HISTORY &c.
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_Some account of the derivation of the name of Birmingham_.
The word Birmingham, is too remote for certain explanation. During the
last four centuries it has been variously written _Brumwycheham,
Bermyngeham, Bromwycham, Burmyngham, Bermyngham, Byrmyngham_, and
_Birmingham_; nay, even so late as the seventeenth century it was
written _Bromicham_. Dugdale supposes the name to have been given by the
planter, or owner, in the time of the Saxons; but, I suppose it much
older than any Saxon, date: besides, it is not so common for a man to
give a name to, as to take one from, a place. A man seldom gives his
name except he is the founder, as Petersburg from Peter the Great.
Towns, as well as every thing in nature, have exceedingly minute
beginnings, and generally take a name from situation, or local
circumstances. Would the Lord of a manor think it an honour to give his
name to two or three miserable huts? But, if in a succession of ages
these huts swell into opulence, they confer upon the lord an honour, a
residence, and a name. The terminations of _sted_, _ham_, and _hurst_,
are evidently Saxon, and mean the same thing, a home.
The word, in later ages reduced to a certainty, hath undergone various
mutations; but the original seems to have been _Bromwych_; _Brom_
perhaps, from broom a shrub, for the growth of which the soil is
extremely favourable; _Wych_, a descent, this exactly corresponds with
the declivity from the High Street to Digbeth. Two other places also in
the neigbourhood bear the same name, which serves to strengthen
the opinion.
This infant colony, for many centuries after the first buddings of
existence, perhaps, had no other appellation than that of Bromwych. Its
center, for many reasons that might be urged, was the Old Cross, and its
increase, in those early ages of time must have been very small.
A series of prosperity attending it, its lord might assume its name,
reside in it, and the particle _ham_ would naturally follow. This very
probably happened under the Saxon Heptarchy, and the name was no other
than _Bromwycham_.