It incorporates the surrounding villages and suburbs of Tipton Green, Ocker Hill, Dudley Port, Horseley Heath and Great Bridge.

In 1780, James Keir and Alexander Blair set up a chemical works there, making alkali and soap on a large scale.

There is a residential canal basin at the museum, reflecting Tipton's former status in popular local culture as the Venice of the Midlands.

The towpaths of the remaining canals, the Old and New BCN Main Lines are today a cycling, wildlife and leisure facility.

On 19 November 1940, three people were killed by a Luftwaffe bomb which was dropped in Bloomfield Road and destroyed several buildings including the Star public house; it was rebuilt after the war but demolished in 1996.

Just before Christmas in 1940, an anti-aircraft shell fired from the hills at Rowley Regis fell down the chimney of the Boat Inn, Dudley Road East, Tividale; fatally injuring 12 people at a wedding reception (including the bride, while the groom lost both legs) as well as the resident of an adjacent house.

The last major private housing development to be built in the Municipal Borough of Tipton was the Foxyards Estate, on land straddling the borders with Dudley and Coseley, in the mid 1960s.

[8] The headquarters were originally based in a 19th-century building on Owen Street until 1935 when it relocated to the former Bean offices site on Sedgley Road West, straddling the border with Coseley.

In this reorganisation, the township of Tipton was expanded around Princes End to take over a section of the former Coseley urban district.

This included the world's first successful steam pumping engine, which was erected at Conygre Coalworks in 1712 by industrialist Thomas Newcomen.

A full-size replica of the engine now exists at the Black Country Living Museum just over Tipton's borders in Dudley.

Mass building of factories and digging of coal mines then took place, and resulted in Tipton becoming a heavily built-up and industrialised area with more than 30,000 residents by the end of the 19th century.

The town's population grew further in the 20th century after new housing developments, mostly by the local council but with a significant number in the private sector.

In 1840, the Batson family established a lubricant blending plant to serve the local industries at the junction of High Street and Dudley Road.

The site is still operational today, owned by German refiner H&R AG, although the original buildings have long since been replaced.

This line had served stations at Dudley Port Lower Level and Great Bridge North, but both were closed in 1964 by the Beeching cuts.

[12] The line between Great Bridge and Swan Village in nearby West Bromwich was closed in 1968 under the Beeching cuts, and most of its route was occupied by the southern section of the Black Country Spine Road, completed in 1995.

The line between Princes End and Ocker Hill closed to passenger trains in 1916 but remained open to goods traffic until 1981.

The closure of the railway was followed by the construction of a pedestrian walkway on the trackbed, while the tunnel under the road at Ocker Hill was filled in.

The Dudley-Wolverhampton railway closed in 1968, several years after passenger trains were withdrawn, and by the 1990s some sections of it had been built over, making it impossible to reopen this route at any stage.

They currently play in the non-league West Midland league division one and made history in the 2010-11 football season by reaching the FA Cup first round proper for the first time in their history, earning a trip to Carlisle United, the League One (third highest English division) club.

However, it was after signing for Wolverhampton Wanderers in November 1986 that Bull achieved fame; by the time he retired in 1999, he had scored more than 300 goals for the club.

[17] The Sandwell Steelers who are an American Football team who play in the BAFA National Leagues operate from the Tipton Sports Academy.

Ormiston Sandwell Academy, formed in September 2009 from Tividale High School, also takes in pupils from parts of Dudley and Oldbury.