The Building
The site chosen for the Workers' Institute, on the corner of Lomey Town and Whitehall Road, had great significance for the people of Cradley Heath. At the time of the women chainmakers' strike in 1910, it was a slag-heap from the former Whitehall colliery, and the place where Mary Macarthur often stood to address the crowds during the ten-week lock-out. Mary is attributed with the idea of building the Institute to be a centre for female trade unionism in the district.
Community Use
It was originally intended that the Workers' Institute should be a venue for trade union, educational and social activities. For several decades it was at the centre of the community.
Recent History
Less than a hundred years after it was built, the Cradley Heath Workers' Institute faced demolition in order to make way for a new by-pass.