Madeley: Time Line 
History & Dates.

By Chris Machin

The 1800’s

1801 - A thirty three year lease was taken out on Crewe land in the Madeley Heath/Leycett area to mine coal. The agreement was between John, First Lord Crewe (1742-1829), Walter Sneyd of Keele, Thomas Breek of Keele and James Breek of Newcastle. Further leases for coal mining followed. The pits dug had names that reflected the times, and were called, for example, Nelson, Victory, Blucher, others were Fair Lady and Bang Up. Tramways were built to carry the coal, before railways, they ran from Scot Hay to Madeley, and from Leycett, through Waltons Wood to Madeley Heath.

1801 - The census puts the Parish of Madeley at 5864 acres, and the population at 945.

1804 - Samuel Stretch died. In his will he left endowments to purchase a bell for the Church, and for the bell to be rung at 9.00pm every night to guide travellers who may be lost. This had happened previously to Samuel when he had been lost in thick fog near Keele, and only the tolling of the Church bell had led him safely home. The bell ringer was paid £3 per annum, which was the interest from the endowment, but the income was fixed and eventually a bell ringer could not be found who would toll for this fee.

1805 - Bruce Storr is Vicar of Madeley

1806 - John Crewe was created Baron, First Lord Crewe. This was a reward for support of the Whig party. He had been Sheriff of Cheshire 1764, MP for Stafford 1765 and MP for Cheshire from 1768 until the close of the century. He married in 1776, Frances Anne Greville. (She was reputed one of the most beautiful women of her time and she entertained at Crewe Hall and at their London home in Hampstead. Included in their circle were, among others, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) , who dedicated his ‘The School for Scandal' to her, Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) who painted and engraved three portraits of her, Charles James Fox (1749-1806), Edmund Burke (1729-97) and George Canning (1770-1827). She died in 1818.)

1811 - The Census puts the population at 1018.

1812 - Peter Roberts (1760?-1819) is Vicar of Madeley - he is a theologian and antiquary. He was born at Tai'n Y Nant, near Ruabon. His father was a clockmaker and after a few years the family moved to Wrexham. He studied at Wrexham Grammar School under Edward Davies and when he was about 15 entered St Asaph's Grammar School as a pupil assistant to Peter Williams. The Irish pupils there recommended him to Dr Henry Ussher at Dublin University & he was appointed Sizar (A Sizar is a student at Trinity College, Dublin, who pays reduced fees but has some menial duties to perform). He graduated there, with a MA and stayed there as a private tutor & studied oriental languages & astronomy. As a family tutor, he had among others, 2 eventual Lords, Lanesborough & Bolton, who later on both gave him a pension & he could devote all his time to study. In 1811 Bishop Cleaver gave him the rectory at Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog. In 1814 Lord Crewe presented him with the vicarage at Madeley. In December 1818 he exchanged Llanarmon for the rectory at Halkin, Flintshire but died of a stroke on 21 May 1819. His chief works were: Harmony of the Epistles; Christianity Vindicated; Sketch of the Early History of the Cymry; Chronicle of the Kings of Britain; Cambrian Popular Antiquities and

History of Oswestry

1817 - Two vases of Roman Coins are found buried in a field called Little Madeley Parks in Little Madeley. They were found during ploughing. The two vases, or urns, were destroyed, and a horseshoe and key were also found. The coins were all late Roman copper coins covering the period AD235 to AD340. The coins were minted with the heads of: Maximinus (235-238), Diocletian (284-305), Constantine (306-337), Licinius (307-324), Crispus (317-326), Conastantine PF (317-337), and Constantine Junior (337-340). Constantine the Great was born in Yugoslavia but when his father died in York in AD 306 he was acclaimed joint emperor. With The Edict of Milan in AD 313, he formally recognised Christianity as one of the religions of the Roman Empire. He founded Constantinople and was the first Christian Emperor of Rome.

1819 - John Stevenson Cattlow is Vicar of Madeley.

1821 - The Census puts the population at 1166.

1822 - Lord Crewe purchased eighty nine acres at Madeley to build the new Madeley Manor House for his daughter, Elizabeth Emma (died 1850) and her husband, Mr. Foster Cunliff. He paid £4700 to James Cope for the land, which was formerly known as Okhull or Okers Hill. They changed their surname to Cunliff-Offley. He died in 1832 and they had no children. He was Welsh, and to make him feel more at home, the woodland area around the Manor was renamed The Bryn - hence the current Bryn Wood.

A New Road was built so traffic would not pass near the new Manor. The old track had joined the Newcastle-Nantwich road opposite the lane to Heighley Castle. New Road has been known in the past as ‘Pudding Lane.’

1829 - John, First Lord Crewe dies and is replaced by his son, Thomas Hungerford, Second Lord Crewe (1812-1894). A bachelor, he improved, among others, the Church, school, the almshouses, many estate farms and built a new vicarage. Many buildings around Madeley still have the Crewe family’s crest, a lion’s paw rising out of a coronet. Yew Tree House, opposite The Springs, was formerly the estate managers residence and where rents were payable on Lady Day (25th March).

1831 - The Census puts the population at 1190.

By 1832, the public house, The Greyhound was in place and gave its name to the central area of the village which is now the main shopping area.

1832 - A Poor House was opened at a cottage at the Holborn.

1833 - Rev Thomas William Daltry (1804-1879) is appointed Vicar of Madeley. He remains vicar at Madeley until his death in 1879.

1837 - The Grand Junction Railway opened a station at Madeley. A private mineral line was soon built to bring coal trucks from Leycett Colliery.

1838 - When the new Union Workhouse was opened at Newcastle, Madeley Poor House was closed.

1841 - The Census puts the population at 1492.

1843 - William Callow paints Madeley Manor. The painting is on show at Newcastle Museum and Art Gallery. William Callow was born in 1812, at Greenwich. In 1823 he was employed by Theodore Fielding after his talent had been spotted, and in 1829 went to Paris and shared a studio with T S Boys. In 1834 he took over the studio and built up a profitable teaching practice among French nobility, including Duc de Nemours and The Princess Clementine, the son and daughter of King Louis Phillippe. He began walking and sketching tours: 1835 south of England, 1836 south of France, 1838 Germany & Switzerland, 1840 Italy, 1841 Normandy, 1844 Rhine & Moselle, 1845 Holland, 1846 Germany, Switzerland & Venice, 1862 Coburg, Potsdam & Berlin, In 1838 he was elected to the AOWS (Associate of the (Old) Society of Painters in Watercolours), founded in 1804. In 1841, he set up as a drawing master in London and his pupils included Lady Beaujolais Berry, Lady Stratford de Redcliffe & Lord Dufferin. In 1848, he was elected OWS and served as Trustee and Secretary 1865-70. In 1855, he moved to Great Missenden, and lived there until his death in 1908.

1850 - Offley Well Head, another listed structure was built. It was erected by Hon Miss Annabella Crewe in memory of her aunt, Hon. Elizabeth Emma Cunliff-Offley, to provide a fountain of water for three acres of land that was given to provide 20 allotments. The monument is 33 feet high and made of Caen stone. It cost £2000 to build and was designed by Ambrose Poynter, and carved by a Mr. Dean of London. The fountain no longer works but the memorial is still in place alongside the allotments off Manor Road.

1851 - Annabella married Richard Monckton Milnes MP (1809-1885). They added Crewe to their surname and he becomes the Marquis of Crewe (Many years beforehand, he had proposed to Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), and although she loved him, she turned the proposal down as she was waiting for her ‘calling’). They had two daughters and one son, Robert Crewe-Milnes (1858-1945).

Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, was born in London. At Cambridge, he was a member of the Apostles Club, which included Tennyson and Thackerey. He was MP for Pontefract from 1837, until he entered the Lords in 1863. He was a patron of young writers, including David Gray (1838-61), who died young of TB, Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), and helped secure the poet laureateship for Alfred Tennyson (1809-92) in 1850. Disreali based the character of Mr. Vavasour on him, in his novel 'Tancred'. He was a traveller, philanthropist and renowned after dinner speaker. He published 'Life, Letters and Remains of Keats', in 1848.

1851 - The Census puts the population at 1655.

1853 - Wesleyan Methodists and United Methodists amalgamated and build a chapel at Parkside.

1856 - The Primitive Methodists erected a chapel at Poolside.

1861 - The Census puts the population at 1940 and George Joseph is named as a Master Miller.

1863 - St. Mark’s, a mission church in Madeley Heath was opened. In 1967, it became The Meadows County Primary School.

1864 - The date stone on Mill Cottages, Moss Lane.

1866 - Rowley House & Moss Cottage on Moss Lane have this date stone alongside their Crewe Estate sign.

1868 - The date of School House, by the High School, again with the Crewe Arms sign. The house, however, was originally the Police House before the current establishment further along Newcastle Road.

1870 - The Audley Branch Line was opened. It ran from Alsager through Honeywall and onto Keele. Initially it was just for goods traffic. It was part of North Staffordshire Railways.

1870 - The Market Drayton to Newcastle Branch Line was started in 1852. It was completed in sections & Madeley was added in 1870.

1870 - Madeley Road Station is opened in November. It was between Keele and Pipe Gate and about two miles from the centre of Madeley. It was used mostly for milk traffic and a slide was built to convey 17 gallon churns directly onto the platform. The station had living quarters attached to it, and the building was occupied until 1964, it had closed as a station in 1931, and the building was finally demolished in 1979.

1870 - The date on Manor Holding cottage, down Manor Road & just before the hump back bridge.

1871 - An explosion at Leycett Colliery, on 3rd January, kills eight.

1871 - The Census puts the population at 2387.

1873 - Lord Hungerford improved Madeley Church. The west window of the southern aisle has stained glass from Morris & Co: Noah and St. Philip were designed by Ford Madox Brown (1821-93), St. Peter by William Morris (1834-96) and a crucifixion by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833-98). These are artists all associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They were a group of Victorian artists who abandoned the rules of art developed under Raphael (1483-1520), and painted biblical and literary subjects in the clear, detailed style they saw in painters early than Raphael. The Brotherhood was founded in 1848, and broke up in 1853.

1876 - The School House, a listed building was built and has stained glass windows from this period.

1879 - Leycett Colliery had two main pits. Fair Lady and Bang-up. On 8th September eight men and boys were killed in a pit disaster.

1879 - A Primitive Methodist Chapel is built at Madeley Heath.

1879 - Rev Daltry dies. His son, Thomas William Daltry (1833-1904), who had been curate from 1861-1880, takes over as vicar in 1880 and remains until his death in 1904.

1880 - 21st January, sixty two men and boys are killed at Leycett Colliery. Over thirty were buried at Madeley Church on one day. Only 15 survived from that shift.

1880 - The Audley Branch Line commences passenger traffic.

1881 - The Census puts the population at 2457.

1881 - Francis Stonier, in the census, is a miller and farmer at Lower Mill House, and so there must have been a mill in operation at this time. Lower Mill House is down Furnace Lane.

1882 - A new forty room vicarage was built. The previous vicarage had been on Smithy Corner (where the current council yard is - this has now been sold to Jennings Homes and is now a small housing development). The vicarage was built for Rev. T W Daltry by Lord Hungerford. Daltry was a keen historian and was secretary of the North Staffordshire Field Club for many years. Their library is named after him.

1882 - Hill View & Holborn Cottage on the Holborn have this date on the inscription alongside the Crewe Estate sign.

1883 - An explosion at Leycett Colliery kills six.

1887 - Madeley Fete is held on park land at Madeley Manor. Blondin ( real name Jean Francois Gravelet 1824-97), ‘The Hero of Niagara’in 1859, performs and is watched by 13,000 people. Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee is celebrated in the same year on the Manor’s grounds as well.

1888 - Blondin is again at Madeley Fete and 22,000 attend.

1889 - Blondin’s final attendance at the Fete, and 26,000 people attend.

After this, the Fete’s attendance's fell, it lost money and was ended. The funds from the fete are used, among other things, to provide a district nurse for Madeley.

1891 - The lease for Madeley Pool’s Mill is advertised and described as a ‘commodious water and steam mill’, with house, 2 cottages and about 30 acres.

1891 - The Census puts the population at 2904.

1893 - The farm timber framed structure at the rear of the Manor is demolished and replaced by a brick structure. Madeley Manor is a listed building, as is the Manor Boat House, which is of a later date than the Manor (around 1890).

1894 - Thomas Hungerford, Lord Crewe dies, and Robert Crewe-Milnes becomes Earl of Crewe.

Robert Crewe-Milnes marries Sybil Graham in 1880 (she dies in 1887). They have 3 daughters, Annabel, Celia, Cynthia but their son Richard, dies in infancy. His second wife is Margaret, daughter of Lord Roseberry and they had a son, also Richard, born in 1911 but who dies in 1922. Crewe-Milnes held a minor Government post under Gladstone in 1886, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1892-95, Lord President of the Council 1905-08 & 1915-16, Lord Privy Seal 1908 & 1912-15, Secretary of State for the Colonies 1908-10, Secretary of State for India 1910-15, President Board of Education 1916, Chairman London County Council 1917, HM Ambassador to Paris 1922-28, Secretary of State for War 1931. He was created Earl of Crewe in 1895 and Earl of Madeley 1911, but these titles end with his death in 1945 as there was no male heir.

1896 - Fair Lady and Bang Up pits at Leycett were owned by The Madeley Coal and Iron Company Limited. The manager was William Meadows. It employed 339 underground workers and 71 surface workers. Lord Crewe, as the landowner, received 6d for every ton of coal, iron ore or brick clay won from his land. He also had free coal for his home - which required 2 cwt each morning to feed the fires.