An History of Birmingham (1783) Part 2

Nay, I believe we may with propriety carry them beyond plain life, and charge them with a degree of elegance: the Romans themselves allow the Britons were complete masters of the chariot; that when the scythe was fixed at each end of the axle-tree, they drove with great dexterity into the midst of the enemy, broke their ranks, and mowed them down. The chariot, therefore, could not be made altogether for war, but, when the scythes were removed, it still remained an emblem of pride, became useful in peace, was a badge of high-life, and continues so with their descendants to this day.

We know the instruments of war used by the Britons were a sword, spear, s.h.i.+eld and scythe. If they were not the manufacturers, how came they by these instruments? We cannot allow either they or the chariots were imported, because that will give them a much greater consequence: they must also have been well acquainted with the tools used in husbandry, for they were masters of the field in a double sense. Bad also as their houses were, a chest of carpentry tools would be necessary to complete them. We cannot doubt, therefore, from these evidences, and others which might be adduced, that the Britons understood the manufactory of iron.

Perhaps history cannot produce an instance of any place in an improving country, like England, where the coa.r.s.e manufactory of iron has been carried on, that ever that laborious art went to decay, except the materials failed; and as we know of no place where such materials have failed, there is the utmost reason to believe our fore-fathers, the Britons, were supplied with those necessary implements by the black artists of the Birmingham forge. Iron-stone and coal are the materials for this production, both which are found in the neighbourhood in great plenty. I asked a gentleman of knowledge, if there was a probability of the delphs failing? He answered, "Not in five thousand years."

The two following circ.u.mstances strongly evince this ancient British manufactory:--

Upon the borders of the parish stands Aston-furnace, appropriated for melting ironstone, and reducing it into pigs: this has the appearance of great antiquity. From the melted ore, in this subterranean region of infernal aspect, is produced a calx, or cinder, of which there is an enormous mountain. From an attentive survey, the observer would suppose so prodigious a heap could not acc.u.mulate in one hundred generations; however, it shows no perceptible addition in the age of man.

There is also a common of vast extent, called Wednesbury-old-field, in which are the vestiges of many hundreds of coal-pits, long in disuse, which the curious antiquarian would deem as long in sinking, as the mountain of cinders in rising.

The minute sprig of Birmingham, no doubt first took root in this black soil, which, in a succession of ages, hath grown to its present opulence. At what time this prosperous plant was set, is very uncertain; perhaps as long before the days of Caesar as it is since. Thus the mines of Wednesbury empty their riches into the lap of Birmingham, and thus she draws nurture from the bowels of the earth.

The chief, if not the only manufactory of Birmingham, from its first existence to the restoration of Charles the Second, was in iron: of this was produced instruments of war and of husbandry, furniture for the kitchen, and tools for the whole system of carpentry.

The places where our athletic ancestors performed these curious productions of art, were in the shops fronting the street: some small remains of this very ancient custom are yet visible, chiefly in Digbeth, where about a dozen shops still exhibit the original music of anvil and hammer.

As there is the highest probability that Birmingham produced her manufactures long before the landing of Caesar, it would give pleasure to the curious enquirer, could he be informed of her size in those very early ages; but this information is for ever hid from the historian, and the reader. Perhaps there never was a period in which she saw a decline, but that her progress has been certain, though slow, during the long s.p.a.ce of two or three thousand years before Charles the Second.

The very roads that proceed from Birmingham, are also additional indications of her great antiquity and commercial influence.

Where any of these roads lead up an eminence, they were worn by the long practice of ages into deep holloways, some of them twelve or fourteen yards below the surface of the banks, with which they were once even, and so narrow as to admit only one pa.s.senger.

Though modern industry, a.s.sisted by various turnpike acts, has widened the upper part and filled up the lower, yet they were all visible in the days of our fathers, and are traceable even in ours. Some of these, no doubt, were formed by the spade, to soften the fatigue of climbing the hill, but many were owing to the pure efforts of time, the horse, and the showers. As inland trade was small, prior to the fifteenth century, the use of the wagon, that great destroyer of the road, was but little known. The horse was the chief conveyor of burthen among the Britons, and for centuries after: if we, therefore, consider the great length of time it would take for the rains to form these deep ravages, we must place the origin of Birmingham, at a very early date.

One of these subterranean pa.s.sages, in part filled up, will convey its name to posterity in that of a street, called Holloway-head, 'till lately the way to Bromsgrove and to Bewdley, but not now the chief road to either. Dale-end, once a deep road, has the same derivation. Another at Summer-hill, in the Dudley road, altered in 1753. A remarkable one is also between the Salutation and the Turnpike, in the Wolverhampton road.

A fifth at the top of Walmer-lane, changed into its present form in 1764. Another between Gosta-green and Aston-brook, reduced in 1752.

All the way from Dale-end to Duddeston, of which Coles.h.i.+ll-street now makes a part, was sunk five or six feet, though nearly upon a flat, 'till filled up in 1756 by act of Parliament: but the most singular is that between Deritend and Camp-hill, in the way to Stratford, which is, even now, many yards below the banks; yet the seniors of the last age took a pleasure in telling us, they could remember when it would have buried a wagon load of hay beneath its present surface.

Thus the traveller of old, who came to purchase the produce of Birmingham, or to sell his own, seemed to approach her by sap.

British traces are, no doubt, discoverable in the old Dudley-road, down Easy-hill, under the ca.n.a.l; at the eight mile-stone, and at Smethwick: also in many of the private roads near Birmingham, which were never thought to merit a repair, particularly at Good-knaves-end, towards Harborne; the Green-lane, leading to the Garrison; and that beyond Long-bridge, in the road to Yardley; all of them deep holloways, which carry evident tokens of antiquity. Let the curious calculator determine what an amazing length of time would elapse in wearing the deep roads along Saltleyfield, Shaw-hill, Allum-rock, and the remainder of the way to Stichford, only a pitiful hamlet of a dozen houses.

The ancient centre of Birmingham seems to have been the Old Cross, from the number of streets pointing towards it. Wherever the narrow end of a street enters a great thorough-fare, it indicates antiquity, this is the case with Philip-street, Bell-street, Spiceal-street, Park-street, and Moor-street, which not only incline to the centre above-mentioned, but all terminate with their narrow ends into the grand pa.s.sage. These streets are narrow at the entrance, and widen as you proceed: the narrow ends were formed with the main street at first, and were not, at that time, intended for streets themselves. As the town increased, other blunders of the same kind were committed, witness the gateway late at the east end of New-street, the two ends of Worcester-street, Smallbrook-street, Cannon-street, New-meeting-streer, and Bull street; it is easy to see which end of a street was formed first; perhaps the south end of Moor street is two thousand years older than the north; the same errors are also committing in our day, as in Hill and Vale streets, the two Hinkleys and Catharine-street. One generation, for want of foresight, forms a narrow entrance, and another widens it by Act of Parliament.

Every word in the English language carries an idea: when a word, therefore, strikes the ear, the mind immediately forms a picture, which represents it as faithfully as the looking-gla.s.s the face.--Thus, when the word Birmingham occurs, a superb picture instantly expands in the mind, which is best explained by the other words grand, populous, extensive, active, commercial and humane. This painting is an exact counter-part of the word at this day; but it does not correspond with its appearance, in the days of the ancient Britons--We must, therefore, for a moment, detach the idea from the word.

Let us suppose, then, this centre surrounded with less than one hundred stragling huts, without order, which we will dignify with the name of houses; built of timber, the interfaces wattled with sticks, and plaistered with mud, covered with thatch, boards or sods; none of them higher than the ground story. The meaner sort only one room, which served for three uses, shop, kitchen, and lodging room; the door for two, it admitted the people and the light. The better sort two rooms, and some three, for work, for the kitchen, and for rest; all three in a line, and sometimes fronting the street.

If the curious reader chooses to see a picture of Birmingham, in the time of the Britons, he will find one in the turnpike road, between Hales-owen and Stourbridge, called the Lie Waste, alias Mud City. The houses stand in every direction, composed of one large and ill-formed brick, scoped into a tenement, burnt by the sun, and often destroyed by the frost: the males naked; the females accomplished breeders. The children, at the age of three months, take a singular hue from the sun and the soil, which continues for life. The rags which cover them leave no room for the observer to guess at the s.e.x. Only one person upon the premisses presumes to carry a belly, and he a landlord. We might as well look for the moon in a coal-pit, as for stays or white linen in the City of Mud. The princ.i.p.al tool in business is the hammer, and the beast of burden, the a.s.s.

The extent of our little colony of artists, perhaps reached nearly as high as the east end of New-street, occupied the upper part of Spiceal-street, and penetrated down the hill to the top of Digbeth, chiefly on the east.

Success, which ever waits on Industry, produced a gradual, but very slow increase: perhaps a thousand years elapsed without adding half that number of houses.

Thus our favourite plantation having taken such firm root, that she was able to stand the wintry blasts of fortune, we shall digress for a moment, while she wields her sparkling heat, according to the fas.h.i.+on of the day, in executing the orders of the st.u.r.dy Briton; then of the polite and heroic Roman; afterwards of our mild ancestors, the Saxons.

Whether she raised her hammer for the plundering Dane is uncertain, his reign being short; and, lastly, for the resolute and surly Norman.

It does not appear that Birmingham, from its first formation, to the present day, was ever the habitation of a gentleman, the lords of the manor excepted. But if there are no originals among us, we can produce many striking likenesses--The smoke of Birmingham has been very propitious to their growth, but not to their maturity.

Gentlemen, as well as b.u.t.tons, have been stamped here; but, like them, when finished, are moved off.

They both originate from a very uncouth state, _without form or comeliness_; and pa.s.s through various stages, uncertain of success. Some of them, at length, receive the last polish, and arrive at perfection; while others, ruined by a flaw, are deemed _wasters_.

I have known the man of opulence direct his gilt chariot _out_ of Birmingham, who first approached her an helpless orphan in rags. I have known the chief magistrate of fifty thousand people, fall from his phaeton, and humbly ask bread at a parish vestry.

Frequently the wheel of capricious fortune describes a circle, in the rotation of which, a family experiences alternately, the heighth of prosperity and the depth of distress; but more frequently, like a pendulum, it describes only the arc of a circle, and that always at the bottom.

Many fine estates have been struck out of the anvil, valuable possessions raised by the tongs, and superb houses, in a two-fold sense, erected by the trowel.

The paternal ancestor of the late Sir Charles Holte was a native of this place, and purchaser, in the beginning of Edward the Third, of the several manors, which have been the honour and the support of his house to the present time.

Walter Clodshale was another native of Birmingham, who, in 1332, purchased the manor of Saltley, now enjoyed by his maternal descendant, Charles Bowyer Adderley, Esq.

Charles Colmore, Esq; holds a considerable estate in the parish; his predecessor is said to have occupied, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, that house, now No. 1, in the High-street, as a mercer, and general receiver of the taxes.

A numerous branch of this ancient family flourishes in Birmingham at this day.

The head of it, in the reign of James the First, erected New-hall, and himself into a gentleman. On this desirable eminence, about half a mile from the buildings, they resided till time, fas.h.i.+on, and success, removed them, like their predecessors, the sons of fortune, to a greater distance.

The place was then possessed by a tenant, as a farm; but Birmingham, a speedy traveller, marched over the premises, and covered them with twelve hundred houses, on building leases; the farmer was converted into a steward: his brown hempen frock, which guarded the _outside_ of his waistcoat, became white holland, edged with ruffles, and took its station _within_: the pitchfork was metamorphosed into a pen, and his ancient practice of breeding up sheep, was changed into that of _dressing their skins_.

Robert Philips, Esq; acquired a valuable property in the seventeenth century; now possessed by his descendant, William Theodore Inge, Esquire.

A gentleman of the name of Foxall, a.s.sured me, that the head of his family resided upon the spot, now No. 101, in Digbeth, about four hundred years ago, in the capacity of a tanner.

Richard Smallbroke, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, in the reign of George II. was a native of Birmingham, as his ancestors were for many ages, with reputation: he is said to have been born at number 2 in the High-street, had great property in the town, now enjoyed by his descendants, though they have left the place. The families also of Weaman, Jennings, Whalley, etc. have acquired vast property, and quitted the meridian of Birmingham; and some others are at this day ripe for removal. Let me close this bright scene of prosperity, and open another, which can only be viewed with a melancholy eye. We cannot behold the distresses of man without compa.s.sion; but that distress which follows affluence, comes with double effect.

We have amongst us a family of the name of Middlemore, of great antiquity, deducible from the conquest; who held the chief possessions, and the chief offices in the county, and who matched into the first families in the kingdom, but fell with the interest of Charles the First; and are now in that low ebb of fortune, that I have frequently, with a gloomy pleasure, relieved them at the common charity-board of the town. Such is the tottering point of human greatness.

Another of the name of Bracebridge, who for more than six hundred years, figured in the first ranks of life.

A third of the name of Mountfort, who shone with meridian splendor, through a long train of ages. As genealogy was ever a favourite amus.e.m.e.nt, I have often conversed with these solitary remains of tarnished l.u.s.tre, but find in all of them, the pride of their family buried with its greatness:--they pay no more attention to the arms of their ancestors, than to a sc.r.a.p of paper, with which they would light their pipe. Upon consulting one of the name of Elwall, said to be descended from the Britons, I found him so amazingly defective, that he could not stretch his pedigree even so high as his grandfather.

A fifth family amongst us, of the name of Arden, stood upon the pinnacle of fame in the days of Alfred the Great, where perhaps they had stood for ages before: they continued the elevation about seven hundred years after; but having treasonable charges brought against them, in the days of Queen Elizabeth, about two hundred years ago, they were thrown from this exalted eminence, and dashed to pieces in the fall. In various consultations with a member of this honourable house, I found the greatness of his family not only lost, but the memory of it also. I a.s.sured him, that his family stood higher in the scale of honour, than any private one within my knowledge: that his paternal ancestors, for about seven generations, were successively Earls of Warwick, before the Norman conquest: that, though he could not boast a descent from the famous Guy, he was related to him: that, though Turch.e.l.l, Earl of Warwick at the conquest, his direct ancestor, lost the Earldom in favour of Roger Newburgh, a favourite of William's; yet, as the Earl did not appear in arms, against the Conqueror, at the battle of Hastings, nor oppose the new interest, he was allowed to keep forty-six of his manors: that he retired upon his own vast estate, which he held in dependence, where the family resided with great opulence, in one house, for many centuries, 'till their reduction above-mentioned. He received the information with some degree of amazement, and replied with a serious face,--"Perhaps there may have been something great in my predecessors, for my grandfather kept several cows in Birmingham and sold milk."

The families of those ancient heroes, of Saxon and Norman race, are, chiefly by the mutations of time, and of state, either become extinct, or as above, reduced to the lowest verge of fortune. Those few therefore, whose descent is traceable, may be carried higher than that of the present n.o.bility; for I know none of these last, who claim peerage beyond Edward the first, about 1295. Hence it follows, that for antiquity, alliance, and blood, the advantage is evidently in favour of the lowest cla.s.s.

Could one of those ill.u.s.trious shades return to the earth and inspect human actions, he might behold one of his descendants, dancing at the lathe; another tippling with his dark brethren of the ap.r.o.n; a third humbly soliciting from other families such favours as were formerly granted by his own; a fourth imitating modern grandeur, by contracting debts he never designs to pay; and a fifth snuff of departed light, poaching, like a thief in the night, upon the very manors, possessed by his ancestors.

Whence is it that t.i.tle, pedigree, and alliance, in superior life, are esteemed of the highest value; while in the inferior, who have a prior claim, are totally neglected? The grand design of every creature upon earth, is to supply the wants of nature. No amus.e.m.e.nts of body or mind can be adopted, till hunger is served. When the appet.i.te calls, the whole attention of the animal, with all its powers, is bound to answer.

Hence arise those dreadful contests in the brute creation, from the lion in the woods, to the dog, who seizes the bone. Hence the s.h.i.+p, when her provisions are spent, and she becalmed, casts a savage eye, upon human sacrifices; and hence, the attention of the lower ranks of men, are too far engrossed for mental pursuit. They see, like Esau, the honours of their family devoured with a ravenous appet.i.te. A man with an empty cupboard would make but a wretched philosopher. But if fortune should smile upon one of the lower race, raise him a step above his original standing, and give him a prospect of independence, he immediately begins to eye the arms upon carriages, examines old records for his name, and inquires where the Herald's office is kept. Thus, when the urgency of nature is set at liberty, the bird can whistle upon the branch, the fish play upon the surface, the goat skip upon the mountain, and even man himself, can bask in the suns.h.i.+ne of science. I digress no farther.

The situation of St. Martin's church is another reason for fixing the original centre of Birmingham at the Old Cross. Christianity made an early and a swift progress in this kingdom; persecution, as might be expected, followed her footsteps, increased her votaries, and, as was ever the case, in all new religions, her proselytes were very devout.

The religious fervor of the christians displayed itself in building churches. Most of those in England are of Saxon original, and were erected between the fourth and the tenth century; that of St. Martin's is ancient beyond the reach of historical knowledge, and probably rose in the early reigns of the Saxon kings.

It was the custom of those times, to place the church, if there was but one, out of the precincts of the town; this is visible at the present day in those places which have received no increase.