1 2 different processes, renders tins cheapness of sale one of the greatest marvels of manufacturing skill and industry. Electro-plating, first established about 1848 by Messrs Elkington and Mason, is one of the leading trades. Amongst other branches of manufacture are wire-drawing, bell founding, metal rolling, railway carriage building (a large and important industry), steel-toy making (including cut ting implements and tools of all kinds), die-sinking, papier- mache making, and a variety of others, for which refer ence may be made to a volume entitled Birmingham and the Midland Ilardiuare District, prepared on the visit of the British Association in 1865, and extending to more than 700 pages. It is impossible, indeed, in smaller com pass to give an adequate idea of the variety and extent of
Birmingham industry. To quote a modern writer:—
" AVe cannot move without finding traces of the great hive of metal-makers the veritable descendants of Tubal-cain. At home or abroad, sleeping or waking, walking or riding, in a carriage or upon a railway or steamboat, we cannot escape reminiscences of Birmingham. She haunts us from the cradle to the grave. She supplies us with the spoon that first brings our infant lips into acquaintance with pap, and she provides the dismal furniture which is affixed to our coffins. In her turn Birmingham lays the whole, world under contribution for her materials. For her smiths, and metal workers, and jewellers, wherever nature has deposited Htores of useful or precious metals, or has hidden glittering gems, there industrious miners are busily digging. Divers collect for her button makers millions of rare and costly shells. For her, adven turous hunters riile the buffalo of his wide-spreading horns, and the elephant of his ivory tusks. There is scarcely a product of any country or any climate that she does not gladly receive, and in return stamps with a richer value. "
These labours Birmingham performs with the aid of many thousands of willing hands, moved by busy and ingenious brains, and aided by her own great invention, the steam- engine; for by the genius of Watt and the intrepid courage of Boulton, Birmingham may claim the perfection of this discovery as her own. The memory of the great Soho factory is one of the most precious heritages of the town, and the name remains, for though the old factory has long eince disappeared, the firm of Boulton and Watt still con tinue to make steam-engines in the immediate neighbour hood ; and James Watt s own private workshop continues just as he left it, with no single article disturbed, carefully preserved in the garret of his house at Heathfield.
The mention of Watt and of Soho recalls the memories of distinguished inventors and others who have been con nected with Birmingham. Johnson was a frequent visitor here to his friend Hector, the surgeon, on whose house in the Old Square a tablet (erected by the Shakespeare Club) bears witness to the residence of the great moralist. Then Baskerville, the printer, carried on his work here. The famous Luriar Society, fully described by Mr Smiles in his Lives of the Engineers, brought together a brilliant com pany Watt, Boulton, Priestley, Josiah Wedgwood, Darwin, Parr, Withering, Edge worth, Sir Joseph Banks, Herschel, Dr Solander, Fothergill, Roebuck, Galton, Keir, and many others. Murdoch, the inventor of gas, was a Soho man, and first used his invention to light the Soho factory at the peace of Amiens in 1802. Rickman, the reviver and historian of Gothic architecture, practised as an architect in Birmingham. Button, the antiquary and historian, carried on his bookselling business here. Many of the best engravers were Birmingham men, notably Willmore and Pye, the special translators of Turner s marvellous creations. In the ranks of landscape painters the name of David Cox will ever confer honour upon the town. Attwood, Joseph Parkes, and Bright speak for it in the region of politics and statesmanship. The series of inventors is continued to our own day by the names of Gillott, Elkington, Chance, Mason, and others.
In many respects Birmingham is a peculiar town, and in none more than the hold it has upon the affections of its people. A " Birmingham man " is usually a man of strong individuality, independence of character, facility of resource, and with an enduring love for " the old town." These traits of character are the result of a variety of circum stances. Birmingham is -peculiar in opening a career even to the humblest ho are gifted with ingenuity and industry. The great number of trades keeps work fairly constant, the skill required in them sustains wages of artizans at a high level, and the distribution of labour, and its dependence upon direct personal aptitude, afford chances of rising in the social scale which cannot be found in places where manufactures are mainly of one class and are conducted in factories demanding large capital. It is easy in Birming ham for a man to become a small master, and gradually to push his trade until he is able to establish a factory. Many of the largest employers have either been workmen themselves or are the sons of workmen ; while of the smaller manufacturers almost all take a direct part in the handicraft work carried on in their places of business.
Wealth is more evenly distributed than in most other places. There are no colossal fortunes in Birmingham, and comparatively few large ones, and of these very few are made by speculative operations. To compensate for these distinctions there is an unusually large comfortable class people of good though not excessive incomes derived from solid trade, or from savings made by hard personal and associated work. This class, touching the actually wealthy on one side, by easy and almost imperceptible stages touches the actual working-class on the other, and this latter class is constantly rising into the middle rank.
The Birmingham work-people, in their way, are courteous and helpful. This is probably owing to the free and open and common discussion of subjects of political and social interest engaged in without distinction of class. The same principle is adopted educationally in the Mid land Institute, for example the Act of Parliament which established the Institute providing that the governing council shall always include artizan members. Another noticeable characteristic of the town is the development of means of self-instruction and of self-help. Birmingham .was amongst the earliest places to establish a mechanics institution, the place of which is now more efficiently sup plied by the Midland Institute. Birmingham, again, was the birthplace of the freehold land and building societies, by which workmen are enabled, on easy terms, to acquire houses of their own ; and in addition to these institutions, which are numerous and flourishing, it has a very large number of sick and friendly societies, pavings-clubs, and other organizations of a provident kind, more in proportion to population than, probably, any other of the large towns in England. Amongst the social characteristics it should be mentioned that there are few serious disputes between masters and workmen, and that strikes are infrequent, and when they do occur are found capable of easy adjustment by friendly negotiation. One point more is worthy of record the constancy of the town to those who serve it. Many of the leading manufacturers and other citizens are members of the local governing bodies, and these and the parliamentary representatives are rarely changed by their constituents.
newness of most of the public and other buildings, Birmingham is often supposed to be a modern town. It is really one of the oldest in the country, and was in existence as a community in the Saxon period. Proof of this was given in 1309 by William de Bermingham, then lord of the manor, who showed in a law-suit that his ancestors had a market in the place, and levied tolls, before the Conquest. Some authors have endeavoured to identify the town with the sup posed Roman station called Bremenium, but this claim has long since been abandoned as fabulous. The origin of the name is un- traceable ; the spelling of it is traceable in about 100 different
forms. Dugdale, the historian of Warwickshire, adopts Bromt