Wolverhampton ( WUUL-vər-HAMP-tən) is a city and metropolitan borough, in the West Midlands, England. Located around 12 miles (19 km) north-west of Birmingham, it forms the north-western part of the West Midlands conurbation, with the towns of Willenhall and Walsall to the east, and the towns of Sedgley and Dudley to the south. The population in 2021 was 263,700, making it the third largest city in the county after Birmingham and Coventry.
Historically in Staffordshire, Wolverhampton grew as a market town specialising in the wool trade. During the Industrial Revolution, it became a major centre for coal mining, steel production, lock making, and automotive manufacturing; the economy of the city is still based on engineering, including a large aerospace industry and a service sector. The city is home to the University of Wolverhampton. A town for most of its history, it gained city status in 2001. The M6 motorway runs just outside the city's east and north-east borders, while the M54 motorway starts to the north and links the city with Telford. The city is served by Wolverhampton station, while the western terminus of the West Midlands Metro network is also located in the city.
Wolverhampton has produced many notable musicians and artists. It is known in the sports world as the home of EFL Championship football team Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, which plays at Molineux Stadium. As a result of experiencing a heavy influx of Indian immigrants since the 1950s, the city is home to the largest percentage of Sikhs in England, who have been influential in shaping its identity; it also hosts a higher percentage of Hindus than the national average.
Toponymy
The city is named after Wulfrun, who founded the town in 985, from the Anglo-Saxon Wulfrūnehēantūn ('Wulfrūn's high or principal enclosure or farm').
Before the Norman Conquest of 1066, the area's name appears only as variants of Heantune or Hamtun; the prefix Wulfrun or similar appearing in 1070 and thereafter. Alternatively, the city may have earned its original name from Wulfereēantūn ('Wulfhere's high or principal enclosure or farm') after the Mercian King, who according to tradition established an abbey in 659, though no evidence of an abbey has been found. The variation Wolveren Hampton is seen in medieval records, for example in 1381. The Oxford English Dictionary includes the demonym Wulfrunian, defined as "An inhabitant of Wolverhampton", its earliest example of use being from 1959.
History
A local tradition states that King Wulfhere of Mercia founded an abbey of St Mary at Wolverhampton in 659.
Wolverhampton is recorded as being the site of a decisive battle between the unified Mercian Angles and West Saxons against the raiding Danes in 910, although sources are unclear as to whether the battle itself took place in Wednesfield or Tettenhall. Both places have since been incorporated into Wolverhampton. The Mercians and West Saxons claimed a decisive victory, and the field of Woden is recognised by numerous place names in Wednesfield.
In 985, King Ethelred the Unready granted lands at a place referred to as Heantun to Lady Wulfrun by royal charter, and hence founding the settlement.
St Mary's Church was founded in 966, later named St Peters. It is not known if The Wolverhampton Pillar predates that, but probably does. The Pillar is thought to be a Roman column taken from Wroxeter or Wall (Letocetum). In 994, a monastery was consecrated there in Wolverhampton for which Wulfrun granted land at Upper Arley in Worcestershire, Bilston, Willenhall, Wednesfield, Pelsall, Ogley Hay near Brownhills, Hilton near Wall, Hatherton, Kinvaston, Hilton near Wolverhampton and Featherstone. This became the site for the current St. Peter's Church. A statue of Lady Wulfrun, sculpted by Sir Charles Wheeler, can be seen on the stairs outside the church.
Wolverhampton is recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086 as being in the Hundred of Seisdon and the county of Staffordshire. The lords of the manor are listed as the canons of St Mary, with the tenant-in-chief being Samson, William the Conqueror's personal chaplain. Wolverhampton at this date is a large settlement of fifty households.
In 1179, there is mention of a market held in the town, and, in 1204, it had come to the attention of King John that the town did not possess a Royal Charter for holding a market. This charter for a weekly market held on a Wednesday was eventually granted on 4 February 1258 by Henry III.
It is held that in the 14th and 15th centuries that Wolverhampton was one of the "staple towns" of the woollen trade, which can be seen today by the inclusion of a woolpack on the city's coat of arms, and by the many small streets, especially in the city centre, called "Fold", as well as Woolpack Street and Woolpack Alley.
In 1512, Sir Stephen Jenyns, a former Lord Mayor of London and a twice Master of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, who was born in the city, founded Wolverhampton Grammar School, one of the oldest active schools in Britain.
From the 16th century onwards, Wolverhampton became home to a number of metal industries, including lock and key making, and iron and brass working.
Wolverhampton suffered two great fires: the first in April 1590 and the second in September 1696. Both fires started in today's Salop Street. The first fire lasted for five days and left nearly 700 people homeless, whilst the second destroyed 60 homes in the first five hours. This second fire led to the purchase of the first fire engine within the city in September 1703.
On 27 January 1606, two farmers, Thomas Smart and John Holyhead of Rowley Regis, were executed on High Green, now Queen Square, for sheltering two of the Gunpowder Plotters, Robert Wintour and Stephen Littleton, who had fled to the Midlands. The pair played no part in the original plot nevertheless suffered a traitor's death of being hanged, drawn and quartered on butcher's blocks set up in the square a few days before the execution of Guy Fawkes and several other plotters in London.
There is evidence that Wolverhampton may have been the location of the first working Newcomen Steam Engine in 1712.
19th century
A few years before she began her reign, Queen Victoria visited Wolverhampton in the 1830s and described it as "a large and dirty town", but one that received her "with great friendliness and pleasure." In Victorian times, Wolverhampton grew to be a wealthy town mainly due to the huge amount of industry that occurred as a result of the abundance of coal and iron deposits in the area. The remains of this wealth can be seen in local houses such as Wightwick Manor and The Mount (both built for the prominent varnish and paint manufacturers, the Mander family) as well as Tettenhall Towers. All three are located in the western fringe of Wolverhampton, in the areas known as Wightwick and Tettenhall. Many other houses of similar stature were demolished in the 1960s and 1970s.
Wolverhampton gained its first parliamentary representation as part of the Reform Act 1832, when it was one of 22 large towns that were allocated two members of Parliament. A local mob attacking electors who voted or intended to vote for the Tory candidate led to the 1835 Wolverhampton riot, with dragoons being called in to end the intimidation. Wolverhampton was incorporated as a municipal borough on 15 March 1848, under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, before becoming a county borough in 1889. It was represented politically in Victorian times by Charles Pelham Villiers, a Liberal MP and noted free trade supporter who was also the longest-serving MP in parliamentary history. Lord Wolverhampton, Henry Hartley Fowler was MP for Wolverhampton at the turn of the century.
The railways reached Wolverhampton in 1837, with the first station located at Wednesfield Heath, now Heath Town, on the Grand Junction Railway. This station was demolished in 1965, but the area exists as a nature reserve just off Powell Street.
Wolverhampton railway works was established in 1849 for the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway and became the Northern Division workshop of the Great Western Railway in 1854.
In the 19th century, the city saw much immigration from Wales and Ireland; the latter following the Great Famine. In 1866, a statue was erected in memory of Prince Albert the Prince Consort, the unveiling of which brought Queen Victoria back to Wolverhampton. The unveiling of the statue was the first public appearance Queen Victoria made after the funeral of her husband. A 40-foot-tall (12 m) archway made of coal was constructed for the visit. The Queen was so pleased with the statue that she knighted Wolverhampton's mayor at the time, an industrialist named John Morris. Market Square, originally named High Green, was renamed Queen Square in honour of the visit. The statue replaced a Russian cannon captured during the Siege of Sevastopol in 1855, and remains standing in Queen Square. The statue is known locally as "The Man on the Horse".
The Stafford Street drill hall was completed in 1890.
20th century
Wolverhampton had a prolific bicycle industry from 1868 to 1975, during which time a total of more than 200 bicycle manufacturing companies existed; these included Viking, Marston, Sunbeam, Star, Wulfruna and Rudge. The last volume manufacturers of bicycles left Wolverhampton during the 1960s and 1970s, whose team dominated the UK's racing scene in the 1950s. Closures of other smaller cycle makers followed during the 1980s, including well-known hand-builders such as the former professional cyclist Percy Stallard and Jack Hateley.
The current main railway station, initially known as Wolverhampton High Level opened in 1852, but the original station was demolished in 1965 and then rebuilt. Wolverhampton Low Level opened on the Great Western Railway in 1855. The site of the Low Level station, which closed to passengers in 1972 and completely in 1981, has since been redeveloped with much of the original station incorporated into a hotel.
In 1918, at The Mount in Tettenhall Wood, British prime minister David Lloyd George announced a general election. He also made his Homes fit for heroes speech at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre in the same year. It was on the idea of Homes fit for heroes that Lloyd George was to fight the 1918 General Election.
Mass council housing development in Wolverhampton, to rehouse families from slum housing, began after the end of the World War I. New estates at Parkfields (near the border with Coseley) and Birches Barn gave the city some 550 new council houses by 1923, although this was a fraction of the number required. The first large council housing development in Wolverhampton was the Low Hill estate to the north-east of the city, which consisted of more than 2,000 new council houses by 1927 and was one of the largest housing estates in Britain at the time. Mass council housing development in Wolverhampton continued into the 1930s, mostly in the north of the city in the Oxley and Wobaston areas and on the new Scotlands Estate in the north-east. However, council house building halted in 1940, following the outbreak of World War II in September the previous year.
Wolverhampton St George's, in the city centre, was the northern terminus for the West Midlands Metro light rail system, now terminating at Wolverhampton station. An extension opened in 2023,with the opening being delayed until the new railway station was completed. Wolverhampton was one of the few towns to operate surface contact trams and the only town to use the Lorain Surface Contact System. Trolleybuses appeared in 1923 and, for a brief period in 1930, the Wolverhampton trolleybus system was the world's largest trolleybus system. The last Wolverhampton trolleybus ran in 1967, just as the railway line through the High Level station was converted to electric operation.
England's first automatic traffic lights could be seen in Princes Square in 1927; the modern traffic lights at this location have the traditional striped poles to commemorate this. Princes Square was also the location of the UK's first pedestrian safety barriers, which were erected in 1934. On 2 November 1927, the A4123 New Road was opened by Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) linking the city with Birmingham. The New Road was designed as an unemployment relief project and was the UK's first purpose-built inter-city highway of the 20th century.
Sir Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander, a member of the Mander family, was Liberal MP for Wolverhampton East from 1929 to 1945, distinguished for his stance against appeasement and as a supporter of the League of Nations; he was known as "the last of the Midland radicals." More recent members have included the Conservative mavericks Enoch Powell and Nicholas Budgen. Powell was a member of Edward Heath's shadow cabinet from 1964, until he was dismissed in April 1968 following his controversial Rivers of Blood speech, in which he warned of massive civil unrest if mass immigration of black and Asian Commonwealth inhabitants continued. At the same period, Sikh bus drivers and conductors were demonstrating in Wolverhampton against the Transportation Committee's regulations requiring uniform caps and thus prohibiting turbans. In 2005, former Bilston councillor and MP for Wolverhampton South East, Dennis Turner entered the House of Lords as Lord Bilston.