TIPTON, a parish in the southern division of the hundred
of OFFLOW, county of STAFFORD, l mile (NJ3.) from
Dudley, containing, according to the last census, 11,546
inhabitants, which number has since greatly increased.
This place, which is situated nearly in the centre of
an extensive and rich mining district, has progressively
risen from an inconsiderable village to its present extent
and importance, from the abundant and apparently
exhaustless mines of coal and iron-stone which are found
under almost every acre of its surface. The former is
of superior quality, and is found in strata of thirty feet
in thickness, and the latter is wrought to a very considerable
extent, affording together employment to an immense
population, of whose dwellings, with the exception
of some belonging to the superintendents of the works,
the village principally consists. There are not less than
tune forges, with blast furnaces and other apparatus, for
the manufacture of pig-iron, of which, on an average, more
than seventy tons per week are made, and in which the
weekly consumption of coal is not less than six hundred
tons. Nails and hinges of every kind, fenders, fireirons,
and boilers for steam-engines, are manufactured
to a great extent; and there are also large manufactories
for tinned plates, soap, muriatic potash, and red lead.
The trade is much facilitated by the Birmingham canal
and several of its collateral branches, which intersect
the parish, whereby a communication is established
with almost every line of inland navigation, and the
produce of its mines and manufactures is conveyed to
many of the principal towns in the kingdom. The
river Trent has its source within a few hundred yards
of the western boundary of the parish. Tipton is
within the jurisdiction of the county magistrates, and
also within that of a court of requests for the parishes
of Hales-Owen, Rowley-Regis, West Bromwich, Harborne,
and the manor of Bradley, in the parish of Wolverhampton,
in the counties of Worcester, Salop, and
Stafford, respectively, established by an act passed in
the 4?th of George III., for the n-coM-ry of debts not
exceeding £5. Officers for the internal regulation of
the parish are annually appointed at the court leet of
the lord of the manor. The living is a perpetual curacy,
in the peculiar jurisdiction of the Prebendary of Frees,
or Pipa Minor, in the Cathedral Church of Liehfield, endowed
with £200 private benefaction, and £400 royal
bounty, and in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of
Lichfield. The ancient church, dedicated to St. Martin,
having become greatly dilapidated many years since, is
now a ruin, and a neat and commodious new church
of brick has been erected. There is a place of worship
for Wesleyan Methodists. In 1796, Mr. Solomon
Woodall gave £ 650 for the foundation and endowment
of a school, and several subsequent donations and benefactions
have been mude, which, aided by subscriptions,
are appropriated to the support of several National
schools, in which more than one thousand children re
ceive instruction: there are also Sunday schools in connexion
with the established church aud the dissenting
congregation, supported by subscription.