Social and industrial history collections
Walsall’s long and varied history, from its early beginnings as a small settlement first mentioned in 1004, through the bustling market town of the Medieval period to the industrial heyday of the 19th Century and the vibrant multicultural borough of today, is reflected in the extensive collection of social and industrial history items held by Walsall Museum.
Ranging from a 17th Century scold’s bridle to Second World War gas masks, from products of local industries such as iron chains and animal traps, to everyday items owned and used by Walsall people, our collections celebrate all aspects of Walsall’s diverse heritage.
Manufacturing and Industry
Since the Medieval period Walsall has been an important centre of mining and metal-working. Coal, iron and limestone were extracted from underground, whilst the numerous small workshops and factories in the borough turned out a wide array of products, from locks and bolts to rails, buckles and edge tools. Alongside metalworking many other industries flourished, most importantly the leather trade. The range of different industries in the town earned Walsall the name ‘The Town of 100 Trades’.
The Walsall Leather Museum focuses on the story of Walsall’s leather trade, while the collections of Walsall Museum cover the town’s other industries. The Museum has good holdings of items from 20th Century manufacturers, showing how the town’s trades adapted to new developments such as plastic moulding and electrical engineering. There is a strong collection of items from Crabtree, manufacturers of electrical plugs, switches and sockets, as well as the Chaplin collection of brass foundry work from the mid 20th Century.
Locks
Willenhall, in the borough of Walsall, is the historic centre of the British lock industry. The Museum has an extensive collection of Willenhall-made locks, including examples from the 17th and 18th Centuries. Highlights include the Dancer collection of locks made by J. Dancer of Willenhall, an early 20th Century lockmaker.
Lorinery
The loriners, makers of saddlers’ ironmongery, have been the most important metal-working trade in Walsall since the 15th Century. The Museum’s collection includes bits, stirrups and spurs. Many of these were made for the gauchos of South America. There is also a small collection of tools which were used in the lorinery trade.
Civic Regalia
Alongside an array of items relating to civic life, such as caskets, plates and keys, the rarest and most unusual items in the Museum’s collection are the Bayard’s Colts. These are a set of 17 ceremonial clubs and staves. Little is known of their origins, but they were probably made in the 16th Century. The clubs are carved and painted in the form of human and animal heads. They were carried in ceremonial processions around the town.
The Hand of Glory
A grisly highlight of the Museum’s collection is a preserved human hand and arm. It was discovered hidden up a chimney during building work on the White Hart Inn in the 1870s, and was believed to be a ‘Hand of Glory’. According to legend a Hand of Glory is a hand taken from a hanged man which is then pickled and used to hold a candle. The candle had the power to send anyone who saw it into a deep sleep, and could be used in burglaries.
Despite this interesting story, the Museum’s Hand of Glory appears to be the arm of a child, which was preserved with formalin. It was probably used as a medical specimen in the mid 19th Century. No-one knows how or why it came to be concealed in a chimney.
Walsall Worthies
Over the years Walsall has been home to many important people. Between 1865 and 1878 nursing pioneer Sister Dora was in charge of nursing at Walsall’s Cottage Hospital. An Anglican nun, Sister Dora set about revolutionising the nursing care provided at the hospital, and her principles and good practice were soon adopted across the country. To this day she remains a much-loved figure in the history of the town, and the Museum holds a number of artefacts connected with her. Other important local people include John Henry Carless, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery during a naval battle in 1917, in which he died at the age of only twenty-one. The Victoria Cross is now in the Museum’s collection. Jerome K Jerome, the author of Three Men in a Boat, was born in Walsall in 1859. A range of memorabilia relating to Jerome is on display in the Jerome K Jerome Birthplace Museum.
Canals
Walsall is criss-crossed by a network of small canals. These were dug between the 1790s and the 1840s in order to link the town to the national canal system, and enable the products of the town’s mining and manufacturing industries to be transported to a wider market. A variety of items relating to life on the waterways are held in the Museum’s collections, including boat parts, tools, and examples of canal art.
Contact us
Walsall Museum
Lichfield Street
Walsall
WS1 1TR
Telephone: 01922 653116
Email: museum@walsall.gov.uk