Overview
Wolverhampton is a city in the historic county of Staffordshire and metropolian county of the West Midlands. In 2004 the local authority area had an estimated population of 239,100; the wider Urban Area had a population of 251,462, which makes it the 13th largest city in England.

The city is commonly recognised as being named after Lady Wulfruna, who founded the town in 985: its name coming from Anglo-Saxon Wulfruneheantun = "Wulfrun's high or principal enclosure or farm". Alternatively, the city may have earned its original name from a local Danish leader who was called Wulfere. Nevertheless, the name Wulfruna is commonly used in the city - for example, for the Wulfrun Centre or for Wulfrun Hall.

The city's name is often abbreviated to "W'ton"or "Wolves". It is also known as "Wolvo" by many of the locals. The city council's motto is "Out of darkness, cometh light". People from Wolverhampton are known as Wulfrunians.

The city grew initially as a market town with specialism within the woollen trade. During and after the Industrial Revolution, the city became a major industrial centre, with mining (mostly coal, limestone and iron ore) as well as production of steel, japanning, locks, motorcycles and cars - including the first vehicle to hold the Land speed record at over 200mph. Today the major industries within the city are both engineering based (including a large aerospace industry) and within the service sector.

History
Wolverhampton or rather the area between Tettenhall (NW) and Wednesfield (NE) is recorded as being the site of a decisive battle between the Saxons and Danes in 963. The Saxons claimed a decisive victory and the field of Woden is recognised by numerous place names in Wednesfield.

A monastery existed in Wolverhampton in Saxon times, founded by Lady Wulfruna and consecrated in 994, for which Wulfruna granted land at Upper Arley in Worcestershire, Bilston, Willenhall, Wednesfield, Pelsall, Ogley Hay near Brownhills, Hilton near Wall, Hatherton, Kinvaston, Hilton near Wolverhampton, and Featherstone. This became the site for the new St. Peter's Church in 1425. A statue of Lady Wulfruna, sculpted by Sir Charles Wheeler, can be seen on the stairs outside the church.

By the 13th century Wolverhampton had grown to become a thriving market town. The city was famous for its part in the woolen trade, a fact that can be seen by the inclusion of a woolpack on the city's coat of arms, and by the many small streets, especially in the city centre, called "Fold" (examples being Blossom's Fold, Farmers Fold, Townwell Fold and Victoria Fold), as well as Woolpack Street.

From the 16th century onwards, Wolverhampton became home to a number of metal industries including lock and key making and iron and brass working. In 1512, Sir Stephen Jenyns, a former Lord Mayor of London, who was born in the city founded Wolverhampton Grammar School, one of the oldest active schools in Britain.

In January 1606, two farmers, Thomas Smart and John Holyhead of Rowley Regis, were hanged in High Green, now Queen Square, for sheltering some of the Gunpowder Plotters who had fled to the Midlands. The pair played no part in the original plot but nevertheless suffered the traitor's death of being hanged, drawn and quartered on butcher's blocks set up in the square a few days before the execution of Guy Fawkes and several other plotters in London.

In the 19th century the area to the south-east of the city became known as the Black Country because of the heavy industrial pollution which covered the area in black soot. In Victorian times, Wolverhampton grew to be a wealthy town mainly due to the huge amount of industry that occurred as a result of the abundance of coal and iron deposits in the area. The remains of this wealth can be seen in local houses such as Wightwick Manor and The Mount (both built for the Mander family, prominent varnish and paint manufacturers), and Tettenhall Towers. Many other houses of similar stature were built only to be demolished in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 19th century the city saw much immigration from Wales and Ireland; in the 20th and 21st centuries immigrants have come from places further afield, such as the Caribbean, South Asia, Africa and eastern Europe.

Wolverhampton was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1849 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.

In 1866, a statue was erected in memory of Prince Albert, the unveiling of which brought Queen Victoria to Wolverhampton. The unveiling of the statue was the first public appearance Queen Victoria had made since the funeral of her husband the Prince Consort. A 40 foot tall archway made of coal was constructed for the visit. The Queen was so pleased with the statue that she knighted the then mayor, an industrialist named John Morris. Market Square, originally named High Green, was renamed Queen Square in honour of the visit. The statue replaced a Russian cannon captured from Sevastopol during the Crimean War in 1855, and remains standing in Queen Square.

Location of the UK's first set of traffic lights at Princes Square: the poles are painted with black and white bands as they were originally.England's first automatic traffic lights could be seen in Princes Square, Wolverhampton in 1927. The modern traffic lights at this location have the traditional striped poles to commemorate this fact.

The railways reached Wolverhampton in 1837, with the first station located at Wednesfield Heath, now Heath Town. This station was demolished in 1965, but the area exists as a nature reserve just off Powell Street. Wolverhampton Railway Works was established in 1849 for the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railway and became the Northern Division workshop of the Great Western Railway in 1854.

Wolverhampton High Level station (the current main railway station) opened in 1852, but the original station was demolished in 1965 and then rebuilt. Wolverhampton Low Level station opened on the Great Western Railway in 1855. The site of the Low Level station, which closed to passengers in 1972 and completely in 1981, is currently undergoing redevelopment. Wolverhampton St George's (in the city centre) is now the northern terminus for the Midland Metro light rail system. Wolverhampton was one of the few towns to operate surface contact trams and the only town to use the Lorain Surface Contact System. Trolleybuses appeared in 1923 and in 1930 for a brief period, Wolverhampton was the world's largest trolleybus system. The last trolleybus ran in 1967, just as the railway line through the High Level station was converted to electric operation.

Wolverhampton was represented politically in Victorian times by the Liberal MP Charles Pelham Villiers, a noted free trade supporter, who was also the longest serving MP in parliamentary history. Lord Wolverhampton, Henry Hartley Fowler was MP for Wolverhampton at the turn of the century. Sir Geoffrey Le Mesurier Mander, a member of the Mander family, was Liberal MP for Wolverhampton East from 1929 to 1945, distinguished for his stance against Appeasement and as a supporter of the League of Nations; known as "the last of the Midland radicals". More recent members have included the Conservative mavericks Enoch Powell and Nicholas Budgen.

The United Kingdom government announced on December 18, 2000 that Wolverhampton would be granted city status, making it one of three "Millennium Cities".

Culture
Music
The rock groups Slade, The Mighty Lemon Drops, Neon Hearts and Babylon Zoo came from Wolverhampton, as do soul/ R&B singer Beverley Knight and Drum n Bass guru Goldie. Musician Jamelia lives in Wolverhampton with her mother and daughter. Wolverhampton has a number of live music venues; the biggest is technically the football ground, Molineux stadium, but the biggest indoor venue is Wolverhampton Civic Hall, with a standing capacity of 3,000. Second to that is Wulfrun Hall (part of the same complex as the Civic Hall, which is owned and operated by the city council) which has a standing capacity of just over 1,100. There are also a number of smaller venues with capacities between 100 and 250: the Little Civic and the Wolverhampton Varsity being the most long-standing of these. The 18th century church of St John's-in-the-Square is a popular venue for smaller scale classical concerts. The city is also home to Regent Records, a choral and organ music recording company.

The city's main choral groups include the City of Wolverhampton Choir (a choral society founded as the Wolverhampton Civic Choir in 1947) and St Peter's Collegiate Church Choir, who perform cathedral style church services each week during term time. The choir of St Peters is one of the largest Anglican Church choirs in the UK.

Arts and Museums
Wolverhampton Art GalleryThe Grand Theatre and the Arena Theatre are located in the city centre, with a multiplex Cineworld cinema located at Bentley Bridge, Wednesfield, and a smaller cinema, The Light House, housed in the former Chubb Buildings between the city centre and the rail station. While Cineworld caters mainly for popular tastes, showing Hollywood films and other big-budget films as well as some Bollywood films, The Light House shows a range of older and subtitled films as well as some selected new releases. The Light House has also played host to visual art shows, and incorporates a small café. The City's Arts & Museums service, run by the council, covers three sites: Wolverhampton Art Gallery, home to England's biggest Pop Art collection after that held at the Tate; Bantock House, a fine historic house with Edwardian interior and also museum of Wolverhampton set in Parks and Gardens; Bilston Craft Gallery with exhibitions of contemporary crafts. Eagleworks Studio situated in Chapel Ash, run by a small artist group, which has periodic exhibitions and group shows.

Media
Wolverhampton is home to the Express & Star newspaper, which boasts of having the largest circulation of any provincial daily evening newspaper in the UK. The city is also home to three radio stations, 107.7 The Wolf, Beacon Radio and Classic Gold WABC. The BBC also occasionally makes use of the City of Wolverhampton College's training and campus radio station's studio on Newhampton Road, WCR

In December 2005, the BBC commissioned the poet Ian McMillan to write a poem about Wolverhampton, along with four other towns which "had a reputation they didn't deserve". The result of this can be found here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolverhampton