The Annals of Willenhall. Frederick William Hackwood
tion>
Frederick William Hackwood
The Annals of Willenhall
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664596437
Table of Contents
II.—The Battle of Wednesfield.
IV.—The Founding of Wulfruna’s Church, 996, A.D.
V.—The Collegiate Establishment
VI—Willenhall at the Norman Conquest (1066–1086) .
VII.—A Chapel and a Chantry at Willenhall.
VIII.—Willenhall in the Middle Ages.
IX.—The Levesons and other old Willenhall families.
X.—Willenhall Endowments at the Reformation.
XI.—How the Reformation Affected Willenhall.
XII.—Before the Reformation—and After.
XIII.—A Century of Wars, Incursions, and Alarms (1640–1745) .
XIV.—Litigation Concerning the Willenhall Prebend (1615–1702) .
XV.—Willenhall Struggling to be a Free Parish.
XVI.—Dr. Richard Wilkes, of Willenhall (1690–1760) .
XIX.—How a Flock Chose its own Shepherd.
XX.—The Election of 1894, and Since.
XXI.—Willenhall Church Endowments.
XXII.—The Church Charities: The Daughter Churches.
3.— Charities of John Tomkys and George Welch .
XXIII.—The Fabric of the Church.
XXIV.—Dissent, Nonconformity, and Philanthrophy.
XXVII.—The Town of Locks and Keys.
XXVIII.—Willenhall in Fiction.
XXXI.—Old Families and Names of Note.
I.—Its Name and Its Antiquity
Willenhall, vulgo Willnal, is undoubtedly a place of great antiquity; on the evidence of its name it manifestly had its foundation in an early Saxon settlement. The Anglo-Saxon form of the name Willanhale may be interpreted as “the meadow land of Willa”—Willa being a personal name, probably that of the tribal leader, the head of a Teutonic family, who settled here. In the Domesday Book the name appears as Winehala, but by the twelfth century had approached as near to its modern form as Willenhal and Willenhale.
Dr. Oliver, in his History of Wolverhampton, derives the name from Velen, the Sun-god, and the Rev. H. Barber, of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, who tries to find a Danish origin for nearly all our old Midland place-names, suggests the Norse form Vil-hjalmr; or perhaps a connection with Scandinavian family names such as Willing and Wlmer.
Dr. Barber fortifies himself by quoting Scott:—
Beneath the shade the Northmen came,
Fixed on each vale a Runic name.
Rokeby, Canto, IV.
Here it may not be out of place to mention that Scandinavian influences are occasionally traceable throughout the entire basin of the Trent, even as far as this upper valley of its feeder, the Tame. The place-name Bustleholme (containing the unmistakable Norse root, “holme,” indicating a river island) is the appellation of an ancient mill on this stream, just below Wednesbury. In this connection it is interesting to recall Carlyle’s words. In his “Hero Worship,” the sage informs us of a mode of speech still used by the barge men of the Trent when the river is in a highly flooded