Darlaston, Staffordshire

Historical Description

Darlaston, a town and a parish in Staffordshire, 1½ mile WW by N of Wednesbury, 3 miles SW of Walsall, and 123 from London, with a station, under the name of Darlaston and James Bridge, on the L. & N.W.R., and a post, money order, and telegraph office (T.S.O.), under Wednesbury. The G.W.R. station at Wednesbury is very convenient for passengers from Birmingham (9 miles). Electric trams run to and from Walsall every half-hour, and steam trams to Wednesbury and Birmingham every half-hour, and Dudley every hour. It carries on hardware manufacture in many departments, has iron-furnaces, steel works, and ir.alting mills. The staple trade of the town is the making of all kinds and sizes of nuts and bolts; gunlocks, bicycles, and tricycles are also made. It is governed by a local board of health, and forms part of the parliamentary borough of Wednesbury. The public buildings, erected in commemoration of Her Majesty's Jubilee, include a town-hall, public offices, library, and reading-room. There is a cemetery at James Bridge. The parish comprises 913 acres; population, 14,422. Coal and ironstone are extensively mined, stone is quarried, and bricks are made. A caiial aqueduct over the Bescot Brook has two arches, and is 120 feet high. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lien-field; net value, £400 with residence. Population of the ecclesiastical parish, 5934. The church stands on an eminence in the centre of the town, and is an ancient edifice, partially rebuilt in 1872. St George's ecclesiastical parish (population, 4211), constituted in 1844, is a separate benefice. The living is a vicarage; gross value, £300 with residence. Patron, alternately the Crown and the Bishop. The church was built in 1852, and is a stone structure. All Saints ecclesiastical parish (population, 4824) was constituted in 1872 from the parishes of Darlaston and Wednesbury. The living is a vicarage; net value, £263 with residence. The church was built in 1872. There are Roman Catholic, Primitive Methodist, Wesleyan, and Wesleyan Reformers' chapels.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

Findmypast, in association with the Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent Archive Service have the Baptisms, Banns, Marriages, and Burials online for Darlaston

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Darlaston from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Darlaston (St. Lawrence))

Land and Property

A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Staffordshire is online.

Maps

Online maps of Darlaston are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Staffordshire newspapers online:

• Staffordshire Advertiser
• Tamworth Herald
• Lichfield Mercury
• Staffordshire Sentinel
• Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser