In 1887, John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles described West Bromwich like this:
West Bromwich, parl. and mun. bor. and par., Staffordshire, 4¼ miles NW. of Birmingham by rail, 5719 ac., pop. 56,295; 2 Banks, 2 newspapers. West Bromwich appears in Domesday Book as Bromwic, and in the 12th century was made the seat of a Benedictine priory. It is, however, entirely of recent growth, having at the close of the 18th century been only a rural village amid a barren heath. It is one of the Black Country towns, owing its prosperity to the rich local mines of ironstone and coal, and to the numer...
ous branches of canals and railways by which it is inter-sected. It carries on mfrs. in all departments of Birmingham hardware; it has furnaces for the smelting of iron ore, foundries, forges, slitting mills, and anchor and chaincable works; also breweries, brass foundries, boat yards, limekilns, brick yards, cement works, &c. The public buildings erected in 1875 comprise a town hall, market hall, free library, public baths, &c. West Bromwich was included in the parl. bor. of Wednesbury in 1867; it was made a mun. bor. in 1382, and a parl. bor. in 1885; it returns 1 member.
West Bromwich through time
For the best overall sense of how the area containing West Bromwich has changed, please see our redistricted information for the modern district of Sandwell. More detailed statistical data are available under Historical units & statistics for administrative units named after or covering West Bromwich.
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