Bilston in 1872

BILSTON, a town, a township, three chapelries, and a sub-district, in Wolverhampton parish and district, Stafford. The town is within Wolverhampton borough, 3 miles SE of Wolverhampton town, and 3 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 environs grand ; but those who love a clear atmosphere and quietude will feel appalled. Cholera attacked 3,503 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 fur 1,000 in which lectures are delivered occasionally from October to 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 north western extremity of the town, was rebuilt in 1827; it 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 a 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 the 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 are also 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 ironworks and £1,200 in quarries. Pop in 1841, 20,181; in 1861 24,364. Houses 4,634. The township and the sub-district are conterminate with the town.

St Leonard is a perpetual curacy and the others are vicarages in the diocese of Lichfield. Value of St Leonard £635, of St Mary £300, of St Luke £300. Patron of St Leonard, Resident-Householders, of St Mary the Bishop of Lichfield, of St Luke, alternately the crown and the Bishop. Charities £38

BRADLEY-MANOR, a hamlet in Bilston township, Stafford; 1 mile from Bilston. It has a post-office, of the name of Bradley, under Bilston. 

[Description(s) from The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) - Transcribed by Mike Harbach ©2020]