The website of the
Black Country Society
Promoting interest in the past, present and future of our Black Country
December 14th 2023. The Black Country Miners’ struggle for justice by Keith Robinson
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Keith traces the Black Country Miners' struggle for justice in the period 1850-1926 through the lives and experiences of the key members of the West Bromwich Amalgamated Association which also covered Tipton, Oldbury, Coseley, Bilston, Darlaston, Kingswinford and beyond. With many parallels with today, the talk will cover the fight for a fair wage, the efforts to protect families from economic hardship as well as working conditions in the mines.
November 22nd 2023 John Louis Petit by Philip Modiano and Chris Baker
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John Louis Petit was a 19th Century artist and architectural historian whose paintings of buildings and landscapes, almost exclusively in watercolour, complemented his activities as one of the mid-19th century's leading writers and speakers on ecclesiastical architecture. He was a vocal opponent of the dominant architectural orthodoxies of the Gothic Revival.
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In this talk Chris Baker introduced his research on who was Petit, uncovering his family’s important position in the region’s landholding gentry, and especially his land holdings at Ettingshall. Then Philip Modiano explained why Petit has been called ‘the greatest discovery in British Art for a generation’, painting way ahead of his time - a Pre-Impressionist - as in his latest book on Petit, and specifically detail the significance of his Black Country landscapes. Lastly he explained how far he has got in his one man campaign to get the Wolverhampton Art Gallery and Council to promote heritage including Petit and Butler Bayliss, practically ignored until now.
Philip Modiano is convenor/curator of The Petit Society and has authored numerous articles about Petit alongside three books: J L Petit – Britain’s Lost Pre-Impressionist (2022); Clarke, Petit and St Mark’s – A 19th Century Journey on the Isle of Man (2022); Petit’s Tours of Old Staffordshire (2019). More detail on John Louis Petit at the website of the Petit Society
October 16th 2023. Old Hill by David England.
A twenty-minute animated video giving the impressions of a young boy growing up in Old Hill during the mid-sixties, with an introduction by David describing the length of time it took to materialise and a description of the process of making the film and its content. David writes
‘Old Hill’ is a bunch of memories translated into a fantasy film about growing up. There are lots of cultural references that were the centre of my universe at the time. The toys – the TV programmes and the music. The streets were scenery backdrops where you played your games – projected your dreams and ‘flew’.
September 18th 2023. A Double Header
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Would you believe it? Andrew Homer takes a look at some of the things that are often put forward as fact such as Queen Victoria being responsible for naming the Black Country and Wyatt Earp’s family hailing from Walsall. You might be surprised!
A Policeman’s life – Samuel Hicklin (1858-1924) Chris Baker outlines the career of Sam Hicklin, a farmhand from north Staffordshire, as he rose through the ranks of the Staffordshire constabulary, starting as a constable in the Black Country (in Tividale, Pensnett and Tipton), through periods in the Potteries and Burton on Trent to the rank of Chief Superintendent, and the head of one of the three constabulary districts. On the way he dealt with numerous drunks, landlords and petty thieves, as well as arsonists, fraudsters and murderers. His career is worthy of a crime novelists’ attention!
June 14th 2023. Black Country History Quiz Night
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A light-hearted event to test your historical knowledge of the Black Country – and maybe learn a few things.
May 10th 2023. Francis Brett Young by Jack Price
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More than any other author, Francis Brett Young is recognised as the novelist of the Black Country, but what exactly does his Black Country constitute? Jack explores Brett Young’s fictional portrait of the British Empire’s beating industrial heart, looking specifically at the areas and time period Francis Brett Young depicts to directly interrogate the message he is trying to get across to the reader. Jack considers the importance of Brett Young’s novels today, both to Black Country folk but also to ‘outsiders’.
April 19th 2023. A Miscellany of Black Country Memories
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00:00:00 - Introduction
00:03:15 - Alan Graham - Push Boys, Push
00:07:54 - Geoff Taylor - Bert Wood’s canal memories
00:13:26 - Jennifer Walker - A charabanc outing
00:18:40 - Jennifer and Emma Pursehouse - The Family shop in Upper Gornal
00:25:13 - Donna Josefowski - New Wilkinson, Keeper of the birds
00:31:50 - Susan Roxburgh - Poem: 1957 Corbett Hospital, Stourbridge Summer Fete
00:34:40 - Q&A/ Comments
00:41:30 - Keith Bracey - Poem: Black Country lungs
00:45:10 - Emma Pursehouse - That day
00:50:20 - Chris Baker - Furnace and foundry
00:55:10 - Brendan Clifford - A Black Country painting by Turner
00:59:30 - James Purchase - World War 1 Working Wench
01:03:20 - Andrew Homer – Kidnapped
01:16:05 - Alan Graham - The Bold Navigators
01:19:30 – Conclusion
March 8th 2023. Mary McArthur and the Cradley Heath Lockout by Andrew Homer
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In 1910, the chain making women of Cradley Heath downed their tools and went on strike under the leadership of Mary Macarthur and the National Federation of Women Workers. Although the strike or ‘lockout’ was about local wages, it was to have national repercussions. The authority of the newly formed trade boards to address the plight of workers in the sweated industries, and enforce minimum wages, was about to be tested right here in the Black Country.
February 8th 2023. An Ecclesiastical Affair by Chris Baker
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This presentation tells the story of events in the Black Country village of Pensnett in the 1860s and 1870s - about the relationship of the vicar of Pensnett in 1870 with a teenage pupil teacher at the church school, an illicit trip to the circus in Birmingham, a clergy discipline trial, a series of anonymous and scurrilous pamphlets and letters circulating in Pensnett about the incident which led to a nationally reported libel trial.