After the sweeping alterations effected by the construction of the new
railway stations in Birmingham, further improvements were for a time of
a slow, jog-trot order, although the town, in a commercial sense, was
moving ahead, and its wealth and population were rapidly increasing.
Small improvements were made, but anything like big schemes, even if
desirable, were postponed or rejected. Birmingham, indeed, some thirty
years ago, was considerably under the influence of men of the
unprogressive tradesmen class--many of them worthy men in their way but
of limited ideas. In their private businesses they were not accustomed
to deal with big transactions and high figures, so that spending large
sums of money, if proposed, filled the brewer, the baker, and
candlestick maker with alarm. They were careful and economical, but
their care in finance was apt at times to be impolitic, and their
economy has in several cases proved to have been somewhat costly.
Indeed, until recent years, the leading authorities of the town were
anything but enterprising, and their view of future possibilities very
limited. Could they have seen a little farther ahead they might have
laid out money to the great profit and future advantage of the
community. They could have erected new corporation offices and municipal
buildings before land in the centre of the town became so very costly;
the gas and water interests might have been purchased, probably at a
price that would have saved the town thousands of pounds. It is also
understood that they might have purchased Aston Hall, with its 170 acres
close to the town, on terms which would have made the land (now nearly
all built upon) a veritable Tom Tidler's ground for the town and
corporation. But our shopkeeper senators would have nothing to do with
such bold and far-reaching schemes, and were given to opposing them
when suggested by men more courageous and far-seeing than themselves.
Between twenty-five and thirty years ago it was felt by the more
advanced and intelligent portion of the community that the time had come
for the town to arouse itself, and that certain reforms should no longer
be delayed. It was beginning to be felt that the Town Council did not
fairly represent the advancing aspirations and the growing needs,
importance, and wealth of the town. Sanitary reforms were required, the
growing traffic in the principal streets called for better and more
durable roadways, and Macadamised and granite paved streets no longer
answered the purposes required. The latter were heavy, noisy, and
lumbering; the former were not sufficiently durable. Moreover, "Macadam"
consisted of sharply-cut pieces of metal put upon the streets, which
were left for cart and carriage wheels to break up and press down into
something like a level surface. When this was done it made objectionable
dust in dry weather, and in wet weather it converted the streets into
avenues of mud and puddle to be scraped up, or to be swept off, by some
curiously-devised machine carts constructed for the purpose. Carriage
people, I fear, often cursed the stone stuff they had to grind into the
roads, and pedestrians anathematized the mud and the dust.
As many people will remember, in some of the less important streets the
footways were paved with what were called "petrified kidneys"--stones
about as big as a good-sized potato, very durable but extremely
unpleasant to walk upon. Little or nothing was done to improve the
slummy and dirty parts of the town, or to remove some of those foul
courts and alleys which were not only disgraceful in appearance but were
a menace to the health of the inhabitants.
In fact, for one reason or another, the authorities left undone the
things they ought to have done, and possibly they did some things they
ought not to have done, and if allowed to go on it is probable there
would soon have been no health in us. It may, however, be admitted that
Birmingham was no worse governed than many other large towns in the
comparatively unprogressive days of which I speak, but a new race of
more advanced and energetic men were dissatisfied with the sluggish,
stagnant state of local government, and they felt that the hour had
struck for the inauguration of some large and important improvements.
Such was the state of affairs about the year 1868.