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| 10
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| Season:
Summer 1998 |
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| Vol:
31 |
| No.
3 |
| Year:
1998 |
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| Editorial: |
A couple of months ago a Birmingham Post reporter rang to tell me that a discussion paper from a Sandwell Corporation seminar to the appropriate committee included a suggestion that the term 'The Black Country' might be dropped and 'The grey Country' substituted to reflect its changing environment and economy.
I checked that it wasn't April 1st and gave as a brief response "I don't believe it. The suggestion is barmy!"
The term The Black Country was originally coined in the 1850s and used by various writers, the best known of that period, probably, Elihu Burritt for his book Walks in the Black Country and its Green Borderland (Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1868). It is only in the past 25 years that the term has really had some official recognition, Sandwell Corporation itself contributing to this with its acceptance as being a Black Country Metropolitan Borough.
The Black Country Society, one of the largest sub-regional societies in the country with some 2500 members, has been campaigning for 31 years for wider recognition of the term The Black Country. In the Dudley telephone directory there are now 57 firms listed with the prefix Black Country, and 56 in the Wolverhampton directory. Twelve years ago the Black Country Development Corporation was established by the Government and 11 years ago Black Country Tourism was set up by the four Black Country boroughs. The Black Country Living Museum attracts a quarter of a million visitors annually and there is now a Black Country History Consortium representing local history societies in the four Black Country boroughs.
Has the Sandwell seminar suggestion proposer any knowledge of Black Country history?
As studies of the Victorian period have intensified in recent years the greatness of the area known as Black Country, for its inventiveness, ingenuity and hard work has become more recognised and residents, and pupils as a result of the National Curriculum, have become proud of their heritage which the long-established term The Black Country, implies, represents and encapsulates.
It is particularly inappropriate that the unacceptable suggestion comes from Sandwell for from that area came much of the industrial enterprise which put the 'Great' into 'Great Britain' in Victorian and Edwardian times via such well-known firms as Braithwait and Kirk, Patent Shaft and Axeltree Company, Horsley Iron Company, Allbright and Wilson, Accles and Pollock, Babcock and Wilcox, Barrows & Hall, Salter's, Kenrick's, Hudson's, Chance Brothers, BIP. Only a non-Black Country person would make such an inapt suggestion at that seminar. Perhaps Black Country Borough Councils should hold 'Black Country Background Familiarisation' days for those new employees imported from south of the Watford Gap to administer us.
After taking a pasting from television and the local press about the apparent suggestion Sandwell's 'Regeneration Chair' (Aynuk says: "Wos one o' them"?) issued a press release which stated: All that's happened is that we went through an exercise looking at the future of Sandwell considering a number of scenarios. We had to consider a number of differing factors, particularly looking at the economy and the environment. We obviously will be trying to drive forward a successful economy with an improving environment but it is important as an exercise that we look at all the possible outcomes. In no way did we intend that the name should change ....."
Good, but let's hope that documents which come into the public domain state exactly what they mean in future and 'foreign' officials should note that we don't want anyone writing out our Black Country history.
Stan Hill
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| 10
things you can read about in this month's issue: |
| BC Personailities - Samuel Thompson - Stan Hill |
| Wordsley Workhouse - David Cox |
| The Wolverhampton Flour and Bread Company - Peter Hickman |
| A Tribute to Frank Richards - Ray Bowling |
| A Pennfields' Hero - Angus Dunphy |
| The Life and Work of Sister Dora - Alan H Price |
| 100 Years of Pumping at Tack Lane - J Van-Leerzem |
| The New 'Cut' at Brierley Hill - Geoff Warburton |
| The Lollipop Lady - Ivor Richards |
| Memories of a Lamplighter's Lad - Philip Power |
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