Immediately after the passing of the Public Health Act, 1872, the Borough was constituted an Urban Sanitary District and the Council as the Urban Sanitary Authority, set itself vigorously to the work of improving the public health. A Borough Hospital for the treatment of small pox and scarlet fever was established in 1874. The Public Health Act, 1875, indirectly removed for sanitary purposes the limit on rating powers to which the Council were obliged to submit in their Act of 1851. By the zealous labours of the Health Committee, and the liberal application of the pecuniary resources placed at its command by the Act of 1875, the death rate has been reduced from 24.8 per 1,000 in 1874 to 19.1 in 1885, although the mean density of the population has increased in the same period 20 per cent.
In 1851 the first of the four sets of public baths was opened in Kent Street, followed by other sets in Woodcock Street (1860), Northwood Street (1862), and Monument Road (1883). Under the management of the same Committee of the Council are placed the ten public parks and recreation grounds of the Borough, of which five have been given to the Corporation and five have been acquired by purchase. The list is as follows:—
| Name. | Date of Acquisition. | Area. | Gift Or Purchase. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. | R. | P. | |||
| Adderley Park | 1856 | 10 | 0 | 22 | Gift of Mr. C. B. Adderley (now Lord Norton). |
| Calthorpe Park | 1857 | 21 | 1 | 13 | Lease by Lord Calthorpe at a nominal rent. |
| Aston Park and Hall | 1864 | 43 | 0 | 0 | Purchased for £26,000, of which £7,000 was raised by subscriptions. |
| Aston Park and Hall | 1873 | 6 | 2 | 8 | Purchased for £4,750. |
| Cannon Hill Park | 1873 | 57 | 1 | 9 | Gift by Miss Ryland. |
| Highgate Park | 1876 | 8 | 0 | 28 | Land purchased for £8,000 and £7,000 expended in laying out. |
| Summerfield Park | 1876 | 12 | 0 | 20 | Land purchased for £8,000 £3,857 expended in laying out. |
| Burbury St. Recreation Ground | 1877 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Gift by Mr. William Middlemore. |
| Small Heath Park | 1879 | 41 | 3 | 34 | Gift by Miss Ryland. |
| Park St. Gardens | 1880 | 4 | 1 | 35 | }Disused burial grounds laid out at cost of £12,099. |
| St. Mary’s Gardens | 1882 | 2 | 2 | 0 | |
| 221 | 3 | 12 | |||
In 1860 the Free Libraries Act was adopted, and the first branch library was opened in Constitution Hill, on the 3rd of April, 1861. The first Central Lending Library and Art Gallery were opened on the 6th Sept., 1865, on the occasion of the meeting of the British Association. (See for the subsequent history of the Free Libraries [p. 69] et seq.)
In 1863 the Borough Cemetery at Witton was completed. (See [p. 117].)
In 1874, a Fire Brigade was established, which now consists of thirty well-trained men, with six engines, and all suitable apparatus.
From the year 1851 to 1873 was a period of steady progress in our municipal affairs; but the mayoralty of the Right Hon. (then Mr.) Joseph Chamberlain, 1873-6, was signalised by the building of the Council House; the acquisition of the undertakings of the two Gas Companies of the Borough, as well as that of the Waterworks Company, and the authorisation of a great scheme of street improvement of which the formation of Corporation Street is the principal feature. Curiously enough, the acquisition of the gas supply of the Borough had a consequence, apparently as far removed as Tenterden steeple from the Goodwin Sands, viz., the provision of the present commodious Art Gallery ([p. 123].) The explanation is, that under the Free Libraries Act, the Town Council had the power to appropriate the site for the purpose of an Art Gallery, but no power to raise money to erect the building otherwise than by the penny rate, which was then hardly sufficient for the annual cost of the Free Libraries. The Gas department of the Corporation requiring to build larger offices, the Council, at the request of the Free Libraries Committee, granted the land to the Gas Committee, on condition that they should build over their offices the new Art Gallery, which they have done at an estimated cost of £40,000. By this means a difficulty which seemed insuperable was overcome. In addition to this benefit to the town, the Gas Committee have earned for the Corporation a profit of more than £25,000 a year.
Thirty years of municipal activity, such as has been described, commencing with the Act of 1851, of course involved repeated applications to Parliament, and in 1882 the mass of legislation was found to be enormous, and a consolidation of twenty separate Acts was effected by the Birmingham (Corporation) Consolidation Act, 1883, which removed the limit of the Free Library rate, and enabled the Corporation to establish the Municipal School of Art (see [p. xviii.]), and to provide adequate funds for the maintenance of the Corporation Art Gallery.
Thus the same Corporation which, in 1839, had no revenue, nor means of obtaining any, and required to be assisted by the Government with a loan of £10,000 for police purposes, in the year 1885, levied rates for municipal purposes (exclusive of poor’s rate and the School Board rate) to the amount of £318,882, being 4s. 5d. in the pound on the annual value of the rateable property of the borough, and now borrows money readily at three-and-a-quarter per cent. Its revenue, and the income received from some of the Committees, sufficed to keep the operations of the Corporation in working order, and to pay the interest on £7,606,269—the aggregate amount of the liabilities on capital account on 31st December, 1885. With reference to this large amount of indebtedness it should be noted that £2,720,061 is the capitalized value at twenty-five years’ purchase of the annuities granted as the purchase moneys of the Birmingham and Staffordshire Gas Company, and the Water Works Company, and that £450,000 was paid in cash for the purchase of The Birmingham Gas Company, and also that £1,520,567 has been expended on the Improvement Scheme. This reduces the sum still due for the debts of the former governing bodies and all the public works executed by the Corporation since 1839, to £2,915,630, and there can be no doubt that the whole of the indebtedness is more than balanced by the value of the property belonging to the Corporation.