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Walsall Industry in 1859

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Topographical Dictionary of England, Samuel Lewis - 1859

WALSALL The chief articles of manufacture are bridle-bits, stirrups, spurs, saddle-trees, and every kind of saddlers' ironmongery ; buckles, snuffers, spoons, and various other sorts of hardware; coach harness and furniture, plated ware, locks, chain-curbs, dog-chains, and other articles, some of which are brought 
into the town and sold by factors. Many mercantile houses have been established here, having an extensive business with America and other countries; and a considerable home trade is carried on.

A manufactory for Hebert's patent progressive corn-mills has lately been erected within four miles of the town, where one of these mills is in operation. There are several brass and iron foundries, of which the iron-foundry at Goscote is the most important, as well as the oldest in the district; steam-engines of every power, cylinders, and cannon, besides the various smaller articles of cast-iron, are founded here upon the most improved principles. A good trade is also carried on in malt: in the vicinity are large quarries of limestone; and some extensive mines of coal and iron-stone, with which the neighbourhood abounds, have lately been opened at the Birchills and near Bloxwich, in consequence of which the population has been increasing rapidly.

The situation of the town in the north-eastern part of a large mining and manufacturing district, abundantly supplied with coal, is peculiarly favourable to its manufactures. a branch of the Old Birmingham canal, which comes up to the west end of the town, and the Wyrley and Essington canal, which passes within a mile north of it, now united, afford every facility of inland navigation; and about a mile distant, is the Walsall station of the Grand Junction railway.

 

[Description(s) from The Topographical Dictionary of England (1859) by Samuel Lewis - Transcribed by Mike Harbach ©2020]