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Bilston in 1868

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The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland - 1868

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer (1868)]

"BILSTON, a chapelry and market town in the parish and borough of Wolverhampton, hundred of Seisdon, in the county of Stafford, 2 miles to the S.E. of Wolverhampton, and 120 miles to the N.W. of London by road, or 124 miles by the London and North-Western railway, on which it is a station. It is also a station on the Oxford, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton section of the Great Western railway. The Birmingham and Staffordshire canal also passes near the town. Bilston was at a remote period a royal demesne, but it remained for centuries a place of no importance. It is now one of the most populous and prosperous towns in Staffordshire. The district in which it is situated is remarkable for its mineral wealth, especially for its abundance of coal and iron. It contains also extensive and valuable deposits of clay, beds of quarry-stone of excellent quality for building purposes, for grindstones, &c:, and a very fine orange-coloured sand used for casting. To these natural advantages the town is indebted for its rapid growth, and increasing prosperity as one of the centres of the iron trade.

Bilston is an irregularly built town, spreading over a tract of rising ground for about 2 miles. The principal streets contain some good and handsome residences, while in all directions around are scattered the dwellings of the workers. Above 2,500 persons are employed in the coal and iron mines. The surrounding district is covered with the evidences, implements, and products of the manufacturing industry of the place. Foundries, forges, and smelting furnaces abound, and at night the lurid glow of the countless fires gives the locality an aspect almost unearthly and terrifying. The manufacture of all kinds of japannned and enamelled wares, and of tin, brass, iron wire, locks, screws, &c., is carried on to a large extent. Coarse earthenware is made of the clay of the district, and many hands are employed in the stone-quarries.

The living is a perpetual curacy in the diocese of Lichfield, value £635, in the gift of the inhabitants. The present church was erected in 1826 on the site of an earlier one, and is dedicated to St. Leonard. Two other district churches have since been erected: one dedicated to St. Mary, in 1829, a handsome edifice in the perpendicular style, with a good tower; the living of which is a curacy, value £250, in the patronage of the bishop of the diocese; the other, dedicated to St. Luke; the living also a curacy, value £150, in the alternate patronage of the crown and the bishop.

There are six chapels in the town, belonging to the Baptists, Independents, Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, and Primitive Methodists. The charitable endowments consist chiefly of a fund for the augmentation of the curacy, which produces £588 per annum; and the income of the blue-coat school, founded by Humphrey Perry; and of the cholera orphan school. The latter was founded for the maintenance of the 450 children left orphans by the severe visitation of cholera in the town in 1832. The town suffered from a like visitation in 1849, when there were between 600 and 700 deaths. Monday and Saturday are the market days. Fairs are held on Whit-Monday, and the Monday before the Michaelmas fair at Birmingham. Petty sessions are held, and polling for the county elections takes place here."

"PRIESTFIELD, a hamlet in the chapelry of Bilston, parish of Wolverhampton, county Stafford, 1½ mile from Wolverhampton. It is a station on the West Midland section of the Great Western railway."

 

[Description(s) from The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) - Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]