Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham Part 45

_Murdoch_.--There is a bust of William Murdoch, the introducer of coal-gas as an illuminant, in Handsworth Church. Another would not be out of place in the new Gas Office.

_Nelson_--The bronze statue of Lord Nelson in the Bull Ring was executed by Westmacott, and uncovered June 6, 1809. The artist received 2,500, but the total cost (raised by subscription) with the pedestal, lamps, and palisading, was nearly 3,000. The corner posts are old cannon from the Admiral's s.h.i.+p the Victory.

_Peel_.--The statue of Sir Robert Peel, near the Town Hall, cost 2,000, and was unveiled August 27, 1855. He faced towards Christ Church at first, and was protected from Tories and Protectionists by iron railings, until March, 1878, when his bonds were loosed, and he was allowed to look down New Street.

_Priestley_.--The statue of the discoverer of oxygen, near the Town Hall, was uncovered August 1, 1884. The amount subscribed as a Priestley memorial fund was 1,820, of which 972 went for the philosopher's stone effigy, about 10 for a tablet on the site of his house at Fair Hill, and 653 to the Midland Inst.i.tute to found a scholars.h.i.+p in chemistry.

_Prince Albert and the Queen_.--In 1862, after the death of the Prince Consort, a Memorial Committee was formed and a fund raised for a statue, the execution of which was entrusted to Mr. Foley, and it is said to be one of his finest productions. It was placed in the old Art Gallery, and uncovered August 27, 1863. It was in the reading-room at the time of the fire, but fortunately escaped injury. The balance of the fund was deemed sufficient for a companion statue of Her Majesty, and Mr. Foley received the commission for it in 1871. At his death the order was given to Mr.

Woolner, who handed over his work to the town in May, 1884, the ceremony of unveiling taking place on the 9th of that month. According to the _Athanaeum_ it is "one of the finest portrait statues of the English School, combining a severe yet elegant design with execution of the highest kind, every element being thoroughly artistic." Thousands have seen it alongside the Prince's statue in the hall of the Reference Library, but few indeed have been heard to say they like it. Both statues are ultimately intended to be placed in the Council House.

_Rogers_.--A memorial bust of John Rogers, a native of Deritend, and one of the first martyrs of the Reformation, was unveiled in St. John's, October 29, 1883.

_Scholefield_.--A bust of William Scholefield, M.P., for the borough, is at Aston Hall.

_Sturge_.--The statue, and most appropriate memorial of Edmund Sturge, at the Five Ways, which cost about 1,000, was undraped June 4, 1862.

Messrs. Bright and Scholefield, M.P.'s, being present.

With a true sorrow that rebuked all feigning, By lone Edgbaston's side Stood a great city in the sky's sad reigning Bareheaded and wet-eyed.

Silent for once the restless hive of labour, Save the low funeral tread, Or voice of craftsman whispering to his neighbour The good deeds of the dead.

_Timmins_.--An almost life-speaking marble bust of Mr. Sam. Timmins was placed in the Reference Library, April 26, 1876. It was destroyed in the fire, but has been replaced, and few could tell the present bust is not the original one.

_Tyndale_.--The Londoners have honoured themselves by erecting on the Thames Embankment a statue to the memory of the Reformer Tyndale, whom we have partly to thank for the English version of the Bible. To help pay for their ornament it was decided that the names of all towns subscribing 100 or more should be inscribed on the pedestal, and the Bible-lovers of Birmingham sc.r.a.ped together 86 15s. 3d. for the purpose, leaving the Mayor (Mr. Wm. White) to dip into his own pocket for the remaining 13 4s. 9d.

_Unett_.--The granite obelisk in St. Philip's churchyard, opposite Temple Street, was erected to the memory of Lieut. Colonel Unett, who fell at the storming of Sebastopol. It was uncovered June 19, 1857.

_Watt_.--One of the finest productions of Francis Chantrey, the sculptor, is generally acknowledged to be the monument in Handsworth Church to James Watt, which was placed there in September, 1827. The figure is said to bear a very remarkable resemblance to Mr. Watt, who is represented seated in a Grecian chair, with compa.s.ses and open book, as though tracing on the open page. On the front of the pedestal is inscribed:--

JAMES WATT, BORN 19 JANVARY, 1736.

DIED 23 AVGVST, 1819, PATRI OPTIME MERITO.

E.M.P.

The statue in Ratcliffe Place was subscribed for in 1867, and the figure is very like the portrait of Watt. It was unveiled Oct. 2, 1868.

_Whateley_.--A marble bust (by Peter Rollins) of J.W. Whateley, Esq., M.D., was placed in the Board Room of the General Hospital, June 1, 1877.

_Wright_.--Mr. John Bright, June 15, 1883, uncovered the statue erected in memory of Mr. J.S. Wright, in front of the Council House. The inscription upon it is as follows:--

"John Skirrow Wright, born February 2, 1822, died April 13, 1880. In memory of the simplicity, kindliness, and integrity of his life and of his unselfish, untiring, and patriotic devotion as a public man, this monument is erected by the united gifts of all cla.s.ses in the town he loved and for which he laboured."

~Steam Engines.~--The first steam engine (then called a fire engine) used for the purpose of pumping water from coal mines was put up in 1712 by Newcomen and Calley, at a colliery near Wolverhampton, owned by Mr.

Back, the ironwork, &c., being made in Birmingham, and taken hence to the pit-head. The first of Watt's engines made at Soho, was to "blow the bellows" at John Wilkinson's ironworks at Broseley, in 1776. Watt's first pumping engine was started at Bloomfield Colliery, March 8, 1776.

Having overcome the rotary motion difficulties, Watt applied steam to tilt hammers and rolling mills in 1781, and to corn-grinding mills in 1782; taking out patents in 1784 for the "governor," "parallel motion,"

&c., including also specifications for a travelling engine, though it was William Murdoch who first made a practical working model of a locomotive. The first engine worked by steam in this town that we have record of was put up at same works in Water Street, in 1760.

~Steams.h.i.+ps.~--If we do not build steams.h.i.+ps in Birmingham, it was James Watt who proposed the use of screw propellers (in 1770); Wm. Murdoch, who invented the oscillating cylinder (in 1785); Watt and Boulton, who furnished engines (in 1807) for the first regular steam picket in America; and James Watt, jun., who made the first steam voyage on the sea (October 14, 1817), crossing the Channel in the _Caledonia_, and taking that vessel up the Rhine.

~Stirchley Street~, about a mile and a quarter north-east of King's Norton, has a Post Office, a Police Station, a Board School, and a Railway Station. Notwithstanding these signs of modern civilisation, and the near proximity of Cadbury's Cocoa Manufactory, Stirchley Street is, as it has been for many a generation, a favourite country outing place for weary Brums having a chance hour to spend on change of scene.

~Stocks.~--Putting people in the stocks appears to have been a very ancient mode of punishment, for the Bible tells us that Jeremiah, the prophet, was put in the stocks by Pashur, and the gaoler who had charge of Paul and Silas at Philippi made fast their feet in a similar way.

Whether Shakespeare feared the stocks when he refused to go back to "drunken Bidford," after sleeping off the effects of one carouse with the "Sipper's Club" there, is not chronicled, but that the stocks were not unknown to him is evident by their being introduced on the stage in "King Lear." The _Worcester Journal_ of Jan. 19, 1863, informs us that "this old mode of punishment was revived at Stratford-on-Avon, for drunkenness, and a pa.s.ser-by asking a fellow who was doing penance how he liked it, the reply was--'I beant the first mon as ever were in the stocks, so I don't care a fardin about it." Stocks used to be kept at the Welsh Cross, as well as a pillory; and when the Corporation closed the old prison in High Street, Bordesley, they took over the stocks which formerly stood alongside the whipping-post, on the bank in front of the present G.W.R. Station. The last date of this punishment being inflicted in this town is 1844, when the stocks were in the yard of the Public Office in Moor Street.

~Storms and Tempests.~--A great storm arose on Wednesday, November 24, 1703, which lasted three days, increasing in force. The damage, all over the kingdom, was immense; and at no period of English history has it been equalled. 15,000 sheep were drowned in one part of Gloucesters.h.i.+re.

We have no record of the immediately local loss.--In a storm on March 9, 1778, the windmill at Holloway Head was struck by lightning, the miller was hurt, and the sails shattered.--January 1, 1779, there was a violent gale, which, while it wrecked over 300 vessels on our coasts did great damage as far inland as Birmingham--Snowstorms were so heavy on January 23 and 24, 1814, that all communication between here and London was stopped for five days.--There was a strong gale September 26, 1853, during which some damage was done to St. Mary's Church, to the alarm of the congregation therein a.s.sembled.--A very heavy storm occurred June 15, 1858, the day after the Queen's visit, lasting for nearly three hours, during which time three inches of rain fell, one half in twenty minutes.--Some property in Lombard Street was destroyed by lightning, June 23, 1861; and parts of Aston, Digbeth, and the Parade were flooded same time.--There was a terrific thunderstorm, August 26, 1867; the rainfall being estimated at seventy-two tons per acre.--During a heavy thunderstorm, June 17, 1875, the lightning set fire to a workshop in Great Charles Street: killed a women in Deritend, and fourteen sheep and lambs at Small Heath.--In a heavy gale, January 30, 1877, a chimney stack was blown down in Jennen's Row, killing two men; and a wall was levelled in Harborne Road, on February 20, another poor fellow losing his life.--During the night of August 2 and 3, 1879 (when many parts of the outskirts were flooded in comparatively the shortest time in memory), the residence of W.E. Chance, Esq., Augustus Road, was struck by lightning, and considerable damage done; but no personal injuries were reported.--During the storm of October 14, 1881, much local damage was done, while round Coventry and Tamworth districts many hundreds of trees were broken or uprooted. In Windsor Park, 960 trees were blown down and more than a thousand damaged; 146 s.h.i.+pwrecks occurred on the coasts.--During a gale December 11, 1883, a large stained gla.s.s window of St. Philip's Church was shattered; part of a house in Charles Henry Street was blown down, two persons being killed; a child was killed at Erdington, by chimney falling through roof, several persons had limbs fractured, and there was generally a great injury to property.--On Sunday, June 15, 1884, St. Augustine's Church, Hagley Road, and the Congregational Chapel, Francis Road, were struck by lightning during a tempest, and the Chapel was somewhat injured.

~Streets.~--It is not every street that is a street in Birmingham, for, according to the Post Office Street List, besides a dozen or so to which distinctive names have been given, like Cheapside, Deritend, Digbeth, Highgate, Islington, &c., and 726 streets called Streets, there are in the borough 178 Roads, 86 Lanes, 69 Rows, 19 Squares, 11 Crescents, 2 Quadrants, 5 Arcades, 1 Colonnade, 5 Parades, 484 Terraces, 1,572 Places, 26 Pa.s.sages, 20 Yards, 47 Courts (named, and twenty times that number numbered), 16 Mounts (twelve of them Pleasant), 24 Hills, 5 Vales, 2 Valleys, 23 Groves, 4 Retreats, 11 Villas, 14 Cottages, 2 Five-Dwelling, 179 Buildings, 14 Chambers, 12 Walks, 4 Drives, 3 Avenues, 5 Gullets, 1 Alley (and that is Needless), 1 Five-Ways, 1 Six-Ways, 6 Greens, 2 Banks, 2 Villages, 3 Heaths, 3 Ends, and 1 No Thoroughfare.

~Sultan Divan.~--Formerly a questionable place of amus.e.m.e.nt in Needless Alley, but which was bought for 7,500, and opened by the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, January 7, 1875.

~Sunday in Birmingham.~--Sunday dogfights _have_ been heard of in this town, but it was sixty years ago, when brutal sports of all kinds were more rife than now. Prior to that, however, many attempts were made to keep the Sabbath holy, for we read that in 1797 the heavy wagons then in use for transport of goods were not allowed to pa.s.s through the town, the authorities fining all offenders who were so wicked as to use their vehicles on the Lord's Day. The churchwardens were then supported by the inhabitants, who held several public meetings to enforce the proper observance of the day, but there have been many changes since. In January, 1856, a Sunday League, for opening museums, libraries, &c., on the Sabbath, was started here. In the last session of Parliament in 1870, there were eighteen separate pet.i.tions presented from this town against opening the British Museum on Sundays. The Reference Library and Art Gallery commenced to be opened on Sundays, April 28, 1872, and they are well frequented. Sunday labour in the local Post Offices was stopped Aug. 10, 1873. In 1879 a society was formed for the purpose of delivering lectures, readings, and addresses of an interesting nature, on the Sunday evenings of the winter season, the Town Hall, Board Schools, and other public buildings being utilised for the purpose (the first being held in the Bristol Street Schools, Oct. 19, 1879), and very popular have they been, gentlemen of all sects and parties taking part, in the belief that

A Sabbath well spent Brings a week of content.

In 1883, during an inquiry as to the extent of drunkenness on the Sabbath, it was shown that the county of Warwick (including Birmingham) was remarkably clear, as out of a population of 737,188 there had only been 348 convictions during 1882. For Staffords.h.i.+re, with a population of 980,385, the convictions were 581. Northumberland, 687 convictions out of 434,074. Durham, 1,015 out of 867,586. Liverpool 1,741 out of 552,425. Manchester, 1,429 out of 341,508.

~Sutton Coldfield~, on the road to Lichfield, is celebrated even more for its park than its antiquity. The former was left to the town by the Bishop of Exeter (John Harman), otherwise known as Bishop Vesey, who was a native of Sutton, and whose monument is still to be seen in the old Church. He procured a charter of incorporation in 1528, and also founded the Grammar School, and other endowed charities, such as the Almshouses, the Poor Maidens' Portions, &c., dying in 1555, in his 103rd year.

Thirty years' back, the park contained an area of 2,300 acres, but a small part was sold, and the railways have taken portions, the present extent, park and pools, being estimated at 2,034 acres, the mean level of which is 410 feet above the sea level. A good length of Icknielde Street, or the Old Roman Road, is distinctly traceable across a portion of the park. King John visited Sutton manor-house in April, 1208. On the 18th of October, 1642, Charles I. reviewed his Staffords.h.i.+re troops here, prior to the battle of Edgehill, the spot being long known as "The King's Standing." The mill-dams at Sutton burst their banks July 24, 1668, and many houses were swept away. The population is about 8,000, and the rateable value is put at 50,000, but as, through the attraction of the park, the town is a very popular resort, and is rapidly increasing, it may ultimately become a place of importance, worthy of munic.i.p.al honours, which are even now being sought. The number of visitors to the park in the Whit-week of 1882, was 19,549; same week in 1883, it was 11,378; in 1884, it was 17,486; of whom 14,000 went on the Monday.

~Taxes.~--Would life be worth living if we had to pay such taxes as our fathers had to do? Here are a few:--The hearth or chimney tax of 2s. for every fire-place or stove in houses rated above 20s. per annum was imposed in the fifteenth year of Charles II.'s reign, but repealed in the first year of William and Mary, 1689; the owners of Edgbaston Hall paid for 22 chimneys before it was destroyed in 1668. In 1642, there was a duty of 4 a pair on silk stockings. A window tax was enacted in 1695 "to pay for the re-coinage of the gold coin," and was not entirely removed till July 24, 1851; from a return made to Parliament by the Tax Office in 1781, it appeared that the occupiers of 2,291 houses paid the window tax in Birmingham; there was collected for house and window tax in 1823, from the inhabitants of this town, the sum of 27,459 12s.

1-3/4d., though in the following year it was 9,000 less. Bachelors and widowers were rated by 6 and 7 William III., c. 6, "to enable the King to carry on the war against France with rigour." Births, marriages, and deaths were also made liable to duties by the same Act. The salt duties were first levied in 1702, doubled in 1732, and raised again in 1782, ceasing to be gathered in 1825. The price of salt at one period of the long Peninsular war rose to 30 per ton, being retailed in Birmingham at 4l. per lb. Carriages were taxed in 1747. Armorial bearings in 1798.

Receipts for money and promisory notes were first taxed in 1782. Hair powder tax, of 21s. per annum, was first levied in 1795. In 1827, there was a 1s. 3d. duty on almanacks. The 3s. advertis.e.m.e.nt duty was reduced to 1s. 6d. in 1833, and abolished August 4, 1853. The paper duty, first put on in 1694, was repealed in 1861; that on bricks taken off in 1850; on soap in 1853; on sugar in May, 1874, and on horses the same year.

Hats, gloves, and linen s.h.i.+rts were taxed in 1785; patent medicines, compound waters, and codfish, in 1783; in fact every article of food, drink, and clothing required by man from the moment of his birth until his burial, the very shroud, the land he trod on, the house he lived in, the materials for building, have all been taxed. For coming into the world, for living in it, and for going out of it, have Englishmen had to pay, even though they grumbled. Now-a-days the country's taxes are few in number, and per head are but small in amount, yet the grumbling and the growling is as heavy as of old. _Can_ it arise from the pressure of our local rates? Where our fathers paid 20s. to the Government, we do not pay 5s.; but where the old people gave 5s. in rates, we have to part with 25s.

~Telegraphs.~--The cable for the first Atlantic telegraph was made here.

Its length was 2,300 nautical miles, and it required 690,000 lbs. of copper in addition to the iron wire forming the strand, of which latter there was about 16,000 miles' length. The first time the "Queen's Speech" was transmitted to this town by the electric telegraph was on Tuesday, November 30, 1847, the time occupied being an hour and a half.

The charge for sending a message of 20 words from here to London, in 1848, was 6s. 6d. The Sub-Marine Telegraph Co. laid their wires through Birmingham in June and July, 1853.

~Temperance.~--There appears to have been a sort of a kind of a temperance movement here in 1788, for the Magistrates, at their sitting August 21, strongly protested against the increase of dram-drinking; but they went on granting licenses, though. Father Matthew's first visit was September 10, 1843; J.B. Gough's, September 21, 1853; Mr. Booth's, in May, 1882. The first local society for inculcating principles of temperance dates from September 1, 1830; U.K. Alliance organised a branch here in February, 1855; the first Templars' Lodge was opened September 8, 1868; the Royal Crusaders banded together in the summer of 1881; and the Blue Ribbons were introduced in May, 1882. This novelty in dress ornamentation was adopted (so they said) by over 40,000 inhabitants, but at the end of twelve months the count was reduced to 8,000, including Sunday School children, popular parsons, maidens looking for husbands, old maids who had lost their chances, and the unco' guid people, who, having lost their own tastes, would fain keep others from their cakes and ale.

~Temple Row.~--A "parech meeting" in 1715 ordered the purchase of land for a pa.s.sage way out of Bull Street to St. Philip's Church. It was not until 1842 when part of the Royal Hotel stables were taken down, that it was made its present width. In 1837 the churchyard had some pleasant walks along the sides, bounded by a low wooden fence, and skirted with trees.

~Temple Street~ takes its name from the old summer arbour, wittily called "the Temple," which once stood in a garden where now Temple Row joins the street. An advertis.e.m.e.nt in _Gazette_ of December 5, 1743, announced a house for sale, in Temple Street, having a garden twelve yards wide by fifty yards long, adjoining the fields, and with a prospect of four miles distance.

~Theatrical Jottings.~--What accommodation, if any, was provided here for "their majesties' servants," the playactors, in the times of Queen Anne and her successor, George I., is not known, but as Hutton tells us that in 1730 the amus.e.m.e.nts of the stage _rose_ in elegance so far that threepenny performances were given "in a stable in Castle Street," we may be sure the position held by members of the profession was not very high in the estimation of our townsfolk previous to that period. Indeed, it would almost seem as if the acting of plays was quite an innovation at the time named, and one that met with approval, for shortly after we read of there being theatres in Smallbrook Street, in New Street, and "a new theatre" in Moor Street. The first-named closed in 1749 or 1750; the second is _supposed_ to have been on the site of the present Theatre Royal, but it could not have been a building of much importance as we find no note of it after 1744; the third, built in 1739, was taken possession of by the disciples of Wesley, and on March 21, 1764, was opened as a chapel. Previous to the last event, however, another theatre had been erected (in 1752) in King Street, leading out of New Street, near to the Free School, which, being enlarged in 1774, is described by Hutton as having few equals. In this year also (1774) the Theatre Royal was erected (at a cost of nearly 5,700) though the latter half of its t.i.tle was not a.s.sumed until August, 1807, on the occasion of the Royal a.s.sent being given to the house being "licensed." A bill had been introduced into the House of Commons for this purpose on the 26th of March, 1777, during the debate on which Burke called Birmingham "the great toyshop of Europe," but it was thrown out on the second reading.

The King Street Theatre, like its predecessor in Moor Street, after a time of struggle, was turned into a place of wors.h.i.+p in 1786, a fate which, at a later date, also befell another place of public entertainment, the Circus, in Bradford Street, and the theatrical history of the town, for a long term of years centred round the Theatre Royal, though now and then spasmodic attempts were made to localise amus.e.m.e.nts more or less of a similar nature. One of these, and the earliest, was peculiarly unfortunate; early in 1778 a wooden pavilion, known as the "Concert Booth," was erected in the Moseley Road, dramatic performances being _given_ between the first and last parts of a vocal and instrumental concert, but some mischievous or malicious incendiary set fire to the building, which was burnt to the ground Aug. 13 of the same year. Four years later, and nearly at the same date (Aug. 17) the Theatre in New Street met with a like fate, the only portion of it left being the stone front (added in 1780) which is still the same, fortunately coming almost as safely through the next conflagration. The proprietors cleared away the ruins, and erected a more commodious structure, which, under the management of Mr. William Macready, was opened June 22, 1795. In the meantime, the King Street Theatre having been chapelised, the town appears to have been without any recognised place for dramatic entertainments other than those provided in the large rooms of the hotels, or the occasional use of a granary transmogrified for the nonce into a Thespian arena. On the night of the 6th of January, 1820, after the performance of "Pizarro," the Theatre Royal was again burnt out, but, possibly from having their property insured up to 7,000, the proprietors were not so long in having it rebuilt, the doors of the new house being opened on following Aug. 14. This is, practically, the same building as the present, which has scats for about 3,500, the gallery holding 1,000. Many of the first artists of the profession have trod the boards of the Old Theatre since the last-named date, and Birmingham has cause to be proud of more than one of her children, who, starting thence, have found name and fame elsewhere. The scope of the present work will not allow of anything move than a few brief notes, and those entirely of local bearing, but a history of the Birmingham stage would not be uninteresting reading.

A wooden building in Moor Street, formerly a circus, was licensed March, 19, 1861; closed in 1863, and cleared off the ground in 1865.

Theatrical performances were licensed in Bingley Hall in 1854.