prosperity, population, and wealth, made it necessary years ago for our
local governors to look out for a central spot on which could be
gathered the many offices and officers appertaining to the Corporation
of a large town like Birmingham. They were fortunate in being able (in
1854) to secure so eligible a site, in such a central position, and with
such commanding elevation, as the one at the corner of Ann Street and
Congreve Street, though at first glance the acquisition would appear to
have been a costly one. The price of the land and reversion thereto was
£39,525, but during the years that elapsed before the ground was cleared
ready for building (1872) the interest brought that sum up to nearly
£70,000. The total area was 11,540 square yards, of which 4,455 square
yards were thrown into the streets. Thus, though the original price was
but 68s. 6d. per yard, by the time the buildings were erected the actual
site cost over £9 per yard. The plans were approved Feb. 11, 1873, the
contract for building being £84,120, but during the course of erection
many important additions and alterations were made to the original
plans, raising the cost to £144,743. Part of the ground was originally
intended to be covered with Assize Courts, but have been devoted to the
erection of a magnificent Art Gallery, &c., so that more than a quarter
million sterling will ultimately have been spent on the spot. The
foundation stone was laid by the then Mayor, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain,
June 17, 1874, and the erection took about five years, the "hoarding"
being removed July 18, 1879. The design of the Municipal Buildings is
essentially classical, but not of any particular style, Mr. Yeoville
Thomasson, the architect, having given free rein to his own conceptions
of what was required in a modern erection of the nature of a local
Parliament House. The south, or principal front (to Ann Street), has a
length of 296 feet, the frontage to Congreve Street is 122 feet, and
that to Eden Place is 153 feet. From the ground to the top of the main
cornice the height is 65 feet; the pediment over the central entrance is
90 feet high; the stone cornice of the dome 114 feet; and the top of the
finial 162 feet, the dome rising behind the central pediment from the
main staircase. Looked at from a distance, the features of the building
that at first strike the spectator are the carved groups of life-sized
figures in the six pediments. The Ann Street and Congreve Street
frontages have a pediment at each end, of semicircular shape, and the
Eden Place frontage has one at the end where it joins the principal
front. The pediment in the centre of the south front is triangular in
shape, and contains a group of sculptured figures representing
"Britannia rewarding the Birmingham manufacturers." In the other
pediments the groups represent Manufacture, Commerce, Literature, Art,
and Science. Under the central pediment, and within a semicircular arch
over the central entrance, is a large and beautiful figure-subject in
mosaic, executed by Messrs. Salviati and Co., of London. Besides the
central entrance, which is reached through a portico supported by square
and round columns, and is reserved for the use of the Town Council and
state occasions, there are four entrances to the building, one at each
end of the principal front, one in Eden Place, and the other within the
gateway which runs through the Congreve Street wing into the courtyard
at the back. By the last-mentioned staircase access is obtained by the
general public to the Council Chamber. The building contains 94 rooms of
various sizes, three of the largest devoted to occasions of ceremony,
and the rest to the uses of the different departments of the Corporation
work. The central of the three reception rooms is 30 feet square, and is
divided from the other two by an open screen of marble columns, both
rooms being 64ft. by 30ft. The Council Chamber is 39ft. wide and,
including the gallery for spectators, is 48ft. long, the fittings and
furniture being of the most substantial character as well as ornamental.
In various parts of the building accommodation has been found for the
Town Clerk, the Borough Treasurer, Surveyor, Analyst, Chief Constable,
and every other department of Corporation work. The furnishing of the
Council Chamber and the other parts of the Municipal Buildings amounted
to £15,603, the laying in of the gas and water services being £2,418
additional.
_Odd-Fellows' Hall_.--Before the New Street Railway Station was erected
there was an Odd-Fellows' Hall in King Street. The first stone of the
present building in Upper Temple Street was laid early in 1849, the
opening ceremony taking place Dec. 3 same year. The principal room or
"hall" will accommodate about 1,000 persons, the remaining portion of
the premises being let off in offices.
_Parish Offices_.--The meeting-place of the Board of Guardians and their
necessary staff of officers has from the earliest days of Poor Law
government been the most frequented of any of our public buildings.
Formerly the headquarters were at the Workhouse in Lichfield Street, but
when that institution was removed to Birmingham Heath, the large
building at the corner of Suffolk Street and Paradise Street was built
for the use of the parish officers, possession being taken thereof Feb.
26, 1853. Thirty years seems but a short period for the occupation of
such a pile of offices, but as it has been necessary several times to
enlarge the Workhouse, as well as to collect very much larger sums from
the ratepayers, it is but in the natural order of things that the
Overseers, Guardians, and all others connected with them should be
allowed more elbow-room. A parish palace, almost rivalling our Municipal
Buildings in magnificence of ornate architecture, has therefore been
erected at the junction of Edmund Street and Newhall Street, where poor
unfortunate people going to the Workhouse, and whose ultimate
destination will possibly be a pauper's grave, may have the
gratification of beholding beautiful groups of statuary sculpture,
Corinthian columns of polished granite, pilasters of marble, gilded
capitals, panelled ceilings, coloured architraves, ornamental cornices,
encaustic tiles, and all the other pretty things appertaining to a
building designed in a "severe form of the style of the French
Renaissance," as an architectural paper critic calls it. Ratepayers will
also have pleasure in taking their money to and delivering it over in
"one of the most convenient suites of poor-law offices in the kingdom,"
possibly deriving a little satisfaction from the fact that their
descendants in less than a hundred years' time will have to build
another such suite of offices, or buy this over again, as the Guardians
only hold the site (1,700 square yards) upon a ninety-nine years' lease
at a yearly rental of £600 (7s. per yard). The building contract was for
£25,490, besides extras, the architect being Mr. W.H. Ward, and the
fittings, internal decoration, and furnishing was estimated at about
£5,000 more, though possibly as the chairs in the Boardroom are put down
at £5 each, if other articles be in proportion, both sums will be
materially increased. The work was commenced in June, 1882, the memorial
stone being laid February 15th, the following year. The building, which
has five storeys, stands on three sides of a square courtyard, and faces
into Edmund Street. Newhall Street, and a new thoroughfare made in
continuation of Bread Street. In general character the three faces are
alike, the masonry being rusticated in Coxbench stone to the line of the
second floor, the chiselling finishing with an entablature, and the
remaining two storeys included in one order of Corinthian red granite
pillars, which support the main entablature. The front in Edmund Street,
105 feet in length, is symmetrically divided by a central tower, on
either side of which the Corinthian pillars are discontinued until the
two corners are almost reached, where they support pediments. The tower,
which for a distance above the root is square, contains four clock-faces
and supports an octagonal storey, covered by a panelled stone dome,
surmounted in turn by a lantern and its finial. The height of the tower
from the level of the street is 105 feet, the slated towers over the
lateral pediments being smaller. The Newhall Street façade, 160 feet
long, is broken into three portions of nearly equal length, and the
middle portion is treated differently from the other two. Above the line
of the second floor entablature the windows, instead of being in a
double row in correspondence with the storeys, are in this middle
section of the façade carried almost to the height of the columns, and
the section is surmounted in its centre by an ornamental pedestal, which
bears a group of sculpture, and at its extremes by slated flagstaff
towers, whose sides are concave. The purpose of these larger windows is
the effectual lighting of the Boardroom, which is of the height of two
storeys. The length of the Bread Street front is 90 feet. The Boardroom
is 60 feet long, 36 feet wide and 24 feet high, the room being lighted
by two sunburners suspended from the ceiling panels, and is handsomely
decorated throughout. The offices of the Registrar of births, marriages
and deaths are entered from Newhall Street, and there is a special
waiting room for the use of marriage parties whilst they are preparing
to go before the Registrar, a provision which will no doubt be fully
appreciated by many blushing maidens and bashful bachelors.
_Public Office_.--The office for the meetings of the Justices was at one
time in Dale End, and it was there that "Jack and Tom" were taken in
November, 1780, charged with murdering a butcher on the road to
Coleshill. The first stone of the Public Office and Prison in Moor
Street was laid September 18, 1805, the cost being estimated at £10,000.
It was considerably enlarged in 1830, and again in 1861, and other
improving alterations have been made during the last three years, so
that the original cost has been more than doubled, but the place is
still inadequate to the requirements of the town.
_Smithfield Market_.--Laid out by the Street Commissioners in 1817, at a
cost of £6,000, as an open market, has been enlarged by taking in most
of the ground bordered by Jamaica Row, St. Martin's Lane and Moat Lane,
and is nearly all covered in for the purposes of a wholesale market, the
work being commenced in November, 1880. The main entrance is in the
centre of the St. Martin's Lane front, and consists of a central roadway
for carts and wagons, 15ft. wide and 24ft. high, together with a wide
entrance on either side for foot passengers. The main piers supporting
the large archway are of stone, but the arch itself is constructed of
terra-cotta, richly moulded and carved. Over the archway are two
sculptured figures in red terra-cotta, representing "Flora" and
"Pomona." The whole of the carving and sculptured work has been executed
by Mr. John Roddis. The archways are fitted with massive wrought-iron
gates, manufactured by Messrs. Hart, Son, Peard, and Co. The entrances
in Jamaica Row and Moat Lane have arched gateways and gates to match,
though much higher to allow of the passage of laden wains. The market
superintendent's office is on the left of the man entrance. Greatest
part of the St. Martin's Lane front is occupied by the new Woolpack
Hotel, and the remainder by shops. The buildings, which are from the
designs of Messrs. Osborne and Reading, are designed in the style of the
English Renaissance of the Stuart period, and are constructed of red
brick, with red terra-cotta dressings. At each end of the St. Martin's
Lane front are circular turrets, with conical roof, flanked by
ornamental gables, and in the centre is a gable with octagonal turret on
each side.
_Temperance Hall_.--The foundation stone of this building, which is in
Upper Temple Street, was laid Jan. 12, 1858, and it was opened Oct. 11
following.
_The Cobden_.--Though the property of a private company, who have twenty
other establishments in the town, the "Cobden," in Corporation Street,
may rank as a public building if only from its central position and
finished architecture. It was opened by John Bright, Esq., Aug. 29,
1883, and cost about £10,000. In style it may be said to be
French-Gothic of early date, with Venetian features in the shape of
traceried oriel windows, &c., the frontage being of Corsham Down and
Portland stone.
_Town Hall_.--For many years the pride and the boast of Birmingham has
been its noble Town Hall, which still remains the most conspicuous
building, as well as the finest specimen of architecture, in the town.
It was erected by the Street Commissioners, who obtained a special Act
for the purpose in 1828, to enable them to lay a rate to pay for it. The
architect was Mr. T. Hansom, of the firm of Messrs. Hansom and Welch,
who, by a curious provision, were also bound to be the contractors.
Their original estimate was £17,000, with extras, which would have
raised it to about £19,000, but so far were their figures out that
£30,000 were expended prior to the first meeting being held in the Hall,
and that sum had been increased to £69,520 when the building was finally
completed in 1850 by the addition of the pillars and pediments at the
back. The foundations and solid parts of the structure are built of
brick, the casing or outside of the walls, the pillars, and the
ornamental portions being of Anglesey marble, given to the contractors
by the owner of Penmaen quarries, Sir Richard Bulkeley, Bart. The
building was commenced April 27, 1832, and opened Sept. 19, 1834, being
used for the Festival of that year; the first public meeting held in the
Hall being on Nov. 28th. The outside measurements of the Hall are--
Length 175ft., breadth 100ft., height 83ft., viz., basement 23ft.,
columns 36ft., cornice 9ft., and pediment 15ft,. The forty columns are
each 3-1/2ft. diameter. The hall, or great room, is 145ft. long, 65ft.
broad, and 65ft. high; including the orchestra it will seat a few over
3,000 persons, while it is said that on more than one occasion 10,000
have found standing room. Considerable sums have been spent in trying to
improve the ventilation and lighting of the Hall, as well as in
redecorating occasionally, the medallions of eminent composers and other
worthies being introduced in 1876. For description of Town Hall organ
see "_Organs_."
_Windsor Street Gas Works_ with its immense gas-holders, retort-houses,
its own special canal and railway approaches, covers an area of about
twenty-six acres, extending almost from Dartmouth Street to Aston Road.
Though there can be no grand architectural features about such an
establishment certain parts of the works are worthy of note, the two
principal gas-holders and the new retort-house being among the largest
of their kind in the world. The holders, or gasometers as they are
sometimes called, are each 240ft. in diameter, with a depth of 50ft.,
the telescope arrangement allowing of a rise of 170ft., giving a
containing capacity equal to the space required for 6,250,000 cubic feet
of gas. The new retort house is 455ft. long by 210ft. wide, and will
produce about nine million cubic feet of gas per day, the furnaces being
supplied with coal and cleared of the coke by special machinery of
American invention, which is run upon rails backwards and forwards from
the line of coal trucks to the furnace mouths. The quantity of coal used
per week is nearly 4,000 tons, most of which is brought from North
Staffordshire, and the reserve coal heap is kept as near as convenient
to a month's supply, or 16,000 tons. The machinery for the purification
of the gas, the extracting of the ammoniacal liquor, tar and residuals,
which make the manufacture of gas so remunerative, are of the most
improved description.
_Workhouse_.--The first mention of a local institution thus named occurs
in the resolution passed at a public meeting held May 16, 1727, to the
effect that it was "highly necessary and convenient that a Public Work
House should be erected in or near the town to employ or set to work the
poor of Birmingham for their better maintenance as the law directs."
This resolution seems to have been carried out, as the Workhouse in
Lichfield Street (which was then a road leading out of the town) was
built in 1733 the first cost being £1,173, but several additions
afterwards made brought the building account to about £3,000. Originally
it was built to accommodate 600 poor persons, but in progress of time it
was found necessary to house a much larger number, and the Overseers and
Guardians were often hard put to for room; which perhaps accounts for
their occasionally discussing the advisability of letting some of their
poor people out on hire to certain would-be taskmasters as desired such
a class of employees. In the months of January, February, and March,
1783, much discussion took place as to building a new Workhouse, but
nothing definite was done in the matter until 1790, when it was proposed
to obtain an Act for the erection of a Poorhouse at Birmingham Heath, a
scheme which Hutton said was as airy as the spot chosen for the
building. Most likely the expense, which was reckoned at £15,000,
frightened the ratepayers, for the project was abandoned, and for fifty
years little more was heard on the subject. What they would have said to
the £150,000 spent on the present building can be better imagined than
described. The foundation-stone of the latter was laid Sept. 7, 1850,
and the first inmates were received March 29, 1852, in which year the
Lichfield Street establishment was finally closed, though it was not
taken down for several years after. The new Workhouse is one of the
largest in the country, the area within its walls being nearly twenty
acres, and it was built to accommodate 3,000 persons, but several
additions in the shape of new wards, enlarged schools, and extended
provision for the sick, epileptic and insane, have since been made. The
whole establishment is supplied with water from an artesian well, and is
such a distance from other buildings as to ensure the most healthy
conditions. The chapel, which has several stained windows, is capable of
seating 800 persons and in it, on May 9, 1883, the Bishop of Worcester
administered the rite of confirmation to 31 of the inmates, a novelty in
the history of Birmingham Workhouse, at all events. Full provision is
made for Catholics and Nonconformists desiring to attend the services of
their respective bodies. In connection with the Workhouse may be noted
the Cottage Homes and Schools at Marston Green (commenced in October,
1878) for the rearing and teaching of a portion of the poor children
left in the care of the Guardians. These buildings consist of 3 schools,
14 cottage homes, workshops, infirmary, headmaster's residence, &c.,
each of the homes being for thirty children, in addition to an artisan
and his wife, who act as heads of the family. About twenty acres of land
are at present thus occupied, the cost being at the rate of £140 per
acre, while on the buildings upwards of £20,000 has been spent.
~Public houses.~--The early Closing Act came into operation here,
November 11, 1864; and the eleven o'clock closing hour in 1872; the rule
from 1864 having been to close at one and open at four a.m. Prior to
that date the tipplers could be indulged from the earliest hour on
Monday till the latest on Saturday night. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain and his
friends thought so highly of the Gothenburg scheme that they persuaded
the Town Council into passing a resolution (Jan. 2, 1877) that the
Corporation ought to be allowed to buy up all the trade in Birmingham.
There were forty-six who voted for the motion against ten; but, when the
Right Hon. J.C.'s monopolising motion was introduced to the House of
Commons (March 13, 1877), it was negatived by fifty-two votes.
~Pudding Brook.~--This was the sweetly pretty name given to one of the
little streams that ran in connection with the moat round the old
Manorhouse. Possibly it was originally Puddle Brook, but as it became
little more than an open sewer or stinking mud ditch before it was
ultimately done away with, the last given name may not have been
inappropriate.
~Quacks.~--Though we cannot boast of a millionaire pill-maker like the
late Professor Holloway, we have not often been without a local
well-to-do "quack." A medical man, named Richard Aston, about 1815-25,
was universally called so, and if the making of money is proof of
quackery, he deserved the title, as he left a fortune of £60,000. He
also left an only daughter, but she and her husband were left to die in
the Workhouse, as the quack did not approve of their union.
~Quakers.~--Peaceable and quiet as the members of the Society of Friends
are known to be now, they do not appear to have always borne that
character in this neighbourhood, but the punishments inflicted upon them
in the time of the Commonwealth seem to have been brutish in the
extreme. In a history of the diocese of Worcester it is stated that the
Quakers not only refused to pay tithes or take off their hats in courts
of justice, but persisted in carrying on their business on Sundays, and
scarcely suffering a service to be conducted without interruption,
forcing themselves into congregations and proclaiming that the clergymen
were lying witnesses and false prophets, varying their proceedings by
occasionally running naked through the streets of towns and villages,
and otherwise misbehaving themselves, until they were regarded as public
pests and treated accordingly. In the year 1661, fifty-four Quakers were
in Worcester gaol, and about the same time seven or eight others were in
the lockup at Evesham, where they were confined for fourteen weeks in a
cell 22 ft. square and 6 ft. high, being fed on bread and water and not
once let out during the whole time, so that people could not endure to
past the place; female Quakers were thrust with brutal indecency into
the stocks and there left in hard frost for a day and night, being
afterwards driven from the town. And this went on during the whole of
the time this country was blessed with Cromwell and a Republican
Government.--See "_Friends_."
~Quaint Customs.~--The practice of "heaving" or "lifting" on Easter
Monday and Tuesday was still kept up in some of the back streets of the
town a few years back, and though it may have died out now with us those
who enjoy such amusements will find the old custom observed in villages
not far away.--At Handsworth, "clipping the church" was the curious
"fad" at Easter-time, the children from the National Schools, with
ladies and gentlemen too, joining hands till they had surrounded the old
church with a leaping, laughing, linked, living ring of humanity, great
fun being caused when some of the link loosed hands and let their
companions fall over the graves.--On St. John's Days, when the ancient
feast or "wake" of Deritend Chapel was kept, it, was the custom to carry
bulrushes to the church, and old inhabitants decorated their fireplaces
with them.--In the prosperous days of the Holte family, when Aston Hall
was the abode of fine old English gentlemen, instead of being the
lumber-room of those Birmingham rogues the baronets abominated,
Christmas Eve was celebrated with all the hospitalities usual in
baronial halls, but the opening of the evening's performances was of so
whimsical a character that it attracted attention even a hundred years
ago, when queer and quaint customs were anything but strange. An old
chronicler thus describes it:--"On this day, as soon as supper is over,
a table is set in the hall; on it is set a brown loaf, with twenty
silver threepences stuck on the top of it, a tankard of ale, with pipes
and tobacco; and the two oldest servants have chairs behind it, to sit
in as judges, if they please. The steward brings the servants, both men
and women, by one at a time, covered with a winnow-sheet, and lays their
right hand on the loaf, exposing no other part of the body. The oldest
of the two judges guesses at the person, by naming a name; then the
younger judge, and, lastly, the oldest again. If they hit upon the right
name, the steward leads the person back again; but if they do not he
takes off the winnow-sheet, and the person receives a threepence, makes
low obeisance to the judges, but speaks not a word. When the second
servant was brought the younger judge guessed first and third; and this
they did alternately till all the money was given away. Whatever servant
had not slept in the house the previous night forfeited his right to the
money. No account is given of the origin of this strange custom, but it
has been practised ever since the family lived there. When the money is
gone the servants have full liberty to drink, dance, sing, and go to bed
when they please."
~Railways:~ _London and North Western_.--The first proposal for
converting Birmingham with the outer world by means of a railway seems
to have originated in 1824, as we read of the share-book for a
Birmingham and London line being opened here on December 14 of that
year. There was a great rush for shares, 2,500 being taken up in two
hours, and a £7 premium offered for more, but as the scheme was soon
abandoned it is probable the scrip was quickly at a discount. Early in
1830 two separate companies were formed for a line to the Metropolis,
but they amalgamated on September 11, and surveys were taken in the
following year. Broad Street being chosen as the site for a station. The
Bill was introduced into the House of Commons February 20, 1832, but the
Lords rejected it in June. Another Bill, with variations in the plans,
was brought in in the session of 1833, and it passed on May 6, the work
being commenced at the London end in July, and at Birmingham in June of
the following year. The line was to be 112-1/2 miles long and estimated
to cost £2,500,000, but the real cost amounted to £4,592,700, of which
£72,868 18s. 10d. was spent in obtaining the Act alone. The line was
opened in sections as completed, the first train running from Euston to
Boxmoor, 24-1/2 miles, on July 20, 1837. The average daily number of
persons using the line during the first month was 1,428, the receipts
being at the rate of £153 per day. On April 9, 1838, the trains reached
Rugby, and on Aug. 14, the line was completed to Daddeston Row, the
directors taking a trial trip on the 20th. There were only seventeen
stations on the whole line, over which the first passenger train ran on
Sept. 17.--The prospectus of the Grand Junction Railway (for Liverpool
and Manchester) was issued May 7, 1830, and the line from Vauxhall
Station to Newton (where it joined the Manchester and Liverpool line)
was opened July 4, 1837. The importance of this line of communication
was shown by the number of passengers using it during the first nine
weeks, 18,666 persons travelling to or from Liverpool, and 7,374 to or
from Manchester, the receipts for that period being £41,943.--The
Birmingham branch of the South Staffordshire Railway was opened Nov. 1,
1847; the Birmingham and Shrewsbury line, Nov. 12, 1849; and between
Dudley and Walsall May 1, 1850. The Stour Valley line was partially
brought into use (from Monument Lane) Aug. 19, 1851, the first train
running clear through to Wolverhampton July 1, 1852. The line to Sutton
Coldfield was opened June 2, 1862, and the Harborne line (for which the
Act was obtained in 1866) was opened Aug. 10, 1874. The Act for the
construction of the Birmingham and Lichfield line, being a continuation
of the Sutton Coldfield Railway, passed June 23, 1874; it was commenced
late in October, 1881, and it will shortly be in use. The Bill for the
Dudley and Oldbury Junction line passed July 15, 1881. A new route from
Leamington to Birmingham was opened in Sept. 1884, shortening the
journey to London.