Willenhall in 1872

WILLENHALL, a town, a township, four chapelries, and a sub-district, in Wolverhampton parish and district, Stafford. The town stands on the Birmingham and Wolverhampton railway, near a branch of the Birmingham Canal, 3 miles E of Wolverhampton; was known, at Domesday, as Winehalla, signifying "a place of victory;" got that name, probably, from a great battle fought at it in 910; figured as a prosperous seat of iron-manufacture in the time of Elizabeth; rose from a pop. of about 3,000 in 1811 to a pop. of about 16,000 in 1861; carries on a great manufacture of all kinds of locks and padlocks, iron-founding, brass-founding, varnish-making, matting, and the manufacture of keys, hasps, bolts, latches, gridirons, ferrules, files, steel-straps, snuffers, wood-screws, box iron-stands, and curry-combs; publishes a weekly newspaper;

It is superintended by a local board of health; stands around a central, small, triangular market-place; and has a post-office under Wolverhampton, a railway station with telegraph, a banking-office, a police station, a market-hall of 1861, a literary institute of 1865, a church rebuilt in 1867 at a cost of £6,700, three other churches, a Baptist chapel of 1863, four other dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic chapel, a public cemetery, seven public schools, and a weekly market on Saturday. The township includes seven hamlets, and is all within Wolverhampton parliamentary borough. Real property, £28,290; of which £595 are in mines, and £448 in iron-works. Pop. in 1851, 11,931; in 1861, 17,256. Houses, 3,258. The increase of pop. arose from the extension of the iron manufacture, and of mining operations.

The chapelries are St. Giles, of old date; St. Stephen, constituted in 1846; Trinity, 1846; and St. Anne, 1861. The livings of St Stephen and Trinity are vicarages, and those of St. Giles and St Anne are perpetual curacies in the diocese of Lichfield. Value of St. Giles, £300; of St Stephen, £300; of Trinity, £150; of St Anne, £106. Patrons of St. Giles, the Inhabitants; of St Stephen and Trinity, alternately the Crown and the Bishop; of St. Anne, Messrs. Jevons and Mitchell. The sub-district includes also Wednesfield township, and comprises 5,588 acres. Pop. in 1851, 16,789; in 1861, 25,809. Houses, 4,966. 

PORTOBELLO, a village in Willenhall township, Wolverhampton parish, Stafford; on the Birmingham, Walsall, and Wolverhampton railway, 2 miles E of Wolverhampton. It has a station on the railway, and a post-office under Wolverhampton.

[Description(s) from The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) - Transcribed by Mike Harbach ©2020]