Wolverhampton's "most infamous neighbourhood", accidents in the 19th century and Georgian enamelling will be the subject of talks exploring different facets of local history next month.

The City of Wolverhampton Council's Arts and Museums Service regularly organises local history talks on a wide variety of topics, including 3 in August.

Craftsmaker John Grayson, who recently mounted an exhibition about Georgian Enamels at Bantock House Museum, will be giving a demonstration of craft enamelling at the museum's performance space on Tuesday (4 August) from 12.30pm to 1.30pm.

He will bring along his enamelling kiln to show at first hand some of the skills he used to make the beautiful objects in the exhibition, and talking through the enamelling process.

Local historian Jane Smith will give a talk about the circumstances of a variety of 19th Century Accidents at Wolverhampton City Archives on Wednesday 12 August from 5pm to 6pm.

And historian Simon Briercliffe profiles Caribee Island: Inside Wolverhampton's Most Infamous Neighbourhood at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on Friday 21 August between 2pm and 3pm.

In the middle of the 19th century, the small area around "Caribee Island" - near the corner of Stafford Street and Broad Street, was Wolverhampton's most notorious neighbourhood.

Home to the large part of the town's Irish population, with a reputation for crime and squalor, it was also an area of desperate poverty where families had to make ends meet any way they could. Simon will be sharing his research which reconstructs the lives of the neighbourhood's inhabitants, and suggest some reasons why it may have declined into such an infamous slum.

All the talks are free - simply turn up on the day.

  • released: Wednesday 29 July, 2015