It may be assumed that Willenhall Church has been dedicated to St. Giles from the first, because the period for holding the dedicatory Wake synchronises with St. Gile’s day (September 1st), making allowance for the eleven days’ difference effected in 1752 between the Old Style and the New Style calendars.  As the Protestant Reformers took objection to non-Biblical saints (West Bromwich Church was altered from St. Clement’s to All Saints’), a dedication to St. Giles may safely be accepted as a pre-Reformation one; and as St. Giles was the patron saint of cripples, he doubtless retained his popularity here on account of the reputation for healing qualities acquired by the Willenhall “Holy Well”—of which more anon.  But in addition to its Wake, the town seems to have possessed in mediæval times a much frequented Summer Fair, held on Trinity Sunday.  Our knowledge of this interesting fact is derived from the records of the Court of Star Chamber.

This court was established by Henry VII. to deal with routs, riots, and all other cases not sufficiently provided for by the common law; but the oppression practised by the unscrupulous abuse of its indefinite jurisdiction led to its summary extinction in the reign of Charles I.

The case to be quoted is one of an alleged riot in the year 1498 (13 Henry VII.), in which the men of Wednesbury were deeply involved.  These turbulent townsmen seem to have made themselves notorious for riotous behaviour at various times; as witness the historic Wesley Riots of 1744, their march on Birmingham to regulate the price of malt in 1782, and their attack on the same town during the Church and King Riots in 1791.

The hobby-horse doth hither prance,
Maid Marian and the Morris-dance.

It would be interesting to discover why, in this local version, the character called the “Abbot of Marham” was introduced into the play—Marham nunnery was situated in Norfolk, a long way from the usual forest scenes of Sherwood and Needwood.

The money collected at these al fresco performances was applied to maintaining the fabric of the three parish churches; but, for some reason unknown, there had evidently grown up a deadly feud between the Wednesbury and the Walsall contingents.  This was the cause of all the trouble.

The “John Beamont” mentioned was John Beaumont, Esquire, lord of the manor of Wednesbury, a benefactor of the parish church there, and a patron of a Walsall Chantry.  It will be noticed that the quoted document speaks of the “Church of the lordship,” not “of the parish”; and also, that the prefix “Sir” was then used to a parson’s name, as we should now use the prefix “Rev.”

Here is the text of the plaints entered by the terrorised “orators” of Walsall, together with the affidavits put in as rejoinders; the archaic spelling is retained only in a few places just to indicate the style of English then employed in the law courts; and it is interesting to note that Midlanders had those peculiar vowel sounds in olden times, and pronounced “fetch” as “fatch,” and “gather” as “gether”—just as the illiterate among them still do:—

Three several letters issued to Walter Leveson, Richard Foxe, and Roger Marchall, to appear.

And this is all we know of that lively “Whitsun Morris” at Willenhall Fair in the year of grace 1498.  It all reads like a delightful chapter in the vein of Shakespeare’s Dogberry and Verges; and it will be noted that the priests are among the captains or ringleaders in this Sunday revelling.

* * * * *

After the Reformation came the Puritans, who severely discountenanced all Sunday revelry.  And so the lampoon of their enemies ran:—

Yet, when religious differencies had brought on civil war, it had to be confessed of this Puritan people (so says Sir Francis Doyle in “The Cavalier”):—

That though they snuffled psalms, to give
   The rebel dogs their due,
When the roaring shot poured thick and hot
   They were stalwart men and true.

And so the mighty struggle for liberty of conscience against the pretensions of a dominant Church had proceeded for over century, when we find the incumbency of Willenhall held by the Rev. Thomas Badland.

Thomas Badland was born in 1643, matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford, 1650, and took his B.A. degree, 1653.  He was one of the noble band of ministers who relinquished their livings on August 24th, 1662, rather than conform to the requirements of the Act of Uniformity, passed on the Restoration of Charles II.

On his ejectment from Willenhall, this conscientious Puritan divine returned to his native city, Worcester, where “he formed a distinct congregation of Christians, who assembled for worship in a small room” at the bottom of Fish Street.  His family was an old one in Worcester, the name Badland occurring in a charter of James I.

According to Noake’s “Worcester Sects,” he was minister of that congregation for 35 years; but before his death the Declaration of Indulgence by James II. was made (1687), and immediately thereupon Mr. Badland’s church was regularly constituted by the adoption of the Covenants of church membership which had been drawn by Richard Baxter—he was a personal friend of the eminent divine—in terms sufficiently general to include almost all denominations who might choose to make it a point of common agreement.

Under these seats lies interred the body of the Rev. Thomas Badland, a faithful and profitable preacher of the Gospel in this city for the space of thirty-five years.  He rested from his labours, May 5th, a.d 1698, æt. 64.

Mors mihi vita nova.

When St. Martin’s Church was pulled down in 1768 this marble tablet was carelessly thrown aside, and soon got broken into fragments.  Happily the pieces were rescued and put together again with loving care for erection in the vestibule of Angel Street Chapel, at the expense of the congregation worshipping there.  In the new Independent Chapel, which has taken the place of that older building (registered at Quarter Sessions in 1689 as a Presbyterian place of worship), the memorial has been placed near the pulpit.

From a MS. history of Angel Street Church, written by Samuel Blackwell in 1841, it would appear that Mr. Badland had as one of his assistants a Mr. Hand, who had been ordained at Oldbury.  At Fish Street Chapel (the site of which was occupied in later times by Dent’s Glove Factory), there were 120 Communicants in February, 1687; and the Declaration of Faith drawn up and signed by the church members that year bears first the name of Thomas Badland, pastor, and among many others that follow is that of “Elizab. Badland,” presumably his wife.  Such, briefly, is the life history of the good man who relinquished the living of Willenhall, and repudiated its “idolatrous steeple-house,” at the Black Bartholomew of 1662, rather than stifle the dictates of his conscience.

Life in Willenhall, as in many other places during the Stuart period, was not without its alarms and apprehensions.  The trouble began when Charles I., by the advice of Archbishop Laud, tried to force the English liturgy upon Scotland.  The resistance offered to this was the real beginning of the English Revolution, for the King, in the attempt to carry out his despotic will, had to enlist soldiers by force.

Within a couple of years Civil War had broken out in England, and Willenhall had to endure its full share of suffering lying, as it did, midway between two opposing strongholds—Dudley Castle, held for the King (under Colonel Leveson), and Rushall Hall, garrisoned for the Parliamentarian side.

Both sides in turn, as they were in a position to enforce payment, made levies of money upon the unfortunate inhabitants of the district.  While Rushall Hall was a fortified position, first under its owner, Sir Edward Leigh, and afterwards under its military governor, Captain Tuthill, Willenhall was forced to pay to the support of the garrison there.

Here is the evidence of an official notice:—

April 8th, 1643.—Ordered that the weekly pay, and five weeks’ arrears, of Norton and Wirley, Pelsall, Rushall, and Goscote, Willenhall, Wednesfield and Wednesbury, shall be assigned to Col. Leigh for payment of his officers of horse and troopers

There is a similar military order, dated 22nd June, 1644, by which the weekly pay of all these places is assigned to Captain Tuthill, governor of Rushall, though in the parcelling out of contributory areas, Bushbury, Wolverhampton, Bilston, and Bradley are included in another district.  The other side were employing forced labour for strengthening the defence of Dudley Castle, and not improbably the Leveson tenants from Wednesfield and Willenhall were impressed to go up there equipped with spade and mattock.

The same year the King made the same hostelry his headquarters, dating a letter which he addressed to the Lichfield magistrates, directing them to send their arms to join the Royal standard at Nottingham, “Att our Court at Wolverhampton, 17 August, 1642.”

In 1643, Prince Rupert, after his memorable fight at Birmingham, made an attack upon Rushall Hall; and notwithstanding the gallant defence of Mistress Leigh, in the absence of her husband, its lord, took and held it for the King, putting in as governor Sir Edward Leigh’s neighbour, Colonel Lane, of Bentley.  With a garrison of 100 to 200 men, he held Rushall Hall for some months, having some exciting times, chiefly in the plundering of the enemy’s stores, and the private merchandise of carriers passing along the great Watling Street over Cannock Chase.

On May 10th, 1644, the Earl of Denbigh, after a vigorous attack, recaptured Rushall, finding there thousands of pounds’ worth of stolen goods, and taking among other prisoners William Hopkins, of Oakeswell Hall, Wednesbury.  It was then Captain Tuthill became commander of the garrison.

In the same month the Stafford Parliamentarian Committee ordered the seizure of all the horses and cattle belonging to that staunch Royalist, Squire Lane, and of all the other cavalier landowners around Bentley.  The seizure was duly made, and realised by sale at Birmingham.  As a set-off to this it must be recounted that at the beginning of the year Colonel Lane had fallen upon a Parliamentary escort convoying stores and provisions to Stafford, routed the enemy, and taken no less than sixty horses, fifty-five of their packs containing ammunition.  Hence, the reprisal at this first opportunity.

Colonel Leveson, unconscious of this treachery, came according to arrangement to Rushall, but instead of finding an easy entrance, had two “drakes,” or small cannons, fired upon him, killing a number of his troops.  The letters of Leveson and Tuthill will be found printed in full in Willmore’s “History of Walsall.”  The unfortunate messenger, Francis Pitt, was tried in London by “Court Martial,” and hanged at Smithfield on October 12th.  It transpired at the trial that he was selected by Colonel Leveson because he held a farm of him for life, was familiar with Rushall Hall, and had told him he had to go there to pay his war contributions, and sometimes to redeem his neighbours’ cattle.  On the one side Captain Tuthill had promised him £100 of the £2,000 bribe by which it was proposed to seduce him, and on the other his landlord had offered to remit seven years of his rent.  Such is the fortune of war, however, the poor wretch, instead of reward, met with an ignominious death at the age of 65, after a life of honest toil.

In 1645 Prince Rupert had his headquarters in Wolverhampton, while the King lay two miles to the north of the town, where tradition says he watched a skirmish with the enemy from Bushbury Hill.  When Charles I. fled before Cromwell at Naseby on June 14th of that year he passed through Lichfield and entered Wolverhampton.  After sleeping the night, either at the Old Hall, Robert Levenson’s residence, or at a house in Old Lichfield Street, the unfortunately King passed on the next morning towards Bewdley.

Some interesting local information during this war time is to be derived from the literary remains of an officer in the King’s Army, one Captain Symmonds, who amused himself on his marches by taking heraldic notes, and noticing monumental inscriptions.  An entry in his Diary thus alludes to the foregoing facts:—

Our military diarist next writes:—

Satterday, May 17, 1645.—His Majestie marched from here to Tong—

and goes on to enumerate the garrisons in Staffordshire at that date, distinguishing by initials which were “Rebel” and which were the “King’s”; among them:—

K.  Lichfield.—Colonel Bagott, governor.

R.  Russell hall.—A taylor governor.

R.  Mr. Gifford’s house at Chillington, three miles from Wolverhampton.  Now slighted by themselves.

K.  Dudley Castle.—Colonel Leveson, whose estate and habitation is at Wolverhampton, is governor.

“Slighted” signifies dismantled of its fortification; the allusion to “a tailor” being military governor of Rushall is, of course, a cavalier’s sneer at the Republican soldiery.

Coming now to the end of the war, when Charles II. was defeated at Worcester in 1651, the country round Willenhall became the scene of that fugitive monarch’s most romantic wanderings.  Flying from the battlefield at the close of that fatal September day, Charles made his way through Stourbridge to Whiteladies and Boscobel.  Then occurred the episode of his hiding in the “Royal Oak,” and his concealment inside the house, in the “priests’ hole” at the top of the stairs, by Mrs. Penderel.

Prudence dictated another secret flight, and taking advantage of a dark night the unhappy King was taken by Colonel Lane to his own house, and was next hidden at Bentley Hall.

The story of the escape of Charles II. from Bentley towards the continent, disguised as a groom and riding in front of Jane Lane’s pillion, is too well known to need re-telling here.  The episode is historic; it is the subject of a fresco painted on the walls of a corridor in the gilded chambers of Parliament.

The whole romance of Boscobel and Bentley is told with considerable fulness in Shaw’s “Staffordshire” (I., pp. 73–84), and is accompanied by very interesting engravings of Boscobel, Moseley Hall, and Old Bentley.

As a result of the Revolution of 1688, and with the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the impracticable Stuarts disappeared for good from the English throne; but as adherents to their discredited cause, known as Jacobites, still remained numerous, it may be guessed they were not lacking in and around Willenhall.

The Prebend had little to do with Willenhall, except in name.  However, as the name of Willenhall was attached to this particular “canonical portion” in the Collegiate Church of Wolverhampton, and more especially as the Levesons are connected with its later history, reference to it cannot well be omitted.

The Leveson family had been dealing with Wolverhampton church property for centuries, and in the Stuart period were lessees of the greater part of it at a nominal rent of £38 per annum.  Their standing in the county may be gauged by this entry which the Heralds made concerning the family at “Visitation” 1538:—

Richard Leveson of Willenhall was living in 27 Edward I.  He married Margereye, daughter of Henry Fitz Clemente of Wolverhampton.

By an indenture of the year 1613 the Dean and Chapter of Wolverhampton leased the deanery, prebends, and manor of Wolverhampton to Sir Walter Leveson, and all the lands belonging thereto in various parts of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, including those at Willenhall, Wednesfield, Bentley, &c., with all the mines of sea coal, ironstone, &c., on the said premises, but specially excepting the patronage and gifts of prebends, canonship, and all their offices and ecclesiastical jurisdiction; all at an annual reserved rent of £38, and the quaint old-world tenure of having “to entertain the Dean and his retinue two days and three nights in each year.”

Although the case was decided against Sir Walter Leveson, the prebendaries reaped little or no benefit; for Sir Walter died immediately after, leaving his heir a minor, and a ward of the King.  During the wardship the King attempted to settle the questions and controversies which had arisen when he made the appointment of a new Dean.

It must be borne in mind that the Deans of Wolverhampton were also Deans of Windsor; and Dr. Maxey dying about 1618, there followed a somewhat quick succession of Deans.  These were Matthew Wren (1628), protege of Laud, and successively Bishop of Hereford, of Norwich, and of Ely; Christopher Wren, his brother (1634), father of the famous architect of the same name; Dr. Bruno Ryes (1660); and Dr. Brideoak, who became Bishop of Chichester in 1675.

The wardship of young Leveson lasted 16 years, and when he came of age the prebendaries were glad to come to a composition with him.

By this composition he agreed to pay them £30 per annum each, in full satisfaction of the several tithes and other profits belonging in right to their respective prebends; this being over and above the said reserved rents which had been previously paid.  Arrangements were made at the same time with the rest of the prebendaries respecting the several proportions of the tithe belonging to them.

About this time the Dean and Prebendaries successfully resisted an attempt of the Archbishop of Canterbury to hold a visitation within the “peculiar”—the church’s jurisdiction within itself.

The hearing was before the great Lord Chancellor of that day, Lord Clarendon, who dismissed the bill, though without costs.

The Leveson family consequently continued in the undisturbed enjoyment of the church property, granted to them in fee farm by six prebendaries, as well as of divers other freehold estates in the parish of Wolverhampton.

The Leveson property in Wolverhampton became much implicated in the numerous family settlements till, in 1702, Frances, Earl of Bradford, purchased it of Robert Leveson for £22,000.  Lord Bradford also acquired, three years later, the estate of the Dean and Prebends of Wolverhampton which had been leased to the Earl of Windsor; so that the entire property of the Collegiate Church (except the prebendal houses and some property which had been set aside for the use of the Sacrist), passed into the hands of one and the same proprietor.

In the same year, however, the Dean, Prebendaries, and Sacrist filed a bill in Chancery against Leveson and the Earl for the recovery of the property.  The plaintiffs were Gregory Hascard, D.D., dean; Prebendaries John Hinton (Willenhall), Richard Redding (Kinvaston), Thomas Allestree (Hilton), John Plimley (Fetherstone), John Hilman (Hatherton), Richard Ames (Monmore), Walter Ashley (Wobaston), and Henry Wood, sacrist.

They contended they were all clerks, constituted one entire body, and rector or parson incorporate, of the whole parish of Wolverhampton, which was of very great extent, consisting of 16 or 17 hamlets or villages besides the large town of Wolverhampton, being in circuit about thirty miles, in three of which said hamlets there were chapels of ease, the several cures thereof belonging to the said College or Free Chapel Royal.

The defendant Leveson was accused of having contrived secret conveyances of many parcels of the said tithes and lands for the benefit of his own family, some of the properties having been sold for large sums of money, and the church revenues defrauded thereby.  Also that he had so altered and confounded the buildings, fences, and boundaries of the church lands, and so mixed them up with his own inherited lands, that it had become impossible to discern or distinguish which were the original possessions of the College; possessions which at the Domesday Survey had extended to 3,000 acres, besides the lordship of Lutley, near Halesowen.

Dr. Oliver states that in his time (1836) there remained some “houses and lands now belonging to the prebendaries and Sacrist, which are leased out for lives.”

The “corpses” of the six prebends are supposed to have consisted of the tithes of their respective districts in Willenhall, Hilton, Hatherton, Fetherston, Monmore, and Wobaston.

The Rev. Richard Ames, Curate of Bilston for 46 years (1684–1730), makes the following record:—

1723, December 9th.—The Reverd. Mr. Wm. Craddock, Rector of Donnington (Salop), was installed Prebendary of Willenhall, he having resigned that of Hatherston.  The mandate for his installmt. was directed to me (ye Senior Prebendary) by ye Rt. Hon’ble George, Lord Willoughby de Broke, Deane of o’r Collegiate Church of Wolverhampton, and of Windsor; I being constituted locum tenens.

On ye 10th December, 1723, by virtue of an’r mandate to me, directed by ye same Ld. Willoughby de Broke, ye same Mr. Wm. Craddock was by me put in possession of ye Sacrist’s Stall, both which places became vacant by ye death of Mr. Hinton.  He (Mr. Craddock) was also constituted principal official.

On the death of the very Rev. and Hon. H. L. Hobart, D.C.L., &c., in 1846, the Collegiate establishment of Wolverhampton ceased to exist, and its property became vested in the ecclesiastical Commissioners.

Such was the gross abuse of ecclesiastical patronage, the entire income of the Collegiate Church (except £100 a year for a curate of very indefinite status) had been absorbed in the payment of a Dean of the two “peculiars” of Windsor and Wolverhampton, and of some half-dozen legendary prebendaries who were for the most part unknown, even by name, to the oldest inhabitant of the parish.

With the suppression of the ancient Deanery, the modern township of Wolverhampton was divided into thirteen ecclesiastical parishes.

In the eighteenth century the ecclesiastical history of Willenhall reached a critical stage.  Long and bitter were the disputes which arose between the mother church of Wolverhampton and the daughter chapelries of Willenhall and Bilston; and perhaps the temper of the authorities at the former had not been improved by the gradual impoverishment of the residentiaries there, the history of which formed the subject of the last chapter.

The first cause of the quarrel was found in the fact that these two places, having become as populous as towns of ordinary status, were without legal burying-grounds.  When land had been provided there seems to have been considerable hesitancy on the part of the authorities in allowing Willenhall and Bilston these ordinary parochial privileges.  The Rev. Richard Ames, of Bilston, has left it on record that on June 9th, 1726, he waited upon the Bishop of the diocese, while he was holding a confirmation at Walsall, when “John Lane, Esqre., of Bentley, mov’d his lordship to consecrate Willenhall and Bilston Chapelyards for burial-places, wch. his lordship seemed inclinable to do.”

The history of the conflict goes back to 1709, when Dr. Manningham, on becoming Dean, convened a Chapter at Oxford which was attended by all the Prebendaries and the Sacrist.  This meeting was specially called to consider the case of the inhabitants of Willenhall and Bilston, who had represented to the Dean the great inconveniences which arose in having to carry their dead from these chapelries for interment at Wolverhampton; and humbly praying that their respective chapels and chapelyards should be consecrated for the proper burial of the dead.

A subsequent Chapter, held 10 October, 1718, confirmed this, when the Ministers and Inhabitants of the Chapelries of Bilston and Willenhall signed an Agreement to observe and perform the said conditions.  For the carrying out of the agreement in business-like form the said Ministers covenanted to pay the said fees half-yearly, at Lady-day and Michaelmas, transmitting a copy of their respective Registers “without reserve or fraud” to be transcribed into the books of the mother church.

The fees to be charged each Chapelry were fixed to a scale: tenpence for “ye churching of every woman”; sevenpence for the burial of each body in the churchyard, and twice that amount for the burial inside the church: and so on.

Subsequently (some 30 years after, when St. John’s Chapel, Wolverhampton, was in contemplation) the inhabitants of the Liberties of Willenhall and Bilston, notwithstanding the written agreement aforesaid, peremptorily and finally refused to pay their respective fees for Christenings, Churchings, and Burials to the Sacrist and Curates of Wolverhampton; payments whereby the profits of their several offices were lessened more than half, and the loss was so considerable it was no longer to be borne.

At Bilston the quarrel of 1753 was practically not settled for nearly a century afterwards.  It was ruled that whatever might be arranged in respect of fees for other rites no marriages could be legally performed in the Chapel except by licence of Wolverhampton, which claimed a “Peculiar” jurisdiction; and as the inhabitants indignantly refused to pay double marriage fees, no marriage was solemnised in the chapel from January, 1754, to February, 1841.

The same year—to be exact, the date was April 12th, 1841—the first marriage was solemnised at Willenhall Church, the Bishop having then issued a special licence to the Incumbent to marry persons living within the township.

This quarrel arose, in the main, through the excessive demands made upon the inhabitants of the three chapelries for rates with which to repair and maintain the fabric of Wolverhampton Church.  The levies made ostensibly for this purpose seem to have been at times somewhat exorbitant, and the money to have been spent in meeting charges which can only be described as superfluous so far as the non-residential contributors were concerned.

About 1738 the chapelwardens of Bilston made a determined stand against the churchwardens of Wolverhampton.

A “case was stated” in which it was shown that the Collegiate Church of Wolverhampton consisted of a Dean and Prebendaries, founded by a Royal Family, and was subject to no visitation but that of the Crown.  It contained three Chapels—one at Bilston, another at Willenhall, and a third at Pelsall.

The statement proceeded:—“Every Hamlet and Village in the Ecclesiastical Parish of Wolverhampton has a Constable and all other parochial officers, and maintains its own poor as it were a separate parish. . . .”

“The Chapelries of Willenhall and Bilston nominate and maintain each its own Clergy, and repair their own Chapels, which have been endowed time out of mind, and were consecrated about thirteen years ago for burying places.”

Other points of complaint put forward were that the two chapels afforded every facility to the inhabitants of the respective places for divine worship and the administration of the sacraments; that formerly Bilston and Willenhall each paid only £4 a year to the mother church, but that since 1716 increasing demands had been made till as much as £56 was asked for; and that all which these chapelries received in return were the bread and wine used in the sacrament, four times a year, and for which they paid £4 per annum, the chapelwardens being allowed 3d. in the £ at Boston and 4d. in the £ at Willenhall for collecting it.

On this opinion (of a learned Sergeant-at-Law) the inhabitants of Willenhall were invited to join with those of Bilston in a common defence for their mutual benefit.  On the advice of the esteemed Dr. Wilkes, a well-known local Antiquary, who was then the leading public man of Willenhall, the invitation was declined.

Litigation proceeded for several years both in the ecclesiastical courts and in chancery, but without any definite decision being arrived at.

In 1754 the Earl of Stamford tried to induce both parties to submit a case fairly drawn up (for the legal work in the preparation of which he generously offered to pay all the costs) and to abide by the decision.  The people of Willenhall, through Dr. Wilkes, thanked his lordship for his friendly offer, and declared their willingness to accept it.

The Wolverhampton officials, however, rejected the proposal, in the hope they would win their case in the ecclesiastical courts.  When the case eventually came to trial in 1755 an old parish book was produced, which showed that the exorbitant demands of Wolverhampton were distinctly illegal.  In it was an entry of 1668, which ran in this wise:—

“This is the portion of Rates each Chapelry and Prebend shall pay towards the repairs of the Mother Church:—

A writ of prohibition was forthwith filed to stay all further proceedings in the Spiritual Courts; and the law costs of the trial, amounting to £282 1s. 8d., were divided equally between Bilston and Willenhall (1756).

Willenhall’s most illustrous son was Dr. Richard Wilkes, Antiquary, whose house still stands on the Walsall Road.  He came of good family of county rank, and his personal character raised him to the eminence of a notability in Staffordshire.  His portrait appears in Shaw’s history of this county of which his (Wilkes’) valuable and voluminous MSS. formed the nucleus.  Though settled in this locality, adding to their little patrimony from time to time for 300 or 400 years, the family came originally from Hertfordshire.

The pedigree of Wilkes, according to the Heralds’ Visitation in 1614, commences with John Wylkys de Darlaston, who was witness to a Deed of Roger, Lord of Darlaston, in the time of Edward III. (1331).  There is a Richard Wylkys, of Willenhall, who witnessed a Bentley Deed in 1413.  To this Richard and his wife Juliana, daughter and heir of William Wilkes, a grant of lands in Bentley was made by Humphrey, Earl of Stafford.  The son of this couple was William Wilkes of Willnall (1505).  Protonotary of the Court of Common Pleas, 15 Henry VIII.  The family tree is very complete in Shaw.

One John Wilkes married a widow Parkhouse, nee Margery Garbet, of Nether Penn; another John, his nephew, was Rector of Lum, and evidently a Puritan, as his two sons bear the striking biblical names, Ephraim and Manasses.  Richard seems to have been the favourite name for the eldest son.  One Richard married Mercy Drakeford, of Stafford (see Salt. Vol. VIII.); his son, also named Richard, became the father of our Willenhall worthy, whose mother was Lucretia, youngest daughter of Jonas Astley, of Wood Eaton, in this county.

It does not appear when or where he took his degrees in medicine.  He seems to have taken pupils and taught mathematics in college from the year 1715 till he left it, and to have been engaged thus early in literary matters, particularly in the collection of material for subsequent use.  It was by his literary labours, particularly in antiquarian research, that he made himself a name.

He presently took deacon’s orders, and once preached in the parish church of Wolverhampton.  He also preached several times at Stow, near Chartley.  However, disappointment in the expectation of preferment in the Church soon disgusted him with the ministry, and in 1720 he began to practise physic, for which he seemed to have a natural talent, at Wolverhampton.  In 1725 he married Rachel Manlove, of Abbots Bromley, with whom he had a handsome fortune, and from that time he dwelt with his father (who died in 1730) at Willenhall.

About this time he wrote an excellent treatise on Dropsy; and later, when a dreadful disease raged among the horned cattle of the Midlands, he published a very useful and practical “Letter to Breeders and Graziers in the County of Stafford,” and made every effort to assist in stamping out the plague.  Possibly while at Chartley he had made a study of the herd of wild cattle preserved there.

His skill as a physician was very considerable, and seems to have been applied chiefly to the gratuitous relief of his poorer neighbours.  He led an exemplary life, being an early riser, and an indefatigable reader, constantly adding to the rich stores of his well-stocked mind.

As previously mentioned, he spent several years of industry in collecting historical manuscripts, and making antiquarian notes relating to his native county, of which the Rev. Stebbing Shaw afterwards made such good use.

Like Pepys, he kept a Diary, which was never intended for publication—he was a diligent recorder of historical facts.  Here is an interesting note from it:—

“The first steam engine that ever raised any quantity of water was erected near Wolverhampton, on the right-hand side of the road leading to Walsall, over against the half-mile stone.”  (This was on the site of the Chillington ironworks.)

The Diarist was too modest to add that the Waterworks which long supplied Wolverhampton with water were the property of Dr. Wilkes.

Among other projected literary works was a new edition of Hudibras, with notes, &c.  In the beginning of the year 1747, having a severe fit of illness which confined him to the house, he amused himself with writing his own epitaph, which he calls “A picture drawn from the life without heightening.”  It is as follows:—

Here, reader, stand awhile, and know
Whose carcase ’tis that rots below;
A man’s, who walk’d by Reason’s rule
Yet sometimes err’d and play’d the fool;
A man’s sincere in all his ways,
And full of the Creator’s praise,
Who laughed at priestcraft, pride and strife,
And all the little tricks of life.
He lov’d his king, his country more,
And dreadful party-rage forbore:
He told nobility the truth
And winked at hasty slips of youth.
The honest poor man’s steady friend.
The villain’s sconce in hopes to mend.
His father, mother, children, wife,
His riches, honour, length of life,
Concern not thee.  Observe what’s here—
He rests in hope and not in fear.

His wife dying in May, 1756, he married for the second time in October the same year Mrs. Frances Bendish (sister to the Rev. Sir Richard Wrottesley, of Wrottesley, Bart.), who long survived him, dying December 24, 1798, at Froxfield, near Petersfield, in Hampshire, at a very advanced age.

As Dr. Wilkes left no issue, his property passed to the Unett family, the representatives of his aunt Anne who had married George Unett, of Wolverhampton.

He was buried at Willenhall in his native soil, where a neat monument was erected to his memory near the family pew, by his heirs, Captain Richard Wilkes Unett, and Mr. John Wilkes Unett; the tablet was thus inscribed:—

“Near this place
Lie the remains
of
RICHARD WILKES, M.D.

Formerly fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge; the last of an ancient and respectable family resident at this place 300 years and upwards.  He married first, Rachel, eldest daughter of Rowland Manlove, of Lees Hill, in this county, esq.; secondly, Frances, daughter of Sir John, and sister

of the late
Sir Richard Wrottesly, of Wrottesly, Bart.
and widow of Higham Bendish, Esq.
He died March 6, 1760,
aged 70 years.

[Underneath is the following escutcheon:—

(Wilkes) Paly of eight Or and Gules; on a chief Argent, three lozenges of the second: impaling, 1.  (Manlove) Azure, a chevron Ermine, between three anchors Argent; 2.  (Wrottesley) Or, three piles Sa. a canton Ermine]

“The children of the late Rev. Thomas Unett, of Stafford, his heirs-at-law, placed this monument an. 1800.”

The old house of Dr. Wilkes, a good specimen of its type of architecture, stands back from the main road behind iron palisading.  Part of it has been utilised as a stamper’s warehouse; had it received the respect due to its associations, it might flittingly have been a town Museum, or some such public institution.  It was built by the Doctor’s father, and the Doctor was born there.

The house has a white stuccoed front, irregularly disposed, the semi-porticoed doorway with classic columns having three windows on its left and two on its right, although the shorter side seems to have been lengthened at a later period by a red brick wing.  Along the line of the first floor are six windows, whose lights in the Annean period, to which the building belongs, were doubtless of small leaded panes.

From the tiled roof project three dormers, the centre one having a semi-circular head, the outer ones pointed.  The chimneys stand out from each gable end, and in the brickwork of each of their sides is a plain recessed panel; the chimney-heads being noticeable for the absence of the usual projecting courses.  Local tradition says that Hall street was once a stately avenue of trees by which this residence was approached from Lichfield Street.

On entering the house, the visitor feels a pang of regret that the venerable building should ever have been degraded to the purposes of commerce; particularly as the fabric retains many of its characteristics, thanks to the soundness of the workmanship of two centuries ago.  The decorations in the form of plaster mouldings that cover the beams, and the medallion or panel pictures, being partly historical and partly classical, all exhibit the Renaissance feeling of the early eighteenth century.

The other room is oblong, with beams across dividing its ceiling into four parts.  In these parts there are four well-drawn figures, one believed to be Bacon, with beard, moustache, whiskers, and in Elizabethan costume; two close cropped heads, carried on noble necks, believed to be respectively Julius Cæsar and Mark Antony; and the fourth is said to be Homer, with the customary curly hair and beard, but showing a collar of some sort, and apparently wearing a skull cap.  Over the mantel, painted on canvas, is the Coliseum, showing the Arch of Titus and a pool in the foreground.

In the main room upstairs is still to be seen the portrait of Dr. Wilkes, painted on canvas, over the mantelpiece.  He is depicted as a clean shaven man with benevolent face, bluish or blue-grey eyes, a good forehead, nose, mouth and chin well-defined, and wearing a wig.  His costume includes a high-cut waistcoat, bearing ten buttons, opened in front nearly all the way down to show cravat and frilled shirt, the cravat having a buckle—probably jewelled in front.  The outer coat is without a collar, cut a little lower than the waistcoat, sloping from above outwards, showing eight buttons, and apparently of greenish-brown velvet.

Of the once sweet and pellucid stream, spanned by an ornamental bridge, which conducted the rambler to the pleasant meads beyond, nothing remains but the name, “Willenhall Brook”—it is now little better than a dirty open sewer.

It may not be generally known that a passing allusion is made to Wilkes in Boswell’s “Life of Johnson.”

In the IV. chapter of Vol.  I. of this monumental biography we read that in 1740 Dr. Johnson wrote “an epitaph on Phillips, a musician, which was afterwards published with some other pieces of his, in ‘Mrs. Williams’s Miscellanies.’  This epitaph is so exquisitely beautiful, that I remember even Lord Kaines, strangely prejudiced as he was against Dr. Johnson, was compelled to allow it very high praise.  It has been ascribed to Mr. Garrick from its appearing at first with the signature G; but I have heard Mr. Garrick declare it was written by Dr. Johnson, and give the following account of the manner in which it was composed.  Johnson and he were sitting together, when amongst other things Garrick repeated an epitaph upon this Phillips, by a Dr. Wilkes, in these words:—

Exalted soul! whose harmony could please
The love-sick virgin, and the gouty ease;
Could jarring discord, like Amphion, move
To beauteous order and harmonious love;
Rest here in peace, till angels bid thee rise
And meet thy blessed Saviour in the skies.

“Johnson shook his head at the common-place funeral lines, and said to Garrick, ‘I think, Davy, I can make better.’”

The great biographer goes on to state that Johnson, after stirring about his tea and meditating a little while, produced these lines:—

Exalted soul! thy various sounds could please
The love-sick virgin, and the gouty ease;
Could jarring crowds, like old Amphion, move
To beauteous order and harmonious love.
Rest here in peace, till angels bid thee rise,
And join thy Saviour’s concert in the skies.

All this points to the fact that Dr. Richard Wilkes was well known as a writer, and acknowledged as an authority.