Walsall, United Kingdom

The Manor of Walsall was later sold to the Wilbraham and Newport families, and passed by inheritance to the Earls of Bradford. On the death of the fourth Earl in 1762, the estate was transferred to his sister Diana, Countess of Mountrath and then reverted to the Earls of Bradford until the estates were sold after World War II. The family's connection with Walsall is reflected in local placenames, including Bridgeman Street, Bradford Lane, Bradford Street and Mountrath Street.

The Industrial Revolution changed Walsall from a village of 2,000 people in the 16th century to a town of over 86,000 in approximately 200 years. The town manufactured a wide range of products including saddles, chains, buckles and plated ware. Nearby, limestone quarrying provided the town with much prosperity.

In 1824, the Walsall Corporation received an Act of Parliament to improve the town by providing lighting and a gasworks. The gasworks was built in 1826 at a cost of £4,000. In 1825, the corporation built eleven tiled, brick almshouses for poor women. They were known to the area as 'Molesley's Almshouses'.

The 'Walsall Improvement and Market Act' was passed in 1848 and amended in 1850. The Act provided facilities for the poor, improving and extending the sewerage system and giving the commissioners the powers to construct a new gas works. On 10 October 1847, a gas explosion killed one person and destroyed the west window of St Matthew's Church.

Walsall received a railway line in 1847, 48 years after canals reached the town, Bescot having been served since 1838 by the Grand Junction Railway. In 1855, Walsall's first newspaper, the Walsall Courier and South Staffordshire Gazette, was published.

The Whittimere Street drill hall was completed in 1866. The Victorian Arcade in the town centre, originally named the Digbeth Arcade, was completed in 1897.

Over 2,000 men from Walsall were killed in fighting during the First World War. They are commemorated by the town's cenotaph, which is located on the site of a bomb which was dropped by Zeppelin 'L 21', killing the town's mayoress and two others. Damage from the Zeppelin can still be seen on what is now a club on the corner of the main road, just opposite a furniture shop. A plaque commemorates the incident. The town also has a memorial to local VC recipient, John Henry Carless and decorated air ace Frederick Gibbs.

Walsall's first cinema opened in the town centre in 1908; however, the post-World War II decline in cinema attendances brought on by the rise in television ownership resulted in that and all of Walsall's other cinemas eventually being closed. The first Wurlitzer theatre organ in Great Britain was installed in the New Picture House cinema in Lower Bridge Street in the town centre. It was later renamed the Gaumont then Odeon.

Slum clearance began after the end of World War I, with thousands of 19th century buildings around the town centre being demolished as the 20th century wore on; new estates were built away from the town centre during the 1920s and 1930s. These were concentrated in areas to the north of the town centre such as Coal Pool, Blakenall Heath (where Walsall's first council houses were built in 1920), Goscote and Harden. after the end of World War II, Beechdale.

Significant developments also took place nearer to the town centre, particularly during the 1960s when a host of tower blocks were built around the town centre; however, most of these had been demolished by 2010.

The Memorial Gardens opened in 1952, in honour of the town's fallen combatants of the two world wars. The Old Square Shopping Centre, a modern indoor shopping complex featuring many big retail names, opened in 1969.

Much of the reconstruction of the post-war period was quickly reconsidered as ugly and having blighted the town. In 1959, John Betjeman advised that with sensitive restoration the old buildings of the High Street could become "one of the most attractive streets in England." Instead, almost every building was demolished.

The County Borough of Walsall, which was established at Walsall Council House and originally consisted of Walsall and Bloxwich, was expanded in 1966 to incorporate most of Darlaston and Willenhall, as well as small parts of Bilston and Wednesbury. The current Metropolitan Borough of Walsall was formed in 1974 when Aldridge-Brownhills Urban District was incorporated into Walsall. At the same time, Walsall was transferred from the historic county of Staffordshire to become part of the new West Midlands county.