Historical accounts of three important industrial towns of the
Black Country fill the present volume. West Bromwich, Smethwick,
and Walsall are all close neighbours and all former county
boroughs. West Bromwich had a domes-tic nailing industry in the
16th century but remained a scattered settlement on the heathland
of the coal measures until the development of its mining and iron
industry in the mid 19th. Smethwick's growth began with the
building of the Birmingham canal in the late 18th century and was
particularly marked from the 1830s-. Walsall, an early medieval
borough with its church standing on a limestone hill at the town's
centre, underwent a rapid increase in population from the 1820s.
Immigrants to man the indus-tries of the area have included French
and Belgians in the early 19th century, and in the mid 20th people
from the West Indies and the Indian subcontinent. The pattern of
communications feeding the industries is a palimpsest of ancient
roads bridging the small streams of the Mid-lands plateau, the
successive networks of canals and railways, and the motorways of
the 1960s. Household names like Mitchells & Butlers, Chances,
G.K.N., and Tube Investments are reminders of the industrial
strength and variety of the area, which has also included brick-
making, brush-making, chemicals, cloth and clothing, coal-mining,
engineering of many types, iron-smelting, ironstone mining, leather
trades, limestone-mining, and organ-building. Along with the large
factories and numerous small workshops are remarkable buildings of
other kinds, such as West Bromwich manor-house, a classic medieval
example, and the former Sand-well Hall, seat of the earls of
Dartmouth. Apart from manufacturers many well known people have
been connected with the area, including Joseph Chamberlain in
politics, Madeleine Carroll and Sidney Barnes in entertainment and
sport, and in literature Jerome K. Jerome and Sir Henry Newbolt.
General
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