1829, the town improvements for the next forty years consisted
principally of road making, street paving, market arranging, &c., the
opening-up ideas not getting well-rooted in the minds of our governors
until some time after the Town Council began to rule the roast. That a
great deal of work _was_ being done, however, is shown by reference to
the Borough accounts for 1840, in which year £17,366 was expended in
lighting, watching, and otherwise improving the thoroughfares, in
addition to £13,794 actually spent on the highways. 1852 saw the removal
of the turnpikes, at a cost of over £3,200; in the same year £5,800 was
expended in widening the entrance to Temple Row from Bull Street, and
£1,800 for rounding off the corner of Steelhouse Lane and Snow Hill. In
October, 1853, it was decided to obtain for £33,000 the 11,540 square
yards of land at the corner of Ann Street and Congreve Street, where the
Municipal Buildings, Art Gallery, and new Gas Office now stand. Almost
every year since has seen the purchase of properties more or less
required for substantial improvements, though some of them may not even
yet have been utilised. A few fancy prices might be named which have had
to be paid for odd bits of property here and there, but about the
dearest of all was £53 10s. per yard, which the Council paid (in 1864)
for the land required to round off the corner of New Street and
Worcester Street, a further £1,300 going, in 1873, to extinguish certain
leasehold rights. This is by no means the highest figure given for land
in the centre of the town, as Mr. John Feeney, in 1882, paid at the rate
of £66 per yard for the site at corner of Cannon Street and New Street,
the portion retained for his own use costing him even more than that, as
he generously allowed the Corporation to take 30-1/2 yards for £1,000.
The introduction of the railways, and consequent obliteration of scores
of old streets, courts, alleys, and passages, has been of vast service
towards the general improvement of the town, as well in the matter of
health and sanitation, as leading to the construction of many new
buildings and the formation of adequate approaches to the several
railway stations, the erection of such establishments as the Queen's
Hotel, the Great Western Hotel, &c. Nor have private property owners and
speculators been at all backward, as evidenced by our magnificent modern
banking establishments, the huge piles of commercial buildings in
Colmore Row, New Street, and Corporation Street, the handsome shops in
New Street, High Street, and Bull Street, with many other edifices that
our grandfathers never dreamed of, such as the Midland, the Grand, and
the Stork Hotels, the palatial Club Houses, the Colonnade and Arcades,
New Theatres, Inns of Court, &c., &c. Many of these improvements have
resulted from the falling-in of long leases on the Colmore, the Grammar
School, and other estates, while others have been the outcome of a
far-seeing policy on the part of such moneyed men as the late Sir Josiah
Mason, Isaac Horton, and others of somewhat similar calibre. Going away
from the immediate centre of the town architectural improvements will be
noted on all hands, Snow Hill, for one place, being evidently in the
regenerative throes of a new birth, with its Gothic Arcade opposite the
railway station, and the new circus at the foot of the hill, where for
so many long years there has been nothing but a wreck and a ruin. In
close neighbourhood, Constitution Hill, Hampton Street, and at the
junction of Summer Lane, a number of handsome houses and shops have
lately been erected by Mr. Cornelius Ede, in the early Gothic style,
from designs by Mr. J.S. Davis, the architect of the Snow Hill Arcade,
the whole unquestionably forming a very great advance on many former
street improvements. The formation in 1880 of John Bright Street as an
extension of the Bristol Road (cost £30,000) has led to the erection of
many fine buildings in that direction; the opening-out of Meetinghouse
Yard and the alterations in Floodgate Street (in 1879, at a cost of
£13,500), has done much for that neighbourhood; the widening of
Worcester Street and the formation of Station Street, &c., thanks to the
enlargement of the Central Station, and the remodelling of all the
thoroughfares in the vicinity of Navition Street and Worcester Wharf,
also arising therefrom, are important schemes now in progress in the
same direction; and in fact there is hardly any district within the
borough boundaries in which improvements of more or less consequence are
not being made, or have been planned, the gloomy old burial grounds
having been turned into pleasant gardens at a cost of over £10,000, and
even the dirty water-courses known as the river Rea and Hockley brook
have had £12,000 worth of cleaning out bestowed upon them. It is not too
much to say that millions have been spent in improving Birmingham during
the past fifty years, not reckoning the cost of the last and greatest
improvement of all--the making of Corporation Street, and the consequent
alterations on our local maps resulting therefrom. The adoption of the
Artizans' Dwelling Act, under the provisions of which the Birmingham
Improvement Scheme has been carried out, was approved by the Town
Council, on the 16th of October, 1875. Then, on the 15th of March, 1876,
followed the Local Government Board enquiry; and on the 17th of June,
1876, the provisional order of the Board, approving the scheme, was
issued. The Confirming Act received the Royal assent on the 15th of
August, 1876. On the 6th of September, 1880, a modifying order was
obtained, with respect to the inclusion of certain properties and the
exclusion of others. The operations under the scheme began in August,
1878, when the houses in New Street were pulled down. In April, 1879, by
the removal of the Union Hotel, the street was continued into Cherry
Street: and further extensions have been made in the following order:--
Cherry Street to Bull Street, August 1881; the Priory to John Street,
June 1881; Bull Street to the Priory, January, 1882; John Street to
Aston Street, February, 1882. Little Cannon Street was formed in August
1881; and Cowper Street in January, 1881. The first lease of land in the
area of the scheme--to the Women's Hospital--was agreed upon in January,
1876; and the first lease in Corporation Street--to Mr. J.W. Danieli--
was arranged in May, 1878. In July, 1879, a lease was agreed upon for
the new County Court. The arbitrations in the purchase of properties
under the scheme were begun in June, 1879, and in June, 1880, Sir Henry
Hunt, the arbitrator nominated by the Local Government Board, made his
first award, amounting to £270,405, the remainder of the properties
having been bought by agreement. The loans borrowed on account of the
scheme amount to £1,600,000, the yearly charge on the rates being over
£20,000 per annum, but as the largest proportion of the property is let
upon 75-year leases, this charge will, in time, not only be reduced
yearly by the increase of ground-rents, as the main and branch streets
are filled up, but ultimately be altogether extinguished, the town
coming in for a magnificent income derived from its own property. The
length of Corporation Street from New Street to Lancaster Street is 851
yards, and if ultimately completed (as at first intended) from Lancaster
Street to Aston Road, the total length will be 1,484 yards or
five-sixths of a mile. The total area of land purchased for the
carrying-out of the scheme is put at 215,317 square yds. (about 44a. 1r.
38p.), of which quantity 39,280 square yards has been laid out in new
streets, or the widening of old ones. Of the branch or connecting
streets intended there is one (from Corporation Street to the corner of
High Street and Bull Street, opposite Dale End), that cannot be made for
several years, some valuable leases not expiring until 1890 and 1893,
but, judging by the present rate of building, Corporation Street itself
will be completed long before then. More than a score of the
unhealthiest streets and lanes in the town have been cleared away, and
from a sanitary point of view the improvement in health and saving of
life in the district by the letting in of light and air, has been of the
most satisfactory character, but though the scheme was originated under
the Artisans' Dwelling Act, intended to provide good and healthy
residences in lieu of the pestiferous slums and back courts, it cannot
in one sense be considered much of a success. The number of artisans'
dwellings required was 1,335, about 550 of which were removed
altogether, the rest being improved and relet, or converted into shops,
warehouses, &c. A piece of land between Newtown Row and Summer Lane,
containing an area of 14,250 square yards was purchased for the purpose
of leasing for the erection of artisans' dwellings, and a 50ft. wide
street was laid out and nicely planted with trees, but, owing either to
the badness of trade, or the over-building of small houses in other
parts previously, less than a sixth of the site has been taken, and but
a score of houses built, a most wonderful contrast to the rapid filling
of Corporation Street with its many magnificent edifices present and
prospective, that promise to make it one of the finest streets in the
provinces. There cannot, however, be such necessity for the erection of
small houses as was imagined when the Act was adopted here, for
according to a return lately obtained, and not reckoning the thousands
of little domiciles on the outskirts, there are in the borough 4,445
houses usually let at weekly rentals up to 2s. 6d. per week, 24,692 the
rentals of which are between 2s. 6d. and 3s. 6d., and 36,832 others
between 3s. 6d. and 7s. per week, a total of 65,969 working men's
houses, but of which 5,273 (taking one week with another) are always
void.
~Toyshop of Europe.~--It was during the debate in the House of Commons
(March 26, 1777) on the first reading of a Bill to license the Theatre
in Birmingham, that Mr. Burke, who spoke in its favour, described this
town as "the great toyshop of Europe." At that time, and for long
afterwards, hundreds of articles of utility manufactured here were
roughly classed as "light steel toys," and "heavy steel toys;" though we
should hardly now be likely to consider tinder boxes, steelyards,
pokers, fire-shovels and tongs as playthings.
~Trade Notes of the Past.~--Foreigners were not allowed to carry on any
retail trade here before 1663. The Brums never liked them. An official
document of 1695, states that, the trade of the town was "chiefly in
steel, iron, and other _ponderous_ commodities." In 1702 it was enacted
that if brass, copper, latten, bell-metal gun-metal, or shruff-metal be
carried beyond sea, clean or mixed, double the value thereof to be
forfeited, tin and lead only excepted. An Act was passed March 20, 1716,
prohibiting trade with Sweden, much to the inconvenience of our local
manufacturers, who imported Swedish iron for conversion into steel in
large quantities. The Act 1 Geo. I., c. 27 (1720), forbidding the
_exportation_ of artizans to foreign countries was not repealed till
1825 (5 Geo. IV., c. 97). In April, 1729, our manufacturers petitioned
that the colonists in America should be encouraged to send pig iron over
here; ten years previously they bitterly opposed the idea; ten years
later they repented, for their American cousins filled our warehouses
with their manufactured goods. In 1752 it was stated that above 20,000
hands were employed here in "useful manufactures." In 1785 a reward of
fifty guineas was offered here for the conviction of any person
"enticing workmen to go to foreign countries;" the penalty for such
"enticing" being a fine of £100 and three months' imprisonment.
~Trade Societies and Trades' Unions~ are of modern growth, unless we
count the old-style combinations of the masters to prevent their workmen
emigrating, or the still more ancient Guilds and Fraternities existing
in mediæval times. There are in all, 177 different Trades' Unions in the
country (coming under the notice of the Registrar-General), and most of
them have branches in this town and neighbourhood. The majority have
sick and benefit funds connected with them, and so far should be classed
among Friendly, Benevolent, or Philanthropic Societies, but some few are
plainly and simply trade associations to keep up prices, to prevent
interference with their presumed rights, to repress attacks by the
avoidance of superabundant labour, and to generally protect members when
wrongfully treated, cheated or choused. Prior to 1834, when some 20,000
persons assembled on Newhall Hill, March 31 to protest against the
conviction of Dorset labourers for trades' unionism, few of these
societies were locally in existence; but the advent of Free Trade seems
to have shown all classes of workers the necessity of protecting their
individual interests by means of a system of Protection very similar,
though on smaller scale, to that abolished by Sir Robert Peel and his
friends. That there was a necessity for such trade societies was clearly
shown by the harsh manner in which they were denounced by John Bright at
a Town Hall banquet, held April 28, 1875, that gentleman evidently
demurring to the anomally of working men being Protectionists of any
kind. Foremost among the local unions is the National Society of
Amalgamated Brassworkers, originated April 18, 1872 with over 5,000
members now on its books, having in its first eight years subscribed and
paid to members out of employ no less than £29,000.--The Builders'
Labourers combined in 1861, and pay out yearly over £200 for sick and
funeral benefits.--The National Association of Master Builders was
organised here on Dec, 18, 1877.--The Butcher's Trade and Benevolent
Association, organised in 1877, helps its members in case of need, keeps
a sharp look out when new Cattle Markets, &c., are proposed, and
provides a jury to help the magistrates in any doubtful case of
"scrag-mag," wherein horse-flesh, donkey meat, and other niceties have
been tendered to the public as human food.--The "gentlemen" belonging to
the fraternity of accountants met on April 20, 1882, to form a local
Institute of Chartered Accountants, and their clients know the result by
the extra charges of the chartered ones.--The Clerks' Provident
Association provides a register for good clerks out of employ for the
use of employers who may want them, and, of course, there can be no good
clerks out of employ except those who belong to the Association. It was
commenced in 1883, from a philanthropic feeling, but must rank among
trade societies as much as many others.--The Coal Merchants and
Consumers' Association, for regulating the traffic charges, and
otherwise protecting the trade (especially the sellers) was organised in
1869.--The Dairymen and Milksellers' Protection Society came into
existence April 2, 1884, and is intended to protect the dealers against
the encroachments of the Birmingham Dairy Company, and all customers
from the cows with wooden udders or iron teats.--The dentists in May,
1883, held the first meeting of the Midland Odentological Society, but
it is not expected that the people at large will be entirely protected
from toothache earlier than the first centenary of the Society.--The
Institution of Mechanical Engineers was formed early in 1847.--The
Amalgamated Society of Engineers dates half-a-century back, its 430
branches having collectively about 50,000 members, with a reserve fund
of £178,000, though the expenditure in 1883 was £124,000 out of an
income of £134,000. Locally, there are three branches, with 765 members,
having balances in hand of £2,075; the expenditure in 1883 being £680 to
men out of work, £585 to sick members, £390 to the superannuated, £171
for funerals, and £70 in benevolent gifts.--The Birmingham and Midland
Counties Grocers' Protection and Benevolent Association, started in
1871, has a long name and covers a considerable area. It was designed to
make provision for the wives and families of unfortunate members of the
trade when in distress; to defend actions brought against them under the
Adulteration Acts; and most especially to protect themselves from the
encroachments of the merchants, importers, and manufacturers, who do not
always deliver 112 lbs. to the cwt, or keep to sample.--The Licensed
Victuallers first clubbed together for protection in 1824, and the
Retail Brewers and Dealers in Wine followed suit in 1845, both societies
spending considerable sums yearly in relief for decayed members of the
trade, the Licensed Victuallers having also a residential Asylum for a
number of their aged members or their widows in Bristol Road.--The
journeymen printers opened a branch of the Provincial Typographical
Association Oct. 12, 1861, though there was a society here previously.--
The first local union we find record of was among the knights of the
thimble, the tailors striking for an increase in wages in 1833; a branch
of the Amalgamated Society of Tailors has lately been organised.--In
1866 a general Trades' Council was formed, which utilises by combined
action the powers of the whole in aid of any single society which may
stand in need of help.
~Trades and Manufactures.~--There are no published returns of any kind
that have ever been issued by which more than a guess can be made at the
real value of the trade of Birmingham, which varies considerably at
times. At the present moment (March, 1885) trade is in a _very_
depressed state, and it would hardly be correct to give the exact
figures, were it even possible to obtain them, and any statistics that
may appear in the following lines must be taken as showing an average
based upon several years. Speaking at a council meeting, February 19,
1878, Mr. Alderman Joseph Chamberlain said the best way to ascertain the
trade of the town was to take the local bank returns and the railway
traffic "in" and "out," so far as the same could be ascertained. The
deposits in all the banks that published returns were, at the end of
1877, £10,142,936, as against £10,564,255 in the previous year--a
falling off of £421,312, or 4 percent. With regard to bills of exchange
held by the banks, the amount was £3,311,744, against £3,605,067 in the
previous year--a falling off of £293,323, or 8 per cent. The amount of
the advances, however, was £6,041,075, as against £5,570,920 in the
previous year--an increase of £470,155, or 8-1/2 percent. With regard to
the trade of the town, by the courtesy of the managers of the respective
companies, he was able to give the numbers of tons of goods, of coals,
and other minerals, the loads of cattle, and the number of passengers.
The tons of goods were 973,611, as against 950,042 in 1876--an increase
of 23,569 tons, or about 2-1/2 per cent. The tons of coal were 566,535,
against 575,904--a falling off of 9,372 tons, or 1-1/2 percent. The
other minerals were 119,583 tons, against 100,187--an increase of
19,369, or 19 per cent. The loads of cattle were 22,462 last year,
against 19,157 in the previous year--an increase of 3,305 loads, 17 per
cent. These were the returns of the "in" and "out" traffic. The number
of passengers was 5,787,616 in 1877, against 5,606,331--an increase of
181,285, or about 3-1/4 per cent. So far as the traffic went, as they
had been led to expect from the Board of Trade returns, there had been
an increase of business, but a decrease of profits; and as to the
decrease of profits he had some figures which showed that the profits of
trade for the parish of Birmingham fur the year ending April 1, 1877,
were £3,989,000; and of the preceeding year £4,292,000--a falling off of
£323,000, or a trifle over 8 per cent. These figures of Mr.
Chamberlain's may be accepted as representing the present state, the
increase in numbers and consequent addition to the traffic "in" being
balanced by the lesser quantity of goods sent out, though it is
questionable whether the profits of trade now reach £3,000,000 per year.
Notwithstanding the adverse times the failures have rather decreased
than otherwise, there being 13 bankruptcies and 313 arrangements by
composition in 1883 against 14 and 324 respectively in 1882. To get at
the number of tradesmen, &c., is almost as difficult as to find out the
value of their trade, but a comparison at dates fifty years apart will
be interesting as showing the increase that has taken place in that
period. A Directory of 1824 gave a list of 141 different trades and the
names of 4,980 tradesmen; a similar work published in 1874 made 745
trades, with 33,462 tradesmen. To furnish a list of all the branches of
trade now carried on and the numbers engaged therein would fill many
pages, but a summary will be found under "_Population_," and for fuller
particulars the reader must go to the Census Tables for 1881, which may
be seen at the Reference Library. The variety of articles made in this
town is simply incalculable, for the old saying that anything, from a
needle to a ship's anchor, could be obtained in Edgbaston Street is
really not far from the truth, our manufacturers including the makers of
almost everything that human beings require, be it artificial eyes and
limbs, ammunition, or armour; beads, buttons, bedsteads, or buckles;
cocoa, candlesticks, corkscrews, or coffee-pots; door bolts, dessert
forks, dog collars, or dish covers; edge tools, earrings, engines, or
eyeglasses; fire irons, fiddle-bows, frying pans, or fishhooks; gold
chains, gas fittings, glass toys, or gun barrels; hairpins, harness,
handcuffs, or hurdles; ironwork, isinglass, inkstands, or inculators;
jewellery, javelins, jews' harps, or baby jumpers; kettles, kitchen
ranges, knife boards, or knuckle dusters; lifting-jacks, leg irons,
latches, or lanterns; magnets, mangles, medals, or matches; nails,
needles, nickel, or nutcrackers; organ pipes, optics, oilcans, or
ornaments; pins, pens, pickle forks, pistols, or boarding-pikes; quart
cups, quoits, quadrats, or queerosities; rings, rasps, rifles, or
railway cars; spades, spectacles, saddlery, or sealing wax;
thermometers, thimbles, toothpicks, or treacle taps; umbrellas or
upholstery; ventilators, vices, varnish, or vinegar; watches,
wheelbarrows, weighing machines or water closets. A Londoner who took
stock of our manufactories a little while back, received information
that led him to say, a week's work in Birmingham comprises, among its
various results, the fabrication of 14,000,000 pens, 6,000 bedsteads,
7,000 guns, 300,000,000 cut nails, 100,000,000 buttons, 1,000 saddles,
5,000,000 copper or bronze coins, 20,000 pairs of spectacles, 6 tons of
papier-mache wares, over £20,000 worth of gold and silver jewellery,
nearly an equal value of gilt and cheap ornaments, £12,000 worth of
electro-plated wares, 4,000 miles of iron and steel wire, 10 tons of
pins, 5 tons of hairpins and hooks and eyes, 130,000 gross of wood
screws, 500 tons of nuts and screw-bolts and spikes, 50 tons of wrought
iron hinges, 350 miles' length of wax for vestas, 40 tons of refined
metal, 40 tons of German silver, 1,000 dozen of fenders, 3,500 bellows,
800 tons of brass and copper wares. Several of these items are rather
over the mark, but the aggregate only shows about one half a real week's
work, as turned out when trade is good.
_Agricultural Implements_, such as draining tools, digging and manure
forks, hay knives, scythes, shovels, spades, &c., as well as mowing
machines, garden and farm rollers, ploughs, harrows, &c., are the
specialities of some half-dozen firms, the oldest-established being
Messrs. Mapplebeck and Lowe, opposite Smithfield Market.
_American Traders_.--It has been stated that there is not a _bona fide_
American trader residing amongst us, though at one time they were almost
as numerous as the Germans now are. Be that as it may, the following
statistics, giving the declared value of exports from Birmingham to
America during the ten years ending Sept. 30, 1882, (taken from a report
made by the American Consul-General in London), show that a vast trade
is still being carried on with our friends on the other side of the
Atlantic:--Year ending September 30 1873, 7,463,185 dols.; 1874,
5,778,957 dols.; 1875, 4,791,231 dols.; 1876, 3,135,234 dols.; 1877,
2,842,871 dols.; 1878 2,309,513 dols.; 1879, 2,435,271 dols.; 1880,
4,920,433 dols.; 1881, 4,376,611 dols.; 1882, 5,178,118 dols. Total,
43,231,429 dols.
_Ammunition_.--To manufacture ammunition for guns and pistols so long
made here by the scores of thousands would seem but the natural
sequence, but though percussion caps were yearly sent from here in
millions of grosses, the manufacture of the complete cartridge is a
business of later growth. For the invention of gunpowder the world had
to thank a monk, and it is no less curious that we owe percussion caps
to the scientific genius of another Churchman, the first patent for
their construction being taken out by the Rev. Mr. Forsyth in 1807. They
were very little thought of for long after Waterloo, and not introduced
into "the service" until 1839, several foreign armies being supplied
with them before the War Office allowed them to be used by "Tommy
Atkins" with his "Brown Bess." A machine for making percussion caps was
patented by John Abraham in 1864. The manufacture of such articles at
all times involves several dangerous processes, and Birmingham has had
to mourn the loss of many of her children through accidents arising
therefrom. (See "_Explosions_.") The ammunition works of Messrs. Kynoch
and Co., at Witton, cover over twenty acres, and gives employment to
several hundred persons, the contrariness of human nature being
exemplified in the fact that the death-dealing articles are mainly
manufactured by females, the future mothers or wives perchance of men to
be laid low by the use of such things. The plant is capable of turning
out 500,000 cartridges per day, as was done during the Turkish war, and
it takes 50 tons of rolled brass, 100 tons of lead, and 20 tons of
gunpowder weekly to keep the factory fully going, all kinds of
ammunition for rifles and machine guns being made on the premises. Other
extensive works are those of the Birmingham Small Arms and Metal Co., at
Adderley Park Mills, and the National Arms and Ammunition Co., at Small
Heath, and Perry Barr.
_Artificial Eyes and Limbs_ are necessary articles to some members of
the genus _homo_, but the demand, fortunately, is not of such an
extensive character as to require many manufacturers; indeed, the only
firm in Birmingham that devotes itself entirely to supplying artificial
limbs is that of Messrs. Best and Son, Summer Lane, whose specialities
in the way of arms and legs are famed in all English and Continental
medical circles as wonderful examples of the peculiar mechanism
requisite to successfully imitate the motions and powers of natural
limbs. There are half-a-dozen makers of "eyes," human and otherwise, the
chief being Messrs. Pache and Son, Bristol Street, and Mr. Edward
Hooper, Suffolk Street, who hold the almost unique position of being the
sole known makers of artificial human eyes anywhere. Few people would
imagine it, but it is said that there are at least 1,500 persons in
Birmingham who carry glass eyes in their head; while the demand from
foreign countries is something enormous, the United States taking the
lead as they fain would do in everything. But there is no part of the
civilised world, from Spitzbergen to Timbuctoo, where Birmingham made
eyes are not to be seen, even the callous "heathen Chinee" buying them
in large quantities. Naturalists and taxidermists find here eyes to
match those of any creature that has lived and breathed, and "doll's
eyes" are made by the ton.
_Bedsteads, Metallic_.--The making of iron and brass bedsteads, as a
staple trade, dates only from the accession of Her Majesty; but, unlike
that august personage, they were a long time before they were
appreciated as they deserved to be, for, in 1850, there were only four
or five manufacturers in the town, and their output did not reach 500 a
week. Now, about 1,800 hands are employed in the trade, and the annual
value of the work sent out cannot be less than £200,000.
_Boilermaking_.--The making of iron boilers, gasholders, sugar-boilers,
&c., may be dated as a special trade from about 1831, when 30 men and
boys were employed thereat, turning out about 150 tons yearly; in 1860,
about 200 hands turned out 1,000 tons; in 1880 the workers were roughly
estimated at 750 to 800 and the output at 4,500 tons.
_Booksellers_.--In 1750, there were but three, Aris, Warren, and
Wollaston: now the booksellers, publishers, and wholesale stationers are
over a hundred, while small shops may be counted to treble the number.