Published by John Murray Albemarle Street. 1865.
BOULTON AND WATT,
ENGINEERS, BIRMINGHAM.
BIRMINGHAM.
[By Percival Skelton.]
CHAPTER IX.
Birmingham—Matthew Boulton.
From an early period, Birmingham has been one of the principal centres of mechanical industry in England. The neighbourhood abounds in coal and iron, and has long been famous for the skill of its artisans. Swords were forged there in the time of the Ancient Britons. The first guns made in England bore the Birmingham mark. In 1538 Leland found “many smiths in the town that use to make knives and all manner of cutting tools, and many loriners that make bittes, and a great many nailers.” About a century later Camden described the place as “full of inhabitants, and resounding with hammers and anvils, for the most part of them smiths.” As the skill of the Birmingham artisans increased, they gradually gave up the commoner kinds of smithery, and devoted themselves to ornamental metal-work, in brass, steel, and iron. They became celebrated for their manufacture of buckles, buttons, and various fancy articles; and they turned out such abundance of toys that towards the close of last century Burke characterised Birmingham as “the great toy-shop of Europe.”
The ancient industry of Birmingham was of a staid and steady character, in keeping with the age. Each manufacturer kept within the warmth of his own forge. He did not go in search of orders, but waited for the orders to come to him. Ironmongers brought their money in their saddle-bags, took away the goods in exchange, or saw them packed ready for the next waggon before they left. Notwithstanding this quiet way of doing business, many comfortable fortunes were made in the place; the manufacturers, like their buttons, moving off so soon as they had received the stamp and the gilt. Hutton, the Birmingham bookseller, says he knew men who left the town in chariots who had first approached it on foot. Hutton himself entered the town a poor boy, and lived to write its history, and make a fortune by his industry.
Until towards the end of last century the town was not very easy of approach from any direction. The roads leading to it had become worn by the traffic of many generations. The hoofs of the pack-horses, helped by the rains, had deepened the tracks in the sandy soil, until in many places they were twelve or fourteen feet deep, so that it was said of travellers that they approached the town by sap. One of these old hollow roads, still called Holloway-head, though now filled up, was so deep that a waggon-load of hay might pass along it without being seen. There was no direct communication between Birmingham and London until about the middle of the century. Before then, the Great Road from London to Chester passed it four miles off, and the Birmingham manufacturer, when sending wares to London, had to forward his package to Castle Bromwich, there to await the approach of the packhorse train or the stage-waggon journeying south. The Birmingham men, however, began to wake up, and in 1747 a coach was advertised to run to London in two days “if the roads permit.” Twenty years later a stage-waggon was put on, and the communication by coach became gradually improved.