HACKETT STREET

CHAPTER 7 of Black Hearts And Blue Devils describes the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Hackett Street, Blackheath. Non-conformist Churches played a vital social role in the developing industrial communities that grew throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The old Wesleyan edifice described in ‘Black Hearts’ is no longer there, although there is still a Methodist church in that street, and the street is no longer called Hackett Street but Heath Street. The change of name was the response to a grisly murder which took place in the street some years after our story: on 25th. February 1934, 58-year-old William Harris, described as a galvaniser, murdered his son, Robert Harris, a labourer, by cutting his throat with a table knife. The father had turned up at Blackheath police station admitting the deed (although he had claimed self-defence) and police sergeant Perkins, after taking his statement went to the Harris’ home to find the son lying in a bloody mess. Taken to Dudley Guest hospital he was pronounced dead on arrival. Local tales say that Heath Street was named after the policeman who handled the case, but the newspaper reports mention only the aforementioned Perkins, and a superintendent Elliott…Photos attached show the Methodist church now in Heath Street, a modern utilitarian construction, and a shot of a typical historical non-conformist church taken at the Black Country Living Museum.

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