[1] Initially a rural village, West Bromwich's growth corresponded with that of the Industrial Revolution, owing to the area's natural richness in ironstone and coal, as well as its proximity to canals and railway branches.

[3] It led to the town becoming a centre for coal mining, brick making, the iron industry and metal trades such as nails, springs and guns.

Well before the end of the 19th century, West Bromwich had established itself as a prominent area to match older neighbouring towns including Dudley and Walsall.

After the end of the war, the local council started building new homes to rehouse people from the rundown town centre.

This occurred on the same night as the Birmingham Blitz, which resulted in thousands of casualties, as well as the less severe raids on nearby Dudley and Tipton.

As with many other parts of the Midlands, West Bromwich was hit badly by the recessions of the mid-1970s and early 1980s, resulting in mass unemployment across the town, exceeding 20% in some districts.

[18] The recession beginning in 2008 has pushed the town centre further into decline, a notable casualty being the Woolworths store which closed on 30 December 2008 as a result of the retailer going into liquidation; the building was not re-occupied until Home Bargains took it over in 2012.

Hundreds of jobs have been created and the town has attracted retailers including Next, JD Sports, Primark and Bank Fashion, as well as an Odeon cinema, several food and drink outlets, and a Tesco Extra superstore.

has also had a significant impact on the town's economy, particularly during the club's successful era of the 1960s and 1970s when it frequently competed in the top division of English football, won the FA Cup and qualified for European competitions on several occasions.

Albion did not play in the top flight again until 2002, and remained a regular presence in the FA Premier League until 2018, during which time the club attracted a level of average attendance not seen since the late 1970s.

Albion were based in and around the centre of West Bromwich during their formative years, but moved further out of the town in 1900 when they switched to their current ground, The Hawthorns.

Engineering and chemicals are important to the town's economy, as it played a crucial part in the Industrial Revolution during the 19th century and still retains many manufacturing jobs to this day, despite a steady nationwide decline in this sector since the 1970s.

West Bromwich Town Hall, situated in the centre of the High Street, is a Grade II listed building.

[24][25] West Bromwich Manor House, Hall Green Road, was built by the de Marnham family in the late 13th century as the centre of their agricultural estate in West Bromwich only the Great Hall survives of the original complex of living quarters, agricultural barns, sheds and ponds.

Successive occupants modernised and extended the Manor House until it was described in 1790 as "a large pile of irregular half-timbered buildings, black and white, and surrounded with numerous out-houses and lofty walls."

The Manor House was saved from demolition in the 1950s by West Bromwich Corporation which carried out an extensive and sympathetic restoration of this nationally important building.

The 660 acre country park is located on the River Tame, in the middle of the urban conurbation between Birmingham and West Bromwich.

At the time of writing (2023), The Church of England provides the most places of worship across the geographically wider West Bromwich Deanery (taking in West Bromwich, Hill Top, Stone Cross, Carter's Green, Holy Trinity, All Saints, St Andrew's, St Francis, Friar Park and others) which contains nine Anglican churches.

Other Christian denominations are present, including Roman Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, Methodist, Baptist, Elim Pentecostal, Assemblies of God and other independent churches.

The reason for the separate mosques is due to historic differences in opinions between imams of the berelvi community (Pakistani) and other sunni denominations.

The largest mosque in West Bromwich is the Madinatul Uloon Al-Islamiyah Madrasa on Moor street which accommodates all Muslim Sunni denominations and follows the Deobandi school of thought.

Madinatul Uloom Al-Islamiyah, located at Moor street is based at an abandoned church and was converted into a functioning mosque in 2001.

Hindus have had a formal place of worship in West Bromwich since the opening of the Shree Krishna Mandir[29] in 1974, in a converted church once called Ebenezer Congregational Chapel, which had closed in 1971.

[31] In 1875, being locked out of a packed Evangelist meeting in Birmingham caused John Blackham of Ebenezer Congregational Church to start the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Movement.

This station closed in 1945 and, although it moved twice between 1863 and 1902, only the line remains in use for the services from Walsall to Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Liverpool Lime Street.

Improvements were made at the A41 junction by West Bromwich town centre after a £25 million project grant was awarded to the area to cut congestion for commuters.

The project involved the creation of a dual carriageway underpass beneath an improved roundabout; this work began in June 2010 and was completed in autumn 2012.

This later formed part of the A41 road which links London with Merseyside, taking in the Midlands, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire on the way.

They played at a number of sites near the town centre until they moved to their current home, The Hawthorns on Birmingham Road (on the borders of Smethwick and Handsworth) in 1900.

They enjoyed further success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they finished in the top five league positions three times in four seasons as well as reaching a UEFA Cup quarter-final.