Lord Hatherton drove to Wolverhampton to see a performance of  Judas Maccabeus .

A gratifying sight to me who remembers the town with only 12,000 inhabitants and not a man in it who seemed to have the slightest taste. It is still a most material and unrefined place but it has now a magnificent hospital, fine exchange, noble market places, a fine school of design and an amateur choral society that exhibited today about 120 volunteer performers or vocalists in the orchestra.

There were, however, very few persons present I knew besides the mayor. The audience seemed principally the middle class of the town.