B I R 



443 



B I R 



Notes; Sangermano, Description of the Burmese Empire 

 (this work exists only in an English translation, which was 

 published in 1834 by the Translation Society of London) ; 

 Wilson's History of the Burmese War; Hamilton, m Asiatic. 

 Researches and Edinb. Philos, Journal; Wilcox, in Asiatic 

 Researches; Maps of Berghaus of Hinterindien and Asam; 

 of Wilcox in Asiatic Researches, xviii.) 



BIRMINGHAM, a large commercial and manufactur- 

 ing town in the county of Warwick, and hundred of Hem- 

 lingford; it occupies a narrow peninsular projection of the 

 north-western portion of the county, which is hounded on 

 the north and south by the neighbouring counties of 

 Stafford and Worcester. It is in 52 59' N. lat., 1 18 7 W. 

 long., 102 miles in a straight line N.W. of London, and by 

 the nearest road 109 miles. It is 79 miles 8.E. of Liver- 

 pool, and the same distance N.N.E. from Bristol, both in a 

 straight line. Birmingham is written Brymyncham in the 

 letters-patent of Edward VI. by which the free-school was 

 founded. 



The parish of Birmingham, though extending on the 

 north and west to a considerable distance from the town, is 

 smaller than the agricultural parishes in the neighbourhood. 

 It is bounded on the east and north-east by the parish of 

 Aston, in Warwickshire ; on the south by that of Edlgbaston 

 in the same county ; on the west and north-west respectively, 

 by those of Harborne and Handsworth, both in the county 

 of Stafford. The parish is in form an irregular quadrangle, 

 elongated east and west. It is about eight miles in circuit, 

 and contains, according to late surveys, 2810 acres. The 

 antient church, dedicated to St. Martin, is not far from the 

 south-eastern boundary of the parish. The town at present 

 covers the whole eastern half of the parish, and extends its 

 lines of building to a considerable distance into the parish 

 of Aston. Many of the inhabitants also find, in the conti- 

 guous portion of the parish of Edgbaston, pleasant resi- 

 dences, at an easy distance from the crowded and com- 

 mercial part of the town. 



Birmingham is situated near the centre of England, and 

 in its vicinity we find the water-shed which separates the 

 streams that belong to the basin of the Trent from those 

 which belong to the basin of the Severn. The river Rea, 

 a remote branch of the Trent, is about 310 feet above high 

 water in the Thames at London taken at a point close to 

 Birmingham. The surface of the ground is varied, the 

 streets generally lying on a declivity, which facilitates the 

 cleansing of the town, and contributes to its general health. 

 The prevalent geological character of the neighbouring 

 country is the new red sandstone, with beds of clay and 

 gravel superimposed. It has been asserted that coal exists in 

 the immediate neighbourhood, but this is questionable. The 

 middle of the parish of West Bromwich seems the boundary 

 of the accessible beds of coal, beyond which, in this direc- 

 tion, the strata are greatly disturbed ; and the coal, if it 

 exist here, appears from late trials to lie at an immense 

 depth. 



The soil in the vicinity of the town is ofindifferent qua- 

 lity, but the ample supply of manure, and the value of every 

 open space of ground, induce such a system of culture as 

 renders it highly productive. Large plots of ground in the 

 immediate environs have been long divided by their pro- 

 prietors into small gandens, which are let at the rent of one 

 and two guineas per annum. Many of these are occupied 

 by artizans, and have been productive of great benefit, both 

 in respect of the vegetables they have yielded, and the 

 healthful exercise derived from their cultivation. This ap- 

 propriation of the land is however fast diminishing, owing 

 to the rapid increase of the town. 



Birmingham has from a remote time been a market- 

 town, and to a certain extent the seat of manufactures. 

 Being situated at a moderate distance from the Stafford- 

 shire mines of iron, which were unquestionably worked 

 at a very early date, and placed in a district which was 

 distinguished as woody (the northern or Arden division 

 of Warwickshire), it offered great facilities for smelting 

 the ore of iron, which, before the introduction of the 

 steam-engine, could only be effected by means of char- 

 That this was the fact, was noted by William Hut- 

 ton, the first historian of the town, in his description of a 

 very antiest furnace which was still worked when he wrote, 

 in 1780, and near to which rose what he calls ' a mountain 

 of cinder,' the refuse of the operations of smelting, which, 

 according to the then existing scale of increase, must have 

 taken at least a thousand years to accumulate. The iron being 



prepared on the spot, it is natural to suppose that a colony 

 of artificers would settle here, and that they would early 

 acquire skill in the use of the material. During the Hep 

 tarchy, the manor appears to have been a possession which 

 gave dignity and consideration to its holders, who resided at 

 a castle or mansion near the cluster of buildings which 

 formed the nucleus of the present town. But it does not 

 appear that in ' antient times ' Birmingham attained to any 

 degree of splendour. The only religious establishment of 

 any considerable antiquity within the precincts, the priory 

 of St. Thomas, if founded before the reign of Edward I., 

 must originally have been of small size, as nearly all the, 

 lands which are known to have belonged to it were granted 

 in that reign by the neighbouring proprietors. 



Though the seat of industry and the simpler mechanical 

 arts, the progress of Birmingham was for many centuries 

 slow, and its productions, from the difficulty of transit, 

 circulated within a limited district. In the sixteenth cen- 

 tury Leland speaks of the place as ' a good market-town,' 

 of which ' the beauty' was one principal street, of a quarter 

 of a mile long. It was inhabited by ' smiths, that use to 

 make knives and all manner of cutting-tools; and milny 

 lorimers that make bitts, and a great many nailers.' A 

 place thus characterized by the industry and ingenuity of 

 its inhabitants waited only for more favourable circum- 

 stances to increase its wealth. This change appears to have 

 taken place in the seventeenth century, when, on the re- 

 storation of Charles II., a fondness for metal ornaments 

 was introduced from France, where the pxiled king and his 

 adherents had long resided, and Birmingham took the lead 

 in the manufacture of the glittering trifles which the taste 

 of the age demanded. 



Among other causes which favoured the progress of the 

 town may be mentioned the operation of the Corporation 

 and Five Mile Acts, and other arbitrary laws. The conse- 

 quence of these enactments was the ejection from cities and 

 boroughs with chartered privileges of many individuals, 

 who settled in this comparatively inconsiderable town, and 

 brought with them the capital and the industry which 

 enabled them to seize on the advantages presented by its 

 locality. 



Except the parish church of St. Martin, Birmingham 

 contains no edifices, either public or private, of greater an- 

 tiquity than the black and white half-timbered houses of 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which are nume- 

 rous in the older part of the town, in the suburb of Deritend, 

 and in the line of street which Leland describes as forming 

 ' the beauty' of the place. 



Birmingham has not been the scene of any important 

 historical events. It continued, from the time of the Hep- 

 tarchy, in the possession of the Saxon family on which it 

 conferred a name, whose members long paid ' homage, 

 suit, and service,' at the command of the Norman con- 

 queror, to the lord paramount, who resided at Dudley 

 Castle. In the reign of Henry VIII. the last De Birming- 

 ham was ejected from his inheritance by the conspiracy of 

 John Dudley, afterwards Duke of Northumberland. (See 

 the narrative at some length in Dugdale's Warwickshire.) 

 After the attainder of this nobleman, the manor lapsed to 

 the crown, and was given by Queen Mary, in 1555, to Tho- 

 mas Marrow of Berkswell, in the county of Warwick. It 

 has since, by purchase and marriage, changed hands several 

 times, and now belongs to Christopher Musgrave, of Fox- 

 coat, in the county of Sussex. But the most important 

 portion of the manorial rights, the market-tolls, were pur- 

 chased a few years ago by the commissioners of the Street 

 Acts, and are held by them for the benefit of the town. 



In the year 1643 the even course of events was inter- 

 rupted by the civil wars. The inhabitants of Birmingham, 

 as it appears from Clarendon, had been by no means back- 

 wcn-d in the expression of their opinions on the important 

 occurrences of the reign of Charles I., and had taken a de- 

 cided part on the popular side by seizing the royal carriages 

 and maltreating the attendants, and by supplying large 

 numbers of sword-blades to the parliamentary troops, while 

 they refused to execute orders given by the commissaries of the 

 royal army. Accordingly, when Prince Rupert, the neph'ew of 

 the king, was sent with a body of 2000 men to open a com- 

 munication between Oxford and York, his progress through 

 Birmingham was resolutely opposed, and a sliarp skirmish 

 took place, attended by the loss of several lives on both 

 sides, and the destruction of a considerable portion of the 

 town by fire. A spot of ground near the entrance from Ox- 



3L9 



