Thomas Thalric Harman

“ It is not too much to say that millions have been spent in improving Birmingham during the past fifty years, not reckoning the cost of the last and greatest improvement of all—the making of Corporation Street, and the consequent alterations on our local maps resulting therefrom. ”

“ Birdcages, meat covers, mouse traps, wire blinds, wire nails, wire latticing, &c., we have long been used to; even girding the earth with land and ocean telegraph wire, or fencing in square miles at a time of prairie land, with wire strong enough to keep a herd of a few thousand buffaloes in range, are no longer novelties, but to shape, sharpen, and polish a serviceable pair of penny scissors out of a bit of steel wire by two blows and the push of a machine, is something new, and it is Netelefold's latest. ”

“ In the last scene of the play "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," wherein allusion is made to the marriage of a lady, "Take her," said Kean, "and the Birmingham audience into the bargain."
Garrick was visiting Lord Lytton at Hagley on one occasion when news was brought that a company of players were going to perform at Birmingham. His lordship suggested that Garrick should write an address to the audience for the players. "Suppose, then," said he, "I begin thus:
"Ye sons of iron, copper, brass and steel,
Who have not heads to think, nor hearts to feel." ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was stated by the deputation that 5,000 families were dependent on the jewellery trades in Birmingham. The "custom of trade" in connection with jewellers and the public was formally of the most arbitrary character, so much so indeed that at the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Birmingham jewellers did not exhibit, except through the London houses they were in the habit of supplying, and the specimens shewn by these middlemen were of a very unsatisfactory character as regards design. It is almost impossible to describe them without appearing to exaggerate. ”

“ Tinning.—Iron pots were first tinned in 1779, under Jonathan Taylor's patent. Tinning wire is one of the branches of trade rapidly going out, partly through the introduction of the galvanising process, but latterly in consequence of the invention of "screw," "ball," and other bottle stoppers. There were but five or six firms engaged in it ten years back, but the then demand for bottling-wire may be gathered from the fact that one individual, with the aid of two helpers, covered with the lighter-coloured metal about 2cwt. of slender iron wire per day. ”

“ James Stevens, then of Camden Street, Birmingham, and it is to him, and his sons, James and William, that the world is greatly indebted for the pressing of glass. The older Stevens has been dead some years, and the sons have left the trade. Previous to this mould being made for tumblers, Mr. James Stevens made some pressed salt-moulds to order for an American gentleman visiting Birmingham. Some of the most beautiful works in glass fountains, candelabra, &c., that the world has ever seen have been made at Messrs. Oslers, Broad Street, whose show rooms are always open to visitors. ”

“ Corporation Street itself will be completed long before then. More than a score of the unhealthiest streets and lanes in the town have been cleared away, and from a sanitary point of view the improvement ill health and saving of life in the district by the letting in of light and air, has been of the most satisfactory character, but though the scheme was originated under the Artisans' Dwelling Act, intended to provide good and healthy residences in lieu of the pestiferous slums and back courts, it cannot in one sense be considered much of a success. ”

“ There are half-a-dozen makers of "eyes," human and otherwise, the chief being Messrs. Pache and Son, Bristol Street, and Mr. Edward Hooper, Suffolk Street, who hold the almost unique position of being the sole known makers of artificial human eyes anywhere. Few people would imagine it, lint it is said that there are at least 1,500 persons in Birmingham who carry glass eyes in their head ; while the demand from foreign countries is some- ting enormous, the United States taking the lead as they fain would do in everything. ”

“ A very large trade is now done in steel, brass, gold, and silver.
Thread.—Strange are the mutations of trade. The first thread of cotton spun by rollers, long before Arkwright's time, was made near this town in the year 1700, and a little factory was at work in the Upper Priory (the motive power being two donkeys) , in 1740, under the ingenious John Wyatt, with whom were other two well-remembered local worthies—Lewis Paul and Thomas Warren. Many improvements were made in the simple machinery, but fate did not intend Birmingham to rival Bradford, and the thread making came to an end in 1792. ”

“ Artificial Eyes and Limbs are necessary articles to some members of the genus homo, but the demand, fortunately, is not of such an ex- tensive character as to require many manufacturers; indeed, the only firm in Birmingham that devotes itself entirely to supplying artificial limbs is that of Messrs. Best and Son, Summer Lane, whose specialities in the way of arms and legs are famed in all English and Continental medical circles as wonderful examples of the peculiar mechanism requisite to successfully imitate the motions and powers of natural limbs. ”

“ The average import of shell is about 1,000 tons per year, and the value about £30,000.—There are 265 button manufacturers in Birmingham, of whom 152 make pearl buttons, 26 glass, 8 horn and Done, 14 ivory, 12 gilt metal, 3 wood, and 5 linen, the other 45 being of a mixed or general character, silver, brass, steel, wood, and papier mache, being all, more or less, used. Nearly 6,000 hands are employed in the trade, of whom about 1,700 are in the pearl line, though that branch is not so prosperous as it was a few years back. ”

“ Nearly 2,000 people are employed at Nettlefold's, including women and girls, who feed and attend the screw and nail-making machines. Notwithstanding the really complicated workings of the machines, the making of a screw seems to a casual visitor but a simple thing. From a coil of wire a piece is cut of the right length by one machine, which roughly forms a head and passes it on to another, in which the blank has its head nicely shaped, shaved, and "nicked" by a revolving saw. ”

“ Wire Nails, Staples, &c., are made at Nettlefold's by machinery much in advance of what can be seen elsewhere. In the nail mill the "Paris points" as wire nails are called, are cut from the coil of wire by the first motion of the machine as it is fed in, then headed and pointed at one operation, sizes up to one inch being turned out at the rate of 360 a minute. In the manufacture of spikes, the punch for making the head is propelled by springs, which are compressed by a cam, and then released at each stroke ”

“ Boots and Shoes are manufactured by about 40 wholesale houses, several doing a great trade, and of retailers and little men there are a dozen gross, not counting cobblers who come with the last. American-made articles were first on sale here in March 1877. Rivetted boots may be said to have originated (in 1840) through the mistake of a local factor's traveller, who booked an order for copper sprigs too extensive for his customer. Another of the firm's commercials suggested the rivetting if iron lasts were used. ”

“ The men who made 15,000 swords for the Common- wealth were not likely to go far for the "musquets" with which they opposed Prince Rupert. The honour of procuring the first Government contract for guns rests with Sir Richard Newdigate, one of the members for the county in William III.'s reign, a trial order being given in 1692, followed by a contract for 2,400 in 1693, at 17/- each. For the next hundred years the trade progressed until the Government, in 1798, found it necessary to erect "view-rooms" (now "the Tower," Bagot Street) in Birmingham. ”

“ A steel finger then advances and knocks the finished spike out of the way to make room for the next. Wire staples, three inches long, are turned out at the rate of a hundred a minute; the wire is pushed forward into the machine and cut off on the bevel to form the points; a hook rises, catches the wire, and draws it down into the proper form, when a staple falls out compete. ”

“ Nor have private property owners and speculators been at all backward, as evidenced by our magnificent modern banking establishments, the huge piles of commercial buildings in Colmore Row, New Street, and Corporation Street, the handsome shops in New Street, High Street, and Bull Street, with many other edifices that our grandfathers never dreamed of, such as the Midland, the Grand, and the Stork Hotels, the palatial Club Houses, the Colonnade and Arcades, New Theatres, Inns of Court, &c., &c. ”

“ The next step was to turn them in a lathe, but in 1849 a German clock-maker invented a machine by which females could make them five times as fast as the most skilful workman, and, as usual, the supply created a demand; the trade for a few years received many additions, and the "screw girders," as the hard-working lasses were called, were to be met with in many parts of the town. 1852, 1,500 hands were employed, the output being from 20 to 25 tons per week, or 2,000,000 gross per year. ”

“ On the Loudon and Birmingham Railway (now London and North Western) the Watford tunnel is 1,830 yards long, the Kisley tunnel 2,423 yards, and Primrose Hill 1,250 yards. On the Great Western line the longest is the Box tunnel, 3,123 yards in length. The deepest tunnel in England pierces the hills between Great Malvern and Herefordshire, being 600ft. from the rails to the surface; it is 1,560 yards in length. The longest tunnels in the country run under the range of hills between Marsden in Yorkshire and Diggle in Lancashire, two being for railway and one canal use. ”

“ Pins were first manufactured here in quantities about 1750, the Ryland family having the honour of introducing the trade It formerly took fourteen different persons to manufacture a single pin, cutters, headers, pointers, polishers, &c., but now the whole process is performed by machinery. The proportion of pins made in Birmingham is put at 37,000,000 per day, the weight of brass wire annually required being 1,850,000lbs., value £84,791; iron wire to the value of £5,016 is used for mourning and hair pins. ”

“ Though an Improvement Act for Duddeston and Nechells was obtained in 1829, the town improvements for the next forty years consisted principally of road making, street paving, market arranging, &c., the opening-up ideas not getting well-rooted in the minds of our governors until some time after the Town Council began to rule the roast. That a great deal of work was being done, however, is shown by reference to the Borough accounts for 1840, in which year £17,366 was expended in lighting, watching, and otherwise improving the thoroughfares, in addition to £13,794 actually spent on the highways. ”

“ This firm has acquired a reputation quite equal to the Soho Mint, and have supplied the coins—silver, copper, and bronze—for Belgium, Canada, China, Chili, Denmark, Germany, Hayti, India, Republic of Columbia, Sarawak, Sweden, Tunis, Turkey, Tuscany, Venezuela, and other Principalities and States, including hundreds of tons of silver blanks for our own Government and others, sending workmen and machinery to the countries where it was preferred to have the coins struck at home. ”

“ The manufacture of such articles at all times involves several dangerous processes, and Birmingham has had to mourn the loss of many of her children through accidents arising therefrom. (See "Explosions.") The ammunition works of Messrs. Kynoch and Co., at Witton, cover over twenty acres, and gives employment to several hundred persons, the contrariness of human nature being exemplified in the fact that the death-dealing articles are mainly manufactured by females, the future mothers or wives perchance of men to be laid low by the use of such things. ”

“ In close neighbourhood, Constitution Hill, Hampton Street, and at the junction of Summer Lane, a number of handsome houses and shops have lately been erected by Mr. Cornelius Ede, in the early Gothic style, from designs by Mr. J. S. Davis, the architect of the Snow Hill Arcade, the whole unquestionably forming a very great advance on many former street improvements. The formation in 1880 of John Bright Street as an extension of the Bristol Road (cost £30,000) has led to the erection of many the buildings in that direction ”

“ It was particularly recommended for sheathing of ships, as the tin coating would prevent the corrosion of the copper and operate as "a preservative of the iron placed continuous to it." Though an exceedingly clever man, and the son of one of Birmingham's famed worthies, Mr. Charles Wyatt was not fortunate in many of his inventions, and his tinned copper brought him in neither silver nor gold. What is now known as sheathing or "yellow" metal is a mixture of copper, zinc, and iron in certain defined pro- portions, according as it is "Muntz's metal," or "Green's patent," &c. ”

“ Ropemaking is a trade carried on in many places, but there are few establishments that can equal the Universe Works in Garrison Lane, where, in addition to hundreds of tons of twine and cord, there are manufactured all sorts of wire and hemp ropes for colliery and other purpose^, ocean telegraph cables included. Messrs. Wright introduced steam machinery early in 1853, and in the following year they patented a rope made of best hemp and galvanised wire spun together by machinery. On a test one of these novelties, 4|in. circumference attached to two engines, drew a train of 300 tons weight. ”

“ The majority have sick and benefit funds connected with them, and so far should be classed among Friendly, Benevolent, or Philanthropic Societies, but some few are plainly and simply trade associations to keep lip prices, to prevent interference with their presumed rights, to repress attacks by the avoidance of superabundant labour, and to generally protect members when wrongfully treated, cheated or choused. ”

“ In 1865 it was estimated that the quantities of metal used here in the manufacture of brass were 19,000 tons of copper, 8,000 tons of old metal, 11,000 tons of zinc or spelter, 200 tons of tin, and 100 tons of lead, the total value being £2,371,658. Nearly double this quantity is now used every year. The number of hands employed in the brass trade is about 18,000. ”

“ Tools.—The making of tools for the workers in our almost countless trades has given employ to many thousands, but in addition thereto is the separate manufacture of "heavy edge tools." Light edge tools, such as table and pocket knives, scissors, gravers, &c., are not made here, though "heavy" tools comprising axes, hatchets, cleavers, hoes, spades, mattocks, forks, chisels, plane irons, machine knives, scythes, &c., in endless variety and of hundreds of patterns, suited to the various parts of the world for which they are required. Over 4,000 hands are employed in this manufacture. ”