrows and Burial-mounds in this country, including some nine or ten in Staffordshire, but makes no mention of Wednesfield, Wombourne, or Tettenhall.

II.—The Saxon Settlement

Fourteen or fifteen centuries ago the cluster of places which we now know as the town of Wolverhampton, and the numerous industrial centres grouped around it, were then primitive Saxon settlements, each of them peopled by the few families that claimed kinship with each other.

These embryo townships were dotted about the clearings which had been made in the thick primeval forest with which the whole face of England was then covered, save only where the surface was barren hill or undrained swamp. Does not the terminal “field,” in such a place-name as Wednesfield, literally mean “feld,” or the woodland clearing from which the timbers had been “felled”? Each settlement, whether called a “ham” (that is, a home), or a “tun” (otherwise a town), was a farmer-commonwealth, cultivating the village fields in common; each was surrounded by a “mark,” or belt of waste land, which no man might appropriate, and no stranger advance across without first blowing his horn to give timely notice of his approach. Remnants of these open unappropriated lands may be traced by such place-names as Wednesfield “Heath,” and Monmore “Green.”

At the outset each settlement at its foundation was independent of, and co-equal with, the others; Saxon society being founded on a system of family groupings, and a government of the ancient patriarchal type.

All questions of government and public interest were settled by the voice of the people in “moot,” or open-air meeting, assembled beneath the shelter of some convenient tree. Our ancestors were an open-air, freedom-loving people, who mistrusted walls and contemned fortifications. In course of time, however, the exigencies of their environment—the aggressiveness of neighbours and foreigners, the incursions of invaders and marauders—materially modified their views, and changed their habits in this respect; and so it came about in the scheme of national defence that the temple-crowned hill of Woden became Woden’s burh

(now Wednesbury), a hill fortified by deep ditch and high stockade.

Presently the family tie gave way to the lordship, as certain chiefs, under the stress of circumstances, acquired domination over others, and hence arose the manor or residential lordship, the head of which took pledges for the fidelity of those below him, and in turn became responsible for them to the king above him—a system of mutual inter-dependence from the head of the state downwards. Under these new conditions Stow Heath became the head of a Saxon manor, in which were involved Willenhall, Wolverhampton, Bilston, Wednesfield, Eccleshall, and a number of other village settlements. Some of these, however, were in the Hundred of Seisdon, and some in the Hundred of Offlow—a “hundred” being originally the division of a county that contained a hundred villages.

The unregenerate Teuton was a pirate and a plunderer; the settled Saxon became an oversea trader and trafficker. The Anglo-Saxon merchant of later and more settled times, raised by his wealth to the dignity of a thane, became a landed man, and a lord over his fellows. Herein we have the transition from a free village community to a Saxon manor.

At Wolverhampton was seated one Wolfric, said to have been an ancestor of Wolfgeat, and a relation to Wulfruna; his manor house was situated on the slope of the hill between the present North Street and Waterloo Road—doubtless a large rambling mansion of low elevation, built of heavy timbers on a low plinth of boulders and hewn stones.

Here at Hantun he kept his state—such as the luxury of the age permitted to him. Seated in his great oaken hall, with its heavy roof timbers, at the close of each day he drank deep draughts with his guests and his numerous servants, in the flaring light of odorous resin torches stuck in iron staples along the walls. The smoke from his fire of logs escaped as lazily as it might through an aperture in the roof. The earthen floor was strewn with rushes, more or less clean as it was littered by the refuse of few or more feasts. The only furniture consisted of a long trestle

table, with rude benches of oak on each side; the whole effort at ornamentation being limited to trophies of war and the chase hanging upon the walls. Such, in brief, was the home life of a great thane.

It will be observed that Wednesfield and Wednesbury at least were founded by the Saxons in their pagan days; that is before their acceptance of the White Christ, which was towards the close of the seventh century. Tradition hath it that at the Anglian advent into this district, the worship of Woden was first set up in a grove at Wednesfield. Here was first fixed the Woden Stone, the sacred altar on which human sacrifices were offered of that dread Teutonic deity, Woden.

It was carved with Runic figures—for was not Woden the inventor of the Runic characters? In sacrificing, the priest, at the slaying of the victim, took care to consecrate the offering by pronouncing always the solemn formula, “I devote thee to Woden!”

Part of the blood was then sprinkled on the worshippers, part on the sacred grove; the bodies were then either burnt on the altar or suspended on trees within this mystic grove. Later, when some advance had been made by the hierarchy, the Woden Stone was removed from the Wednesfield grove to be erected within the temple of Woden at Wednesbury.

There are other evidences of pagan practices to be discovered in Staffordshire place-names. Tutbury is said to derive its name from Tuisto, the Saxon god who gave the name to Tuesday, as Woden lent his to Wednesday; and Thursfield from Thor, the deity worshipped on Thursday. There is also Thor’s cave, still so-called, in the north of this county (see “Staffordshire Curiosities,” p. 159), and other similar reminders of Anglo-Saxon paganism.

It is not outside the bounds of possibility that a third local place-name is traceable to the personality of Woden. Sedgley may be derived from Sigge’s Lea, and Sigge was the real name of the Teutonic conqueror who, in overrunning north-west Europe, assumed the name of Woden for the sake of prestige—he was the

founder of Sigtuna, otherwise Sigge’s town, in Sweden. In the science of English place-names it is well-known that while hills and streams and other natural phenomena were allowed to retain their old British names (as Barr, “a summit,” and Tame, “a flood water”), towns, villages, and other political divisions were very generally renamed by the Saxon conquerors, the places in many instances being called after the personal names of their owners.

Here are some local illustrations of place-names conferred by the Anglian invaders when they had conquered and appropriated the territory.

Arley, otherwise Earnlege, was “the Eagle’s ley.”

Bilston signifies “the town of Bil’s folk.”

Blakenhall was “the hall of Blac.”

Bloxwich was “the village of Bloc”: as Wightwick was “Wiht’s village.”

Bushbury was “the Bishop’s burg.”

Chillington was originally “Cille’s town.”

Codsall was “Code’s hall.”

Darlaston was once “Deorlaf’s town.”

Dunstall, otherwise Tunstall, was “an enclosed farmstead,” half a mile outside the ancient boundary of Cannock Forest.

Essington was “the town of the descendants of Esne.”

Ettingshall was “the hall of the Etri family.”

Featherstone seems to have been “Feader’s stone.” According to a charter of the year 994 there was then a large stone called the “Warstone,” to mark the boundary of this place.

Hatherton, or Hagathornden, signifies “the hill of the hawthorn.”

Kinvaston was perhaps “Cyneweald’s town.” Dr. Olive in his “History of Wolverhampton Church,” says that being originally a place of consequence. Kinvaston was placed at the head of the Wolverhampton prebends.

Moseley was the “mossy or marshy lea”: as Bradley the “broad lea”; and Bentley was the “lea of bent” or reedy grass.

Newbolds, an ancient farm in Wednesfield, is an Anglo-Saxon name, “niwe bold,” and it pointed out “the new house.”

Ogley Hay, now called Brownhills, was originally Ocginton, or “Ocga’s town.”

Pelsall may be translated “Peol’s Hall.”

Pendeford was once “Penda’s ford.”

Scotlands were “the corner-lands,” this hamlet being at the corner of a triangular piece of land, bounded on all sides by ancient roads.

Seisdon was probably “the Saxon’s Hill.”

Showells, or Sewalls, at Bushbury, on the confines of Cannock Forest, was the place where “scarecrows” (as the name probably means) were set up or shown on hedgetops to prevent the deer passing from the Forest on to enclosed or cultivated land.

Stowe, a name signifying an enclosed or “stockaded” place, was another seat of a great thane; or it might have been the residential portion of the large manor or lordship already alluded to.

Tettenhall was possibly Tetta’s hall; or, more probably, “Spy hall,” otherwise a watch tower.

Tromelow, commonly called Rumbelows, a farm on the site of one of the Wednesfield lows, is a name that may literally mean “the burial mound of the host.” The corruption Rumbelow is probably made out of the phrase “At Tromelowe.”

Wergs (The), through many transformations from Wytheges to Wyrges, is “the withy hedges.”

Wobaston, an estate in Bushbury, was anciently “Wibald’s town.”

Wombourne was the “bourne (or brook) in the hollow.”

Wolverhampton was at first Heantune, or Hamtun, otherwise the “High town,” to which name was prefixed soon after the year 994 that of Wulfrun, a lady of rank who gave great possessions to the Church; and hence was evolved the more distinctive name, Wulfrunhamtun, since modified into its present form.

Although some of these names (as Showells, formerly Sewall) may not date quite back to the Saxon period, most of them may be accepted as present-day evidences of the great Teutonic descent upon this Midland locality. One of the very few Celtic place-names retained from the previous occupiers is Monmore, which in the tongue of the ancient Britons signified “the boggy mere.”

IV.—The Founding of Wulfruna’s Church, 996, A.D.

After the advent of Christianity, the new religion was gradually advanced throughout the land by the settlement of priest-missioners in the various localities. Where the missionary settled on the invitation, or under the protection of a thane, or “lord,” that lordship was formed into a parish. Thus some parishes doubtless became co-terminous with the old manors. Owing, however, to the many changes of jurisdiction in the course of succeeding centuries, it is difficult to find instances of parish and manor of identical area in this locality. Bescot was a manor within the parish of Walsall; Bloxwich and Shelfield were anciently members of the manor of Wednesbury, though now included in Walsall; Bentley, at the Norman Conquest, was part of the manor of Willenhall, then belonging to Wolverhampton Church; while Dunstall was a member of the King’s manor of Stow Heath. Tettenhall parish originally included as many as a dozen manors and townships.

England is made up of some ten thousand parishes, each with its parish church, around which for a thousand years has revolved the social and political, as well as the whole religious life of the place. The parish is our unit of local government, and the history of a town is usually a history of the parish.

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. Hence it will transpire in these pages that for centuries the story of Willenhall was involved in the ecclesiastical history of Wolverhampton.

The ancient parish of Wolverhampton lies widely dispersed and very detached, containing no less than 17 townships and hamlets, all subject to the collegiate church in matters ecclesiastical, though in many cases being distinct in matters secular. How broken the area is may be noted in the case of Pelsall, which is cut off from the mother parish by Bloxwich, a hamlet in Walsall parish.

Willenhall is one among several other neighbouring places that, from the earliest period of England’s acceptance of Christianity, had its fate inseparably linked with that of Wolverhampton. In the giving way of paganism before the steady advances of the new religion, progress in this immediate part of the kingdom was marked by the founding of Tettenhall Church (a.d. 966), followed thirty years afterwards by Lady Wulfruna’s further efforts at evangelisation in the setting up at Hampton (or High Town) of another Christian church.

This was in the reign of Ethelred the Unrede, which was a period sadly troubled by the aggressions of the Danes; and it is believed that Wulfruna (or Wulfrun) had designed to found a monastery, though as early as the time of Edward the Confessor, or within a century of its institution, her establishment is found to be a Collegiate Church.

With this accession of dignity, and in grateful recognition of the lady’s pious munificence, the town became known as Wulfrun’s Hampton, now modified in Wolverhampton.

Of Wulfruna herself but little is known. Whether she was sister of King Edgar, as some suppose, or the widow of Aldhelm, Duke of Northumberland, cannot be decided. It is known, however, that she was a lady of rank, and was captured when Olaf, in command of a Viking host, took Tamworth by storm. Hampton did not bear her name until some years after her death.

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. Willenhall being only three miles away from Wolverhampton, and being also for a long

time ecclesiastically incorporated with it, its history at many points cannot be detached from that of the mother parish.

The wording of the charter by which the gift was made is quaintly interesting. It sets forth that: “In the year 996, from the Passion of our said Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ,” Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury, “with the Lord’s flock of servants unceasingly serving God,” have granted a privilege “to the noble matron and religious woman Wulfruna,” in “order that she may attain a seat in heaven,” and that “for her mass may be said unceasingly for ever” in the “ancient monastery of Hamtun.”

The Charter (inter alia) grants “ten hides of land for the body of my husband,” and another “ten hides of land” for the offences of her “Kinsman Wulfgeal” lest he should hear in the judgment the “dreaded” sentence, “Go away from me,” &c. A third “ten hides” of land are granted on account of “my sole daughter Elfthryth,” who “has migrated from the world to the life-giving airs.”

Mr. Duignan, who has made a close study of the Charter, says “the limits of the parishes and of the townships included in the grant are now precisely what they were a thousand years ago.”

The boundaries of the lands conferred by the noble benefactress are set forth with much precision, as in the noting of brooks and fords, of parks and woods, of fields and lanes and lands; and in very few cases has Mr. Duignan failed to recognise the old names and identify them with the modern appellations of the places meant, among the latter being Willenhall, Wednesfield, Pelsall, Hilton, Ogley Hay, Hatherton, Cannock, Moseley Hole, Twyford, Walsall, &c.

The original Charter has not been heard of since 1646, when it was supposed to be copied by Sir William Dugdale into his monumental work, the “Monasticon,” assisted by Roger Dodsworth, a joint editor with him. If it is still in existence Mr. Duignan assumes it is in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of the Royal Chapel of Windsor, with which the Deanery of Wolverhampton was united—as will be seen later. The formal parts of the deed are in Latin, and the descriptions of the properties are

in Anglo-Saxon, which makes it an interesting study of place-names.

Wolverhampton church, dedicated to St. Mary, was a collegiate establishment, with a dean as president, and a number of prebendaries or canons who were “secular” priests, and not brethren of any of the regular “orders of monks.”

All the privileges which the College possessed in Lady Wulfruna’s lifetime were afterwards confirmed by Edward the Confessor, and subsequently by William the Conqueror.

* * * * *

The dedication of Wulfruna’s church and its consecration by Sigeric, the archbishop, have been described in verse by a local poetess. This was Mrs. Frank P. Fellows, a daughter of the famous Sir Rowland Hill, and once resident at Goldthorn Hill. Her husband was a native of Wolverhampton, a distinguished public servant, connected with the Admiralty, a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, an antiquarian and a scientist. In a book of his published poems appear portraits of himself and his wife.

Mrs. Fellows (whose mother, Lady Hill, was a daughter of Joseph Pearson, Esq., J.P., of Graiseley), also wrote poems—some of which appeared in “Punch,” some in “Belgravia,” and some in other magazines—and published a small book of verse in 1857.

It is from one long piece, entitled “Fancies by the Fire,” in which the long retrospect of Wolverhampton’s ancient history unrolls itself before the imagination of the poetess, that the following extracts are taken. After a description of the battle of Wednesfield, we read:—

The Princess Wulfruna heard the deeds,
Told by the fire in her stately hall.
Alas! then said the gentle dame,
It grieves me sore such things should be.
Now, by the Christ that died on tree,
The Christ that died for them and me,
These heathen souls shall all be free
From sin, and pain of Purgat’ry;
In token of our victory,
Where masses shall be sung and said,
And prayers told for the restless dead
That wander still on Woden’s Plain—
It shall be raised in Mary’s name.

The noble lady with her train, and accompanied by the Archbishop Sigeric, pays a visit of inspection to the locality she designs thus to honour, passing beneath the shade of “the forest trees of Theotanhall” on her way—

And as they passed thro’ Dunstall Wood,
And stopped to drink where a streamlet fell,
Then said the lady fair and good
Here will I build a wayside well.
Now Hampton town before them lay.
But first they sought out Woden’s plain,
Where lay the bleached bones of the slain.

After the Archbishop had offered up a prayer for the dead—

At length they stood upon the height
That rises over Hampton town;
There, amid knight, and dame, and priest,
The Princess Wulfrune laid the stone,
The first stone on the holy fane.

Then solemnly the pious lady removed from her royal brows the golden coronet that hitherto had graced it, and put in place of it a crown of thorns, saying—

It were ill done that I have worn
A golden crown, while Jesus sweet
For my sake wore a crown of thorn;
And here I dedicate my days
To Him until my life be sped.

Thus far the foundation of the mother church—much more of the town’s history follows in like strain.

* * * * * *

Willenhall was slightly connected with another religious foundation. In the year 1002 Burton Abbey was founded by Wulfric Spott, Earl of Mercia. This establishment was richly endowed with lands, not only in Staffordshire, but also with estates in Derbyshire and Warwickshire.

The names of the various places included in this munificent grant afford a very interesting study in Saxon nomenclature. For instance, in the Second Indorsement of the Charter conferring the noble gift, we may be interested to discover that “2 hides of land in Wilinhale,” lying in “Offalawe Hundred” are among the properties donated to this great Staffordshire Monastery.

V.—The Collegiate Establishment

We cannot be too insistent on the close connection long subsisting between Willenhall and Wolverhampton owing to the fact of the former being a part of Wulfruna’s endowment of her collegiate church.

Wulfruna’s foundation consisted of a dean, eight prebendaries or canons, and a sacrist. The dean was the president of this chapter, or congregation of clergy, whose duly was to chant the daily service. 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.

Sampson Erdeswick, whose history of this county was commenced in 1593, says the foundation was effectuated in 970 by King Edgar, at the request of his dying sister, Wulfruna.

“She founded a chapel of eight portionaries (is the way Erdeswick puts it) whom, by incorporation, she made rector of that parish (Wolverhampton) to receive the tithes in common, but devisable by a yearly lot. The head or chief of these she made patron to them all, and sole ordinary of that whole parish.”

The foundation was designated the “royal free church of Wolverhampton,” the term “free” signifying that it was free of the ordinary supervision of the ecclesiastical authorities, being exempt from both episcopal jurisdiction and the papal supremacy. Indeed, it had been better for the church had it been less free, for in the time of King John the debaucheries and gross immoralities of these undisciplined parochial clergy brought much discredit upon the priestly college.

The dean and the prebends had special seats or stalls in the choir of the church; the sacrist had no stall, neither had he any voice in the chapter. In modern times (1811) the sacrist has become the perpetual curate of the parish.

It will be noted that the head of this college of seculars was styled the “sole ordinary” of the parish, which is equivalent to saying he was invested with judicial powers therein like a bishop in a diocese. He had authority cum omnimoda jurisdictione, and was exempt not only from the episcopal over-lordship of Coventry and Lichfield by express composition, but also by papal bull from the legates and delegates of Rome for ever. In fact, so independent was the foundation made at the outset, it remained for centuries subject only to the royal authority of the Majesty of England, and under it to the perpetual visitation of the Keepers of the Great Seal for the time being.

In the year 1338, Edward III. confirmed the charter of the church as a royal free chapter, giving the Dean the jurisdiction of a Court Leet, and a copyhold Court Baron, to be called the Deanery Court of Wolverhampton. About this time, too, the church was rebuilt on more spacious and magnificent lines. Mrs. Fellows, in her topographical rhyme, previously quoted, sings of the erection of the tower

In the third Edward’s time.

The college then consisted of the ten members of the foundation just mentioned, augmented by other ministers and officers necessary for conducting so large an establishment, the prebendaries being officially mentioned in this order:—(1) Wolverhampton; (2) Kinvaston; (3) Featherstone; (4) Hilton; (5) Willenhall; (6) Monmore; (7) Wobaston; (8) Hatherton.

By the fifteenth century Chantries had been founded, and chapels erected therefor, at Willenhall, Bilston, Pelsall, and at Hatherton; and in further depreciation of the mother church, King Edward IV., about 1465, with a desire to enrich the Collegiate Church of St. George, at Windsor, annexed Wolverhampton to that chapel royal.

In Protestant times the daily services were performed by the sacrist and the readers, the prebendaries officiating on Sundays in

rotation, according to a set cycle. The time set out for the prebendary of Willenhall commenced on the Sunday after Ash Wednesday; till eventually exemption was purchased by the payment of a small fee to the Perpetual Curate.

In olden times it was a common practice to carve the choir seats. The prebendal stalls in Wolverhampton church were marked with heraldic shields charged with simple ordinaries, in the following manner:—the following manner:—

ON THE SOUTH SIDE.

1. The Dean. On a fess, three roundels.

2. Prebendary of Featherstone. A pale cotised.

3. Prebendary of Willenhall. A Chevron.

4. Prebendary of Wobaston. A Chevron.

5. Prebendary of Hatherton. A pale cotised.

ON THE NORTH SIDE.

6. Prebendary of Kinvaston. (Stall removed.)

7. Prebendary of Hilton. A Chevron renversé.

8. Prebendary of Monmore. A Chevron.

To assist in the identification of the various estates chargeable with the provisions of the prebends, or canonical portions, it may be useful to give here a brief account of a perambulation of the Wolverhampton parish boundaries made in 1824.

It was a regular Rogation ceremony of “beating the bounds” and occupied three whole days, so widely scattered is this extensive, far-reaching parish. It will be observed that the Hatherton here dealt with is not the Staffordshire village of that name, two miles north-west of Cannock. Wobaston, it will be remembered, has previously been mentioned as situated in Bushbury; while Monmore Green is still a well-known place-name. The other names occur in self-explanatory context. The detailed account of this perambulation, of which the following is but a summary, will be found in the appendix to Dr. Oliver’s “History”:—

On Monday, May 24th, the churchwardens and their party assembled at the Rev. Thomas Walker’s, and proceeded to a cottage near the eighth milestone on the Stafford Road, and at

the well in the cottage garden there, the Gospel was read for the first time. (It was the custom at these Rogation processionings to read the Gospel under trees—especially those growing near to some reputed “holy” well—located on or near a parish boundary, hence their name “Gospel trees.”)

From thence a lane near the third milestone on the same road led the procession to Kinvaston, where the Gospel was read at an Elder in the fold-yard of a house of a Mrs. Wooton. Then the procession went to Hatherton, the seat of the late Moreton Walhouse, where the Gospel was again read on the site of an old well. Proceeding to Hilton, the seat of the Vernons, the Gospelling was repeated within the gates fronting the house.

Crossing the Cannock Road, the Gospel was read for the fifth and last time, that day, under an oak tree in the road near the house of Mr. W. Price, of Featherstone.

On the second day, May 25th, the parishioners assembled as before, and proceeded direct to Wednesfield, where the Gospel was read in the Chapel, the clerk being in readiness at the door to receive the procession. Thence the perambulation was continued to Essington, where the common was found to be enclosed; the Gospel was read a second time there at the Goswell Bush, which, standing in the Bloxwich Road, was found to be surrounded by a new growth of trees. (Just previous to this period there had been a rage for enclosing commons—the people’s lands.) Turning back, the party proceeded to Pelsall, where the Gospel was read the third and last time, that day, in the Chapel there.

On the third day, which was Thursday, May 27th, the assembly was made at the Swan Inn, and the procession was formed there. The way was led straight to Willenhall, where the Gospel was read for the first time in the Chapel, the expectant clerk being there in readiness to perform the duty. From thence the perambulation was continued to Park Brook, which was crossed; returning, the way was taken to Bentley Hall, the seat of Edward Anson, Esq., where the second reading of the Gospel was taken at an elder bush at the back of the house. (Elders seem to have taken the place of the ancient “Gospel oaks” in this locality.)

From Willenhall the party next proceeded to Bilston, where the third reading of the Gospel was performed within the Chapel of that township.

From thence a move was made to Bradeley Hall, then in the occupation of Mr. Nailer, at the bottom of whose garden was the site of an old well, which had once been a bath, and here the Gospelling was again celebrated.

The procession was then resumed through Bilston by Catchem’s Corner, Goldthorne Hill, and the Penn Road, to St. John’s Chapel, otherwise known as the New Church, within which the Gospel was ceremonially read for the last time. This concluded the perambulation, and an entry of its various details were duly entered in the Parish Book, and signed by Tho. Walker, minister, and Wm. Buckle and Jos. Smart, the two churchwardens.

VI—Willenhall at the Norman Conquest (1066–1086).

After the Norman invasion of 1066 it took a number of years to complete the conquest of the country. It was not till 1086 that the “Domesday” Book was compiled—written evidence of a settlement of the land question which, it was fondly hoped (and expressed in the name), would last till “Domesday”!

The Domesday Book was a great national land register in which was entered a record of every acre of land in England, its condition, its ownership, and annual value at that time. For on land ownership alone then depended not only the amount of the national revenue, but the strength of the national defences. Willenhall, wrongly written by the Domesday scribes as Winehala, is returned as being in the Hundred of Offlow, and having an area of 2,168 acres.

Of this acreage 3 hides belonged to the old domains of the Crown, like Bilston and Wednesbury (having formerly formed part of the dominions of the Saxon kings), while but two hides of Willenhall land belonged to Wolverhampton church. It is believed that the King’s manorial portion took with it Bentley, with its 1,650 acres.

Anyway, Willenhall having belonged originally to the ancient Mercian kings, and having been held in succession by all the Saxon kings of England to Edward the Confessor and Harold II., naturally passed as a royal manor, or rather, a portion thereof, into the hands of the Conqueror, being set down among the Crown lands as of “ancient demesne.”

The Domesday Book also sets down among the possessions of the Canons of Wolverhampton 2,200 acres in Wednesfield, 1,194 acres in Pelsall, both in the same Hundred; 3,396 acres in Wolverhampton, 3,912 acres in Arley, and 6,377 acres, a part of Bushbury, are set down in Seisdon Hundred; the Essington portion of Bushbury, once belonging to the Countess Godiva, is reckoned in Cuddlestone Hundred, in which are also given the

four other portions of Wolverhampton, namely Hilton, Hatherton, Kinvaston, and Featherstone.

Since the eleventh century the boundaries of the Hundreds of Offlow and Cuddlestone have been altered. As to the Arley estate, that was lost to the canons ere another century had elapsed—by 1172 had escheated to the Crown.

The present-day acreage of Wolverhampton parish is no less than 17,449; made up of 3,396 acres in Wolverhampton proper, 1,845 in Bilston, and 1,650 in Bentley, a total of 6,891 acres in Seisdon Hundred; thus leaving 10,608 acres to constitute Hilton (two manors, since united into one) Hatherton, Kinvaston, Featherstone, and Hocintune. The last-named was a manor which, at that time, probably lay between Hilton and Hatherton, within Wolverhampton; the name is obsolete.

These ten estates, comprising Wolverhampton, Willenhall (part of), Arley (part of), Bushbury (part of), Hilton (part of), Pelsall, Wednesfield, Cote (near Penn), Haswic (near Newcastle), and Hocintune (now obsolete), were in 1086 held by the Canons of Wolverhampton under Sampson, the highly favoured royal Chaplain, to whom the Conqueror had presented this fief. For the purposes of comparison it may be mentioned that there were then eighteen holdings in Staffordshire, occupying 567 hides, and valued at about £516. Sampson’s fief extended to 26½ hides of this, and was estimated as being worth £8 2s. a year.

This Sampson, who has been incorrectly styled the first Dean of Wolverhampton, was a Canon of Bayeux, and though a king’s chaplain, was not ordained a priest till nine years after the Conqueror’s death, when Rufus made him Bishop of Worcester. Bishop Sampson subsequently gave the Church of Wolverhampton to his Cathedral Monastery of Worcester. He also held the neighbouring estates at Bilbrook and Tettenhall as the superior of the priests of Tettenhall College.

Willenhall, in the great survey, is recorded to have contained, as previously stated, three hides belonging to the King, and two hides belonging to the church—a hide of land in Saxon measurement was a variable quantity from 200 to 600 acres, according to

the locality, but generally it was accounted so much as would serve to maintain a family—together with one acre of meadow, and a carucate (which was a measure of about 100 acres of “carved” land) employing three ploughs. The annual value of Willenhall is set down at 20s. The population consisted of eight families, or, as the return puts it, five bordars and three villeins.

A bordar, or boor, was a squatter living in a hut or cottage on the borders of a manor, having attached a little patch of land, the rent of which was paid to the lord of the manor in the shape of poultry, eggs, and small produce. A villein, or serf, was to all intents and purposes a slave, at the absolute disposal of the lord, except that he could not be detached from the soil on which he was born. While the bordar, or cottager, was resident in the manor more or less on sufferance, the villein was there of right, and was in that sense the superior of the bordar. The villein certainly might not go away from Willenhall, nor get married, nor buy and sell oxen, nor grind corn, without the express permission of the lord of the manor; yet he was not so badly off as all this would make it appear to our modern ideas. People seldom travelled in those days, money was little used, life was exceedingly primitive, and wants were very few and very simple.

Staffordshire at that time was in a chronic state of poverty, an insurrection in the county having been suppressed in 1069 with the Conqueror’s customary severity, thousands of the wretched hinds having been slaughtered, the county desolated and the Midlands depopulated.

Bilston was but a cluster of mud huts inhabited by swineherds; and it is probable Willenhall was a similar little centre of boor life in the next woodland clearing a little further along the purling brooklet, and near its junction with Beorgitha’s Stream, as the Tame was then called. The entire population of the county was purely agrarian, the villeins and boors altogether numbering about 2,800; or on an average of one labourer to each 167 acres of land registered in Domesday Book. The subsequent history of the two parts of Willenhall will have to be traced separately.

The two hides set down as ecclesiastical property have remained in the possession of the church throughout. Erdeswick, writing his history of this county in 1593, states that within the jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter of Wolverhampton there were then “nine several leets, whereof eight belong to the church. The custos, lately called the Dean, is lord of the borough of Wolverhampton, Codsall, Hatherton, and Pelsall in com. Stafford; and of Lutley in com. Wigorn; hath all manner of privileges belonging to the View of Frankpledge (that is, the administration of criminal justice, &c.), to Felons’ goods, Deodands, Escheats, Marriage of Wards, and Clerks of the Weekly Markets, rated at £150 per annum, and in the total is valued worth £300 per annum.

“Each of the other portionaries (continues Erdeswick) have a several leet; whereof

“And the sacrist to attend them in capitulo, £40”—by no means a poor salary in those days for such duties as the secretarial and managerial work to a Chapter.

As to the three hides of Willenhall in the King’s Manor of Stow Heath, here is its later history as recorded by Dr. Vernon, a historiographer who made some additions to Sampson Erdeswick’s history:—

“In Willenhall is a manor called Stowheath, with a court baron and court leet. Several lands there held by copy from that lords thereof: four closes, called bundles, held of this manor, and were, in 1729, confirmed by John, Lord Gower, and Peter Giffard, lords of the manor of Stowheath; which four closes, with four others, were sold about 1748 by Mr. Lane to Admiral Anson, together with three tenements in Bloxwich, with all the manor lands, tithes, hall, and park, &c., called Bentley, adjoining to Willenhall, for £13,500.”

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. We may picture the few hinds constituting the scanty population, tenanting cottages which were mere hovels, and most of them like Gurth—the swineherd of Scott’s “Ivanhoe”—wearing round their necks the iron collars, which were the badge of Saxon serfdom, and like him driving their herds into the woods each morning, and returning at nightfall with their charges grunting and gorged with beech-mast and acorns.

While to their lowly dome
The full-fed swine return’d with evening home;
Compell’d reluctant, to the several sties,
With din obstreperous, and ungrateful cries.

The trade and callings of an English serf were as limited as his other opportunities in life; and others beside the swineherd found it in the adjacent woodlands. For there were certainly woodcutters and charcoal burners; and if the local iron ore were exploited, who shall say there were not then Willenhall smiths who fashioned bolts and bars, even if they had not arrived at the intricacies of locks and keys?

Here we are but emerging from the twilight of history.

VII.—A Chapel and a Chantry at Willenhall.

In the earlier centuries of our national existence, the history of a parish follows that of its church, the ecclesiastical fold into which its inhabitants were regularly gathered, not only for every religious purpose, but for every other object of communal interest or of a public nature.

But, as previously explained, Willenhall was not a parish; it was but one member of that wide parochial area ruled from the mother church of Wolverhampton, several miles distant.

Yet at an early period Willenhall seems to have boasted a chapel-of-ease, for the Calendar of Patent Rolls, under date 1297, contains an allusion to “Thomas de Trollesbury, parson of the church of Willenhale.” Dr. Oliver, in his history of the town, says that Wolverhampton church was rebuilt about 1342, and he evidently attributes the erection of Willenhall chapel to the same date, as being the outcome of the same devout spirit of church building. But this is nearly half a century later than the allusion just quoted from the Patent Rolls, and Dr. Oliver’s reference may possibly be to the founding of a chantry chapel by the Gerveyse family, who set up one of these mass-houses in Willenhall about a dozen years after one had been established at Pelsall.

Let it not be imagined that this new church was either a large or a magnificent structure. In all probability it was a diminutive chapel constructed of timber which had been cut in the adjacent forest; some of its wall spaces, perhaps, were only of timber framed wattle and dab; and at most any building material of a more durable nature entering into its construction would be but a plinth of stone masonry, and dwarfed at that.

A chapel-of-ease, be it explained, was often established where the parish was a wide one, for the “ease” of those parishioners who dwelt at a distance from the mother church, and found it difficult to attend divine service so far away from their homes. Such chapels were intended for prayer and preaching only; burials

and administrations of the sacraments being always strictly reserved to the mother church.

While a chapel-of-ease was provided for the general good of the whole community, a chantry chapel was intended for the special glory and exclusive benefit of some local landed family. And here is the first record we have of the Willenhall Chantry; it is extracted from the Patent Rolls of Edward III., under date 14th February, 1328:—

“Licence for the alienation in mortmain by Richard Gerveyse, of Wolvernehampton, of a messuage, land, and a moiety of a mill in Willenhale, co. Stafford, to a Chaplain to celebrate Divine service daily in the Chapel of Willenhale for the souls of the said Richard and Felicia, his wife, the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children and ancestors, and others.” A fine of 40s. was paid to the King (at Stafford) for this licence to devote landed estate to the said purposes of church endowment.

A chantry (or chauntry, a name derived from cantaria), was a chapel, little church, or some particular altar in a church, endowed with lands and other revenues, for the maintenance of a priest, or priests, daily to chant a mass and offer prayers for the souls of the donors, and such others as the founders of the chantry may have named. In this particular instance, as we have seen, the eternal welfare of the Gerveyses is sought to be assured, and the chantry here was doubtless at the altar of the new chapel-of-ease—we cannot expect there were two separate ecclesiastical buildings in so small a place as Willenhall.

The method of procedure in setting up these foundations was first to obtain a patent from the Crown for the founding and endowing of them; and then to obtain the Bishop’s licence for the regular daily performance of Divine service by the appointed chantry priest, to whose stipend and support the endowment mainly went.

Most of these chantries came into existence in the 14th century, and by the close of the following century there was scarce a parish church in the kingdom without its chantry in one or other of its side chapels or subsidiary altars. By the time of

Richard II.—about the year 1394—at least four chantries had been founded, and chapels built, within the outer area of Wolverhampton parish; namely, at Willenhall, Bilston, Pelsall, and Hatherton.

In connection with the endowments of the Willenhall chantry, it is on record that at an Inquisition taken in 1397, it was testified on oath that Roger Levison at that time held on lease from Thomas Browning, chaplain of this chantry, 12 acres of land in Wednesfield, and 100s. of rent in Willenhall, for which he had to perform suit and service (of the usual nature in feudal tenures) at the Deanery Court of Wolverhampton.

In 1409 the advowson of the chapel of Willenhall, together with certain valuable properties of rents and tenements in Wolverhampton, were granted by Richard Hethe and William Prestewode, chaplain, to William Bysshebury and his wife Joan, and settled on them for the term of their lives, with remainder to John Hampton, of Stourton, and his heirs for ever.

Fourteen years later William Bysshebury (his wife Joan being then deceased) was sued by certain plaintiffs, on behalf of the said John Hampton, for wasting these Wolverhampton properties, of which he had the reversion. The plaintiffs included Roger Aston, knight, William Leveson, William Everdon, Thomas Arblaster, and others; while the waste and destruction complained of comprised the digging and selling of clay, marl, and stones; the permitting of seven halls, two chambers, two kitchens, two granges, a dovecot, and a mill to remain unroofed till the principal timbers had rotted; and also with cutting down and selling a number of oaks, ashes, pear, and apple trees, the total damage in respect of all this waste being estimated at a very considerable figure.

The advowson was, of course, the right of presentation to the benefice of Willenhall; and the Hamptons of Stourton Castle, to whom it passed at this time, seem to have been a family which originated at Wolverhampton—and perhaps derived their name from the town.

The ministers who officiated in the local chapels-of-ease were inferior in official status to the vicar, rector, or beneficed clergyman

of the mother church, and such curates were generally removable at the pleasure of the said vicar or rector. Willenhall, doubtless, was served by a “curate” sent from the Wolverhampton collegiate establishment.

In the reign of Edward IV. local ecclesiastical matters became further complicated by the collegiate church of Wolverhampton being permanently united with the Deanery of Windsor, the two deaneries being always subsequently held together. It appears that King Edward, desirous of doing his Chaplain a favour, annexed the “Free Royal Church of Wolverhampton” to the said Deanery of Windsor, which royal act was soon afterwards confirmed by Parliament (1480).

The Chantry of Willenhall, in common with all others, disappeared at the Reformation (this one probably in 1545), when prayers for the dead were no longer tolerated. But it is interesting to observe that under the new Protestant régime attendance at church every Sunday was still regarded as a duty no good citizen and loyal subject could be excused.

Attendance at church was compulsory in the early days of the Anglican establishment. By statute (i, Elizabeth c. i., 23 Elizabeth c. i., and 3, James i. c. 4) every person was to repair to his parish church every Sunday on pain of forfeiting 1s. for every offence; and being present at any form of prayer contrary to the Book of Common Prayer was punished with six months’ imprisonment. Persons above sixteen years of age who absented themselves from church above a month had to pay a forfeit of £20 a month.

Protestant dissenters who did not deny the doctrine of the Trinity were (it is interesting to note) exempted from these penalties in 1689; and the Roman Catholics were similarly emancipated by law in 1792. This by the way.

It was in Elizabeth’s reign, and, of course, under the authority of the newly-established Protestant Church of England, that Willenhall was enabled to make a distinct advance in the status of its church. The charge of this church became an independent one, and was no longer subordinated to the canons of Wolverhampton;

the incumbent was thenceforward to be in fact, as well as in name, “Chaplain of Willenhall.” But although the incumbent thus obtained his personal freedom from the domination of the mother church, the Wolverhampton establishment still retained all the old parochial rights in the shape of fees and ecclesiastical emoluments. Beyond levying this money tribute, however, the Dean and Rector of Wolverhampton no longer held any control over the internal affairs of the church of St. Giles’, in Willenhall. The specified duties of the incumbent of Willenhall (as set forth in a Trust deed of 1603, to which Sir John Leveson is a party) were to conduct Divine service there, and to have his residence within a mile and a half of the church.

VIII.—Willenhall in the Middle Ages.

Having brought the ecclesiastical history of Willenhall up to the enlightened days of Queen Elizabeth, to preserve some sort of chronological arrangement, we leave that section awhile in order to deal with the social life of the place, so far as this may be gleaned from a number of fragmentary sources and isolated references.

The result of these gleanings is naturally very scrappy an disconnected—like the modern periodicals afflicted with the prevalent “snippetitis.” Such as they are, however, the local reader may be willing to accept them as being of some little interest.

In the year 1172 the Pipe Rolls, which come next to the Domesday Book among our most ancient national records, and contain a full account of the Crown revenues, return Willenhall, among five other Staffordshire estates, bringing in the sum of £19 7s. 8d. per annum to Henry II. This would represent nowadays a sum twenty times that amount. These estates were Bilston and Rowley Regis, being ancient demesnes of the Crown, and the manors of Leek, Wolstanton, and Penkhull (in the north of the county), which had escheated at the Conquest from the Earl of Mercia. Rowley probably brought in but a few pence at that time, when it formed a part of Clent.

In the same reign (Henry II.) the Canons of Wolverhampton are recorded as holding two hides of land in “Winenhale”—certainly not more than 400 acres in a fertile locality like this.

During the reign of Edward III., his son and heir, the renowned Black Prince, hero of Crecy and Poictiers, claimed (after the manner of those times) the custody and guardianship of Matilda, daughter and heiress of his old comrade in arms, John de Willenhale. The heiress of Willenhall was therefore at this time a royal ward. The earliest holder of this manor who is known by his territorial title seems to be Roger de Wylnale, who (according to Lawley’s “History of Bilston,” p. 132) was flourishing about the year 1109.

In these earlier centuries of the Middle Ages the machinery the law was crude and ineffective; as a consequence lawlessness was rampant, and everywhere might became right.

The nobles, whenever the weakness of a king emboldened them, fortified their castles, and increased the number of their retainers, whom they reduced to a condition of complete vassalage; and each baron strove to make himself a figure in the great national convulsions which, from time to time, broke out under the malign influences of the feudalism that dominated the whole land and blighted its every hope of progress.

The Franklins, the inferior grade of gentry, who, under the old Saxon system were called Thanes, were often compelled by force of environment to range themselves under the protecting banner of one or other of these petty kings. And where authority was systematically set at defiance by the great and the powerful, inoffensive conduct and dutiful obedience to the laws of the land afforded no guarantee for the security of either life or property.

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.

In 1306, when John de Swynnerton married the daughter and heiress of Philip de Montgomery, Seneschal of the Royal Forest of Cannock, and became Steward of the Forest in customary succession, Willenhall was officially returned, along with a number of surrounding places (Wednesfield, Wednesbury, Darlaston, Essington, Hilton, Newbrigge, Moseley, Bushbury, Pendeford, Coven, and a score more), as appurtenant to a third part of the said forest bailiwick.

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.

In 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. They were fined four shillings each, and ordered peremptorily to throw down the hedge.

Here is an episode characteristic of the period. It is a Tuesday evening in the month of August, 1347, and about the hour of vespers. The scene is laid in “the field of Wolverhampton, called Wyndefield, in a place called Le Ocstele, near Le More Love-ende.” A body of men, all carrying arms, are seen to approach their victim, who is described as a clerk, and therefore presumably defenceless. He is Roger Levessone, son of Richard Levessone. His assailants are Robert le Clerk, of Sedgley, two Dudley men, a man from Bloxwich, and several others, all duly named in the records of the law courts.

What the cause of quarrel may have been these meagre records do not inform us, but on the evidence of a number of witnesses, among whom was Richard Colyns, of Willenhall, they freely used their spears and swords, inflicting wounds upon the throat and other parts of the body, till the unfortunate Roger was despatched.

In 1339, one Richard Adams, of Willenhall, was charged with slaying two men in that place, one a townsman named John Odyes, and a certain John de Bentley. As he was acquitted, probably he did it in self-defence. Encounters of this character were of frequent occurrence in those lawless times.

When the offences recorded are of a less serious nature than murder and slaughter, they are nearly always described as being accompanied by the violent use of lethal weapons—“vi et armis” is the old legal phrase. Here are some examples of this kind of lawlessness:—

In 1352, William de Hampton (probably of the Dunstall family of that name) prosecuted a gang of fourteen men, including

a chaplain, the parson of Sheynton (? Shenstone), and two men from Tettenhall, for robbing him of his goods and chattels at Willenhall, Wednesfield, Tettenhall, and Pendeford. Of the details of the robberies we are able to learn nothing, except that they were all perpetrated forcibly, and with a reckless display of violence.

A similar prosecution was undertaken in 1395 by another member of this family, one Nicholas Hampton, against Thomas Marshall, of Willenhall, and for a similar outrage in that place.

A Willenhall man named John Wilson, in 1373, had to invoke the law upon a desperado who forcibly broke into his house and close at Homerwych (Hammerwich), and stole from thence timber, household utensils, clothing, corn, hay, and apparently everything he could lay his hands upon and carry away.

Twenty years later John Wilson (probably the same prosecutor) charged John Wilkes, of Darlaston, with stealing two of his oxen, though no violence is alleged on this occasion.

Two Willenhall men, William Colyns, and William Stokes, were, in 1399, arrested, and charged with cutting down trees and underwood at Bentley. Force and violence were used on that occasion; and it must be remembered that timber was then in much greater demand for building purposes than now, while underwood was in constant requisition as fuel and for the repair of fences and shelters.

Sixteen years later (1415) John Pype and a number of other Bilston men were prosecuted by Sir Hugh Burnell, Knt., for breaking into his closes at Willenhall, trespassing on his land, and treading down his grass with their cattle, committing damage to a grievous extent, and all in undisguised defiance to the law.

Enough has been quoted to illustrate, by incidents common to the social life of so simple a community as that of Willenhall, the gradual decay of feudalism, and the steady growth of English liberty by the vindication of constitutional law.

IX.—The Levesons and other old Willenhall families.

From the same sources, namely from the records of the ancient Law Courts, as transcribed, translated, and published in the volumes of the Salt Society, we are enabled to gain a knowledge of the most prominent families in this locality during the Middle Ages. There seem to have been lawsuits ever since there were landowners.

The principal family in Willenhall were the Levesons or Leusons, who are said to have been connected with this place and the neighbouring parishes of Wednesbury and Wolverhampton, almost from the time of the Norman Conquest, eking out a living from the soil, of which their tenure was at first a very precarious one.

Their pedigree, given by the county historian, Shaw (II. p. 169), shows the founder to be one Richard Leveson, settled in Willenhall in the reign of Edward I. But we find that in the year before this king’s accession, namely, in 1271, Richard Levison paid a fine of 2s. 3d. in the Forest Court for being permitted to retain in cultivation an assart of half an acre, lying in Willenhall; that is, to be allowed to continue under the plough a piece of land on which he had grubbed up all the trees and bushes by the roots, to the detriment of the covert within the King’s Royal Forest of Cannock.

The founder of the family was succeeded by a son, and by a grandson, both of whom were also called “Richard Leveson, of Willenhall,” although the last one was sometimes designated as “of Wolverhampton,” to which town he was doubtless attracted by the greater profits to be made in the wool trade.

The early commercial fame of Wolverhampton was based on this industry. Although there were no wool-staplers here in 1340, yet in 1354, when the wool staple was removed from Flanders, Wolverhampton was one of the few English towns fixed upon by Parliament for carrying on the trade. (A staple, it may be

explained, is a public mart appointed and regulated by law.) Although the staple was again changed to Calais, it was speedily brought back to England, and the Levesons were soon among the foremost “merchants of the staple.”

A Clement de Willenhale is mentioned in an Assize of the year 1338, but not improbably he was identical with the Clement Leveson mentioned in another lawsuit in 1356, a party to which was a member of the ancient local family of Harper—“John le Harpere,” as he is therein called.

Then there is mention in 1351 of the John de Willenhale, who is described as being in the wardship of the Prince of Wales. But perhaps the best insight into the social state of Willenhall at this period will be obtained from a consideration of its inhabitants liable to pay a war tax which was levied by Edward III. in order to enable him to carry on a war of defence against Scotland. For this popular military expedition, Parliament in 1327 granted the youthful king a Subsidy to the amount of one-twentieth leviable upon the value of nearly all kinds of property. Assessors and collectors were appointed for every town and village, and they were sworn to make true returns of every man’s goods and chattels, both in the house and out of it. The exceptions allowable were the goods of those whose total property did not amount to the full value of ten shillings; the tools of trade; and the implements of agriculture. On the face of it, these exemptions seem fair and just to the lower orders; but we find the higher orders were also favoured, and unduly so; not so much perhaps in the matters of armour and cavalry horses, as in the non-liability of the robes and jewels of knights, gentlemen, and their wives, as well as of their silver and household plate.

Here is a copy of the Subsidy Roll of 1327 so far as it relates to

Wyllunhale.

It will be seen that this fragment is imperfect, as the various amounts set down will not add up to the “summa” or total given, notwithstanding that it has been audited—the abbreviation “Pb.” standing for probata, or proved.

But more interest will be found in a brief study of the names of Willenhall’s inhabitants, who were men of substance seven hundred years ago.

It will be observed that Simon is the only member of the Leveson family assessed, and that he pays the least sum, except that paid by the man Hugh, described as “the Gardener” (the amount paid by “John the Baker” has been obliterated from the roll).

The strange surname Odyes, appearing twice in this list, occurs in another record of the year 1422, and seems to belong to a gentle family, resident in Willenhall, and owning lands in Bentley.

As but few people then bore recognised surnames, we find taxpayers here officially set down as “Richard the son of Ralph,” “John the son of Roger,” “Richard the son of Adam,” and

“William the son of Robert.” Besides these named according to their parentage, we have those described according to their place of residence; as thus, “Andrew at the Mere,” and “Adam at the Mere”; “Agnes at the Wood,” and “William at the Pear Tree.” William Newman was probably so-called because he was a new-comer, or was lately emancipated from serfdom as a “new man.”

From the Patent Rolls of November, 1334, may be gleaned the bare facts of what seems to have been an extraordinary assault at Willenhall, which was committed upon John, son of John de Bentley, by no less than thirty assailants. Among those implicated may be noted the names of five members of the Leveson family, namely, Geoffrey, Moses, John, Simon, and Simon the younger; also the names of William, son of Robert atte Pirie, Andrew atte Mere, John le Harpere, Richard Coletes, Richard Colyns, and several others which have occurred before in these pages. The Leveson family continue to make many appearances in the records of Willenhall litigation at this early period. In 1347, Andrew, the son of Simon Levesone, of Willenhale, was sued for the treading down and consuming of the corn of Andrew in le Lone at Willenhale, with his cattle, and by force of arms, and for cutting down his trees, and beating and wounding his servant.

In the following year, Geoffrey Levesone, of Willenhale, brought a somewhat similar charge of trespass against John Oldejones, of Wodnesfeld. In 1362, Roger Levesone, of Willenhale, was successful in a suit for recovering two acres of land at Wolverhampton. About the same time Juliana Levesone, of Willenhall, married William Tomkys, a member of one of the leading families of Bilston.

In 1369, John de la Lone, of Wolverhampton, sued John Levesone, of Willenhale, for forcibly taking his fish, to the value of 100 shillings, “from his several fishery in Willenhale.”

In 1394, Roger Liefson (Leveson), of Wylenhale (who has been previously mentioned in Chapter VII.), was at law with Thomas Colyns, of the same place, for forcibly taking away from Willenhall twelve oxen belonging to him. Immediately after, one William de Chorley was attacked for taking away from Great

Wyrley, also with a display of armed force, three oxen and two cows, the property of Richard Leveson, of Willenhall. If these two cases were not reprisals, they at least show a state of disturbance and insecurity.

Another exhibition of lawlessness is brought to our notice in 1429, when Richard Leveson is found suing Robert Dorlaston, weaver, Richard Colyns, lorymer, William Brugge, and William Bate, yeomen, all described as “of Wylenhale,” for violently and forcibly breaking into his close at Willenhall.

A similar case of forcible entry into the close and houses of James Leveson, at Willenhale, by one Roger Waters, a Willenhale lorymer, was an outrage which occupied the attention of the law courts in 1433.

Three years later (1436) another law case shows the same James Levesson suing John Pippard, chaplain, for a messuage and 20 acres of land in Wolverhampton, which he asserted had descended to him from Richard Levesson, of Willenhall, who held it in the time of Edward I., in a direct line, namely, from Richard to his son Geoffrey, from Geoffrey to his son Roger, and from Roger to his son Nicholas, who was plaintiff’s father.

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.

Woolstapling was a prosperous trade in Wolverhampton as early as 1354; and in its ancient market place the Levesons of the younger branch were to be found bartering wool and steadily accumulating riches until they were able to marry into the most exclusive of the county families.

Among the Bailiffs of the Staple—which, in the case of Wolverhampton were wool and woolfel—we find the names of William Leveson in 1485, and Walter Leveson in 1491.

Members of other old and well-known local families also filled this office of Bailiff at various times, namely, William Jennings in 1483, Richard Gough in 1486, Edward Giffard in 1493, Y. Turton in 1496, and W. Wrottesley in 1499. If evidence were required of the enterprise of these Wolverhampton merchants, it would be forthcoming in the fact that a Leveson and a Jennings, both natives of this place (the latter a “merchant taylor” in 1508) filled the high office of Lord Mayor of London.