Historic borough lost in the 1960s
CHANGES to local government in the 1960s and ’70s saw many of the Black Country’s historic boroughs swept away, much to the lament of their proud residents.
One borough consigned to history by the stroke of a pen was Coseley, which ceased to exist in 1966.
The map above is from the last Coseley Official Handbook, published in 1965, and shows the borough boundary.
Coseley Borough covered 3,615 acres and most of them were consigned to an expanded Dudley Borough – the land to the west of the old Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway, that curves north to south across the map, and below a line drawn along the Birmingham Canal Wolverhampton Level and Gorge
Road and Hurst Road, plus land west of Farrington Road, around Beacon Hill.
Wolverhampton claimed the area north of that, around Woodcross, Lanesfield and Ettingshall, as well as the area around Hall Green and Bradley, as it absorbed Bilston too.
A small portion of Coseley, around Princes End and north of Wednesbury Oak Road, was given over to an expanded West Bromwich, which had absorbed most of Tipton.
Coseley Urban District Council had been created under the 1894 Local Government Act to replace Coseley Local Board of Health District, which had governed affairs in the area since 1867.
The new body comprised of 20 councillors who served a three year term and the first chairman of Coseley UDC was businessman Richard Clayton, who was the managing director of the Cannon Foundry, one of the biggest employers in the district. He had previously served as the clerk of the Board of Health.
The council house, with its meeting chamber, committee rooms and offices, was built on the corner of Green Street and School Street and opened in 1896. The building also contained the district mortuary and later a fire station was added. These Coseley Council offices were rendered redundant by the local government changes of 1966 and were demolished soon afterwards.