Bloxwich in 1817

Description from A Topographical History of Staffordshire by William Pitt (1817)

BLOXWICH.

Bloxwich, in the foreign of Walsall, is situated to the north-west, between two and three miles distant from that town. This populous hamlet has a small chapel of ease, and maintains its own poor.

According to the following inscription on a tombstone in the chapel-yard, the inhabitants of Bloxwich have been strenuous in the maintenance of their independence: "To the memory of Samuel Wilkes, late of this parish, locksmith, who died 6th November, 1764. Reader! if thou art an inhabitant of Great Bloxwich, Know, that the dust beneath thy feet (when overseer of the poor of this parish) was imprisoned in thy cause, because he refused to surrender thy rights, and to submit to an arbitrary mandate, by which it was intended to incorporate the poor-rates of the foreign with those of the borough, and thereby to compel the foreign to the payment of a greater proportion of parochial taxes than is warranted by law; his resistance was attended with success. The benefit is thine."

The foreign of Bloxwich consists of two villages, called Great and Little Bloxwich.

Great Bloxwich is situated on a lofty eminence, and is a large and populous village, inhabited by manufacturers of saddlers' ironmongery. There is a large open common, and a common field of good sound arable land, belonging to Great Bloxwich. The chapel is a donative in the gift of the inhabitants.

Little Bloxwich is a mile to the north, and farther from Walsall; the Wyrley canal passes through it.

The road from Walsall to Stafford passes through Bloxwich; a road also branches off to Lichfield, and another to Wolverhampton.