754, to February, 1841.

The same year--to be exact, the date was April 12th, 1841--the first
marriage was solemnised at Willenhall Church, the Bishop having then
issued a special licence to the Incumbent to marry persons living within
the township.

Almost concurrently with this dispute there was another source of
grievance to Willenhall, Bilston, and Pelsall which had to be strenuously
fought by these outlying places.

This quarrel arose, in the main, through the excessive demands made upon
the inhabitants of the three chapelries for rates with which to repair
and maintain the fabric of Wolverhampton Church. The levies made
ostensibly for this purpose seem to have been at times somewhat
exorbitant, and the money to have been spent in meeting charges which can
only be described as superfluous so far as the non-residential
contributors were concerned.

About 1738 the chapelwardens of Bilston made a determined stand against
the churchwardens of Wolverhampton.

A "case was stated" in which it was shown that the Collegiate Church of
Wolverhampton consisted of a Dean and Prebendaries, founded by a Royal
Family, and was subject to no visitation but that of the Crown. It
contained three Chapels--one at Bilston, another at Willenhall, and a
third at Pelsall.

The statement proceeded:--"Every Hamlet and Village in the Ecclesiastical
Parish of Wolverhampton has a Constable and all other parochial officers,
and maintains its own poor as it were a separate parish. . . ."

"The Chapelries of Willenhall and Bilston nominate and maintain each its
own Clergy, and repair their own Chapels, which have been endowed time
out of mind, and were consecrated about thirteen years ago for burying
places."

Other points of complaint put forward were that the two chapels afforded
every facility to the inhabitants of the respective places for divine
worship and the administration of the sacraments; that formerly Bilston
and Willenhall each paid only 4 pounds a year to the mother church, but
that since 1716 increasing demands had been made till as much as 56
pounds was asked for; and that all which these chapelries received in
return were the bread and wine used in the sacrament, four times a year,
and for which they paid 4 pounds per annum, the chapelwardens being
allowed 3d. in the pound at Boston and 4d. in the pound at Willenhall for
collecting it.

It was also complained that all the rest of the villages had been forced
"to contr