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Dudley

DUDLEY, a borough, and the head of a union, in the Lower division of the hundred of Halfshire, Dudley and E. divisions of the county of Worcester, though locally in the S. division of the hundred of Offlow and of the county of Stafford, 26 miles (N. N. E.) from Worcester, and 118 (N. W. by N.) from London; containing 31,232 inhabitants, of whom 17,077 are in the town. This place derives its name from Dodo, or Dudo, a Saxon prince, by whom it was owned at the time of the heptarchy, and who built a castle here about the year 700, which, during the contest between Stephen and the Empress Matilda, was garrisoned for the latter by Gervase Paganell, to whom the barony at that time belonged. Gervase having subsequently taken part in the rebellion of Prince Henry against his father, Henry II., his castle was demolished in the 20th year of that monarch's reign. Roger de Somery, obtaining possession of the barony, began to convert his mansion into a castle, and for his firm adherence to Henry III. in his wars with the barons, was permitted by his sovereign to perfect the fortifications. The present keep, with the gateway and chapel, is of the architecture of the 13th century; the other buildings were erected by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, in the time of Edward VI. In the early part of the civil war the castle was garrisoned by the royalists, and in 1644 defended by Colonel Beaumont with great bravery against the parliamentarians, who were compelled to raise the siege by the arrival of a detachment from Worcester; it was afterwards made untenable by order of the house of commons, and an accidental fire, which occurred in 1750, completed its demolition.

The castle was built on an elevated limestone rock, the summit and acclivities of which are richly wooded; the remains are extensive and highly interesting, and comprise the entrance gateway, leading to a court-yard of about an acre, on one side of which, overlooking the town, is the keep, consisting of four circular towers connected by a curtain, two of them in ruins, and raised on a lofty artificial mound. Further on are, the chapel, a curious specimen of architecture; the great hall, 75 feet by 56, approached by a colonnade of the Doric order; and the domestic apartments and offices, in the Elizabethan style. The postern tower and buildings connected with it, including an octagonal staircase tower, occupy a third side of the court-yard, the fourth being protected by a strong wall. A moat surrounded the whole, and additional protection was given by strong outworks. The castle and its precincts are extra-parochial; the grounds are very extensive, and have been beautifully laid out in shrubberies and walks, affording a succession of different views of this highly picturesque ruin. About half a mile from the town was a priory of Cluniac monks, founded about the year 1161 by Gervase Paganell, and dedicated to St. James, as a cell to the abbey at Wenlock; the revenue, at the Dissolution, was £36. 3. There are still considerable remains, mantled with ivy, forming a pleasing feature in the view from the Castle Hill; and near them the late Earl of Dudley erected a handsome building in the later English style, which, from its proximity to the ruins, is called the Priory.

The town is situated in a tract of country whose surface is finely varied, though in several places disfigured by mining operations, which are extensively prosecuted in the vicinity; the principal street is spacious, and of a gently bending form, terminated by the lofty spire of the parish church. The whole is lighted with gas conveyed by pipes; it is macadamized, and the High-street has a broad flagged pathway on each side. The houses are in general neat and well built, and many of them large and elegant; the inhabitants are supplied with water, under an act obtained in 1833: the Castle Hill is a favourite place of resort, and highly interesting to the botanist. A public subscription library, established in 1805, contains a large collection of books: a geological society was founded in 1842. The Trade of Dudley arises chiefly from the geological character of the neighbourhood, which is remarkable for the variety and extent of its mines of coal and ironstone, lying on each side of a ridge of basaltic rock and limestone. Between the different veins of coal are found immense beds of ironstone; and the produce of this singularly rich mineral district affords an abundant supply for numerous works. In Tividale are the coal-works of Messrs. Wagstaff and Skidmore. The iron manufacture is carried on to a very considerable extent; a large quantity of ore is smelted, and the metal is not only formed into pigs, bars, sheets, and rods, but in extensive foundries cast into water and gas pipes, cylindrical pillars, rafters, gates, hurdles, and other articles, and manufactured into spades, scythes, grates, fenders, vices, and indeed into implements of agriculture and tools of every description: the vicinity, for a circuit of several miles, abounds with nail manufacturers. The Withymoor works, for manufacturing scythes, spades and shovels, nails, chains, &c., have been carried on by the Griffin family for more than a century, and many of the articles made here are secured by patent. The Burnt-Tree works, belonging to Mr. Thomas Marsh, were established in 1827, and employ about 120 persons in the manufacture of grates, fenders, and fire-irons. The limestone, exclusively of what is consumed in the making of iron, to which, from its superior quality, it gives a high degree of perfection, is used for agricultural and architectural purposes, and is much admired for the beauty and variety of the fossils with which the stone abounds. The basalt is chiefly obtained in the adjoining parish of Rowley, and is well adapted for making and repairing roads, being little inferior to granite. The manufacture of flint glass is carried on extensively, and there are several cutting-mills. Here is a brewery, belonging to Messrs. Scholefield, Young, and Stephen; and the business done in malting is considerable. A canal tunnel, one mile and threequarters in length, thirteen feet high, and nine feet wide, has been cut through the rock whereon the castle is built, for the conveyance of the limestone from the caverns under the Castle Hill, in which it is procured, to the iron-furnaces: it is in some places more than twenty yards below the surface, and communicates with the Birmingham and Stourbridge canals. An act was passed in 1845, authorising the construction of a railway from Oxford, by Worcester and Dudley, to Wolverhampton; and in 1846 two acts affecting Dudley were obtained, one for a line from Birmingham to the Oxford and Wolverhampton railway at Dudley, and the other for a line from the same town to the Liverpool and Birmingham railway at Bushbury, near Wolverhampton, with a branch to Dudley. An act has also been passed for a railway from Dudley to Walsall. The market is on Saturday: the fairs are on May 8th, for cattle, cheese, and wool; Aug. 5th, for lambs; and Oct. 2nd, for horses, cattle, cheese, onions, and wool. The town is under the superintendence of a mayor, bailiff, and other officers, appointed annually at the court leet of the lord of the manor; but they exercise no magisterial authority. It sent two members to parliament in the 23rd of Edward I., from which period it discontinued to exercise the privilege: it now sends one member under the act of the 2nd of William IV., cap. 45, the elective franchise being vested in the £10 householders of the parish, comprising 3632 acres; the returning officer is annually appointed by the sheriff. The powers of the county debt-court of Dudley extend over the registration-district, or poor law union.

Dudley formerly comprised the parishes of St. Thomas and St. Edmund, now united, the church of the former being parochial. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7. 18. 6½.; net income, £1000; patron and impropriator, Lord Ward: the tithes were commuted for land and money payments in 1784. The church was rebuilt in 1819, at an expense of £23,000, of which sum, £7600, including £2000 contributed by the Earl of Dudley, were raised by subscription, and the remainder by a rate; it is a handsome structure in the later English style, with an elegant and lofty spire, and from its elevated situation forms a fine feature in the landscape. The church of St. Edmund, at the lower extremity of the town, having been demolished during the parliamentary war, was rebuilt, chiefly at the expense of two brothers of the name of Bradley, assisted by a subscription among the parishioners, about the commencement of the last century; it is now a district church, in the gift of the Vicar, with a net income of £200 a year. Churches at Evehill and Freebodies, in the parish, have been built on sites given by Lord Ward's trustees, by subscription, aided by a grant of £1000 from the Incorporated Society; they are neat edifices, and contain 1500 free sittings; the living of each is in the gift of the Vicar, and has an income of £200. A church has also been erected at Netherton, upon a site presented by the Earl of Dudley, who died in 1833; it is dedicated to St. Andrew: the income is £220, and the Vicar presents to this living also. There are places of worship for Primitive, Kilhamite, and Wesleyan Methodists, for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Roman Catholics, and Unitarians.

The free grammar school was founded in the year 1562, by Thomas Wattewood, clothier, of Stafford, and Mark Bysmore, silk-worker, of London, and endowed at various periods with land, the rental of which is £368. 18.: the old school-house having fallen into decay, the school was removed for some time to a house in Wolverhampton-street, and a handsome schoolroom was built in King-street in 1840; a good house was purchased for the master in 1836, in High-street. A charity school, and a charity for clothing seven poor men, were established on the 3rd of June, 1819, by Mrs. Cartwright, in consequence of a legacy for that purpose by the Rev. Henry Antrobus, minister of St. Edmund's, who died about half a century since. The Church Blue-coat school was founded in 1708, and there are now about 230 boys: part of the funds, which, by subsequent endowments by the Rev. Thomas Bradby and others, amount to £482. 6. 6., is applied to the support of an infants' school. A school of industry, in which about 200 girls are educated, is kept in the upper rooms of the Bluecoat school. There is also a school founded in 1732, and endowed with land, by Robert, Samuel, and Ann Baylis; the schoolroom has been rebuilt, in Towerstreet: there are from 230 to 240 boys, and under the superintendence of the charity is also a school of industry for 120 females. A fund of £63. 18., arising from a bequest of John Tandy and others, is distributed every year in clothing to the poor; and £16. 9., bequeathed by Jasper Cartwright, are annually distributed in bread. Richard Foley, in 1650, founded almshouses for sixteen people, to which is now added a workhouse. The union of Dudley comprises four parishes, three of them in the county of Stafford, and one in that of Worcester; and contains a population of 86,028. In Lady-wood, 2½ miles from the town of Dudley, and 3 miles from Stourbridge, is a valuable saline spa, in high estimation for its efficacy in cutaneous disorders and complaints arising from indigestion: the water was analysed in 1820, by Mr. Cooper, and a wine pint was found to contain, on the average, carbonic acid 2.1 cubic inches, and azote 0.4; muriate of soda 49.75 grains, of lime 19.07, of magnesia 7.50, and of iron 0.13; carbonate of lime 1.50, of magnesia 1.70, and of iron 0.90; total, 80.55 grains. There are several chalybeate springs. About a quarter of a mile from the town is a tract of about 20 acres, vulgarly called the Fiery Holes, from which smoke continually issues, and sometimes flame; veins of coal underneath are supposed to have been set on fire by some accident, and to have continued burning ever since. Richard Baxter, the celebrated nonconformist divine in the reign of Charles II., was for some time master of the grammar school.


Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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