Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for BILSTON

BILSTON, a town, a township, three chapelries, and a subdistrict, in Wolverhampton parish and district, Stafford. The town is within Wolverhampton borough, 2¾ miles SE of Wolverhampton town, and 2¾ NW of Wednesbury. The Birmingham and Fazeley canal passes near; the Stour Valley railway passes within a mile; the London and Northwestern railway also passes near; the Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and the Oxford and Wolverhampton railways pass through; and all these railways have stations for it at the most convenient points. The place was at one time a royal manor, of little note; it continued, till a modern period, to possess only a few private houses; and it burst into importance, and rapidly acquired bulk, as a centre of the hardware trade. The town occupies an elevated position, and is nearly 2 miles long. Few of the houses are handsome; many are substantial; but many also are poor and dismal. Smoke from furnaces and other works continually obscures the air; and incessant noise and bustle banish all repose. Strangers who can admire the blaze of upwards of fifty smelting furnaces will think the envirous grand: but those who love a clear atmosphere and quietude will feel appalled. Cholera attacked 3,568 of the inhabitants, and carried off 742, in 1832, and again carried off 723 in 1849; and it so roused attention to sanitary measures as to occasion much improvement. Extensive schools, built in 1832, and known as the Cholera schools, are now a dissenting chapel. Other extensive schools, called St. Leonard's and St. Mary's, the former a tasteful erection of 1858, at a cost of £2,500, have apartments for 1,000 persons, in which lectures are delivered occasionally from October till March. A suite of baths and wash-houses, of ornamental character, was built in 1853, at a cost of £2,700. St. Leonard's church, at the northwestern extremity of the town, was rebuilt in 1827; is a neat Grecian edifice, with low tower; and contains a splendid altar-piece. St. Mary's church, at the other end of the town was built in 1829, at a cost of £7,223; and is in the later English style, with a fine tower. St. Luke's church, in Pinfold street, was built at a cost of £4,825; is in the early English style; and consists of nave, aisles, and chancel, with tower and spire. There are chapels for five denominations of dissenters, and for Roman-Catholics. The new Independent chapel is a highly ornamental structure of 1864; and one of the Methodist chapels is a very fine edifice. A new cemetery was recently opened at a brief distance into the country. The town has a head post office, ‡ a banking office, and four chief inns; and is a seat of petty sessions and a polling-place. Markets are held on Mondays and Saturdays. Great trade is carried on in coal, iron, and stone from the neighbourhood; metal-casting, in all its branches, and the manufacture of japanned and fancy iron goods in vast variety, are highly prominent; and brass-working, bell-making, malting, and rope-making also are carried on. The hardware articles produced are too numerous to be mentioned; but include trays, waiters, iron buckets, hurdles, pattens, keys, buckles, locks, bridle-bits, screws, chains, boilers, and weighing-machines. Area of the town, 1,730 acres. Real property, £139,980: of which £32,528 are in mines, £44,590 in iron-works, and £1,200 in quarries. Pop., in 1841, 20,181: in 1861, 24,364. Houses, 4,634. The township and the subdistrict are conterminate with the town.-The chapelries are St Leonard, St. Mary, and St. Luke; and were constituted in 1841, 1843, and 1845. Pop., 7,457,9,040, and 4,902. Houses, 1,415, 1,703, and 935. St. Leonard is a p. curacy, and the others are vicarages, in the diocese of Lichfield. Value of St. Leonard, £635;* of St. Mary, £300:* of St. Luke, £300.* Patrons of St. Leonard, Resident-Householders; of St. Mary, the Bishop of Lichfield; of St. Luke, alternately the Crown and the Bishop. Charities, £38.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a township, three chapelries, and a subdistrict"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Bilston CP/Ch/Tn       Wolverhampton Tn/AP/CP/Ch       Staffordshire AncC
Place: Bilston

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