Sedgley, the spiritual home of my Hyde family

My Hyde family originates from Sedgley and its surrounding area, as do many of the families interconnected by marriage.

Early history

Prior to the Norman Invasion, the lands that made up Sedgely were part of the great Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia and prior to that would have been part of the Roman Empire - Britain was considered to be the breadbasket of the Roman Empire, so great was its farmed produce and its farmers & to a large part, that is why the Romans invaded in the first place!

When part of the Kingdom of Mercia, Sedgley became inextricably involved with Dudley with the foundation (c. 700 AD) of a Dudley fortress, by Dudo, a Mercian general. For the next three hundred years, a succession of Saxon rulers controlled Dudley, and therefore Sedgley. Probably the best know was Leofric, and his better-known wife Godiva. The last Saxon earl to hold the post was "Algar Comes" the father or grandfather of Princes Edwin and Horcar. During this period Sedgley was largely comprised of a wooded solitude and probably formed part of the much larger hunting grounds of the Saxon earls of Dudley.

1066 & all that

Following the Norman invasion of 1066, King William rewarded his followers by dividing the country into baronies which they were to control. The first Norman to control Dudley was William Fitz Ansculf, a Picard adventurer. One of Fitz Ansculf's first tasks was the construction of one of the best-preserved Norman defences that have come down to us today. King William also ordered that the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales was commissioned. The survey was needed to establish who owned what & where so that taxes could be levied and it resulted in the compilation of the Domesday Book.

Domesday

The entry for the lands od Sedgley in the Domesday Book recorded the village of "Segleslei" in the Hundred of Seisdon and the county of Staffordshire. It was recorded in 1086 as having 60 households (putting it into the top 20% of settlements recorded in the Great Survey, most locations had far fewer households). Two landowners were recorded as follows:

1) Land of William son of Ansculf
Households: 45 villagers, 2 smallholders, 3 slaves, 1 priest.
Ploughland: 12 ploughlands, 1 lord's plough teams, 18 men's plough teams.
Other resources: Meadow 16 acres, Woodland 2 x 1 leagues.
Annual value to the lord: 10 pounds in 1066, 10 pounds in 1086. 

Lord in 1066: Earl Algar.
Tenant-in-chief in 1086: William son of Ansculf.
Lord in 1086: William son of Ansculf.

2) Land of William son of Ansculf
Households: 9 villagers.
Ploughland: 1 lord's plough teams, 2 men's plough teams.
Other resources: Meadow 2 acres.
Annual value to the lord: 1 pound in 1086.

Tenant-in-chief in 1086: William son of Ansculf.
Lord in 1086: Geoffrey (of Sedgley).

Sedgley was recorded as having a border of about 17 miles.

From 1066 onwards trustworthy records begin to show fully how the Barony of Dudley was held successively by the families of Fitz Ansculf, Pagnel, Somery, Sutton, Ward and Lea. Although the history of Sedgley is scarcely a history of Dudley Castle yet as both places were under one Lord, and, as the names of the successive tenants of Sedgley Manor are generally unknown, the historian is forced to view Sedgley as merely a province of Dudley.

Medieval Sedgley Manor

The medieval Sedgley Manor consisted of nine hamlets:

  • Sedgley
  • Gospel End
  • Cotwall End
  • Upper Gornal
  • Lower Gornal
  • Woodsetton (contains Dudley Castle)
  • Coseley
  • Ettingshall
  • Brierley (now called Bradley)

Sedgley begins to acquire separately recorded history in 1227 with the establishment of a law court.

The medieval landscape, dotted with farming communities and even a castle, soon evolved into a village framework that was strengthened as the raw materials of coal, iron ore, clay, limestone and sandstone were ripped from the surface as well as underground. By the middle of the 16th century. the Manor was well established with the details preserved in some of the county's (Staffordshire) finest parish documents started in 1558.

In 1661 a manorial probate court was established for the Manor of Sedgley and this court was finally abolished by a Public Act of 1857.

"Modern" Sedgeley

The next two hundred years witnessed the gradual introduction of skills that would be the bedrock of the Industrial Revolution.

Industry and commerce developed unchecked in spite of frequent outbreaks of cholera (the first was in 1832), and by the middle of the l9th century it was evident that the age old system of manorial and parochial government were no longer adequate for a district of this kind. In 1867, therefore, the vast parish was divided into two, Upper and Lower Sedgley. Twenty-eight years later Sedgley elected its first Urban District Council and this retained control until 1966 when local government was re-organised by the West Midlands Order and part of Sedgley was merged with the County Borough of Dudley.

See Council Reorganisations for what happened after 1966.