Place:Dudley, Worcestershire, England

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source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Dudley has been since 1974 a large town in the county of the West Midlands in England. It is located 6 miles (9.7 km) south-east of Wolverhampton and 8 miles (13 km) north-west of Birmingham. The town is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and in 2011 had a population of 79,379. However, this figure excludes areas such as Sedgley and Gornall which under previous methodology were included in the town. The Dudley urban sub-division up area has a population of 194,919, while the wider metropolitan borough has a population of 312,900 (see Demography in the Wikipedia article). Dudley is sometimes called the capital of the Black Country.

The metropolitan borough also includes the towns of Stourbridge, Halesowen and Brierley Hill These towns build the Dudley Borough population up to 312,925 (2011 UK census).

For many years the town (but not the castle, which was outside the boundary in Staffordshire) formed part of an exclave of the county of Worcestershire. The change to include Dudley in Staffordshire only occurred in 1966. Wikipedia includes a map of 1814 illustrating the placement of the county border at that time. Despite the more recent changes in county boundaries, the town and borough still remain part of the Anglican Diocese of Worcester. There are further notes on Dudley Castle below.

History

the following text is a condensation of an article in Wikipedia

Period of the Middle Ages

Dudley Castle, constructed in 1070 by 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.

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 to 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 death, the estate returned to the Sutton family, during which time 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.

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, 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. His techniques were later refined by his distant relative Abraham Darby, who established his works in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire.

Dud Dudley's discovery, together with improvements to the local road network and the construction of the Dudley Canal between 1779 and 1792, 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. 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.

19th and 20th centuries

During this time living conditions remained incredibly poor, with Dudley being named 'the most unhealthy place in the country', which led to the installation of clean water supplies and sewage systems, and later the extensive development of council housing during the early 20th century to relocate the occupants of local slum housing.

The town was re-incorporated as a Municipal Borough in 1865, later becoming a County Borough in 1889.

Following parliamentary 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. At this time Dudley commenced its 8-year sojourn in Staffordshire before transferring to the West Midlands in 1974.

In 1974, further reorganization led to the creation of the present-day Dudley Metropolitan Borough, which included the nearby towns of Stourbridge and Halesowen.

Dudley Castle

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Dudley Castle is a ruined fortification in the town of Dudley, West Midlands, England. Originally a wooden motte and bailey castle built soon after the Norman Conquest, it was rebuilt as a stone fortification during the twelfth century but subsequently demolished on the orders of King Henry II. Rebuilding of the castle took place from the second half of the thirteenth century and culminated in the construction of a range of buildings within the fortifications by John Dudley. The fortifications were slighted by order of Parliament during the English Civil War and the residential buildings destroyed by fire in 1750. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century the site was used for fêtes and pageants. Today Dudley Zoo is located on its grounds.

Its location, Castle Hill, is an outcrop of Wenlock Group limestone that was extensively quarried during the Industrial Revolution and which now, along with Wren's Nest Hill, is a scheduled monument of the best surviving remains of the limestone industry in Dudley. It is also a Grade I listed building. Localised structural problems lead to it being placed on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register in 2020.

The Dudley Tunnel runs beneath Castle Hill, but not the castle itself.

Quoting from Wikipedia

In 1889, the extra-parochial place of Dudley Castle, formerly in Worcestershire, became a detached part of Staffordshire, surrounded by the county borough of Dudley, itself a detached part of Worcestershire. In 1894, [on the establishment of rural districts], the area became the only parish in Dudley Rural District. In 1929, it was absorbed by the civil parish and county borough of Dudley, Worcestershire.

Dudley Castle Hill was also considered to be part of Dudley Rural District.

Local Archives

Dudley Archives and Local History (Link revised.)

Research Tips

Staffordshire Research Tips

Reminder: Staffordshire today covers a much smaller area than formerly. The West Midlands now governs the southeastern corner of pre-1974 Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, although ceremonially still part of Staffordshire, is a unitary authority covering a large well-populated part of the north of the county.

• Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales: Staffordshire 1931 illustrates the parish boundaries of Staffordshire when rural districts were still in existence and before the West Midlands came into being. The map blows up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use. Between 1894 and 1934 a number of administrative changes to boundaries occurred and therefore The Staffordshire Ordnance Survey Map of 1900 is also useful.
• British History Online has a collection of local maps from the Ordnance Survey 1883-1893. Rural areas are included, but these may be especially useful for investigation the suburbs of large towns.
• The Victoria County History of Staffordshire has six volumes available through British History Online. Some Notes on British Medieval Genealogy is a website listing all the volumes of the Victoria County History of Staffordshire including those not yet online, together with the contents of each including the places covered.
• Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent Archive Service announced in August 2015 that nearly all their parish registers are now online with Findmypast. Staffordshire Archives has three branches:

• Staffordshire Record Office, Eastgate Street, Stafford ST16 2LZ (phone and email contact details, opening hours, etc.)
• Stoke on Trent City Archives, City Central Library, Bethesda Street, Hanley, Stoke on Trent ST1 3RS (phone and email contact details, opening hours, etc.)
• Lichfield Record Office, The Friary, Lichfield WS13 6QG (phone and email contact details, opening hours, etc.)

• The William Salt Library is the reference library in Stafford and is adjacent to the county archive offices. They have an online catalogue of their holdings.
• GENUKI lists other large libraries in Staffordshire for Wolverhampton, Burton-upon-Trent, Dudley, Walsall, and Sandwell. The last three of these places are now in the West Midlands and may hold items of local interest which are no longer housed in Staffordshire libraries and archives. For example, The Walsall Archives Centre keeps local census records and local church records.
• The Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry includes Staffordshire in its remit. It has branches in Stoke-on-Trent, Burton-on-Trent and Wolverhampton. Publications are available through the BMSGH shop. Payments accepted by debit and credit card and by Paypal. Other family history and local history societies situated around Staffordshire are listed by GENUKI.
• The Midlands Historical Data project produces searchable facsimile copies of old local history books and directories of interest to genealogists. It specialises in the three counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire, working closely with libraries, archives and family history societies in the area. Digital images are made freely available to participating organisations to improve public access. Free search index on its web-site to all its books. In many cases payment will be required to see the extract.
• GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Staffordshire as well as leading to a collection of 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes.
• The FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date. An index of parishes leads to notes and references for each parish. The auxiliary website English Jurisdictions can also be helpful.
• A Vision of Britain through Time has

1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts (1837 onwards) and the rural and urban districts of the 20th century. They have just announced (August 2015) a future expansion to their data including 2011 census population data and links to post-1974 county organization.
2. excerpts from a gazetteer of circa 1870 outlining individual towns and parishes
3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960

• Brett Langston's list of Staffordshire Registration Districts and parishes within each registration district from 1837 to the present can indicate where to find details of civil registration entries since the process began in England.
• More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.
• Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales - Revised: Worcestershire illustrates the parish boundaries of Worcestershire when rural districts were still in existence and before the West Midlands came into being. The map publication year is 1931. The map blows up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use.
• British History Online has a large collection of local maps from the Ordnance Survey 1883-1893. These blow up to a size that permits viewing of individual hamlets, farms, collieries, but there is no overlapping of one map to the next, and no overall map to tie the individual ones together.
• British History Online also has three volumes of the Victoria County History of Worcestershire online. Volume 3 (published in 1913) deals with the Halfshire Hundred; Volume 4 (published in 1924) deals with the City of Worcester, as well as parishes in the hundreds of Pershore and Doddingtree. Volume 2 covers religious houses in the county. The remainder of the county is not represented in the British History Online series.
• GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Worcestershire as well as leading to a collection of 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes.
• The FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date. An index of parishes leads to notes and references for each parish. The auxiliary website English Jurisdictions can also be helpful.
• Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester WR1 3PD (Telephone: 01905 822866, e-mail: archive@worcestershire.gov.uk) The Archives Collections Catalog Summary outlines the contents of the Archives Collection and also notes on what has been transferred to the national online service Access to Archives
• The Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry has a branch in Bromsgrove which deals in Worcestershire family history. There are also branches at Stourbridge and Worcester.
• The Midlands Historical Data project produces searchable facsimile copies of old local history books and directories of interest to genealogists. It specialises in the three counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire, working closely with libraries, archives and family history societies in the area. Digital images are made freely available to participating organisations to improve public access. Free search index on its web-site to all its books. In many cases payment will be required to see the extract.
• A Vision of Britain through Time has

1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts of the 20th century
2. excerpts from a gazetteer of circa 1870 outlining individual towns and parishes
3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960

• Brett Langston's list of Worcestershire Registration Districts and parishes within each registration district from 1837 to the present can indicate where to find details of civil registration entries since the process began in England.
• More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.

Further Research Tips

Refer to Wikipedia for sources for the above article.