Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham by Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

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~Insurance Companies.~--Their name is legion, their agents are a
multitude, and a list of their officers would fill a book. You can
insure your own life, or your wife's, or your children's or anybody
else's, in whose existence you may have a beneficial interest, and there
are a hundred officers ready to receive the premiums. If you are
journeying, the Railway Passengers' Accident Co. will be glad to
guarantee your family a solatium in case you and your train come to
grief, and though it is not more than one in half-a-million that meets
with an accident on the line, the penny for a ticket, when at the
booking office, will be well expended. Do you employ clerks, there are
several Guarantee Societies who will secure you against loss by
defalcation. Shopkeepers and others will do well to insure their glass
against breakage, and all and everyone should pay into a "General
Accident" Association, for broken limbs, like broken glass, cannot be
foreseen or prevented. It is not likely that any of [**] will be "drawn"
for a militiaman in these piping times of peace, but that the system of
insurance was applied here in the last century against the chances of
being drawn in the ballot, is evidenced by the following
carefully-preserved and curious receipt:--

"Received of Matthew Boulton, tagmaker, Snow Hill, three shillings and
sixpence, for which sum I solemnly engage, if he should be chosen by
lot to serve in the militia for this parish, at the first meeting for
that purpose, to procure a substitute that shall be approved of.

"HENRY BROOKES, Sergt.

"Birmingham, Jan. 11, 1762."

The local manufacture of Insurance Societies has not been on a large
scale, almost the only ones being the "Birmingham Workman's Mutual," the
"British Workman," and the "Wesleyan and General." The late Act of
Parliament, by which in certain cases, employers are pecuniarily liable
for accidents to their workpeople, has brought into existence several
new Associations, prominent among which is the comprehensive "Employers'
Liability and Workpeople's Provident and Accident Insurance Society,
Limited," whose offices are at 33, Newhall Street.

* * * * *

~Interesting Odds and Ends.~

A fair was held here on Good Friday, 1793.

A fight of lion with dogs took place at Warwick, September 4, 1824.

The Orsim bombs used in Paris, January 15, 1858, were made here.

In 1771 meetings of the inhabitants, were called by the tolling of a
bell.

A large assembly of Radicals visited Christ Church, November 21, 1819,
but _not_ for prayer.

A "flying railway" (the Centrifugal) was exhibited at the Circus in
Bradford Street, October 31, 1842.

The doors of Moor Street prison were thrown open, September 3, 1842,
there, not being then one person in confinement.

March 2, 1877, a bull got loose in New Street Station, and ran through
the tunnel to Banbury Street, where he leaped over the parapet and was
made into beef.

William Godfrey, who died in Ruston-street, October 27, 1863, was a
native of this town, who, enlisting at eighteen, was sent out to China,
where he accumulated a fortune of more than L1,000,000. So said the
_Birmingham Journal_, November 7, 1863.

The De Berminghams had no blankets before the fourteenth century, when
they were brought from Bristol. None but the very rich wore stockings
prior to the year 1589, and many of them had their legs covered with
bands of cloth.

A petition was presented to the Prince of Wales (June 26, 1791) asking
his patronage and support for the starving buckle-makers of Birmingham.
He ordered his suite to wear buckles on their shoes, but the laces soon
whipped them out of market.

One Friday evening in July, 1750, a woman who had laid informations
against 150 persons she had caught retailing spirituous liquors without
licenses, was seized by a mob, who doused, ducked and daubed her, and
then shoved her in the Dungeon.

At a parish meeting, May 17, 1726, it was decided to put up an organ in
St. Martin's at a cost of L300 "and upwards." At a general meeting of
the inhabitants, April 3, 1727, it was ordered that, a bell be cast for
St. Philip's, "to be done with all expedition."

In 1789 it was proposed that the inmates of the workhouse should be
employed at making worsted and thread. Our fathers often tried their
inventive faculties in the way of finding work for the inmates. A few
years later it was proposed (August 26) to lighten the rates by erecting
a steam mill for grinding corn.

On the retirement of Mr. William Lucy, in 1850, from the Mayoralty, the
usual vote of thanks was passed, but with _one_ dissentient. Mr. Henry
Hawkes was chosen coroner July 6, 1875, by forty votes to _one_. The
great improvement scheme was adopted by the Town Council (November 10,
1875), with but _one_ dissentient.

A certificate, dated March 23, 1683, and signed by the minister and
church-wardens, was granted to Elizabeth, daughter of John and Ann
Dickens, "in order to obtain his majesty's touch for the Evil." The
"royal touch" was administered to 200 persons from this neighbourhood,
March 17, 1714; Samuel Johnson (the Dr.) being one of those whose
ailments, it was believed, could be thus easily removed. Professor
Holloway did not live in those days.

Sir Thomas Holte (the first baronet) is traditionally reported to have
slain his cook. He brought an action for libel against one William
Ascrick, for saying "that he did strike his cook with a cleaver, so that
one moiety of the head fell on one shoulder, and the other on the other
shoulder." The defendant was ordered to pay L30 damages, but appealed,
and successfully; the worthy lawyers of that day deciding that though
Sir Thomas might have clove the cook's head, the defendant did not say
he had _killed_ the man, and hence had not libelled the baronet.

* * * * *

~Interpreters.~--In commercial circles it sometimes happens that the
foreign corresponding clerk may be out of the way when an important
business letter arrives, and we, therefore, give the addresses of a few
gentlemen linguists, viz.:--Mr. H.R. Forrest, 46, Peel Buildings, Lower
Temple Street; Mr. L. Hewson, 30, Paradise Street; Mr. F. Julien, 189,
Monument Road; Mr. Wm. Krisch, 3, Newhall Street; Mr. L. Notelle, 42,
George Road, Edgbaston; and Mr. A. Vincent, 49, Islington Row.

~Invasion.~--They said the French were coming in February, 1758, so the
patriotic Brums put their hands into their pockets and contributed to a
fund "to repel invasion."

~Inventors and Inventions.~--Birmingham, for a hundred years, led the
van in inventions of all kinds, and though to many persons patent
specifications may be the driest of all dry reading, there is an
infinitude of interesting matter to be found in those documents. Much of
the trade history of the town is closely connected with the inventions
of the patentees of last century, including such men as Lewis Paul, who
first introduced spinning by rollers, and a machine for the carding of
wool and cotton; Baskerville, the japanner; Wyatt, partner with Paul;
Boulton, of Soho, and his coadjutors, Watt, Murdoch, Small, Keir,
Alston, and others. Nothing has been too ponderous and naught too
trivial for the exercise of the inventive faculties of our skilled
workmen. All the world knows that hundreds of patents have been taken
out for improvements, and discoveries in connection with steam
machinery, but few would credit that quite an equal number relate to
such trifling articles as buckles and buttons, pins and pens, hooks and
eyes, &c.; and fortunes have been made even more readily by the
manufacture of the small items than the larger ones. The history of
Birmingham inventors has yet to be written; a few notes of some of their
doings will be found under "_Patents_" and "_Trades_."

~Iron.~--In 1354 it was forbidden to export iron from England. In 1567
it was brought here from Sweden and Russia. A patent for smelting iron
with pit coal was granted in 1620 to Dud Dudley, who also patented the
tinning of iron in 1661. The total make of iron in England in 1740 was
but 17,000 tons, from 59 furnaces, only two of which were in
Staffordshire, turning out about 1,000 tons per year. In 1788 there were
nine blast furnaces in the same county; in 1796, fourteen; in 1806,
forty-two; in 1827, ninety-five, with an output of 216,000 tons, the
kingdom's make being 690,000 tons from 284 furnaces. This quantity in
1842 was turned out of the 130 Staffordshire furnaces alone, though the
hot-air blast was not used prior to 1835. Some figures have lately been
published showing that the present product of iron in the world is close
upon 19-1/2 million tons per year, and as iron and its working-up has a
little to do with the prosperity of Birmingham, we preserve them.
Statistics for the more important countries are obtainable as late as
1881. For the others it is assumed that the yield has not fallen off
since the latest figures reported. Under "other countries," in the table
below, are included Canada, Switzerland, and Mexico, each producing
about 7,500 tons a year, and Norway, with 4,000 tons a year:--

Year. Gross Tons.
Great Britain........ 1881 8,377,364
United States........ 1881 4,144,254
Germany.............. 1881 2,863,400
France............... 1881 1,866,438
Belgium.............. 1881 622,288
Austro-Hungary....... 1880 448,685
Sweden............... 1880 399,628
Luxembourg........... 1881 289,212
Russia............... 1881 231,341
Italy................ 1876 76,000
Spain................ 1873 73,000
Turkey............... -- 40,000
Japan................ 1877 10,000
All other countries.. -- 46,000
----------
Total............ 19,487,610

The first four countries produce 88.4 per cent, of the world's iron
supply; the first two, 64.3 per cent.; the first, 43 per cent. The chief
consumer is the United States, 29 per cent.; next Great Britain, 23 '4
per cent.; these two using more than half of all. Cast iron wares do not
appear to have been made here in any quantity before 1755; malleable
iron castings being introduced about 1811. The first iron canal boat
made its appearance here July 24, 1787. Iron pots were first tinned in
1779 by Jonathan Taylor's patented process, but we have no date when
vessels of iron were first enamelled, though a French method of coating
them with glass was introduced in 1850 by Messrs. T.G. Griffiths and Co.
In 1809, Mr. Benjamin Cook, a well-known local inventor, proposed to use
iron for building purposes, more particularly in the shape of joists,
rafters, and beams, so as to make fire-proof rooms, walls, and flooring,
as well as iron staircases. This suggestion was a long time before it
was adopted, for in many things Cook was far in advance of his age.
Corrugated iron for roofing, &c., came into use in 1832, but it was not
till the period of the Australian gold fever--1852-4--that there was any
great call for iron houses. The first iron church (made at Smethwick) as
well as iron barracks for the mounted police, were sent out there, the
price at Melbourne for iron houses being from L70 each.--See "_Trades_."

~Iron Bedsteads~ are said to have been invented by Dr. Church. Metallic
bedsteads of many different kinds have been made since then, from the
simple iron stretcher to the elaborately guilded couches made for
princes and potentates, but the latest novelty in this line is a
bedstead of solid silver, lately ordered for one of the Indian Rajahs.

~Iron Rods.~--Among the immense number of semi-religious tracts
published during the Civil War, one appeared (in 1642) entitled "An Iron
Rod for the Naylours and Tradesmen near Birmingham," by a self-styled
prophet, who exhorted his neighbours to amend their lives and give
better prices "twopence in the shilling at the least to poor workmen."
We fancy the poor nailers of the present time would also be glad of an
extra twopence.

~Jacks.~--Roasting Jacks of some kind or other were doubtless used by
our great-great-grandmothers, but their kitchen grates were not supplied
with "bottle-jacks" till their fellow-townsman, Mr. Fellowes, of Great
Hampton Street, made them in 1796.

~Jennens.~--It is almost certain that the "Great Jennens (or Jennings)
Case," has taken up more time in our law courts than any other cause
brought before the judges. Charles Dickens is supposed to have had some
little knowledge of it, and to have modelled his "Jarndyce _v_.
Jarndyce" in "Bleak House" therefrom. It has a local interest, inasmuch
as several members of the family lived, prospered, and died here, and,
in addition, a fair proportion of the property so long disputed, is here
situated. The first of the name we hear of as residing in Birmingham was
William Jennens, who died in 1602. His son John became a well-to-do
ironmonger, dying in 1653. One of John's sons, Humphrey, also waxed
rich, and became possessed of considerable estate, having at one time,
it is said, no less a personage than Lord Conway as "game-keeper" over a
portion of his Warwickshire property. Probably the meaning was that his
lordship rented the shooting. Ultimately, although every branch of the
family were tolerably prolific, the bulk of the garnered wealth was
concentrated in the hands of William Jennings, bachelor, who died at
Acton Place in 1798, at the age of 98, though some have said he was 103.
His landed property was calculated to be worth L650,000; in Stock and
Shares he held L270,000; at his bankers, in cash and dividends due,
there were L247,000; while at his several houses, after his death, they
found close upon L20,000 in bank notes, and more than that in gold.
Dying intestate, his property was administered to by Lady Andover, and
William Lygon, Esq., who claimed to be next of kin descended from
Humphrey Jennings, of this town. Greatest part of the property was
claimed by these branches, and several noble families were enriched who,
it is said, were never entitled to anything. The Curzon family came in
for a share, and hence the connection of Earl Howe and others with this
town. The collaterals and their descendants have, for generations, been
fighting for shares, alleging all kinds of fraud and malfeasance on the
part of the present holders and their predecessors, but the claimants
have increased and multiplied to such an extent, that if it were
possible for them to recover the whole of the twelve million pounds they
say the property is now worth, it would, when divided, give but small
fortunes to any of them. A meeting of the little army of claimants was
held at the Temperance Hall, March 2, 1875, and there have been several
attempts, notwithstanding the many previous adverse decisions, to
re-open the battle for the pelf, no less than a quarter of a million, it
is believed, having already been uselessly spent in that way.

~Jennen's Row~ is named after the above family.

~Jewellery.~--See "_Trades_."

~Jews.~--The descendants of Israel were allowed to reside in this
country in 1079, but if we are to believe history their lot could not
have been a very pleasant one, the poorer classes of our countrymen
looking upon them with aversion, while the knights and squires of high
degree, though willing enough to use them when requiring loans for their
fierce forays, were equally ready to plunder and oppress on the
slightest chance. Still England must have even then been a kind of
sheltering haven, for in 1287, when a sudden anti-Semitic panic occurred
to drive the Jews out of the kingdom, it was estimated that 15,660 had
to cross the silver streak. Nominally, they were not allowed to return
until Cromwell's time, 364 years after. It was in 1723 Jews were
permitted to hold lands in this country, and thirty years after an Act
was passed to naturalise them, but it was repealed in the following
year. Now the Jews are entitled to every right and privilege that a
Christian possesses. It is not possible to say when the Jewish community
of this town originated, but it must have been considerably more than a
hundred and fifty years ago, as when Hutton wrote in 1781, there was a
synagogue in the Froggery, "a very questionable part of the town," and
an infamous locality. He quaintly says:--"We have also among us a
remnant of Israel, a people who, when masters of their own country, were
scarcely ever known to travel, and who are now seldom employed in
anything else. But though they are ever moving they are ever at home;
who once lived the favourites of heaven, and fed upon the cream of the
earth, but now are little regarded by either; whose society is entirely
confined to themselves, except in the commercial line. In the synagogue,
situated in the Froggery, they still preserve the faint resemblance of
the ancient worship, their whole apparatus being no more than the
drooping ensigns of poverty. The place is rather small, but tolerably
filled; where there appears less decorum than in the Christian churches.
The proverbial expression, 'as rich as a Jew,' is not altogether
verified in Birmingham; but, perhaps, time is transferring it to the
Quakers. It is rather singular that the honesty of a Jew is seldom
pleaded but by the Jew himself." No modern historian would think of
using such language now-a-days, respecting the Jews who now abide with
us, whose charitable contributions to our public institutions, &c., may
bear comparison with those of their Christian brethren. An instance of
this was given so far back as December 5th, 1805, the day of general
thanksgiving for the glorious victory of Trafalgar. On that day
collections were made in all places of worship in aid of the patriotic
fund for the relief of those wounded, and of the relatives of those
killed in the war. It is worthy of remark that the parish church, St.
Martin's, then raised the sum of L37 7s., and the "Jews' Synagogue" L3
3s. At the yearly collections in aid of the medical charities, now
annually held on Hospital Sunday, St. Martin's gives between three and
four hundred pounds; the Jewish congregation contributes about one
hundred and fifty. If, then, the church has thus increased ten-fold in
wealth and benevolence in the last seventy years, the synagogue has
increased fifty-fold.

~Jews' Board of Guardians.~ A committee of resident Jews was appointed
in 1869, to look after and relieve poor and destitute families among the
Israelites; and though they pay their due quota to the poor rates of
their parish, it is much to the credit of the Jewish community that no
poor member is, permitted to go to the Workhouse or want for food and
clothing. The yearly amount expended in relief by this Hebrew Board of
Guardians is more than L500, mostly given in cash in comparatively large
sums, so as to enable the recipients to become self-supporting, rather
than continue them as paupers receiving a small weekly dole. There is an
increase in the number of poor latterly, owing to the depression of
trade and to the influx of poor families from Poland during the last few
years. Another cause of poverty among the Jews is the paucity of
artisans among them, very few of them even at the present time choosing
to follow any of the staple trades outside those connected with clothing
and jewellery.

~Jewish Persecutions in Russia.~--On Feb. 6, 1882, a town's meeting was
called with reference to the gross persecution of the Jews in Russia,
and the collection of a fund towards assisting the sufferers was set
afoot, L1,800 being promised at the meeting.

~John a' Dean's Hole.~--A little brook which took the water from the
moat round the old Manor House (site of Smithfield) was thus called,
from a man named John Dean being drowned there about Henry VIII.'s time.
This brook emptied into the river Rea, near the bottom of Floodgate
Street, where a hundred and odd years back, there were two poolholes,
with a very narrow causeway between them, which was especially dangerous
at flood times to chance wayfarers who chose the path as a near cut to
their dwellings, several cases of drowning being on record as occurring
at this spot.--See "_Manor House_."

~Johnson, Dr. Samuel.~--Dr. Johnson's connection with Birmingham has
always been a pleasant matter of interest to the local _literati_, but
to the general public we fear it matters naught. His visit to his good
friend Dr. Hector in 1733 is historically famous; his translations and
writings while here have been often noted; his marriage with the widow
Porter duly chronicled; but it is due to the researches of the learned
Dr. Langford that attention has been lately drawn to the interesting
fact that Johnson, who was born in 1709, actually came to Birmingham in
his tenth year, on a visit to his uncle Harrison, who in after years, in
his usual plain-speaking style, Johnson described as "a very mean and
vulgar man, drunk every night, but drunk with little drink, very
peevish, very proud, very ostentatious, but, luckily, not rich." That
our local governors have a due appreciation of the genius of the famed
lexicographer is shown by the fact of a passage-way from Bull Street to
the Upper Priory being named "Dr. Samuel Johnson's Passage!"

~Jubilees.~--Strange as it may appear to the men of the present day,
there has never been a National holiday yet kept equal to that known as
the Jubilee Day of George the Third. Why it should have been so seems a
great puzzle now. The celebration began in this town at midnight of the
24th October, 1809, by the ringers of St. Philip's giving "five times
fifty claps, an interim with the same number of rounds, to honour the
King, Queen, the Royal Family, the Nation, and the loyal town of
Birmingham." At six o'clock next morning the sluggards were aroused with
a second peal, and with little rest the bells were kept swinging the
whole day long, the finale coming with a performance of "perpetual claps
and clashings" that must have made many a head ache. There was a Sunday
school jubilee celebrated September 14, 1831. The fiftieth year's
pastorate of Rev. John Angell James was kept September 12, 1855, and the
Jubilee Day of the Chapel in Carr's Lane, September 27, 1870; of Cannon
Street Chapel, July 16, 1856; of the Rev. G. Cheatle's pastorate, at
Lombard Street Chapel, January 11, 1860; of the Missionary Society,
September 15, 1864; of Pope Pius the Ninth, in 1877, when the Roman
Catholics of this town sent him L1,230. being the third largest
contribution from England.

~Jubilee Singers.~--This troupe of coloured minstrels gave their first
entertainment here in the Town Hall April 9, 1874.

~Jury Lists.~--According to the Jury Act, 6 George IV., the
churchwardens and overseers of every parish in England are required to
make out an alphabetical list before the 1st September in each year of
all men residing in their respective parishes and townships qualified to
serve on juries, setting forth at length their Christian and surname,
&c. Copies of these lists, on the three first Sundays in September, are
to be fixed on the principal door to every church, chapel, and other
public place of religious worship, with a notice subjoined that all
appeals will be heard at the Petty Sessions, to be held within the last
day of September. The jury list for persons resident in the borough, and
for several adjoining parishes, may be seen at the office of Mr. Alfred
Walter, solicitor, Colmore Row, so that persons exempt may see if their
names are included.

~Justices Of the Peace.~--The earliest named local Justices of the Peace
(March 8, 1327) are "William of Birmingham" and "John Murdak" the only
two then named for the county.--See "_Magistrates_".

~Kidneys (Petrified).~--In olden days our footpaths, where paved at all,
were, as a rule, laid with round, hard pebbles, and many readers will be
surprised to learn that five years ago there still remained 50,000
square yards of the said temper-trying paving waiting to be changed into
more modern bricks or stone. Little, however, as we may think of them,
the time has been when the natives were rather proud than otherwise of
their pebbly paths, for, according to Bisset, when one returned from
visiting the metropolis, he said he liked everything in London very much
"except the pavement, for the stones were all so smooth, there was no
foothold!"

~King Edward's Place.~--Laid out in 1782 on a 99 years' lease, from
Grammar School, at a ground rent of L28, there being built 31 houses,
and two in Broad Street.

~King's Heath.~--A little over three miles on the Alcester Road, in the
Parish of King's Norton, an outskirt of Moseley, and a suburb of
Birmingham; has added a thousand to its population in the ten years from
census 1871 to 1881, and promises to more than double it in the next
decennial period. The King's Heath and Moseley Institute, built in 1878,
at the cost of Mr. J.H. Nettlefold, provides the residents with a
commodious hall, library, and news-room. There is a station here on the
Midland line, and the alterations now in the course of being made on
that railway must result in a considerable, addition to the traffic and
the usefulness of the station, as a local depot for coal, &c.