[Illustration: DUDLEY CASTLE _FROM BURNT TREE ROAD. 1810._]
Preface.
"Yea, it becomes a man
To cherish memory where he had delight,
For kindness is the natural birth of kindness,
Whose soul records not the great debt of joy,
Is stamped for ever an ignoble man."
_Sophocles_--AJAX.
In placing the following pages before the attention of the inhabitants
of Dudley and its vicinity, I am actuated by the desire that the
memories of the past generation, with all its fierce struggles for
social and political predominance, and its efforts to promote local
progression, may be faithfully portrayed in the mirror of its own
doings, reproducing many forgotten scenes and events enacted in this
Borough, which to the writer of these pages, and many others, afforded
_then_ as it will afford _now_ a fund of amusement and reflection, such
as is only to be obtained at the fountain of memory and observation.
The fact of being myself the collector of this large pile of printed
information for the last 40 years, emboldens me to chronicle the Events
and Curiosities of Dudley in such a succession of past years as will at
once convey to my few remaining contemporaries a lively recollection
of once stirring events, which the present generation of active public
men in our midst may perhaps deign to learn therefrom a lesson of
experience and profit. These curious events having been written at the
time they occurred, removes the historian out of the region of fancy
and speculation, giving a clear and unbiassed insight into the ways and
doings of the past generation of our active townsmen.
When this history of events began, Dudley was comparatively a small
country town, separated from Birmingham by the Horseley Fields and
Bromwich Heath; it was governed by a Court Leet of the Manor of Dudley,
which body annually elected a Mayor and High Bailiff, &c. There was
also in force a "Local Town Improvement Act," of some considerable
date, administered by townsmen of property and position in the town;
but this Commission always fought shy of any Sanitary or Drainage
improvements, but contented itself by levying town rates up to a very
circumscribed area in the town. Periodically, as the funds accumulated,
important improvements were occasionally made in the Market Place,
by buying up and removing entirely what was then known as the Old
Middle Row, of all descriptions of tenements and old and dilapidated
buildings, resulting in our now possessing the most spacious Market
Place in the county. Both Bush Street and Upper Vicar Street, leading
into King Street, were widened by this local Authority. The town rate
varied from 1s. to 2s. in the pound annually, but is now extinct.
My book closes with the Life and Trials of Dud Dudley, whose narrative
I have printed in its entirety. If ever a public inventor deserved some
public recognition for his inventions as "the first Artificer in Iron
made with Pit Coale," that man was the renowned Dud Dudley, who lived
and died in our midst.
The Ironmasters, Coal Masters and inhabitants of Dudley and its
district could not perform a more enduring and graceful act than by
placing an iron column in our midst to commemorate the inventions of
Dud Dudley, the great Ironmaster.