JOURNAL OF THE ENGLISH PLACE-NAME SOCIETY Volume 43 (2011) ISSN 1351–3095 ______________________________________________________________ The Black Country David Horovitz (pp. 25–34) ______________________________________________________________ This article is from the Journal of the English Place-Name Society, an annual peer-reviewed journal issued free to members of the Society. The Journal welcomes contributions of articles and notes on subjects of relevance to English place-names. The English Place-Name Society (EPNS) was established in 1923 to conduct a county-by-county survey of the place-names of England. To date, the Survey has produced 90 volumes. Almost all English counties have been surveyed, at least in part, and work to complete the Survey is ongoing. The Survey is used by researchers, academics, and those interested in the origins, meaning, and significance of English place-names. 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For further details or to join the Society, please contact: Mrs Christine Hickling English Place-Name Society School of English The University of Nottingham Tel: 0115 951 5919 NG7 2RD Email: [email protected] Journal of the English Place-Name Society 43 (2011), pp. 25–34. © English Place-Name Society and the author 2011. First published online October 2017. ABBREVIATIONS OF COUNTIES AND EPNS COUNTY SURVEYS Co Cornwall Ha Hampshire He Herefordshire K Kent La Lancashire Nb Northumberland Sf Suffolk So Somerset Wt Isle of Wight CPNE Cornish Place-Name Elements. EPNE English Place-Name Elements, Parts 1 and 2. PN BdHu The Place-Names of Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire. PN Brk The Place-Names of Berkshire, Parts 1, 2 and 3. PN Bu The Place-Names of Buckinghamshire. PN Ca The Place-Names of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. PN Ch The Place-Names of Cheshire, Parts 1–5. PN Cu The Place-Names of Cumberland, Parts 1, 2 and 3. PN D The Place-Names of Devon, Parts 1 and 2. PN Db The Place-Names of Derbyshire, Parts 1, 2 and 3. PN Do The Place-Names of Dorset, Parts 1–4. PN Du The Place-Names of County Durham, Part 1. PN Ess The Place-Names of Essex. PN ERY The Place-Names of the East Riding of Yorkshire and York. PN Gl The Place-Names of Gloucestershire, Parts 1–4. PN Hrt The Place-Names of Hertfordshire. PN Le The Place-Names of Leicestershire, Parts 1–6. PN Li The Place-Names of Lincolnshire, Parts 1–7. PN Mx The Place-Names of Middlesex (apart from the City of London). PN Nf The Place-Names of Norfolk, Parts 1–3. PN Nt The Place-Names of Nottinghamshire. PN NRY The Place-Names of the North Riding of Yorkshire. PN Nth The Place-Names of Northamptonshire. PN O The Place-Names of Oxfordshire, Parts 1 and 2. PN R The Place-Names of Rutland. PN Sa The Place-Names of Shropshire, Parts 1–6. PN Sr The Place-Names of Surrey. PN St The Place-Names of Staffordshire, Part 1. PN Sx The Place-Names of Sussex, Parts 1 and 2. PN W The Place-Names of Wiltshire. PN Wa The Place-Names of Warwickshire. PN We The Place-Names of Westmorland, Parts 1 and 2. PN Wo The Place-Names of Worcestershire. PN WRY The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Parts 1–8. Journal of the English Place-Name Society 43 (2011), pp. 25–34. © English Place-Name Society and the author 2011. First published online October 2017. The Black Country David Horovitz In the early nineteenth century the expression Black Country was applied to a number of places, mainly African countries such as Ethiopia and Sudan (‘Soudan’), but whether from the skin colour of the natives or their unfamil- iarity with the Christian religion, or both, is unclear. The term was also applied to other places, such as the area on the Belgian border known as Neur-Pai (Noir Pays) ‘Black Country’ (according to the Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, vol. 1, 1833: 293), because it contained no limestone. Later the term came to be applied in particular to an industrialised area of the West Midlands to the west of Birmingham. The origin of the expression in that context, the date of its coinage, and the extent of the area encompassed by the term, have long been, and indeed are likely to remain, the subject of speculation and debate. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED s.v. black a.19), the expression Black Country is first found in the diary of Charles Mayne Young in 1834. The diary entry (dated 22nd July) compares a village in Lincolnshire with ‘the densely populated black country, with its smoke and blasts and furnaces’ (Young 1871: 205). However, the diary was not published until 1871, and it is clear that the entries have not been printed verbatim – many incorporate episodes from a later date, and the diary has evidently been edited retrospectively. It would be very unsafe to rely on the entry supposedly of 1834 as evidence for early use of the expression. The OED also mentions a speech by J. P. Dyott, mayor of Walsall, on 9th April 1849, who used the expression at the official opening of the South Staffordshire railway line. As will be seen, however, there are many examples of the use of the term Black Country predating 1849. In the first (and, to date, only) volume published by The English Place- Name Society on the place-names of Staffordshire in 1984, J. P. Oakden observed that the Black Country was a 19th [century] district name coined in the early part of the century for the heavily industrialized part of South Stafford- shire, including Aldridge, Bilston, Brierley Hill, Coseley, 25 Journal of the English Place-Name Society 43 (2011), pp. 25–34. © English Place-Name Society and the author 2011. First published online October 2017. 26 JOURNAL OF THE ENGLISH PLACE-NAME SOCIETY 43 (2011) Darlaston, Rowley Regis, Sedgley, Smethwick, Tettenhall, Tipton, Walsall, Wednesbury, Wednesfield, West Bromwich, Willenhall and Wolverhampton, all in St[affordshire], but it also included Dudley, Halesowen, Oldbury and Stourbridge in Wo[rcestershire]. After noting the examples provided by the OED, Oakden concluded that ‘The name is derived from the murk produced by the collieries, blast furnaces and foundries set up in these places during the industrial revolution because of the presence of the South Staffordshire coalfield with its coal, iron ore, fireclays and limestone’ (PN St 2).1 The 15th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1986, vol. 11: 253) describes the Black Country as an industrial area closely corresponding to the small south Staffordshire coalfield in the Midlands region of England; its name derives from its pollution-coated industrial landscape. The Black Country extends immediately to the west of the city of Birmingham, which itself lies off the coalfield, and makes up the western part of the metropolitan county of West Midlands. The cluster of industrial towns that earned this appellation sprang up in the 18th century with the intense exploitation and local use of coal and iron-ore resources. Collieries, blast-furnaces, and foundries filled the air with smoke and grime … One of the earliest examples of the expression Black Country (though without capitals), is found in The Youth’s Magazine, Or Evangelical Miscellany for the Year 1846, where we find the following: ‘Who shall count the numbers of the old, and middle-aged, and in the wretched cottages of this black country [an unnamed mining district in the west of England], who know and love their Saviour…’ (4th series, vol. 9, 1846: 102). The ambiguous extract does not help us to determine why the term was adopted, since it may refer to the dirt and grime of the industrialised areas, but (from the title of the publication in which it appears) may equally refer to the absence of Christian beliefs amongst its inhabitants. The most influential publication in promoting the term Black Country, however, was without doubt a volume describing a fictional colliery hamlet in the West Midlands reformed by religious teaching and the construction of a church. Published in 1846, Colton Green: A Tale of the Black Country, or a region of Mines and Forges in Staffordshire, by the Rev. William Journal of the English Place-Name Society 43 (2011), pp. 25–34. © English Place-Name Society and the author 2011. First published online October 2017. T H E B L A C K C O U N T R Y 27 Gresley (1801–76), an astonishingly prolific author of religious and social tracts (DNB s.n.), proved very popular, enjoyed a wide circulation, and was certainly the first book to use the expression Black Country in its title. It is very likely that the expression was known in the area before Gresley published his work — a review in the London Morning Post on 21st November 1846 noted that ‘The scene of this story lies in that part of Staffordshire to which the constant exhumation of its mineral riches has long since given the well-known name of the Black Country’ — but the popularity of the work ensured that the term soon reached a much wider audience, both within and far beyond the Black Country itself.