ROMAN CATHOLICISM.
Among the numerous
recusants who occur in Walsall from the early 1580s (fn. 92)
were several prominent local families. Members of
the Birch family of Goscote were presented as
recusants until at least 1668; John Birch was
sequestered for recusancy by 1648. (fn. 93) The wives of
William Mountfort of Bescot Hall and of his son
and heir Sir Edward were both stated to be recusants
in 1605 and 1607, and Sir Edward was returned as
a 'half recusant' in 1607. (fn. 94) Simon Mountfort had
been sequestered for recusancy by 1648, and his son
Edward was maintaining a priest at Bescot Hall in
1671. (fn. 95) Edward Purcell and his wife were returned
as recusants in the foreign in 1630, and members of
the family continued to appear among the recusants
of the parish until at least 1668; by then the family
lived at Yieldfields Hall. (fn. 96) Thirty-two recusants
were returned in 1657, (fn. 97) and in 1676 there were
stated to be 40 papists. (fn. 98) Thirty-two papists were
listed in 1705. (fn. 99) In 1767 110, including children,
were returned, all either farmers or 'common trading
people and labourers'. (fn. 1) John Bradford, the Independent minister at Walsall in the later 1780s,
claimed that he found there 'as much papists as those
at Rome'. (fn. 2) In 1786, however, the constables returned
only 19, of whom 16 were in the foreign. (fn. 3)
A priest named Timothy Hayes was apparently
working in Walsall at the time of his arrest in 1605. (fn. 4)
There was probably a mass-centre at Bescot Hall by
1671: in that year Edward Mountfort and his wife
were maintaining a 'Romish priest' there named
Francis Dormer alias Johnson. Dormer was executed
at Worcester in 1678 and was stated to have left
£1,500 out of the Bescot estate for superstitious
uses, evidently as a trustee of Edward Mountfort. (fn. 5)
The Purcells too seem to have maintained priests, (fn. 6)
and in 1701 Thomas Purcell of Wolverhampton
gave £160 to the Roman Catholic clergy to be used
after his death to support a mass-centre at Yieldfields Hall. A priest was to spend two nights there
every month and say a mass for Thomas's soul and
another for his wife's; he was also to instruct 'all the
poor Catholics . . . in the neighbourhood' and administer the sacraments to them. Thomas nominated
a Philip Higgins as the first priest if he was available;
otherwise the appointment was left to the vicar
apostolic of the Midland District. (fn. 7) In 1773 a
non-resident priest named Taylor was serving Yieldfields, (fn. 8) and from c. 1786 the centre was the responsibility of John Perry, the newly appointed out-priest
at Wolverhampton, who said mass there one Sunday
a month. The occupants of Yieldfields ceased to be
Roman Catholics c. 1800, but mass continued to be
said in a small room at the top of the house. (fn. 9) By the
18th century Walsall Roman Catholics also attended
the centre at Oscott in Handsworth, where there was
a resident priest. (fn. 10)
About 1800 a Revd. James Gordon left money to
support a mission in the neighbourhood, and Perry
bought a house and shop in Harden Lane (now
Harden Road), Bloxwich. The shop was lengthened
and converted into a chapel, and Perry appointed
an émigré priest as his resident assistant. He was succeeded in 1804 by another émigré, who was followed
in 1807 by Francis Martyn. By then the number of
communicants, which c. 1800 never exceeded 20,
had reached about 50, and in 1808 there were
90 Easter communicants. The chapel became too
small for the growing congregation and was enlarged
in 1808 to hold about 300. The dedication was to
St. Thomas the Apostle. (fn. 11) By will proved in 1819
Perry left the property to the vicar apostolic of the
Midland District. (fn. 12) The congregation exceeded 300
by 1819, and Martyn then opened a centre in Walsall
itself. (fn. 13) In 1851 the average Sunday mass attendance
at St. Thomas's was 145, but the congregation was
very scattered, some living 6 miles away. (fn. 14) The
church was replaced by St. Peter's in Bloxwich in
1869, but the building still stood in 1974 when it
was known as Cromwell Cottage and was occupied
by a women's hairdressing business.
In 1819 the assembly room at the Dragon in High
Street, Walsall, having been leased and fitted up as
a chapel, was opened by Martyn as a mass-centre. (fn. 15)
It soon proved too small, and in 1825 Martyn began
to build a chapel on the Mount. The site was given
by Joseph Cox and his wife, who also sold the land
to the north for use as a burial ground. Joseph Bagnall of Spring Hill, a Walsall tanner and a member
of the congregation, was a notable contributor
towards the cost of the chapel, and the 16th earl of
Shrewsbury came to the rescue when the expense
proved much greater than had been estimated. The
chapel, dedicated to St. Mary and designed in a
Grecian style by Joseph Ireland, was opened in
1827. (fn. 16) The presbytery to the south was built at the
same time, and Martyn moved there from St.
Thomas's, which had a separate priest from 1829. (fn. 17)
St. Mary's was consecrated in 1891. (fn. 18) Communicants numbered some 400 in the earlier 1830s, (fn. 19) and
Sunday mass attendance averaged 700 in 1850-1.
Half of those attended a mass at 8 a.m. held 'for
poor people who from want of proper clothes do not
like to appear out of doors at a later period of the
day'. (fn. 20) In 1967 mass was being said in the hall
attached to St. Martin's Anglican church in Sutton
Road; by 1974 it was being said in the church. (fn. 21)
The Roman Catholic population of St. Mary's parish
in 1973 was 2,100. (fn. 22) There was a community of
Sisters of Charity of St. Paul in the parish c. 185363. (fn. 23)
St. Patrick's Church on the north side of Blue
Lane East, a building of 1855-6 in a Gothic style,
was founded from St. Mary's to serve the large Irish
population in that part of the town. (fn. 24) A church was
built on a site to the west on the corner of Green
Lane and Blue Lane East in 1965-6; designed in
a modern style on a basic V-shape by B. V. James of
Harrison & Cox, Birmingham, it is of brown brick
with dressings of blue brick and concrete. The earlier
church was demolished and a new school built on
the site. (fn. 25) The presbytery on the south side of Blue
Lane East was built in 1909-10 with accommodation
for five priests. (fn. 26) A chapel of ease dedicated to St.
Catherine Labouré was built in 1961-3 on the Beechdale estate; since 1970 it has been shared with the
Anglicans, whose former mission church of St. Chad
has been shared for social functions. Designed by
J. T. Lynch of Brierley Hill, St. Catherine's is an
octagonal building of brown brick surmounted by
a flèche. (fn. 27) The Roman Catholic population of St.
Patrick's parish in 1973 was 2,250. (fn. 28) The Sisters of
Charity of St. Paul opened St. Patrick's convent in
Arboretum Road in 1927. (fn. 29)
St. Peter's Church in High Street, Bloxwich, was
opened in 1869 on land given by Charles Beech. Of
brick and Bath stone, it was designed by Bucknall &
Donnelly of Birmingham in a Gothic style with
apsidal sanctuary and aisled and clerestoried nave.
It was extended and renovated between 1952 and
1954, with Jennings, Homer & Lynch of Brierley
Hill as architects; the main addition was a westward
extension to High Street with a façade of two towers.
The presbytery, which was built at the same time
as the church, adjoins it on the south-east. (fn. 30) The
Roman Catholic population of St. Peter's parish in
1973 was 1,700. (fn. 31) In 1904 the Sisters of Charity of
St. Paul of Chartres bought Wallington House and
some 20 a.; they opened a secondary school at the
convent in 1905 and erected school buildings in
1909. The school was closed in 1964 and the nuns
left. (fn. 32)
In 1958 a priest was appointed to a newly formed
parish for the Harden area, and at first he used
Edgar Stammers school in Harden Road for Sunday
mass. The church of St. Thomas of Canterbury in
Dartmouth Avenue was built in 1959-60. Designed
by Jennings, Homer & Lynch of Brierley Hill, it is
of brick and is cruciform in plan with an apsidal
east end and a south-west tower. A presbytery,
completed in 1959, adjoins it. (fn. 33) The Roman Catholic population of St. Thomas's parish in 1973 was
834. (fn. 34)