Darlaston Staffordshire Family History Guide

Darlaston is an Ancient Parish in the county of Staffordshire.

Alternative names: Darlaston near Wednesbury

Parish church: St. Lawrence

Parish registers begin: 1539

Nonconformists include: Calvinist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Independent/Congregational, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan Methodist.

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

DARLASTON, a town, a parish, and a sub-district, in Walsall district, Stafford. The town stands near the Bentley canal and the Birmingham and Wolverhampton railway, 1½ mile NW by N of Wednesbury; and has a station on the railway, and a post-office under Wednesbury. It carries on hardware manufacture, in many departments; has iron-foundries, steel-works, and malting mills: and presents the grimy aspect common to places of its class.

The parish comprises 901 acres. Real property, £31,445; of which £4,423 are in mines, £52 in quarries, and £9,923 in iron-works. Pop., 12,884. Houses, 2,514. The property is subdivided. Coal and ironstone are extensively mined; stone is quarried; and bricks are made. A canal aqueduct, over the Bescot brook, has two arches, and is 120 feet high.

The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield. Value, £266. Patrons, Simeon’s Trustees. The church stands on an eminence, in the centre of the town; and is a plain brick building, with a lofty steeple. St. George’s vicarage, constituted in 1844, is a separate benefice. Value, £150. Patron, alternately the Crown and the Bishop. The church was built in 1852; and is a stone structure, in the early English style, with a north-western tower. There are chapels for Independents and Wesleyans, and charities £6. The sub-district includes also part of Wolverhampton parish. Acres, 2,551. Pop., 13,230. Houses, 2,582.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].

Lewis Topographical Dictionary of England 1845

Darlaston (St. Lawrence), a parish, in the union of Walsall, S. division of the hundred of Offlow and the county of Stafford, 1 mile (N. W. by W.) from Wednesbury; containing 8244 inhabitants. This place, which is situated in the heart of a mining and manufacturing district, comprises about 800 acres; the town is lighted with gas from the extensive works at West Bromwich, about 4 miles distant, and is chiefly inhabited by persons engaged in the mines and other works carried on in the immediate neighbourhood.

The most important articles manufactured are gun-locks, bits, stirrups, buckles, nails, screws, cast-iron goods, and iron bars, in which a great portion of the population is employed; and in the parish are rich mines of coal and iron-stone, principally wrought by the Birmingham Coal Company. The Birmingham canal passes on the north side of the parish of Walsall, &c., and the Grand Junction railway also runs through it. An extensive stone quarry belongs to the coal company, and is worked for all the usual purposes.

The living is a rectory, valued in he King’s books at £3. 11. 5½., and in the gift of the Trustees of J. Thornton, Esq.: the tithes have been commuted for £250, and the glebe comprises 18 acres. The church was rebuilt by subscription in 1806, and enlarged in 1819 and 1833; it is of brick, with stone steeple erected on a much more ancient tower. There are places of worship for Independents, and Primitive and Wesleyan Methodists; also a national school.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis Fifth Edition Published London; by S. Lewis and Co., 13, Finsbury Place, South. M. DCCC. XLV.