Image: Sutton Coldfield in c.1815. The town would have looked much the same at the end of the eighteenth century
Reproduced with the permission of Sutton Coldfield Library
In July 1766 the body of a woman was found in woods on the outskirts of Sutton Coldfield. Her throat had been cut. The body was carried to a nearby pub called the Irish Harp and an inquest held. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder by a person or persons unknown. No attempt was made to investigate what had happened. We do not even know the name of the victim.
This event must, however, have provoked much local discussion. Murder was a rare event in Sutton. Theft, however, would not have surprised the inhabitants of Sutton. In September 1746 a horse ‘with a black tail and mane, nine years old, able to carry any weight’ was stolen. A ‘handsome reward’ was offered. There were also highwaymen. Henry Hunt of Birmingham was stopped by two highwaymen on the Chester Road in September 1750. They took his watch and money, but, operating by some sort of code of honour, returned six shillings when he asked for it ‘and immediately rose across the Coldfield and robbed another gentleman in sight of him and then rode quite off.’
This information comes from the newspapers of the time. The first ever mention of Sutton in a newspaper can be found in the Stamford Mercury, 9 May 1723, when the residence of the recently-deceased Joseph Hadley was put up for sale, ‘being a very improvable estate, well-watered with a brook and … pools and in a sporting pleasant country.’ (The term ‘sporting’ referred to hunting and shooting.) In May 1739 we find a new brick built house with 12 acres of land being offered for sale in Sutton, ‘a town much esteemed for the wholesomeness of the air and its pleasant situation’. There are also reports of fires and bankruptcies and of the appointment of a new headmaster at Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School, which since 1728 had stood on its present site in Lichfield Road. Gentlemen who thought themselves suitable for the post were invited to attend the school on 14 May 1764
‘and bring with them Proper Testimonials of their Learning and Abilities for the Education of Youth. The Schoolmaster must be a Layman, and it will be expected that each Candidate shall not only be well recommended for his Classical learning, but he shall also submit to such examination as the Trustees shall think proper. The School House is large and commodious and capable of holding upwards of twenty Boarders; the Situation is remarkably pleasant and healthy and the Provision for the Schoolmaster very ample.’
To prove their capabilities two men wrote to the trustees in Latin. William Webb of Brasenose College, Oxford, was appointed.
Sutton was a small market town at this time, with an estimated population of 1,800 in 1762. The main buildings were clustered along High Street and Coleshill Street, with smaller settlements of farms and cottages in places such Hill and Maney. Wheat, barley and oats were grown in the fields and ground in a number of mills. There was little cultivation in Wylde Green, and there was a vast tract of heathland called the Coldfield. The affairs of the town were in the hands of the warden and society, a self-appointed body of local gentlemen. The rector was a highly influential figure, and in 1700 this was John Riland; his family were to be the incumbents until the early twentieth century. Both Agnes Bracken in History of the Forest and Chase of Sutton Coldfield (1860) and William Kirkpatrick Riland Bedford in his History of Sutton Coldfield (1891) tell the story of the town during these years principally through its rectors and gentry. There is no mention at all of the hard lives of the rural poor, who made up a very large part of the population of Sutton
Further reading: R. Lea, The Story of Sutton Coldfield (2003), pp. 57-94.
Stephen Roberts, May 2021