Tipton or Tibbington, Staffordshire

Historical Description

Tipton or Tibbington, a town and a parish in Staffordshire, 1½ mile NNE of Dudley, 3 miles SW of Wednesbury, 9 NW of Birmingham, and 121 by railway from London. The town is situated in the centre of the South Staffordshire coal and iron district, and owes its size and importance to the rapid extension of the iron manufacture. It has a head post office, and stations on the G.W.R. and the Stour Valley and South Staffordshire sections of the L. & N.W.R., and is scarcely distinguishable as a town from the other portions of the parish, Bloomfield, Dudley Port, Horseley Heath, Great Bridge, Prince's End, Toll End, Ockerhill, and Lea Brook. It is governed by an urban district council of 24 members, is a seat of petty sessions, and is included in the parliamentary borough of Wednesbury. The parish comprises 2176 acres; population, 29,314. There are three libraries and reading-rooms. Ironstone and coal abound; fire-bricks, cement, malt, files, and nails are made; and heavy iron goods, including anchors, cables, pit-chains, iron-fenders, fire-irons, and all kinds of steam engine machinery are largely manufactured. The parish is divided into the five ecclesiastical parishes of St Martin, St John, St Matthew, St Paul, and St Mark Ockerhill, and portion of that of Tividale. Population of St Martin, 10,639; of St John (constituted 1854), 3656; of St Matthew (constituted 1880), 3592; of St Paul (constituted 1843), 5253; of St Mark (constituted 1845), 8927. The livings are all vicarages in the diocese of Lichfield, except that of St Paul, which is a perpetual curacy. Net ralue of St Martin, £394; of St John, £253 with residence; gross value of St Matthew, £280 with residence; of St Paul, £340; of St Mark, £247. Patrons, of St Martin, Hyndman's Trustees; of St John and St Paul, the Vicar of Tipton; of St Matthew, Simeon's Trustees; of St Mark, the Crown and the Bishop of Lichfield alternately. St Martin's Church stands on Horseley Heath, to which site it was removed in 1797. St John's Church stands on Summer Hill; St Paul's Church is in Owen Street; St Matthew's Church, in the Dudley Road, was erected in 1880; St Mark's Church is at Ockerhill. There are Baptist, Congregational, Primitive and New Connexion Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels, and a cemetery.

Land and Property

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

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

Villages, Hamlets, &c