The Families that shaped Tamworth
Mark Prime
Punished 2025 Mark Prime
ISBN 9798284225912
195 pages, soft back
24 × 15.8 × 3.9 cm
Reviewed for Volume 4 Issue 1 Winter 2026
The Review
This book is about the everyday people who lived in Tamworth over the centuries and follows the family history of some of these. For those who prefer to find out about ordinary people rather than Kings and Queens, politicians or battles this will be an interesting read; ‘These are the lives that built Tamworth - not with fanfare but with continuity’.
As the author says in his introduction ‘ Every chapter in this book moves through a new layer of time’. Chapter One (1284-1584) begins with information from the medieval manorial court rolls which contain details of disputes, including breaking of by-laws, disagreements over land and property ownership, or fines for offences such as cutting down timber beyond the lord’s boundary, selling ale without a licence, letting pigs or oxen trample on a neighbour’s field and failing to repair fences. The same family names appear across the generations, sometimes as those who worked the land, sometimes as tradesmen, and then as jurors, constables and clerks. A variety of occupations are mentioned; brewing, baking, dyeing cloth, shoemaking, and more. During this time Tamworth became a thriving market town, trading the goods that were produced. The author explains how many of the family names developed and also some of the road names that still exist today, such as Church Street, Market Street and Hospital Street.
Chapter Two tells the story of Tamworth Castle under the Ferrers family (1423 -1681) and explains that they made Tamworth their home and had an influence on how the town developed over these centuries. Their alterations made the castle a comfortable home. Records show how they employed local people and managed tenancy rights. It is interesting to read that places that are now streets, such as Victoria Road and Kettlebrook, were once pasture. The last of the Ferrers family became an MP and spent most of his time away from Tamworth, leasing land to local families and handing governance of the town to the new town council, run by educated tradesmen.
Chapter Three (800s to 1100s) for some reason not explained goes back in time to the Mercians. It relates how Aethelflaed ruled as Lady of the Mercians, and then our area was taken over by Wessex. Then came the Normans and various families who lived in Tamworth in those times are recorded in church records. The author explains how the names of some families from this time are found in local street names, such as Coton Lane, while some names appear in the records of other nearby Staffordshire towns (I would disagree that Hopwas and Shenstone are as stated in northern Staffordshire however).
Chapter Four goes back to the Tudor era (1485 – 1603) and describes the trades of the town and the families that carried them out; tailors, coopers, brewers, textile workers, blacksmiths and many more. It is followed by a chapter which follows the Grindlay family who kept many council records in the 17th to 19th centuries and then a chapter which looks at how the English Civil War and plague affected the families of the town, and the beginnings of the industrial revolution. Later chapters look at stories from the archives of the Tamworth Herald, particularly how the First and Second World Wars affected the people of the town
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The final chapter states that it brings the story of Tamworth up to the present. However this may have been written some time ago (the book isn’t dated) as it says that Griffin’s hardware store still stands (it has been closed for some years). There is no mention of the expansion of the town such as the overspill from Birmingham. Has the author even visited the town recently?
It also mentions a bakery in Church Lane and a bookshop on Colehill which doesn’t appear to exist or ever have existed? Some of the references here are to Tamworth in Australia! On reading it this reviewer was surprised to read road names that were unrecognisable but on following the links on P. 151 it would appear that the author has googled Tamworth and given information about the Australian town of Tamworth, such as the Country Music Festival!
The writer has put a lot of work into this book and much of it is fascinating to anyone with an interest in the town. The illustrations are appealing, well presented in water colour although with a little artistic licence about the locations and with no captions or attribution to the artist.
However this reviewer found the text to be at times trite, even corny – there are many such examples on every page such as the following: ‘ So yes, the town was changing. But its core remained: Names that meant something. Work that meant everything. And a road forward that always, always started from home’. This meant that it was preferable to just skip through such banal comments in order to read the factual parts.
There are some errors throughout the text in addition to much of chapter 10; some of the street names are unfamiliar to this reviewer (despite living in Tamworth for 46 years!). This led to doubts about the historical accuracy of some of the other information in the book, and there are no sources listed in order to corroborate it
Although the early chapters were interesting the tone of the writing and the inaccuracies prevented this reviewer from really enjoying this book or wishing to read it again.
