ECONOMIC HISTORY.
Like nearby Hadley (fn. 66)
the two Lawley manors were not wealthy in
1086, and the name-element leah suggests that
they had been created by woodland clearance in a
period not far distant. (fn. 67) The manors were taxed at
only 1½ hide. The smaller had land for one
ploughteam but had been waste for some time,
was worth nothing, and had no recorded tenants.
The larger had one team in demesne, with four
serfs, and another team in the hands of a villein.
Since 1066 its value had fallen from 12s. to 10s. (fn. 68)
Domesday recorded no woodland, but in the
early Middle Ages waste and woodland probably
covered most of the higher parts of the township,
on the southern, western, and north-western
sides, with arable lying lower down on the east
and north-east. (fn. 69) The township lay within the
forest jurisdiction of Mount Gilbert until 1301 (fn. 70)
and assarting was therefore controlled. In the late
12th century the men of Lawley were amerced for
3½ a. of wheat taken into cultivation. (fn. 71) In the later
Middle Ages there were at least two open arable
fields, (fn. 72) Synders field (fn. 73) on the north-east side of
the village, (fn. 74) and Wall field, (fn. 75) perhaps on the
north.
By the early 16th century it had become profitable to inclose open-field arable for pasture. In
1512 a tenant inclosed and converted 18 a. (fn. 76) By
1589 the landlord had inclosed the woodland and
had let parcels of it to tenants in severalty, some of
whom used them as pasture. (fn. 77) There were eight
farms in 1615, three large ones owing rents
between £1 2s. 8d. and £4 11s. 4d., the others
owing between 9s. and 14s. 10d. each. (fn. 78) The same
number of farms existed c. 1712, mostly 'very
small'. (fn. 79)
At least five farms were held by lease in 1615.
The two oldest leases then in force, dated 1581,
were for 60 years terminable on the life of the
landlord, Vincent Corbet (kt. 1607). (fn. 80) By 1605,
the date of the next oldest lease, the term was
invariably three lives. All lessees owed 2 capons a
year, suit of court, and heriot. (fn. 81) In 1639 a lessee
had to carry a stack of coal annually from Lawley
to Moreton Corbet, and within Lawley each
tenant had to carry annually a quantity of mine
timber proportionate to the size of his farm. (fn. 82) In
the late 17th and earlier 18th century the farmers
had both cereals and cattle, and the larger ones
usually had sheep and a few pigs. (fn. 83)
In the early 19th century, as in the early 17th,
there were three large farms: (fn. 84) John Williams's
(187 a.), Lawley farm (140 a.), (fn. 85) and Lawley
House farm (107 a.). (fn. 86) In 1806 the three other
agricultural holdings were between 11 a. and
26 a.
Lawley common (including Horsehay common),
in the extreme south of the township, then consisted of the Great common (131 a.) and Emery's
common (36 a.), on which the farmers had grazing
rights proportionate to their holdings. Inclosure
and division among the farmers was then considered, and by 1842 a 62-a. parcel of common had
been added to John Williams's farm and 71 a. (in
three parcels) were let to the Coalbrookdale Co.
Other farmers, however, received nothing of the
former commons, the rest of whose area consisted
mostly of cottages at the margins. The township's
woodland had been used up since the 17th century, probably for mining timber, and none remained in 1842.
After c. 1857, when the railway bisected the
township, (fn. 87) the farms of the manorial estate were
radically reorganized. (fn. 88) Thomas Jones's former
holding at Lawley Bank (21 a. in 1842) was
enlarged to comprise all other farmland east of the
railway (including the Coalbrookdale Co.'s former holding) and became Lawley Bank farm (113
a. in 1910). Lawley farm thereby lost a small
acreage east of the railway, but was greatly enlarged north and south (to 203 a. by 1910), mainly
at the expense of the former Williams farm, whose
remaining land (126 a. in 1910) was put into the
Coalbrookdale Co.'s Horsehay farm, administered from Dawley parish. (fn. 89) Lawley House farm,
which included 106 a. outside the township in
1842, was unaltered by boundary changes within
Lawley, but by 1918 had 187 a. outside the
township. (fn. 90) Of the four smallholdings of 1842,
only Newdale farm (38 a.) remained in 1910.
At the beginning of the 19th century arable
exceeded permanent grass by about 3 to 1 on
Lawley and Lawley House farms, and by about 2
to 1 on the Williams farm. Wheat accounted for
by far the greatest cereal acreage on the three
main farms. No turnips were recorded but clover,
peas, and vetches were used. (fn. 91) In 1842 the
township's agricultural land (c. 616 a.) was equally divided between arable (c. 315 a.) and pasture
(including former commons) and meadow. The
division was in those proportions on the Williams
farm, which by then included much former common; farther north, however, on Lawley and
Lawley House farms, arable still exceeded pasture
and meadow by more than 2 to 1. (fn. 92) In the later
19th century the area of agricultural land decreased only slightly and the reorganized farms
did not share uniformly in the parish's movement
towards livestock. (fn. 93) By the 1910s the arable proportion of the township's farmland had fallen to
about 40 per cent but, in the north and centre,
constituted about 80 per cent in Newdale farm
and 69 per cent in Lawley farm. In the south
arable formed only 34 per cent in the Lawley part
of Horsehay farm and only 22 per cent in Lawley
Bank farm, (fn. 94) and the Lawley part of Lawley
House farm by then consisted almost entirely of
pasture. (fn. 95)
In 1980 Lawley still had a high proportion of
agricultural land (fn. 96) but Telford development corporation had designated most of the township for
future housing, roads, and open spaces, with no
industrial sites. (fn. 97) In the later 19th and earlier 20th
century only Lawley Bank (straggling into Ketley
township and Dawley parish) had had any
appreciable concentration of shops and public
houses, (fn. 98) and a little coalmining was then almost
the only occupation outside agriculture.
Hugh the smith had a forge c. 1180. (fn. 99) Fields
called Smithy Pool lay near Lawley village. (fn. 1) At
Newdale the Coalbrookdale Co. seems to have
started a small and short-lived foundry in 1759. (fn. 2)
Some ironworking jobs were available in the 19th
and 20th centuries on the borders of the township, for instance at Lawley Furnaces (fn. 3) and Horsehay. By 1957 (fn. 4) the Birchfield Foundry Ltd., iron
founders, were established near Lawley Bank
station. The works employed 44 in 1964 (fn. 5) but
closed c. 1968. (fn. 6)
Coal and ironstone seams lay near the surface
on Lawley common, at Lawley Bank, along the
Little Wenlock boundary, and at Newdale. (fn. 7) The
lord of the manor had mines in 1589 (at 'Coalpit
Bank', (fn. 8) perhaps Lawley Bank), 1639, (fn. 9) and 1677. (fn. 10)
Ironstone may have been sent to Coalbrookdale
furnace in 1685. (fn. 11)
In 1705 Robert Burton leased all coal mines on
the manorial estate to Gabriel and Roger Cleaton.
By 1712 they had apparently raised several
thousand stacks and were working near the Flat
leasow (fn. 12) in the north. (fn. 13) By 1755 the Lawley Co.
was supplying coal and ironstone to Horsehay
ironworks. (fn. 14) In 1759 Robert Burton leased minerals in the manor to Thomas Goldney and Abraham Darby (II). (fn. 15) Large quantities of coal and
ironstone went to Horsehay in the 1760s and
1770s, (fn. 16) and in 1793 coal was being sent to
Coalbrookdale. (fn. 17) In 1806 the Coalbrookdale Co.
had the mineral rights on Lawley common and
Joseph Reynolds & Co. those around Newdale. (fn. 18)
Active pits lay mainly on the north side of the
common and at Lawley Bank. (fn. 19) In 1853 the
Coalbrookdale Co. bought the mineral rights with
the manorial estate. (fn. 20)
On the Forester estate the coal, ironstone, and
clay were leased from 1818 (fn. 21) to the partners who
in 1822 opened Lawley furnace nearby. (fn. 22) In the
1820s this Lawley Co. was selling some of the
Clod coal to the Ketley Co. (fn. 23) but in the 1840s was
using most of the coal at its own furnace. (fn. 24) In 1847
the Coalbrookdale Co. became lessees of the
furnace and mines, (fn. 25) and in the half-year to March
1856 raised c. 10,000 tons of coal and c. 5,300 of
ironstone from the mines (partly in Little Wenlock parish). (fn. 26) Lawley furnace closed c. 1870. (fn. 27)
By 1882 mining had almost ceased; there were
over thirty abandoned shafts. Remaining pits on
Lawley common and at Newdale (fn. 28) were closed by
1901. (fn. 29) Nevertheless by 1909 (fn. 30) C. R. Jones & Sons
were lessees of minerals near Lawley Furnaces at
the Lawley colliery, partly on the manorial (fn. 31) and
partly on the Forester estates. (fn. 32) They bought the
Lawley colliery minerals from those estates in
1911 (fn. 33) and 1919 (fn. 34) respectively. The Wrekin Coal
Co. operated the colliery in 1941 (fn. 35) but the mines
were shut by 1958. (fn. 36) The minerals elsewhere on
the manorial estate were sold, when it was broken
up in 1911, to the purchasers of the several lots, (fn. 37)
and small-scale mining continued at Lawley
Bank (fn. 38) and Lawley common. (fn. 39) The last mine near
Lawley Bank closed c. 1954. (fn. 40)
Opencast mining was in progress near Lawley
village in 1957 (fn. 41) and ceased c. 1960. (fn. 42) Between
1973 and 1975 opencast working on 113 a. at
Lawley common yielded c. 300,000 tons of coal
for power station use and destroyed old shafts and
tips in preparation for building. (fn. 43)
In 1589 the lord had a stone quarry in Thomas
Maydon's pasture, (fn. 44) perhaps near the Ketley
boundary, (fn. 45) and in 1839 it was said that limestone
pits had formerly been worked. (fn. 46)
Slag from Lawley Furnaces was used for road
material in the 1920s. (fn. 47)
From c. 1936 John A. Greenwood and Kathleen M. Ball produced high quality lead figurines
in Spring Village, Horsehay. Miss Ball continued
to paint figures there until 1952, and Greenwood
moved to Scarborough in 1959. Production was
mainly of military figures for sale, but special
commissions ranging from single figures to major
exhibition dioramas were also undertaken. (fn. 48)