Willenhall, Staffordshire

Historical Description

Willenhall, a town, a township, the head of a petty sessional division, and four ecclesiastical parishes in Wolverhampton parish, Staffordshire. The town stands near a branch of the Birmingham Canal, 3 miles E of Wolverhampton, and 122 by railway from London. It has stations on the L. & N.W.R. and M.R., and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Wolverhampton. Willenhall was known at Domesday as Winehalla, signifying "a place of victory," a name derived probably from a great battle fought at it in 910, and figured as a prosperous seat of iron manufacture in the time of Elizabeth. It carries on a great manufacture of all kinds of locks and padlocks, iron-founding, brass-founding, varnish making, and the manufacture of keys, hasps, bolts, latches, gridirons, ferules, files, steel straps, wood screws, box iron-stands, and curry-combs. The town is governed by an urban district council. It stands around a central, small, triangular market-place, and has two banks, a police station, a literary institute, and a free library. St Giles' Church was rebuilt in 1867, is in the Decorated style, and has a fine modern stained glass E window. St Stephen's Church was built in 1854. St Anne's, Spring Bank, was built in 1858 and enlarged in 1861. Holy Trinity Church is at Short Heath. There are Roman Catholic, Baptist, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels, and a cemetery. Petty sessions are held at the police court. The township includes the hamlets of Portobello, Short Heath, New Invention, Lane Head, Little London, Little Island, and Spring Bank, and is all within Wolverhampton parliamentary borough. Acreage, 2067; population, 19,336. Short Heath and New Invention were placed under a separate local board in 1872. The ecclesiastical parishes are St Giles (population, 6140), St Stephen (constituted 1846, population 5309), St Anne, Spring Bank (constituted 1861, population 5653), and Holy Trinity, Short Heath (constituted 1869, population 2619). The livings are all vicarages in the diocese of Lichfield. Net value of St Giles, £650 of St Anne, £248 with residence; of Holy Trinity, £200 with residence; gross value of St Stephen, £275. Patrons of St Giles, the parishioners; of St Stephen and Holy Trinity, the Crown and the Bishop alternately; of St Anne, trustees.

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 Willenhall

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

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Willenhall from the following:

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

Maps

Online maps of Willenhall 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)

Villages, Hamlets, &c