BIRMINGHAM AND HER MANU

FACTURES.

I. THE TOWN OF BIRMINGHAM.

We have just returned from a flying visit of a few days to the town of Birmingham, the metropolis of the midland counties-a visit made with the express view of casting a rapid glance at the doings of our countrymen in one of the most characteristic scenes of their labours, and supplying to the readers of the "Leisure Hour a few pen-and-ink sketches from industrial life “taken on the spot." But before we plunge in medias res, and attempt to reproduce, as far as we can, some of the manufacturing marvels which it has been our pleasure to witness, we must, for the sake of the major portion of our readers, who are strangers to Birmingham and the very peculiar district which in part environs it, devote a few columns to a short survey of the history of the town. The following paper will therefore comprise an epitome of the history of Birmingham, in which, considering the purpose we have in view, we may be excused for dwelling more than we might otherwise do on its manufacturing aspect. Birmingham is situated almost in the centre of England, in the extreme north-west of Warwickshire, being distant about 112 miles from London, 85 from Manchester, and 98 from Liverpool. It is remarkable for the healthiness of its situation, the town being seated upon a succession of gentle elevations, of the sand-stone formation, which rapidly absorbs moisture, and frees the surface from unwholesome damps. The mortality is consequently much lower than in most other large towns and cities of the kingdom, and the registrar's returns exhibit from time to time many remarkable instances of longevity: thus, in the ten years from 1820 to 1830, the number of persons who died above the age of 95 was 48, of whom several were above a hundred years old. Though there is no river running through the town, the whole district is well supplied with water from numerous wells, clear wholesome water being obtainable in most places by digging to a depth of 50 or 60 feet.

Of the ancient history of Birmingham the materials are rather meagre. Hutton is angry with the monkish chroniclers because they make but little mention of it in their records, and reproaches them with laziness on that account. Some curious antiquaries, judging from old accumulations of scoria and traces of abandoned coal-pits in the neighbourhood, have fixed upon Birmingham as the precise spot where the iron of this district was converted into "scythes fastened to chariots," and other warlike implements described by Cæsar in his relation of the invasion of Britain by the Romans. This, however, is but a supposition, which is not at all strengthened by the fact, which they adduce in its support, that the soil in every direction is underlaid with beds of coal, seeing that the art of smelting iron by means of coal was not discovered until the reign of James I.

It is evident from the few details which can be collected, that for some centuries after the Conquest, Birmingham was but a small and insignificant town. For a levy towards the continental wars of Edward III it sent but four men, while Coventry contributed ten times that number. But we find that by the time of Henry VIII it had risen

to a place of some importance. Leland, who wrote about 1538, thus describes it in his itinerary: "I came through a pretty street or ever I entered into Bermingham towne. This street, as I remember, is Dirtey (Deritend). In it dwell smithes and cutlers. There is at the end of Dirtey a proper chappell and mansion house of tymber.... The beauty of Bermigham, a good markett towne in the extreame partes of Warwikeshire, is one street going up along almost from the left banke of the brooke, up a meane hill, by the length of a quarter of a mile. I saw but one paroch church in the towne. There be many smithes in the towne that use to make knives and all manner of cuttinge tools," etc. The aspect of the place and the prosperity of the inhabitants had, however, changed very much for the better within a score or two of years after; for Camden, in his " Britannia," which appeared in the reign of Elizabeth, thus writes: "Bremicham,* swarming with inhabitants, and echoing with the noise of anvils-for here are great numbers of smiths. The lower part of the town is very watery. The upper part rises with abundance of handsome buildings; and it is none of the least honours of the place that from hence the noble and warlike family of the Bremichams, in Ireland, had both their original and name."

Coming down to the time of Charles 1, we find the condition of Birmingham so far improved as to be considered equal in importance to the county town, the same sum, namely 100l., being levied as "ship money" upon both Warwick and Birmingham. It was even then, however, a small place, and in the time of the Commonwealth contained but 4000 residents. When the civil war broke out, the inhabitants declared warmly on the side of the Puritans, and they showed their devotion to the cause by supplying the parliamentary army with weapons. Their workshops furnished 15,000 swordblades for the service of Cromwell's troopers, while not a hammer was lifted in aid of the royal party. On one occasion the men of the town rose in a body, and disarming a guard who were conveying the king's plate, carriage, and furniture, seized the whole as a booty, and sent it to Warwick Castle for safety. For this exploit they suffered a severe retribution some months afterwards at the hands of Prince Rupert, who defeated them at Camphill, put many of them to death, and set fire to the town, burning eighty houses, and occasioning a loss of 30,000l. In this fray the earl of Denbigh was mortally wounded. This disaster was followed, not long after, by one still more fatal. The plague which in 1665 desolated London, reached Birming

In

of the town which forms the subject of this paper. It is said The reader will have remarked the various orthography to have been spelt in more than a hundred different ways. the "Gentleman's Magazine" for April, 1804, there are some antiquary, from which we learn that under the Romans it bore remarks upon its etymology from the pen of a celebrated the appellation of Bremenium, and that its more modera what were once the characteristics of the place, being a union name of Bromwycham (pronounced Brummagem) designates of the words Brom, signifying Broom or Heath-Wych, a village or small town-and Ilum, a home or residence. The lower classes still call it by this name, with occasional varia tions, such as Birigam, Bubbygam, and even Bubbygubwhile the better educated write and pronounce it Birming which appellation the place was known in the early part of the ham, which is the modernized form of Bermyngham, under last century.

ham;

and in a short period the place was nearly depopulated. The inhabitants were compelled to seek a spot to bury their dead out of the town, and the plague-stricken populace were deposited in a pest-ground, the precise situation of which is at present unknown.

By the time of the Revolution, in 1688, the gap in the population had been succeeded by almost a doubling of their numbers, and their trade had increased to a marvellous degree. They signalized the new state of affairs by a riot and the destruction of a Roman Catholic chapel and convent, and then relapsed quietly to their usual pursuits--the arts of peace, and the manufacture of the implements of war and agriculture. From their inland position, in those days of stagnant news and difficult locomotion, they were shut in from most of the popular troubles and agitations which vexed the capital and the coast; and there is little of historical interest attached to their progress for the next hundred years. Their marvellous industry and wondrous skill in the working of metals were, however, known and appreciated everywhere, and attracted to their town men of practical minds, and the scientific and curious from all parts of the country.

By 1791 the population of Birmingham had increased to between seventy and eighty thousand; and in this year an event occurred which cannot be passed over without a brief notice. We allude, of course, to the disgraceful riots in which Dr. Priestley suffered the loss of his property, and of the literary labours of a long career, and narrowly escaped with his life. The town was, for three whole days, in possession of an infuriated populace, whose excesses were only checked by the interference of the military; many persons lost their lives; and property was plundered and sacrificed to the amount of 50,000l.; four of the incendiaries were executed. Hutton, the quaint and interesting historian of Birmingham, to whom we are indebted for many of the above particulars, was a severe sufferer by these riots, of which he gives in his autobiography a detailed account. The town suffered much from the recollections of that outbreak for many years, though it was still the centre of attraction to both natives and foreigners interested in the arts and progress of metallic manufactures. The remembrance of the disgrace attached to this savage insurrection would seem to have deterred the people of the town from hastily repeating it. In after years they bore the greatest distress without a recurrence to outrage; and though in 1832, by monster meetings on Newhall Hill, they brought public opinion to bear upon the legislature, they yet passed through those perilous times without any overt acts of violence in which the mass of the populace can be said to have been the actors. It was not till 1839, when the chartist agitation was at its height, that another émeute took place. At that period, the nightly meetings in the Bull Ring had occasioned so much disturbance in the town that the authorities had resolved to put an end to them. They obtained assistance from the metropolitan police, and attempted to disperse the meeting, after a proclamation; the result was a conflict, in which several persons were injured, and it was only terminated by the employment of the military. On the following evening the mob set fire to several houses, one or two of which were destroyed. This

was the last of the Birmingham riots; and we trust there is reason to hope that the good sense which regards physical force as the most undesirable remedy for a grievance, whatever it may be, is now too generally diffused among the intelligent bands who "make fire, flood, and earth the vassals of their will," for us to fear a renewal of such

scenes.

The history of Birmingham during the present century would be the history of a progress rapid, solid, and substantial, and altogether unexampled in any other European country than ours. Since 1791 it has nearly quadrupled in size and in population: the entire aspect as well of the suburbs as of the town has changed. More than a hundred miles of streets have stretched out into the fields and orchards in every direction. Fifty thousand houses, and 250,000 inhabitants, are now gathered round the "one street going up a meane hill" of Leland, and countless factories, with their tall chimneys and puffing steam-engines, each surrounded by its little industrial army, are busy and toiling incessantly to supply every nook and corner of the world with the necessaries and luxuries of civilized life. While thus engaged in providing the appliances of comfort and convenience to others, the townsmen of Birmingham have not been unmindful of the requirements of their home population. New buildings and new institutions have risen up to meet the demand for increased knowledge and intellectual culture. Handsome churches on noble sites now surround the "one paroch church" of the old chronicler; and care has been taken that the means of reasonable recreation shall not be wanting to the tens of thousands of artificers of both sexes let loose from toil at an early hour in the evening. We must take a brief glance at some of the public buildings most worthy of remark.

The Town Hall, which is situated nobly at the top of New-street (the Bond-street of Birmingham), is deservedly the most conspicuous, as it is by far the most classic and attractive in appearance. It is essentially Greek in structure and design. Upon a rusticated basement, in which are numerous doors and windows for light and entrance to the lower and domestic portion of the building, rises the body of the edifice. The hall is a peristylar composition, having rows of handsome columns along the sides and front, supporting entablatures above. These columns are of the Corinthian order, and the eight in front are surmounted by a lofty pediment. They are forty feet in height, and, standing upon a basement twenty feet above the ground, they present a magnificent appearance from various parts of the town. This erection having been reared for the express purpose of accommodating large assemblies, the main body of it is taken up by one large hall, somewhat smaller than Exeter Hall, in the Strand, but better adapted for the conveyance of sound. At one end is the celebrated organ of Hill, one of the finest in Europe, constructed at the cost of from three to four thou sand pounds, and containing 4000 pipes, which are acted on by four sets of keys. The interior of the hall is elegantly decorated; it is ornamented with fluted pilasters, with rich capitals, and with a roof of elaborate workmanship. It will accommodate 4000 persons with seats; and at great political meetings, when the seats have been removed, as

many as 10,000 at a time have there congregated together. This fine building was completed in September, 1834.

The Grammar School, which stands in Newstreet, near the central railway station, is the building next in architectural importance to the Town Hall. It was built from the design of Mr. Barry, the architect of the New Palace at Westminster, and is in the Elizabethan style. Being situated in a broad part of New-street, it is seen to great advantage from the opposite pavement, and at once strikes the stranger as an effective and imposing structure.

The Market Hall, which stands on the west side of the open space of ground called the Bull Ring, is perhaps, strictly speaking, the most useful of all the public buildings in the town. It is an enormous pile, being 365 feet in length, 108 in width, and 60 in height. It is lighted by 59 windows, and contains 600 stalls for the sale of goods and provisions. It was our lot to enter it at a late hour on a Saturday evening, and a more varied and animated picture of a certain kind of commercial activity than then met our gaze it is scarcely possible to imagine. The working world of Birmingham were flocking to this monster provision mart to buy their Sunday's dinner. Between the long rows of stalls, thousands of them continually coming and going kept up an incessant din of feet and tongues. Labouring men chaffered and cheapened at the stalls, while young wives and motherly matrons, with well-crammed baskets on their arms, elbowed their way through the crowd, or paused now and then at a stall of trinkets and jewellery, divided between the charms of a griskin of pork and a coral necklace. Here Harry Huggins wavered for a moment between a live rabbit with lopears to grace his home-made hutch, and a stark emigrant from Ostend to grace his dinner-table, till his wife settled the question by plumping the fleshy exile among the cabbages in her basket. Here sucking-pigs, marshalled in rows, their cold noses all in a line, slept peacefully in the gas-light, while battalions of geese, prostrate on their backs, their noisy gabble for ever silenced with a gag of straw, awaited in "cold obstruction" the sage and onions that were to consummate their final obsequies. Here ducks and geese, and cocks and hens, and doves and pigeons, "all alive, oh!" who had been cackling, quacking, crowing, and cooing in vain through the live-long day for a customer, tired out at length, slept quietly among their dead companions. And between the groaning stall-boards ever and anon the crowd of bargainers kept winding on, assailed, as they passed', the vociferous appeals of the sellers, who scorned to economise their breath, but with the rapid explosion of" What dye buy? What d'ye buy? Now's your time!" "Fourpence a pound here!" etc., etc., kept up an incessant sharp-shooting at the pockets of the enemy-their friends and patrons. But we must not indulge in these touching recollections; our business is with the Market Hall, not with its inmates. In the centre, under the clock, is a handsome fountain, the work of Messrs. Messenger and Sons: it is a very graceful design, about twenty feet in height. In the centre of a large stone basin rises a pedestal of freestone, ornamented with groups of flowers and fruits, and with fish and

game in bronze, surmounted with an admirably modelled group of figures of the same metal. A more appropriate ornament for the situation it occupies could not well be imagined; though, as the fountain was not playing at the time of our visit, we saw it at a disadvantage. The hall was erected to meet the wants of the population, at a cost of over 67,000l. It is open every day, and is generally well attended.

The Corn Exchange, like the Market Hall, was built to meet the requirements of business. It stands in the High-street, and from the nature of the site, having to be approached through a narrow court, has no external attractions. The interior is most effectively lighted from the roof, which is vaulted and remarkably elegant. It happened that we strayed into it when following as we thought our directions to Carr's-lane Chapel. We soon found ourselves in company with near a thousand Mormonites, who on this occasion were making a grand demonstration in Birmingham, and receiving reports from elders and missionaries from various parts of the kingdom, as well as from continental countries. It would appear from this circumstance that the Corn Exchange is by no means devoted exclusively to purposes of commerce. It was designed by Mr. Hemming, was erected at the moderate cost of 6000l., and was first opened for business in October, 1817.

The School of Arts, in New-street, considered simply as a building, has no great claims to remark; but it is of immense importance to the town, as a nucleus and a nursery for the arts of design. It was first established by Sir Robert Lawley in 1821, but it was afterwards patronized by government, who, in 1843, awarded it a grant of money and casts from the antique. It is said to be under good management, and has the reputation of being the largest in the kingdom. It is good policy on the part of the wealthy manufacturers of Birmingham to encourage a taste for art among their designers and workmen, seeing that the prosperity of their manufactures is becoming day by day more dependent upon the artistic taste embodied in design, than upon excellence either in material or workmanship. The number of pupils under instruction is about 500; the fees required from them are little more than nominal; and there are classes for the different sexes at stated hours. At the annual meeting in June, prizes are allotted to the most deserving. The front of the building, though extremely narrow, exhibits a Corinthian portico; the interior is, on the whole, well adapted to the purpose to which it is applied.

Our limits compel us to pass various other buildings devoted to public purposes, some of which may, perhaps, be deemed of equal importance with others which we have mentioned. The Queen's College, the General Hospital, the Queen's Hospital, the Proprietary School, the libraries, the barracks, the hotels, the banking houses-all have claims to attention, which we are compelled to waive from want of space. For a similar reason, we are compelled to omit the notice of its many interesting churches and chapels, in order that we may take a brief glance at the employments and social features of the population, now little short of a quarter of a million, congregated beneath the smoky canopy which almost perpetually overhangs

this capital of the midland counties. It is our design, in the papers which will follow, to enter the forges, the foundries, and the workshops, and, taking the reader along with us, to endeavour to make him acquainted with some of the marvels of ingenuity and industry which are there to be met with so abundantly; but our survey will necessarily be but partial; and it will therefore be advisable, in this place, to advert cursorily to the manufactures for which Birmingham has long been celebrated, and to allude, in passing, to some of the effects which the continued employment these manufactures afford to multitudes of both sexes produces upon the popular character.

There are no iron mines in Birmingham itself, and no part of the town, that we are aware of, is undermined, either for the working of iron or coal. It is from the neighbouring iron district of Staffordshire that the iron comes to Birmingham, in the shape of bars, rods, sheets, and masses, of various shapes and sizes, prepared for the use of the different workers. In most of the factories in the town, the steam engine is the primary force available in preparing the metal in its rough state for the use of the hand-worker. This necessity for steam power has been the parent of an infinite number of contrivances for economizing and extending its use, and a thousand operations are now performed by machinery impelled by steam which were once deemed impossible by any other agency than the human hand. The result of this various application of machine power has been a prodigious faculty of production, and an equal increase of demand following upon the reduced cost of manufacture. Another result has been the facilitating of numerous processes, which are brought within the range of female industry and capacity; and, as a consequence of this, we find, wherever we go, bands of girls and young women congregated together by hundreds, and engaged in operations formerly carried on by men. Thousands of them, apparently, prefer the independence connected with stated hours of labour in a factory to the continuous labour of domestic servitude, and the superior wages they obtain as practical artisans to the often scant remuneration of a maid-of-all-work. Their position in the factory has, however, its dark side. They are not-they cannot always be-separated entirely from the male hands during the operations of labour; hundreds of them are exposed to the contamination of evil speech and evil example; and the result sometimes tells unfavourably upon their moral character.

But what are the hundred thousand operatives of Birmingham, men and women, engaged in doing from one year's end another? The answer to this question would puz. le "the oldest inhabitant" of the town, and he might probably reply that it would be as difficult to say what they are not doing, inasmuch as the variety of industrial occupations here carried on is almost numberless, and new inventions or modifications of old ones are continually starting into existence. They make everything, as one of their historians states, "from a monster steam-engine to a pin's head." Every shape that iron and the mixed metals can be by any means induced to assume, they are summarily compelled to take at Birmingham or in the neighbourhood. Within a few miles of the town the

materials of the Crystal Palace were brought into being, and round many a fair neck which bent eagerly towards the sovereign at its opening, hung glittering chains of gold fabricated by feminine fingers in the town itself. An attempt at the mere enumeration of the articles fashioned in this central workshop, would transform our pages into a dry catalogue of goods along which the reader might wander till he was weary. Presuming, therefore, that such enumeration may be spared us, we would desire the reader to divest himself and all that belongs to him, if he can only do it in imagination, of the products of Birmingham; he may by this means derive something like an adequate notion of what they are. Only suppose the thing done in an instant-presto! and every button has vanished from your attire, you have to hold your outer man together by force of arms; your hat-band is streaming in the wind for lack of a buckle, and flies off altogether as the hat sinks over your eyes; you feel especially loose and ricketty about the heels, and in a moment are nearer the ground by half an inch, the heels of your boots having taken their farewell of the soles. The cold air blows into your breast for lack of the vanished shirt-buttons which kept it out. These sudden changes set you wondering what o'clock it is now, and you have recourse to your watch, but your watch is gone, or else it won't go, as the result of some hiatus in its machinery. Or, supposing you to be sitting in your easy chair by your own fireside when the talismanic word is uttered-suddenly said easy chair lets you comfortably down on your back, from the absence of the long screws which kept it together, the stove walks off with your fire and leaves your hearth cold; if you attempt to follow it you find yourself stumbling over loose boards, the flooring having started from the crosstimbers, for want of the nails which kept it down; you cannot open the door of your room, for the handle is gone, but on making the attempt it tumbles down upon you for want of the hinges. One after another, every article of furniture in your dwelling is crumbling to pieces; the windowcurtains lie on the floor for lack of rods, and half the house is flying out at windows. There are no means left of kindling a fire or boiling the teakettle, and no teakettle to boil if there were. In short, you find that you must bring back Birmingham again to help you out of your difficulties, and that there is no living without her. This is the plain fact, and one upon which the whole world are unanimously agreed; hence it is impossible, in one sense, to get out of Birmingham, go where we will. She meets us in the form of her multiplied manufactures in every corner of the globe; with her we ride the rail on the wings of steam, and sail the ocean to the far antipodes; she is present at our bed and board, be it in old England or New Zealand, in the palace of the prince or the cabin of the emigrant; she surrounds us with the elements of comfort and convenience, and provides the materials of out-of-door labour and in-door enjoyments for unnumbered millions; she is in the truest sense the benefactress of universal man, from the crowned head to the savage of the wilderness; while she builds up her own greatness by administering to the wants of others.

As might be reasonably predicated of a town