A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



under Lyme, where colliery owners paid as much as 500 per annum for 

 leave to draw coal over the estates of landowners, and it is probable that in 

 1750 every important mine had its accompanying railroad, with wooden tram- 

 lines at first, followed by iron ones after I738. 100 Apart from these mineral 

 lines no railroad passed through Staffordshire till the opening of the Grand 

 Junction Railway in 1837, which connected London with Liverpool and 

 Manchester by way of Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stafford, and Chester. 

 Others quickly followed, and to-day the chief lines running through the 

 county are the London and North Western with its various branches, and 

 the North Staffordshire Railway, incorporated 1846, which connects the 

 Potteries with every part of the country, and which took over in that year 

 the Trent and Mersey Navigation. The Great Western passes through only 

 a part of South Staffordshire, whilst the Midland Railway skirts Staffordshire 

 pretty closely from Tamworth to Burton. 



By 1 80 1 the industrial development of the county had produced a con- 

 siderable effect upon the population. Burslem contained 6,578 persons, 

 whilst Stoke on Trent, with Bucknall-cum-Bagnall chapelry, had a population 

 of no less than 16,414. 



In South Staffordshire the face of the county was being rapidly changed, 

 and contemporary writers 101 bear witness to the rapid rise in population 

 in many parishes in recent years. The parish of Handsworth is a good 

 example of this. By 1801 its population had risen to 2,719, owing to its 

 nearness to Birmingham and the establishment of various manufactures in 

 its neighbourhood, notably the great manufactory of Watt and Boulton at 

 Soho, already mentioned. A few years before Soho had been a barren heath 

 upon the bleak summit of which, says Shaw, stood a lonely warrener's hut. 102 



The scattered parish of Sedgeley with its nine villages numbered 9,874 10 * 

 inhabitants, chiefly workers in coal and iron. 104 Wolverhampton, which in 

 1750 is estimated to have contained only 7,454 persons, 105 had now a popu- 

 lation of I2,565, 106 and Walsall (Borough and Foreign) was not far behind 

 with io,399. 107 The borough of Stafford contained only 3,898 persons, 108 

 and Lichfield, including the Close, 4,842. 109 In the purely agricultural 

 districts the changes in population were not very important. 



The same period that saw the industrial changes in Staffordshire wit- 

 nessed here as elsewhere the progress of a considerable agrarian revolution. 

 Agriculture had changed very little since mediaeval times, and even the sub- 

 stitution of pasture for tillage which marked the sixteenth century appears to 

 have been less considerable in Staffordshire than in many counties. Some 

 improvements were made in the seventeenth century, such as the use of 

 winter roots, learnt from the Dutch, and a greater interest was shown in 

 artificial grasses. Still even these improved methods were not universally 

 adopted, and it was not until the next century that any general and marked 

 change took place. 



The chief features of the agrarian revolution were the inclosure of the 

 common fields, the consolidation of farms by capitalist landlords, the intro- 



"* J. Langford, Staff, and ffarttt. Past and Present, 59-60. 

 01 Stebbing Shaw, op. cit. ii, 117, 134 ; Pitt, Agric. Sun>. 174. 

 " Stebbing Shaw, op. cit. ii, 117. 1M Pop. Returns. 



M Stebbing Shaw, op. cit. 222. los J. P. Brown, The Offic. Guide to Wolverhampton. 



m Pop. Returns. lw Ibid. 1M Ibid. ' Ibid. 



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