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Landscape, park or estate land · Soho and Smethwick · 1895

West Smethwick Park

Public park given to Smethwick in 1895 by the glassmaker James Timmins Chance, at a cost of £30,000 with its endowment. A memorial with a replica of his bronze bust stands in the park.

Surviving
Red brick and terracotta memorial with a bust in a round-headed niche and curved seats on either side, in a park.
Tony Hisgett, 30 April 2010. Wikimedia Commons (from Flickr) · CC BY 2.0

What is it?

A public park laid out over farmland in West Smethwick and given to the town by James Timmins Chance of the Spon Lane glassworks.

History

In 1895 James Timmins Chance, head of Chance Brothers, gave Smethwick a public park. It cost him £30,000, including its endowment. It was laid out over farmland at West Smethwick, south of the glassworks.

Chance was honoured in the park. The Dictionary of National Biography records that a replica of Hamo Thornycroft’s bronze bust of him, made in 1894, stood in West Smethwick Park. Today a red brick and terracotta memorial with a bust in a niche, flanked by curved seats, commemorates him.

What happened here?

A public park given by the Chance family firm’s head, James Timmins Chance, in 1895.

Why it mattered

The park is the most visible public gift of the Chance family to the town where they made their fortune, and holds the memorial to Sir James Timmins Chance.

The same spot, then and now

Ordnance Survey map of 1888–1913 around West Smethwick Park

1888–1913

Today’s streets around West Smethwick Park

Today

Explore it on the full map
Old map: Ordnance Survey six-inch, reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland (CC BY 4.0). Today: © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Today

What survives

The park and the Chance memorial.

Today

A public park in West Smethwick, Sandwell.

Then and now

Then · 30 April 2010

Red brick and terracotta memorial with a bust in a round-headed niche and curved seats on either side, in a park.
Chance memorial, West Smethwick Park — Tony Hisgett, 30 April 2010. Wikimedia Commons (from Flickr) · CC BY 2.0

Now · 30 April 2010

Red brick and terracotta memorial with a bust in a round-headed niche and curved seats on either side, in a park.
Chance memorial, West Smethwick Park — Tony Hisgett, 30 April 2010. Wikimedia Commons (from Flickr) · CC BY 2.0
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Sources and further reading
Where the sources differ

Whether the bust now in the memorial is the replica recorded by the DNB has not been checked. The park’s layout and designer have not been researched.

  1. Chance, Sir James Timmins, first baronet (1814–1902) — Charles Welch, Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, vol. 1 (Smith, Elder), 1912
  2. Smethwick: Economic history, in A History of the County of Stafford, vol. 17, pp. 107–118 — M. W. Greenslade (ed.), Victoria County History, 1976
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