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 A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE under Lyme, where colliery owners paid as much as 500 per annum for leave to draw coal over the estates of landowners, and it is probable that in 1750 every important mine had its accompanying railroad, with wooden tram- lines at first, followed by iron ones after I738. 100 Apart from these mineral lines no railroad passed through Staffordshire till the opening of the Grand Junction Railway in 1837, which connected London with Liverpool and Manchester by way of Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Stafford, and Chester. Others quickly followed, and to-day the chief lines running through the county are the London and North Western with its various branches, and the North Staffordshire Railway, incorporated 1846, which connects the Potteries with every part of the country, and which took over in that year the Trent and Mersey Navigation. The Great Western passes through only a part of South Staffordshire, whilst the Midland Railway skirts Staffordshire pretty closely from Tamworth to Burton. By 1 80 1 the industrial development of the county had produced a con- siderable effect upon the population. Burslem contained 6,578 persons, whilst Stoke on Trent, with Bucknall-cum-Bagnall chapelry, had a population of no less than 16,414. In South Staffordshire the face of the county was being rapidly changed, and contemporary writers 101 bear witness to the rapid rise in population in many parishes in recent years. The parish of Handsworth is a good example of this. By 1801 its population had risen to 2,719, owing to its nearness to Birmingham and the establishment of various manufactures in its neighbourhood, notably the great manufactory of Watt and Boulton at Soho, already mentioned. A few years before Soho had been a barren heath upon the bleak summit of which, says Shaw, stood a lonely warrener's hut. 102 The scattered parish of Sedgeley with its nine villages numbered 9,874 10 * inhabitants, chiefly workers in coal and iron. 104 Wolverhampton, which in 1750 is estimated to have contained only 7,454 persons, 105 had now a popu- lation of I2,565, 106 and Walsall (Borough and Foreign) was not far behind with io,399. 107 The borough of Stafford contained only 3,898 persons, 108 and Lichfield, including the Close, 4,842. 109 In the purely agricultural districts the changes in population were not very important. The same period that saw the industrial changes in Staffordshire wit- nessed here as elsewhere the progress of a considerable agrarian revolution. Agriculture had changed very little since mediaeval times, and even the sub- stitution of pasture for tillage which marked the sixteenth century appears to have been less considerable in Staffordshire than in many counties. Some improvements were made in the seventeenth century, such as the use of winter roots, learnt from the Dutch, and a greater interest was shown in artificial grasses. Still even these improved methods were not universally adopted, and it was not until the next century that any general and marked change took place. The chief features of the agrarian revolution were the inclosure of the common fields, the consolidation of farms by capitalist landlords, the intro- "* J. Langford, Staff, and ffarttt. Past and Present, 59-60. 01 Stebbing Shaw, op. cit. ii, 117, 134 ; Pitt, Agric. Sun>. 174. " Stebbing Shaw, op. cit. ii, 117. 1M Pop. Returns. M Stebbing Shaw, op. cit. 222. los J. P. Brown, The Offic. Guide to Wolverhampton. m Pop. Returns. lw Ibid. 1M Ibid. ' Ibid. 292