Talk:James Bridge Copper Works

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Desertarun (talk) 09:05, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

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• ... that the former James Bridge Copper Works has been described as the "most contaminated site in Europe"? Council leader Mike Bird said: "It is the most contaminated site in Europe and I have been fighting this one for more than 20 years." from: "Walsall's 'most contaminated land in Europe' set for revamp". BBC News. 2021-04-30. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  • ALT1:... that in the 1950s the James Bridge Copper Works in Walsall, England recovered copper from ash and old car parts, helping to ease a national shortage of the metal?"In 1953 James Bridge Copper Works Ltd, due to new smelting processes, became leaders in the reclamation of waste materials to form copper. A number of firms refined copper at this time but none were laid out to deal with such poor material. Mounds of ash and residues from other foundries, old motor-car parts, and similar scrap were all used and material from all over Great Britain came by road and rail to the stockyards of James Bridge ... the end product was the raw material for other manufacturers which eased the national shortage and reduced dependency on foreign copper supplies." from: "Records of James Bridge Copper Works Ltd, Walsall". National Archives. Retrieved 9 June 2021.

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/People's Peace Movement (Afghanistan)

Moved to mainspace by Dumelow (talk). Self-nominated at 16:13, 10 June 2021 (UTC).

• New article, long enough, and well written. Hook is good (I shortened it slightly for punchiness), cited, and used in the article. QPQ done. Good to go! Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:30, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

X long tons (Y t)

Quantities in the above form are cited multiple times in the article. What is the "t" supposed to indicate? It's especially odd because the ratios X/Y are not constant, as would be expected for a measurement cited in two different units (with a common zero point). Cyrapas (talk) 16:04, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

...oops, it's just significant figures, isn't it... It might still be good to indicate the second unit more clearly, though. Cyrapas (talk) 16:09, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:James Bridge Copper Works/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Dumelow (talk · contribs) 08:12, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: MCE89 (talk · contribs) 09:43, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

I'll take this review — will aim to add my comments within the next day or so. MCE89 (talk) 09:43, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

All comments now added below! Just a few prose suggestions and a couple of notes from the spot checks, but otherwise everything looks good. MCE89 (talk) 12:31, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Initial checks

• Images: Maps are all PD and appropriately captioned and placed. The photograph is CC-BY-SA-2.0 and is likewise appropriately captioned and placed
• Stability: No issues
• Copyright: No red flags on Earwig, will do further checks for close paraphrasing as part of my spot checks

Prose and general comments

A handful of minor suggestions on prose. Most of these are not essential to meeting the GA criteria on their own, so feel free to disregard or push back on any that you don't think would be an improvement. MCE89 (talk) 12:31, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for this review, it's a fairly obscure topic so I am glad to get some eyes on it. You've made some great comments below and I think I have addressed each of them. Let me know - Dumelow (talk) 20:58, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

All looks good to me! Passing this now. MCE89 (talk) 04:45, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

• I found became a leader in that field a little vague — is this suggesting that they were more commercially successful than their competitors, or that they were more technically advanced? From the body I gather that it’s likely the latter, but I think it'd be worth making this clearer

I've just trimmed that out of the lead, it's quite a long sentence anyway and didn't add much - Dumelow (talk) 20:46, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

• "Came under the ownership” feels more idiomatic to me than "came into the ownership" to me, but purely optional

Possibly this is an ENGVAR thing. Google Ngrams shows "came into the ownership" as significantly more common in British English (and the reverse for American writing this millenium - Dumelow (talk) 20:46, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

• who proposed remediation works by 2011 — I'd suggest changing the preposition to "in 2011" or "around 2011". At first I read this as saying that they had proposed that the site's remediation would be completed by 2011

Agreed. I didn't think this added much (the reader can find the detail in the text), so have trimmed it out - Dumelow (talk) 20:50, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

• You could consider linking colliery, as I'm not sure it's a common enough term to assume readers will be familiar with

Done - Dumelow (talk) 20:50, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

• A brickworks also operated on the site until 1897 and gravel and sand extraction was also carried out in the area. - The double use of "also" in this sentence is a little awkward

Yes, have removed the first one - Dumelow (talk) 20:51, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

• a new smelter erected - Should this be a new smelter was erected?

Now removed, per below, as not in the source - Dumelow (talk) 20:51, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

• "Works" is largely treated as a singular noun throughout the article, but there are a couple of places where it is treated as plural ("The works were purchased…" and "In 1967 the James Bridge Copper Works were modernised…") — suggest making this consistent

British English tends to be a bit flexible in this regard (MOS:PLURALS), but I have no issue with using the singular form throughout so have made the change - Dumelow (talk) 20:58, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

• You could consider linking long tons on first usage

Done - Dumelow (talk) 20:58, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

• recommended that the application was granted - Suggest changing this to recommended that the application be granted

Done - Dumelow (talk) 20:58, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Source review

• Ref formatting and layout meets GA criteria. I don't see any issues with source reliability, and the handful of uses of primary sources all seem appropriate
• I didn't find any issues with breadth, focus, or neutrality

This table checks 4 passages from throughout the article (14.3% of 28 total passages). These passages contain 6 inline citations (17.6% of 34 in the article). Generated with the Veracity user script. MCE89 (talk) 12:31, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for picking these up. I don't know where "erected a new smelter" came from, I have removed that part of the sentence. I had missed a ref for the end of the remediation (it was on the end of the following sentence), I have duplicated it across to the right one (and removed one of the other refs as not providing anything useful) - Dumelow (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

Reference #	Letter	Source	Archive	Status	Notes
The works was purchased by the Wolverhampton Metal Company in 1920 and a new smelter erected. In 1931 the works, which by then employed 150 workers, closed following complaints from Walsall County Borough Council. The council complained about the odour caused by the smelting of copper ore with a high sulphur content and about soot from the works' 100-foot (30 m) chimney falling onto the town. Taller chimneys were erected at the site and the works resumed production in 1932.
4	a	discovery.nationalarchives.go…			This mostly verifies, but I can't see ...and a new smelter erected in the source. The closest it gets is saying The site continued to develop.
In the post-war years the works pioneered new smelting processes and became leaders in the reclamation of copper from waste material. The James Bridge site was able to recover copper from lower-grade material than any other plant in the country. Raw material, including ash residue from other foundries and old car parts, was brought to the site by road and rail to produce copper of up to 80% purity. This helped to ease a national shortage of copper and reduced the need for imports from abroad. The James Bridge works also recovered other metals from the raw material; steel was sold direct while aluminium was sent to the Wolverhampton Metal Company for further processing.
4	c	discovery.nationalarchives.go…
The James Bridge site sat unused following the closure of the copper works and was described by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) as "one of the biggest derelict sites in the Black Country". By 2019 the 44 acres (18 ha) plot was jointly owned by Walsall Council and Homes England and was known as the Phoenix 10 site.
8	b	wmca.org.uk
Remediation works began on site by May 2021 and were completed in 2024.
13	c	expressandstar.com
14		expressandstar.com
15		business-live.co.uk			The sources here were published in 2019, 2021 and 2022, so they can't support the claim that remediation works were completed in 2024. This source just says that the remediation works were expected to finish in early 2024.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.