Place:Madeley, Shropshire, England

Watchers
NameMadeley
Alt namesMadeley Woodsource: Family History Library Catalog
Coalbrookdalesource: settlement in parish
Coalportsource: settlement in parish
Sutton Heightssource: settlement in parish
Sutton Hillsource: settlement in parish
Woodsidesource: settlement in parish
TypeParish (ancient), Civil parish
Coordinates52.65°N 2.467°W
Located inShropshire, England
See alsoWenlock Franchise, Shropshire, Englandliberty in which it was located until 1836
Much Wenlock, Shropshire, Englandmunicipal borough 1836-1966
Dawley, Shropshire, Englandurban district 1966-1974
The Wrekin District, Shropshire, Englanddistrict municipality into which it was transferred in 1974
Telford and Wrekin District, Shropshire, Englandunitary authority covering the area since 1998
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog
source: Family History Library Catalog


NOTE: There is also a place named Madeley in the neighbouring county of Staffordshire and also a place named Madley further to the south in Herefordshire.


the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Madeley is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, now part of the new town of Telford. The parish had a population of 17,935 at the 2001 census.

Madeley is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, having been founded before the 8th century. Historically, Madeley's industrial activity has largely been in mining, and later, manufacturing, which is still a large employer in the town, along with service industries. Parts of the parish fall within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ironbridge Gorge, the site of The Iron Bridge, and a key area in the era known an the Industrial Revolution.

Madeley is situated in the southern part of the new town of Telford, to the north of Ironbridge and the River Severn. Coalport, a part of the parish of Madeley, is to the east of the town, and the modern Telford Town Centre is north of the settlement. The local area has reserves of coal and ironstone. Madeley Town Council includes the old town of Madeley and the neighbouring areas of Sutton Hill, Sutton Heights and Woodside. The parish of Madeley used to include Ironbridge, but it is now part of the new parish of "The Gorge".

Map from Wikipedia Commons, with amendments

Image:Towns of Telford and Wrekin.png

Contents

History

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Madleley, Shropshire#History.

Coalbrookdale

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It now lies within the modern civil parish called "The Gorge".

This is where iron ore was first smelted by Abraham Darby I using easily mined "coking coal" in 1709. The coal was drawn from drift mines in the sides of the valley. As it contained far fewer impurities than normal coal, the iron it produced was of a superior quality. Along with many other industrial developments that were going on in other parts of the country, this discovery was a major factor in the growing industrialisation of Britain, which was to become known as the Industrial Revolution.

After Abraham Darby's death in 1717 the works then passed to a company led by his fellow Quaker Thomas Goldney II of Bristol and managed by Richard Ford (also a Quaker). Darby's son Abraham Darby the Younger was brought into the business as an assistant manager when old enough.

The company's main business was producing cast-iron goods. Molten iron for this foundry work was not only produced from the blast furnaces, but also by remelting pig iron in air furnaces, a variant of the reverberatory furnace. The Company also became early suppliers of steam engine cylinders in this period.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Coalbrookdale.

Coalport

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Coalport is a village in Shropshire, England. It is located on the River Severn in the Ironbridge Gorge, a mile downstream from Ironbridge. It lies predominantly on the north bank of the river; on the other side is Jackfield.

The settlement was planned as a canal–river interchange and a complete "new town" by ironmaster William Reynolds, who between 1788 and 1796 built warehouses, workshops, factories and workers' accommodation in Coalport. In 1795, Reynolds, with John Rose, founded the Coalport porcelain factory. He also directed the construction of the Shropshire Canal, linking the East Shropshire coalfield with the River Severn — the terminus being Coalport Wharf between the Brewery Inn and Coalport Bridge. Coalport at this time was much larger than it is today.

Coalport now forms part of the modern civil parish of "The Gorge" and is the southeastern corner of the Borough of Telford and Wrekin.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Coalport.

NOTE: Places written in italics do not have their own articles in WeRelate, mainly because they have never been municipalities with separate records. Jackfield will be found under Broseley.

Research tips

  • The historical short form for Shropshire was "Salop". This is quite often found in archive material.
  • Shropshire Archives, Castle Gates, Shrewsbury SY1 2AQ
  • Shropshire Family History Society.
  • The GENUKI main page for Shropshire provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and there is also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then.
  • GENUKI also provides transcriptions of parish registers for numerous parishes throughout Shropshire. These will be noted at the bottom of this list as time permits for the parishes involved. Each register is preceded by historical notes from the editor-transciber and other details than simply births, marriages and deaths that have been found in the individual books from the parishes. These registers probably only go up to 1812 when the proscribed style for registers across the country was altered.
  • GENUKI lists under each parish further references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. (URLs for these other websites may not be up to date.)
  • The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence in 1851 with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time, Shropshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are similar pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions that existed pre-1974. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
  • The two maps below indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.
  • Map of Shropshire illustrating urban and rural districts in 1900 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. (Unfortunately the online copy of this map has pencil codings in each parish which make it difficult to see the orignal.)
  • Map of Shropshire urban and rural districts in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time. Parish boundaries and settlements within parishes are shown. This is not a repeat of the first map. There were a number of changes to urban and rural district structure in the 1930s.
  • A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time. Some of the hundreds were broken into separate sections with other hundreds in between.
  • The website British History Online provides four volumes of the Victoria County History Series on Shropshire. Volume 2 covers the religious houses of the county; Volume 4 provides a history of agriculture across the county, and Volumes 10 and 11 deal with Munslow Hundred, the Borough of Wenlock and the Telford area (i.e., the northeastern part of the county). The rest of the county is not presently covered. References to individual parishes will be furnished as time permits.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Madeley, Shropshire. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Coalbrookdale. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Coalport. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.