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These are some of the many famous, talented and occasionally notorious people born in or associated with Wolverhampton, making ‘the town on the hill’ such a unique and memorable place. The following people are among those who have walked the Wolves Beat: Richard Attwood - Former Formula One driver Richard Attwood won the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hours race driving a Porsche 917 and took second place in the Nürburgring race the same year. He owned the Porsche 917 which Steve McQueen used in the film Le Mans, on which Richard worked as a stunt driver and adviser. He had the car painted to represent his Le Mans-winner and later cashed-in his ‘pension’, selling the Porsche for £1 million. Babylon Zoo - Song-writer, musician, singer and record producer Jasbinder Singh ‘Jas’ Mann was born in Jono Bacon - Software developer and journalist Jonathan Edward James Bacon is a writer and software developer. He works at Canonical and helps lead the worldwide community of contributors who work on the Ubuntu family of distributions. Back in 1998, he built one of the UK’s first Linux websites, Linux UK. Since graduating from Wolverhampton University, he has become a prolific journalist and has written three books, including The Official Ubuntu Book. Jono has also been involved with helping charities and founded Wolverhampton Linux Users’ Group. He is the vocalist and rhythm guitarist in the ‘detuned chugging metal band’ Seraphidian, who record at Magic Garden Studios in Wolverhampton. In 2008, he started a new project called Severed Fifth that aims to produce music in his home studio and then distribute it in new ways. The first album, Denied By Reign, features heavy metal music and the second, Nightmares by Design, was released in 2010.
Chris Baines - Professor Chris Baines is a leading environmentalist as well as a gardener, naturalist, television presenter and author. He was one of the first people to become involved in the burgeoning urban wildlife movement and built the first ever wildlife garden at Chelsea Flower Show. His book, How to Make a Wildlife Garden, inspired many others to start gardening with wildlife in mind and his television series and book, The Wild Side of Town, won the UK Conservation Book Prize in 1987. Chris, who works from home in Wolverhampton, was presented in 2004 with the RSPB's Medal of Honour for his contribution to nature conservation. Peter Baker - Golfer Peter Baker was born in 1967 in Shifnal and currently lives near Wolverhampton. He learned golf at his father’s nine hole Himley Hall course and was taught by Sandy Lyle’s father, Alex. Peter won the Brabazon Trophy in 1985 and represented Great Britain & Ireland in that year’s Walker Cup before turning professional the following year. He was a consistent performer on the European Tour during the 1980s and 90s, with three tournament wins and a highest Order of Merit finish of seventh in 1993. Peter won the Credit Suisse Challenge twice and was one of Ian Woosnam’s vice-captains at the 2006 Ryder Cup. Jack Bannister - Born in 1930 in Wolverhampton, John David Bannister is the current Talksport radio cricket correspondent, and was for many years a BBC television cricket commentator. He had previously played professionally for Warwickshire as a fast-medium bowler, taking 1198 first-class wickets in a career that lasted from 1950 to 1969. Against the Combined Services cricket team for Warwickshire, he took all ten wickets in an innings for 41 runs - the best ever bowling figures in an innings for the county. During the 1995 England test match series in South Africa, Jack promised he would eat a piece of cardboard if South Africa won, which he eventually did. Following his cricket career, whilst working as a Bookmaker in Wolverhampton, he was instrumental in setting up the Professional Cricketer’s Pension Scheme. Albert Bantock - Born in 1862 and educated at Tettenhall College, Albert Baldwin Bantock entered his father’s coal and iron trade firm of Thomas Bantock & Co after leaving school, becoming a partner in the business, which passed to him on his father’s death. Albert married Kate Jones, the daughter of a local politician and industrialist, was a councillor, a magistrate and a county magistrate for Staffordshire (as well as the High Sheriff of the county), a keen gardener, director of Tettenhall College and life governor of Wolverhampton General Hospital, Eye Infirmary and Women’s Hospital. He was the only mayor to return to office for three consecutive elections. His father, who co-founded Tettenhall College, had also been Wolverhampton’s mayor and served on the council for thirty-three years. Albert’s many contributions to civic life were rewarded with the Freedom of the Borough and when he died in 1938 he asked in his will that after his wife’s death, their home Merridale House (now known as Bantock House) and its grounds be given to the town.
Joseph Barney
- The eminent Wolverhampton-born artist and engraver Joseph Barney (1753-1832) was a son of Joseph Barney Snr., a
local japanner. Joseph Jnr. became a partner of the Barney & Ryton, japanners, and started his artistic career painting flowers which were a
popular decoration for japanned ware. He moved to London from around 1774, as in which Stuart Baxter - Born in Wolverhampton and brought up in Scotland, Stuart Baxter played football with Preston North End, Dundee United and Stockport County. He is currently manager of Finland national football team Sir William Maddock Bayliss - Born in Butcroft, Wednesbury, this pioneering physiologist worked with Ernest H Starling and co -discovered hormones. The Bayliss Effect is named after him and he was awarded their Royal Society’s Medal as well as their Copley Medal and was knighted for his contribution to medicine in 1922. The Bayliss and Starling Society was founded in 1979 as a forum for scientists with research interests in central and autonomic peptide function. Sir William and Lady Bayliss took a great interest in the social issues of the time, including labour conditions of the workers in Cable Street, Wolverhampton. Nigel Bennett - An accomplished theatre actor, Nigel Bennett appeared on the British stage for fifteen years before moving to Canada in 1986. He starred as the powerful and seductive Lucien LaCroix in the television series Forever Knight and his films include Narrow Margin and Legends of the Fall. Nigel has also co-written three fantasy novels. Gwen Berryman - Most famous for playing the character Doris Archer in BBC Radio 4’s The Archers from 1951 to 1980, Gwen Berryman was born in Wolverhampton in 1906. The only actress ever to play the part, Gwen was sometimes thought to suffer from an identity crisis between herself and the character, though she said, ‘In the studio and on the air I feel, act and think exactly like Mrs Archer, but once outside the BBC I’m Gwen Berryman and as unlike Doris as it’s possible to be.’ Television appearances included This Is Your Life and she wrote two books: Doris Archer’s Farm Cookery Book and Life and Death of Doris Archer. Gwen died in 1983 (three years after Doris) and a blue plaque commemorates her life at the house where she lived at 123 Goldthorn Hill. Jane Besemeres - Born in 1827, Jane Besemeres was a successful writer of children’s books and poetry. Her experiences as governess of a deaf boy inspired her to write books entitled ‘Picture Teaching for Young and Old’ and ‘Hints for Teaching the Deaf and Dumb’ and to found the Church Mission to the Deaf and Dumb in South Staffordshire and Shropshire in 1886. Based in Bath Street, Wolverhampton, this provided spiritual instruction and visits the sick at home and encouraged pre-school training for children. In 1901, Jane also founded a Home for Deaf and Dumb Girls on Compton Road, Wolverhampton. Jane died in 1905 at the age of 78 and is buried in Wolverhampton cemetery. Bob Bibby - Born in Scotland, Bob Bibby came to live in Wolverhampton in 1946 and was educated at St Luke’s Primary School and Wolverhampton Grammar School. As well as being an English teacher and educational consultant he has written the Tallyforth Mystery series of crime novels - Be a Falling Leaf, Bird on the Wing, and The Liquidator. The latter is set in Wolverhampton and opens with a football match between Wolves and West Bromwich, before the plot thickens. Bob’s travel books include the irreverent and amusing Grey Paes and Bacon, based on a fifty-mile walk around Black Country canals. Edward Bird - Like Joseph Barney, Edward Bird (1772–1819) was an English genre painter born in Wolverhampton. The son of a carpenter, he received no formal artistic training but developed his skills through apprenticeship as a japanning artist painting tea trays. In 1794 he moved to Bristol, where he pursued a career in portraiture, book illustrations and church painting, becoming part of an informal group of artists known as the Bristol School. In 1809, he exhibited at the Royal Academy a genre portrait of an old soldier, ‘Good News’ and his popularity grew when the Prince Regent bought his painting ‘The Country Choristers and commissioned Blind Man’s Buff. Edward’s works also include the Field of Chevy Chase and the Day after the Battle’, which is considered his masterpiece. Edward was appointed historical painter to Princess Charlotte in 1813 and soon afterwards was elected a full member Royal Academy. Plagued by ill-health and unable to paint in the last year of his life, he died in 1819 and was buried in Bristol Cathedral. Peter Broadbent - Inside-forward Peter Broadbent was one of the classiest footballers ever to play for Wolverhampton Wanderers and many fans regard him as the greatest ever to wear the club’s colours. He joined as a 17-year-old and within a month was in the first team. During his Wolves career (1951-1965) Peter scored 145 goals in 497 appearances and was a part of the team that won the First Division title in 1954, 1958 and 1959, and the FA Cup in 1960. He was the scorer of Wolves’ first ever goal in European competition in the European Cup in 1958, and played seven times for England. His superb ball control and skills left opposition defenders baffled and at a loss and he was considered the best inside-forward in the country. Unfortunately, his England appearances were restricted by a policy of not selecting too many players from a single club (Wolves already had Billy Wright, Ron Flowers, Bill Slater and Denis Wilshaw). In his autobiography, George Best said he was a Wolves fan and that Peter Broadbent was the player he most admired. After leaving Wolves, Peter went on to play for Shrewsbury Town, Aston Villa, Stockport County and Bromsgrove Rovers. Today he lives in retirement in Codsall after successfully running a babywear shop in Halesowen. Norman Brook, Baron Normanbrook - Educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, Norman Craven Brook was Secretary to Cabinet (1947-62), Joint Permanent Secretary to the Treasury (1956-62) and chairman of the BBC in 1964. As Sir Norman Brook, he advised John Profumo, Secretary of State for War, to end his affair with Christine Keeler. Stephen Byers - In a controversial career, the former Labour Party MP and Cabinet Minister was involved with the Phoenix Consortium takeover that led to the collapse of MG Rover. His political adviser, Jo Moore, sent an email suggesting that the September 11, 2001 attacks made it ‘a very good day to get out anything we want to bury bad news’. In the MPs’ expenses scandal it was reported that he claimed more than £125,000 in second home allowances for a London flat where he lived rent-free. He was also caught out by Channel Four’s Dispatches programme describing himself as a ‘cab for hire’, offering to lobby his parliamentary contacts for a payment of up to £5,000 per day. Steve Bull - Stephen George Bull MBE was born on Tipton’s Moat Farm estate in 1965, attending Wednesbury Oak Primary School and Willingsworth High School. After playing for Tipton Town and West Bromwich Albion, Steve joined Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1986, playing for the same club until his retirement 13 years later and breaking no less than four Wolves goalscoring records. ‘Bully’ became the all -time leading scorer with 306 goals in competitive games (250 of them in the Football League, also a club record) and became their highest scorer in a single season when he reached 52 goals in competitive games during the 1987–88 season. He also scored a club record of 18 hat -tricks, making 464 league appearances for the club and 561 appearances in total. Such is Steve Bull’s legendary status at the club that a stand at Molinieux is named after him. He was also capped 13 times for England, scoring five goals. Charlie Chaplin - The great Charlie Chaplin worked as a call boy at Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre in 1902. He also made one of his first
stage appearances (as ‘Charles Chaplin’) at the age of 14 at the Grand in 1903, taking the minor role of Billy, Dr Watson’s pageboy, in a Sherlock Charles I - Prior to the first major battle of the English Civil War at Edgehill in 1642, King Charles I came to Wolverhampton in order to collect troops and revenue. He stayed at the house of Madame St Andrew which was situated in Cock Street (Victoria Street) on the site of the former Star and Garter (now the Mander Centre). A wealthy merchant, Henry Gough, gave him £l,200 in gold for the Royalist cause. Charles I also visited the town in 1645 on his way to the Battle of Naseby, staying in Bushbury or, in his own words, ‘a private sweet village where Squire Grosvenor lives’. After the Royalist defeat at the Naseby he made his last visit to the town, staying at the home of Mrs Barnford in Cock Street (now Victoria Street). Charles II - After an unsuccessful bid to reclaim the throne at Worcester in 1651, King Charles II disguised himself as a peasant and hid in a priest hole in Mosley Old Hall. He had previously sought refuge at nearby Boscobel House, famously hiding in a tree now known as The Royal Oak. He later travelled on in disguise via other safe houses before escaping to France. Jeremiah and Charles Chubb - The internationally famous lock making firm Chubb & Sons was founded by brothers Jeremiah and Charles
, who patented their Detector Lock in 1818. Two years later, they moved from Portsmouth to Wolverhampton, by then lock making capital of Great Britain, Louis Coatalen
- Breton car engineer and designer Louis Hervé Coatalen (1879-1962) was born in the fishing town of Concarneau and
went on to study engineering before working for Panhard in France then for the Hillman company in England. He moved to Cornershop - Wolverhampton born Tjinder Singh formed the Indian Britpop band Cornershop in 1991. The band came wider fame after Fatboy Slim remixed their song, Brimful of Asha, which became an infectious number one single in 1998. Cornershop’s album, Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast, was released in 2009. Leonard Cottrell - Born in Tettenhall in 1913, Leonard Cottrell was a prolific and popular author and journalist specialising in books about history. His very enjoyable Hannibal: Enemy of Rome tells the story of Hannibal’s amazing campaign against the Roman army. After gaining experience writing for motoring magazines, Leonard joined the BBC, where he wrote documentaries and worked as a writer-producer. Stan Cullis - During his reign as manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers between 1948 and 1964, Stan Cullis presided over one of the finest
teams in the country. In his autobiography, All For the Wolves, he recalled that his father was a great supporter of Wolves and always
vowed that, ‘When I consider my boy is good enough, he will join Wolverhampton Wanderers.’ Stan duly joined Wolves as a player when
he was teenager and made his senior debut in 1935. He soon became a first choice regular, replacing Bill Morris as Mark Davies - Originally a product of the Wolves youth academy, Wolverhampton-born Davies had already captained England in a European Under-17 Championship qualifier against Northern Ireland at Molineux by the time he signed professional forms in 2005. He made his team debut for Wolves that year, the first of 35 appearances for the club before he moved to Bolton Wanderers. Norman Deeley
- Norman Victor Deeley was born in Wednesbury in 1933 and attended Holyhead Road School. He signed for
Sheila Dunn - The actress was born in Wolverhampton as the daughter of ICI chairman Bill Dunn, who invented the bullet-proof engine of the Spitfire. Sheila worked primarily in television, including three Doctor Who stories directed by her husband, Douglas Camfield, as well as episodes of Z-Cars and The Bill. Her film career included roles in Roman Polanski’s Dance of the Vampires and John Schlesinger’s A Kind of Loving. In later years she turned to comedy, playing as Harry Hill’s mother and ‘Old Baby Spice’ in An Audience with the Spice Girls, as well as appearing in Bremner, Bird and Fortune. For more than a quarter of a century before she died in 2004 she was a popular figure in the Richmond Shakespeare Society.
Robert Felkin - Born in 1853, Dr Robert William Felkin LRCS (Edinburgh), MD (Marberg), FRSE, FRGS, was a medical missionary, ceremonial magician, member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and founder of the Whare Ra lodge. He was also an author on Uganda and Central Africa as well as an explorer and anthropologist. His father was a manager at Mander Brothers and Robert was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, where he met and was inspired by the explorer David Livingstone. A full account of his life can be found in A Wayfaring Man, a fictionalised biography written by his second wife, Harriet. James Fleet - Most famous for his roles as the well-meaning Tom in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral, James Fleet has also appeared on television as the ineffectual Hilary Tripping in Chambers and dim-witted Hugo Horton in The Vicar of Dibley. Other films have included Phantom of the Opera and Sense and Sensibility, in which he played John Dashwood. James lived in Wolverhampton until he was ten and began his career in the 1980s at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Edith Henrietta Fowler - Edith and Ellen Thorneycroft-Fowler were the daughters of the first Lord of Wolverhampton, Henry Fowler, and granddaughters of the city’s first mayor, George Thorneycroft. Ellen was born in 1865 at 7 Summerfield Road, West Park. Both sisters began to write at an early age, contributing to magazines and periodicals, and Edith’s first two novels were The Young Pretenders and The professor’s Children, which observed the world from a child’s perspective. In 1903, she married the Minister of St George’s Church, William Hamilton, and had two sons, but continued writing novels as well as a biography of her father, which gives revealing insights into family life and the politics of the time. Edith had a strong faith and her imaginative, amusing stories reflect that Christian outlook. Her last published works were Patricia and Christabel. Ellen Fowler - Like her sister, Edith, Ellen Fowler was educated at home in Wolverhampton, where their father encouraged them to have intelligent, witty conversations. Ellen was born in 1860 and went on to study at a private school in London. She had two volumes of poetry published - Verses Grave and Gay in 1891 and Verses Wise and Otherwise in 1895. Her sonnet, Wulfruna’s Hampton, written for the 900th anniversary of St Peter’s first Charter, can be seen in the church guide book. A book of short stories was followed in 1898 by Ellen’s hugely successful first novel, Concerning Isabel Carnaby. This sold over a million copies and Ellen went on to write more clever, entertaining novels that combine romance, mystery and drama. In 1903, she married a schoolmaster, Alfred Felkin, and moved to London, but continued to reference the Midlands in her books. A Double Thread, The Farringdons, Button Gwinnett - Born in 1735, Button Gwinnett moved to Wolverhampton in 1755 and married a local girl, Ann Bourne, at St. Peter’s Church. In 1762 the couple left England and sailed to America, where he prospered as a planter and was elected to the Provincial Assembly. As a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776 he was one of fifty-six signatories of the Declaration of Independence. Button Gwinnett’s extremely rare autograph is among the most valuable in the world, with single examples selling for as much as $150,000, and this fact was used by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in his short story, ‘Button, Button’. Johnny Hancocks - Born in 1919 in Oakengates, Johnny Hancocks played for for Oakengates Town and Walsall before joining Wolves in 1946. A diminutive figure, standing just 5' 4" with size 3 boots, Johnny thrilled crowds for ten years with his fast wing play, unstoppable shots and never-say-die spirit, becoming a part of the Molineux folklore. He helped Wolves win their first league title in 1953/54 and was top goalscorer for the club in the following two seasons. He also collected an FA Cup winners medal in 1949 and in total scored 168 goals for Wolves in 378 appearances (his tally of 158 top-flight goals is still a club record). He later became player/manager of non-league Wellington Town, then moved to Cambridge United, Oswestry Town and GKN Sankeys before retiring from football in 1961. He then worked at the ironfounders Maddock & Sons in Oakengates until his retirement on his 60th birthday. Johnny died on February 19, 1994, aged 74.
Billy ‘Artillery’ Hartill - Footballer William ‘Billy’ John Hartill was born in Wolverhampton in 1905 and spent most of his playing career at Wolverhampton Wanderers. Nicknamed ‘Artillery’ after serving as a bombardier in the Royal Horse Artillery, he joined Wolves in 1928 and in the following year, his first full season as a professional, he scored 33 goals to become the club’s top goalscorer. He repeated this feat for the next three seasons (five times in total) and altogether scored 170 goals in 234 games. This was a record until it was broken in 1980 by John Richards and Billy remains the club’s third-highest ever goalscorer. He twice scored five goals in a single match, a record never bettered by any other Wolves player, and achieved a then club record of 16 hat-tricks (later beaten by Steve Bull). Billy remained at Molineux until 1935, when he moved briefly to Everton, then to Liverpool and Bristol Rovers. He retired in 1940 and died in Walsall in 1980. Helene Hayman - Baroness Hayman was born Helene Middleweek in 1949 and was a Labour Member of Parliament from 1974 to 1979, when she was the youngest member of the House of Commons and the first woman to breastfeed at Westminster. She became a Life Peer and in 2006 won the initial election for the newly created position of Lord Speaker. Lord McNally, the Liberal Democrat leader in the Lords, called her ‘the Julie Andrews of British politics’. Sir Jack Hayward, OBE - The son of Wolverhampton factory owners, Sir Jack is a millionaire industrialist and philanthropist, benefactor of many charities, Dakota fighter pilot in the Second World War, lover of Colman’s mustard, and saviour of Lundy Island, Brunel’s ship, SS Great Britain, and Wolverhampton Wanderers FC.
Dave Hill - Born in Devon, Dave Hill moved with his parents to Penn when he was a year old. He attended Springdale Junior school and Highfields Secondary school, and after leaving played lead guitar with drummer Don Powell in a band called The Vendors, later changing their name to The N'Betweens. They met bass player Jimmy Lea and singer Noddy Holder, forming the massively successful Slade. Dave became famous for his ‘John Birch Superyob’ guitar, huge platform boots, outrageous costumes and ‘YOB 1’ car numberplate. Slade split up in 1991 but Dave Hill and Don Powell carried the group on as Slade II (now shortened back to Slade). Dave and his wife have embraced the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith and live in Lower Penn, where he occasionally teaches music at Lower Penn School and Penn Hall School. Sir Roland Hill - Born in Kidderminster in 1795, Roland Hill moved with his family to Horsehills Farm in Wolverhampton, located on the corner of Compton Road and Richmond Road. He met his future wife, Caroline Pearson, there at the age of six, married her in St John’s Church in 1827, and lived at Graiseley House, off the Penn Road. Roland and Caroline later moved to London, where he became secretary of the South Australia Commission. His interest in postal reform led to a proposal that letters should be charged by weight, not distance, with the sender paying the postage. This scheme went before Parliament, and from 1840 a letter could be sent to any part of the country for one penny with the famous Penny Black stamp. Roland was given a job in the Treasury to help initiate of the new ‘penny post’ service and eventually he became Secretary to the Post Master General. During this time he introduced money orders, travelling post offices, the Post Office Savings Bank and improved rural services. He was knighted in 1860 and granted the freedom of London, where he died aged 84 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Dave Holland - Born in Wolverhampton in 1946, jazz bassist, composer and bandleader Holland taught himself how to play ukele at the age of four. As a performer he got his big break from Miles Davis, with whom he played during the trumpet legend’s ground-breaking Bitches Brew period. Solo, and in collaboration, Dave has worked with folk and rock musicians such as Bonnie Raitt and John Hartford, and even had a passing encounter with Jimi Hendrix, as well as Stan Getz, Chick Corea, Thelonious Monk and Herbie Hancock. In 2009, he co -founded an all-star group, The Overtone Quartet, and currently lives in upstate New York.
Howard Jacobson - Manchester-born author and journalist Howard Jacobson is best known for his comic novels, and won the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question. At a table-tennis trial in Wolverhampton in the Fifties he failed to make it into the English team and the scar of defeat clearly hadn’t healed when he came back to teach English Literature at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. ‘When I returned to Wolverhampton 20 years later, the streets were still sodden with my disappointment. Wolverhampton didn’t make everyone’s life hell, only mine; the rest of the population, even those only passing through, being of the conviction that there was no pleasanter place on the planet.’ The novelist has said many unflattering things about the city, though he enjoyed the curries at the Taj Mahal on the Willenhall Road and admired John Boulton, then head of English at Poly. He has described himself as ‘an unpleasant snob’ in those days and perhaps he has now seen the error of his ways. Margaret Gray, a student of Jacobson’s at the Poly, has written, ‘I am sure he has a great deal to thank Wolverhampton for. I suggest that his continual criticism of a resourceful and warm-hearted city owes more to his being “at a rubbishy time in my life” than to the shortcomings of his surroundings.’ His experiences in Wolverhampton formed the basis of his first novel, Coming from Behind, a campus comedy about the fictitious Wrottesley Polytechnic’s plans to merge with the local football club. Stuart Jeffries - Born in Wolverhampton, Stuart Jeffries used to edit the Walsall Observer’s children’s page under the pseudonym ‘Uncle Tom’. He started his journalistic career at the Birmingham Post and Mail and now works for the Guardian as a feature writer and columnist. He is also the author of Mrs Slocombe’s Pussy: Growing Up in front of the Telly - a highly entertaining social history described by the Daily Mail as an ‘hilariously Proustian, witty, entertaining and wholly idiosyncratic study’. Stephen Jenyns - Knighted by Henry VIII, wool merchant Sir Stephen Jenyns was born in Wolverhampton around 1448 and founded the Grammar School in 1512. He was a master of the ancient guild of Merchant Taylors and became Lord Mayor of London in 1509, the year of Henry VIII’s coronation. He became one of the wealthiest men in the country, reputedly paying more tax than any other person in the year 1519. Charles Jones - Born the son of a butcher in Wolverhampton in 1866, Charles Harry Jones was a gardener and photographer, famous for his beautiful black and white still lifes of fruit and vegetables. He worked in gardens on private estates in England from the 1890s and photographed the fruits of his labours. These inspired creations were never exhibited in his lifetime, but since a trunk containing 500 of his prints was discovered by a photography scholar at an antiques market in 1981 they have been shown widely across the world. Charles is now recognised as a master of the camera as well as the kitchen garden and a book of his photographs, The Plant Kingdoms of Charles Jones, was published in 1998. Wayne Jones - Darts player Wayne Alan Jones was born in 1965 in Wolverhampton and uses the nickname The Wanderer for his matches. He started his career in the British Darts Organisation in the late 1980s and reached the final of the British Open in 1990, but his greatest achievement was reaching the final of the Winmau World Masters in 1999 when Andy Fordham ended his hopes of a first major title. Wayne made his debut at the PDC version of the World Championship in 2004, producing his best ever performance two years later by reaching the semi-finals. In 2010, he made his first televised final appearance in the European Championships, which guaranteed him a place in the Grand Slam of Darts in his home town of Wolverhampton, where he produced a big upset by beating Scotland’s number one Gary Anderson in a thrilling victory. Mervyn King - Governor of the Bank of England since 2003, Mervyn Allister King studied at Wolverhampton Grammar School and King’s College, Cambridge (gaining a first class degree in economics) then taught at the University of Birmingham, Cambridge and Harvard before becoming a Professor at the London School of Economics. He was one of the 364 economists who in 1981 signed a famous letter to The Times condemning Geoffrey Howe’s budget. Mervyn joined the Bank of England in 1991 and was controversially involved in the collapse of the Northern Rock and the subsequent banking crisis. He was the first Governor of the Bank to be received in audience by Queen Elizabeth II and is a fan of Aston Villa FC. Beverley Knight
- Soul and R&B singer extraordinaire Beverley Knight was born in 1973 in Wolverhampton, where she attended Woodfield Infants and Junior School and Highfields School. She grew up in a strict Margery Lawrence -Writing under the pseudonym Mrs Arthur E Towle, Margery Lawrence was a poet and an author of fantasy, horror
and detective fiction, specialising in ghost stories. Sir Richard Leveson - After serving as a volunteer under Sir Francis Drake on the Ark Royal, Richard Leveson (1570-1605) took part in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. In 1596 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I after taking part in the expedition in which his father-in-law, Lord Howard, attacked and laid siege to Cadiz for two weeks. In 1603, Sir Richard was given the title ‘Vice Admiral of the Fleet’ for life.
David Lloyd George - British Prime Minister David Lloyd George made his ‘Homes fit for heroes’ speech at Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre in 1918. He also announced at The Mount in Tettenhall Wood that he was calling a General Election that year.
Jonathan Pedley - A leading authority on wine, Jonathan Pedley was born in 1962 in Wolverhampton, where he attended the Royal School. After studying at Oxford he took a job with Grants of St James’s, where he became a Master of Wine and helped re-establish the company’s School of Wine. He has since been a consultant to Carlsberg and Waitrose, made TV and video productions with Keith Floyd, and written two books about wine. Hayley Price - Born in 1966, Hayley Price began gymnastics at age 7, coached by Hazel Palmer at the Wolverhampton Gymnastics Club and later by John Reeves at the Redditich & Bromsgrove OLGC. A double British Gymnastics Champion, she represented Great Britain in the World & European Championships and at the Los Angeles Olympics. Now a TV sports commentator and media presenter, Hayley has been inducted into Wolverhampton Sport’s Hall of Fame and is founder of a national sports schools fitness programme. video Anita Lonsbrough - Married to Hugh Porter and now living in Tettenhall, Anita Lonsbrough was the Golden Girl of British swimming in the 1960s. At the 1960 Olympic Games and the Commonwealth Games and European Championships of 1958 and 1962 she won a total of seven gold, three silver and two bronze medals. The highlight of this impressive series of performances was her gold medal in the Olympic 200 metres breaststroke when she set the second of her four individual world records. Four years later she was chosen to carry the British flag at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo games. After retiring in 1964, Anita married Hugh Porter and followed a career in journalism, being currently the swimming correspondent for the Telegraph newspapers. The MacDonald Sisters - Agnes MacDonald was a famous beauty who in 1866 married Sir Edward John Poynter - the eminent painter,
designer, draughtsman and President of the Royal Academy. Agnes was one of four remarkable women who were among Sir Geoffrey Mander - Born in 1882, the elder son of Theodore Mander, Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander was an industrialist, art collector and man of integrity - a pugnacious parliamentarian with a strong patrician sense of public service and philanthropy. He became Liberal Party MP for Wolverhampton East at the 1929 general election, taking a strong stand against Appeasement of fascist dictators (upsetting Mussolini in the process) and crusading on behalf of the League of Nations. After losing his seat in 1945 he joined the Labour party, subsequently serving as a Labour member of the Staffordshire County Council among many other public offices. He was chairman of Mander Brothers (established 1773) and led many progressive initiatives in the field of labour relations and employment welfare - Manders was the first British company to introduce the 40-hour week. Sir Geoffrey, who was knighted in 1945, was also an early conservationist and presented the family house, Wightwick Manor, with its outstanding collections of Victorian art and objects associated with William Morris, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts movement to the National Trust in 1937. This was the first time a house had been presented to the Trust during the lifetime of its donor. His second wife, Rosalie Glynn Grylls, was a noted biographer of writers and artists of the romantic period and an early connoisseur of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Together they were influential in the reassessment of the artists and writers of the Victorian period. Miles Mander - Geoffrey Mander’s younger brother Miles (sometimes credited as Luther Miles) was born Lionel Henry Mander in 1888.
He was a versatile character actor of the early Hollywood cinema as well as a Theodore Mander - Born in 1853, Theodore Mander was a Gladstonian Liberal, philanthropist and strict Congregationalist. Theodore was a man of refined tastes and sympathies, a collection of whose diaries and letters was published in 1993 as A Very Private Heritage. He is remembered today as the builder of Wightwick Manor. As a young man, he was active in public life in the arts and education, as a governor of the Grammar School, of Tettenhall College and of Birmingham University (where he endowed a scholarship), and one of the founding benefactors of Mansfield College, Oxford. He was a successful mayor of Wolverhampton at the turn of the century, was presented to Queen Victoria and entertained the Duke and Duchess of York at Wightwick. Theodore died aged only 47 in 1901, following an operation on his kitchen table. He married Flora Le Mesurier, a Canadian from Nova Scotia who provided Geoffrey with his middle name. Sir Charles Marston - The eldest son of John Marston (founder of both the Sunbeam Cycle and Motor Car Companies), Charles Marston was born in 1867 and joined the family firm in 1890. On a visit to the USA he was impressed by the assembly line production systems he saw there and decided to introduce these at home. The family acquired a small japanning shop and three cottages in Villiers Street, converting them into offices and a factory, and Charles was put in charge. The new machinery and methods proved to be such a success that the company produced more pedals than Sunbeam needed for its high-class Cob so began to sell them to other bicycle makers as well. John Marston sold the factory to Charles in 1902 and Villiers grew into a major manufacturer, developing and patenting the cycle free-wheel, production of which eventually reached its four million a year. Engine production began in 1911 and a range of single and twin two-stroke engines were made for motorcycle and vehicle manufacturers until the 1960s. The two millionth engine, produced in 1956, was presented to the Science Museum in London. Sir Charles became a Justice of Peace, officer in the Order of St John of Jerusalem, fellow of the Society of Antiquarians, and a strong believer in the Holy Bible. He spent a fortune on archaeological expeditions in Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Syria to bolster up Biblical lore, publishing an account of his work as New Bible Evidence. John Marston
- Born in Ludlow to a landowning family, John Marston (1836-1918) was sent at the age 15 to be apprenticed to Richard
Perry, Son & Co, tinsmiths and japanners, at the Jeddo Works of Wolverhampton as a japanner (metal lacquerer). After completing his
apprenticeship he bought Daniel Smith Lester’s japanning business at Bilston and established his own company, John Marston Ltd, producing
tin goods. He did so well that when Perry died in 1871 Marston took over the company and merged it with his own. The company began
making bicycles under the trademark Sunbeam, a name suggested by his wife, and the factory was Scott Matthews - Born in Wolverhampton in 1976, Scott attended Highfields School (Beverley Knight is also an ex-pupil) and started
playing guitar when he was seven, going electric aged eleven. After leaving Highfields he Mil Millington - The Guardian named Wolverhampton author Mil as one of the five best debut novelists in 2002. The son of a storeman at
the Lucas factory in Wolverhampton, Mil left Ward's Bridge Comprehensive John Molyneux - The founder of the Molineux family fortune sold Black Country hardware in Dublin before setting up as an ironmaster in Horseley Fields. In 1744 John bought land and a house on Tup (now North) Street and gave the house a new facade. His youngest son, Benjamin Molyneux (later known as Molineux), inherited the mansion, which at that time had impressive views over Staffordshire countryside , and added substantial wings. Like his father, Benjamin made money exporting ironware to Dublin. He also imported Caribbean rum, invested in canals, made astute loans and became one of the most respected businessmen in town. Benjamin’s son, George, was a town commissioner and became the first Wolverhampton man to be appointed high sheriff of Staffordshire. The family sold the house in about 1860 and the new owner created a public pleasure park on the grounds. The house later became a hotel and the park was leased to Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. The hotel closed in 1979 and after years of neglect the beautifully restored building now houses the City of Wolverhampton Archives. Caitlin Moran - Broadcaster, television critic and columnist at The Times, Caitlin attended a Methodist primary school in Wolverhampton and after three weeks at Wolverhampton High School for Girls was then educated at home from the age of 11. At the age of 15 in 1990, she won The Observer’s Young Reporter of the Year, began her career as a journalist for Melody Maker at the age of 16, and in 1992 hosting the Channel 4 TV music show, Naked City. Her novel, The Chronicles of Narmo, written when she was 14, is about being born into a family of eight home-educated children in Wolverhampton. The ever witty Caitlin was named BPA Columnist of the Year for 2010 Jimmy Mullen - Newcastle born Jimmy was one of the most talented and popular players ever to grace Wolverhampton Wanderers. In a career which lasted for twenty years (1938-1959) he made a total of 486 appearances and scored 112 goals. He also played 12 times for England. After being granted a testimonial by Wolves, which he shared with Billy Wright in 1962, Jimmy opened a sports shop in the town and ran that until he retired in 1987. Sadly, Jimmy died the following year, leaving the town, and football in general, mourning the man known as Gentleman Jim - a title which applied both on and off the pitch. Alfred Noyes
- Born in Wolverhampton in 1880, the poet and novelist Alfred Noyes was the son of Alfred and Amelia Adams Noyes. When he was four, the family moved to Aberystwyth, where his father taught Latin and Sean O’Connor - Wolverhampton born Sean O’Connor started his career at non-league club Hednesford Town, moving to Dundee United in 2000. After a short spell in Ireland playing for Portadown, Sean returned to Scotland to play for Morton and Queen of the South, scoring the third Queens goal in the 2008 semi final victory over Aberdeen that took Queens to the first Scottish Cup Final in their 89-year history. Sean O’Driscoll - Highly regarded Wolverhampton-born Doncaster manager Sean O’Driscoll played football for Fulham, Bournemouth and Ireland. He retired after appearing in a then club-record 423 league games for Bournemouth, where he began his managing career. Known for being a quiet, private man, he earned the ironic nickname ‘Noisy’ during his time at Fulham.
Suzanne Paul - After growing up in the Whitmore Reans area, Suzanne Paul (born Susan Barnes) worked as a sales demonstrator for
almost two decades before moving to New Zealand in 1991, arriving with just $15 in her pocket and a lot of determination. She Brian Pendleton -Born in Heath Town, was a multi-talented musician and the original rhythm guitarist with sixties R&B legends, The Pretty Things. He knew the Beatles and Bob Dylan and appeared in the documentary, Don't Look Back, in the scene when Donovan plays for Dylan. David Bowie was a big fan of the Pretties and asked Brian Pendleton to join his band. Dora Penny - Daughter of the Rector of Wolverhampton and a good friend of Edward Elgar and his family. She became immortalised as ‘Dorabella’ in the tenth of his Enigma Variations. Dora’s autobiography ‘Memories of a Variation’ was written under her married name of Mrs Richard Powell. Suzi Perry - Television presenter Suzi Perry was born in an RAF hospital in Shropshire and raised in Robert Plant
- Charismatic singer Robert Plant was born in West Bromwich, grew up in Halesowen and went to King Edward VI Grammar School for Boys in Stourbridge. He wisely abandoned training as a Hugh Porter - Born and raised in Wolverhampton and educated at St Peter’s Collegiate School Hugh Porter is one of Britain’s greatest former professional cyclists, winning four world titles in the individual pursuit as well as a Commonwealth Games gold medal in 1966. His father, Joe, was also a cyclist. Hugh has been married to Anita Lonsbrough since 1965 and is now a TV commentator on cycling, mainly for BBC Sport, as well as being a commentator at the Winter Olympics and major swimming events. Hugh was made an MBE in 1973 for services to cycle racing and was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame in 2009, in which year he was made Freeman of the City of Wolverhampton and had a road named after him in Aldersley. Lisa Potts - Former nursery teacher Lisa Potts saved many of her school children’s lives from a machete attack by a man with severe paranoid schizophrenia. During the attack in 1996 at St Luke’s Primary School in Blakenhall, Lisa’s arm was almost severed and four children were injured. She was 21 years old at the time and suffered severe cuts to her head, back as well as both arms. In 1997, Queen Elizabeth II presented her with the George Medal for saving the children’s lives despite her being injured. Her attacker was sent to a secure mental hospital indefinitely. Lisa, who suffered severe scarring, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder subsequently worked as a counsellor and started a charity, Believe To Achieve. Based in Wolverhampton schools, this aims to encourage independence and enhance self-esteem in children. Lisa published her story as an autobiography titled Behind the Smile, with a foreword written by Cherie Blair. Enoch Powell - Born in Birmingham in 1912, John Enoch Powell was Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West from 1950 to 1974
. The Powells were of Welsh descent, having moved to the Black Country during the early 19th century. His great-grandfather was a coal
miner, and his grandfather had been employed in the iron trade. A mesmerising orator, Enoch Powell was
Oscar Rejlander - Born in Sweden around 1813, Oscar Gustave Rejlander set himself up as a portraitist at number 42 Darlington Street in
Wolverhampton in the 1840s, then changed his business to that of a photography studio. As well as portraits, he created Pauline Richards - Born in 1968 in Wolverhampton, Pauline Richards competed in many national and international athletic meetings, including the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur and the European Championships, specialising in the 400 metres and heptathlon. Her strength of personality and the body to match led to the 6ft athlete being selected in 1997 as one of the entertainers on the long-running ITV series Gladiators, where she became better known as Rocket. She also appeared in Gladiator, the epic film by Ridley Scott. Pauline currently works in London as a personal trainer and was a fitness adviser for Leonardo Di-Caprio on the set of Inception. Carina Round - Born in 1979 in Low Hill, singer/songwriter Carina Round grew up listening to the turntable given to her for her fifth Kevin Rowland - Singer-songwriter and frontman for Dexys Midnight Runners, Kevin Rowland was born to Irish parents in Wednesfield in 1953 and spent much of his early life in Blakenhall. His first group, Lucy & The Lovers, was short-lived but he went on to form The Killjoys and later a new soul-influenced band, Dexys Midnight Runners. Many of his songs, such as Come On Eileen, were inspired by Kevin's Irish ancestry and are immediately recognisable through his idiosyncratic vocal style. When Dexys disbanded in 1987, Kevin recorded a solo album, The Wanderer, and a collection of classic songs called My Beauty. In 2003, he reformed Dexys Midnight Runners, featuring only one other original member, and embarked on a successful comeback tour backed up with a greatest hits album. Tessa Sanderson - Heptathlete and javelin thrower Theresa (‘Tessa’) Ione Sanderson was born in 1956 in Slade
- The band started out as the N’Betweens in the 1960s and rose to prominence a decade later with 17 consecutive Top 20 hits and six number one singles. All of their chart-toppers were written by singer Noddy Holder and bass guitarist Jim Lea, who like Nigel Slater
- Food writer, journalist and broadcaster Nigel Slater was born in 1958 in Wolverhampton, where his father co-owned the
Universal Engineering factory. Nigel grew up in a large mock tudor house in Sandringham Road and attended Woodfield Avenue Vikram Solanki - Born in India in 1976, Vikram Solanki moved to Wolverhampton with his family at the age of eight. He played junior and senior cricket for Wolverhampton cricket club where he was a childhood prodigy under coach Arthur Pickering, often starring as a wicket -keeper, bowler and batsman. He made his first-class debut for Worcestershire in 1995 and the following year was awarded the NBC Denis Compton Award. Possessed with the priceless gift of timing and placement, Vik proved to be a player of supreme elegance and grace. In 2007 he passed 10,000 career runs for Worcestershire, where he was captain from 2005 until he resigned in 2010. He has also played over 50 One Day Internationals for England as a batsman and occasional off-spinner and wicket-keeper. Mark Speight - Born in Seisdon in 1965, Mark Speight grew up in Tettenhall, attending Tettenhall College and Regis School before leaving aged 16 to become a cartoonist. He took a degree in commercial and graphic art at Bilston Art School and successfully auditioned to be the presenter for a new children's art programme, SMart, working on the show for 14 years. He also presented many other programmes, including History Busters, This Morning, The Big Breakfast, and See It Saw It, where he met his future fiancée Natasha Collins. He took part in his own road shows and live events such as Rolf on Art, and became president of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign’s Young Pavement Artists Competition. In 2008, he found the body of Natasha in the bath of their London flat and was arrested on suspicion of her murder, but not charged with any offence. A few months later, Mark was reported missing and committed suicide by hanging near Paddington Station. Two notes were discovered a few days later, describing how he could no longer live without Natasha. His funeral was held at St Michael and All Angels Church in Tettenhall, where hundreds paid their respects and the service included a performance by the choir from Tettenhall College. Emma Lloyd Sproson - One of the key players in the suffragette and women’s rights movement in Wolverhampton was Emma Lloyd Sproson, also known as Red Emma. Born in West Bromwich in 1867, she was one of seven children of a canal boat builder and the family moved to Daisy Bank, Bilston in 1875. Emma went out to work as a home help at the age of nine and later was a Sunday school teacher in Lancashire. Emma developed an interest in socialism and feminism, and in 1895 she returned to Wolverhampton and joined the Independent Labour Party, marrying the local party secretary, Frank Sproson. When Frank invited Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst to speak in Wolverhampton they stayed with the Sprosons in Hordern Road. Emma took part in a march to London’s Parliament Square in 1907 when more than 700 suffragettes attempted to force entry into the Houses of Parliament. Mounted police were called out to deal with the riot and Emma was arrested, serving fourteen days in Holloway Prison. Emma and another Wolverhampton suffragette, Elizabeth Price, were arrested again in a further protest at the House of Commons soon after her release. As Wolverhampton’s first female councillor, Emma became involved with many committees dealing with child welfare, maternity rights and care of the distressed. Percy Stallard - Born at his father’s bicycle shop in Broad Street, Percy Thornley Stallard (1909-2001) became a member of the
Wolverhampton Wheelers Cycling Club and competed for Great Britain in international races during the 1930s, including three Józef Stawinoga - A homeless Polish man, Józef Stawinoga, lived in a tent on Wolverhampton’s Ring Road for nearly 40 years. The reclusive Józef is thought to have been involved in the Soviet invasion of Poland before emigrating in the 1940s, when he was de-mobilized in Wrottesley Park Barracks. After the war he lived in Wolverhampton and married a woman called Hermine Weiss, thought to be Austrian. He worked at the Stewarts & Lloyds steelworks in Bilston for a time but one day failed to turn up for work and opted out of society for no known reason. By the 1970s he had become homeless and moved into a tent on the central reservation of the Ring Road, refusing all offers of alternative accommodation. A series of replacement tents was erected by the authorities over his original plastic sheeting and the council tolerated his presence, as he was claustrophobic. Józef soon became a local character, sometimes called Fred, Trampee or Shakespeare, and a group devoted to him on Facebook had over 6,000 members. He was considered a holy man by the Hindu and Sikh communities as he had shunned all worldly possessions and lived a truly enlightened life. Józef died from pneumonia in 2007, aged 86, and the following year £34,000 worth of untouched pension money was discovered and claimed by his heirs in Vienna. Fans set up a fund to raise money for a statue or plaque to be erected in his memory.
Meera Syal - Born Feroza Syal in Wolverhampton in 1961, of Punjabi parents, Meera Syal grew up in Essington
before moving to Bloxwich. The award-winning comedian, actress, writer, producer and singer became a major success following her roles in
the comedy sketch show Goodness Gracious Me and is married to Sanjeev Bhaskar, who plays her grandson in The Kumars at No 42. James W Tate - Born the son of a publican in Wolverhampton in 1875, James William Tate was a songwriter, accompanist, composer and producer of revues and pantomimes in the early years of the 20th century. He was the eldest brother of Margaret Tate, who later became Dame Maggie Teyte, and is best remembered for two songs: A Bachelor Gay (in the old sense of the word!) and Paradise for Two, featured in the record-breaking show, The Maid of the Mountains. He also wrote musicals and revues of his own (Round in Fifty, The Beauty Sport and The Peep Show) and songs such as A Broken Doll and Ev’ry Little While, both recorded by Al Jolson. Jimmy Tate was the third husband of Lottie Collins, the famous singer of ‘Ta-ra-ra-boom-di-ay. Jack Taylor - Football referee John ‘Jack’ Taylor officiated at the 1974 FIFA World Cup Final, where he awarded two penalties. The first, after just a minute of play, created World Cup history as the first penalty kick ever awarded in a World Cup final. Born in 1930, Jack grew up above the butcher’s shop next to Molineux and played for Wolverhampton Town as a schoolboy. He served as a referee for 33 years, taking charge of more than 1,000 games, including over 100 international fixtures in 60 countries. He first refereed at the World Cup in 1970 and also took charge of several major competition finals, including those for the 1966 FA Cup and 1971 European Cup. After closing his butchers’ shop he spent two seasons refereeing in Brazil before returning to England to become Commercial Director at Wolverhampton Wanderers. He later became a refereeing coach in South Africa and Saudi Arabia, and was inducted into the FIFA Hall of Fame in 1999. Jack’s favourite anecdote referred to the time he was hit by a flying penny from the crowd as he left the pitch after a match at Kenilworth Road. It cut his face so he had to have six stitches. Eric Morecambe went to see him to ask if he was all right and to make sure he wasn’t going to report Luton. When Jack confirmed that he wasn’t, Eric said, ‘Good, now can I have my penny back?’. Dame Maggie Teyte - One of the greatest operatic sopranos of the twentieth century, with a career that lasted almost sixty years. was
born in Wolverhampton in 1888. She was one of ten children of Maria and Jacob James Tate, a wine and spirit merchant who ran several
public houses, including the Chequer Ball in North Street and the Old Still in King Street. The family first lived in Compton Road before
moving to Dunstall House, in the grounds of Dunstall Hall in the town’s northern suburbs. Maggie’s parents were keen amateur Herbert Turnbull - Born in Tettenhall in 1885, Herbert Westren Turnbull was one of seven children of William Peveril Turnbull, HM Inspector of Schools for Wolverhampton. He graduated from Cambridge and after working as a teacher and Schools Inspector he was appointed Regius Professor of Mathematics at St Andrews in 1921, a post he held for nearly 30 years. He was interested in Invariant Theory and the History of Mathematics and wrote a book called The Great Mathematicians. Dennis Turner - Born in Bradley, where he has lived most of life, Dennis Turner worked as a market trader and steelworker, became a strong trade unionist, and was one of the youngest-ever members of Wolverhampton Council from 1966, rising through the ranks to become deputy leader for seven years. Dennis was elected member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South East at the 1987 general election, serving as an opposition whip then as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Clare Short. He campaigned on issues of Fairtrade and further education, chaired the Co-op Parliamentary Group and the West Midlands group of Labour MPs, and introduced a private member’s bill seeking to make clear in law the correct amount of froth at the top of a pint of beer. Dennis stepped down as an MP in 2005 and was created a life peer, becoming Baron Bilston, of Bilston in the County of West Midlands. Evelyn Underhill - The Anglo-Catholic poet, novelist, pacifist and guide to spiritual life, Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) wrote many books
about religion and spiritual matters, in particular Christian mysticism. She was one of the most widely read writers on such things in the first
half of the twentieth century, her best-known work being Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual
Consciousness, published in 1911. Born in Wolverhampton, Evelyn was an only child who described her early Sir Charles Pelham Villiers - The longest-ever serving member of parliament was Charles Pelham Villiers, who first sat as Liberal MP for Wolverhampton on 19 February, 1835. In 1847 he was also returned for Lancashire South as an honour conferred by people there in gratitude for his good work with the repeal of the Corn Laws, but elected to sit for his former constituency. He was offered a peerage but declined. Sir Charles’s constituency was divided in 1885 and he was then elected for Wolverhampton South, becoming Father of the House from 1890 until his death in 1898. He died unmarried, aged 96, and a statue of him stands in West Park, where the bandstand was named after him. Other long standing parliamentary representatives of the town include Henry Fowler and Enoch Powell.. George Wallis - Artist, museum curator and art educator, George Wallis FSA, was born in Wolverhampton in 1811. His father died early,
and George was adopted by his grand-uncle, John Worralow, who was a famous maker of steel-jewellery at the time of George III. George
Wallis was educated at the Grammar School and received initial artistic training in japanned ware painting. He practised as an artist and art
educator in Wolverhampton from but in 1832 he left for Manchester where he lived Sir Charles Wheeler - Sculptor Sir Charles Thomas Wheeler KCVO RA (1892-1974) was the son of a journalist. Born at The Cottage,
Church Road, Codsall, he was raised in Wolverhampton, attending St Luke’s Church School and the Wolverhampton Jonathan Wild - The self-syled Chief Thieftaker General of Great Britain and Ireland was born in 1683 and baptised at St Peter’s. In 1709 he moved from Wolverhampton to London, becoming a notorious thief and informer. He was executed at Tyburn in 1725. John Wilkinson - ‘Iron Mad’ John Wilkinson was one of the great figures of the early Industrial Revolution, pioneering the use and manufacture of cast iron and cast iron goods. was a friend of James Watt and helped in his experiments to develop the steam engine. Born in Cumberland, John moved to Broseley in Shropshire in about 1753. He married Ann Madsley and moved to Bradley, Bilston, in 1766, purchasing land on which to build his ‘Mother Furnace’ - the first ever steam-powered blast furnace - in an area with an abundance of coal, limestone and iron ore. Bradley became his largest and most successful enterprise and was the site of extensive experiments in getting raw coal to substitute for coke in the production of cast iron. At its peak, it included several blast furnaces, a brick works, potteries, glass works and rolling mills, and ‘Iron Mad’ John became immensely rich. When he died in 1808 he was buried in an iron coffin, placed in a cast iron tomb which he had designed and built himself. Bert Williams - Widely recognised as one of Wolves’ greatest goalkeepers, Bert Frederick Williams was born in Bradley, Bilston, in 1922. After leaving school he played for the works side, Thompson’s, while working in a factory in Great Bridge. His goalkeeping talents were spotted by the Walsall manager, Andy Wilson, and Bert joined the Saddlers, making the first team at just 16 years old. During the Second World War he served in the RAF as a PT instructor and afterwards signed for Wolves, making his debut on the same day in 1946 as his former Walsall team mate, Johnny Hancocks. Nicknamed The Cat, Bert spent the rest of his playing career at Wolves, where he won the 1953–54 League Championship and 1949 FA Cup. By the time of his retirement in 1957 he had made 420 appearances for his club and played in 24 games for England. He later ran a sports shop in Bilston as well as a sporting academy specialising in goalkeeping skills. Bert now lives near Shifnal, and in 2007 he released The Cat in Wolf’s Clothing, a book of pictorial memories complied from his vast memorabilia collected over the years. He is English football’s oldest living player to have played in a World Cup and has received an MBE for his services to football and charity. Wolves
- Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, better known as ‘Wolves’, was founded in 1877 as St Luke’s after a group of pupils
at St Luke’s school in Blakenhall had been presented with a football by their headmaster, Harry Barcroft. Two years later, they merged with
cricket and football club, The Wanderers, to form Wolverhampton Wanderers and became one of the twelve William Wood - Hardware manufacturer and mintmaster William Wood (1671–1730) was born in Shrewsbury. He married Margaret
Molineaux in 1690, the daughter of a Willenhall ironmonger, Richard Molineaux, and lived at The Deanery, a large house in Wolverhampton
where they raised their 14 children. William entered into a prosperous partnership as a manufacturing ironmonger in Wolverhampton with his
father-in-law, Richard Molyneux. In 1715, he applied for the receiver-generalship of the land tax for the county of Shropshire, and formed a
large partnership for the production and marketing of iron and steel in the Midlands and London. Billy Wright
- Football maestro William Ambrose ‘Billy’ Wright, CBE, was born in Ironbridge, Shropshire, and spent his whole career at
Wolverhampton Wanderers. The first player in the world to earn 100 international caps, Billy also holds the record for longest unbroken run
in competitive international football and captained England a record number of times, including campaigns at David Wright - Formerly Her Majesty’s representative in the Land of the Rising Sun, Sir David Wright was born in 1944 and grew up in Penn Fields, Wolverhampton. As a teenager he worked in the school holidays at his parents’ carpet shop (F Wright and Son) located in the Central Arcade, now demolished to make way for the Mander Centre. David studied at Wolverhampton Grammar School and Cambridge before joining the Foreign Office where he served as Ambassador to Korea and as Deputy Under Secretary of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before being appointed Britain’s Ambassador to Japan (1996-99). ‘When I began my career, there were people who said an ordinary lad from Wolverhampton could never make it. But that was nonsense.’ He was made a LVO in 1990, CMG in 1992 and promoted to KCMG in 1996. He later became a GCMG. After retiring from the Diplomatic Service, Sir David joined Barclays Capital, and remains an avid Wolves supporter. Percy M Young - Music scholar, editor, organist, composer, conductor and teacher Percy Marshall Young (1912-2004) was born in Cheshire and became Director of Music at Wolverhampton College of Technology from 1944 to 1966. One of the musical world’s most venerable elder statesmen, he published more than 50 books in a 70 year career, including acclaimed biographies of Händel, Vaughan Williams and Sir Edward Elgar. Percy was equally prolific as a composer, writing choral motets, solo songs and chamber music, as well as concertos and a wonderful Elegy For String Orchestra. He fulfilled a long-held ambition in 1994 by attending a stage performance of his newly-completed edition of Elgar’s embryonic opera, The Spanish Lady, left uncompleted at the time of the composer’s death. In the service of his beloved Midland community Percy was a Labour member of Wolverhampton council (he loved a good discussion or argument), a school governor and a delegate on several statutory health bodies. For his contributions to music, he received several honours, including a Handel Prize in 1961 and an honorary fellowship in 1998 from Selwyn College, Cambridge. He was also a long-standing supporter of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC and wrote several histories of league clubs, including Wolverhampton Wanderers, Centenary Wolves 1877 -1977. ‘Modest, committed, dynamic and diverse in equal measure, Percy Young enjoyed a worldwide reputation second to none. Yet while his supreme gifts gave his music an unforgettable quality, above all, it was his deep humility and natural goodness that shone through, to bring such added distinction to a rich and fulfilling life.' - The Independent.
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1971 in Dudley and later
educated at Wolverhampton’s Pendeford High School, where he developed a passion for music. He formed his first
band at the age of 15 with friend Adam Toussaint called The Glove Puppets. He joined The Sandkings, another local
band with a strong following, in 1988 then left the because of creative differences to start his next project, the
industrial/electro-pop rock band Babylon Zoo. In 1996 Levi’s used ‘Spaceman’, their first single, in a TV advert and it
became the fastest-selling single in UK history, selling over 400,000 copies in one week. The record went to Number
One in the UK charts (where it stayed for five weeks) as well as in 22 other countries and Jas pronounced himself a
genius who would effortlessly rewrite the future of music. An album, The Boy With the X-Ray Eyes, recorded in his
Wolverhampton studio, was followed three years later by the less successful King Kong Groover. In 2005, Jas
announced that he would be issuing the new Babylon Zoo album, Cold Clockwork Doll, although this has yet to be appear.
Ruth Badger
year he received from the Royal Society of Arts
a Silver Palette for a drawing of flowers. He studied with Italian decorative painter Antonio Zucchi and was much
influenced by the work of Angelica Kauffmann. During his lifetime Joseph exhibited more than hundred artworks at
the Royal Academy and the British Institution, their subjects ranging from fruit and flower pieces to religious,
historic, literature and genre paintings, and a Gold Palette was awarded to him in 1781 for his historical drawings. He returned to Wolverhampton in about 1779 and married Jane Whiston Chambers at St John’s chapel,
Wolverhampton. To support a large growing family, he started to collaborate with Matthew Boulton and his Soho
manufactory, producing so-called mechanical paintings. His duties were to touch and finish in paint images of original figurative paintings which were mechanically reproduced on paper or canvas. Joseph’s mechanical
paintings were bought by, among others, Matthew Boulton and Josiah Wedgwood. In 1784, Joseph paintied his
second altar piece, ‘The Apparition of Our Lord to St Thomas’ for St Peter & St Paul’s Roman Catholic church.
Between 1786 and 1793, he worked in London and took the post of the Second Drawing Master for Figures at
the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, where he remained until 1820 and became a Fruit and Flower Painter to Queen Victoria. Two of his
early altar pieces, ‘The Deposition from the Cross’ and ‘The Apparition of Our Lord to St Thomas’, survive in Wolverhampton at St John’s
Church and at St Peter & St Paul’s Roman Catholic church. Greatly respected by his contemporaries, Joseph Barney was described by
Stebbing Shaw in his ‘History of Staffordshire’ as a ‘native genius of Wolverhampton’. His fine pen and ink drawing of ‘A Blind Musician’ is in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery collection.
Holmes play called The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner. Evidence has recently emerged suggesting that the comic genius may have
been born into a gypsy family in the Black Country, rather than in London. A letter written to him by Jack Hill from
Tamworth in the 1970s claims that he was born on the Romany ‘Black Patch’ in Smethwick in a caravan belonging to the
‘Gypsy Queen’. Charlie Chaplin’s birth certificate has never been found and his mother, who was descended from a
travelling family, had the maiden name Hill. The letter was discovered in the locked drawer of a bureau inherited by the
great man’s daughter, Victoria. The Grand Theatre, designed by eminent theatre architect Charles J Phipps, opened in
1894 and although it wasn’t the town’s first theatre it outlived all its rivals, including The Star Theatre in Bilston Street, The Empire Palace and The Hippodrome. Winston Churchill and 
and opened a factory in Temple Street. In 1836 they moved to St James’ Square, followed two years later by a moved to
premises on the corner of Horseley Fields and Mill Street, where they remained for over forty years. This was the site of an old Workhouse founded by Mrs Ann Gough in 1714. When the lease of the factory expired in
1882, the works were closed and moved to London, returning to Wolverhampton in 1898 on the completion of a new factory in Railway Street. This could accommodate 350 locksmiths and the same number of safe
makers. The Chubb lock supposedly became popular as a result of the interest generated when the Prince Regent accidentally sat on one which still had the key inserted. There have been significant advances in the
arrangement of the Chubb lock over the years but the basic principle of its construction has remained
unchanged, with more than two and a half million made in the first century of Chubb’s existence. In 1835 a patent was taken out for a burglar
-resistant safe and by the 1840s Chubb had become a household word, even appearing in playbills and popular verses of the time. The
factory in Fryer Street now houses the Lighthouse Media Centre, with Chubb's lock manufacturing gone the way of Sunbeam cars and Goodyear tyres.
Wolverhampton in
1914 to join the Sunbeam Car Company, where during World War I he designed aircraft engines. In addition to quality
limousine, saloon and touring cars, Louis designed and built racing cars for Henry Segrave, who won the French and
Spanish GPs in 1923/4 (first British car ever to win a Grand Prix). A Sunbeam built for K L Guinness established a new
land speed record at Brooklands, and in Malcolm Campbell’s hands the same car (painted blue and renamed Blue Bird)
achieved 150.766 mph. In 1926 Segrave captured the LSR in a new 4 litre V12 Sunbeam racer originally named
Ladybird and later renamed Tiger. Louis then built the gigantic Sunbeam 1000HP powered by two 450 hp engines and
on 29 March 1927 this car captured the land speed record at 203.792 mph. The car can now be seen at the National
Motor Museum at Beaulieu. During World War II Louis lived in France although he had earlier taken out British
citizenship and continued living there until his death. He married four times, including in 1910 his marriage to Olive Bath, daughter of a Sunbeam director.
club captain, and Wolves
were runners-up in the league in 1938 and 1939, when they also narrowly failed to win The Double. The Second World
War took many of the best years of Stan’s playing career so he won only 12 full caps (once as captain) for England,
although he also played in 20 wartime internationals (10 as captain). When England played Germany in Berlin in 1938, he
refused to join the rest of his team mates in performing a Nazi salute prior to the match. As the only player to refuse, he
was dropped from the team. Like Billy Wright, he served during the war as a PT instructor in both Britain and Italy, and
managed 34 wartime appearances for Wolves. He played one more season after the war then retired as a result of injury and was appointed
assistant to manager Ted Vizard. In 1948, he started his career as manager during the most successful era in the club's history, winning three
league titles (as well as being runners-up three times) and two FA Cups. In his first season, he became the youngest manager to win the FA
Cup at Wembley as Wolves beat Leicester City for their first major trophy since 1908. The 1960s saw Wolves begin to struggle though, and
Stan was surprisingly sacked in 1964. After working as a sales representative, he returned to the game as manager of Birmingham City but
could not reproduce the success he enjoyed at Wolves. He retired from football in 1970 and took up a post with a travel agency in Malvern,
his adopted home town. The manager of the ‘champions of the world’ died in 2001 at the age of 84.
Wolverhampton Wanderers as an amateur, before turning professional at the end of 1950. Initially placed at right-half,
then inside forward, Stan Cullis moved him to the wing, where he excelled alongside the likes of Billy Wright, Jimmy
Mullen and Johnny Hancocks. Norman made 237 appearances altogether for Wolves and featured in the side’s back-to
-back championship wins of 1958 and 1959, as well as scoring twice as ‘man of the match’ in the 1960 FA Cup final
victory over Blackburn Rovers. A very popular character at the club, where his skill, determination and bravery more
than made up for physical diminutive stature. Norman sttod at 5ft 4in and was the smallest footballer ever to appear for
England at schoolboy level, being only 4ft 4in when he turned out as an international in 1947. He also earned two full
England caps, against Brazil and Peru, but his international career suffered when Wolves foolishly transferred him to
Leyton Orient, where he helped the tean win promotion to the First Division. After retiring in 1974 Norman worked at a
community centre in Walsall and was a steward for Walsall FC. He died in 2007 at home in Wednesbury, where playing fields have been named after him in tribute.
Sir Henry Fowler
Gilbert Harding
Noddy Holder
Pentecostal household and began singing in church, which
she continued to do so throughout her childhood. Secular music was frowned upon at home but artists such as Sam
Cooke and Aretha Franklin were a big influence. She began writing her own songs and by the age of seventeen was
performing them on stage in her hometown clubs. Record contracts soon followed and her debut album was released in
1995. Five more best-selling studio albums followed and Beverley has been acclaimed as one of Britain’s greatest soul
singers, best known for hit singles Greatest Day, Get Up!, Shoulda Woulda Coulda and Come As You Are. After
releasing a platinum-selling compilation album, The Best of Beverley, in 2006, she toured the UK with a reformed Take
That and has hosted several series of the Radio 2 show Beverley’s Gospel Nights, which explores the origins and impact of gospel music. As
well as being an ambassador for charities such as Christian Aid she is a vocal campaigner against homophobic lyrics in urban music. Beverley
was made an MBE in 2007 and has received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Wolverhampton ‘in recognition of her
outstanding contribution to music and the local community, and for her extensive charity work’. The excellent 100% is one of the Queen of British Soul’s finest albums to date.
She was born Margery Harriet Lawrence in 1889 and her father, a solicitor named Richard
J. Lawrence, published her early poetry in Songs of Childhood, and Other Verses. Her earliest collections, the Round Table sequence, include Nights of the Round Table (1926) and The Terraces of
Night (1932). One of her poems, Arabian Serenade, was set to music by 
Barbara Lord
the seven
daughters and 11 children of Reverend George Browne MacDonald, minister of the Methodist Chapel on Waterloo
Road from 1862-65. Agnes’s sister Georgiana married an even more famous artist, the pre-Raphaelite painter Edward
Burne-Jones. Another sister, Alice, married John Lockwood Kipling and was the mother of the poet and author Rudyard
Kipling. A Viceroy of India once said, ‘Dullness and Mrs Kipling cannot exist in the same room.’ The fourth sister,
Louisa, married industrialist Alfred Baldwin and was the mother of prime minister Stanley Baldwin. Louisa also wrote
novels, short stories and poetry, sometimes credited as ‘Mrs Alfred Baldwin’. Three of the sisters married when the
family was living in Wolverhampton, though two of them met their husbands in London when their father was a minister
there. They became part of the artistic circle of the Victorian era partly because of the school-boy friendship between
Edward Burne-Jones and their brother Harry. He introduced his younger sisters to his artistic friends, who became
known as the ‘Birmingham set’. Judith Flanders’ excellent book, A Circle of Sisters, tells the fascinating story of Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin.
film director and producer, a film exhibitor, a playwright and a
novelist. A captain in the Royal Army Service Corps in World War I, he spent his twenties in New Zealand farming
sheep. He achieved acting success as Sir Hugh Boycott in The First Born (1928) which he directed and starred in, and
which was based on his own novel and play. He is best remembered for his portrayals of oily villains, many of them
English gentlemen or upper-crust cads - such as Cardinal Richelieu in the spoof musical The Three Musketeers (1939).
In his Hollywood debut, he had portrayed King Louis XIII in the rather more serious 1935 version of that same
Alexandre Dumas classic. Other credits included The Private Life of Henry VIII, Sherlock Holmes And The Scarlet
Claw, Farewell My Lovely, To Be Or Not To Be, Mrs Miniver, and the classic Olivier famous 1939 film of Wuthering Heights, in which he
played Mr Lockwood. Miles’s first wife was an Indian princess, Prativa Devi, the daughter of a Maharajah, and his brother Alan married her sister.
renamed Sunbeamland. John based his production on high build quality, producing the best cycles on the market. The top model, the ‘Golden’, had real gold-leaf
pin-striping. This and other models continued to be made at ‘Sunbeamland’, Pool Street, Wolverhampton until 1937 and
subsequently by AMC and BSA until 1957. The first production car named as a Sunbeam was introduced in 1901, with
limited success, before the company started production of a Thomas Pullinger designed car. In 1905, a separate 
continued to practise guitar and played in bands in
and around the city, worked in a warehouse, and completed a graphic design course at Stourbridge Art College. From
there he went on to perform music for Zip Theatre in Wolverhampton, put on music workshops in schools and began to
concentrate on writing his own songs. Often compared to Jeff Buckley, Scott has been influenced by folk and blues as
well as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. His acclaimed first album, Passing Stranger, reached the number one spot on BBC 6 Music’s chart in 2006 and his ground-breaking single, Elusive, won
an Ivor Novello Award for ‘Best Song Musically and Lyrically’ (beating the Arctic Monkeys). Sell-out tours followed,
including shows alongside the Foo Fighters, Bert Jansch and Rufus Wainwright, as well as a supporting spot on the
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Raising Sand tour. With his backing band and producer Gavin Monaghan he made his second album, Elsewhere, and recorded his third, What The Night Delivers, in his own garden shed studio with Jon Cotton, who also produced Passing
Strangers. video
School in Wednesfield, played in a group called Total Stranger
and worked for McAlpine and Goodyear’s before gaining a history degree at the then Wolverhampton Polytechnic,
where he met his German girlfriend Margret. He first came to prominence as a writer by creating a cult website, Things
My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, which featured anecdotes about arguments and misunderstandings between Mil
and Margret, now mother of his two sons. The site was hosted on the servers of Wolverhampton University, where he
was a humble IT manager, but was removed when it was pointed out that some people might fail to spot the intended
humour. Such was the site’s popularity that Mil was offered a publishing deal and wrote a novel using the same title but
with new material. He has since gone on to write A Certain Chemistry, Love And Other Near death Experiences, and
Instructions For Living Someone Else’s Life, as well as scripts for the BBC radio series, The Adventures of Sexton Blake. He is co-creator of anther cult website 
Greek, and the Welsh coast and mountains were an early inspiration to the poet. Between 1903 and 1908, he published five volumes of poetry and among his best-known poems from this time are 
went on to
build the country’s most successful direct marketing company, which she sold five years later for $39 million dollars. She
then became one of the country’s most popular television personalities. In 2005, because of delays in opening her Maori
Culture venture, Suzanne lost everything and was declared bankrupt. Instead of giving up, she won an early discharge
from bankruptcy, which gave her the Metro Magazine title of ‘Woman with the most integrity’, and relaunched herself
through her trademark styled infomercials. In 2007 (aged 50) Suzanne won and became the oldest champion of TVNZ’s
Dancing With The Stars (New Zealand’s version of Strictly Come Dancing) despite dancing with a broken rib. The
indefatigable Suzanne has also published a best-selling memoir, But Wait, There’s More, launched her own clothing range
, and starred in an acclaimed stage show, Stepping Out, receiving great reviews for her timing, superb line delivery and skills as a tap dancer.
chartered accountant after two weeks to become instead part of the
English Midlands blues scene. In 1968 he met guitarist Jimmy Page, who asked him to join The Yardbirds, and Led
Zeppelin soon followed. Robert was named #1 on Hit Parader’s list of the 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All-Time,
and was voted the ‘greatest voice in rock’ in a poll conducted by Planet Rock. The down-to-earth superstar lives in
Bewdley and became Wolverhampton Wanderers’ third Vice President when he officially receiving the honour
before kick off at the club’s first match of the 2009 season against West Ham. Robert was five years old when he
first visited Molineux, recalling that, ‘my dad took me down for the first time and Billy Wright waved at me. Honest, he did. And that was it - I was hooked from that moment.’ Robert’s video & music
often thought of as a future Prime
Minister, until in 1968 he made his controversial ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, warning on the alleged dangers of mass
immigration. He was sacked from his position as Edward Heath’s Shadow Defence Secretary and memorably remarked
that ‘all political lives end in failure’, including his own. Nevertheless, his supporters claimed that his large public following
helped the Conservatives to win the 1970 General Election, and perhaps lose them the following election at which he
endorsed a vote for Labour. Before entering politics, he had been a brilliant classical scholar at Cambridge, becoming a
Professor of Ancient Greek at the age of twenty-five. During the Second World War he served in staff and intelligence
positions, reaching the rank of brigadier in his early thirties. He was also a gifted writer and poet, and his Collected
Poems appeared in 1990. Despite his earlier atheism he became a devout Anglican, having thought in 1949 ‘that he heard the bells of St
Peter’s Wolverhampton calling him’ while walking to his flat in his future constituency. Often an outspoken, prickly and divisive figure, his
talents and integrity meant that he was admired across the political specturm, including by Denis Healey and Tony Benn, a personal friend.
Paul Raven
erotic work using
circus girls, street children and child prostitutes as models (his Charlotte Baker series remains
notorious). He experimented widely to perfect his photography and may have invented, combination printing. He
was a friend of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll), who collected his early child work and was inspired to set up his own photography studio. Oscar later made one of the best
known and most revealing portraits of Dodgson and in 1857 created an outstanding allegorical work, The Two Ways of Life. This seamlessly montaged combination print was made using thirty-two
images and was admired by Queen Victoria, who ordered a 10-guinea copy to give to Prince Albert. In 1862, after the success of The Two Ways of Life, Oscar Rejlander moved to London and
married Mary Bull, who was twenty-four years his junior. She had been his model in Wolverhampton since she was aged 14. He continued to experiment with double exposure, photomontage,
photographic manipulation and retouching, becoming a leading expert, lecturing and publishing widely. He sold portfolios
of work through bookshops and art dealers and photographed homeless street children to produce popular social-protest
pictures such as ‘Poor Joe’ and ‘Homeless’. He collaborated with other pioneers such as Julia Margaret Cameron and his images illustrated
Darwin’s classic treatise on The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Oscar Rejlander’s radical ideas and works were so influential that he has been called ‘the father of art photography’.
birthday. She attended Saint Mary’s Catholic Primary and Junior Schools and Heath Park Senior School. In the
summer of 1996, following a gig in a basement acoustic club in the city, she was given a support slot at Ronnie Scott’s club in Birmingham. This led to work with the likes of David Gray, Elbow and Ryan Adams,
with whom she performed their co-written song, Idiots Dance’ as an encore. Carina joined Simon Smith, Marcus Galley and Tom Livemore to record the band’s debut album The First Blood Mystery. This was
followed with The Disconnection, then tours of the USA and UK with the likes of James Blunt. Carina moved to Los Angeles in 2005, where she made the Slow Motion Addict album, and was chosen as Annie
Lennox’s support act for a US tour. Often compared to PJ Harvey, Carina considers that she is more directly influenced by Patti Smith.
Jamaica of Ghanaian ancestry. She later emigrated to Wolverhampton and was the UK's leading javelin thrower from the mid-1970s, winning silver in
the 1978 European championships and gold in the Commonwealth Games three times, after which she shared a long
standing rivalry with Fatima Whitbread. Tessa won the javelin gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics, becoming the
first British black woman ever to win Olympic gold. Her long career lasted at senior international level until 1996 as she
became the second ever track & field athlete to compete at six Olympics. After retiring, Tessa served as Vice-Chairman
of Sport England and was made CBE for her services to sport and charity. A Wednesfield housing estate, Sanderson
Park, was named after her, located on the playing fields of her former school, Wards Bridge High. She is currently
helping to run an academy in London that finds and trains athletes to represent Britain in the 2012 Olympics. In 2009
Tessa made history again by organising the first 10K road run through the Olympic Park, an event that now takes place
annually. A year later she married Densign White, former Olympic Judo player, in St Paul's Cathedral.
drummer Don Powell was both born and raised around Wolverhampton. Joined by lead guitarist 
School in
Penn. Best known for the uncomplicated, comfort food recipes found in his early books such as The 30-Minute Cook
and Real Cooking, he also writes for The Observer and Marie Claire. His moving, award-winning autobiography, Toast:
The Story of A Boy's Hunger, focused on his love of food, childhood, family relationships and his burgeoning sexuality.
Nigel called this ‘the most intimate memoir that any food person has ever written’ and the bestseller was filmed starring
Ken Stott as his father and Helena Bonham-Carter as his stepmother, complete with dodgy local accent. The film opens
in the summer of 1967, with Nigel and his mother admiring the pork pies in Percy W Salt’s grocery shop in Penn Road.
‘Wolverhampton - the culinary capital of the Midlands.’ Nigel’s television programmes have included Channel 4’s Real
Food Show and a six part series, Simple Suppers, for the BBC. His many other books include Eating for England, Real
Food, Appetite, The Kitchen Diaries, and Tender. Nigel was Glenfiddich Trophy and Cookery Writer of the Year in 1999 and has been a
guest castaway on the Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, when his favourite track was Teddy Bears Picnic by Henry Hall.
consecutive
world championships (1933–1935). He reintroduced massed-start road racing on British roads for the first time since the
19th century when he organised a race from Llangollen to Wolverhampton, in 1942. More than a thousand people in
West Park watched the finish when Albert Price won from Cecil Anslow, both of Wolverhampton. Percy also organised
a race from London to Holyhead in 1951, an event that continued until the 1960s, and rode his last race when he was 56
in 1965. That year he also rode alone over the Theodul Pass between Switzerland and Italy, probably the first time it had
been done. The pass is 10,976 feet high and he made it in less than 15 hours, sometimes through deep snow. Percy was
remarkable man with a great vision for his sport but his abrasive nature meant that he often clashed with racing authorities.
He continued cycling into his eighties and The League of Veteran Racing Cyclists holds a regular competition named in his memory. The
bicycle shop was taken over by his late son Michael, who also had a successful racing career.
Dave Swift
She
wrote the screenplay for the film Bhaji on the Beach, achieved a number one record with Gareth Gates and her co-stars
from The Kumars, and starred in the BBC2 sitcom Beautiful People as well as Holby City and two episodes of Doctor
Who. She won the Betty Trask Award for her first book, Anita and Me, a semi-autobiographical novel that has found its
way on to school and university English syllabuses. It tells the story of Meena, an English Punjabi girl, and her relationship
with the white Anita as they grow up in the fictional Midlands village of Tollington. Meera also wrote the screenplay for
the film of the book and plays Meena’s Aunt alongside the brilliant Chandeep Uppal. Meera was voted Media
Personality of the Year award at the Commission for Racial Equality’s awards in 2000, received an MBE in 1997, appeared on Desert Island
Discs, wrote the book for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, Bombay Dreams, and was listed as one of The Observer’s fifty funniest acts in British comedy.
musicians and
opera enthusiasts and one of her brothers was the composer 
mystical insights as ‘abrupt
experiences of the peaceful, undifferentiated plane of reality - like the ‘still desert’ of the mystic - in which there was no
multiplicity nor need of explanation.’ The meaning of these experiences became a lifelong quest and source of private
angst, provoking her to research and write. She began writing before she was sixteen and her first publication, A Bar
-Lamb’s Ballad Book of humorous verse concerned with the law, appeared in 1902. She and her husband, Hubert
Moore, grew up together, although he was a Protestant and didn’t share her interest in spiritual matters. Evelyn travelled
widely in Europe, visiting churches and monasteries as she pursued her interests in art and Catholicism and was a prolific
author, publishing over thirty books either under her maiden name or the pseudonym John Cordelier. She had a vivid,
lively personality with a keen sense of humour and great lightness of touch. It was her fundamental belief that all of life
was sacred and that this was what ‘incarnation’ meant. Evelyn’s novels - The Grey World, The Lost Word, and The Column of Dust -
suggest that for the mystic, two worlds may be better than one. Evelyn Underhill was the first woman to lecture on religion at Oxford
University, and since 1988 she has been commemorated in the Episcopalian Calendar, the closest that denomination comes to canonisation.
the next five years and met the great engineer Joseph
Whitworth, who became his lifelong friend. In 1837, he returned to Wolverhampton and worked for local japanners
Ryton & Walton painting the centres of tea trays. His design for the shape of a tray named “Victoria” after the young
queen became very popular. George taught at several leading Schools of Design in London and Manchester, organised
the 1845 Manchester Royal Institution Industrial Art Exhibition, and delivered the first course of lectures on the principles
of decorative art. These lectures led Lord Clarendon, then President of the Board of Trade, to ask him to draw up a
chart of artistic and scientific instruction as applied to industrial art, which became the basis for industrial art education in
Britain in the late 19th century. From 1852-1857, George was Headmaster of the Birmingham School of Design, worked
on the 1851 Great Exhibition, was one of six commissioners sent to the 1853 New York International Exhibition, and
was appointed Special Superintendent of British and Colonial manufactures which were displayed at the International
1855 Exhibition in Paris. In 1858 he joined the South Kensington Museum as Senior Keeper of the Art collection, a post which he kept until
just before his death in 1891. He was also actively engaged in the British section of the Paris Universal Exhibitions of 1862 and 1867. In
1869, he initiated similar South Staffordshire Industrial and Fine Arts Exhibition which was held at Wolverhampton. Although he abandoned
early an idea of a professional artistic career, George continued to practise drawing, painting and etching as a hobby. In the collections of
Victoria & Albert Museum, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery
there are a number of Wallis artworks, and Wolverhampton Art Gallery also has medals awarded to him by Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Louis-Napoleon of France.
Higher Grade School.
At 15 he won a scholarship to Wolverhampton School of Art and in 1912 he gained a scholarship to the Royal College
of Art, where he studied under Edouard Lanteri. He came to specialise in portraits and architectural sculpture and one of
his earliest commissions was a bronze memorial tablet to Rudyard Kipling’s son, who was killed in World War I. Sir
Charles was instrumental in founding the Society of Portrait Sculptors and became their first President in 1953. He was
also the first sculptor to hold the Presidency of the Royal Academy (1956 to 1966). Many examples of his work can still
be seen, including 20-foot bronze doors at the Bank of England, the western fountain figures in Trafalgar Square, a statue
of Charles Pelham Villiers in West Park, and the statue of Lady Wulfruna outside St Peter’s Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton. Sir Charles
left a bronze statue, ‘The Lone Singer’, to the village of Codsall, where he is buried in the churchyard. His 1968 autobiography was called High Relief.
founders of the English Football League in 1888, finishing the inaugural season in third place and reaching their first ever FA Cup Final. Wolves have
played at Molineux in Whitmore Reans since 1889, moving there from their previous home in Blakenhall, where a road is
still called Wanderers Avenue. In 1953, the stadium became one of the first to install floodlights and Wolves beat South
Africa in the first ever floodlit game, going on to play a series of prestigious friendlies against teams from across the globe.
Famously, they came from two goals down to beat the classy Hungarian side Honvéd. This, together with Wolves’
previous European exploits against the likes of Spartak Moscow and Real Madrid, lead the formation of the European Cup, now the UEFA
Champions League. Having won the FA Cup twice before the First World War, Wolves consolidated their reputation as a top side under the
legendary management of ex-player Stan Cullis after the Second World War, going on to win three league titles and the FA Cup twice
between 1949 and 1960. Wolves have yet to match those successes in the modern era, although they did contest the first UEFA Cup final in
1972 and won the League Cup in 1974 and 1980. After many vicissitudes in lower divisions, Wolves survived thanks to Sir Jack Hayward and revival has seen 
the team twice return to the top flight, where they currently play under former Republic of Ireland manager Mick
McCarthy and owner Steve Morgan. Great Wolves players have included 
He built foundries in Whitehaven,
Cumberland, run by his son Charles, and the Falcon Iron Foundry in London, with his son William in charge. He also
built, among others, a blast furnace at Rushall as well as a brass and iron mill in the grounds of Attingham Park (then
called Tern Hall). Hoping to make a profit from making coins, he purchased a royal patent for £10,000 authorising him
to produce up to 360 tons of halfpence and farthings for Ireland. These ‘Hibernia’ coins, minted in Phoenix Street,
Seven Dials from 1722, were heavier and thus more valuable than the coppers then circulating in Ireland. They were
also less profitable to mint and William lost a fortune over the fourteen years of the patent. He also produced ‘Rosa
Americana’ coins for British America, which were struck in the same period. His ‘Hibernia’ coinage became unpopular
as a result of the publication of Jonathan Swift’s Drapier’s Letters, which incorrectly claimed that it was of inferior quality. The coins were
withdawn from Ireland though Sir Isaac Newton, at that time Master of the Mint, confirmed that the copper ‘was of the same goodness and
value with that which was coined for England’. William later received compensation for the loss of his patents. Blind Irish harper Turlough
O’Carolan wrote a tongue-in-cheek celebration of this failed venture called ‘Squire Wood’s Lamentation on the Refusal of his Halfpence’.
William’s son Charles went on to build the Cyfarthfa Iron foundry in Glamorgan, and with his brother John he patented a process known as
potting and stamping, an important advance in the conversion from pig iron to bar iron. Charles was the grandfather of the Victorian writer
Mary Howitt, who published a history of the family, Some Reminiscences of my Life in the journal Good Words.
the 1950, 1954 and 1958 World
Cup finals. His association with Wolves began in 1938 when he was taken on as a member of their ground staff. He
made his first team debut aged just 15 and signed as a professional at 17, but the effects of the Second World War
forced Wolves to suspend competitive football. Billy joined the army as a PT instructor, playing for Wolves whenever
possible and making over 100 appearances during wartime. He became club captain soon after the end of the conflict,
following the playing retirement of Stan Cullis. With Billy leading the team, Wolves won the First Division title three times
as well as the FA Cup. He was a virtual ever-present, missing only 31 games for the club during the 1950s. He made his
England debut in 1946 in a win over Belgium and was made captain in 1948, a role he held for 90 games until his
retirement (an all time record shared with Bobby Moore). In 1952, with his 42nd cap, he surpassed Bob Crompton’s
appearance record for England, which had stood since 1914. In total, Billy made 105 full international appearances (70
consecutive), scoring three times. During his 541 appearances for Wolves and 105 games for England, his disciplinary record was second to
none. Despite being a tenaciously competitive tackler, his skill and gentlemanly conduct meant that he was never cautioned or sent off by any
referee. After retirement as a player, he managed England’s youth team before becoming Arsenal’s manager from 1962-1966. Billy died in
1994, aged 70, and a statue of him stands outside Molineux, where one of the stands is named after him. |
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