Lye Waste

[coffeeaddict]

Lye waste is actually the flat part of THE LYE (its proper name) running from the unitarian church ( by the bottom Bell pub) towards Colley Gate. I am from Waste Bonk(bank to all the non black country people) which is by the top Bell pub. My mother remembers part of the Hart Family (1940ish) .
Main jobs of people from the  the lye waste were nail/chain makers, brickies, and the famalies did tend to be nomadic. Some records are held at Oldswinford church but Dudley archives (based at Coseley old school) hold more on microfiche.
Hope this helps.

[alisonj-64]

hi
 i am currently wading through family history. I have loads of westwoods from lye and also taylors,skelding,brettell,charnock
Alison

[behindthefrogs]

I have sent Kerry a PM about my Perry family from Lye Waste.  Descent is from William Perry born 1804/5.

David

[Martinwootton]

I have family who also came from lye waste.
the town lye lies on the main road between birmingham and stourbridge in the west mids.  it is now an highly asian populated town, and the high street is mainly indian restraunts.  i have read a bit about the origin and it was first populated by gypies and refugees in the 1600's.

kerry

I have a (Rose) Hannah Southall born Lye Waste in the 1830s. Can you say more about the 'refugee/gypsey' topic. Is there a Jewish connection?

[linell]

Lye Waste was best known for it's mud huts and nailers, built by settlers who were said to be a community of Gypsies, who squatted on waste land in the upper part of Lye around 1650.  These people were described as rough and uncouth, they built their houses from local clay deposits.  The houses lacked planning and were built in a hotpotch fashion with no semblance of order, they all lacked any sanitation, or clean drinking water.  It is possible that these people were displaced by the civil wars between the Royalists and Parliamentarians from the Battle of Worcester in 1651.  They were a very tight community and did not tolerate any strangers, they were described as miserable, uncivilised, rude and lawless.  The males were naked, the females accomplished breeders, marriage was not high on their agenda, they lived in uncivilised squalor.  The women spent half their lives in the Nail Shops, only stopping to give birth, within a few hours they were back in the Nail Shop, many babies did not survive, in some cases the mothers and babies were buried in the same Coffin.  One local story regarding a family from Lye Waste known as the 'All Fours' were so under-nourished, they were too weak to stand, and literally did walk around on 'All Fours.'  Hope this gives you a brief insight into Lye Waste, I am also descended from one of the Lye Waste families.  linell

[halesowenroots]

I remember reading the following on the Quinton Website:-

"The Lye Waste boasted that Coroner's inquests on infanticide were unknown in its area. There's some truth in the taunt, despite the notorious immorality of the district, but the solution was simple. Most Lye Wasters kept pigs; if there chanced to be a superfluous baby the family pig was kept on short commons for a day or so. Then the infant (somehow) fell into the sty, and in half an hour no coroner could have found, any remains to 'sit upon’".

Regards

John

[behindthefrogs]

I wonder if that explains why so far I have found no burials for any of my Perry family who wer nailers living in Lye Waste in the early 19th century.

It didn't hold them back because by 1881 one of them, William, was running a chain and nail factory employing 590 hands and living in Lye High Street.  His brothers seem to have similarly progressed but a little further afield in places like Halesowen and Hasbury.

David 

[Martinwootton]

My relative was a Gadd from Cradley who married a Southall from Lye Waste. Both were from Fruiterer families and migrated to Birkenhead in the 1840s and then across the river to Liverpool where he did very well, becoming quite a big fruit importer and wholesaler. He must have kept his Black Country connection because when he died his bequests included an interest in a Tipton iron works.

[brummie nick]

This site will give you an idea of what living at the Lye Waste,would have been like.

www.victorianlondon.org/publications4/strange-28.htm