Smethwick, Staffordshire

Description
Smethwick, a hamlet and three ecclesiastical parishes in Harborne parish, Staffordshire. The hamlet is suburban to Birmingham, lies on the Birmingham and Dudley and Wolverhampton canals, 3 miles W of the centre of Birmingham. It is governed by a district council, and carries on extensive manufactures of the same kinds as those in Birmingham. It enjoys great facilities of communication, with use of the canal and of four railway stations, three on the Stour Valley branch of the L. & N.W.R., and one (Smethwick Junction) on the Birmingham and Stembridge branch of the G.W.R. There are post, money order, and telegraph offices (Smethwick and West Smethwick) under Birmingham, a bridge, 265 feet long and 68 high, over the new canal and railway, a town-hall in the Venetian Gothic style, built in 1866, a free library, public baths, a bank, a public park, a cemetery, and almshouses. The three ecclesiastical parishes are Old Smethwick, Smethwick St Matthew, and St Paul, West Smethwick, constituted respectively in 1842, 1855, and 1860. The livings of St Matthew and St Paul are vicarages, of Old Smethwick a perpetual curacy, all in the diocese of Lichfield; gross value of Old Smethwick, £450 with residence; of St Matthew, £302; of St Paul, £280 with residence. The church of St Chad, Old Smethwick, was erected in 1732, that of St Matthew in 1855, and that of St Paul in 1858. St Mary's, erected in 1888, is a district church attached to Old Smethwick. There are Roman Catholic, Congregational, Presbyterian, Primitive Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels. See HARBORNE and BIRMINGHAM.