But Came They All to Birmingham
I have probably to make an apology to those who may consider the title of this Work to be wrong. I have titled it “But Came They all to Birmingham” which they did, in the end. But in truth the title should reflect perhaps that when they first came, when they made their first fundamental decision to move away from the countryside, many of them arrived into the mines and furnaces of Wolverhampton, or Bilston, or Rowley Regis, Oldbury, Darlaston, Walsall or Willenhall. But a title of “They all came to Birmingham and the Black Country” is a bit unwieldy and “They all arrived onto the Birmingham Plateau” would have been a bit odd, and I could not make either of them scan or rhyme.
I need also to be careful not to tread unnecessarily on sensitivities. There are those who, when they refer to “Birmingham” consider this great city to extend all the way across the Black Country to Wolverhampton. At the same time there are those in the Black Country who feel wronged by Birmingham folk always assuming this upper hand and who are therefore intent on upholding the distinction between the two. So for these purposes if and when I refer to “Birmingham” or “the Black Country” I may sometimes be considered slightly inaccurate with my terminology. If so, I apologise and hope you understand that no offence was intended. I am just as fond of both.
Additionally when I say “the Black Country”, this is a term that anyway only came into use in the first half of the nineteenth century and even today there are parties who will disagree on what the term actually means. It may once have seen so many pits, furnaces and chimneys that the whole area (and its population)was covered in soot. Traditionally perhaps it is the area where a massive 30ft seam of coal and ore comes to the surface, where it could be gathered with a spade and mining was not necessary. If this is true it includes West Bromwich, Coseley, Oldbury, Black Heath, Cradley Heath, Old Hill, Bilston, Dudley, Tipton and Wednesbury. But this would mean the non-inclusion of Wolverhampton, Rowley Regis, Netherton and Smethwick, Stourbridge and Halesowen where the coal was deeper underground and often harder to reach, but where deeper pits just kept getting deeper. But surely Wolverhampton is the Black Country capital isn’t it? In which case perhaps should the Black Country be considered as a larger, less defined area in which heavy industry congregated and where the slums were built to house the new workers. Perhaps the Black Country is the area where you can get groaty pudding, grey peas and bacon, faggots, pork hocks and pork scratchings, or where we still find an incomprehensible Black Country accent telling us the stories and the humour of Enoch & Eli? Or is it where you can still find the traditional Black Country ales – Bathams, Banks’s, Holdens and the Old Swan brewery at the back of Ma Pardoe’s in all of which I spent my stag night back in September 1981?
So I am putting these words forward as a love affair with the whole area. I have loved taking the opportunity to learn parts of the history, the geology, the geography and some of the stories behind a few of this area of 1000 trades as it developed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, learning all the while of the people who populated the Birmingham Plateau over the last five hundred years or more. I am both pleased and proud to know that my ancestors played their part.
Bibliography and other Reference Materials
I have used many and varied sources since I began researching our family trees in the mid 1980s. I have regularly searched, usually in vain but always with interest, the books of photographs of Birmingham through time produced by Alton Douglas and others of the different Birmingham suburbs in the ‘Images of England’ series. I have a collection of the reprinted ‘First Edition’ maps produced by the Ordnance Survey. I have regularly used the resources of Birmingham Reference Library as well as City and County Libraries and Record Offices across the country. I have consulted with many and various Local History and Family History Societies and from the beginning have been a member of the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry (BMSGH). As my searches began to spread away from the Birmingham plateau, so I became a member of many more that became relevant.
Publications I have used, in no particular order:
Wikipedia many, many times, a valuable source but with which care needs to be taken. I could not do without it, particularly as a starting point. Subscribe to it please. It is free and without advertising. Further Google searches bring up many related writings that I may have forgotten to note down.
A History of Birmingham Places and Place-names from A-Y by the now sadly deceased William (Bill) Dargue.
Birdcage Walk and other books by Helen Dunsmore.
Through England on a side-saddle in the time of William and Mary by Celia Feinnes.
The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester.
The Shortest History of England by James Hawes.
The four books that make up the Kathleen Dayus autobiography.
Chicksands – a Millennium of History by William C Grayson.
The Secret Listeners – Sinclair McKay.
The 23rd Service Batallion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman’s) First World War 1914-18 by Fred W Ward.
Hard as Nails – The Sportsmen’s Batallion of World War I by Michael Foley.
Jewels of our City by Jean Debney.
The Loss of ‘Lancastria’ by John L West.
Liberty’s Dawn by Emma Griffin.
Blockley Through 12 Centuries HEM Icely.
My Ancestor was a Coalminer by David Tonks.
My Ancestor was an Agricultural Labourer by Ian H Waller.
A History in Maps – Birmingham by Paul Leslie Line.
Peasants and Parsons by Ray Barrett.
The Treacle Stick by Helen Butcher.
The Five – the Untold Stories of the Women killed by Jack the Ripper by Haille Rubenhold.
Eleanor by Alice Loxton
Additonally there have been many other people with whose work on their own family trees I have come into contact over the years. With such people I have conversed and traded information, and I am extremely grateful for their time and kindness, albeit there were times when I felt to be an amateur in the presence of professionals. Initially probably these contacts were made by writing to coincidences in name-interest registers (enclosing a stamped address return envelope of course) or were found in card-indices in Local Libraries and Record Offices. Over time these contacts were made increasingly on-line in articles, blogs and web sites. I am (or have been)subscribed to Ancestry, Find-My-Past, Genes Reunited and Friends Reunited, MyHeritage, Geneanet, RootsWeb and FamilySearch. For all the help of others, their work, help and encouragement, whether de-bunking some things that I thought I knew or else confirming my own findings and driving me forwards, often adding new details and perspectives, my heartfelt thanks.
Relics of the Past
There are now minor exhibits to be found regarding certain of the ancestors found in these pages:
- Frank Hayes at the Birmingham Fire Service Museum in Aston.
- Herbert Clark at the Birmingham Jewellery Museum (or in the Collections Centre)in the centre of the City.
- Edith Cork’s tandem that she shared with Colin before the War is in the National Bicycle Museum in Llandrindod Wells although I had nothing to with that. When I confirmed that it was still there, they thought I was asking for it back!
- Harold Colley’s VC and other medals are in the Fusilier Museum in Bury (donated by his Rhodesian nephews and after significant research by my uncle Norman). There is an excellent dislay in his name at the Smethwick Heritage Centre, and a commemorative stone in the Remembrance square.
I have lodged occasional articles in the Research Library in Coventry, in Birmingham and with BMSGH as well as contributing occasionally to the publications of Local and Family History Societies and other bodies. Where there are graves or known burial sites I have tried to make sure that I visit them, record them and tend them to a degree when I am there, and I have numerous leaflets from churches in particular in which family christenings, marriages or burials may have occurred. I have applied for many certificates from the Register Offices of St Catherine’s House in London. Family DNA has been lodged with Ancestry.co.uk by myself and Jane, and also on behalf of John and Rita.
But Came They All to Birmingham 