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
will look for more later