Warwickshire: The Land of Shakespeare

by Clive Holland

Of the eight ways we have enumerated in detail two alone have been in a measure satisfactorily accounted for; one deriving its origin from a family, and the other from the situation of the town. Early inhabitants and even mere settlers of a place in almost every country of the world were in the habit of describing in their place–names, the mountain, lake and valley, the moorland and the heath, and also the character, situation, and size of these; and villages, towns, and cities which grew up afterwards in these situations were frequently given names which in a measure described or perpetuated some place or object in their immediate vicinity, or the actual spot where they were founded.

Dugdale, the historian, is inclined to believe that Birmingham, or Bromwycham, was a name given by a Saxon owner or settler. In this regard he says, “The appellation need not be doubted; the last part of it, viz. ‘ham,’ denoting a home or dwelling, and the former manifesting itself to be a proper name.”

Hutton, on the other hand, is inclined to make it of an even more ancient date, and argues that “Brom,” derived possibly from the broom, a shrub growing freely in the soil of the district, and “wych,” signifying a dwelling, constituted its original name Bromwych. He finds, moreover, some confirmation of his opinion from the names of two other towns in the immediate neighbourhood, West Bromwych and Castle Bromwych; the terminal “ham,” he argues, being subsequently added, and up till the time of the Saxon Heptarchy the spot retained its full name, “Bromwycham.” This argument, however, in reality seems to support Dugdale’s idea concerning the derivation of the name, as all three portions of it are of Saxon origin. The alteration locally to Bromicham was only a contraction, which continued in use down till the eighteenth century, and indeed is to be traced in the pronunciation of the word as “Brumijum” by some locals even at the present day. It would appear, however, that it is more than possible, whatever its ancient name may have been, and whatever its derivation, that the present–day name “Birmingham” was given to the place from the owner of the estate rather than the owner taking his name from it.

This latter view has been borne out by modern research, and it has been now generally admitted that a family or tribe called “Beorm” or “Berm” gave the place its early Saxon name. More than six centuries ago, indeed, and for a period lasting four centuries, we find the name of De Bermingham as lords of the fee. The first was a Peter de Bermingham, who in the reign of Henry II. in 1154 had a castle here, and lived in considerable splendour. Here all succeeding members of the family dwelt until the Duke of Northumberland ousted them in 1537, and with their ejectment the castle soon fell into ruins and disappeared, although as late as 1816 a moat and some traces of the walls remained.

In the days of Edward the Confessor the town probably formed part of the possessions of Ulwin, generally identified with the Alwyne whose son Turchill founded the Warwickshire family of Arden, of whom the mother of Shakespeare was a descendant. There is no doubt that the place was of considerable importance in Saxon times, as proof exists of the holding of a market there prior to the Conquest.

Although there is no mention in the Domesday Book of any church at that date, during the rebuilding of St. Martin’s in 1562, some early stone–work, evidently belonging to a former building and pointing to the existence of a church dating from before the Conquest, was discovered. Fairs were certainly held very early in Birmingham’s existence as a town, and in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is a curious MS. map dating from the last years of the thirteenth century, with a church clearly indicated, in addition to a considerable number of houses. On this map, where the name is given as “Brymingha,” many neighbouring towns of traditionally greater importance at that period are not even marked, and neither Coventry nor Warwick are named.

It would thus appear that in medieval times, although Birmingham must have been a small town it was also a flourishing one, with a market for country produce, cattle, hides, etc., which was visited not only by local traders but by those of adjoining and even distant counties.

In 1382 the Guild of the Holy Cross was founded to maintain two priests at St. Martin’s Church, and was ten years later made a Fraternity of men and women under the name of “the Bailiffe and Communalite of Birmingham and other adjacent places for a Chantrie of Priestes, and services in the Church for the souls of the Founders and all the Fraternitie.” It also had other and more secular objects. In the year 1545 the lands belonging to it were seized by the Crown, and five years afterwards were given by Edward VI. for the “Free Grammar School of King Edward the Sixth, for the Education and Instruction of Children in Grammar for ever.” The property so arbitrarily acquired was thus in the end devoted to a useful purpose. At that time it was valued at £31 : 2 : 10, and this formed the endowment fund of the famous school, the income of which at the close of 1880 amounted to the large sum of nearly £22,000, and is now computed to be almost £50,000.

The manor–house and seat of the De Berminghams, not a trace of which now remains, was situated within a few yards of St. Martin’s Church, and a little to the west of Digbeth, the site now being occupied by the prosaic cattle–market of large extent.

Leland speaks of the town at the time of his visit, which took place in 1538, thus: “The beauty of Birmingham, a good markett towne in the extreame parts of Warwickshire, is one streete going up alonge almost from the left rype (bank) of the brook, up a meane hill, by the length of a quarter of a mile. I saw but one Paroche Church in the towne.”