late
Jeremiah Hartill (uncle of the present occupant of the house) was taking
his full share in the public life of Willenhall, it was most difficult,
if not next to impossible, to get copyhold land in this manor
enfranchised.

At that time there was a very considerable amount of property in
Willenhall held by this old-world tenure, and this induced Mr. Jeremiah
Hartill to take a very prominent part in the local efforts which were
then being made to introduce the principle of compulsory enfranchisement.
As the result of a national movement in this direction an Act was passed
in 1841 to provide a statutory method of enfranchisement; and the matter
was carried still further in 1852 by another Act, which introduced the
principle of compulsory enfranchisement.

Mr. Hartill had at that time recently built himself a new house (1847),
when, as the local leader in a movement which had been brought so far on
the road to success, he was invited to a public dinner in recognition of
his public-spirited efforts. One of the speakers at the banquet, in
proposing the health of the guest of the evening, suggested that as Mr.
Jeremiah Hartill had fought so successfully in helping to overcome the
opposition of the Lords of the Manor to this measure of land reform, his
new house might not inappropriately be dubbed the Manor House. The
suggestion was heartily (no pun intended) approved by all present, and by
that name the house has ever since been known.

The names of the chief residents in Willenhall in 1327 may be gleaned
from the Subsidy Roll given in Chapter IX.; very similar names occur in
another list of the taxpayers to the Scotch War of 1333. Some few held
land under certain specified rents and free services, and from these came
the earliest freeholders; many more held by the baser tenure of the
lord's will, and having nothing to show except the copy of the rolls made
by the Steward of the Lord's Court, were known as copyholders.

The vast importance of these Court Rolls may be gathered from Chapter
XXI. The Court Rolls of the Manor of Stowheath now in existence commence
on 4 January, 1645; but in the chapter referred to mention of a "Leete"
being held in Wolverhampton much earlier will be found.

The residue of the Manor being uncultivated, was termed the lord's waste,
and served for public roads, and for common or pasture to both the lord
and his tenants. Reference to the enclosure of the last remnants of the
"waste" was