We would like to say a big “thank you” to our heritage partners in Brierley Hill
The Black Country Society
Do you know how the Black Country got its name? Many believe it’s because of the pollution from all the iron foundries and steel mills pumping out soot in the nineteenth century. Apparently Queen Victoria ordered the window blinds to be lowered as the royal train passed through! But some historians suggest that the name existed even before the Industrial Revolution: there were thick coal seams so near the surface that the ground was actually black!
Judith Watkin, Secretary of the Black Country Society, and Charles Hanmer, a former President, told us stories of the Black Country. Ron Moss gave us a tour of the Mushroom Green chainshop.
Visit the Black Country Society’s website
Read what Wikipedia has to say about the Black Country
Black Country Living Museum
Do you know where to find the Black Country on the map? It is the industrial area to the west of Birmingham, but its boundaries are not clearly defined. In 1862 the American Consul in Birmingham wrote: “The Black Country, black by day and red by night, cannot be matched for vast and varied production, by any other space of equal radius on the surface of the globe.”
We went to the Black Country Living Museum to find out about what life was like when these heavy industries were at their height.
When Satan stood on Brierley Hill and far around him gazed,
He said: “I never more shall feel at Hell’s fierce flames amazed.”
The Women’s History Curator at the BCLM, Dr Lynn Sinclair, told us the story of Mary Macarthur and the women chainmakers’ 1910 strike for a minimum wage. And we met up with Fizzog Theatre Company, who showed us what life was like for Black Country women in the old days.
Visit the BCLM website to find out more
Visit the Fizzog website to find out more
Black Country Archive Services
Did you know that the anchor for the Titanic was made in Dudley, and the
invoice for it is still held in the Dudley Archives?
Visit
the Dudley Archives website
Read
the ID1000 article, “A Titanic Journey”
Did you know that the Potato Famine caused a wave of Irish migration to
Wolverhampton in the mid-1800s, and anti-Catholic feelings led to street
clashes between Irish immigrants and the police? Then a hundred years
later, around the 1950s, there was a comparable wave of immigration from
the West Indies, leading to the famous “Rivers of Blood” speech by Enoch
Powell (MP for Wolverhampton) in 1968.
We used resources about population migration from Wolverhampton Archives
as a stimulus for drama devising.
Read
more about population migration
Read
the ID1000 article, “Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood”
Read
the ID1000 article, “Swap Riots for Respect!”
Documenting the Workshop of the World. The Black Country Archive Services (Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton) are busy digitising thousands of images and records to do with the history of the Black Country.
Check out the Black Country History website
Canal heritage
Did you know that in the eighteenth century the Canal Age opened up Britain
to the Industrial Revolution, much as the internet is currently opening
up the world to an information revolution? Canals made it cheaper
to transport goods, so things no longer needed to be produced locally;
people moved to service the factories and mills, and British ways of life
were changed for ever.
Read
more about canal heritage
Read
the ID1000 article, “Bobbing Along On The Old Rag Doll”
We went for a boat trip on the Stourbridge Canal and visited the Red House
Glass Cone to find out about the glassmaking industry.
Find out more about Stourbridge and
the Glass
Cone
Read about the International Festival of Glass
Did you know that the Gunpowder Plot was also known as the Midlands Plot? Read the ID1000 article, “The Bitter Divide: Religious Conflict Then and Now”
Did you know that J. R. R. Tolkein’s Middle Earth was inspired by the Black Country? Read the ID1000 article, “Tolkein’s Mordor: Black Magic in the Black Country”
Did you know that some parts of the Black Country dialect are exactly the same as the English of Chaucer’s time? Read the ID1000 article, “The Yam Yam’s Tale”
Did you know that the Black Country is a rich source of spooky ghost stories? Read the ID1000 article, “Three Stories from the Haunted Black Country”