Walsall Reference Library, Lichfield Street, Walsall - 01922 653 110 reference@walsall.gov.uk

The name Walsall is thought to have derived from the words "Walh halh", meaning "valley of the Welsh speakers" (referring to the Brythons). Walsall is first referenced as 'Walesho' in a document dated 1002. Possibly as a result of a clerical error,[citation needed] it is not referred to in the Domesday Book, while the settlements of Aldridge, Bescot, Shelfield, Pelsall, Bloxwich, Great Barr and Rushall within the Metropolitan Borough are. However, it is believed that a manor was held here by William FitzAnsculf, who held numerous manors in the Midlands.[5] By the first part of the 13th century, Walsall was a small market town, with the weekly market being introduced in 1220 and held on Tuesdays. The mayor of Walsall was created as a political position in the 14th century.

Queen Mary's Grammar School was founded in 1554, and the school carries the queen's personal badge as its emblem: the Tudor Rose and the sheaf of arrows of Mary's mother Catherine of Aragon tied with a Staffordshire Knot.

The town was visited by Queen Elizabeth I, when it was known as 'Walshale'. It was also visited by Henrietta Maria in 1643. She stayed in the town for one night at a building named the 'White Hart' in the area of Caldmore.

The Industrial Revolution changed Walsall from a village of 2,000 people in the 16th century to a town of over 86,000 in approximately 200 years. The town manufactured a wide range of products including saddles, chains, buckles and plated ware. Nearby, limestone quarrying provided the town with much prosperity.

In 1824, the Walsall Corporation received an Act of Parliament to improve the town by providing lighting and a gasworks. The gasworks was built in 1826 at a cost of £4,000. In 1825, the corporation built eleven tiled, brick almshouses for poor women. They were known to the area as 'Molesley's Almshouses'.

The 'Walsall Improvement and Market Act' was passed in 1848 and amended in 1850. The Act provided facilities for the poor, improving and extending the sewerage system and giving the commissioners the powers to construct a new gas works. On 10 October 1847, a gas explosion killed one person and destroyed the west window of St Matthew's Church.

Walsall finally received a railway line in 1847, 48 years after canals reached the town, Bescot having been served since 1838 by the Grand Junction Railway. In 1855, Walsall's first newspaper, the Walsall Courier and South Staffordshire Gazette, was published.

A local landmark is Barr Beacon, which is reportedly the highest point following its latitude eastwards until the Ural Mountains in Russia. The soil of Walsall consists mainly of clay with areas of limestone, which were quarried during the Industrial Revolution.