[3] It was a response to population pressures resulting from the Industrial Revolution and to the perceived threat of Dissent and Roman Catholicism in an area where Anglican ministry was limited by a unique ecclesiastical structure.

Its deans and chapter formed a college, a corporate body within canon law that had ecclesiastical control over a wide tract of Staffordshire in and to the north and east of Wolverhampton.

[4] The dean and chapter were absentee clergy who resented any threat, real or imagined, to their extremely lucrative monopolies: especially that on burials throughout the extensive parish and that on pews within the town of Wolverhampton.

With considerably more persuasion, and after a major public campaign fronted by Lord Grey, Booth finally acquiesced in the building of a new chapel of ease in Wolverhampton itself.

2. c. 34), and the fine Neo-Classical church of St John quickly rose on a site enclosed in a square, at that time on the southern edge of the town.

In 1848, the Wolverhampton Church Act abolished the ancient College of St Peter altogether and transferred all its assets to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

The Commissioners set up St John's and the other chapels of ease as independent parish churches, within the Diocese of Lichfield, and gave their clergy a large and much-needed pay rise.