THE STORY OF BIRMINGHAM

The city of Birmingham has been sung by a local poet as follows:—

Illustrious off–spring of Vulcanic toil!
Pride of the country! Glory of the Isle!
Europe’s grand toy shop! arts’ exhaustive mine
These, and more titles, Birmingham, are thine.
From jealous fears, from chartered fetters free,
Desponding genius finds a friend in thee;
Thy soul as liberal as the breath of Spring,
Cheers his faint heart and plumes his flagging wing.

But, nevertheless, it presents more of a prosaic and commercial than a romantic attraction for a writer.

The derivation of the name has not yet been satisfactorily arrived at, and by even its most accurate and painstaking historian is considered “too remote for explanation.” Aided by the erratic spelling of former times, during the last four centuries alone there have been eight modes of spelling it,—Burmyngham, Bermyngham, Byrmyngham, Bermyngeham, Brumychcham, Bromycham, Bromicham, and lastly the more modern and generally accepted Birmingham. The curious, however, may be set yet a greater puzzle of selective ingenuity, as from different authors, documents, records, and papers it is possible to find upwards of a hundred additional methods of spelling the name of the town which is popularly known as “the capital of the Midlands.”

Of the eight ways we have enumerated in detail two alone have been in a measure satisfactorily accounted for; one deriving its origin from a family, and the other from the situation of the town. Early inhabitants and even mere settlers of a place in almost every country of the world were in the habit of describing in their place–names, the mountain, lake and valley, the moorland and the heath, and also the character, situation, and size of these; and villages, towns, and cities which grew up afterwards in these situations were frequently given names which in a measure described or perpetuated some place or object in their immediate vicinity, or the actual spot where they were founded.

Dugdale, the historian, is inclined to believe that Birmingham, or Bromwycham, was a name given by a Saxon owner or settler. In this regard he says, “The appellation need not be doubted; the last part of it, viz. ‘ham,’ denoting a home or dwelling, and the former manifesting itself to be a proper name.”

Hutton, on the other hand, is inclined to make it of an even more ancient date, and argues that “Brom,” derived possibly from the broom, a shrub growing freely in the soil of the district, and “wych,” signifying a dwelling, constituted its original name Bromwych. He finds, moreover, some confirmation of his opinion from the names of two other towns in the immediate neighbourhood, West Bromwych and Castle Bromwych; the terminal “ham,” he argues, being subsequently added, and up till the time of the Saxon Heptarchy the spot retained its full name, “Bromwycham.” This argument, however, in reality seems to support Dugdale’s idea concerning the derivation of the name, as all three portions of it are of Saxon origin. The alteration locally to Bromicham was only a contraction, which continued in use down till the eighteenth century, and indeed is to be traced in the pronunciation of the word as “Brumijum” by some locals even at the present day. It would appear, however, that it is more than possible, whatever its ancient name may have been, and whatever its derivation, that the present–day name “Birmingham” was given to the place from the owner of the estate rather than the owner taking his name from it.

This latter view has been borne out by modern research, and it has been now generally admitted that a family or tribe called “Beorm” or “Berm” gave the place its early Saxon name. More than six centuries ago, indeed, and for a period lasting four centuries, we find the name of De Bermingham as lords of the fee. The first was a Peter de Bermingham, who in the reign of Henry II. in 1154 had a castle here, and lived in considerable splendour. Here all succeeding members of the family dwelt until the Duke of Northumberland ousted them in 1537, and with their ejectment the castle soon fell into ruins and disappeared, although as late as 1816 a moat and some traces of the walls remained.

In the days of Edward the Confessor the town probably formed part of the possessions of Ulwin, generally identified with the Alwyne whose son Turchill founded the Warwickshire family of Arden, of whom the mother of Shakespeare was a descendant. There is no doubt that the place was of considerable importance in Saxon times, as proof exists of the holding of a market there prior to the Conquest.

Although there is no mention in the Domesday Book of any church at that date, during the rebuilding of St. Martin’s in 1562, some early stone–work, evidently belonging to a former building and pointing to the existence of a church dating from before the Conquest, was discovered. Fairs were certainly held very early in Birmingham’s existence as a town, and in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is a curious MS. map dating from the last years of the thirteenth century, with a church clearly indicated, in addition to a considerable number of houses. On this map, where the name is given as “Brymingha,” many neighbouring towns of traditionally greater importance at that period are not even marked, and neither Coventry nor Warwick are named.

It would thus appear that in medieval times, although Birmingham must have been a small town it was also a flourishing one, with a market for country produce, cattle, hides, etc., which was visited not only by local traders but by those of adjoining and even distant counties.

In 1382 the Guild of the Holy Cross was founded to maintain two priests at St. Martin’s Church, and was ten years later made a Fraternity of men and women under the name of “the Bailiffe and Communalite of Birmingham and other adjacent places for a Chantrie of Priestes, and services in the Church for the souls of the Founders and all the Fraternitie.” It also had other and more secular objects. In the year 1545 the lands belonging to it were seized by the Crown, and five years afterwards were given by Edward VI. for the “Free Grammar School of King Edward the Sixth, for the Education and Instruction of Children in Grammar for ever.” The property so arbitrarily acquired was thus in the end devoted to a useful purpose. At that time it was valued at £31:2:10, and this formed the endowment fund of the famous school, the income of which at the close of 1880 amounted to the large sum of nearly £22,000, and is now computed to be almost £50,000.

The manor–house and seat of the De Berminghams, not a trace of which now remains, was situated within a few yards of St. Martin’s Church, and a little to the west of Digbeth, the site now being occupied by the prosaic cattle–market of large extent.

Leland speaks of the town at the time of his visit, which took place in 1538, thus: “The beauty of Birmingham, a good markett towne in the extreame parts of Warwickshire, is one streete going up alonge almost from the left rype (bank) of the brook, up a meane hill, by the length of a quarter of a mile. I saw but one Paroche Church in the towne.”

Camden, who visited Birmingham some half century later, writes of it as “full of inhabitants, and resounding with hammers and anvils, for the most of them are smiths.” “The lower part” (of the town), he adds, “standeth very waterish; the upper riseth with faire buildings.”

Some authorities seem to infer that Birmingham was not noted for its metal works until a comparatively recent period, but Leland states: “There be many smithes in the town that used to make knives and all mannour of cutting tooles, and many loriners that make bittes and a great many naylors. Soe that a great part of the town is maintained by smithes whoe have their iron and seacole out of Staffordshire.”

Hutton, Birmingham’s most famous and completest historian of the past, claims for this city, whose rise has been so phenomenal during the last half century, that history proves its progress has been continuous, and that the town has never suffered a decline. But, of course, during the centuries before Charles II. it was slow, and only notable in comparison with that of other places.

Although the town in Leland’s day is spoken of as having its chief beauty in “one streete going up alonge from the left of the brook, up a meane hill, by the length of a quarter of a mile,” and could have then been but a comparatively small village, Hutton argues that even in the days of the ancient Britons the smiths of Birmingham supplied implements of war and husbandry. It may even be possible, according to this historian, that the scythes fixed to Boadicea’s chariot wheels had their genesis at a Birmingham forge. In support of this theory he quotes that “upon the borders of Aston parish stands Aston furnace, appropriated for melting iron–stone, and reducing it into ‘pigs’; this has the appearance of great antiquity. From the melting ore in this subterraneous region of infernal aspect is produced a calx, or cinder, of which there is an enormous mountain. From an attentive survey the observer would suppose so prodigious a heap could not accumulate in a hundred generations; however, it shows no perceptible addition in the age of man.”

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Before Birmingham became famous for its manufactures it was known for the great number of tanners resident there; and the hides which furnished a supply for the rest of the county were laid out in the High Street in piles on fine days; and in wet weather were deposited in the Leather Hall. This Leather Market was identified with Birmingham in the tenth or eleventh century, and continued until the beginning of the eighteenth century; and it was in this ‘High’ or main street that early settlers manufactured coarse ironware, nails, and similar articles. Hutton is inclined to believe that in quite ancient times carpenters’ tools as well as spades, forks, and other implements of husbandry were made here; and that the worn hollow ways in the roads that proceeded from Birmingham form additional evidence of the town’s antiquity and commercial importance. He goes on to observe concerning these rutted roads, “Though modern industry, assisted by various Turn–pike Acts, has widened the upper part and filled up the lower, yet they were all visible in the days of our fathers, and are traceable even in ours.”

This painstaking historian places the ancient centre of the town at Old Cross from the number of streets which lead towards it, and the fact of the position of St. Martin’s Church. It is difficult, indeed, when contemplating modern Birmingham with its fine streets, magnificent public buildings, and general appearance of wealth, industry, and prosperity, to realise that the ancient houses were of a type similar to those at Shrewsbury and Chester. Built principally of timber, with the space between the beams wattled and plastered over with mortar; others of slightly more recent date being of bricks and plaster.

The first streets that were paved are said to have been High Street, the Bull Ring, Corn Cheaping, Digbeth, St. Martin’s Lane, Egbaston Street, Moat Lane, Spiceal Street, and part of Moor Street, and the streets where the fairs were held. These formed the boundaries of the town in the thirteenth century; and from this period onwards there was a distinct and gradual increase of area and also of improvements of an uninterrupted character.

The most stirring event in the history of Birmingham itself was the attack made upon it by Prince Rupert on April 5, 1643, during the Civil War. It created an immense amount of additional antagonism towards the Cavaliers on the part of the inhabitants, whose sympathies from the outset of the quarrel between King and Parliament had been with the latter.

The town was at that period but a small one of about 6000 inhabitants. But it had caused the King’s party much trouble by having on several occasions intercepted messengers between the scattered Royalist forces. These messengers were sent to Coventry and imprisoned. Prince Rupert’s attack was chiefly prompted by two reasons: the desire for plunder and the intention to frustrate the completion of the fortifications and earthworks the inhabitants had commenced. He apparently anticipated only slight resistance.

The attack was commenced between two and three in the afternoon; two assaults were repulsed, but eventually the Royalist horse forced an entry. The Cavaliers rode through the town, with the Earl of Denbigh at their head, “like so many furies.” People were shot at their windows, at their doors, and in the streets. Having possessed themselves of the town the Royalists commenced to pillage it. Next day on leaving the town they set fire to it in many places.

The effect of all this harshness naturally was to make the Birmingham folk even more Parliamentarian than before.

The history of Birmingham appears to have been uneventful for more than twenty years after the memorable visit of Prince Rupert and his Cavaliers. And the next happening of any great moment was the outbreak of the plague in 1665, which was said to have been brought to the town in a box of clothes by a carrier, which he deposited at the White Hart Inn. The visitation seems to have been a severe one, for it was found impossible to inter the victims in the usual burying–ground, and a full acre of land was set aside at Lady Wood Green (known for many years after as the “pest” ground) for the reception of those who had died of the plague. The town soon, however, appears to have recovered from this misfortune, and made, during the ensuing years, from the time of the Restoration to the commencement of the eighteenth century, a period of forty years, a progress which can scarcely be considered as otherwise than remarkable, demonstrated by figures given by Hutton, the accuracy of which has never been impuned.

At the Restoration the number of streets appears to have been fifteen, though all were not complete; whilst there were some 907 houses and 5472 inhabitants. In the year 1700 the streets had increased in number to 28, the houses to 2504, and the inhabitants to 15,032. Thirty–one years later the streets had doubled, the houses had nearly doubled, and the inhabitants had increased almost in the same proportion; whilst at the commencement of the last decade of the eighteenth century the streets had quadrupled from the last figures, the houses had done the same, and the inhabitants had increased in like ratio.

But only ten years later Birmingham saw one of the few periods of temporary decline, when, owing to the stagnation in trade, consequent upon the French war, the population decreased nearly 4000; and the entry of many younger men of Birmingham into the army, and the exodus of masters and journeymen, left upwards of 1500 houses uninhabited. Notwithstanding the set–back caused by the war, only seven years later there was a distinct revival and reaction, and nearly 2000 additional houses were erected, with an increase of population more than sufficient to occupy them, as well as all the other houses which had fallen vacant.

In the latter half of the seventeenth century Birmingham made remarkable strides, and during this period sprang up an increasing demand for many of the articles manufactured there, and the firearm trade soon became a very important and lucrative one. Hampered by no charters or ancient Corporative customs, the town attracted to itself reformers of all kinds, and also skilled workmen, drawn hither by the freedom of manufacture which existed. The iniquitous “Five Mile” and similar Acts had served to drive many wealthy and able men out of corporate towns. In Birmingham these found a “city of refuge,” with fewer restrictions; and with their coming the industrial energy and initiative of the town was greatly and speedily increased. During the eighteenth century these forces were continuously at work, and in the latter half the fullest development was attained and manufactures of all kinds, including iron, hardware, brass, steel, and other articles became wonderfully advanced.

Not a little of this prosperity was undoubtedly directly traceable to the practice which obtained of letting large portions of land at low ground rents and on long leases; thereby giving notable encouragement to the erection of buildings, both residential and commercial, in the centre of the town and in the contiguous suburbs.

Quite early in the century cotton spinning by machinery had been introduced and tried by Lewis Paul and John Wyatt, and somewhere about 1780 a cotton mill was built, but only to prove an unsuccessful experiment, afterwards to be converted into one for metal rolling.

One of the truly great events in the history of Birmingham of this period—nay, of any period—was the foundation by Matthew Boulton of the famous Soho works in 1763. He possessed unbounded enterprise, enthusiasm, and taste, and his original business in Birmingham itself as a “toy–maker,” manufacturing sword–hilts, buckles, brooches, and other ornaments, increased rapidly, and he was compelled to transfer it to larger and better premises. It was to Boulton that James Watt ultimately came in despair at not being able to get his newly invented steam–engine well and carefully made. As events proved, he had come to the right man, and an engine factory, from which the whole world was eventually supplied, was speedily erected. The partnership lasted many years; Boulton, who was a skilled mechanic, was also, above all, a good business man—which Watt was not—and but for him it is more than probable that the inventor would have failed to attain either practical or financial success and recognition.

Of this great workshop of Soho, one of the greatest early factors in Birmingham’s ultimate triumph as a manufacturing and industrial centre, Boulton is reputed to have said, “I supply here what all the world desires to have—Power.” And the founder of Soho, through stormy and even occasionally dangerous times, doggedly persevered, and by great powers of initiative and control secured for himself and for Watt large fortunes, and did much to assist in the general and speedy progress of the town by the invention of machinery and the practical application of the “new power.”

But Boulton, who has left so deep a mark upon Birmingham history of his time, was by no means a mere ingenious manufacturer and good business man. He was a magnetic and personal force, which gathered around him and attracted to Soho from all parts of the world men of genius, scientists, and others. The “Soho circle” or “Lunar Club,” called the latter from the fact that it met only when there was a full moon, on account of the ill–lit and dangerous condition of the streets, was one of the most famous institutions of its kind of the age, and, indeed, probably of any succeeding age.

To his house at one time or another came many men destined to prove famous or who were already so. Dr. Darwin; William Murdock, the inventor of—amongst other things—gas–lighting for houses; Priestly, with his keen brain and recent discoveries; John Baskerville, with his type, paper, and printing, which “astonished the Librarians of Europe”; Dr. Withering, the noted botanist; Joseph Berington, the Roman Catholic historian; and many others who brightened and made notable what may fairly be called “the golden age” of Birmingham’s eighteenth–century progress, and who were the initiators of the advances made in after years.

The great Soho works, in the history of which is, in fact, enshrined much of that relating to the early days of engineering, have passed away; the engine factory having been removed to Smethwick in 1848, after the death of James Watt, the son of the inventor. The site on which Boulton’s house stood is now occupied by streets and terraces of unromantic houses. But the memory of Soho lingers in the name of an open space, and in that of streets and roads.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the desire to modernise Birmingham and to erect buildings with some pretension to architectural beauty seemed to have concerned the inhabitants, and we read, the town “is daily improving in the style of her buildings; there are now architects of the first eminence in the town, and others rapidly rising into notice.”

The progress of Birmingham during the latter half of the nineteenth century has been wonderfully steady and marked.

Of the ancient town there are nowadays scarcely any survivals; certainly few buildings of any public character, although “the mansion house of tymber” which Leland saw and specially mentioned, still remains in the guise of the “Old Crown Inn,” with several other quaint, timbered houses in the district of Deritend.

In the old Bull Ring, an historic spot used in former times for the sport of bull baiting, stands St. Martin’s Church, the most notable and authentic building in Birmingham, for the modern building erected in 1872–75, at the cost of a sum of nearly £30,000, stands on the site of a Norman church of undoubted antiquity. In this ancient fabric, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, many additions and alterations were effected, and the walls of the old church were formerly plentifully adorned with frescoes, representing amongst other scenes St. Martin on horseback giving part of his cloak to a beggar.

Nowadays the only portion of the old church still standing is in the tower, but there are some fine altar tombs with recumbent figures of the old lords of Birmingham in the chancel. One is believed to be that of the third William de Bermingham, who was at the siege of Belgrade in France in 1297, and was taken prisoner there. There are also many other interesting and important memorials, and some extremely fine modern stained glass by the late William Morris.

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St. Philip’s Church, which occupies a fine site fronting on Colmore Row, has an importance other than its architecture from the fact that it is now the pro–Cathedral. Finely situated, this handsome building has an added grace and importance from its elevated and isolated position. The church stands upon ground which was originally part of a farm called Horse Close, afterwards Barley Close, and the land was given by one Robert Phillips and the church named after the saint and also the founder. It was commenced in 1711 from designs by Thomas Archer, a pupil of John Vanbrugh, who was also the architect for the church of St. John, at Westminster. The building was consecrated in 1715, although not finished till four years later. It is said to have cost only £5000.

The church of St. John at Deritend possesses a somewhat remarkable history. It is a chapel in the parish of Aston, and was the one referred to by Leland as “a propper chappel” in 1538. At that date it was a picturesque and interesting Early English building, which unhappily was demolished about a century ago, and re–erected in the form of an uninspiring structure of Georgian plainness in brick. It contains the bust of John Rogers, a native of the district, who was the first martyr in the days of the Marian persecution. The original church was founded in 1375 by thirteen persons, who had found themselves on many occasions unable to reach the mother church at Aston owing to floods. These provided between them a handsome endowment in lands, worth at that time ten marks (about £6:13:4, and nowadays some £450), the original Charter and Licence in Mortmain are in the Reference section of the Public Library, and bear dates 1381 and 1383.

The chaplain was formerly strangely elected by household suffrage, both men and women voting. The last election was in 1889, when a fierce contest was waged and continued for over a month in thoroughgoing electioneering style, ultimately thinning out the candidates to two in number, who went to the final poll, which lasted a day.

Roman Catholicism has a strong following in the city, and the Roman Catholic Cathedral, dedicated to St. Chad, a seventh–century Bishop of Lichfield, is a large and handsome though modern building. Erected from designs by A. W. Pugin in 1839–41 in the Decorated style, it forms one of the principal churches of Birmingham. In it are some fine modern stained glass; a sixteenth–century carved oak pulpit brought from Louvain; and the remains of its dedicatory saint, which are traditionally stated to have been removed from Lichfield Cathedral at the time of the Reformation, and more or less miraculously preserved, and ultimately brought here.

The new era of the town’s history, progress, and wealth began in 1875, when the late Joseph Chamberlain was elected Mayor.

It is impossible in so brief a sketch as is possible within the scope of the present volume to deal in detail with the many reforms, the growth and commercial expansion which the last forty years have brought about. Birmingham of to–day, with its magnificent Town Hall, Council House, Museum, and Art Gallery, containing some notable modern as well as older pictures, and a fine collection of the work of the pre–Raphaelite School; Free Library; Mason University College; Great Western Arcade; Midland Institute; Edward VI.’s Grammar School, the ancient foundation nowadays housed in a modern building by Sir Charles Barry, R.A., in the Tudor style; Bluecoat School, founded in 1727 for the education of orphans of both sexes; and many other important commercial, educational, and social institutions, and its fine parks, may be said to represent a modern city of unique convenience and considerable structural beauty.

Birmingham, too, has not been without generous benefactors, to whom it owes a debt not easily repaid. To all who know anything of the city’s history the names of the Rylands, Jaffray, Tangye, Feeny, and Colmore families will at once occur.

About modern Birmingham there is indeed a spaciousness and air of modernity which strikes the visitor almost from the first moment of his introduction to the town; and although essentially a trade centre, there certainly hangs about this city, which has owed in later years so much to the energy, wisdom, and enterprise of such men as John Thackray Bunce, Joseph Chamberlain, Josiah Mason, George Dawson, George Tangye, Samuel Timmins, and Philip Henry Muntz, a certain element of even romantic interest, which, however, is that attaching to modern industry rather than to survivals of ancient greatness.

Naturally so great an industrial centre as Birmingham played a great and even distinguished part in the Great War. Very early in the struggle the city became one of the most important munitions centres in the Kingdom. Situated in the heart of England, and far distant from the sea coast, it seemed peculiarly suited for the site of a great national arsenal, quite irrespective of the fact that for many years the manufacture of guns and other weapons of war had formed a part of its most prosperous industrial life.

Although Zeppelins in several of their wanderings over the face of England, intent upon inflicting injury upon this home of war–time industry, are reported to have hovered over Birmingham, no considerable material damage resulted.

Within a very short time of Mr. Lloyd George assuming the reins of Government and the responsibility for the supply of the vast quantities of munitions which were found necessary for an energetic and successful prosecution of the war to final victory, Birmingham became one immense area of feverish war activity. Factories which in times of peace were employed in the production of agricultural implements for use throughout the world; the making of “Birmingham” jewellery; the provision of “trade” articles for barter with the uncivilised tribes of Central Africa, New Guinea, the South Seas, and elsewhere were speedily adapted for the more sinister purposes of the great conflict in which almost the whole of the civilised world found itself gradually becoming more or less directly involved.

Birmingham was engaged in beating its ploughshares into machine–guns, and its reaping hooks into bayonets, an inversion of the Biblical dream picture of the arts of peace.

Munitions were turned out in such vast quantities that the human mind cannot grasp their sum. Small arms ammunition by the thousand million rounds, shells in their millions, machine–guns in their thousands, and materials raw and otherwise of all kinds for munitions of war and clothing poured constantly from the factories of the city.

A darkened city it was!

But behind shuttered and curtained windows there was all the time unceasing work, the colossal output was maintained, and the titanic struggle of human brains, sinews, muscles, and sheer endurance went on.

In a word, Birmingham took its place among the foremost cities of sacrifice in the Empire she played so great a part to save.

The appeal to her manhood, her womanhood, her patriotism was never made in vain, whether it was for munitions made by tens of thousands of tons, or for money with which to assist national finance by way of munificent subscriptions to Loans, and the purchase of many hundreds of thousands of War Savings Certificates.

And the records of Birmingham men, in the Warwickshire and other regiments which covered themselves with “an eternal weight of glory” in the field, will form a noble page in national history as long as time endures.