MADELEY INCLUDING COALBROOKDALE, COALPORT, AND IRONBRIDGE
Communications, p. 23. Growth of Settlement, p. 27. Social and Cultural Activities, p. 32. Manor and Other Estates, p. 35. Economic History, p. 40. Local Government, p. 56. Public Services, p. 58. Churches, p. 59.
Roman Catholicism, p. 66. Protestant Nonconformity, p. 67. Education, p. 72. Charities for the Poor, p. 76.
The populous parish of Madeley was an area of old industry and extensive farm land. It was largely built over in the 1960s and 1970s after the inclusion of most of it in 1963 within Dawley (from 1968 Telford) new town. The ancient parish contained 2,841 a. (fn. 1) (1,151 ha.) and extended just over 6 km. from west to east. It was wedge-shaped, wider in the eastern half which contained the original settlement. Madeley town lay 1 km. west of the crossing of the roads from Worcester (and Bridgnorth) to Wellington and
from Shifnal touch Wenlock, equidistant (8½ km.) from Wellington to the north-west and Much Wenlock to the south-west. Until 1966, when it was absorbed into Dawley urban district and civil parish, the whole parish formed part of the borough of Wenlock and its boundaries remained those of the ancient parish, the area here treated.
The parish was bounded on the south for just over 6 km. by the Severn, flowing for most of that
distance through the Severn Gorge. Much of the northern boundary (with Dawley) was formed by
the Loamhole and Lightmoor brooks, much of the eastern boundary (with Kemberton and Sutton Maddock) by the Mad brook and a stream draining into the Severn at Coalport. The western boundary was marked in part by the Birches brook and a sunken lane, (fn. 2) but in the 13th century additional definition there had been provided by linear clearings through the woodland extending into Little Wenlock. (fn. 3)
The central part of the parish is a plateau
defined by the deeply incised Coalbrookdale (valley of the Caldebrook) (fn. 4) on the west, Lightmoor
dingle on the north, and Washbrook valley on the
east. The land rises to over 152 m. above the steep
slopes of the Severn Gorge and then slopes gently
down to the north. West of Coalbrookdale the
land is hilly. From Blists Hill, east of the Washbrook valley, the land falls steeply southwards but
more gently northwards to the Mad brook.
Productive Middle and Lower Coal Measures
underlie most of the parish. They dip towards the
east and are exposed in the Severn Gorge. Thinning beds of Upper Coal Measures siltstones
(Coalport Formation) and marl (Hadley Formation), with sandstones, occur at Coalport, in the
Washbrook valley, north of Park Lane and Park
Street, and around the western edge of the productive coalfield in a crescent from Woodside to
Madeley Wood. The drift cover is mainly boulder
clay, but sands and gravels occur around Cuckoo
Oak, Hills Lane, and Blists Hill in the east and
near Lodge and Strethill farms in the west. There
are alluvial deposits in the lower part of Coalbrookdale and westwards along the Severn. Lincoln Hill on the east side of Coalbrookdale is a spectacular outcrop of Silurian limestone. (fn. 5) The steep
slopes of the Severn Gorge and of Coalbrookdale
are geologically unstable and landslips are common; mining subsidence also affects the area. (fn. 6)
Suggestions of prehistoric or Roman roads
through the parish (fn. 7) seem to be based on no strong
evidence: (fn. 8) a flint arrowhead and a find of four
Roman coins of the 3rd-4th centuries (fn. 9) seem insufficient to set aside the likelihood that Madeley was
first settled in cleared woodland (fn. 10) some time before the mid 8th century. (fn. 11) Madeley acquired a
market and fair in the later 13th century and a
'new town' was laid out east of the original
settlement. Coal was being mined by 1322, ironstone by 1540.
A hoard of early 17th-century coins was found
in Madeley Wood in 1839, and the area was of
some strategic importance during the Civil War. (fn. 12)
There was a royalist garrison in Madeley in
February 1645 but it was abandoned after the fall
of Shrewsbury later that month. (fn. 13) Two months
later the parish church was garrisoned by a Parliamentarian troop. (fn. 14) In 1648 the county committee
was alerted to prevent the occupation of Madeley
Court by royalist conspirators. (fn. 15) After the battle of
Worcester in 1651 Charles II passed a night and a
day (4-5 September) in Francis Wolfe's barn at
Upper House. (fn. 16)
A Rogationtide procession, presumably to beat
the bounds, was still observed, with ale and 'a
collation' in the late 17th and early 18th century. (fn. 17)
Though its minerals were exploited on an
increasingly large scale from the earlier 17th
century, the parish remained predominantly agricultural in the later 17th century with, in 1660, a
range of trades appropriate to a small market
town: mercer, tailors, glover, butchers, carpenters, coopers, bowyer, and smiths. In the late
17th century some of the tradesmen began to
specialize in work for the mines and the river
trade. There were also several gentlemen and
clergymen, others of no stated occupation, and
numbers of servants. (fn. 18)
The industrial population c. 1660 was small,
perhaps not exceeding three dozen, consisting
chiefly of colliers and trowmen with a few skilled
workers and probably some labourers. (fn. 19) By the
early 18th century, however, the growing number
of industrial workers was becoming an increasingly distinct component of the population: the
furnace men were the only parishioners to work
on Sundays, (fn. 20) and in the church a miners' gallery
was built. J. W. Fletcher, vicar 1760-85, deplored
the spiritual consequences of industrial work, (fn. 21)
and in times of distress riot and disorder were
feared, sometimes with good reason. (fn. 22) As the
manorial estate was broken up from 1705 cottage
properties on long lease and small freeholds multiplied, so that the industrial settlements sprawling
through Madeley Wood and into Coalbrookdale
attracted the interest of politicians seeking votes.
A tradition of political radicalism was
established. (fn. 23)
In the 18th century the Darbys of Coalbrookdale made historic contributions to the technology
of the iron industry and erected in 1779-80 the
world's first large iron bridge, (fn. 24) across the
Severn from Madeley Wood to Benthall. The
bridge stimulated the growth of the new town of
Ironbridge and, as one of the wonders of the age,
drew countless travellers (fn. 25) to be equally gratified
by the neighbourhood's spectacular blast furnaces, coking hearths, limestone mines and kilns,
tunnels, and inclined planes. (fn. 26)
By the end of the 19th century Madeley's
landscape was less scarred by industry than Dawley's, and there was a wider range of social class
among its population. (fn. 27) Madeley and Coalbrookdale retained substantial numbers of middle-class
residents. Nevertheless a century of economic
stagnation was blighting all parts of the parish by
the 1950s: the old furnace at Coalbrookdale was
'shockingly sordid' before its restoration in 1959, (fn. 28)
while Ironbridge and some of the industrial hamlets were shabby and derelict. Dawley (later
Telford) development corporation's first housing
and industrial estates were built in the parish in
the 1960s and 1970s, extensive areas were developed for open-air recreation, and agriculture
came to an end. Development was controlled in
the historically important areas of Coalbrookdale
and the Severn Gorge: those parts of the parish
became the new town's showpiece, (fn. 29) justifying its
claim to be the 'Birthplace of Industry'. (fn. 30) The
Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, created (in
1967) and fostered by the development corporation, realized inchoate local aspirations (fn. 31) to make
an open-air (fn. 32) museum of industrial archaeology.
Its achievements (fn. 33) focused international attention
on the area in 1978 when it won the European
Museum of the Year award. In 1979, during
celebrations of the Iron Bridge's bicentenary, the
prince of Wales visited the area and later became
the museum's patron. (fn. 34)
Notable persons connected with the parish,
apart from the Darby family and three lords of the
manor, include J. W. Fletcher (1729-85), vicar
from 1760, (fn. 35) James Glazebrook (1744-1803), a
miner native to the parish and converted by
Fletcher, (fn. 36) and George Pattrick (1746-1800), a
popular London preacher who preached at
Madeley on notable occasions, laid the new
church's foundation stone in 1794, and died and
was buried in the parish. (fn. 37) John Randall (1810-
1910), (fn. 38) artist (fn. 39) and writer on local history, (fn. 40)
topography, and geology, lived most of his life in
Madeley. (fn. 41) Sir Wyke Bayliss (1835-1906), artist
and writer on art, was a native of the parish (fn. 42) as
was the lawyer and administrator Lord Moulton
(1844-1921). (fn. 43) John Russell, the South Wales coal
owner, (fn. 44) and Thomas Parker (1843-1915), electrical engineer and inventor of smokeless fuel, (fn. 45)
grew up in Coalbrookdale; the fact that their
successful careers were made elsewhere perhaps
symbolized the emigration of entrepreneurial talent as the area's economic importance declined
from the mid 19th century. (fn. 46) The channel swimmer Capt. Matthew Webb (1848-83) also spent
his youth in the parish and learnt to swim in the
Severn. (fn. 47) The writer Edith Pargeter (born 1913),
alias Ellis Peters, lived in Madeley from 1956. (fn. 48)
W. A. Wright, the professional footballer who
captained Wolverhampton Wanderers and England, was born in Ironbridge in 1924. (fn. 49)