| Handsworth had perhaps 1200 years of independent history before
it became part of Birmingham in 1911. It was probably first peopled
by Anglian folk who came into the area via the River Tame in the C7th
and C8th, and who were later part of a tribal confederation called
the Tomsaetan, 'Tame~dwellers'. Anglo-Saxon justice and administration
were based on a nominal unit of a hundred families, and Handsworth
was in the Hundred of Offlow, whose large territory indicates the
sparseness of population hereabouts. About 100 A. D., the need to
establish a strong defensive system against Danish incursions led
to the foundation of shires based on fortress towns, and three of
these met in the Tame and Rea valleys. Offlow went to Staffordshire,
but Handsworth's neighbours Birmingham, Aston and Witton, became part
of Warwickshire. |
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