- Great Wyrley
infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Great Wyrley
longitude= -2.0102
latitude= 52.6593
map_type= Staffordshire
population = 1,566
shire_district=South Staffordshire
shire_county=Staffordshire
region = West Midlands
constituency_westminster= South Staffordshire
post_town=Walsall
postcode_district = WS6
postcode_area= WS
dial_code= 01922
os_grid_reference= SJ994068Great Wyrley is a
parish andvillage inSouth Staffordshire , in the county ofStaffordshire ,England . It includes Landywood, Churchbridge, and Wyrley Bank, but to confuse matters the settlement of Little Wyrley lies within the parish of Norton Canes, a nearby village. It is two miles south ofCannock , a mile east ofCheslyn Hay , and six miles north-west ofWalsall .In former times the town was a mining village — The Great Wyrley
Colliery — with metalworking in outlying areas. TheWyrley and Essington Canal passes nearby.The 'Great Wyrley Outrages'
The place was the scene of the "Great Wyrley Outrages", an incident involving six
horse slashing s at Plant Pit Meadow. A local solicitor,George Edalji , was convicted of the crimes in a miscarriage of justice, and sentenced to seven years with hard labour. Edalji’s family had been the victims of a long-running campaign of untraceable abusive letters and anonymous harassment for several years prior to the "outrages". These letters then alleged he was partially responsible for the outrages and caused the police suspicion to focus on him.Edalji was released in 1906 after the Chief Justice in
Bahamas and others had pleaded his case. But he was not pardoned, and the police kept him under surveillance.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ofSherlock Holmes fame was persuaded to "turn detective" to prove the man's innocence. This he achieved after eight months of work. Edalji was released and exonerated by aHome Office committee, although no compensation was awarded. The case is related in Conan Doyle's "The Story of Mr. George Edalji" (1907, expanded re-issue in 1985). It was given a fictional gloss in the novel byJulian Barnes , "Arthur & George " (2005), which was nominated for the 2005Man Booker Prize .Local myth remembers the Outrages to have been enacted by "The Wyrley Gang", although Conan Doyle believed that they were the work of a single person, a local butcher's boy and sometime sailor called Royden Sharp. Ironically, Doyle’s suspicion was based on circumstantial evidence. It was an over-reliance on this type of evidence which had resulted in Edalji’s flawed conviction.
Poison pen letter s in the name of the fictional "Wyrley Gang" continued for another twenty-five years, but these were subsequently discovered to have been posted from outside the town by Enoch Knowles ofWednesbury , who was arrested and convicted in 1934.chools
Great Wyrley has three primary schools and one high school.
* [http://www.landywoodschool.co.uk/ Landywood Primary School]
* [http://www.stthomasmore-primary.staffs.sch.uk/ St Thomas More Primary School]
* [http://www.moathall.staffs.sch.uk/ Moat Hall Primary School]
* [http://www.greatwyrley.staffs.sch.uk/ Great Wyrley High School]Transport
Great Wyrley now serves largely as a dormitory for commuters to
Birmingham andWolverhampton . Nearby is junction T7 on theM6 Toll motorway. Alternatively, the M6 can be accessed at Junction 11. Train services toWalsall andBirmingham are available atLandywood railway station . The formerWyrley and Cheslyn Hay railway station closed in the1960's . Great Wyrley is served by two bus routes running betweenCannock andWalsall . These areArriva Midlands route 1 andNational Express West Midlands route 351 .Nearest Places
*
Aldridge
*Burntwood
*Brownhills
*Cannock
*Cheslyn Hay
* FeatherstoneExternal links
* [http://www.theplebeian.net Conan Doyle and the Parson's Son: The George Edalji Case]
* [http://www.churches.lichfield.anglican.org/rugeley/gtwyrley/index.htm The Parish of Great Wyrley]
* [http://www.wyrley-wide-web.uklinux.net/ Wyrley Wide Web] (community site)
* [http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/edalji George Edalji]
* [http://www.gwcband.co.uk/ Great Wyrley Community Band]
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