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ford received,' and has since borne, the name of Camphill ; 

 a name which still indicates the place where the prince 

 halted the night before he forced his passage through tin- 

 town. Three short pamphlets were published on the occa- 

 tion, two of them by writers on tho parliamentary side, and 

 one by a royalist gentleman. They severally give a minute 

 though somewhat confused account of the affair, each being 

 coloured, as might be expected, by the prejudices of the 

 writers. 



At the close of the eighteenth century occurred the tre- 

 mendous explosion of party spirit which has been since 

 known under the name of ' the Riots.' On this occa- 

 sion the motives and opinions of those who rejoiced in 

 the dawn and progress of liberty in France were so far 

 mistaken and misrepresented, that when, on the 14th of 

 July, 1791, a party of respectable inhabitants met to cele- 

 brate the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastile, a 

 mob was excited to break the windows of the hotel where 

 the festivity was held. Emboldened by the impunity which 

 attended this outrage, the assailants, in rapidly increasing 

 numbers, proceeded to acts of more extensive destruction. 

 The Unitarians had been for some time objects of dislike 

 and suspicion from their known freedom of opinion ; and 

 among them Dr. Priestley, who resided in Birmingham, as 

 minister of one of their congregations, was, from the uncom- 

 promising language of his writings, especially obnoxious. 

 Tho two meeting-houses of the Unitarians, the house of 

 Dr. Priestley, and the residences of several of his personal 

 friends, were accordingly the objects of attack, and were de- 

 stroyed by firo, or otherwise greatly injured and plundered 

 in the course of the night of the 14th of July and the two 

 following days. Among the loss of valuable property which 

 attended these acts of popular fury, none was so greatly 

 to b* lamented as that of the library and laboratory of Dr. 

 Priestley, in which were accumulated in MSS. the records 

 of the labour of years, the facts collected during a life of 

 industrious observation. These valuable MSS. were wan- 

 tonly destroyed, scattered, and irrecoverably lost. The ar- 

 rival of military aid, tardily afforded, at length dispersed 

 the pUmderers, and restored tranquillity ; but the effects of 

 bitterly -excited party feeling long remained perceptible in 

 the various circles of the town. 



The simple form of municipal government which existed 

 when Birmingham was an obscure village has never been 

 changed, though the forms of manorial authority have gra- 

 dually adapted themselves to the demands of an increasing 

 community. The authorities are the constables and a 

 headborough, assisted by other otticers, whose duty it is to 

 superintend the weights and measures, and to examine into 

 the quality of articles of food offered for sale : they are all 

 appointed annually by the jury called by the bailiff of the 

 manor, and assembled in court leet. During the long-con- 

 tinued non-residence of the lords of the manor, the bailiffs 

 have gradually assumed an importance to which their actual 

 official duties did not entitle them. They have long had 

 the precedency in public meetings and on various occasions ; 

 and under the provisions of the late Reform Bill, which con- 

 ferred the elective franchise on Birmingham, the high and 

 low bailiffs are named as the returning officers. 



Birmingham, from the nature of its staple employments, 

 lay, till lately, under the stigma of blackness and dirt ; 

 but the improved processes, and the great change in tin- 

 nature of its manufactures, with the excellent arrange- 

 ments of the commissioners of the Street Acts, tend, espe- 

 cially in the newer parts, to remove these grounds of re- 

 proach. Its general aspect is that of a place suddenly and 

 greatly improved ; the streets lately altered or erected are 

 wide, and the buildings ore good. Many of the public 

 edifices arc substantially built, in a style highly creditable 

 to the taste of the people. 



Among the public buildings the most prominent are 

 those adapted to religious worship. Till the commence- 

 ment of the latl century there was only one church in Bir- 

 mingham, thai of St. Martin's, which was erected at a very 

 early date, and is still standing, but is disguised externally 

 by a covering of bnrkwork, and internally by coalings ef 

 plaster, and numberless ornaments of dubious charade.. 

 The spire, which is of lofty elevation and good propor- 

 tions, is still unchanged. St. Philip'* church, built in 

 17111, is correct and elegant in its proportions and orna- 

 ments, and adorned with an enriched tower of considerable 

 height, surmounted with a dome and cupola. 



Of the other places of worship belonging to the Esta- 



blished Church which have been since erected. St. Mary's, 

 St. Bartholomew's, St. Paul's, St. James's, Ashtod, and St. 

 John's and Trinity, Deritend, are chapel* oi MM; t hrist 

 Church, St. George's, St. Peter's, and St. Thomas'o, are 

 churches in their respective parishes parcelled < iM Imin the 

 entire parish of Birmingham. This division, however, does 

 not extend to the parochial assessments, which arc levied 

 uniformly through the whole original paush. 



The chapels of the various denominations of Dissenters 

 are forty-five in number, and in several instant 

 marks of superior taste. 



Till within a very few years Birmingham had no public 

 buildings of any pretensions to skill in design : but latterly 

 the commissioners and other superintending bodies have 

 shown a laudable desire to beautify the town l>\ cmp'- 

 the best architects. The town-hall is a magnificent build- 

 ing of the Corinthian order, the proportions of which are 

 taken from the temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome. Tie 

 tcrior is of a grey marble brought from Anglesea: th 

 treme length of the building is 1G6 feet, the breadth !<>l, 

 and the height 83. The interior length of the hall i- 

 feet, the width 65, and the height 65. It contains a line 

 organ, said to be the most powerful in Europe, and i- 

 for the great music festivals and for public meetings. The 

 market-hall, lately erected in the High Street, is an ex- 

 tensive stone building, well arranged, with vaults beneath 

 for storing goods; it is one of the finest Mructim s til the 

 kind in the kingdom. The public office, where tin- |x>lice 

 sittings of the magistrates are held two day* in each wt-.uk, 

 and where the business of the commissioners of the Street 

 Acts and other public bodies is transacted, is a large and 

 well-conducted establishment, at the back of which is the 

 town prison. 



The old grammar-school has been taken down, and a 

 magnificent building in the middle Gothic stxle is now 

 (1835) erecting on the old site, which has been enlarged 

 considerably by purchasing some adjoining premises. The 

 school, when completed, will undoubtedly be one of the 

 finest buildings of the kind in England. It will contain ; 

 very large school-room with cloisters under it. a la rye room 

 for a library, and spacious accommodation for the head 

 master and usher. 



The buildings which belong to the Public Institution* 

 and Joint Stock Companies also present in many instance* 

 handsome fronts ; as the Theatre, the Society of Arts, the 

 Libraries, the Banking Companies, and the News Room. 



The beast-market is near the site of the antient manor- 

 house of Birmingham, and on the ground formerly occupied 

 by its moat. A cemetery has lately been made near the 

 Wolverhampton road, similar to that at Kcnsall Green. 

 London. 



For domestic purposes a plentiful supply of water ha* 

 always been attainable at Birmingham by digging below 

 the prevailing beds of gravel and sand; but in the higher 

 parts of the town the water thus obtained is of the quality 

 called hard ; so that many persons have found employment 

 and subsistence by conveying in wheel-carriages and in 

 portable vessels the better water from the lower situations, 

 where there are public pumps of soft water. The incon- 

 venience attendant on this mode of supply has, however, 

 induced the establishment of a water-company, whose reser- 

 voirs and forcing engine are placed at some distance from 

 the town on the LichQeld road, and which at a moderate 

 charge distribute an abundant supply of excellent water to 

 all parts of the town. 



Birmingham has for many years been lighted with 

 Of the two companies, one is seated near the town ; the other 

 has its establishment at West Bromwich, a distance of six 

 miles ; in this latter case the coal is burnt near the spot 

 where it is procured, and tire gas is conveyed by pipes through 

 the intervening distance. The vicinity of the mining dis- 

 trict, and the consequent necessity of finding a mode of tran- 

 sit for great masses of heavy material, as well as the bulk und 

 weight of many of the articles of manufacture, curlj led to 

 the construction of navij-able canals in different directions 

 from the town, as from a centre, towards the principal points of 

 commercial distribution. The original canal, which commu- 

 nicated with the collieries, was inconveniently narrow, and 

 very winding in its course. These defects have been remedied 

 bv opening a new line of canal, executed under the direc- 

 tions nl Mr. Telford, which by wide and deep cuttings 

 avoids the necessity of the ascending and descending chain 

 of locks, which impeded the former communication. This 



