Brass.—The making of goods in brass was commenced here about 1668, but the manufacturer of brass itself was not carried on before 1740, when Mr. Turner built his works in Coleshill Street. The Brass and Spelter Co. was started in February 1781, with a capital of £20,000 in £100 shares. Brasshouse Passage, Broad Street, tells of the site of another smelting place, the last chimney of which was demolished on January 27. 1866. The Waterworks Co. bought the site for offices. Stamped brass came in through Richard Ford in 1769, and the process at first was confined to the manufacture of small basins and pans, but in a very few years it was adapted to the production of an infinitude of articles. Pressed brass rack pulleys for window blinds were the invention of Thomas Horne, in 1823, who applied the process of pressure to many other articles. Picture frames, nicely moulded in brass, were made here in 1825, by a modeller named Maurice Garvey. 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.
Buckles were first worn as shoe fastenings in the reign of Charles II. When in fashion they were made of all sizes and all prices, from the tiny half-inch on the hatband to the huge shoebuckle for the foot, and varying from a few pence in price to many guineas the pair. The extent of the manufactures at one time may be guessed from the fact of there being over 20,000 buckle makers out of employ in 1791-2, when vain petitions were made to the royal princes to stem the change then taking place in the "fashions." Sir Edward Thomason said his father in 1780 made 1,000 pair par day, mostly of white metal, but some few plated; by one pattern, known as the "silver penny," he cleared a profit of £1,000. The introduction of shoestrings, and naturally so, was much ridiculed in our local papers, and on one occasion was made the pretext for a disgraceful riot, the pickpockets mobbing the gentlemen going to and from one of the Musical Festivals, the wearers of shoestrings being hustled about and robbed of their purses and watches.
Buttons.—The earliest record of button-making we have is dated 1689, but Mr. Baddeley (inventor of the oval chuck), who retired from business about 1739, is the earliest local manufacturer we read of as doing largely in the trade, though sixty or seventy years ago there were four or five times as many in the business as at present, blue coats and gilt buttons being in fashion. By an Act passed in the 4th of William and Mary foreign buttons made of hair were forbidden to be imported. By another Act, in the 8th of Queen Anne it was decreed that "any taylor or other person convicted of making, covering, selling, using, or setting on to a garment any buttons covered with cloth, or other stuff of which garments are made, shall forfeit five pounds for every dozen of such buttons, or in proportion for any lesser quantity;" by an Act of the seventh of George the First, "any wearer of such unlawful buttons is liable to the penalty of forty shillings per dozen, and in proportion for any lesser quantity." Several cases are on record in which tradesmen have been heavily fined under these; strange laws, and before they were repealed it is related by Dr. Doran (in 1855) that one individual not only got out of paying for a suit of clothes because of the illegality of the tailor in using covered buttons, but actually sued the unfortunate "snip" for the informer's share of the penalties, the funniest part of the tale being that the judge who decided the case, the barrister who pleaded the statute, and the client who gained the clothes he ought to have paid for, were all of them buttoned contrary to law. These Acts were originally enforced to protect the many thousands who at the time were employed in making buttons of silk, thread, &c., by hand, and not, as is generally supposed, in favour of the metal button manufacturers, though on April 4, 1791, Thomas Gem, the solicitor to the committee for the protection of the button trade, advertised a reward for any information against the wearers of the unlawful covered buttons. The "gilt button days" of Birmingham was a time of rare prosperity, and dire was the distress when, like the old buckles, the fashion of wearing the gilt on the blue went out. Deputations to royalty had no effect in staying the change, and thousands were thrown on the parish. It was sought to revive the old style in 1850, when a deputation of button makers solicited Prince Albert to patronise the metallic buttons for gentlemen's coats, but Fashion's fiat was not to be gainsayed. John Taylor, High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1756, is said to have sent out about £800 worth of buttons per week. Papier maché buttons came in with Henry Clay's patent in 1778. He also made buttons of slate. Boulton, of Soho, was the first to bring out steel buttons with facets, and it is said that for some of superior design he received as much as 140 guineas per gross. Horn buttons, though more correctly speaking they should have been called "hoof" buttons, were a great trade at one time, selling in 1801 as low as 5-1/2d. per gross. "Maltese buttons" (glass beads mounted in metal) were, in 1812, made here in large quantities, as were also the "Bath metal drilled shank button" of which 20,000 gross per week were sent out, and a fancy cut white metal button, in making which 40 to 50 firms were engaged, each employing 20 to 40 hands, but the whole trade in these specialities was lost in consequence of a few men being enticed to or imprisoned in France, and there establishing a rival manufacture. Flexible shanks were patented in 1825 by B. Sanders. Fancy silk buttons, with worked figured tops, were patented by Wm. Elliott, in 1837. Porcelain buttons, though not made here, were designed and patented by a Birmingham man, R. Prosser, in 1841. The three-fold linen button was the invention of Humphrey Jeffries, in 1841, and patented by John Aston. In 1864 so great was the demand for these articles that one firm is said to have used up 63,000 yards of cloth and 34 tons of metal in making them. Cadbury and Green's "very" button is an improvement on these. Vegetable ivory, the product of a tree growing in Central America and known as the Corozo palm, was brought into the button trade about 1857. The shells used in the manufacture of pearl buttons are brought from many parts of the world, the principal places being the East Indies, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, Panama, and the coasts of Central America, Australia, New Zealand, &c. The prices of "shell" vary very much, some not being worth more than £20 per ton, while as high as £160 to £170 has been paid for some few choice samples brought from Macassar, a seaport in India. 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 bone, 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 maché, 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.
Chemical Manufactures.—About 50,000 tons of soda, soup, bleaching powder, oil of vitriol, muriatic acid, sulphuric acid, &c., are manufactured in or near Birmingham, every year, more than 20,000 tons of salt, 20,000 tons of pyrites, and 60,000 tons of coal being used in the process.
China, in the shape of knobs, &c., was introduced into the brass founding trade by Harcourt Bros, in 1844. China bowls or wheels for castors were first used in 1849 by J.B. Geithner.
Chlorine.—James Watt was one of the first to introduce the use of chlorine as a bleaching agent.
Citric Acid.—Messrs. Sturge have over sixty years been manufacturing this pleasant and useful commodity at their works in Wheeley's Lane. The acid is extracted from the juice of the citron, the lime, and the lemon, fruits grown in Sicily and the West Indies. The Mountserrat Lime-Juice Cordial, lately brought into the market, is also made from these fruits. About 350 tons of the acid, which is used in some dying processes, &c., is sent out annually.
Coins, Tokens, and Medals.—Let other towns and cities claim preeminence for what they may, few will deny Birmingham's right to stand high in the list of money-making places. At what date it acquired its evil renown for the manufacture of base coin it would be hard to tell, but it must have been long prior to the Revolution of 1688, as in some verses printed in 1682, respecting the Shaftesbury medal, it is thus sneeringly alluded to:
"The wretch that stamped got immortal fame,
'Twas coined by stealth, like groats in Birminghame."
Smiles, in his lives of Boulton and Watt, referring to the middle of the last century, says, "One of the grimmest sights of those days were the skeletons of convicted coiners dangling from gibbets on Handsworth Heath." Coining was a capital offence for hundreds of years, but more poor wretches paid the penalty of their crimes in London in a single year than here in a century, wicked as the bad boys of Brummagem were. An immense trade was certainly done in the way of manufacturing "tokens," but comparatively few counterfeits of the legal currency were issued, except in cases where "a royal patent" had been granted for the purpose, as in the instance of the historical "Wood's half-pence," £100,000 worth (nominal) of which, it is said, were issued for circulation in Ireland. These were called in, as being too bad, even for Paddy's land, and probably it was some of these that the hawker, arrested here Oct. 31, 1733, offered to take in payment for his goods. He was released on consenting to the £7 worth he had received being cut by a brazier and sold as metal, and his advertisements (hand bills) burnt. These bad half pence weighed about 60 to the lb., 2s. 6d. worth (nominal) being somewhat less than 10d. in value. In the ten years prior to 1797 it has been estimated that 700 tons of copper were manufactured here into tokens, and the issue of the celebrated Soho pence, providing the nation with a sufficiency of legitimate copper coin, did not stay the work, the number of tokens in circulation in the early part of the present century being something wonderful, as many as 4,000 different varieties having been described by collectors, including all denominations, from the Bank of England's silver dollar to a country huckster's brass farthing. More than nine-tenths of these were made in Birmingham, and, of course, our tradesmen were not backward with their own specimens. The Overseers issued the well-known "Workhouse Penny," a copper threepenny piece, silver shillings and sixpences, paper notes for 2s. 6d., and leather bonds for 5s. With the exception of the penny these are all scarce now, particularly the 5s., 2s. 6d., and 6d., a specimen of the latter lately being sold at auction for 47s. In 1812 Sir Edward Thomason struck, for a Reading banker (Mr. J.B. Monk), 800 gold tokens of the nominal value of 40s. each; but this was just a step too far, and the Government forbade their use. In the same year he also manufactured two million penny tokens for our soldiers in Spain, which were not forbidden. The permitted manufacture of token money came to an end with the year 1817, an Act coming into force Jan. 1, 1818, forbidding further issue from that date, or the circulation of them after the end of the year, except in the case of the Overseers of Birmingham, who were granted grace till Lady-day, 1820, to call in what they had issued. In 1786 Boulton struck over 100 tons of copper for the East India Co., and, adding to his presses yearly, soon had plenty of orders, including copper for the American Colonies, silver for Sierra Leone, and a beautiful set for the French Republic. To enumerate all the various coins, medals, and tokens issued from Soho would take too much space, but we may say that he brought the art of coining to a perfection very little surpassed even in the present day. In 1789 he made for the Privy Council a model penny, halfpenny, and farthing, but red-tapeism delayed the order until 1797, when he began coining for the Government twopennies (only for one year), pennies, halfpennies and farthings, continuing to do so until 1806, by which time he had sent out not less than 4,200 tons weight. In this coinage of 1797 the penny was made of the exact weight of 1 oz., the other coins being in proportion. In 1799, eighteen pennies were struck out of the pound of metal, but the people thought they were counterfeit, and would not take them until a proclamation ordering their circulation, was issued December 9th. They became used to a deprecation of currency after that, and there was but very little grumbling in 1805, when Boulton was ordered to divide the pound of copper into 24 pennies. The machinery of Boulton's mint, with the collection of dies, pattern coins, tokens, and medals, were sold by auction in 1850. The collection should have numbered 119 different pieces, but there was not a complete set for sale. The mint, however, could not be called extinct, as Messrs. Watt and Co. (successors to Bolton and Watt), who had removed to Smethwick in 1848, struck over 3,300 tons of copper and bronze coin between 1860 and 1866, mostly for Foreign countries. The first English copper penny (1797) was struck in Birmingham, and so was the last. Messrs. Ralph Heaton and Son (the mint, Warstone Line) receiving the contract in April, 1853. for 500 tons of copper coin, comprising pence, half-pence, farthings, half-farthings, and quarter-farthings. The present bronze coinage came into use December 1st, 1860, and Messrs. Heaton have had several contracts therefor since then. This firm has acquired a reputation quite equal to the Soho Mint, and hive 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. Boulton, in his day, supplied the presses and machinery for the Mint on Tower Hill (and they are still in use), as well as for the Danish, Spanish, and Russian authorities. Mexico, Calcutta, Bombay, &c. Messrs. Heaton, and the modern Soho firm, also dealing in such articles. Foremost among modern local medallists, is Mr. Joseph Moore, of Pitsford Street, whose cabinet of specimens is most extensive. An effort is being made to gather for the new Museum and Art Gallery a collection of all coins, medals, and tokens struck in Birmingham, and if it can be perfected it will necessarily be a very valuable one.