fathers had to do? Here are a few:--The hearth or chimney tax of 2s. for
every fire-place or stove in houses rated above 20s. per annum was
imposed in the fifteenth year of Charles II.'s reign, but repealed in
the first year of William and Mary, 1689; the owners of Edgbaston Hall
paid for 22 chimneys before it was destroyed in 1668. In 1642, there was
a duty of £4 a pair on silk stockings. A window tax was enacted in 1695
"to pay for the re-coinage of the gold coin," and was not entirely
removed till July 24, 1851; from a return made to Parliament by the Tax
Office in 1781, it appeared that the occupiers of 2,291 houses paid the
window tax in Birmingham; there was collected for house and window tax
in 1823, from the inhabitants of this town, the sum of £27,459 12s.
1-3/4d., though in the following year it was £9,000 less. Bachelors and
widowers were rated by 6 and 7 William III., c. 6, "to enable the King
to carry on the war against France with rigour." Births, marriages, and
deaths were also made liable to duties by the same Act. The salt duties
were first levied in 1702, doubled in 1732, and raised again in 1782,
ceasing to be gathered in 1825. The price of salt at one period of the
long Peninsular war rose to £30 per ton, being retailed in Birmingham at
4l. per lb. Carriages were taxed in 1747. Armorial bearings in 1798.
Receipts for money and promisory notes were first taxed in 1782. Hair
powder tax, of 21s. per annum, was first levied in 1795. In 1827, there
was a 1s. 3d. duty on almanacks. The 3s. advertisement duty was reduced
to 1s. 6d. in 1833, and abolished August 4, 1853. The paper duty, first
put on in 1694, was repealed in 1861; that on bricks taken off in 1850;
on soap in 1853; on sugar in May, 1874, and on horses the same year.
Hats, gloves, and linen shirts were taxed in 1785; patent medicines,
compound waters, and codfish, in 1783; in fact every article of food,
drink, and clothing required by man from the moment of his birth until
his burial, the very shroud, the land he trod on, the house he lived in,
the materials for building, have all been taxed. For coming into the
world, for living in it, and for going out of it, have Englishmen had to
pay, even though they grumbled. Now-a-days the country's taxes are few
in number, and per head are but small in amount, yet the grumbling and
the growling is as heavy as of old. _Can_ it arise from the pressure of
our local rates? Where our fathers paid 20s. to the Government, we do
not pay 5s.; but where the old people gave 5s. in rates, we have to part
with 25s.
~Telegraphs.~--The cable for the first Atlantic telegraph was made here.
Its length was 2,300 nautical miles, and it required 690,000 lbs. of
copper in addition to the iron wire forming the strand, of which latter
there was about 16,000 miles' length. The first time the "Queen's
Speech" was transmitted to this town by the electric telegraph was on
Tuesday, November 30, 1847, the time occupied being an hour and a half.
The charge for sending a message of 20 words from here to London, in
1848, was 6s. 6d. The Sub-Marine Telegraph Co. laid their wires through
Birmingham in June and July, 1853.
~Temperance.~--There appears to have been a sort of a kind of a
temperance movement here in 1788, for the Magistrates, at their sitting
August 21, strongly protested against the increase of dram-drinking; but
they went on granting licenses, though. Father Matthew's first visit was
September 10, 1843; J.B. Gough's, September 21, 1853; Mr. Booth's, in
May, 1882. The first local society for inculcating principles of
temperance dates from September 1, 1830; U.K. Alliance organised a
branch here in February, 1855; the first Templars' Lodge was opened
September 8, 1868; the Royal Crusaders banded together in the summer of
1881; and the Blue Ribbons were introduced in May, 1882. This novelty in
dress ornamentation was adopted (so they said) by over 40,000
inhabitants, but at the end of twelve months the count was reduced to
8,000, including Sunday School children, popular parsons, maidens
looking for husbands, old maids who had lost their chances, and the
unco' guid people, who, having lost their own tastes, would fain keep
others from their cakes and ale.
~Temple Row.~--A "parech meeting" in 1715 ordered the purchase of land
for a passage way out of Bull Street to St. Philip's Church. It was not
until 1842 when part of the Royal Hotel stables were taken down, that it
was made its present width. In 1837 the churchyard had some pleasant
walks along the sides, bounded by a low wooden fence, and skirted with
trees.
~Temple Street~ takes its name from the old summer arbour, wittily
called "the Temple," which once stood in a garden where now Temple Row
joins the street. An advertisement in _Gazette_ of December 5, 1743,
announced a house for sale, in Temple Street, having a garden twelve
yards wide by fifty yards long, adjoining the fields, and with a
prospect of four miles distance.
~Theatrical Jottings.~--What accommodation, if any, was provided here
for "their majesties' servants," the playactors, in the times of Queen
Anne and her successor, George I., is not known, but as Hutton tells us
that in 1730 the amusements of the stage _rose_ in elegance so far that
threepenny performances were given "in a stable in Castle Street," we
may be sure the position held by members of the profession was not very
high in the estimation of our townsfolk previous to that period. Indeed,
it would almost seem as if the acting of plays was quite an innovation
at the time named, and one that met with approval, for shortly after we
read of there being theatres in Smallbrook Street, in New Street, and "a
new theatre" in Moor Street. The first-named closed in 1749 or 1750; the
second is _supposed_ to have been on the site of the present Theatre
Royal, but it could not have been a building of much importance as we
find no note of it after 1744; the third, built in 1739, was taken
possession of by the disciples of Wesley, and on March 21, 1764, was
opened as a chapel. Previous to the last event, however, another theatre
had been erected (in 1752) in King Street, leading out of New Street,
near to the Free School, which, being enlarged in 1774, is described by
Hutton as having few equals. In this year also (1774) the Theatre Royal
was erected (at a cost of nearly £5,700) though the latter half of its
title was not assumed until August, 1807, on the occasion of the Royal
assent being given to the house being "licensed." A bill had been
introduced into the House of Commons for this purpose on the 26th of
March, 1777, during the debate on which Burke called Birmingham "the
great toyshop of Europe," but it was thrown out on the second reading.
The King Street Theatre, like its predecessor in Moor Street, after a
time of struggle, was turned into a place of worship in 1786, a fate
which, at a later date, also befell another place of public
entertainment, the Circus, in Bradford Street, and the theatrical
history of the town, for a long term of years centred round the Theatre
Royal, though now and then spasmodic attempts were made to localise
amusements more or less of a similar nature. One of these, and the
earliest, was peculiarly unfortunate; early in 1778 a wooden pavilion,
known as the "Concert Booth," was erected in the Moseley Road, dramatic
performances being _given_ between the first and last parts of a vocal
and instrumental concert, but some mischievous or malicious incendiary
set fire to the building, which was burnt to the ground Aug. 13 of the
same year. Four years later, and nearly at the same date (Aug. 17) the
Theatre in New Street met with a like fate, the only portion of it left
being the stone front (added in 1780) which is still the same,
fortunately coming almost as safely through the next conflagration. The
proprietors cleared away the ruins, and erected a more commodious
structure, which, under the management of Mr. William Macready, was
opened June 22, 1795. In the meantime, the King Street Theatre having
been chapelised, the town appears to have been without any recognised
place for dramatic entertainments other than those provided in the large
rooms of the hotels, or the occasional use of a granary transmogrified
for the nonce into a Thespian arena. On the night of the 6th of January,
1820, after the performance of "Pizarro," the Theatre Royal was again
burnt out, but, possibly from having their property insured up to
£7,000, the proprietors were not so long in having it rebuilt, the doors
of the new house being opened on following Aug. 14. This is,
practically, the same building as the present, which has scats for about
3,500, the gallery holding 1,000. Many of the first artists of the
profession have trod the boards of the Old Theatre since the last-named
date, and Birmingham has cause to be proud of more than one of her
children, who, starting thence, have found name and fame elsewhere. The
scope of the present work will not allow of anything move than a few
brief notes, and those entirely of local bearing, but a history of the
Birmingham stage would not be uninteresting reading.
A wooden building in Moor Street, formerly a circus, was licensed March,
19, 1861; closed in 1863, and cleared off the ground in 1865.
Theatrical performances were licensed in Bingley Hall in 1854.
The Prince of Wales Theatre, previously Broad Street Music Hall, was
opened in 1862. It was reconstructed in 1876, and has accommodation for
an audience of 3,200.
The Holte Theatre was opened May 12, 1879, the license to the Lower
Grounds Co. being granted November 29, 1878.
The last new Theatre, the Grand, in Corporation Street, must rank as one
of the handsomest edifices in the town. It faces what was once the Old
Square, and has a frontage of 120ft., the height to the cornice of the
roof being 52ft., the whole being capped with a dome, supporting a
winged figure of Auroro, which, drawn in a car by prancing horses, is
15ft. high. The interior is laid out in the most improved modern style,
ornately decorated throughout, and provides accommodation for over 3,000
persons. The cost is put at £30,000, of which £17,000 went to the
builders alone, and the theatre is the property of Mr. A. Melville. The
opening day was Nov. 14th, 1883.
The "Interlude of Deritend Wake, with the representation of a
Bull-baiting" was part of the performance announced at the King street
Theatre, May 31, 1783.
Mrs. Sarah Siddons, whose _début_ in London the previous season had been
anything but successful, came to Birmingham for the summer season of
1776. Henderson, one of her colleagues here, notwithstanding the Drury
Lane veto, declared that she was "an actress who never had an equal nor
would ever have a superior"--an opinion quickly verified.
One of Kean's benefits was a total failure. In the last scene of the
play "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," wherein allusion is made to the
marriage of a lady, "Take her," said Kean, "and the Birmingham audience
into the bargain."
Garrick was visiting Lord Lytton at Hagley on one occasion when news was
brought that a company of players were going to perform at Birmingham.
His lordship suggested that Garrick should write an address to the
audience for the players. "Suppose, then," said he, "I begin thus:
"Ye sons of iron, copper, brass and steel,
Who have not heads to think, nor hearts to feel."
"Oh," cried his lordship, "if you begin like that, they will hiss the
players off the stage, and pull the house down." "My lord," replied
Garrick, "what is the use of an address if it does not come home to the
business and bosoms of the audience?"
A "Birmingham Garrick," was the name given to an actor named Henderson
(1782), whose friends did not think him quite so great a tragedian as he
fancied himself.
Kemble made his last appearance on the Birmingham stage July 9, 1788.
Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday, was the pantomime in 1790.
Madame Catalini first appeared at Royal in 1807.
Incledon, the famous tenor, sang here first time in same year.
William Charles Macready made his _debût_ on the stage of the Royal as
_Romeo_, June 7, 1810. He took his farewell benefit Aug. 13, 1871.
Alfred Bunn had the Theatre in 1823, during which year there appeared
here Mr. and Mrs. C. Kemble, W.C. Macready, Joey Grimaldi, Miss Ellen
Tree (afterwards Mrs. Charles Kean), W. Farrer, Braham, Elliston,
Dowton, Rignold and Power.
Barry Sullivan was born here in 1824.
In 1824 the whole town was up in arms taking part in the "Battle of the
Preachers and the Players," which was commenced by the Rev. J. Augell
James delivering a series of sermons bitterly inveighing against the
theatre, as a place of amusement, and pouring forth the most awful
denunciations against the frequenters thereof. Alfred Bunn, the manager,
was not slow to retort. He put "The Hypocrite" on the boards, Shuter,
the clever comedian and mimic, personating Mr. James in the part of
_Mawworm_ so cleverly that the piece had an immense run. The battle
ended in a victory for both sides, chapel and theatre alike being
crammed. If it pleased the godly it was a god-send for Bunn whose
exchequer it filled to repletion.
Signer Costa was at the Festival in 1829, and he afterwards appeared on
the stage at the Royal.
Paganini first fiddled at the Royal, January 22, 1832.
Sheridan Knowles, Macready, Paganini, Matthews, and Miss Ellen Tree were
among the Stars at the Royal in 1833.
Mercer H. Simpson took the management of the Royal in 1838. His farewell
benefit was on December 16, 1864, and he died March 2, 1877, aged 76.
Sims Reeves' first visit to this town was in May, 1843; his last
appearance at the Festivals was in 1873; at the Royal in May, 1875, and
at the Town Hall, March 25, 1884.
Jenny Lind first sang here Aug. 29, 1847; she sang for the Queen's
Hospital at Town Hall, Dec. 28, 1848; her last concerts were Jan. 22-23,
1862.
Madle. Rachael first played here Aug. 19, 1847.
Charles Dickens and his amateur friends gave their special performances
in aid of the Shakespeare House Fund, at the Royal, June 6 and 27, 1848,
the receipts amounting to £589.
Variety was not wanting at our New Street Theatre in 1852. Among the
artistes advertised to appear were: A strong Man who had 5 cwt. of stone
broken (by a sledge hammer) on his chest nightly; performing Dogs and
Horses; Madame Grisi, Signor Mario, Haymarket Company, Benjamin Webster,
and Madame Celeste, etc., etc.
Miss Menken, the female _Mazeppa_, appeared at Prince of Wales', May 15
1865, and at the Royal in Nov. 1807.
Miss Neilson's first appearance here was in Nov. 1868, in an adaptation,
by Mr. C. Williams, a local dramatist, of Miss Braddon's "Captain of the
Vulture."
Mr. Irving first appeared as _Hamlet_ in this town at Prince of Wales',
Dec., 1877.
Sarah Bernhardt was at Prince of Wales', July 4-6, 1881.
Kyrle Beilew last appeared here at Prince of Wales', Sept, 17, 1881.
Mrs. Langtry was at Prince of Wales', May 29, 1882.
Edwin Booth's first appearance here was at the Royal, as _Richelieu_,
Dec. 11, 1882.
Bobby Atkins, whose real name was Edward, was the most popular comedian
of the Royal, with which he had been connected for more than twenty-five
years. He died in 1882, in his 64th year. His bosom friend, John Barton,
made his exit from the world's stage April 16, 1875.
Sir. George Rignold's mother is stated by Mr. Thomas Swinbourne (himself
a native) to have been a leading actress of the Theatre Royal and very
popular, as indeed she would necessarily be, her _role_ of parts
including _Hamlet_ and _Virginius_. The father was, says Mr. S., "an
admirable terpsichorean artiste, and George inherits the talents of both
parents, with a dash of music besides, for, like _William_, in
'Black-eyed Susan,' he 'plays on the fiddle like on angel.'"
Two or three of our places of amusement have been turned into chapels
permanently, and therefore it was hardly a novelty to hold "Gospel
services" in the Prince of Wales's Theatre, October 3, 1875, but it was
to their credit that "the gods" behaved themselves.
~Time.~--When it is exactly twelve at noon here in Birmingham, it is
7min. 33secs. past at Greenwich, 12min. 50secs. past at Dover, and
16min. 54secs. past at Paris; while it wants 1-1/2mins. to the hour at
Manchester, 9-1/2min. at Glasgow, 17min. 50secs. at Dublin, and
26-1/2mins. at Cork. At Calcutta, the corresponding time would be
6.1-1/2 p.m., Canton 7.40 p.m., Japan 9.15 p.m., Mexico 5.34 a.m., New
Orleans 8.5 a.m., New York 7.11 a.m., New Zealand 11.45 p.m., Nova
Scotia 7.55 a.m., San Francisco 4.5 a.m., St., Petersburg 2.10 p.m.,
Sydney 10.12 p.m., and at Washington just seven o'clock in the morning.
~Tithes.~--One hundred and fifty years ago (if not, considerably later)
the Rector of St. Martin's was paid tithes in cash based on the value of
the crops, &c., one acre of good wheat being tithed at 7s. 6d.; an acre
of good barley at 4s. 4-1/2d.; an acre of flax and hemp, if pulled, at
5s.; an acre of good oats, peas, or potatoes, and all kinds of garden
stuff at 3s. 9d.; for meadow land 4d. an acre, and 2d. for leasow (or
leasland); 3d. being claimed for cow and her calf. 1-1/2d. for each
lamb, &c. In course of time these payments were changed into a fixed
tithe rent, but before matters were comfortably settled, the Rector
found it necessary to give notice (April, 1814) that he should enforce
the ancient custom of being paid "in kind." The gun trade was brisk at
that time, but whether the reverend gentleman took his tenths of the
guns, what he did with them, or how the parties came to terms is not
recorded.--The tithes formerly due in kind to the Vicar of Edgbaston
were commuted by Act passed June 8, 1821, into art annual "corn rent,"
payable by the occupiers or all kinds in the parish.
~Tower.~--Originally, all guns made here for Government, had to be put
together in London, but when the French Revolution broke out, it was
seen that a quicker mode of procedure was necessary, and an
establishment in Bagot Street was erected in 1798, where all guns for
Government were viewed and stamped with the "Tower" mark. Hence the
name.
~Town Criers~ were first appointed in 1526. Jacob Wilson entered into
office May 4, 1853, and was pensioned off with 15s. a week in August,
1879, after a family tenure of the office, according to Jacob, of about
350 years. Surely it was a crying shame to stop the children of that
family from crying in the future. The last of the criers did not last
long after deposition from office, Jacob's last words being uttered in
1881.
~Town Improvements.~--Some fifty and odd years ago Dobbs, a local
comedian, used to sing,
"Brumagem has altered so,
There's scarce a place in it I know;
Round the town you now must go
To find old Brumagem."
Had he lived till these days he might well have sung so, for
improvements are being carried out so rapidly now that in another
generation it is likely _old_ Birmingham will have been improved off the
face of the earth altogether. Prior to the days of steam, our
forefathers went about their work more leisurely, for it was not until
1765 that the Act was obtained for the "enlightening" of the streets,
and four years later when the first Act was passed (April 21, 1769) for
street improvements. The Street Commissioners appointed by this Act, and
who held their first meeting May 22, 1769, for many years did little
more than regulate the traffic of the streets, keep them clean_ish_, and
look after the watchmen. In course of time the operations of the said
Commissioners were extended a little, and it is to them that we owe the
existence of the central open space so long known as the Bull Ring, for
they gave £1,730, in 1801, for the removal of nine tenements there and
then blocking the way. Money must have been of more value then than now,
for if such a purchase was necessary at the present date one or two more
figures would require being added to the amount. This town improvement
was completed in 1806, when the Commissioners purchased the remaining
houses and shops round St. Martin's, but property owners had evidently
learned something during the five years, for whereas the Commissioners
at first estimated the further cost at £10,957, they reluctantly had to
provide no less than £22,266, the additional sum required being
swallowed up by "incidental expenses." The poet already quoted had
apparently been absent during these alterations, for he wailingly
bemoaned--
"Poor old Spiceal Street half gone,
The poor old Church stands all alone,
And poor old I can only groan,
That I can't find Brumagem."