Sir Frank Stenton considered that "Scuffanhalch", along with "Costesford" (Cosford) and "Stretford", formed part of a list of places which had once been connected with Medeshamstede; and the charter purports to have been issued by King Æthelred of Mercia, during much of whose reign the bishop of Mercia was Sexwulf (or "Saxwulf"), founder and first abbot of Medeshamstede.

Idsall (said to be relating to potential Roman links)[citation needed] is mentioned in a 9th-century charter as "Iddeshale", meaning "Idi's nook" or corner.

[7] The initial part of the entry states: Robert, son of Theobald, holds of Earl Roger Iteshale.

[8] In 1245 Walter de Dunstanville, the Crusader and lord of the manor, applied to King Henry III for, and was granted, a market charter for the town.

[11] Shifnal had something of an early industrial revolution during the late 16th century with the construction of a charcoal fired blast furnace near to the Manor House.

[citation needed] The same stone memorial tablet records that William Wakely was baptised on 1 May 1590 and was buried on 28 November 1714, after living through the reigns of eight kings and queens.

[13] The best example of Shropshire Scroll, a 16th-century style of swirling wall painting unique to the county, was uncovered in 2010 by renovators in a Grade II listed property on Broadway.

Austin was born in the town in 1710, the son of a mercer and went to South Carolina where he became involved in developing tobacco plantations, one of which he named Shifnal,[13] 1,415 acres next to the Ashepoo river and which had 85 slaves.

Austin became one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, but following disputes with his business partner, Henry Laurens, returned to England in 1762 and settled at Aston Hall.

Thomas Beddoes, a well-known physician, was born in 1760 at Balcony House, named for a room projecting above the roof line, on the east side of Market Place.

Thomas Telford upgraded Watling Street, the turnpike road that passed through the town, in the late 18th century.

This road carried traffic from London to Shrewsbury, Chester and Holyhead for Ireland, bringing considerable prosperity to the town.

The present presbytery on Victoria Road, the original school-master's house, still has Lord Stafford's coat of arms above the door.

The massive viaduct for the railway divided the town: its construction was a considerable engineering achievement, crossing the marshy valley of the Wesley Brook on foundations laid on coarse twigs and vast numbers of sheep fleeces.

One of the biggest bank frauds in Victorian Britain took place in Shifnal when a director and staff stole almost £244,000, worth the equivalent of £16 million today.[when?]

Shifnal became its head office and Abraham Darby IV, of the historic iron master dynasty, was among its first chairmen.

Although the police arrived to arrest Allen in Shifnal he managed to slip away while they were on the premises, one version has him vaulting over the counter to escape, reportedly after being tipped off by the bank's directors.

Allen meanwhile had taken £159,000, and it appears that this was never returned: all the directors found were vague statements about speculation in mining and railway shares.

The incident had the air of a cover-up, with the full story suppressed by the directors: newspaper reporters were barred from a crisis shareholders' meeting at the Jerningham Arms opposite; a barrister was brought in to represent the directors and "skilfully parry" questions from angry shareholders, who were prevented from reading out statements "for some insufficient reason".

[citation needed] When shareholders demanded to know why Allen had been allowed to escape the directors said "it was on best advice" and refused to reveal more on "the ground of the impolicy of telling all they knew of the past".

[citation needed] To cover the losses the bank's directors lent it £120,000: £100,000 from Henry Dickenson, who took over as chairman, and £5,000 each from four others: they never asked for their loans to be repaid, and their cash injection was used as a foundation to raise more money from shareholders.

His name appears on the Menin Gate in Belgium[17] and on the war memorial in St Andrew's Church, Shifnal, near the Eight Bells public house.

The railway bridge over Market Place was rebuilt in 1953: the open spandrels of the original arch were replaced with a plain lined flat panel construction.

In 2015 it was revealed that planning permission had been granted for a total of 1,167 homes across the town, meaning its population was expected to grow by 50 per cent by 2020.

In 2009 one of the town's biggest employers, Wrekin Construction, went into administration with the loss of 420 jobs in Shropshire, Yorkshire, Northamptonshire and Cheshire and more than £45 million to creditors.

The proposals, which caused considerable local controversy and led to a public meeting, included up to another 1,500 homes, 40 hectares of employment land and a bypass south of the town by 2036.

Percy was encouraged to publish by his friends Samuel Johnson and the poet William Shenstone, who also found and contributed ballads.

[24][25] Shifnal Historical Society report that he was very taken with the architecture of the town, and for that reason, he based The Old Curiosity Shop on the Unicorn public house, later known as Naughty Nell's.

To escape poverty, she married him reluctantly and secretly in 1873, and her diaries provide detailed information on the lives of working-class Victorian servant women.

Mary Arnold, later known as the writer Mrs Humphry Ward, went to boarding school in the town at Rock Terrace.