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Dudley

Town in West Midlands, England

  • 31 min read
  • 16 chapters

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Originally a market town, Dudley was one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution and grew into an industrial centre in the 19th century with its iron, coal, and limestone industries before their decline and the relocation of its commercial centre to the nearby Merry Hill Shopping Centre in the 1980s. Tourist attractions include Dudley Zoo and Castle, the 12th-century priory ruins, and the Black Country Living Museum.

History

Early history

Dudley has a history dating back to Anglo-Saxon times, its name deriving from the Old English Duddan Leah, meaning Dudda's clearing, and one of its churches being named in honour of the Anglo-Saxon king and saint, Edmund.

Mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Dudelei, in the hundred of Clent in Worcestershire, the town was listed as being a medium-sized manor in the possession of Earl Edwin of Mercia prior to the Norman Conquest, with William Fitz-Ansculf as Lord of the Manor in 1086. Dudley Castle, constructed in 1070 by William's father Ansculf de Picquigny after his acquisition of the town, served as the seat of the extensive Barony of Dudley, which possessed estates in eleven different counties across England.

Of historical significance, the town was attacked by King Stephen in 1138, after a failed siege of the castle following the baron's decision to support Empress Matilda's claim to the throne during The Anarchy.

The castle provided the centre from which the town and borough grew, with early coal and iron workings helping establish Dudley as a major market town during the Middle Ages, selling not only agricultural produce, but also iron goods at a national level. Working iron and mining for coal was in practice as early as the 13th century. The first mention of Dudley's status as a borough dates from the mid-13th century, when Roger de Somery, then Baron of Dudley, approved of the establishment of a market in nearby Wolverhampton. An inquisition after his death further established the value and importance of the borough, with mentions of the town's growing coal industry.

Early modern and Industrial Revolution

By the early 16th century the Dudley estate, now held by the Sutton family, had become severely in debt and was first mortgaged to distant relative John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, before being sold outright in 1535. Following Dudley's execution in 1553, the estate returned to the Sutton family, during whose ownership the town was visited by Queen Elizabeth during a tour of England.

In 1605, conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot fled to Holbeche House in nearby Wall Heath, where they were defeated and captured by the forces of the Sheriff of Worcestershire.

During the English Civil War Dudley served as a Royalist stronghold, with the castle besieged twice by the Parliamentarians and later partly demolished on the orders of the Government after the Royalist surrender. It is also from around this time that the oldest excavated condoms, found in the remains of Dudley Castle, were believed to have originated.

Dudley had become an incredibly impoverished place during the 16th and 17th centuries, but the advent of the Industrial Revolution began to reverse this trend. In the early 17th century, Dud Dudley, an illegitimate son of Edward Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley and Elizabeth Tomlinson, devised a method of smelting Iron ore using coke at his father's works in Cradley and Pensnett Chase, though his trade was unsuccessful due to circumstances of the time. Abraham Darby was descended from Dud Dudley's sister, Jane, and was the first person to produce iron commercially using coke instead of charcoal at his works in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire in 1709. Abraham Darby was born near Wrens Nest Hill near the town of Dudley and it is claimed that he may have known about Dud Dudley's earlier work.

Dud Dudley's discovery, together with improvements to the local road network and the construction of the Dudley Canal, made Dudley into an important industrial and commercial centre. The first Newcomen steam engine, used to pump water from the mines of the Lord Dudley's estates, was installed at the Conygree coal works a mile east of Dudley Castle in 1712, though this is challenged by Wolverhampton, which also claims to have been the location of the first working Newcomen engine.

Dudley's population grew dramatically during the 18th and 19th centuries because of the increase in industry, with the main industries including coal and limestone mining. Other industries included iron, steel, engineering, metallurgy, glass cutting, textiles and leatherworking.

During this time living conditions remained very poor, with Dudley being named "the most unhealthy place in the country" in 1851. Health Inspector William Lee stated that "In no other part of England and Wales is the work of human extermination effected in so short a time as ... in Dudley". The report led to the installation of clean water supplies and sewage systems. Later the extensive development of council housing during the early 20th century relocated the occupants of local slum housing.

Following the Reform Act 1832, Dudley returned one Member of Parliament (MP), a privilege first enacted in the Parliament of 1295. The town was re-incorporated as a Municipal Borough in 1865, later becoming a County Borough in 1889.

Modern day

Dudley was developed substantially in the early 20th century, with the construction of many entertainment venues including a theatre and cinemas, with two indoor shopping centres being added later in the century. The grounds of Dudley Castle were converted into a zoo in 1937 by the Earl of Dudley, with buildings designed by architect Berthold Lubetkin. A reported 250,000 people attempted to visit the site upon the first day of opening.

In World War II, Dudley was bombed on several occasions. In September 1940 a Luftwaffe bomb demolished The Three Swans public house in the town centre and damaged several nearby buildings including St Thomas's Church and the new Co-Operative department store, but there were no fatalities. On 19 November 1940 a landmine was dropped in the Oakham area of the town and demolished a section of council houses in City Road, resulting in the deaths of 10 people and injuring many others. On 12 August 1941, four people were killed when another landmine was dropped in nearby Birch Crescent. These were the only fatal air raids on Dudley.

Dudley thrived in the post-war economic boom in the Midlands, with growing industries and affluence. To meet the labour shortage, the town became home to communities from the British Commonwealth, including the Caribbean and South Asia. Most famously, this included the parents of Lenny Henry who moved to Dudley in the late 1950s. As elsewhere, these communities faced hardships such as workplace racism, poor housing and physical violence - the worst example of this were the large-scale riots of 1962.

Following local government reforms in 1966, Dudley was expanded to include the majority of the former urban districts of Brierley Hill and Sedgley, along with parts of Coseley, Amblecote and Rowley Regis; an area in the eastern section of the town was also transferred into the new borough of Warley. Most of this land had been held by the Lords of Dudley, and contained within the Dudley registration district and parliamentary borough. In 1974, further reorganization led to the creation of the present-day metropolitan borough, which included the nearby towns of Stourbridge and Halesowen.

Dudley was struck by an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day. The tornado touched down in Woodsetton, subsequently passing through Dudley town centre, causing moderate damage, before dissipating.

Industrial decline has seen the loss of many long-established businesses in the town. The development of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre between 1985 and 1990 also saw the loss of most of the town centre's leading name stores, which relocated to take advantage of the tax incentives offered by Merry Hill's status as an Enterprise Zone. The 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession resulted in even more of the retail units in the town centre becoming vacant, with the Woolworths store on Market Place closing in December 2008 when the company went bankrupt, and Beatties closing its store – the last department store in the town – in January 2010, after more than 40 years due to falling trade.

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