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The town was re-incorporated as a Municipal Borough in 1865, later becoming a County Borough in 1889. Later the extensive development of council housing during the early 20th century relocated the occupants of local slum housing.įollowing the Reform Act of 1832, Dudley returned one Member of Parliament (MP), a privilege first enacted in the Parliament of 1295. The report led to the installation of clean water supplies and sewage systems. Health Inspector William Lee stated that "In no other part of England and Wales is the work of human extermination effected in so short a time as … in Dudley".
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Other industries included iron, steel, engineering, metallurgy, glass cutting, textiles and leatherworking.ĭuring this time living conditions remained very poor, with Dudley being named "the most unhealthy place in the country" in 1851. ĭudley's population grew dramatically during the 18th and 19th centuries because of the increase in industry, with the main industries including coal and limestone mining. The first Newcomen steam engine, used to pump water from the mines of the Lord Dudley's estates, was installed at the Conygree coal works a mile east of Dudley Castle in 1712, though this is challenged by Wolverhampton, which also claims to have been the location of the first working Newcomen engine. ĭud Dudley's discovery, together with improvements to the local road network and the construction of the Dudley Canal, made Dudley into an important industrial and commercial centre. Abraham Darby was born near Wrens Nest Hill near the town of Dudley and it is claimed that he may have known about Dud Dudley's earlier work. Abraham Darby was descended from Dud Dudley's sister, Jane, and was the first person to produce iron commercially using coke instead of charcoal at his works in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire in 1709. In the early 17th century, Dud Dudley, an illegitimate son of Edward Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley and Elizabeth Tomlinson, devised a method of smelting Iron ore using coke at his father's works in Cradley and Pensnett Chase, though his trade was unsuccessful due to circumstances of the time. ĭudley had become an incredibly impoverished place during the 16th and 17th centuries, but the advent of the Industrial Revolution began to reverse this trend. It is also from around this time that the oldest excavated condoms, found in the remains of Dudley Castle, were believed to have originated. ĭuring the English Civil War Dudley served as a Royalist stronghold, with the castle besieged twice by the Parliamentarians and later partly demolished on the orders of the Government after the Royalist surrender. In 1605, conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot fled to Holbeche House in nearby Wall Heath, where they were defeated and captured by the forces of the Sheriff of Worcestershire. Following Dudley's execution in 1553, the estate returned to the Sutton family, during whose ownership the town was visited by Queen Elizabeth during a tour of England. 1.2 Early modern and Industrial Revolutionġ814 map showing Dudley as an exclave of Worcestershire.īy the early 16th century the Dudley estate, now held by the Sutton family, had become severely in debt and was first mortgaged to distant relative John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, before being sold outright in 1535.Tourist attractions include Dudley Zoo and Castle, the 12th century priory ruins, and the Black Country Living Museum. Originally a market town, Dudley was one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution and grew into an industrial centre in the 19th century with its iron, coal, and limestone industries before their decline and the relocation of its commercial centre to the nearby Merry Hill Shopping Centre in the 1980s. Dudley is the capital of the Black Country. The Metropolitan Borough, which includes the towns of Stourbridge and Halesowen, had a population of 312,900. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley and in 2011 had a population of 79,379.