Wolverhamptonਵੁਲਵਰਹੈਂਪਟਨ

Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England, around 12 miles (19 km) north-west of Birmingham, with 263,700 residents in the 2021 census. It is the city with the largest percentage of Sikhs in England: 12.0 per cent of Wolverhampton described themselves as Sikh in 2021, about one resident in eight, and Sikhs are the city's second largest religious group after Christians.

Where is Wolverhampton, and why do Punjabis live there?

Wolverhampton stands at the north-western end of the West Midlands conurbation, historically in Staffordshire, with Walsall and Willenhall to the east and Dudley to the south. Lady Wulfruna founded the town in 985, and it grew first as a market town specialising in the wool trade: its coat of arms still carries a woolpack. In the Industrial Revolution it became a major centre for coal mining, steel production, lock making and automotive manufacturing, and it gained city status only in 2001. Its football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers, plays at Molineux Stadium, and the Prince Albert statue in Queen Square, known locally as the Man on the Horse, is its best known landmark.

Punjabi Wolverhampton grew out of that industrial city. The city has experienced a heavy influx of Indian immigrants since the 1950s, drawn by the foundries, factories and workshops of the Black Country, and the Sikh community has now been established here for over half a century. The families who came for work settled across the city, built gurdwaras within a decade of arriving, and raised a second and third generation for whom Wolverhampton is simply home. The local joke, repeated by visitors to its biggest gurdwara, is that every Sikh has a relative in Wolverhampton. The city is listed under Punjabi places in the United Kingdom.

What do the numbers say?

The Office for National Statistics records that Wolverhampton's population rose by 5.7 per cent between the censuses, from around 249,500 in 2011 to around 263,700 in 2021. The religious change inside that growth is the Punjabi story: the Sikh share rose from 9.1 per cent in 2011 to 12.0 per cent in 2021, while the Christian share fell from 55.5 per cent to 43.8 per cent and 27.8 per cent of residents reported no religion. The West Midlands Combined Authority, working from the same census, notes that the highest proportions of people reporting Sikh as their religion across all local authorities in England were Wolverhampton at 12 per cent and neighbouring Sandwell at 11.5 per cent.

By ethnicity, 21.2 per cent of Wolverhampton was Asian in 2021. India was the most common country of birth after England: just under 20,400 residents, 7.7 per cent of the city, were born in India in 2021, up from around 15,000, or 6.0 per cent, in 2011. For the Punjabi language this entry is precise about the limit of the opened figures: no Wolverhampton only Punjabi main language total appears in the census sources opened for this entry, and none is invented here. What is verified is the regional picture: across the West Midlands Combined Authority area, Punjabi heads the list of languages spoken other than English.

Gurdwaras and community life

The first gurdwara established in Wolverhampton was the Guru Nanak Satsang Gurdwara, in 1966, within about a decade of the first large arrivals. It still runs the classic gurdwara week: kirtan and Sikh history sessions, gatka, the Sikh martial art, a gym, homework clubs, and Punjabi classes for children on Sundays where pupils can work towards qualifications in Punjabi.

The city's focal point is the Guru Nanak Gurdwara on Sedgley Street. It is described by Sikh travel writers as one of the most influential gurdwaras in the country, supporting one of the largest and most politically active congregations in Britain, with a magnificent upstairs Darbar Sahib that cannot hold the crowd on Vaisakhi, New Year or a major Gurpurab. It hosts regular Gurmat and Panjabi classes, has a gym on its premises, and forms a key stop in the annual Wolverhampton Nagar Kirtan, the second largest in the Midlands and one of the best attended outside the Indian subcontinent. The Ramgarhia Sabha tells the other classic Wolverhampton story: founded in 1974, it bought 344 Newhampton Road East that year, opened officially in 1975 during the celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev Ji's birthday, then bought the adjoining houses one by one over the following decades before reconstruction of the combined site began in late 2009. The Nanaksar Thath Gurdwara also serves the city.

Wolverhampton is the clearest proof in England that a Punjabi community does not need to be in a giant city to be a giant community: the highest Sikh share of any local authority in the country, in a city of under 264,000 people. Its West Midlands counterpart is Birmingham, and its East Midlands counterpart in this series is Leicester. For the full map, see Punjabi places in the United Kingdom.