WOLVERHAMPTON, a municipal and parliamentary borough and market-town of Staffordshire, England, one of the principal seats of the hardware manufacture in the Midlands, is situated on an eminence commanding an extensive view towards Wales, on the Birmingham and Liverpool, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire, and the Wyrley and Essington Canals, and on the London and North-Western, the Midland, and the Great Western Rai1- ways, 13 miles north-west of Birmingham, 16 south of Stafford, and 126 from London. The principal streets diverge from Queen Square, and are for the most part regular and well built, with numerous handsome shops. Towards the west there are pleasant suburbs of villas, the country being rich and well wooded. The old church of Wolverhampton, founded by Wulfruna in 996 and dedicated to the Virgin, was in the reign of Henry III. rededicated to St Peter. It has undergone frequent alterations, and in 1862-65 underwent extensive restoration. It is now a fine cruciform building, with south porch and central tower. Internally the church consists of a long and lofty nave with side aisles and north and south transepts, and terminating in a chancel with apsidal ending. The lower portion of the tower, south transept, &c., belong to the 13th century; the nave, clerestory, upper part of the tower, and north transept were erected in the 15th century; and the chancel is wholly modern, having been rebuilt in 1865. Wolverhampton was formerly a deanery, and on its abolition in 1846 the township was divided into ecclesiastical parishes, the number of which is now thirteen. At the old free grammar school, founded in 1515 by Sir Stephen Jenyns, a native of the town and an alderman of London, Sir W. Congreve and Dr Abernethy received their education. New buildings for the ...school were erected in 1876 in the western part of the town at a cost of £22,000. There is also a blue-coat school, founded in 1710. The other principal public buildings are the town-hall (1871), the corn exchange (1851, £15,000), the market-hall (1853, £10,500), the agricultural hall (1863, £6000), the public baths (1850), the post-office (1873),theart gallery, museum,and school of art (1884-85), and the free library. There is a cattle market about 5 acres in extent, and also a large pig market. The theatre royal (1844) is a handsome building in the Doric style. The benevolent institutions include a general hospital, the eye infirmary, the orphan asylum, and the institute of the society for outdoor blind. In Queen Square there is an equestrian statue of the late Prince Consort, unveiled by the queen in 1866, and on Snow Hill a statue in Sicilian marble (1879) of the Right Honourable Charles Pelham Villiers, who has represented the borough from 1835 to the present time (1888). Street improvements have been carried out on a large scale within recent years. Main drainage works on a thorough method have also been completed, and a large farm purchased for the utilization of the sewage. The water-works, opened in 1847, belong to the corporation. The water is supplied from springs in the Red Sandstone by wells sunk to a great depth. The old racecourse, 50 acres in extent, has been laid out as a public park; and a new racecourse was opened in 1887. The population of the municipal borough and urban sanitary district (area 3396 acres) in 1871 was 68,291, and in 1881 it was 75,766 (males 37,827, females 37,939); while that of the parliamentary borough (18,888 acres) was 156,978 in 1871, and 164,332 (males 82,657, females 81,675) in 1881.
Situated in a district abounding in coal and ironstone, Wolverhampton has become famous for the manufacture both of the heavier and the smaller kinds of iron-wares, although in the finer class of metal manufactures for which the neighbouring town of Birmingham is famous it has little or no share. It possesses large smelting furnaces, and iron and brass foundries, but is specially occupied in the manufacture of all kinds of iron implements, tools, and domestic requisites, including locks and fastenings, hinges and nails, kitchen furniture, gardeners’, wrights’, and smiths’ tools and implements, tinplate goods, and every variety of japanned ware, of which it may be regarded as the principal seat. There are also extensive clay-retort works, chemical works, grease works, dyeworks, varnish works, coach works, corn and saw mills, cooperages, ropewalks, maltings, and breweries.
The place was originally called Hanton or Hamtune, but on the foundation of a college for a dean and secular canons in 996 by Wulfruna, sister of Ethelred II. and widow of Anthelm, duke of Northumberland, it was named Wulfrunahamton. By William Rufus the church was placed under the care of Sampson, bishop of Worcester, who settled it on a prior and convent of his own cathedral. In the reign of Stephen it was taken possession of by Roger, bishop of Salisbury, and subsequently it came into the hands of the secular canons, who held it until Dean Peter of Blois resigned it to Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, that he might build an abbey of Cistercian monks. The church was accounted one of the king’s free chapels, and was annexed by Edward IV. to the deanery of Windsor. The college and prebends were granted to the duke of Northumberland in the reign of Edward VI., and on his attainder they came again to the crown. The deanery and prebends were refounded by Queen Mary, and this was confirmed by James I. The town received the grant of a market and fair from Henry III. in 1258. It suffered severely from fire in 1590, the conflagration lasting five days. During the Civil War its sympathies were Royalist, and it λvas visited by Charles I., accompanied by his sons Charles and James. In 1645 it was for a time the headquarters of Prince Rupert. Its importance as a seat of manufactures is entirely of modern date and due to the rise of the iron industry. Although it received the privilege of returning members to parliament in 1832, it was not incorporated as a municipal borough till 1848. It is divided into eight wards, and is governed by a mayor, 12 aidermen, and 36 councillors. It has separate commissions of the peace and quarter sessions. In 1885 the number of its parliamentary representatives was increased to three, the borough being separated into three parliamentary divisions—East, South, and West.
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