The derivation of the name 'Stourbridge' and early references:

The name Stourbridge obviously refers to an ancient bridge crossing the River Stour, but it is derived from earlier names.

William Henry Duignan, in his authoritative book ‘Worcestershire Place Names’ published in 1905, states that the early form of the name Stourbridge, was ‘Sture’, the ‘u’ being a long vowel. Several other rivers had the same name. One of the leading experts on old English was Walter William Skeat, who was instrumental in developing the English language as a higher education subject and was a professor of Anglo Saxon at Cambridge University. He suggested that ‘stur’ was possibly connected with the English word ‘stir’and the German word ‘stur-m’ meaning ‘bustling stormy’ or ‘turbid’. It has also been suggested that it may be related to the Welsh word ‘dwr’ meaning water. Many people still use the name 'Sture' when pronouncing Stourton as 'Stureton'.

Stourbridge was listed in the 1255 Worcestershire assize roll as Sturbrug or Sturesbridge and is called Sturbrugg in the Subsidy Rolls of 1333. In 1375 it is recorded as Stourbrugge. Brugge being an old word meaning bridge.

Treadway Russell Nash, in his ‘Collections for the History of Worcestershire’, published in 1781, states that the earliest mention, he found of the name Stourbridge, comes from 1454.
 
Stourbridge town clock.
Stourbridge became a prosperous market town and a centre for the production of wool. This was superseded by coal mining and the iron industry with the opening of the Stourbridge Canal in 1779 and the coming of the railway. The town also became well known for the following industries:

Glass Making

Stourbridge has been associated with glass making for hundreds of years. It was introduced in the town by French Huguenot refugees who came from Lorraine, in the 1550s. The glass makers discovered the rich natural resources of coal and fireclay that were necessary for their furnaces. The fireclay was ideal for lining them and so Stourbridge was an ideal location for the industry. It became famous for its coloured glass, which was used to make windows and for flint glass, as well as bottle glass and chemical utensil glass. In 1852 there were 12 glass manufacturers in the town and neighbourhood, employing over 1,000 people. Many local glass makers were located nearby at Amblecote, Oldswinford and Wordsley. A lot of the local glass cutters came from Ireland, where the industry was in decline.

Fire Clay

By the 1850s, the manufacture of fire bricks in Stourbridge was almost as important as glass making. The clay deposits beneath the coal measures provide excellent quality clay, consisting of around 72% silica and 20% alumina, which is ideal for withstanding high temperatures. Much of the best clay was exported in large quantities to North America, South America, France, Holland, and Germany. There were also lower quality deposits called black and offal clay. Black clay was used for making crucibles, in which metal was melted. Birmingham factories alone bought around 1200 of them each week. Large quantities of offal clay were used for the production of fire bricks. Bricks of all kinds were made, consuming about 46,000 tons of clay each year.

Other important products were clay retorts for gas works, which were preferred to metal, and also the manufacture of large baths in one piece. At Amblecote was a dark blue clay which was used for the manufacture of the best pots for glass houses. The fire clay mines were owned by the following families:

The Millward family, owners of Hungary Hill, (18 acres); the Hickman family with a clay mine near Haye Green, (21 acres), the Waldron family who owned Millfield mine at Lye, (23 acres); Lord Foley owned a mine near Lye Mill, (3 acres); Poor of the Parish of Stone, Kidderminster, owned Highmans Green, (9 acres); Unwin owned Hungary Hill mine, (54 acres); Lord Stamford owned Withymoor and Lye mine, (30 acres); King owned Haye Green mine, (3 acres); Lord Dudley owned mines at Amblecote and Delph, (20 acres); Pidcock owned a mine at Lye, (7½ acres); Rufford owned Grange mine, (22 acres) and Brettell mine (207 acres). The Millwards of Wollescot appear to have been the earliest proprietors in Old Swinford, with deeds dating back to 1566.


Stourbridge Town Hall.

The Gas Works

The gas works were established in 1833, by six shareholders, in Amblecote. They were purchased by the Urban District Council in 1893, for slightly under £100,000. A further £20,000 was borrowed for the building of extensions.

75% of the profits were used towards the town rates, which greatly eased the finances of the council and the pockets of the ratepayers. Gas was supplied to Clent, Hagley, Lye, Pedmore, Wollescote, and part of Amblecote.

Over 1,600 gas cookers were on hire and 4,500 slot meters were in use.
 

The Main Drainage Board

The Main Drainage Board was founded in 1881 and run jointly by Stourbridge and Amblecote Urban District Councils.

The venture cost around £37,000, which was soon repaid, along with a loan of £25,000 which was also soon repaid. The board’s sewage farm covered 250 acres, to which a further 40 acres were added in the early 1900s. Around 320 million gallons of sewage were handled per year.

The Stourbridge Free Library

The free library opened in 1905 thanks to the generosity of Mr. Andrew Carnegie.

The building, on the corner of Hagley Road and Church Street is a fine, spacious building, combined with the Technical School. It was built at a cost of £9,000, £3,000 of which was given by Mr. Carnegie for the library.

An extension to the reading room on the Hagley Road frontage was soon added along with the clock tower, which was built as a memorial to Mr. Isaac Nash, JP.

There were around 5,500 books in the library which had shelf space for a further 15,000 books. In 1907 the lending section issued 34,668 books.

The Technical School and Girl’s Secondary School

For many years the Art School in Theatre Road flourished. Donations amounting to £2,000 were raised to provide an improved site and land was purchased in Worcester Street. When the Free Library was planned on a more central site, it was decided to combine the library with new art and technical school and girl’s secondary school buildings. The cost was partly met by a grant of £1,650 from Worcestershire County Council and £1,000 from the sale of the Worcester Street site. The opening of the new buildings was celebrated by an interesting and successful art exhibition.

Council Schools

There were three council schools:

Hill Street, Enville Street (formerly St. Thomas's Parish Schools), and West Street. The Hill Street Schools were erected by the former School Board.

The Public Baths

The Public Baths, in Bath Road, opened in 1901 at a cost of between £4,000 and £5,000. There were both hot and cold baths, an excellent swimming bath. Water came from a well sunk in the new red sandstone. Adjoining the baths was the superintendent's house.

The Refuse Destructor

The refuse destructor, along with a foreman’s cottage, was built at the back of Enville Street, near the Drainage Board's pumping station in 1904, at a cost of £5,800. It supplied surplus steam to the pumping station.

The Cemetery

The Cemetery opened in 1879 at South Road, about a mile from the centre of the town. It covers about 13 acres and was built at a cost of £8,500. In the late 19th century, it was open to the public from 9am until sunset and from 2pm until sunset on Sundays.
 

The Stourbridge Union Workhouse

The workhouse was originally the Kingswinford Parish Workhouse which was taken over and enlarged at a cost of £2,179 in 1837, by the Stourbridge Poor Law Union, which was formed on the 13th October, 1836.

It stood in Stream Road, Stourbridge and was managed by a Board of Guardians, consisting of 34 members, 10 of whom were senior members and 24 were elected.

The original buildings were declared as unfit for purpose and new buildings, which opened on the 12th March, 1907 were erected at a cost of £100,000.

They could accommodate 725 inmates. The Union covered a wide area, including the following parishes: Amblecote, Brierley Hill, Kingswinford, Quarry Bank, Cakemore, Cradley, Halesowen, Hasbury, Hawne, Illey, Lepal, Lutley, Lye, Quinton, Stourbridge, The Hill, Upper Swinford, Wollaston, and Wollescote.

The Institute

In the late 1890s, Stourbridge had a thriving institute that still does well today. It began as the Stourbridge Mechanics Institute in 1834 in the Rye Market and then moved to the Falcon Inn in Market Street, where the Institute Social Club met. In 1847 a bazaar was organised on a large scale, in the grounds of Prestwood Park, that raised £1,177 in three days. This was used to purchase and adapt the Falcon Inn, at a cost of about £650, which became The Mechanics’ Institute, when it reopened on the 2nd November, 1857. There were around 400 members.

There was a fine billiard room with four tables, a card room, a photographic dark room and a library containing about 5,000 books. The building was demolished and rebuilt in 1937.

The Dispensary

The dispensary was originally situated in New Road, and opened in 1832 to supply the medical needs of poor people. It was maintained by subscriptions and donations.

It moved to a small property in Hagley Road. In 1893 a new dispensary was built in a much larger building on the corner of Worcester Street and Greenfield Avenue, which still survives as offices.

The Post Office

The first post office was in Enville Street, from where it moved to Lower High Street.

In 1885 a new post office was built in Upper High Street.

By the late 1890s there were 60 staff and around 150,000 items were posted weekly.

Banks

The Stourbridge Old Bank, later a Branch of the London City and Midland Bank, was established in High Street before 1780. It became Hill, Bate, and Robins' Bank, then around 1796 became Rufford, Wragge, and Griffiths's Bank. The bank went into liquidation in about 1850 and the building became solicitors’ offices.

The Stourbridge and Kidderminster Bank was established in Bank Street, Digbeth in 1834. In the same year in High Street, was a branch of the Metropolitan Bank and the Stourbridge Savings Bank, which flourished for a considerable time. It closed shortly after the Post Office Savings Bank opened. There was also a Penny Bank that operated in connection with the Stourbridge Institute.

The County Court

The court house is a handsome stone building at number 9 Hagley Road. It is now solicitor’s offices. The court served the following districts:

Stourbridge, Wollaston, Wollescote, Oldswinford, Lye, Amblecote, Kingswinford, Halesowen, Cradley, Lutley, Illey, Hasbury, Hawne, Lapal, Cakemore, The Hill, Hagley, Clent, Pedmore, Enville, Brierley Hill, Brockmoor, Pensnett, Ridgacre, Compton, Dennis Park, Quinton, Bromley, Tansey Green, Wall Heath, World's End, Blakedown, Wordsley, Commonside, and Kinver.

It was also used for the fortnightly "Court of Request". Previously the court house was in Court House Lane.

The Fire Brigade

For many years, Stourbridge has had an excellent and efficient fire brigade, who in the 19th century, were volunteers who gave their time and services for free. The only charge was for the use of the appliances. The Urban Council paid the duty-man's wages, and for the occasional hose. Other than that, the Brigade was maintained by voluntary contributions.

The Stourbridge Improvement Act

The Stourbridge Improvement Act of 1868 reconstituted an elected Board of Town Commissioners with greater powers to control and improve local services. A further step in local government occurred in 1894 when Stourbridge, Lye and Wollescote and Amblecote obtained Urban District status with Pedmore becoming part of Bromsgrove Rural District.

The population in 1897 was 15,757, with 276 deaths registered in the district. There were 82 infant deaths registered.
 
The photos and the adverts are from 'Stourbridge Old and New' by G. H. Goodyear, published in June 1908.
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