Great indeed are the changes that have taken place in Birmingham during
the past forty or fifty years. I do not speak merely in regard to the
growth, appearance, and the commercial progress of the town and city,
but in respect to the life and habits of the people--especially the
better class of the inhabitants.
Half a century ago many of the well-to-do prosperous manufacturers were
practical men--men who had worked at the bench and the lathe, and, from
being workmen, had become masters. There were not so many manufactories
then as now, and the leading manufacturers found themselves in the happy
position of men who were "getting on" and becoming rich. Men as a rule
are, perhaps, more happy when they find they are making money than when
they have made it, and have nothing to do but to spend it, or to puzzle
their brains as to how they shall do so. "Oh! Jem," piteously said a man
I knew, to his nephew, "what am I to do with that ten thousand pounds
a-lying at the bank?"
When "getting on," men go to their various businesses day after day and
find orders rolling in and goods going out, and themselves prospering
and becoming better and better off, they are disposed to be contented,
well pleased with their neighbours, and well satisfied with themselves.
So with these old Birmingham manufacturers. They were well content,
genial, and hospitable. They did not give themselves any fine airs or
pretensions; indeed, they were often proud of their success and
prosperity, and would sometimes delight in openly boasting of their
humble beginnings, not always to the joy and delight of their children
who might hear them. They were sociable, hospitable, generous-hearted,
open-handed men. They gave bountiful entertainments, not of a mere
formal give-and-take character in which the feast largely consists of
plate, fine linen, and flowers, the eatables on the side table, and too
much remaining there. They delighted in welcoming their friends; they
liked to put a good spread on the board, and to see their guests eat,
drink, and be merry.
In my younger days I knew what it was to enjoy the hospitalities of some
of these wealthy manufacturers, and I can call to mind some little--I
should say large--dinners, in which I have participated, the like of
which are, I fancy, rarely seen now. Let me briefly describe one of
these informal, old-fashioned, friendly feasts.
My host would invite members of his family and some friends to dinner at
two o'clock, say. The dinner proper--which was a good, substantial, and
even luxurious meal--being over, we adjourned to the drawing room. There
the dessert would be laid out on a large round table around which we
gathered. Then would mine host call for his wine book--for he had a
well-stocked cellar of fine vintages. Turning over the leaves of this
book he would propose to begin with a bottle of '47 port, which was then
a comparatively young and fruity wine. This would be followed probably
by a bottle of 1840, and then we should come to the great 1834 wine, of
which mine host had a rare stock.
Sometimes we should hark back to 1820 port, a wine which I remember to
have had a rich colour and a full refined flavour, and once I tasted the
famous comet wine, 1811, which, however, had lost something of its
nucleus, and only retained a certain tawny, nebulous tone. On one
occasion I remember my host said he had some seventeen-ninety something
wine in his cellar, which he proposed we should taste, but for some
reason, now forgotten, it was not produced, and I sometimes rather
regret that I so narrowly missed the opportunity of tasting a last
century wine. Perhaps it may be thought from the procession of ports
produced on such occasions as I have described that we indulged in a
sustained and severe wine-bibbing bout. But it was not so. In reality we
only just tasted each vintage, so that we had the maximum of variety
with the minimum of quantity.
The wine ended, we betook ourselves into another room, there to enjoy a
cigar. Then would come tea and coffee, and a little music. Supper--yes,
my reader, a good supper would be announced about nine o'clock; after
that another little smoke, and about ten o'clock or soon after we should
take our departure.
Of course all this made up the sum total of a pretty good snack--I mean
a good, well-sustained feast--but whether it was owing to the excellence
of the viands, or to the fact that we took our pleasures not sadly but
deliberately, I for one cannot remember ever feeling the worse for my
little-indulgences. Perhaps something was owing to the glorious
continuity of our feasting and pleasure.
I also remember once being at an unfrugal, old-fashioned, festive dinner
at a friend's house, when one of the guests proposed our host's health,
and finished up by saying, "I shall be glad to see everyone at this
table to dinner at my house this day week." Considering there were about
thirty persons sitting round the mahogany this was a fair-sized order.
But it was no empty compliment. The dinner came off, and a fine good
spread it was, and as for the wine I seem to sniff its "bouquet" now.
Some of the old Birmingham men whose characteristic hospitalities I have
just described had, as is pretty well known, certain habits which,
looked at by modern light, would seem somewhat plebeian. For instance,
there were men of wealth and importance who made it their custom often
to go and spend an hour or two in the evening at some of the old
respectable hotels and inns of the town. They had been in the habit of
meeting together at these hostelries in their earlier days to talk over
the news, at a period when daily local newspapers were not published,
and they adhered to the custom in their advanced years and wealthier
position, and rejoiced in visiting their old haunts and smoking their
long clay pipes, and having a chat with old friends and kindred spirits.
All this has died out now. For one thing, most of these old inns and
hostelries have disappeared with the march of modern times. We have
clubs now and restaurants, also hotels, where visitors "put up," but the
old-fashioned inns and taverns have mostly gone. The present generation
of prosperous well-to-do men, too, are of a different stamp from their
predecessors. They do not take their ease at their inns after the manner
of their fathers. They have been educated differently, and take their
pleasures in a more refined way, as is the fashion of the time.
Some of them have been to public schools and to the university, and
they naturally live their lives on a more elevated level. As a rule,
they are good, practical, straightforward, worthy men, though there are,
of course, some who are rather amusing in their little pretentious
ways--as there are in all large communities. Many of these, finding
themselves well off, begin to discover they had ancestors. They name
their houses after places where their grandfathers lived or should have
lived. They put crests upon their carriages; they embellish their
stationery with a motto, and otherwise put on a little of what is called
"side." But Birmingham people are not worse than others in this respect.
In fact, I think there is less affectation, pretence, and snobbishness,
or at any rate as little as will be found in most places of the
standing, wealth, and importance of Birmingham.
Sometimes when I am visiting a newly-risen manufacturing town which has
lately blossomed out into a state of thriving progress, I am forcibly
reminded of what Birmingham was some years ago, and think of the changes
that have come over our city during the past thirty or forty years. The
everyday social life is in many respects different from what it was.
Young people, with a higher education and more advanced ideas than their
sires, keep their parents up to date, and it is the young people who
rule the roost in many houses. The hearty but comparatively simple
hospitalities of a generation or so ago are regarded as quite too
ancient.
Young men who have been to Harrow and Oxford are not likely to look with
favour upon suppers of tripe or Welsh rarebits. They must, of course,
dine in a proper, decent manner in the evening, and there must be a good
experienced cook to give them a fair variety of dainties; or, at least,
of well-prepared dishes. Under such circumstances social functions have
naturally a tendency to become more formal, ornamental, and refined.
Many of the older-fashioned school mourn the decay of the very thorough
and hearty hospitality of times back, and have often complained that
they saw too many flowers and too little food at modern dinner parties.
Still, the knock-down entertainments of our fathers were often a trifle
too formidable perhaps, and did not always bring the pleasant
reflections that follow the more gentle hospitalities of the present
day.
Before I close this chapter, in which I am comparing the present with
the past, I cannot help calling to mind features of Birmingham nearly
fifty years ago, when I began to look about me with my boyish eyes. I
made some general reference to these in the opening chapter of these
sketches. I will now just indulge in a few brief details. To go no
further than quite the centre of the town, I call to mind some important
places that disappeared when the New Street railway station was made.
I remember Lady Huntingdon's chapel--a place of worship that was popular
in its day--and seem to have a hazy recollection of the King Street
theatre (or the remains of it), in which was held the first evening
concert of the Birmingham Musical Festival in the year 1768. Cannon
Street chapel has been too recently removed not to be remembered by many
people, but I can recollect going to this place of worship when it was a
real old-type Baptist chapel, and where special disciples or devotees
were deeply immersed in religion and water.
Most of us can also remember when some unostentatious private houses
occupied the side of New Street opposite the Society of Artists' rooms,
and not a few of us can call to mind the dirty, slummy buildings that so
closely blocked up the back of the Town Hall. It was, indeed, an
improvement when these wretched houses were removed and the back of the
Hall was finished and opened out. It is, I believe, true that what
became the back of the Town Hall was really intended by the architect to
be its front. However this may be, the proportions of the north side of
the Town Hall are, I think, more symmetrical and imposing in appearance
than the south side fronting Paradise Street.
It is but yesterday, so to speak, since the Old Square, with its sedate
looking houses disappeared, including that of Edmund Hector, the friend
of Dr. Johnson, and many of us can readily recall to mind the
old-fashioned Birmingham Workhouse standing in Lichfield Street--that
poor, dirty thoroughfare which doubtless furnished a fair number of
occupants for the afore-mentioned institution. Looking forward as I
do--at least in my sombre moments--to the "Union" as being my ultimate
home, I feel a sense of satisfaction that the Birmingham workhouse has
been removed to a more salubrious and pleasant locality than its
unlovely quarters in Lichfield Street.
These are just a few of the more important changes that have taken
place, with one exception, namely, the disappearance of Christ Church. I
almost shed tears to see the demolition of this church and landmark that
had so many old associations. Some of these were not always of a
pleasant and joyous character, for in days past the Sunday services were
very long, and the sermons anything but short.
I hope my memory has not "berayed" me in making these little reminiscent
remarks. I did not make notes in my early days, and now in my later
years I may make little mistakes; but I do not think I have tripped very
much.