seigniory of the Lanes is well known. It was the scene of Charles II.'s
wonderful escape from the Roundheads, under the protection of Jane Lane,
whom he was afterwards wont to call his "Guardian Angel"; it was the
critical scene of John Wesley's adventure in the hands of the Wednesbury
mob. The mansion has since been rebuilt.
The Lanes sold the Manor of Bentley in 1748 to Joseph Turton, of
Wolverhampton, and he in turn sold it to the first Lord Anson, ancestor
of the present holder.
The Manor comprises 1,200 acres, none of which is now copyhold. There
was formerly a Court Leet jurisdiction, but everything connected with
ancient manorial government has disappeared. The Earl of Lichfield is
sole owner, except for a few acres belonging to the church, and the
portions which have been acquired by the local authority for the Cemetery
and the Sewerage Works.
Bentley is a parish without a church, or a chapel, and until the
Willenhall District Council recently made a Cemetery there, it was also
without a burial ground.
Bentley has but a scant population, and contains not a single inn. Its
living history seems to have centred almost entirely round the old family
mansion of the Lanes.
In 1660 a tax was levied on the fire-hearth of every dwelling-house, and
the amount collected under this grievous impost in Willenhall was
returned as 9 pounds 14s. 3d., representing 97 hearths. These figures
seem to indicate that in the reign of Charles II. the population of the
place, including the large hall at Bentley, could not have exceeded 500.
XXVI.--Modern Self-Government.
For centuries the Manorial and the Parochial forms of government ran
together side by side in this country, till these two antiquated ideas of
feudal lordship and church temporalities had to give way before the
growing democratic principle of elective representation, and they were
eventually supplanted by the modern methods of popular self-government.
In the reign of Elizabeth--say, half a century after the suppression of
the monasteries which had hitherto succoured the poor--we get the first
of our Poor Laws, accompanied by the rise of the Overseer, and by much
added importance to the office of Churchwarden, or, as he was called in
Willenhall, the Chapel-warden. The establishment of Church doles goes a
long way to explain how strenuously the community strove to evade its
liability to the poor, and it is probable that Willenhall did not
establish its small workhouse till the eighteenth century. This was
superseded when the Wolverhampton Union was constituted in 1834.
In 1776 the sum of 294 pounds 14s. 3d. had to be collected for poor rates
in Willenhall, a sum which by 1785 had grown to 548 pounds 14s. 2d., and
which for some years later averaged upwards of 500 pounds.
The Vestry, or public assembly of parishioners, would supplement these
feeble efforts at local government by choosing not only Chapelwardens,
but Parish Constables and the Waywardens. The custody of the stocks was
entrusted to the former, while the latter were supposed to superintend
the amateur efforts of the parishioners to repair their own highways,
every one being then liable to furnish either manual labour or team work
for this laudable public purpose.
Publicly elected and unsalaried Waywardens were naturally but feeble
instruments to work with; so in the early nineteenth century, when
coaching was at its zenith, this antiquated and ineffective system was
superseded in Willenhall, as in many other places, by an elected Highway
Board, charged with the duty of looking after all highways and common
streets, ancient bridges, ditches, and watercourses. In a dilettante
sort of way this Board was also a sanitary body.
In 1734 Willenhall is recorded to have suffered from a plague called the
"Bloody flux," which carried away its victims in a very few hours after
the seizure. It is stated in the Parish Registers that there were buried
in this year 82 persons, which was 67 in excess of the previous year.
The population then was under 1,000.
Cholera and other epidemic scourges having made it apparent that beyond
preserving the peace and mending the roads, the paramount duty of local
self-government was to protect the people's health, Willenhall in 1854
showed itself alive to this fact by adopting the new Public Health Acts
and calling into being its first Local Board.
Nothing can convey an idea of the material blessings which resulted from
this better than a glance at the vital statistics relating to Willenhall.
The death-rate per thousand--
From 1845 to 1851 was 29
,, 1851 ,, 1860 ,, 26.8
,, 1861 ,, 1870 ,, 23.8
,, 1891 ,, 1900 ,, 20.2
,, 1901 ,, 1906 ,, 16.9
It was not till 1866, however, that the Board appointed its first medical
officer of health, Dr. Parke. He was shortly afterwards succeeded by Mr.
William Henry Hartill, and upon his death, in 1888, the present medical
officer of heath, Dr. J. T. Hartill, was appointed. The chief executive
officers in succession have been Mr. E. Wilcox (who was not a solicitor),
Mr. John Clark, and the present clerk, Mr. Rowland Tildesley, appointed
in 1894.
In the meantime the population, particularly in the newer outlying
districts, had been growing rapidly. The population of Willenhall at the
first national census in 1801 was only 3,143, and the growth in the early
decades was slow, as these figures disclose:
In 1811 the population was 3,523
,, 1821 3,965
,, 1831 5,834
,, 1841 8,695
,, 1851 11,933
,, 1861 17,256
With the growth thus becoming so rapid, it was thought desirable, in
1872, to erect Short Heath into a separate Sanitary Authority. The area
allotted to the Short Heath Board of Health was that north of the
Birmingham Canal, but the village of Short Heath itself remained part of
the Township of Willenhall.
The census returns for Willenhall, minus Short Heath, have
1871 it had a population of 15,903
1881 16,067
1891 16,851
1901 18,515
After the passing of Sir H. H. Fowler's Local Government Act in 1895,
both authorities became Urban District Councils. Short Heath then as a
separate township had its area extended to take in Short Heath village,
with New Invention, Lanehead, Sandbeds, Lucknow, Fibbersley, in addition
to the former Local Board district, together with a slice from the old
Wednesfield Local Board district added on its Essington side.
No part of what used to be called Stow Heath was in Willenhall Township,
the extreme western boundary of the latter being Stow Heath Lane.
Modern Willenhall, although without public parks or pleasure grounds, and
not yet possessing public baths, is fairly well equipped for its size and
rateable value. It has its Public Offices, but no Town Hall; it has a
Free Library, established in 1875, and a full complement of efficient
primary schools. In 1877 it established its own School Board under the
Act of 1870, but under the later Act of 1902 its educational affairs
became vested in the Staffordshire County Council.
Willenhall had its own Waterworks at Monmore Lane as early as 1852; it
now takes its supply from the Wolverhampton Corporation, who purchased
the old works in 1868. Its old Gas Works in Lower Lichfield Street have
been taken over by Short Heath; and Willenhall is now supplied by the
Willenhall Gas Company, the present system of public street lighting
being that of the very efficient incandescent burner.
The Sewerage of the town was completed in 1890. There are two public
cemeteries; the Old Cemetery provided about 1851 under the Burial Acts,
and the newer one at Bentley, established under the Act of 1879.
The Police are, as in most townships, under the control of the
Staffordshire County Council; and Petty Sessions are held once a week (on
Mondays). Seventy years ago Willenhall had a Court of Requests for the
recovery of debts up to 5 pounds.
For Parliamentary representation Willenhall formed a portion of
Staffordshire till the great Reform Bill of 1832 made Wolverhampton a
borough, when it became part of that more important urban constituency.
For communication with the outer world Willenhall has had the advantage
of the London and North-Western Railway from the earliest possible
time--since the "Grand Junction Railway" (commenced in 1835) was opened
to public traffic on July 4th, 1837. Great were the rejoicings, and
prodigious the wonderment when the first train passed through on that
memorable day. Since the later decades of the last century the Midland
Railway has also tapped Willenhall.
The town is equally well supplied with tramways; the Wolverhampton
District Electric Tramways, Limited, controlling three lines, to
Wolverhampton, to Bilston, and Darlaston respectively; while the Walsall
Corporation afford facilities for communication with their thriving and
go-ahead borough. It is worthy of note that the old-fashioned carrier's
cart is not obsolete in Willenhall; this is probably because its staple
industries provide so many small parcels for transmission to
Wolverhampton, Birmingham, and other centres not too far distant.
The Wyrley and Essington Canal for heavy traffic was made in 1792, and is
still a useful highway, particularly to the Cannock Chase Collieries.
[Picture: Decorative design]
XXVII.--The Town of Locks and Keys.
Willenhall is "the town of locks and keys"; its staple industry has been
described in such graceful and felicitous terms by Elihu Burritt (see his
"Walks in the Black Country," pp. 206-214, written in 1868) that the
present writer at once confesses the inadequacy of his poor pen to say
anything new on the subject, engaging as it is.
The great American writer, be it noted, does not fail at the very outset
to pay a well-deserved tribute to James Carpenter Tildesley, as the
foremost authority on the subject, and compliments him on the versatility
displayed in his article on Locks and Keys, contributed to that
co-operative literary work, "Birmingham and the Midland Hardware
District," which was specially issued for the British Association meeting
at Birmingham in 1865.
The lockmakers of antiquity worked in wood and not in metal, a key
consisting of hard wood pegs being made to turn in a wooden lock of loose
pegs. The Romans first introduced the iron key with wards instead of
pegs.
The subject is full of interest; for lock-making is among the most
ancient of the mechanical crafts, and has for centuries afforded a wide
and ample scope as one of the branches of industrial art. As in many
other industrial crafts the religious enthusiasm of the Middle Ages
impelled the artist-mechanic to throw his whole soul into the
manipulation and adornment of his keys, key-hole escutcheons, and other
parts of door-fastening furniture. With his steel pencil and gravers,
his chisels and his drills, the craftsman of olden times produced an
article of utility which was at the same time a work of art. Will the
Art Classes of modern Willenhall be able to achieve as much for the
staple industry of the town as did the whole-souled enthusiasm of the
Middle Ages?
The Gothic key, usually of iron or of bronze, was generally plain; but
after the Renaissance the best efforts of the locksmiths' art were
directed to the decoration of the bow and the shaft, and many finely
wrought specimens of ornamental old keys are still in existence.
On the utilitarian side of our subject, industrial history records that
we are indebted to the Chinese for unpickable locks of the lever and
tumbler principle; and to the Dutch for the combination or letter-lock.
The latter ingenious contrivance contained four revolving rings, on which
were engraved the letters of the alphabet, and they had to be turned in
such a way as to spell some pre-arranged word of four letters, as O P E
N, or A M E N, before the lock could be opened.
Allusion to this complex contrivance is made by the poet Carew in some
verses written in the year 1620--
As doth a lock
That goes with letters--for till every one be known
The lock's as fast as if you had found none.
Mechanical ingenuity in lock making has also expanded itself along the
line of marvellous miniatures, in the production of toy locks so small
that they could be worn as pendants or personal ornaments. Allusion will
presently be made to a Willenhall specimen.
Another ingenious variety of locks was contrived to grab and hold the
fingers of pilferers.
The first patent granted in England for a lock was in 1774; ten years
later Joseph Bramah, of London, "the Napoleon of locks," patented his
famous production, with which he challenged the whole world. The reward
of 200 guineas which he offered to anyone who could pick his lock
remained unclaimed for many years, till in the Exhibition year 1851 an
American visitor named Hobbs took up the challenge, and succeeded, after
a few days of persevering experiment, in overcoming the inviolability of
it.
The sensation caused by this achievement was almost of national
dimensions; but of more importance was the decided impetus it have to the
inventive skill of lock makers, by demonstrating that Bramah had not yet
arrived at finality in lock making; a great number of further
improvements were soon forthcoming in the manufacture of these goods.
Chubb's patent was granted in 1818; this inventor declared it was
possible to have the locks on the doors of every house in London opened
by a different key, and yet have a master-key that would pass the whole
of them. Chubb's world-famous concern is now located at Wolverhampton.
Dr. Plot, writing of this county in 1686, makes no mention of the trade
being carried on in Willenhall, but gives some account of it in
Wolverhampton; gossiping pleasantly on "sutes" of six or more locks,
passable by one master-key, being sold round the country by the chapmen
of his time; of the finely wrought keys he had seen; of the curious
tell-tale locks which recorded the times they had been opened; and of one
valuable Wolverhampton specimen containing chimes which could be set to
"go" at any particular hour.
A local writer has said--on what authority is not stated--that Queen
Elizabeth granted to the township of Willenhall the privilege of making
all the locks required for State purposes; and argues from that
profitable piece of State patronage the rapid growth of Willenhall, as
evidenced by the fact that in 1660 when the Hearth Tax came to be levied
this place paid on 13 more hearths than the mother town of Wolverhampton.
Dr. Wilkes has recorded that in his time Willenhall consisted of one long
street, newly paved; and he then proceeds to say:--
"The village did not begin to flourish till the iron manufactory was
brought into these parts in the reign of Queen Elizabeth."
This may, or may not, refer to the making of locks and keys, but it
certainly refers to the great devastation of Cannock Forest in providing
charcoal for iron-smelting. The doctor continues:--
"Since that time this place is become very populous, and more locks
of all kinds are made here than in any other town of the same size in
England or Europe. The better sort of which tradesmen have erected
many good houses."
Some of these "good houses" are still standing; and as to the
"populousness" of the place, there may have been 2,000 inhabitants at
that time. A return has been given forth that in 1770 Willenhall
contained 148 locksmiths, Wolverhampton 134, and Bilston 8; while nearly
a century later, in 1855, the numbers were Willenhall 340, Wolverhampton
110, and Bilston 2, which shows that the trade grew in Willenhall at the
expense of the adjoining places. Yet lockmaking was carried on in
Bilston as early as 1590, when the Perrys, the Kempsons, and the
Tomkyses, all leading families, were engaged in the trade. In 1796 Isaac
Mason, inventor of the "fly press" for making various parts of a lock,
migrated from Bilston to Willenhall.
The Willenhall specimen of a miniature lock is thus mentioned in a diary
of the Rev. T. Unett, "June 13, 1776, James Lees, of Willenhall, aged 63
years and upwards, showed me a padlock with its key, made by himself,
that was not the weight of a silver twopence. He at the same time shewed
me a lock that was not the weight of a silver penny; he was then making
the key to it, all of iron. He said he would be bound to make a dozen
locks, with their keys, that should not exceed the weight of a sixpence."
Before the rise of factories into which workmen might be collected, and
their labour more healthily regulated, Willenhall lock-making was always
conducted in small domiciliary workshops. Had any one at the close of
the eighteenth century peeped in at the grimy little windows of one of
these low-roofed workshops, and made himself acquainted with the extreme
dirtiness of the calling, he would scarcely have ventured to regard it as
one befitting the dainty hands of the highest personage of the most
fastidious of nations. Yet that unfortunate monarch, Louis XVI., prided
himself not on his statesmanship, but upon his skill as a practical
locksmith, and his intimacy with all the intricacies of the craft. He
had fitted up in his palace at the Tuileries a forge with hearth and
anvil, bellows and bench, from which it was his delight to turn out with
his own hands all kinds of work in the shape of "spring, double bolt, or
catch lock."
He smokes his forge, he bares his sinewy arm,
And bravely pounds the sounding anvil warm.
Locks of every variety of principle and quality are produced in
Willenhall; the chief kinds being the cabinet lock, the best qualities of
which range from 10s. to 3 pounds each, while the commoner ones are sold
at from 10s. to 3s. the dozen; the rim lock for doors having two or three
bolts, and opening with knob and key; the stock or fine plate lock,
imbedded in a wooden case to stand the weather when used on exposed yard
or stable doors; the drawback lock for hill doors, with a spring bolt
that can be worked from the inside with a knob or from the outside with a
latch-key; the dead lock, having one large bolt worked by the key, but
not catching or springing like the rim lock; the mortice lock, which is
buried in the door, and may be of the dead, the rim, or the drawback
variety; the familiar loose padlock made in immense quantities both of
iron and of brass; and others less familiar.
The lock-producing centre includes Wolverhampton, Willenhall,
Wednesfield, and some of the outlying rural districts like Brewood and
Pendeford, where parts and fittings are prepared. In the mother parish
the business is extensive and extending; at Wednesfield, iron cabinets
and till locks, as well as various kinds of keys, are produced in great
numbers, for keys are frequently made apart from the locks as a separate
branch of the trade.
Willenhall produces most of the same kinds as Wolverhampton, except the
fine plate, though oftener in the cheaper qualities; rim locks are very
largely made, all on the Carpenter and Young patent, most of them for
export. Willenhall locks are all warded, the wards varying in strength
and complexity, known as common, fine round, sash, and solid wards.
It was the Carpenter and Young invention of 1830, making the action of
the catch bolt perpendicular instead of horizontal, which renewed the
vitality of the town's staple industry.
As registered the patent was entered:--
"No. 5,880, 18 January, 1830. James Carpenter, of Willenhall, and
John Young, of Wolverhampton, locksmiths. Improvements in locks."
Mr. R. B. Prosser, a recognised authority on patents and inventions,
records that in 1841 Carpenter brought an action against one Smith, but
the verdict was given for the defendant, it being held that Carpenter's
lock was not a new invention (Webster's Reports of Patent Cases, Vol. I.,
p. 530).
Notwithstanding this the lock has always been known, and is still known,
as "Carpenter's lift-up lock."
James Carpenter, the founder of the business still carried on under the
style of Carpenter and Tildesley, was not a native of Willenhall. His
first place of business was in Walsall Street opposite the "Wake Field";
thence he removed to Stafford Street, occupying the premises now the
Three Crowns Inn; subsequently building and occupying the Summerford
Works (and Summerford House) in the New Road, where the concern is still
carried on James Carpenter, the patentee, was a keen man of business, and
distinguished for great decision of character. His daughter Harriet
married James Tildesley, who became a partner in the business. Carpenter
died in 1844, and Tildesley in 1876, and the concern has since been
carried on by the two eldest sons of the latter in partnership, James
Carpenter Tildesley (who is now permanently invalided, and of whom more
anon), and Clement Tildesley. Mr. Clement Tildesley, who, like his
brother, is a county magistrate, still lives at Summerford House, where
he was born.
Mr. Rowland Tildesley, solicitor, and Clerk to the Willenhall Urban
District Council, is the fourth son of James Tildesley.
James Tildesley's eldest daughter, Louisa Elizabeth, married William
Henry Hartill, surgeon, and J.P. for the county of Stafford, who died in
1889; his second daughter, Emily, married John Thomas Hartill, J.P.,
surgeon, who filled the office of President of the Staffordshire Branch
of the British Medical Association in 1885, and again in 1907.
With these few biographical details of Willenhall's chief inventor we
pass on.
Other local patents in this branch of industry on the Register are:--
No. 8543--13th June, 1840--Joseph Wolverson, locksmith, William Rawlett,
latch maker, both of Willenhall. "Locks and latches."
No. 8903--29 March, 1841.--James Tildesley, of Willenhall, factor, and
Joseph Sanders, of Wolverhampton, Lock manufacturer. "Locks."
No. 10611--15th April, 1845.--George Carter, of Willenhall, jobbing
smith. "Locks and latches.
No. 12604--8th May, 1849.--Samuel Wilkes, of Wednesfield Heath, brass
founder. "Knobs, handles, and spindles for the same, and locks."
[There are patents in the name of Samuel Wilkes, at Darlaston,
ironfounder, in 1840, for hinges; and for vices in the same year. In
1851, Samuel Wilkes, of Wolverhampton, iron founder, took out a patent
for hinges. In 1845, Samuel Wilkes, of Wolverhampton, brass founder,
took out a patent for kettles. The Wilkes' family hereabouts are
manifestly as ingenious as they are numerous.]
At the present time there are some 90 factories and 143 workshop
employers in Willenhall, besides nine factories and 47 workshops in the
Short Heath district. The most important firms in the lock trade are
Messrs. Carpenter and Tildesley, H. and T. Vaughan, William Vaughan, John
Minors and Sons, J. Waine and Sons, Beddow and Sturmey, Legge and
Chilton, and Enoch Tonks and Sons. In the casting trades are John Harper
and Co., Ltd. (by far the largest concern), Wm. Harper, Son, and Co., C.
and L. Hill, H. and J. Hill, T. Pedley, H. and T. Vaughan (under the
style of D. Knowles and Sons), and Arthur Tipper. In this branch of the
industry women are largely employed, and children to a slight extent, in
attending to light hand and power presses. Female labour is now utilised
in the making of parts of machine-made locks (a method of production
introduced during the last generation), and for varnishing, painting, and
bronzing both the machine and the hand-made goods.
The rate of wages for workmen in the lock trade now ranges from 20s. to
35s. per week, yielding an average of about 29s. Of the wares produced
there are probably 300 varieties, many of them in several sizes each, the
gross output running into thousands of dozens per week, and so great is
their diversity that they range from field padlocks to ponderous prison
locks, and the selling prices vary from 1d. to 30s. each. They are
exported all over the world, finding good markets in Australasia and
South Africa.