Back in the depths of the Black Country there is a Hannah Hadley baptised to Benjamin Hadley and Mary in Rowley in Aug 1811, and there is a marriage of Benjamin Hadley and Mary Whitehouse in Pedmore, across by Stourbridge. We may be guessing but around 1812 or 13 according to later census returns, Hannah was born, claimed later as happening in either Oldbury, Halesowen or Rowley Regis. Hannah’s parentage is not yet established, but there are some good coincidences here. Right in the middle of these three places is Whiteheath Gate just where it meets Portway, and it is there that we find our Hannah in the 1841 Census, to whom we have DNA evidence of a link. William Hadley and Hannah Hadley’s marriage is recorded at St Martin’s Birmingham in November 1833, witnessed by William and Mary Whitehouse.
Hannah’s husband William Hadley was born around 1813 the first son of Daniel Hadley and Letitia Goode whose marriage was recorded at St Peter’s Harborne in 1807. Letitia was one of eleven born to William Goode and Mary (nee Richards) and had grown up in Rowley Regis. Daniel Hadley had been born at his father’s house at Ramrod Hall Farm which later became one of many local coal-mines, worked from 1860 to 1920. It seems that their parents (and Isaac’s brother) Daniel and his wife Letitia (nee Goode) had both died in the early 1830s leaving a young family to be brought up by their elder siblings.
In the 1841 Census Hannah shows as the wife of William Hadley, Ironmonger with their five children under nine years old and two servants George Clift and Sarah Spicer. The 1851 Census says the eldest two, William and Ezra, were born in Oldbury, then John and Emma in Rowley before David again in Oldbury. All except William have baptismal records in Rowley Regis. The youngest, Hannah aged four is living 17 doors down Birchfield Road towards Langley with her uncle and aunt William and Mary Whitehouse, next door to her cousin Timothy Hadley and with Uncle Benjamin living a couple of doors away.
In the 41 Census the houses either side of William and Hannah are inhabited by possible family. On the Portway side is Isaac Hadley, 15 years older than William and probably his uncle living at Ramrod Hall Farm where their father Daniel and grandfather Benjamin had lived previously. The form says he is a farmer living with his wife Rebecca, five children under 12, and two servants John Clift and Daniel Jackman. On the Whiteheath side we find William’s sister Hannah aged 31, a Publican probably at the Swan Public House (also The Gate?) that had been inherited initially by Daniel and passed down to Hannah. With her are their five other brothers and sisters aged 26 down to 12.
William died in May 1850 but left a will leaving everything to Hannah as long as she remained unmarried. The assets include four properties further down Birchfield Lane, one of which is “occupied by Timothy Hadley”, probably his cousin through his uncle John who had died in 1825. The will is witnessed by Benjamin Hadley, possibly another of William’s uncles or perhaps his brother. In the 1851 census the newly widowed Hannah (maiden name currently unknown) was living in Birchfield Lane with four sons and two daughters. Hannah shows as carrying on his business as a Grocer, Farmer and Iron Dealer. It is easy at this stage to think that the family was not well off, but William’s will left to his wife Hannah 4 further houses (inclusive of pigsties, brewhouses and chattels) that he owned further down Birchfield Lane. Early that century there were two large and notorious “Hadley Buildings” somewhere here, known for cramming families into small spaces and providing only one outside privy for the whole building.
In the 1851 Census the son William shows as a farmer. His brother Ezra is the one who later opens the Drapers shop in Oldbury High Street where it was a fixture until the mid 1930s and whose son became the Mayor of Oldbury in the 1930s. It is tempting to think that their younger brother John is the John Hadley described by Bill Dargue in a quote in the Ancestor Miscellany as being the last leaseholder of Ramrod Hall Farm, remembered as a “dishonest and disreputable old reprobate” who threw himself into the Marlhole of the Cakemore Brick Company after he went bankrupt. In 1855/60 Ramrod Hall was sold to Lord Ward who became Earl of Dudley and turned it into a Coal-mine. There he found a good quality 25ft thick coal seam at 567 feet. This was worked from 1860 through to 1920, latterly under the auspices of the Titford Colliery Company. In 1865 William Newman of neighbours Rowley Hall leased out 47 acres of coal, ironstone and basalt (if any) found underneath his home, including permission to run a tramway down to Titford Pools. There were many coal mines and pits in the area.
The 1851 Census finds the family in Birchfield Lane where the eldest son William aged 18 is described as being the deceased farmer’s son, and no doubt Ezra and John helped out as well. William married Selina Peace the following year 1852 and continued the family trade of Iron-dealing, Selina operated as a Haberdasher. Over the next 16 years they had eight children generally born in Whiteheath, Langley or Oldbury. The eldest, William continued in trade as an Iron Dealer, and the next, Samuel, a Draper with his Uncle Ezra. Charles became a Mechanic first in Rotherham where he married, then in Plumstead in London in the burgeoning motor trade. Thomas was perhaps a general labourer who lost his wife having a son Herbert. John became a Cycle Maker, Emma a Haberdasher like her mother, and the youngest Edwin a Motor Car Fitter.
But it was the eldest daughter Hannah Hadley, born in 1862 who married John Colley, a Pattern-Maker at Tangye’s and went on to have three daughters, Beat, Dora and Fanny, and two sons Harold and Albert. Hannah watched and worried as her sons went to War in 1914. Albert returned in 1916 having suffered from Mustard Gas but Harold never returned. He won the Victoria Cross and the Military Medal with the Lancashire Fusiliers, but died at the end of August 1918 and is buried in Normandy near to Cambrai.
Hannah Colley (nee Hadley) died in November 1930 and is buried in Quinton with her husband who died three years later. I have a sampler sewn by Hannah, aged 11 in 1873.
But Came They All to Birmingham 