PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS

These sketches, with the signature “S.D.R.,” were
originally published in the Birmingham Daily Mail newspaper.
The earliest were written, as their title indicated, entirely from
memory. Afterwards, when the title was no longer strictly accurate,
it was retained for the purpose of showing the connection of the
series. It must be understood, however, that for many of the facts
and dates in the later sketches the writer is indebted to others.

The whole series has been very carefully revised, and some errors
have been rectified. The writer would have preferred to remain
incognito, but he is advised that, as the authorship is now
generally known, it would be mere affectation to withhold his name.
He hopes shortly to commence the publication of another series.

December, 1877.

CONTENTS.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF
BIRMINGHAM.

THE BULL RING RIOTS, 1839.

GOSSIP ABOUT ROYALTY.

BIRMINGHAM BANKS: OLD AND
NEW.

JOHN WALSH WALSH AND THE ASTON
FÊTES.

G.F. MUNTZ, M.P.

JOSEPH GILLOTT.

HENRY VAN WART, J.P.

CHARLES SHAW, J.P., &c.

ROBERT WALTER WINFIELD,
J.P.

CHARLES GEACH, M.P.

WILLIAM SANDS COX, F.R.S.,
&c.

GEORGE EDMONDS.

THE EARLY DAYS OF CHARLES
VINCE.

JOHN SMITH, SOLICITOR

List of Illustrations.

Henry Van Wart, J.P.

Robert Walter Winfield,
J.P.

G. Edmonds

John Smith, Solicitor

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF BIRMINGHAM.

It is a fine autumnal morning in the year 1837. I am sitting on
the box seat of a stage coach, in the yard of the Bull-and-Mouth, St.
Martin’s-le-Grand, in the City of London. The splendid gray
horses seem anxious to be off, but their heads are held by careful
grooms. The metal fittings of the harness glitter in the early
sunlight. Jew pedlar-boys offer me razors and penknives at prices
unheard of in the shops. Porters bring carpet-bags and
strange-looking packages of all sizes, and, to my great
inconvenience, keep lifting up the foot-board, to deposit them in the
“front boot.” A solemn-looking man, whose nose is
preternaturally red, holds carefully a silver-mounted whip.
Passengers arrive, and climb to the roof of the coach, before and
behind, until we are “full outside.” Then the guard comes
with a list, carefully checks off all our names, and retires to the
booking office, from which a minute later he returns. He is this time
accompanied by the coachman, who is a handsome, roguish-looking man.
He wears a white hat, his boots are brilliantly polished, his drab
great-coat is faultlessly clean, and the dark blue neckerchief is
daintily tied. His whiskers are carefully brushed forward and curled,
the flower in the button-hole is as fresh as if that instant plucked,
and he has a look as if he were well fed, and in all other respects
well cared for.

Looking admiringly over the horses, and taking the whip from his
satellite, who touches his hat as he gives it up, Jehu takes the
reins in hand; mounts rapidly to his seat; adjusts the
“apron;” glances backward; gets the signal from the guard,
who has just jumped up—bugle in hand—behind; arranges the
“ribbons” in his well-gloved hand; produces a sound,
somehow, with his tongue, that would puzzle the most skilful printer
in the world to print phonetically, but which a Pole or a Russian
would possibly understand if printed “tzchk;” gently shakes
the reins, and we are off.

As we pass toward the gateway, the guard strikes up with the
bugle, and makes the place resound with the well-known air,
“Off, off, said the stranger.” Emerging upon the street, we
see, issuing from an opposite gateway, a dozen omnibuses, driven by
scarlet-coated coachmen, and laden entirely with scarlet-coated
passengers. Each of these men is a “general postman,” and
he is on his way to his “beat.” As the vehicle arrives at
the most convenient point, he will alight and commence the
“morning” delivery. The process will be repeated in the
evening; and these two deliveries suffice, then, for all the
“country” correspondence sent to London.

Leaving them, our coach passes on through busy Aldersgate Street,
where we are interrupted frequently by droves of sheep and numerous
oxen on their way from Smithfield to the slaughter-houses of their
purchasers. On through Goswell Street, alive with cries of
“milk” and “water creeses.” On through Goswell
Road; past Sadler’s Wells; over the New River, then an open
stream; and in a few minutes we pull up at “The Angel.”
Here we take in some internal cargo. A lady of middle age, and of far
beyond middle size, has “booked inside,” and is very
desirous that a ban-box (without the “d”) should go inside,
too. This the guard declines to allow, and this matter being
otherwise arranged, on we go again. Through “Merrie
Islington” to Highgate, where we pass under the great archway,
then newly built; on to Barnet, where we stop to change horses, and
where I stand up to have a look at my fellow outside passengers.
There is not a lady amongst us. Coachman, guard, and passengers, we
are fourteen. We all wear “top” hats, of which five are
white; each hat, white or black, has its band of black crape. King
William IV. was lately dead, and every decently dressed man in the
country then wore some badge of mourning.

During the whole of that long day we rattled on. Through sleepy
towns and pleasant villages; past the barracks at Weedon, near which
we cross a newly-built bridge, on the summit of which the coachman
pulls up, and we see a deep cutting through the fields on our right,
and a long and high embankment on the left. Scores of men, and horses
drawing strange-looking vehicles, are hard at work, and we are told
that this is to be the “London and Birmingham Railway,”
which the coachman adds “is going to drive us off the
road.” On we go again, through the noble avenue of trees near
Dunchurch; through quaint and picturesque Coventry; past Meriden,
where we see the words, “Meriden School,” built curiously,
with vari-coloured bricks, into a boundary wall. On still; until at
length the coachman, as the sun declines to the west, points out,
amid a gloomy cloud in front of us, the dim outlines of the steeples
and factory chimneys of Birmingham. On still; down the wide open
roadway of Deritend; past the many-gabled “Old Crown
House;” through the only really picturesque street in
Birmingham—Digbeth; up the Bull Ring, the guard merrily
trolling out upon his bugle, “See the Conquering Hero
Comes;” round the corner into New Street where we pull
up—the horses covered with foam—at the doors of “The
Swan.” Our journey has taken us just twelve hours.

And this is Birmingham! The place which I, in pleasant Kent and
Surrey, had so often heard of, but had never seen. This is the town
which, five years before, had vanquished the Conqueror of the Great
Napoleon! This is the place which, for the first time in his life,
had compelled the great Duke of Wellington to capitulate! This is the
home of those who, headed by Attwood, had compelled the Duke and his
army—the House of Lords—to submit, and to pass the
memorable Reform Bill of 1832!

My destination was at the top of Bull Street, where my apartments
were ready, and a walk to that spot completed an eventful day for me.
I had come down on a special business matter, but I remained six
months, and a few years later came again and settled down in
Birmingham. My impressions of the place during those six months are
fresh upon my memory now; and, if I write them down, may be
interesting to some of the three hundred thousand people now in
Birmingham, who know nothing of its aspect then.

Bull Street was then the principal street in Birmingham for retail
business, and it contained some very excellent shops. Most of the
then existing names have disappeared, but a few remain. Mr. Suffield,
to whose courtesy I am indebted for the loan of the rare print from
which the frontispiece to this little book is copied, then occupied
the premises near the bottom of the street, which he still retains.
Mr. Adkins, the druggist, carried on the business established almost
a century ago. He is now the oldest inhabitant of Bull Street, having
been born in the house he still occupies before the commencement of
the present century. Mr. Gargory—still hale, vigorous, and
hearty, although rapidly approaching his eightieth year—then
tenanted the shop next below Mr. Keirle, the fishmonger. His present
shop and that of Mr. Harris, the dyer, occupy the site of the then
Quakers’ Meeting House, which was a long, barn-like building,
standing lengthwise to the street, and not having a window on that
side to break the dreary expanse of brickwork. Mr. Benson was in
those days as celebrated for beef and civility as he is now. Mr. Page
had just opened the shawl shop still carried on by his widow. Near
the Coach Yard was the shop of Mr. Hudson, the bookseller, whose son
still carries on the business established by his father in 1821. In
1837, Mr. Hudson, Sen., was the publisher of a very well conducted
liberal paper called The Philanthropist. The paper only
existed some four or five years. It deserved a better fate. Next door
to Mr. Hudson’s was the shop of the father of the present Messrs.
Southall. All these places have been materially altered, but the wine
and spirit stores of Mrs. Peters, at the corner of Temple Row, are
to-day, I think, exactly what they were forty years ago. The Brothers
Cadbury—a name now celebrated all over the world—were
then, as will be seen by reference to the frontispiece, shopkeepers
in Bull Street, the one as a silk mercer, the other as a tea dealer.
The latter commenced in Crooked Lane the manufacture of cocoa, in
which business the name is still eminent. The Borough Bank at that
time occupied the premises nearly opposite Union Passage, which are
now used by Messrs. Smith as a carpet shop. In all other
respects—except where the houses near the bottom are set back,
and the widening of Temple Row—the street is little altered,
except that nearly every shop has been newly fronted.

High Street, from Bull Street to Carrs Lane, is a good deal
altered. The Tamworth Banking Company occupied a lofty building
nearly opposite the bottom of Bull Street, where for a very few years
they carried on business, and the premises afterwards were occupied
by Mrs. Syson, as a hosier’s shop. The other buildings on both
sides were small and insignificant, and they were mostly pulled down
when the Great Western Railway Company tunneled under the street to
make their line to Snow Hill. “Taylor and Lloyd’s” Bank
was then in Dale End. The passage running by the side of their
premises is still called “Bank Alley.” Carrs Lane had a
very narrow opening, and the Corn Exchange was not built. Most of the
courts and passages in High Street were then filled with small
dwelling houses, and the workshops of working bookbinders. Messrs.
Westley Richards and Co. had their gun factory in one of them. The
large pile of buildings built by Mr. Richards for Laing and Co., and
now occupied by Messrs. Manton, the Bodega Company, and others, is
the most important variation from the High Street of forty years ago.
The narrow footpaths and contracted roadway were as inconveniently
crowded as they are to-day. The house now occupied by Innes, Smith,
and Co. was then a grocer’s shop, and the inscription over the
door was “Dakin and Ridgway,” two names which now, in
London, are known to everybody as those of the most important retail
tea dealers in the metropolis. Mr. Ridgway established the large
concern in King William Street, and Mr. Dakin was the founder of
“No. 1, St. Paul’s Churchyard.”

New Street is greatly altered. At that time it was not much more
lively than Newhall Street is now. The Grammar School is just as it
was; the Theatre, externally, is not much altered; “The Hen and
Chickens” remains the same; the Town Hall, though not then
finished, looked the same from New Street; and the portico of the
Society of Artists’ rooms stood over the pavement then. With
these exceptions I only know one more building that has not been
pulled down, or so altered as to be unrecognisable. The exemption is
the excrescence called Christ Church, which still disfigures the very
finest site in the whole town.

Hyam and Co. had removed from the opposite side of the street, and
had just opened as a tailor’s shop the queer old building known
as the “Pantechnetheca,” and the ever-youthful Mr. Holliday
was at “Warwick House.” The recollections of what the
“House” was then makes me smile as I write. It had
originally been two private houses. The one abutted upon the footway,
and the other stood some thirty feet back, a pretty garden being in
the front. The latter had been occupied by Mr. James Busby, who
carried on the business of a wire-worker at the rear. The ground
floor frontages of both had been taken out. A roof had been placed
over the garden, two hideous small-framed bay windows fronted New
Street, and a third faced what is now “Warwick House
Passage.” The whole place had a curious
“pig-with-one-ear” kind of aspect, the portion which had
been the garden having no upper floors, while the other was three
storeys high. The premises had been “converted” by a now
long-forgotten association, called the “Drapery Company,”
and as this had not been successful, Mr. Holliday and his then
partner, Mr. Merrett, had become its successors. It was in 1839 that
the first portion of the present palatial building was erected.

A few doors from this was the office of The Birmingham
Journal, a very different paper then from what it afterwards
became. It had been originally started as a Tory paper by a few old
“fogies” who used to meet at “Joe Lindon’s,”
“The Minerva,” in Peck Lane; and this was how it came
about: The Times had, early in 1825, in a leader, held up to
well-deserved ridicule some action on the part of the Birmingham Tory
party. This gave awful and unpardonable offence, and retaliation was
decided upon. Notes were sent to several frequenters of the room
that, on a certain afternoon, important business would be
“on” at Lindon’s, and punctual attendance was
requested. The room at the appointed time was full, and the table had
been removed from the centre. The ordinarily clean-scrubbed floor was
covered with sheet iron. A chairman was appointed; and one gentleman
was requested to read the obnoxious article. This over, a well-fed,
prosperous-looking, fox-hunting iron merchant from Great Charles
Street rose, and in very shaky grammar moved, that The Times
had disgraced itself and insulted Birmingham, and that it was the
duty of every Birmingham man to stop its circulation in the town.
This having been seconded, and duly carried, another rose and
proposed that in order to mark the indignation of those present, the
copy of the paper containing the offensive leader should be
ignominiously burnt. This, too, was carried; whereupon the
iron-dealer took up the doomed newspaper with a pair of tongs, placed
it on the sheets of iron, and, taking a “spill” between the
claws of the tongs, lighted it at the fire of the room, and ignited
the ill-fated paper, which, amid the groans and hisses of the
assembled patriots, burned to ashes. This ceremony being solemnly
concluded, the “business” began. It was deplored that the
“loyal” party was imperfectly represented in the town. It
was considered desirable that the party should have an
“organ” in the town; and it was decided to open a
subscription there and then, to start one. The necessary capital was
subscribed, and a committee was formed to arrange with Mr. William
Hodgetts, a printer in Spiceal Street, for the production of the new
paper. Mr. Hodgetts subscribed to the fund to the extent of £50, and
the singularly inappropriate name for a weekly paper, The
Birmingham Journal, was selected. The first number appeared June
4th, 1825. The editor was Professor Bakewell. It continued in the
same hands until June, 1827, when Mr. Hodgetts paid out the other
partners, and became sole proprietor. He enlarged it in 1830, at
which time it was edited by the well-remembered Jonathan Crowther. In
1832 it was sold to the Liberal party. The Argus, in its issue
for June, 1832, thus chronicles the fact:

This seems to point to George Edmonds; but I cannot find any other
evidence that he was ever editor. Be that as it may, Crowther
remained, and the paper was published at the old office in Spiceal
Street as late as May, 1833, when it seems to have been removed to
New Street, and placed under the care of Mr. Douglas. In May of that
year, Mr. Hodgetts published the first number of The Birmingham
Advertiser. Meanwhile, Mr. Douglas sat in The Journal
office, in New Street. It was a little room, about 10 ft. by 6 ft.,
and the approach was up three or four steps. Here he reigned supreme,
concocted Radical leaders in bad taste and questionable English, and
received advertisements and money. The whole thing was in wretched
plight until about the year 1844, when—Mr. Michael Maher being
editor—Mr. Feeney, who was connected with another paper in the
town, went to London, saw Mr. Joseph Parkes, and arranged to purchase
The Journal. Mr. Jaffray soon after came from Shrewsbury to
assist in the management, and with care, industry, and perseverance,
it soon grew to be one of the very best provincial papers in the
country.

The Post Office occupied the site now covered by Lilly and
Addinsell’s shop. The New Street frontage was the dwelling house
of Mr. Gottwaltz, the post-master. A little way up Bennetts Hill was
a semicircular cove, or recess, in which two people might stand. Here
was a slit, into which letters were dropped, and an
“inquiry” window; and this was all. There were seven other
receiving houses in the town, which were as follows: Mr. Hewitt,
Hagley Row; Mr. E. Gunn, 1, Kenion Street; Mr. W. Drury, 30,
Lancaster Street; Mr. Ash, Prospect Row; Mr. White, 235, Bristol
Street; Miss Davis, Sand Pits; and Mrs. Wood, 172, High Street,
Deritend. Two deliveries took place daily—one at 8 a.m., the
other at 5 p.m. The postage of a “single” letter to London
then was ninepence; but a second piece of paper, however small, even
the half of a bank note, made it a “double” letter, the
postage of which was eighteenpence.

Between Needless Alley and the house now occupied by Messrs. Reece
and Harris, as offices, were three old-fashioned and rather dingy
looking shops, of which I can tell a curious story. Rather more than
twenty years ago, the late Mr. Samuel Haines acquired the lease of
these three houses, which had a few years to run. The freehold
belonged to the Grammar School. Mr. Haines proposed to Messrs.
Whateley, the solicitors for the school, that the old lease should be
cancelled; that they should grant him a fresh one at a greatly
increased rental; and that he should pull down the old places and
erect good and substantial houses on the site. This was agreed to;
but when the details came to be settled, some dispute arose, and the
negotiations were near going off. Mr. Haines, however, one day
happened to go over the original lease—nearly a hundred years
old—to see what the covenants were, and he found that he was
bound to deliver up the plot of land in question to the school,
somewhere, I think, about 1860 to 1865, “well cropped with
potatoes.” This discovery removed the difficulty, the lease was
granted, and the potato-garden is the site of the fine pile known as
Brunswick Buildings, upon each house of which Mr. Haines’s
monogram, “S.H.,” appears in an ornamental scroll.

The Town Hall had been opened three years. The Paradise Street
front was finished, and the two sides were complete for about
three-fourths of their length; but that portion where the double rows
of columns stand, and the pediment fronting Ratcliff Place, had not
been built. The whole of that end was then red brick. Prom the corner
of Edmund Street a row of beggarly houses, standing on a bank some
eight feet above the level of the road, reached to within a few yards
of the hall itself, the space between them and the hall being
enclosed by a high wall. On the other side, the houses in Paradise
Street came to within about the same distance, and the intervening
space was carefully enclosed. The interior of the hall was lighted by
some elaborate bronzed brackets, projecting from the side, between
the windows. They were modelled in imitation of vegetable forms; and
at the ends, curving upwards, small branches stood in a group, like
the fingers of a half-opened human hand. Each of these branchlets was
a gas burner, which was covered by a semi-opaque glass globe, the
intent being, evidently, to suggest a cluster of growing fruits. Some
of the same pattern were placed in the Church of the Saviour when it
was first opened, but they, as well as those at the Town Hall, were
in a few years removed, greatly to the relief of many who thought
them inexpressibly ugly.

Nearly opposite the Town Hall was a lame attempt to convert an
ugly chapel into a Grecian temple. It was a wretched architectural
failure. It was “The School of Medicine,” and, as I know
from a personal visit at the time, contained, even then, a very
various and most extensive collection of anatomical preparations, and
other matters connected with the noble profession to whose use it was
dedicated. From the Town Hall to Easy Row the pathway was three or
four feet higher than the road, and an ugly iron fence was there, to
prevent passengers from tumbling over. On this elevated walk stood
the offices of a celebrated character, “Old”—for I
never heard him called by any other name—”Old
Spurrier,” the hard, unbending, crafty lawyer, who, being
permanently retained by the Mint to prosecute all coiners in the
district, had a busy time of it, and gained for himself a large
fortune and an evil reputation.

Bennetts Hill was considered the street of the town,
architecturally. The Norwich Union Office then held aloft the same
lady, who, long neglected, looks now as if her eyes were bandaged to
hide the tears which she is shedding over her broken scales. The Bank
of England has not been altered, though at that time it was occupied
by a private company. Where the Inland Revenue Offices now stand, was
a stone barn, which was called a news-room. It was a desolate-looking
place, inside and out, and it was a mercy when it was pulled down. At
the right-hand corner, at the top, where Harrison’s music shop
now stands, there was, in a large open court-yard, a square old brick
mansion, having a brick portico. A walled garden belonging to this
house, ran down Bennetts Hill, nearly to Waterloo Street, and an old
brick summer-house, which stood in the angle, was then occupied by
Messrs. Whateley as offices, and afterwards by Mr. Nathaniel Lea, the
sharebroker. At the corner of Temple Row West was a draper’s
shop, carried on by two brothers—William and John Boulton. The
brothers fell out, and dissolved partnership. William took Mr. R.W.
Gem’s house and offices in New Street, and converted them into
the shop now occupied by Messrs. Dew; stocked it; married a lady at
Harborne; started off to Leamington on his wedding tour; was taken
ill in the carriage on the way; was carried to bed at the hotel at
Leamington, and died the same evening. His brother took to the New
Street shop; closed the one in Temple Row; made his fortune; and died
a few years ago—a bachelor—at Solihull.

The present iron railings of St. Philip’s Churchyard had not
then been erected. There was a low fence, and pleasant avenues of
trees skirted the fence on the sides next Colmore Row and Temple Row.
I used to like to walk here in the quiet of evening, and I loved to
listen to the bells in St. Philip’s Church as they chimed out
every three hours the merry air, “Life let us Cherish.”

A few weeks before my arrival, a general election, consequent upon
the dissolution of Parliament by the death of the King, took place.
The Tory party in Birmingham had been indiscreet enough to contest
the borough. They selected a very unlikely man to succeed—Mr.
A.G. Stapleton—and they failed utterly, the Liberals polling
more than two to one. The Conservatives had their head-quarters at
the Royal Hotel in Temple Row. Crowds of excited people surrounded
the hotel day by day and evening after evening. One night something
unusual had exasperated them, and they attacked the hotel. There were
no police in Birmingham then, and the mob had things pretty much
their own way. Showers of heavy stones soon smashed the windows to
atoms, and so damaged the building as to make it necessary to erect a
scaffold covering the whole frontage before the necessary repairs
could be completed. When I first saw it, it was in a wretched plight,
and it took many weeks to repair the damage done by the rioters. The
portico now standing in front of the building—which is now used
as the Eye Hospital—was built at this time, the doorway up to
then not having that protection.

From this point, going towards Bull Street, the roadway suddenly
narrowed to the same width as The Minories. Where the extensive
warehouses of Messrs. Wilkinson and Riddell now stand, but projecting
some twelve or fifteen feet beyond the present line of frontage, were
the stables and yard of the hotel. On the spot where their busy
clerks now pore over huge ledgers and journals, ostlers were then to
be seen grooming horses, and accompanying their work with the
peculiar hissing sound without which it appears that operation cannot
be carried on. Mr. Small wood occupied the shop at the corner, and
his parlour windows, on the ground floor, looked upon Bull Street,
the window sills being gay with flowers. It was a very different shop
to the splendid ones which has succeeded it, which Wilkinson and
Riddell have just secured to add to their retail premises.

The Old Square had, shortly before, been denuded of a pleasant
garden in the centre, the roads up to that time having passed round,
in front of the houses. The Workhouse stood on the left, about half
way down Lichfield Street. It was a quaint pile of building, probably
then about 150 years old. There was a large quadrangle, three sides
of which were occupied by low two-storey buildings, and the fourth by
a high brick wall next the street. This wall was pierced in the
centre by an arch, within which hung a strong door, having an iron
grating, through which the porter inside could inspect coming
visitors. From this door a flagged footway crossed the quadrangle to
the principal front, which was surmounted by an old-fashioned
clock-turret. Although I was never an inmate of the establishment, I
have reason to believe that other quadrangles and other buildings
were in the rear. The portion vouchsafed to public inspection was
mean in architectural style, and apparently very inadequate in size.
From this point I do not remember anything worthy of note until Aston
Park was reached, in the Aston Road. The park was then entire, and
was completely enclosed by a high wall, similar in character to the
portion remaining in the Witton Road which forms the boundary of the
“Lower Grounds.” The Hall was occupied by the second James
Watt, son of the great engineer. He had not much engineering skill,
but was a man of considerable attainments, literary and
philosophical. His huge frame might be seen two or three times a week
in the shop of Mr. Wrightson, the bookseller, in New Street. He was
on very intimate terms of friendship with Lord Brougham, who
frequently visited him at Aston. The favourite seat of the two
friends was in the temple-like summer-house, near the large pool in
Mr. Quilter’s pleasant grounds. The village of Aston was as
country-like as if located twenty miles from a large town. Perry Barr
was a terra incognita to most Birmingham people. Erdington,
then universally called “Yarnton,” was little known, and
Sutton Coldfield was a far-off pleasant spot for pic-nics; but, to
the bulk of Birmingham people, as much unknown as if it had been in
the New Forest of Hampshire.

Broad Street was skirted on both sides by private houses, each
with its garden in front. Bingley House, where the Prince of Wales
Theatre now stands, was occupied by Mr. Lloyd, the banker, and the
fine trees of his park overhung the wall. None of the churches now
standing in Broad Street were at that time built. The first shop
opened at the Islington end of the street, was a draper’s, just
beyond Ryland Street. This was started by a man who travelled for Mr.
Dakin, the grocer, and I remember he was thought to be mad for
opening such a shop in so outlandish a place. The business is still
carried on by Mr. D. Chapman. Rice Harris then lived in the house
which is now the centre of the Children’s Hospital, and the big
ugly “cones” of his glass factory at the back belched forth
continuous clouds of black smoke. Beyond the Five Ways there were no
street lamps. The Hagley Road had a few houses dotted here and there,
and had, at no distant time, been altered in direction, the line of
road from near the present Francis Road to the Highfield Road having
at one time curved very considerably to the left, as anyone may see
by noticing the position of the frontage of the old houses on that
side. All along the straightened part there was on the left a wide
open ditch, filled, generally, with dirty water, across which brick
arches carried roads to the private dwellings. “The Plough and
Harrow” was an old-fashioned roadside public-house. Chad House,
the present residence, I believe, of Mr. Hawkins, had been a
public-house too, and a portion of the original building was
preserved and incorporated with the new portion when the present
house was built. Beyond this spot, with the exception of Hazelwood
House, where the father of Rowland Hill, the postal reformer, kept
his school, and some half-dozen red brick houses on the right, all
was open country. Calthorpe Street was pretty well filled with
buildings. St. George’s Church was about half built. Frederick
Street and George Street—for they were not “Roads”
then—were being gradually filled up. There were some houses in
the Church Road and at Wheeleys Hill, but the greater portion of
Edgbaston was agricultural land.

The south side of Ladywood Lane, being in Edgbaston parish, was
pretty well built upon, owing to its being the nearest land to the
centre of the town not burdened with town rating. There was a very
large and lumbering old mansion on the left, near where Lench’s
Alms-houses now stand. Mr. R.W. Winfield lived at the red brick house
between what are now the Francis and the Beaufort Roads. Nearly
opposite his house was a carriage gateway opening upon an avenue of
noble elms, at the end of which was Ladywood House, standing in a
park. This, and the adjoining cottage, were the only houses upon the
populous district now known as Ladywood. At the right-hand corner of
the Reservoir “Lane” was the park and residence of Mr.
William Chance. Further to the east, in Icknield Street, near the
canal bridge—which at that time was an iron one, narrow and
very dangerous—was another mansion and park, occupied by Mr.
John Unett, Jun. This house is now occupied as a bedstead
manufactory. Still further was another very large house, where Mr.
Barker, the solicitor, lived. Further on again, the
“General” Cemetery looked much the same as now, except that
the trees were smaller, and there were not so many monuments.

Soho Park, from Hockley Bridge, for about a mile on the road to
West Bromwich, was entirely walled in. The old factory built by
Boulton and Watt was still in operation. I saw there at work the
original engine which was put up by James Watt. It had a massive oak
beam, and it seemed strange to me that it did not communicate its
power direct, but was employed in pumping water from the brook that
flowed hard by, to a reservoir on higher ground. From this reservoir
the water, as it descended, turned a water-wheel, which moved all the
machinery in the place. It is not, perhaps, generally known that the
same machine which was employed here in 1797 in making the old
broad-rimmed copper pennies of George the Third is still at work at
Messrs. Heaton’s, coining the bronze money which has superseded
the clumsy “coppers” of our forefathers.

Coming towards the town, from Hockley Bridge to the corner of
Livery Street, many of the houses had a pretty bit of garden in
front, and the houses were mostly inhabited by jewellers. It was in
this street that I first noticed a peculiarity in tradesmen’s
signboards, which then was general through the town, and had a very
curious appearance to a stranger. Few of the occupiers’ names
were painted on the faciæ of the shop windows, but in almost
every case a bordered wooden frame, following the outline of the
window, was fixed above it. Each of these frames stood upon three or
four wooden spheres, generally about the size of a cricket ball, and
they were surmounted by wooden acorns or ornaments. The boards were
all black, and the lettering invariably gilt, as were also the balls
and the acorns. This, however strange, was not inconsistent; but
there were hundreds of frames in the town stretched across the fronts
of houses, and fixed to the walls by iron spikes. Every one of these
signboards, although altogether unnecessary for its support, had
three gilt balls underneath. There was another peculiarity: the
capital letter C was invariably made with two
“serifs”—thus, C—and for a long time I
invariably read them as G’s.

Coming up Livery Street, which then was filled on both sides of
its entire length by buildings, it was pointed out to me that the
warehouse now occupied by Messrs. T. Barnes and Co. was built for a
show-room and warehouse by Boulton and Watt, and here their smaller
wares had been on view. Where Messrs. Billing’s extensive
buildings now stand, was an old chapel, built, I believe, by a
congregation which ultimately removed to the large chapel in
Steelhouse Lane. It was used as a place of worship until about 1848,
when Mr. Billing bought it, pulled it down, and utilised its site for
his business. The whole area of the Great Western Railway Station was
then covered with buildings, and one, if not more, small streets ran
through to Snow Hill. Monmouth Street was very narrow. Where the
Arcade now is, was the Quakers’ burial ground. Opposite was the
warehouse of Mr. Thornley, the druggist, who had a small and
mean-looking shop at the corner, fronting Snow Hill. At the opposite
corner was a shaky-looking stuccoed house, used as a draper’s
shop, the entrance being up three or four steps from Steelhouse
Lane.

Mr. George Richmond Collis had recently succeeded to the business,
at the top of Church Street, of Sir Edward Thomason, who was dead. It
was then the show manufactory of Birmingham. The
buildings—pulled down seven or eight years ago—were at
that time a smart-looking affair; the parapet was adorned with a
number of large statues. Atlas was there, bending under the weight of
two or three hundred pounds of Portland cement. Hercules brandished a
heavy club, on which pigeons often settled. A copy of the celebrated
group of the “Horses of St. Mark” was over the entrance.
Several branches of Birmingham work were exhibited to visitors, and
it was here I first saw stamping, cutting-out, press-work, and
coining.

There were then I think only ten churches in Birmingham. Bishop
Ryder’s was being built. The Rev. I.C. Barrett had just come from
Hull to assume the incumbency of St. Mary’s; the announcement of
his presentation to the living appeared in Aris’s Gazette,
October 8th, 1837. I was one of his first hearers. The church had
been comparatively deserted until he came, but it was soon filled to
overflowing with an attentive congregation. There was an earnest tone
and a poetical grace in his sermons which were fresh to Birmingham in
those days. His voice was good, and his pale, thoughtful, intelligent
face was very striking. He was a fascinating preacher, and he became
the most popular minister in the town. The church was soon found to
be too small for the crowds who wished to hear, and alterations of an
extensive nature were made to give greater accommodation. Mr. Barrett
had then the peculiarity in his manner of sounding certain vowels,
which he still retains—always pronouncing the word
“turn,” for instance, as if it were written
“tarn.” I remember hearing him once preach from the text, 1
Cor., iii., 23, which he announced as follows: “The farst
book of Corinthians, the thard chaptar, and the twenty-thard
varse.” Although still hale, active, and comparatively
young-looking, he is by far the oldest incumbent in Birmingham,
having held the living nearly forty years.

St. George’s Church then looked comparatively clean and new. A
curious incident occurred here in May, 1833, an account of which I
had from the lips of a son of the then churchwarden. Birmingham was
visited by a very severe epidemic of influenza, which was so general
that few households escaped. Nor was the epidemic confined to
mankind; horses were attacked, and the proprietor of “The Hen
and Chickens” lost by death sixteen horses in one day. So many
of the clergy and ministers were ill, that some of the places of
worship had to be closed for a time. St. George’s, which had a
rector and two curates, was kept open, although all its clergy were
on the sick list. It was feared, however, that on one particular
Sunday it would have to be closed. Application had been made to
clergymen at a distance, but all, dreading infection, were afraid to
come to the town, so that aid from outside could not be had. A
consultation was held, and one of the curates, although weak and ill,
undertook to conduct the devotional part of the service, but felt
unable to preach. An announcement to be read by the “clerk”
was written out by the rector, and was, no doubt, properly
punctuated. At the close of the prayers, the next morning, the clerk
arose, paper in hand, and proceeded to read as follows, without
break, pause, or change of tone: “I am desired to give notice
that in consequence of the illness of the whole of the clergymen
attached to this church there will be no sermon here this morning
‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow.'”

John Angell James was then at the head of the Nonconformists of
the town, and was in the prime of his intellectual powers. He was
very popular as a preacher, and the chapel in Carrs Lane was always
well filled. Mr. Wm. Beaumont, the bank manager, acted as precentor,
reading aloud the words of the hymns to be sung and the notices of
coming religious events. Mr. James had a powerful voice and an
impressive manner, and occasionally was very eloquent. I remember a
passage, which struck me at the time as being very forcible. He was
deprecating the influence which the works of Byron had upon the
youthful mind, and, speaking of the poet, said: “He wrote as
with the pen of an archangel, dipped in the lava which issues from
the bottomless pit.” Mr. James was not a classical scholar;
indeed, he had only received a very moderate amount of instruction.
He was intended by his parents for a tradesman, and in fact was
apprenticed to a draper at Poole. I believe, however, that the
indentures were cancelled, for he became a preacher before he was
twenty years of age. For myself, I always thought him an over-rated
man. There was a narrowness of mind; there was a want of sympathy
with the works of great poets and artists; and there was an intense
hatred of the drama. There was, too, a dogmatic, egotistic manner,
which led him always to enunciate his own thoughts as if they were
absolutely true and incontrovertible. He was not a man to doubt or
hesitate; he did not say “It may be,” or “It is
probable,” but always “It is.” He was a good pastor,
however. During his long and useful ministerial career of more than
half a century, he had but one fold and one flock. He was a firm
disciplinarian; was somewhat of a clerical martinet; but his people
liked him, and were cheerfully obedient; and he descended to the
grave full of abundant honour.

Timothy East, of Steelhouse Lane Chapel, was a man of far greater
mental capacity and culture. His sermons were clear, logical,
conclusive, and earnest. It is not generally known that he was a
voluminous writer. He was a frequent contributor to some of the best
periodicals of his time. He wrote and published, under the titles,
first of “The Evangelical Rambler,” and afterwards of
“The Evangelical Spectator,” a series of exceedingly
well-written essays, the style of which will compare favourably with
that of the great standard works of a century before, whose titles he
had appropriated. His son, the present Mr. Alfred Baldwin East,
inherits a large share of his father’s literary ability. Those
who had the pleasure, a few years ago, to hear him read his
manuscript of “The Life and Times of Oliver Cromwell,” had
a rare intellectual treat. Some of its passages are worthy of
Macaulay. I wish he would publish it.

Of the newspapers of that time, only two survive, at least in
name—Aris’s Gazette and The Midland Counties
Herald. The latter had just been started. For a short time it was
called The Birmingham Herald, but this was soon altered to its
present title. It was published on the premises now occupied as
Nock’s refreshment bar, in Union Passage. It had four pages then,
as now, but the paper altogether was not much larger than the
coloured cover of The Graphic. The Journal, although its name
is lost, still lives and thrives as The Weekly Post. The two
others are defunct long ago. One, The Philanthropist, was
published in Bull Street by Mr. Hudson; the other was The
Birmingham Advertiser, which, on the purchase of The
Journal by the Liberals, had been started in 1833 by Mr.
Hodgetts, in the Tory interest. It was edited by Mr. Thomas Ragg. It
ceased to be published in 1846.

The Grand Junction Railway, from Birmingham to Liverpool and
Manchester, was opened July 4th, in the year I am writing of (1837),
and on this line, in October of that year, I had my first railway
trip. The “Birmingham terminus” of those days is now the
goods station at Vauxhall, and it was here that I went to “book
my place” for Wolverhampton. I entered a moderate-sized room,
shabbily fitted with a few shelves and a deal counter, like a shop.
Upon this counter, spread out, were a number of large open books, the
pages of each being of different colour to the others. Each page
contained a number of printed forms, with blank spaces to be filled
up in writing. On applying to the clerk in attendance, I had to give
my name and address, which he wrote in two places on the blue page of
one of the books; he then took the money, tore out a ticket, some
four inches by three, and left a counterpart in the book. I was then
shown to my seat in the train, and on inspecting at my leisure the
document I was favoured with, I found that in consideration of a sum
of money therein mentioned, and in consideration further of my having
impliedly undertaken to comply with certain rules and regulations,
the company granted me a pass in a first-class carriage to
Wolverhampton. I returned to Birmingham by omnibus after dark the
same evening, and passing through the heart of the Black Country,
made my first acquaintance with that dingy region—its lurid
light, its flashing tongues of intercessant flame, and its clouds of
stifling, sulphurous smoke.

Such, rapidly sketched, were my impressions of the place which was
destined to become my future home. It is very different now. From the
large and populous, but ugly town of those days, it is rapidly
becoming as handsome as any town in England. Situated as it is,
locally, almost in the centre of the country, it is also a great
centre commercially, artistically, politically, and intellectually.
From the primitive town of that time, governed by constables and
bailiffs, it has become a vast metropolis, and may fairly boast of
having the most energetic, far-seeing, and intelligent Municipal
Council in the kingdom. Its voice is listened to respectfully in the
Senate. Its merchants are known and honoured in every country in the
world. Its manufactured products are necessities to nearly every
member of the vast human race; and it seems destined, at its present
rate of progress, to become, before many years, the second city of
the Empire.

THE BULL RING RIOTS, 1839.

On Sunday, the 14th of July, in the year 1839, I left Euston
Square by the night mail train. I had taken a ticket for Coventry,
where I intended to commence a business journey of a month’s
duration. It was a hot and sultry night, and I was very glad when we
arrived at Wolverton, where we had to wait ten minutes while the
engine was changed. An enterprising person who owned a small plot of
land adjoining the station, had erected thereon a small wooden hut,
where, in winter time, he dispensed to shivering passengers hot
elderberry wine and slips of toast, and in summer, tea, coffee, and
genuine old-fashioned fermented ginger-beer. It was the only
“refreshment room” upon the line, and people used to crowd
his little shanty, clamouring loudly for supplies. He soon became the
most popular man between London and Birmingham.

Railway travelling then was in a very primitive condition. Except
at the termini there were no platforms. Passengers had to
clamber from the level of the rails by means of iron steps, to their
seats. The roof of each of the coaches, as they were then called, was
surrounded by an iron fence or parapet, to prevent luggage from
slipping off. Each passenger’s personal effects travelled on the
roof of the coach in which he sat, and the guard occupied an outside
seat at one end. First-class carriages were built upon the model of
the “inside” of the old stage coaches. They were so low
that even a short man could not stand upright. The seats were divided
by arms, as now, and the floor was covered afresh for each journey
with clean straw. The second-class coaches were simply execrable.
They were roofed over, certainly; but, except a half-door and a low
fencing, to prevent passengers from falling out, the sides were
utterly unprotected from the weather. As the trains swept rapidly
through the country—particularly in cuttings or on high
embankments—the wind, even in the finest weather, drove
through, “enough to cut your ear off.” When the weather was
wet, or it was snowing, it was truly horrible, and, according to the
testimony of medical men, was the primary cause of many deaths. There
were no “buffers” to break the force of the concussion of
two carriages in contact. When the train was about to start, the
guard used to cry out along the train, “Hold hard! we’re
going to start,” and ’twas well he did, for sometimes, if
unprepared, you might find your nose brought into collision with that
of your opposite neighbour, accompanied by some painful sensations in
that important part of your profile.

I arrived at Coventry station at midnight. A solitary porter with
a lantern was in attendance. There was no lamp about the place. The
guard clambered to the roof of the carriage in which I had travelled,
and the porter brought a long board, having raised edges, down which
my luggage came sliding to the ground. The train passed on, and I
made inquiry for some vehicle to convey me to “The Craven
Arms,” half a mile away. None were in attendance, nor was there
any one who would carry my “traps.” I had about a
hundred-weight of patterns, besides my portmanteau. I “might
leave my patterns in his room,” the porter said, and I “had
better carry my ‘things’ myself.” There was no help for
it, so, shouldering the portmanteau, I carried it up a narrow brick
stair to the roadway. The “station” then consisted of the
small house by the side of the bridge which crosses the railway, and
the only means of entrance or exit to the line was by this steep
stair, which was about three feet wide. The “booking
office” was on the level of the road, by the side of the bridge,
where Tennyson

while he

Carrying a heavy portmanteau half a mile on a hot night, when you
are tired, is not a pleasant job. When I arrived, hot and thirsty, at
the inn, I looked upon the night porter as my best friend, when,
after a little parley, he was able to get me a little something,
“out of a bottle o’ my own, you know, sir,” with which
I endeavoured, successfully, to repair the waste of tissue.

The next day, having finished my work in Coventry, I started in a
hired conveyance for Coleshill, and a pleasant drive of an hour and a
half brought me to the door of “The Swan” in that quaint
and quiet little town. The people of the house were very busy
preparing for a public dinner that was to come off on the following
day, and as the house was noisy, from the preparations, I took a
quiet walk in the churchyard, little recking then, as I strolled in
the solemn silence of the golden-tinted twilight, that, only ten
miles from where I stood, at that moment, a crowd of furious men,
with passions unbridled, and blood hot with diabolic hate, held at
their mercy, undisturbed, the lives and property of the citizens of
an important town; that several houses, fired by incendiary hands,
were roaring like furnaces, and lighting with a lurid glare the
overhanging sky; that women by hundreds were shrieking with terror,
and brave men were standing aghast and appalled; that two of my own
brothers and some valued friends were in deadly peril, and that one
at that very instant was fighting for very life. It was the night of
the great Bull Ring riots of 1839.

When I arose the next morning I saw a man on horseback come
rapidly to the house, his features wild with excitement, and his face
pale with terror. His horse was covered with foam, and trembled
violently. From the man’s quivering lips I learned, by degrees,
an incoherent story, which accounted for His strange demeanour. He
was a servant at the inn, and had been to Birmingham that morning,
early, to fetch from Mr. Keirle’s shop, in Bull Street, a salmon
for the coming dinner. On arriving at the town, he had been stopped
at a barrier by some dragoons, who told him that he could go no
further. Upon the poor fellow telling how urgent was his errand, and
what a heavy blow it would be to society if the dinner at “The
Swan” should be short of fish, he was allowed to pass, but was
escorted by a dragoon, with drawn sword, to the shop. Here having
obtained what he sought, he was duly marched back to the barrier and
set at liberty, upon which he started off in mortal terror, and
galloped all the way home, to tell us with tremulous tongue that
Birmingham was all on fire, and that hundreds of people had been
killed by the soldiers.

A small group had gathered round him in the yard to listen to his
incoherent, and, happily, exaggerated story. In a minute or two the
landlady, who had in some remote part of the premises heard a word or
two of the news the man had brought, came rushing out in a state of
frantic terror, prepared evidently for the worst; but when she heard
that James had brought the salmon, her face assumed an air of
satisfaction, and with a pious “Thank God! that’s all
right,” she turned away; her mind tranquil, contented, and at
perfect ease.

After the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832, there was a
political lull in England for a few years. The middle classes, being
satisfied with the success they had achieved for themselves, did not
trouble themselves very much for the extension of the franchise to
the working classes. So long as trade remained good, and wages were
easily earned, the masses remained quiet; but the disastrous panic of
1837 altered the aspect of affairs. Trade was very much depressed. A
series of bad harvests having occurred, and the Corn Laws not having
been repealed, bread became dear, and so aggravated the sufferings of
the people. Wages fell; manufactories in many places were entirely
closed, and work became scarce. Naturally enough, the working men
attributed their sufferings to their want of direct political
influence, and began to clamour for the franchise. Feargus
O’Connor, a violent demagogue, fanned the flame, and the
excitement became general. In the year 1838 some half-dozen Members
of Parliament united with an equal number of working men in
conference, and drew up a document, known afterwards as “The
People’s Charter,” which embodied what they considered the
rightful demands of the working class. It had six distinct claims,
which were called the “points” of the charter, and were as
follows: 1. Universal suffrage. 2. Vote by ballot. 3. Equal electoral
districts. 4. Annual Parliaments. 5. Abolition of property
qualification for Members of Parliament. 6. Payment of Members. This
programme, when promulgated, was enthusiastically received throughout
the country, immense meetings being held in various places in its
support. In Birmingham, meetings were held every Monday evening on
Holloway Head, then an open space. On the 13th of August, 1838, there
was a “monster demonstration” here, and it was computed
that 100,000 persons were present. A petition in favour of the
charter was adopted, and in a few days received nearly 95,000
signatures. The former political leaders—G.F. Muntz, George
Edmonds, and Clutton Salt—became all at once exceedingly
unpopular, as they declined to join in the agitation. Torchlight
meetings were held almost nightly in various parts of the country,
and a Government proclamation was issued prohibiting them. Some of
the leaders of the movement were arrested. There was evidently some
central organisation at work, for a curious system of annoyance was
simultaneously adopted. In all parts of the country the Chartists, in
large and well-organised bodies, went, Sunday after Sunday, as soon
as the doors were opened, and took possession of all the seats in the
churches, thus shutting out the regular congregations. I was present
at a proceeding of this kind at Cheltenham. I was staying at
“The Fleece,” and on a Saturday evening was told by the
landlord that if I wished to go to church the following morning, I
had better be early, as the Chartists were expected there, and the
hotel pew might be full. Dr. Close, the present Dean of Carlisle, was
then the rector, and was a very popular preacher. I had long wished
to hear him, and accordingly went to the church, with some other
hotel guests. Soon after the bells had begun to chime, several
hundreds of men filed in and took possession of every vacant seat and
space. The aisles were so occupied that no one could pass, and there
were probably not thirty of the regular worshippers there. There was
not a female in the church. The men were very quiet, orderly, and
well-behaved, and joined in the responses in a proper manner. The
prayers over, Mr. Close ascended the pulpit, and took for a text, 1
Sam. xii., 23: “God forbid that I should sin against the
Lord in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and
the right way.” The eloquent rector was quite equal to the
occasion; he gave them a thoroughly good dressing, and his extempore
sermon lasted for two hours and a half! I watched, during the sermon,
the impatient glances of some of the men; but they stayed the sermon
out, and went away, hungrier certainly, if not wiser, than when they
came.

All through the winter of 1838 there was much excitement in the
country. Many meetings were held, at which Feargus O’Connor
distinctly advised his hearers that they had a legitimate right to
resort to force to obtain their demands. Birmingham, however,
remained tolerably quiet until the beginning of April, 1839. On the
1st of that month, and again on the 3rd, large meetings were held, at
which Feargus O’Connor, a Dr. John Taylor, “delegates”
named Bassey, Donaldson, and Brown, made violent and inflammatory
speeches. Meetings more or less numerously attended were held almost
nightly. Upon the representation of the shopkeepers that their
business was greatly hindered, the Mayor and magistrates, on the 10th
of May, issued a notice forbidding the holding of the meetings. Of
the twelve gentlemen whose signatures were attached to this notice,
only two survive—Dr. Birt Davies and Mr. P.H. Muntz.

On the 13th of May, a number of delegates from various parts of
the country, calling themselves “The National Convention,”
assembled in Birmingham. Their avowed object was to frighten
Parliament into submission to their demands. They recommended a run
for gold upon the savings banks, an entire abstinence from excisable
articles, and universal cessation from work. Their proceedings at
this conference added fuel to the fire, and the people became more
audacious. Threats were now openly uttered nightly, and people began
to be alarmed, particularly as it was rumoured that a general rising
in the Black Country had been arranged for a certain day. Hundreds of
pikes, it was said, were already forged, and specimens were freely
exhibited of formidable weapons known to military men by the name of
“Caltrop” or “Calthorp,” intended to impede the
passage of cavalry. They consisted of four spikes of pointed iron,
about four inches long, radiating from a common centre in such a
manner that, however thrown, one spike would be uppermost. Like the
three-legged symbol of the Isle of Man, their motto might be
“Quoqunque jeceris stabit.” There was a perfect
reign of terror, and people were afraid to venture out after
nightfall. On Friday, the 29th of June, the Mayor, Mr. William
Scholefield, met the mob, and in a short and friendly speech tried to
induce them to disperse, promising them, if they would refrain from
meeting in the streets, they should have the use of the Town Hall
once a week for their meetings. This proposal was received with
shouts of derision, and the mob, by this time greatly increased in
numbers, marched noisily through New Street, Colmore Bow, Bull
Street, and High Street, to the Bull Ring. On the following Monday,
July 1st, there was a large crowd in the Bull Ring, where Mr. Feargus
O’Connor addressed them, and advised an adjournment to Gosta
Green, to which place they accordingly marched, and O’Connor made
a violent speech. In the meantime the troops were ordered out, and a
large body of pensioners, fully armed, were marched into the Bull
Ring. Finding no one there, the Mayor ordered the troops back to the
barracks, and the pensioners were dismissed. After the meeting at
Gosta Green was over, the people marched with tremendous cheering
back to the Bull Ring. They met again on Tuesday and Wednesday
evenings, but no mischief, beyond a few broken windows, was done. On
Thursday evening, about eight o’clock, the mob was in great force
in the accustomed spot, with flags, banners, and other insignia
freely displayed. Suddenly, without a word of notice, a large body of
London police, which had just arrived by train, came out of Moor
Street and rushed directly at the mob. They were met by groans and
threats, and a terrible fight at once commenced. The police with
their staves fought their way to the standard bearers and demolished
the flags; others laid on, right and left, with great fury. In a
short time the Bull Ring was nearly cleared, but the people rallied,
and, arming themselves with various improvised weapons, returned to
the attack. The police were outnumbered, surrounded, and rendered
powerless. Some were stoned, others knocked down and frightfully
kicked; some were beaten badly about the head, and some were stabbed.
No doubt many of them would have been killed, but just at this time
Dr. Booth, a magistrate, arrived on the spot, accompanied by a troop
of the 4th Dragoons, and a company of the Rifle Brigade. The Riot Act
was read, and the military occupied the Bull Ring. The wounded police
were rescued and carried to the Public Office, where Mr. Richards and
some other surgeons were soon in attendance, and dressed their
wounds. Seven had to be taken to the hospital. One was found to have
been stabbed in the abdomen, and another in the groin, in a most
dangerous manner. The troops, and such of the police as were able,
continued to patrol the Bull Ring, and they succeeded in arresting
about a dozen of the rioters, who were found to be armed with deadly
weapons, and their pockets filled with large stones. The mob
continued to increase until about eleven o’clock, when they
suddenly started off for Holloway Head, where they pulled down about
twenty yards of the railing of St. Thomas’s Church, arming
themselves with the iron bars. They then proceeded to “The
Golden Lion,” in Aston Street, where the “convention”
held its meetings. Dr. Taylor addressed them, and upon his advice
they separated and went home. Taylor was arrested at his lodgings the
same night, and was brought before the magistrates about one
o’clock in the morning, when he was ordered to find bail, himself
in £500, and two sureties of £250 each.

On the following morning, by nine o’clock, the rioters again
met at Holloway Head. Mr. Alston, with a body of Dragoons,
immediately went there, and the Riot Act was again read. The mob did
not disperse; the soldiers charged them, and one fellow was felled to
the ground by a sabre cut on the head from one of the soldiers.
During the whole of this day the shops in High Street and the Bull
King remained entirely closed. The magistrates and military patrolled
the town, and were pelted with stones, but nothing very serious
occurred, and for a few days afterwards the town was comparatively
quiet.

On Friday, the 12th of July, the House of Commons was asked by Mr.
Thomas Attwood to take into consideration the prayer of a monster
petition, which, on behalf of the Chartists, he had presented on June
14th. This petition asked the House, in not very respectful terms, to
pass an Act, whereby the six points of the Charter might become law.
It was signed by 1,280,000 persons. A long debate ensued, and Mr.
Attwood’s proposition was negatived.

When the news arrived, on Saturday, the Chartists were furious,
and a large and noisy meeting was held at Holloway Head in the
evening, but no active disturbance took place either on that or the
following day.

On Monday, the 15th, some of the leaders who had been arrested
were brought before the magistrates at the Public Office. A Carlisle
man, named Harvey, and two others named Lovett and Collins, were
committed for trial by a very full Bench, there having been present
the Mayor, Messrs. Thomas Clark, W. Chance, C. Shaw, P.H. Muntz, S.
Beale, and J. Walker. The crowd, which had assembled in Moor Street
and the Bull Ring, upon hearing the result, quietly dispersed, and
for a few hours the town appeared to be in a perfectly tranquil
condition. The soldiers retired to the barracks; the police remained
at the Public Office, with instructions from the magistrates not to
act without direct magisterial orders. The Mayor went to dinner, and
the magistrates, without exception, left the Public Office, and went
home.

Unfortunately, this was only the lull before the coming storm, for
that night was such as few can remember now without a shudder.

About two hours after the magistrates had left the Public Office,
the Bull Ring was very full, but nearly all who were there seemed
present from motives of curiosity only. They were so orderly that no
attempt was made to disperse them. The crowd became so dense that the
shops were closed in apprehension that the windows might be
accidentally broken by the pressure. About eight o’clock,
however, a cry was raised, and an organised gang, many hundreds in
number, armed with bludgeons, bars of iron, and other formidable
weapons, came marching up Digbeth. They turned down Moor Street, and
without any parley, made an attack upon the Public Office,
demolishing in a few seconds every window in the front of the
building. There was a strong body of police inside, but they were
powerless, for they had received definite orders not to interfere
without fresh magisterial directions, and all the magistrates had
left. The mob soon started back towards the Bull Ring, where they
fell upon a respectable solicitor named Bond, who happened to be
passing, and him they nearly killed. He was removed in an insensible
and very dangerous condition to the George Hotel. Meanwhile, an
attack was made with iron bars, used battering-ram fashion, upon the
doors of many of the shops, the rioters “prodding” them
with all their might. Messrs. Bourne’s shop, at the corner of
Moor Street, was the first to give way, and the men quickly gained
admittance. A large number of loaves of sugar were piled near the
windows, and these were passed rapidly into the street. There, being
dashed violently to the ground, and broken to pieces, they formed
dangerous missiles, with which the crowd soon demolished all the
windows within reach. As the crowd of rioters increased, their
weapons became too few, and the iron railings of St. Martin’s
Church were pulled down. With these very dangerous instruments they
wrenched from Nelson’s monument the massive bars of iron which
surrounded it. These being long, and of great strength, proved to be
formidable levers, with which to force doors and shutters. In a short
time the entire area of the Bull Ring was filled with a mob of
yelling demons, whose shouts and cries, mixed with the sounds of
crashing timber, and the sharp rattle of breaking glass, made a
hideous din. It was getting dark, and a cry was raised for a bonfire
to give light. In a few moments the shop of Mr. Leggatt, an
upholsterer, was broken open, and his stock of bedding, chairs,
tables, and other valuable furniture was brought into the roadway,
broken up, and fired, amid the cheers of the excited people. One man,
more adventurous than the rest, deliberately carried a flaming brand
into the shop and set the premises on fire. The sight of the flames
seemed to rouse the mob to ungovernable fury. Snatching burning wood
from the fire, they hurled it through the broken, windows in all
directions. Rushing in to Bourne’s shop, they rolled out tea
canisters by dozens, which they emptied into the gutters, and then
smashed to pieces. They then deliberately collected the shop paper
around a pile of tea chests, and fired it, the shop soon filling with
flames. The mob, now vastly increased in numbers, broke up into
separate parties, one of which, with great violence, attacked the
premises of Mr. Arnold, a pork butcher. He, however, with prudent
forethought, had collected his workmen in the shop and armed them
with heavy cleavers and other formidable implements of his trade, and
so defended he kept the mob at bay, and eventually repulsed them. The
shop of Mr. Martin, a jeweller, whose window was filled with watches,
rings, and other costly articles, had its front completely battered
in, and the valuable stock literally scattered in the road and
scrambled for. Mr. Morris Banks, the druggist, had his stock of
bottles of drugs smashed to atoms. A curious circumstance saved these
premises from being set on fire. The mob had collected combustibles
for the purpose, but in breaking indiscriminately the bottles in the
shop, they had inadvertently smashed some containing a quantity of
very powerful acids. These, escaping and mixing with other drugs,
caused such a suffocating vapour that the miscreants were driven from
the shop half choked. Other tradesmen whose places were badly damaged
were Mr. Arthur Dakin, grocer; Mr. Savage, cheesemonger; Mrs.
Brinton, pork butcher; Mr. Allen, baker; Mr. Heath, cheesemonger; Mr.
Scudamore, druggist; and Mr. Horton, silversmith. Mr. Gooden, of the
Nelson Hotel, which then stood upon the site of the present Fish
Market, was a great sufferer, the whole of the windows of the hotel
being smashed in, and some costly mirrors and other valuable
furniture completely destroyed. The large premises of William Dakin
and Co.—now occupied by Innes, Smith, and Co., but then a
grocer’s shop—were hotly besieged for nearly half an hour,
but were, as will be fully described a little further on, most
bravely and successfully defended. At nine o’clock many of the
shops were on fire, and heaps of combustibles from others were thrown
upon the blazing pile in the streets. The shops were freely entered
and robbed. Women and children were seen running away laden with
costly goods of all kinds, and men urged each other on, shouting with
fury until they were hoarse.

The work of destruction went on undisturbed until nearly ten
o’clock, when suddenly, from the direction of High Street, a
troop of Dragoons, with swords drawn, came at full gallop, and rushed
into the crowd, slashing right and left with their sabres. They had
been ordered to strike with the flats only, but some stones were
thrown at them, after which some of the rioters got some very ugly
cuts. Simultaneously the mob was taken in flank by a body of a
hundred police, which came, headed by Mr. Joseph Walker and Mr.
George Whateley, from Moor Street. Such of the mob as could get away
fled in terror, but so many arrests were made that the prison in Moor
Street was soon filled. In less than a quarter of an hour not one of
the rioters was to be seen, and the peaceful inhabitants came
trembling into the streets, to look upon the wreck, and to convey
their women and children to some safer locality. Some ladies had to
be brought from upper storeys by ladders. Tradesmen took their
account books away, for fear of further troubles. The fire engines
were brought, and vigorous help was soon obtained to work them. By
one o’clock in the morning the fires were all extinct, but at
that time all that remained of the premises of Messrs. Bourne and Mr.
Leggatt were the black and crumbling walls.

I have mentioned the attack upon the premises of W. Dakin and Co.
My own brother was manager there, and was in the very thick of the
fray. From him at the time, I had a very graphic account of the
affair, and in order that this little sketch might be as accurate as
possible, I made a special visit to his house, nearly 150 miles from
Birmingham, to refresh my memory; and the following account of the
attack upon Dakin’s, and the robbery at Horton’s, is in his
own language:

The magistrates, having been all summoned, remained in
consultation at the Public Office during the whole night, and most
energetic measures were determined upon. Barriers, guarded by
soldiers, were placed at the entrances to all the streets leading to
the centre of the town. It was resolved that no more than three
persons should be allowed to collect at any point. To enforce these
orders the whole of the special constables—2,000 in
number—who were already sworn in, were called into active
service. Arrangements were made to increase the number to 5,000.
Messengers were sent to the authorities of the three adjoining
counties, requesting the immediate assistance of the Yeomanry
Cavalry. An “eighteen-pounder” piece of field artillery was
placed on the summit of the hill in High Street, and another on
Holloway Head. The suburbs of the town were to be patrolled
continuously by the Dragoons, and the centre was to be under the
protection of the special constables. A guard of the Rifle Brigade
was to be stationed at the Public Office, and the remainder was to be
kept in reserve for emergencies. The sittings of the magistrates were
to be continuous day and night, and other precautionary measures were
resolved upon.

The town, the next morning, presented a most dismal appearance.
The shops in all the principal streets were closed, and remained so
during the day. Prom Moor Street to about a hundred yards beyond New
Street there was scarcely a pane of glass left entire. Most of the
doors and shutters were literally in splinters; valuable goods, in
some of the shops from which the owners had fled in terror the night
before, were lying in the smashed windows, entirely unprotected, and
of the still smoking and steaming ruins of the premises of Messrs.
Bourne and Mr. Leggatt nothing was left standing but the walls. The
west side of the Bull Ring, from “The Spread Eagle” to New
Street, was in a similar condition, but there had been no fires
there. The whole area of the Bull Ring was strewn with a strange
medley of miscellaneous items. Some one of the specials or police who
had been on guard there during the night, in a spirit of grim humour,
had stuck up a half-burnt arm-chair, in which they had placed, in
imitation of a sitting figure, one of the large circular
tea-canisters from Messrs. Bourne’s, which, in its battered
condition, bore some rough resemblance to a human form. They had
clothed it with some half-burned bed ticking; had placed a shattered
hat upon its summit; and, having made a small hole in that part which
had been the neck, had stuck therein a long clay pipe. It had a very
droll appearance. Feathers were flying about, and fragments of
half-consumed furniture were jumbled up with smashed tea-chests and
broken scales. The ground was black with tea, soaked by the water
from the fire-engines. The railings of St. Martin’s Church were
in ruins, and Nelson’s Statue was denuded of a great portion of
its handsome iron fence. The whole place looked as though it had
undergone a lengthened siege, and had been sacked by an infuriated
soldiery.

There is good reason for thinking that the riots were
premeditated, and had been arranged by some mysterious, secret
conclave in London or elsewhere. On this morning—the day
after the riots, be it remembered—a letter was received
by Messrs. Bourne, bearing the London post-mark of the day
before, of which the following is a copy, in matter and in
arrangement:

During the day preventive arrangements were actively put in
practice. Captain Moorson, R.N., who was in command of the special
constables, organised a system by which the several detachments into
which he had divided them could be concentrated, at short notice,
upon any given spot. Guardrooms were engaged at the principal inns,
which were open day and night, and the specials were on duty for
specified portions of each day. Each of the detachments had an
officer to control their movements. Provisions of a simple nature
were amply provided, and every arrangement was made for the comfort
of the specials while on duty. In a day or two troops of Yeomanry
marched in, and were quartered in the houses of the residents in the
suburbs. Meanwhile, great indignation was openly expressed at what
was thought the neglect of proper precaution on the part of the
magistracy; and on Tuesday—the day after the fires—a
meeting was held, at which the complaints were loudly and angrily
discussed. A memorial was drawn up, numerously signed, and forwarded
by the same night’s post to Lord John Russell, who was then Home
Secretary. It brought heavy charges of neglect against the local
rulers, and finished as follows: “Feeling that the Mayor and
Magistrates have been guilty of gross dereliction of duty, we request
your Lordship to institute proceedings to bring them to trial for
their misconduct, and, in the meantime, to suspend them from any
further control or interference.”

On the Wednesday morning, the London papers had long and special
reports of Monday night’s proceedings, and The Times gave
publicity to two statements which I cannot find corroborated in any
way. It stated that on Monday morning the town was placarded with an
announcement that Mr. Thomas Attwood was expected in the town during
the day, and would address the people; and it mentioned that about
the middle of the day a man with a bell was sent round to announce
that a meeting would be held upon Holloway Head at half-past six that
evening, and that Mr. Attwood would be there. So far as I can
discover by diligent search, neither of these statements was correct.
They were, however, made the text of violent attacks, in the Press
and in both Houses of Parliament, upon the magistrates, and upon Lord
Melbourne’s Ministry, which had appointed them. The virulence of
these attacks was very remarkable even in those days, and was almost
beyond what the present generation will believe possible. One of the
speakers in the House of Lords did not hesitate to say that he held
the “Palace favourites” liable to the country for having
knowingly appointed violent demagogues and known disloyal persons to
the magisterial bench. Lord Melbourne, in a long and eloquent speech,
rebutted the charge, and read to the House a long and very able
letter from Mr. William Scholefield, the Mayor, giving a full and
fair history of the whole matter. Government, however, consented to
institute a full inquiry; and Mr. Maule, the Solicitor to the
Treasury, was sent down, and held sittings at the Hen and Chickens
Hotel. His inquiries, however, were only preliminary to the full and
exhaustive investigation made afterwards by Mr. Dundas, who, in his
report to Parliament (presented October 26, 1840), fully absolved the
Mayor and magistrates from blame.

Upwards of sixty of the rioters having been apprehended, the
magistrates had a busy week of it, and large numbers of prisoners
were committed for trial. A Special Assize was opened at Warwick, on
August 2nd, before Mr. Justice Littledale. Three men, named
respectively, Howell, Roberts, and Jones, and a boy named Aston, were
found guilty of arson, and condemned to death. The jury recommended
them to mercy, but the judge told them, that as to the men, he could
not support their appeal. The Town Council, however, petitioned for
remission, and a separate petition of the inhabitants, the first
signature to which was that of Messrs. Bourne, asked for mercy to the
misguided convicts. They were ultimately transported for life. Of the
many others who were found guilty, the majority were released upon
their own recognisances, and others, to the number of about a dozen,
were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment with hard labour.

There remained the bill to be paid. Claims to the amount of
£16,283 were sent in; and after a long and searching investigation of
each claim separately, the sum of £15,027 was awarded to the
sufferers. Rates to the amount of £20,000, for compensation, and to
cover expenses, were, made in the Hundred of Hemlingford, and with
the payment of these sums the Birmingham Riots of 1839 became matter
of history only.

It is a very extraordinary circumstance that to this time no one,
so far as I am aware, has observed a remarkable coincidence. On the
15th of July, 1791, the houses of Mr. John Ryland, at Easy Hill, Mr.
John Taylor, Bordesley Hall, and William Hutton, the historian, in
High Street, were destroyed by the “Church and King”
rioters. On the 15th of July, in the year 1839, forty-eight years
afterwards—to a day—the Chartist rioters were rampant in
the Bull Ring.

After 1839, the Birmingham Chartists gave very little trouble.
There were occasional meetings sympathising with the movement, in
other places, as at Newport in the following November, and in the
Potteries in 1842. These meetings, however, were not largely
attended, and there was none of the former excitement. On the 11th of
April, 1848, the date of Feargus O’Connor’s wretched
fiasco in London, they played their last feeble game. They
held a meeting in the People’s Hall, and I there heard some
violent revolutionary speeches. There was, however, no response to
their excited appeals, and from that day Chartism was practically
extinct.

It is not, perhaps, generally known that the principles embodied
in the famous “Charter” were not new. In 1780 Charles James
Fox, the great Whig leader, declared himself in favour of the
identical six points which were, so long after, embodied in the
programme of the Chartists. The Duke of Richmond of that time brought
into the House of Lords, in the same year, a Bill to give universal
suffrage and annual parliaments; and afterwards, Mr. Erskine, Sir
James Macintosh, and Earl Grey advocated similar views.

Several great causes were at work which tended to throw Chartism
into obscurity. The repeal of the Corn Laws had given the people
cheap bread, and the advent of free trade gave abundant work and good
wages. With increased bodily comfort came contentment of mind. The
greater freedom of intercourse, caused by railway travelling, showed
the lower classes that the governing bodies were not so badly
disposed towards them as they had been taught to believe. On the
other hand, the upper classes acquired a higher sense of duty to
their humbler neighbours. All grades came to understand each other
better, and with increased knowledge came better feelings and a more
friendly spirit.

But another cause has perhaps had a deeper and more lasting
effect. The abolition of the stamp duty upon newspapers, and the
consequent advent of a cheap press, enabling every working man to see
his daily paper, and to know what is going on, has carried into
effect, silently, a revolution, complete and thorough, in English
thought and manners, in relation to political matters. Every man now
sees that, differing as Englishmen do, and always will, upon some
matters, they all agree as to one object. That object is, “the
greatest good to the greatest number” of their fellow
countrymen. The pride of all Englishmen now, is in the glory that
their great country has achieved in peaceful directions. Their ardent
desire and prayer is, that the benefits they have secured for
themselves in the last few and fruitful years of judicious
legislation, may descend with ever-widening beneficent influences to
succeeding generations.

GOSSIP ABOUT ROYALTY.

As I sit down to write, on the stormy evening of this twenty-ninth
day of January, 1877, I bethink me that it is fifty-seven years
to-day since death terminated a life and a reign alike unexampled for
their length in the history of English monarchs. King George the
Third died on the 29th of January, 1820.

I remember the day perfectly. I, a child not quite five years old,
was sitting with my parents in a room, the windows of which looked
upon the street of a pleasant town in Kent. Snow was falling fast,
and lay thick upon the ground outside. The weather was intensely
cold, and we crowded round the fire for warmth and comfort. Suddenly
there was a crash: a snowball fell in our midst, and the fragments of
a windowpane were scattered in the room. My father rose in anger to
go to catch the culprit who had thrown. He was unsuccessful; but in
his short visit to the street he had learned some news, for when he
returned he told us that the King was dead.

The King dead? I had heard of “the King” of course, but
what it was I had never thought of. To me it represented
strength and omnipotent protection, but it was an abstraction only;
an undefined something of awful portent; and that it could die
was very mysterious, and set me wondering what we should do now.

My father explained at once, that the King was only a man; that
his sons and daughters, even, were old people now; that one of the
sons died only a week ago, and wasn’t buried yet; and that this
son had left, fatherless, a little baby girl, not much over six
months old, who, if she should live, might one day become the Queen
of England. Such is my earliest recollection in connection with the
illustrious lady who still, happily, sits upon the English
throne.

I am an old man now, but I remember that being without a King made
me feel very uncomfortable then, particularly at night. A few days
afterwards, however, there was a sound of trumpets in the street, and
a number of elderly gentlemen, in very queer dresses and curious
hats, stopped opposite our window, where one of them, standing upon a
stool, read something from a paper. When he had finished, the
trumpets sounded again, and I knew there was a new King, for all the
people shouted, “God save the King.” Then, for the first
time since the fatal day, I felt re-assured; and I went to bed that
night free from the dread which had been instilled into my mind by a
very judicious nurse, that Bonaparte might come in the dark; steal me
and my little brother; and cook us for his Sunday dinner.

Soon after this I had frequent opportunities of seeing a veritable
Queen. The unfortunate Caroline, wife of George the Fourth, lived at
Blackheath, and drove occasionally in an open carriage through the
streets of Greenwich, and there I saw her. I have a perfect
recollection of her face and figure. A very common-looking red face
it was, and a very “dowdy” figure. She wore always an
enormous flat-brimmed “Leghorn” hat, trimmed with ostrich
feathers. The remainder of her dress was gaudy, and, if one may say
so of a Queen’s attire, rather vulgar. She was, however, very
popular in the neighbourhood; and when, at her great trial, she was
acquitted, the town of Greenwich was brilliantly illuminated. I
remember, too, how she, having been snubbed at the coronation of her
husband, died of grief only three weeks afterwards, and how in that
very month of August, 1821, which saw her death, her illustrious
spouse set forth, amid much pomp and gaiety, on a festive journey to
Ireland.

In October, 1822, I saw the King himself, on his way to embark at
Greenwich, for Scotland. I remember a double line of soldiers along
the road, several very fussy horsemen riding to and fro, a troop of
Cavalry, and a carriage, in which sat a very fat elderly man, with a
pale flabby face, without beard or whisker, but fringed with the
curls of a large brown wig. That is all I remember, or care to
remember, of George the Fourth.

A little more than ten years after that cold January day of which
I wrote, this King lay, dying, at Windsor. It was early summer, and
I, a boy of fifteen, was one of a group of people who stood in front
of a bookseller’s shop at Guildford, reading a copy of a bulletin
which had just arrived: “His Majesty has passed a restless
night; the symptoms have not abated.” As I turned away, I
overheard a woman say, “The King’ll be sure to die; he’s
got the symptoms, and I never knew anybody get over
that.” All at once the bells struck up a merry peal, and
the Union Jack floated from the “Upper Church” tower. A
crowd assembled round the “White Hart,” and a dozen
post-horses, ready harnessed, stood waiting in the street. Presently
there was a sound of hoofs and wheels, and three carriages dashed
rapidly up the hill, to the front of the hotel. The people waved
their hats and shouted. The glass window of one of the carriages was
let down, and a child’s face and uncovered head appeared in the
opening: it was the Princess Victoria, then eleven years old. A mass
of golden curls; a fair round face, with the full apple-shaped cheeks
peculiar to the Guelphs; a pair of bright blue eyes; an upper lip too
short to cover the front teeth; a pleasant smile; and a graceful
bending of the tiny figure as the carriage passed away, left
favourable impressions of the future Queen. She had been summoned
from the Isle of Wight to be near her uncle; at whose death, a few
days after—amid a storm of thunder and lightning, such as had
not been known since the night when Cromwell died—his brother,
the Duke of Clarence, was proclaimed King, and she became the Heiress
Presumptive to the Crown of England.

William the Fourth, with his good Queen, Adelaide, I saw once, as
they rode in the great State carriage to the Handel commemoration, at
Westminster Abbey, in June, 1834. The King had a good-tempered,
simple-looking face, without much sign of intellectual power; the
Queen’s face was of Grecian shape, and had a thoughtful and
intelligent expression. The face and features were good in form, but
the complexion was highly coloured, and looked as though affected by
some kind of inflammation. They were a quiet, unpretending,
well-meaning, and moral couple. They purified the tainted precincts
of the Court, and thus rendered it fit for the abode of the youthful
and gracious lady who succeeded them.

The next time I saw the Princess Victoria was in 1836. It was on a
day which, but for the firmness of Sir John Conroy, who acted as
Equerry, might have been her last. At any rate, but for him, she
would have been in great peril. I was standing in the High Street of
Rochester; a fearful hurricane was blowing from the west; chimney
pots, tiles, and slates were flying in all directions, and the
roaring of the wind, as it hurtled through the elms in the Deanery
Garden, was loud as thunder. A strip of lead, two feet wide, the
covering of a projecting shop window, rolled up like a ribbon, and
fell into the street. At that moment three carriages, containing the
Duchess of Kent, the Princess, and their suite, came by. They were on
their way from Ramsgate to London, and a change of horses stood ready
at the Bull Inn. Arriving there, a gentleman of the city approached
Sir John, and advised him not to proceed further, telling him that if
they attempted to cross Rochester bridge, the carriages might be
upset by the force of the wind. The Royal travellers alighted, and
Sir John proceeded to inspect the bridge. On his return, he advised
the Duchess to stay, as the storm was raging fearfully, and the
danger was imminent. The Princess, with characteristic courage,
wanted to go on, but Sir John was firm, and he prevailed, for the
journey onwards was postponed. In an hour from that time, nearly the
whole of one parapet was lying in rains upon the footway of the
bridge, and the other had been blown bodily into the river
underneath. The Royal party had to stay all night, and the inn at
which they slept, henceforth took the additional title of
“Victoria Hotel,” which it still retains. The journey was
resumed next day, the horses being carefully led by grooms over the
roadway of the wall-less bridge.

A few months after this, the Princess, at Kensington Palace, was
called from her bed, in the twilight of a summer morning, and was
greeted by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister, Lord
Melbourne, as Queen of England. Her first act, as Queen, was to
write, and despatch by a special messenger to Windsor, an
affectionate letter to her widowed aunt, the Queen Dowager. From that
time forward her daily doings have been duly chronicled, and need not
be dwelt upon here; but a few sketches, incidental to her own and the
Prince Consort’s visits to Birmingham, will perhaps be
interesting.

When the Princess Victoria was a mere child, her excellent mother,
in the course of a somewhat lengthy tour, brought her to Birmingham,
to see some of the principal manufactories. Arrangements were made
for their stay at Willday’s Hotel, now the Eye Hospital, in
Temple Row. On the day they were expected, a guard of honour,
consisting of a company of Infantry, was in attendance, and, pending
the Royal arrival, waited near the Rectory, in St. Philip’s
Churchyard. By a very singular chance, the officer then in command
became, years after, the Rector of St. Philip’s, and the occupier
of the house before which he waited that day. He is now the Dean of
Worcester, the Hon. and Rev. Grantham M. Yorke.

As the hour of the arrival of the Royal visitors approached, the
troops drew up in front of the hotel, and they presented arms as the
carriage arrived. A great crowd had assembled. There were no police
then, and order was badly kept. As the Princess alighted, a lady,
standing near the door of the hotel (Mrs. Fairfax, who recently lived
in Great Charles Street), moved by a sudden impulse, rushed forward,
caught the Princess in her arms, and kissed her. The Duchess was
annoyed, and the attendants, too, were very angry; but the crowd,
recognising in the act only the “one touch of nature” that
“makes the whole world kin,” gave the adventurous lady a
round of hearty cheering.

It was many years after her accession that the Queen revisited the
town, but the Prince Consort came frequently. His first visit was in
1843. Her Majesty and himself were the guests of Sir Robert Peel at
Drayton Manor, and the Prince took the opportunity to come to
Birmingham, to inspect some of the manufactories. There is reason to
believe that the impressions he received that day were lasting, and
that he ever afterwards took a very warm interest in the town and its
various industries. Mr. Thomas Weston was Mayor at the time. He was a
prosperous and very worthy man, possessing a large fund of common
sense, but knowing little of courtly manners. Of course, as Chief
Magistrate, he accompanied the Prince through the town, and joined
him at the luncheon provided at the Grammar School, by the Rev. J.P.
Lee, the Head Master. After luncheon, the Prince, his Equerry, and
the Lord-Lieutenant, took their seats in the carriage, but the Mayor
was missing. Anxious looks were exchanged, and as minute after minute
went by, the attendants became impatient. The Prince stood up in the
carriage, and put on an overcoat. Still the Mayor didn’t come.
At length it oozed out that he had lost his hat. A dozen hats were
offered at once on loan; but the Mayor’s head was a large one,
and it was long before a hat sufficiently capacious could be found.
It came at last, however, and the Mayor, in a borrowed hat, came
rushing out, much disconcerted, and full, evidently, of apologies,
which the Prince, with much good nature, laughingly accepted.

The next time he came to Birmingham was in 1849. At this time the
area from Broad Street to Cambridge Street in one direction, and in
the other from King Edward’s to King Alfred’s Place, now
covered with buildings, was enclosed on all sides by a brick wall
some ten feet high. Inside this wall there was a belt of trees all
round, and a few “ancestral elms” were dotted here and
there within the enclosure. About a hundred yards from the Broad
Street wall stood a square house of red brick, built in the style of
architecture current in the days of Queen Anne. It was known as
Bingley House. Not far from the spot where the house now occupied by
Mr. Mann, the surgeon, stands, was a carriage gate, leading to the
dwelling. The grounds were laid out in park-like fashion, and so late
as 1847 were abundantly tenanted by wild rabbits. The house had been
occupied for a generation or two by the Lloyd family, but about 1846
or 1847 they removed, and it was understood that the ground was
shortly to be devoted to building purposes.

In 1848, an exhibition of Birmingham manufactures was projected:
the idea, I believe, originating with the late Mr. Aitken. It was
received with considerable favour, and a strong committee being
formed, a plan was soon matured for carrying it into effect.
Negotiations resulted in the tenancy, for the purpose, of Bingley
House and grounds. Very soon a substantial timber building was seen
rising within the wall, near the corner of King Alfred’s Place.
In a few weeks it was covered in; a broad corridor connected it with
the old mansion; and early in 1849 an exhibition, most interesting in
its details, and artistic in its arrangement, was opened. The larger
articles were displayed in the temporary building; flat exhibits
covered the walls of the corridor; and smaller matters were arranged,
with great judgment, in the old-fashioned rooms of the house
itself.

The exhibition opened with great éclat. The buildings were
thronged from morning till night with gratified crowds. Special
reporters from the daily newspapers came down from London, and sent
long and special reports for publication. The veteran magazine, now
called The Art Journal, but then known as The Art
Union, gave interesting accounts, with engravings of many of the
articles on view, and the whole matter was a great and signal
success.

One morning the secretary received an intimation that Prince
Albert was coming on the following day. Preparations on a suitable
scale were at once commenced for his reception, and the principal
exhibitors were invited to be in attendance. At the time appointed,
the Prince, who had made a special journey from London for the
purpose, was met by the officials at the entrance, and conducted
systematically through the place. He made a most minute and careful
examination of the whole of the contents, took copious memoranda, and
chatted familiarly with everybody. One remark I heard him make struck
me as significant of the practical, observant character of his mind.
Cocoa-fibre matting was then comparatively unknown; the stone steps
of the old hall had been carpeted with this new material; observing
this, as he walked up the steps, the Prince turned to Mr. Aitken and
said, “Capital invention this; the only material I know of that
wears better in a damp place than when dry.”

As he left the place on his return to London, he expressed, in
cordial terms, his thanks for the attention shown him, and said he
had “been very much pleased; quite delighted, in fact,” and
so ended a visit which eventually led to the Great Exhibition of
1851, the Royal Commission for the establishment of which was
gazetted January 3, 1850.

The Prince came again, to lay the foundation stone of the Midland
Institute buildings. On that occasion he accepted an invitation to a
public luncheon in the Town Hall, and it was here that he delivered
the celebrated speech which placed him at once in the foremost rank
of philosophic thinkers. He was much pleased at his cordial reception
on this occasion, and it is known that it had much to do in
overcoming the avowed reluctance of the Queen to visit Birmingham,
and was mainly instrumental in inducing her to consent to open Aston
Hall and Park.

The 15th of June, 1858, was eagerly looked forward to, for on that
day the Queen was coming. Taking a lesson from continental practice,
it was wisely resolved that individual attempts at decoration should
be discouraged, and that the inhabitants of each street should
combine for effective artistic arrangements. For the first time, I
believe, in England, Venetian masts were a principal feature, where
possible. Poles by hundreds, and flags by thousands, were sought in
all directions. The Town Hall was placed in the hands of skilful
decorators. The interior was, as yet, a mystery; but the pediment
fronting Paradise street was fitted with an enormous canvas-covered
frame, upon which was emblazoned, in gorgeous, but proper heraldic
style, the Royal Arms of England. All along the line of route through
the town, and on the road to Aston, rose hundreds of galleries for
spectators. Every one was busy in preparation, and nothing was
omitted to make the scene as gay as possible.

The morning of the day was fine and intensely hot. Each street had
its own style of ornamentation, but the number of separate short
lengths of the route, gave sufficient variety to avoid monotony. Bull
Street, as seen from the bottom, seemed like a fairy scene from a
theatre; all looked gay and pleasant to the artistic eye. The Town
Hall had been transformed into a gorgeous Throne Room, and was
crowded with the élite of the neighbourhood. The Queen, as
usual, was punctual, and took her seat under a regal canopy. A short
reception was held. The Mayor knelt, and rose up a Knight. The mover
and seconder of the address from the Corporation kissed hands. Poor
Alderman Horatio Cutler, in his confusion at finding himself in so
august a presence, forgot the customary bending of the knee. In vain
Lords in Waiting touched the back of his leg with their wands to
remind him. He had lost his presence of mind, and retired in utter
confusion, amid a general but suppressed titter.

Then came the journey to the Park, through the long line of
decorated streets; the short ceremony at the Hall, and the luncheon.
Then the appearance in the gallery upon the roof of the glass
pavilion, where the Queen and Prince received, and acknowledged
gracefully, the plaudits of the spectators; and finally came the
announcement by Sir Francis Scott, that he had received “Her
Majesty’s gracious commands to declare, in her name, that the
Park was now open.”

At the door of departure, her Majesty, in thanking the Mayor for
the arrangements made for her comfort and convenience, was pleased to
say that she had never before been greeted with such enthusiastic
loyalty, and that the decorations had exceeded in beauty anything of
the kind she had ever seen.

I have never seen the Queen since. Her photographs, however, show
me that, although she has twenty-seven grand-children, and has been
Queen of England for more than forty years, she is still a comely
matron, with every appearance of health and vigour. Long may she
remain so! Long may she continue to be, as now, the kindly,
sympathetic, motherly head of a contented, loyal, and united
people.

BIRMINGHAM BANKS: OLD AND NEW.

At the close of the French war in 1814, the Bank of England
commenced preparations for the return to specie payments. Immediate
“tightness” in the money market was the result. Prices
fell. Trade became dull. Credit was injured. The return of peace
seemed, to the unthinking, a curse rather than a blessing. Alarming
riots were frequent, and general distress and discontent existed. The
Government, in some alarm, resolved to postpone the resumption of
cash payments until 1819.

In the meantime, the subject of the proper regulation of the
currency underwent a good deal of discussion, and in the year 1819
the Act known as “Peel’s Bill” was passed. It provided
that after 1821 the bank should be compelled to pay its notes in
bullion at the rate of £3 17s. 10-1/2d. per ounce, and that after
1823 holders of notes might demand at the bank current coin of the
realm in Exchange. The same Act abolished the legal tender of silver
for any sum beyond forty shillings.

This made matters worse. Banks became more stringent. Prices of
all commodities fell. Numbers of people were thrown out of work.
Poor’s rates increased in amount and frequency, and general
discontent prevailed. Corn and agricultural produce no longer fetched
war prices. Landlords insisted upon retaining war rents, which
farmers were unable to pay. To meet this difficulty, Parliament
passed the Corn Laws, hoping thereby to keep up prices. These new
laws produced the contrary effect. Wheat fell from 12s. to 5s. the
bushel. Rents could not be collected. Mortgages upon land could not
be redeemed, and land became practically unsaleable.

Things at length attained such a condition, that Government became
seriously alarmed, and brought into Parliament five distinct money
bills in one night. These bills were hurried through both Houses as
fast as the forms of Parliament would allow. All of them had for
their object the relaxation of the stringency of the money laws; and
one Act permitted the issue of one pound notes for ten years longer,
i.e., to 1833.

Trade immediately revived. Labour became abundant, and everyone,
high or low, in the country, felt immediate relief and benefit.
Unfortunately, with the return to prosperity came the usual unwise
rebound in public feeling. Everything became couleur de rose.
The wildest joint stock enterprises were projected. Capital, obtained
on easy terms of credit, was forced into every branch of commerce.
Trade was pushed beyond legitimate requirements. Imports of cotton,
wine, and silk increased so far beyond their usual amount, that the
rates of exchange turned against this country. The Bank of England,
in self-defence, “put on the screw.” Money invested in
distant countries, in speculative operations, was now badly wanted at
home. Suspicion arose, and confidence was shaken. Merchants, in
default of their usual help from bankers, suspended payment. Bankers
themselves, having depended upon the return of their former advances,
were in great peril. Alarm having become general, there was a
simultaneous run for gold throughout the country, with the result
that in a very short time seventy-nine banks stopped payment, of
which no fewer than fifty-nine became bankrupt. The whole kingdom was
in a frightful state of consternation. Failure followed failure in
rapid succession. The whole circulation of the country was deranged,
and at the beginning of December, 1825, the Bank of England stock of
cash amounted only to a very few thousand pounds.

Ministers were called together in haste, and Cabinet Councils were
daily held. It was decided to issue two millions sterling of
Exchequer bills, upon which the bank was authorised to issue an equal
amount of notes. The bank was also “recommended” to make
advances of a further sum of three millions, upon the security of
produce and general merchandise.

At this moment a fortunate discovery was made which did more to
allay the excitement than the measures just mentioned. The bank had
ceased to issue one pound notes six years before, and it was thought
that they had all been destroyed. Accidentally, and most opportunely,
when things were at the worst, one of the employés of the
Bank, in searching a store-room, found a case of the £1 unissued
notes, which had escaped observation at the time of the destruction.
They were at once issued to the public, by whom they were hailed with
delight, as the first “bit of blue” in the monetary sky.
Under these re-assuring circumstances the panic soon subsided, but it
left its blighting legacy of misery, ruin, diminished credit, and
general embarrassment.

The banking laws were soon after altered. The Bank of England was
induced to forego its exclusive monopoly of having more than six
proprietors, and the formation of joint stock banks consequently
became possible. A new era in banking commenced, which, modified from
time to time, has existed down to the present time.

It will be seen that the close of the war, in 1814, was the
commencement of the great and violent monetary changes I have
attempted to describe. There were then six banks in Birmingham. Two
of these are altogether extinct; the other four have merged into
existing banks. For convenience sake, I will sketch the extinct banks
first, and afterwards show the processes by which the others have
been incorporated with existing institutions.

At the period mentioned, the firm of Smith, Gray, Cooper, and Co.
had the largest banking business in the town. They carried on their
operations in the premises in Union Street now occupied by the
Corporation as offices for their gas department. This bank did a
large business with merchants and wholesale traders, and it “was
a very useful bank.” After several changes, the firm became
Gibbins, Smith, and Goode. In the great panic of 1825, one of their
customers, a merchant named Wallace, failed, owing them £70,000.
This, with other severe losses, brought them down. They failed for a
very large amount. Such, however, had been their actual stability,
that, after all their losses, and after payment of the costs of their
bankruptcy, the creditors received a dividend of nineteen shillings
and eightpence in the pound. Mr. Smith, of this firm, was a man of
great shrewdness and probity, and was greatly esteemed by his
friends. The late Mr. Thomas Upfill had, in his dining-room, an
excellent life-size portrait of Mr. Smith, taken, probably, about the
year 1820. This portrait is now in the possession of a lady at
Harborne. The face is a shrewd and observant one, and it always
struck me as having a remarkable likeness to the great James Watt,
the engineer. Of Mr. Gibbins and Mr. Goode we shall hear more as we
go on, but “Smith’s Bank” became extinct.

The firm of Galton, Galton, and James had their offices in the
tall building in Steelhouse Lane, opposite the Children’s
Hospital. They weathered the storm of 1825, but, some years later on,
Mr. James accepted the post of manager of the Birmingham Banking
Company, whereupon the remaining partners retired into private life,
and the bank was closed.

Messrs. Freer, Rotton, Lloyds, and Co. had offices in New Street,
now pulled down. They had a large number of customers, principally
among the retail traders and the smaller manufacturers. The firm
underwent several changes, being altered to Rotton, Onion, and Co.,
then Rotton and Scholefield, and finally to Rotton and Son. The
banking office, in the meantime, had been removed to the corner of
Steelhouse Lane, in Bull Street. Upon the death of the elder Mr.
Rotton, the business was transferred to the National Provincial Bank
of England, Mr. Henry Rotton becoming manager. This gentleman, whose
death only recently occurred, held this position for many years, and
was universally respected. His mental organisation was, however, too
refined and feminine to battle with the rough energy of modern
trading. The bank, under his management, was tolerably successful,
but it remained a small and somewhat insignificant concern in
comparison with others. An arrangement, satisfactory on all sides,
was at length entered into, under which he resigned his appointment.
His successor is Mr. J.L. Porter, a man of different stamp. Under his
sturdy and vigorous management the business has rapidly increased.
The premises were soon found too small. They were, shortly after he
came, pulled down, and the present magnificent banking house in
Bennetts Hill was built upon the site of its somewhat ugly and
badly-contrived predecessor.

The firm of Coates, Woolley, and Gordon occupied, in 1815, the
premises in Cherry Street now held by the Worcester City and County
Bank. The business was, at a date I cannot learn, transferred to
Moilliet, Smith, and Pearson, and this was subsequently changed to
J.L. Moilliet and Sons, who carried the business on for many years,
finally transferring it to Lloyds and Company Limited. This company
removed it to their splendid branch establishment in Ann Street. Mr.
Moilliet, the senior partner in the Cherry Street Bank, was a Swiss
by birth, and lived in Newhall Street. In a warehouse at the back of
his residence, he carried on the business of a continental merchant.
The mercantile firm became afterwards Moilliet and Gem, who removed
it to extensive premises in Charlotte Street. Here, under the firm of
E. Gem and Co., it is still carried on.

Taylor and Lloyd’s Bank was established in 1765, at the corner
of Bank Passage in Dale End. Mr. Taylor had been a very successful
manufacturer of japanned goods, and made a very large number of
snuff-boxes, then in universal use. He produced, among others, a
style which was very popular, and the demand for which became
enormous. They were of various colours and shapes, their peculiarity
consisting entirely in the ornamentation of the surface. Each had a
bright coloured ground, upon which was a very extraordinary wavy
style of ornament of a different shade of colour, showing streaks and
curves of the two colours alternately, in such an infinity of
patterns, that it was said that no two were ever found alike. Other
makers tried in vain to imitate them; “how it was done”
became an important question. The mystery increased, when it became
known that Mr. Taylor ornamented them all with his own hands, in a
room to which no one else was admitted. The fortunate discoverer of
the secret soon accumulated a large fortune, and he used to chuckle,
years after, as he told that the process consisted in smearing the
second coat of colour, while still wet, with the fleshy part of his
thumb, which happened to have a peculiarly open or coarse
“grain.” It will be seen at once that in this way he could
produce an infinite variety. Mr. Lloyd, the other partner, belonged
to a very old Welsh family, which, as landed proprietors, had been
settled for generations near Llansantfraid, in Merionethshire. There
are some very ancient monuments of the ancestors of this family in
the parish church there.

Somewhere about twenty-five years ago, the business was removed to
the present premises in High Street, and a few years later on, the
death—at Brighton—by his own hand, of Mr. Taylor, left
the business entirely vested in the Lloyd family. About ten or twelve
years ago it was decided to convert it into a limited liability
company, and a very searching examination was made by public
accountants, as a preliminary step. Just as the thing was ripe, the
stoppage of the Birmingham Banking Company was announced. This
deferred the project for a time, but the Messrs. Lloyd, with great
judgment, published the accountants’ report. As soon as the
excitement had abated, the prospectus was issued. The shares were
eagerly subscribed for, and the company was formed. Moilliet’s
bank was included in the operation, and the bank, under the able
presidency of Mr. Sampson Lloyd, commenced the energetic course of
action which has resulted in its becoming the largest banking concern
in the Midland Counties.

I cannot at the moment ascertain the date of the formation of the
firm of Attwood, Spooner, and Co., but in 1815 the partners appear to
have been the three brothers—Thomas, Matthias, and George
Attwood, and Mr. Richard Spooner. Matthias Attwood seceded, and went
to London. Of Thomas, it is unnecessary to say one word to Birmingham
people; his statue in our principal street shows that he was
considered to be no common man. He was one of the first Members for
Birmingham upon its incorporation, and was re-elected in 1837.
Although he had been so great and successful as a popular political
leader, he made no “way” in Parliament; and soon after the
riots of 1839 he retired, being succeeded by Mr. George Frederick
Muntz. The last time I saw Mr. Attwood was in 1849, at the exhibition
in Bingley House. He was then a thin, wasted, and decrepit old man.
It was about this time that he retired from the bank.

George Attwood—his brother—was a man of different
type. He was not a politician. He was, in his best days, energetic,
prompt, and far-seeing. As he advanced in years he became fond of the
pleasures of the table, and the quality of his port wine became
proverbial. His intellect became dimmed, but his spirit of enterprise
was active as ever. He speculated in mines and other property to a
very large extent, and had not, as of old, the clear head to manage
them properly. There is little reason to doubt that here lies the
secret of the failure of the bank some years later.

Richard Spooner was a remarkable man in many respects. Like many
others who in their later years have become “rank Tories,”
he began his political life as a Liberal, contesting the town of
Stafford unsuccessfully in that interest. After the change in his
views, he, upon the death of Mr. Joshua Scholefield, in July, 1844,
was elected to be one of the Members for Birmingham, in opposition to
the candidature of Mr. William Scholefield. At the general election
in August, 1847, this decision was reversed; and Mr. Spooner, to this
day, is remembered as having been the only Conservative Member
Birmingham ever sent to Parliament.

Mr. Spooner was afterwards chosen to represent North Warwickshire,
a position he held until his death, at the great age of 85, in
November, 1864. He was quite blind for some years before his death.
He had a great horror of photographers, and refused all requests to
sit for his portrait. One was at length obtained surreptitiously. On
a fine summer day, he was persuaded, for the sake of the fresh air,
to take a seat in the yard, which then existed at the back of the
bank. Mr. Whitlock was in attendance, and succeeded, greatly to the
delight of Mr. Spooner’s friends, in obtaining a very good
portrait of the blind old man, as he sat there, perfectly unconscious
of what was going on. I believe this was the only portrait ever
taken.

At the death of Mr. George Attwood—which preceded that of
Mr. Spooner by some years—the firm had been re-constituted, and
became Attwood, Spooner, Marshalls, and Co. The partners in the new
firm were Mr. Thomas Aurelius Attwood, Mr. R. Spooner, and Messrs.
William and Henry Marshall, who had been clerks in the bank all their
lives. The deaths, in a comparatively short period, of Mr. T.A.
Attwood and Mr. W. Marshall, followed soon after by that of Mr.
Spooner, left Mr. Henry Marshall the only surviving member of this
firm.

Soon after Mr. Spooner’s death, it was announced that an
amalgamation of this bank with the Birmingham Joint Stock Bank in
Temple Row had been agreed upon, and satisfaction with this
arrangement was universally expressed. On Saturday March 10,
1865—only four months after Mr. Spooner’s decease—the
town, and in fact the whole country, was electrified by the
announcement that the bank had stopped payment. People were
incredulous, as it had been thought to be one of the safest banks in
the kingdom. An excited crowd surrounded the bank premises during the
whole day, and a strong force of police was in attendance to preserve
order. In the course of the day a circular was issued, of which the
following is a copy:

Upon a full investigation of the state of affairs, it was found
that the total amount of liabilities amounted to the large sum of
£1,007,000, and that the assets consisted chiefly of landed and
mining properties of a very speculative nature. There was also a very
large amount of overdrawn balances due from customers. After many
projects had been launched, it was announced that the committee of
investigation had, subject to the approval of the general body of
creditors, disposed of the entire assets to the directors of the
Joint Stock Bank, they undertaking to pay the creditors of Attwood
and Co., in immediate cash, a dividend of 11s. 3d. in the pound. This
arrangement was carried into effect, and “Attwood’s
Bank” became a memory only. Mr. Henry Marshall is, however,
still living in retirement at Weston-Super-Mare, and is,
notwithstanding his great age, in vigorous health, both of mind and
body.

The old familiar premises have now, too, passed away. The
inconvenient old office, with its rows of leather buckets, and its
harmless array of antiquated blunderbuses; its old-fashioned desks,
dark with age, and begrimed with ink spattered by successive
generations of bygone clerks; the low ceiling and quaint elliptic
arches; the little fire-place near the counter, where Aurelius
Attwood, with his good-humoured face, used to stand warming his
coat-tails, and greeting the customers as they came in, were all so
much in harmony with the staid, gray-headed clerks, and the quiet,
methodical ways of the place, that when there, one might fancy he had
stepped back for fifty years, or was looking upon a picture by
Hogarth.

It was stated a few pages back that the Bank of England, after the
great panic of 1825, consented to forego their exclusive privilege of
joint-stock banking. This, however, was not done without an
equivalent, for the Act of 1826, ratifying this consent, gave them
the power of establishing branch banks in the large towns of England.
In pursuance of the powers thus granted, the first branch was opened
at Gloucester on July 19th of that year. Others were started at
Manchester, September 21st, and Swansea, October 23rd. On New
Year’s Day, 1827, the Branch Bank of England commenced business
in Birmingham, occupying the premises of the defunct firm of Gibbins,
Smith, and Goode, in Union Street, now the Gas Offices of the
Corporation. The first manager was Captain Nichols, who brought with
him, from the parent bank, a staff of clerks. One of these, a mere
youth at the time, was destined to fill an important position in the
town and in the country. This was Charles Geach; a very remarkable
man, of whom I shall have more to say by and by.

Captain Nichols was succeeded by Captain Tindal, brother of the
illustrious jurist, Lord Chief Justice Tindal. During this
gentleman’s tenure of office the business was removed to the
premises in Bennetts Hill, vacated by the unfortunate “Bank of
Birmingham,” of which more hereafter. Here the business has ever
since been conducted.

Captain Tindal was a good man of business, and under his
management the bank was very prosperous. He was a man of
highly-cultivated mind. He took a very active interest in all local
matters connected with literature and art, and he was a very liberal
patron of the drama. Those who had the pleasure of being present at
the pleasant soirées at his house, to which he was accustomed
to invite the literary and artistic notabilities of the
neighbourhood, will not easily forget how pleasantly the evenings
passed; how everyone enjoyed the charades and theatricals which were
so excellently managed by the gifted Miss Keating, then a governess
in the family; how, too, everyone was charmed with the original and
convenient arrangement for supplying visitors with refreshments.
Instead of the conventional “sit-down suppers” of those
days, Captain Tindal had refreshment counters and occasional tables
dotted here and there, so that his friends took what they pleased, at
the time most convenient to themselves. One room was very popular.
Within its hospitable portals, hungry bipeds of the male persuasion
were supplied, to their intense satisfaction, with abundant oysters,
and unlimited foaming Dublin stout. Oysters were then five shillings
the barrel of ten dozens! Tempora mutantur; spero meliora!

It was a great loss to social and artistic Birmingham when Captain
Tindal was removed to London, twenty-one years ago. The Bank of
England opened a “West End” branch in Burlington Gardens,
London, and the Captain was appointed its first manager. This new
branch was opened October 1st, 1856. The resolution of the Board of
Directors to appoint Mr. Tindal to this position seems to have been
taken suddenly, for Mr. Chippindale, who had been sub-manager for
some years, and was now placed at the head of the Birmingham branch,
did not know of it until he was informed of his appointment by a
customer of the bank. This gentleman, who was a merchant in the town,
tells me that he “was the first to tell him of it. He said it
was not true, and he must go out and contradict it. I told him I
knew it was true, but even then he was
incredulous.” Mr. Chippindale has recently retired, and has been
succeeded by Mr. F.F. Barham.

Soon after Mr. Chippindale’s appointment, a friend of mine
received from New York a large sum in four months’ bills upon
Glasgow, which he wished to discount. He was well known in
Birmingham, but had no regular banking account. The bank rate in
London was four per cent. He took the bills first to the National
Provincial Bank, where Mr. Henry Rotton offered to “do”
them at four-and-a-half. This he thought too high, and he next took
them to the Bank of England. Mr. Chippindale told him that the rule
of the bank was not to discount anything having more than ninety days
to run; but, if he left the bills as security, he could draw against
them for the cash he wanted, and, as soon as the bills came within
the ninety days’ limit, they could be discounted at the London
rate of the day. This arrangement was entered into, but,
unfortunately for my friend, a sudden turn in the market sent the
rate up three per cent. within the month, so that, when the
transaction was completed, he had to pay seven per cent. It made a
difference to him of between £200 and £300.

From the time of Mr. Chippindale’s appointment, the branch
bank has gone quietly on in its useful course. It does not compete
much with the other banks in general business; indeed, its office
seems to be rather that of a bank for bankers. Now that none of the
local banks issue their own notes, it is a great convenience to them
to have on the spot a store of Bank of England paper, available at a
moment’s notice, to any required amount.

The ten years from 1826 were very fruitful of joint stock banks in
Birmingham. Some have survived, but many are almost forgotten. I will
mention the defunct ones first. The “Bank of Birmingham”
was promoted by a Quaker gentleman, named Pearson. He had been, I
believe, a merchant in the town, but was afterwards a partner in the
firm of Moilliet Smith, and Pearson, from which he seems to have
retired at, the same time as his partner, the well-known Mr. Timothy
Smith. The Bank of Birmingham started with high aims and lofty
expectations. The directors built for their offices the substantial
edifice on Bennetts Hill, now occupied as the Branch Bank of England,
and they prepared for a very large business. They, however, much as
they may have been respected, and successful as most of them
undoubtedly were in their private affairs, were not men of large
capacity, and they had not the quick and sound judgment of character
and circumstances necessary in banking. Nor were they very fortunate
in their manager. Mr. Pearson, although he might have been taken as a
model of honesty, truthfulness, and straightforwardness, was a
phlegmatic, heavy man, and his manners were, to say the least,
unprepossessing. The bank was not a success. Negotiations were, a few
years after, entered into, and arrangements resulted, by which the
Birmingham Banking Company took over the business, on the basis of
giving every shareholder in the Bank of Birmingham a certain reduced
amount of stock in their own bank, in exchange.

Some time before the transfer took place, a member of one of the
most respected and influential mercantile families in the
neighbourhood suspended payment, owing a large sum to the Bank of
Birmingham, upon which he paid a composition. He afterwards
prospered, and some twenty-five years afterwards, all those
shareholders in the defunct bank who still held, in the Birmingham
Banking Company, the shares they had been allotted in exchange at the
time of the transfer, received cheques for the deficiency, with
interest thereon for the whole period it had been unpaid. A relative
of my own received, in this way, several hundred pounds. I am not
aware that this circumstance has ever been made public, but it is due
to the memory of the late Mr. Robert Lucas Chance that so
praise-worthy an act should be on record.

Mr. Pearson, after the closing of the bank, commenced business as
a sharebroker, which he continued until his death. He was one of the
last to retain, in all its rigour, the peculiar dress of the Society
of Friends. His stout, broad-set figure, with the wide-brimmed hat,
collarless coat, drab “thoses” and gaiters, will be
remembered by many readers.

The Commercial Bank had offices at the corner of Ann Street and
Bennetts Hill. Mr. John Stubbs was an active promoter of this bank,
and Mr. James Graham was manager. It had a short life. Mr. Graham
went to America, and died somewhere on the banks of the
Mississippi.

The Tamworth Banking Company opened a branch in High Street,
opposite the bottom of Bull Street. It was open as late as 1838, but
was eventually given up, and the premises were occupied by Mrs. Syson
as a hosier’s shop, until pulled down for the Great Western
Railway tunnel.

The Borough Bank was promoted by Mr. Goode, of the defunct firm of
Gibbins, Smith, and Goode. It was connected with the Northern and
Central Bank of England. The office was in Bull Street, in the
premises now held by Messrs. J. and B. Smith, Carpet Factors. This
bank was unsuccessful, and when it closed, Mr. Goode opened a
discounting office in the Upper Priory, which proved to be
successful. After a few years, Mr. Goode took as partner his
son-in-law, Mr. Marr, a Scotchman, who had been engaged in an Indian
bank for many years. The firm then became Goode, Marr, and Co., under
which designation it is still carried on. The present proprietor is
the son of the Mr. Marr just named, and is the gentleman upon whom a
violent murderous attack was made in his office a few years ago. Mr.
Goode, the courteous manager of the Birmingham and Midland Bank, is
the son of the founder of this firm.

It will be remembered that in 1825 the firm of Gibbins, Smith, and
Co. collapsed. As soon as their affairs were arranged, Mr. Gibbins
and a nephew of his, named Lovell, opened a bank in New Street, on
the spot where Mr. Whitehead now has his shop, at the corner of
Bennetts Hill. Here for some two or three years they appear to have
done very well; in fact the business became too large for their
capabilities. Some of the leading men of the town, with the return of
prosperity, began to see that there was ample room for greater
banking facilities than the then existing private banks could
provide. Negotiations were accordingly entered into for the purchase
of this business, and for its conversion into a joint stock bank.
Terms were very soon provisionally settled, and the prospectus of the
Birmingham Banking Company was issued. The capital was fixed at
£500,000, in 10,000 shares of £50 each, of which £5 per share was to
be immediately called up. The list of directors contained, among
others, the names of Charles Shaw, William Chance, Frederic Ledsam,
Joseph Gibbins, and John Mabson. The shares were readily taken by the
public, and on September 1st, 1829, the company commenced operations
on the premises of Gibbins and Lovell. It was decided, however, to
build a suitable banking house, and in a very short time the building
standing at the corner of Waterloo Street was erected. Before
removing to the new bank, the directors made overtures to Mr. Paul
Moon James, of the firm of Galton and Co., which resulted in that
bank being closed, and Mr. James becoming manager of the Banking
Company. With such directors, and with so able and so popular a man
for the manager, the progress of the bank was very rapid, and it soon
had the largest banking business in the town. In a few years the
reputation which Mr. James had obtained as a successful banker
induced the directors of a new bank at Manchester to make him a very
lucrative offer. Much to the regret of his Birmingham directors, and
indeed to the whole public of the town, he accepted the offer, and
shortly afterwards removed to Manchester. He retained the position of
manager there until his death. Mr. James was something more than a
mere man of business. He had a cultured mind, and took a very active
part in educational questions. This very day, on looking over an old
book, I found his name as the Birmingham representative of a leading
literary association of my younger days, the “Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge”—a society which, with Lord
Brougham for chairman and Charles Knight for its most active member,
did much to create good, wholesome, cheap literature, and published,
among many other works, the “Penny Magazine” and the
“Penny Cyclopædia.”

After Mr. James left Birmingham, the directors of the Banking
Company appointed Mr. William Beaumont to be his successor. A
Yorkshireman by birth, he had resided for some time in Wolverhampton,
filling a responsible position in one of the banks there. Mr.
Beaumont remained manager of the Birmingham Banking Company until his
death in 1863, having filled the office for more than a quarter of a
century. During his life the bank had a very high reputation, and
paid excellent dividends. It had squally weather occasionally, of
coarse, but it weathered all storms. It was in great jeopardy in the
great panic of 1837. It held at that time, drawn by one of its
customers upon a Liverpool house, four bills for £20,000 each, and
one for £10,000. It held besides heavy draughts upon the same firm by
other houses, and the acceptors—failing remittances from
America—were in great straits. Mr. Charles Shaw, the chairman
of this bank, saw the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of
the Bank of England, and averted the impending calamity. But for
timely aid, the Liverpool firm must have stopped, to the ruin of half
the country. The bank had another sharp turn of it from 1842 to 1844,
when bar iron fell from £12 per ton to £6; but it overcame all its
difficulties until the retirement of Mr. Shaw and the death of Mr.
Beaumont.

From this time forward there seems to have been great want of a
strong head and a steady eye amongst the directors. The
plausibilities of Mr. W.H. Beaumont—who had succeeded his
father as manager—seem to have put them off their guard, and
they followed where he led until it ended in ruin. It is useless now
to say all one knows, or a quarter of what has been said; but it has
always been my opinion, and always will be, that if Charles Shaw, or
a man with half his courage and ability, had been at the helm, the
Bank would not have closed its doors. Had they only sought counsel of
their larger shareholders, there was amongst them one man, still
living, who not only could, but would, have saved the bank from
shipwreck.

Few men in Birmingham are likely to forget “Black
Saturday,” the 14th of July, 1866. Had a French army suddenly
opened a bombardment of the town from Highgate, it would possibly not
have caused greater astonishment and dismay. That very week shares
had been sold on the Stock Exchange at a high premium; and now, by
the culpable weakness of a few unquestionably honest and
well-intentioned gentlemen, the hard-earned life’s savings of
aged and infirm men, the sole dependence of scores of widows and
hundreds of orphans, was utterly gone. No wonder that pious,
God-fearing men ground their teeth and muttered curses, or that
women, pale and trembling, tore their hair in wild terror, while some
poor sorrowing creatures sought refuge in suicide. No wonder that
even now, more than eleven years after, the memory of that day still
rises, like a hideous dream, in the minds of thousands.

I have been shown a copy of a lithographed daily newspaper,
printed on board the “Great Eastern” steamship, then
engaged in laying the first successful Atlantic cable. In the number
for July 14th, is an account of the stoppage of this bank, which had
been telegraphed to the ship in mid-ocean by means of the cable then
being submerged.

Upon full investigation it was ascertained that the total
liabilities amounted to £1,805,469 10s. 5d. All the capital was lost.
A call of £10 per share was made upon the unfortunate shareholders,
and the debts were paid. Some time afterwards the new
“limited” company which had been formed upon the ruins of
the defunct bank took over some unrealised assets, and this resulted
in a return of £1 per share, leaving a clear total loss, taking the
shares at the market price, of £43 per share.

On Thursday, July 19th, a meeting of the shareholders was held in
the large room at the Exchange, nearly 500 being present. Mr. Edwin
Yates, the Mayor, presided, and in his opening remarks pointed out
that the resuscitation of the bank was impossible, for various
reasons which he mentioned. The discussion which followed was marked
by great moderation. There was little excitement, and not much
expression of angry feeling. Mr. William Holliday, in a very masterly
speech of great length, showed the difficulties in the way of
reviving the bank, and suggested that the only way of saving the
property of the shareholders, was by the establishment of a new bank
on the ruins of the old, the shareholders in which were to have
priority in the allotment of shares. This, having, been discussed by
several speakers, was eventually decided upon, and a committee was
appointed to carry the resolutions into effect.

The new bank, under the name of the “Birmingham Banking
Company Limited,” was formed with all speed. Josiah
Mason—then plain Mister—was the first chairman, and Mr.
T.F. Shaw manager. The shares “came out” at a small
premium, from which they gradually rose. From that time it has gone
on steadily and surely. It has secured a good clientèle, and
is doing a large and profitable, business. It pays good dividends,
and its shares stand well in the market. Mr. Shaw retired, from
“continued ill health,” in May, 1876. Mr. P.W. Walker was
appointed manager pro tem., and at the end of the year, Mr.
James Leigh, who had been manager of the Birmingham branch of the
Worcester Bank, took the helm. May the bank under his guidance have,
fortitudine et prudentia, a long career of prosperity and
usefulness before it!

I shall now have to go back again to the year 1836. At this time
trade was good and everything looked prosperous. Mr. Geach, who was
still a clerk in the Bank of England, conceived the idea of starting
a fresh bank, and having secured the adhesion of a few influential
men, the prospectus was issued of the Town and District Bank, capital
£500,000, in 25,000 shares of £20 each. The shares were taken up
readily, and the branch commenced business in Colmore Row, on the 1st
of July, 1836. The directors were Messrs. George Bacchus (chairman),
Edward Armfield, George J. Green, George C. Lingham, John G. Reeves,
Josiah Richards, and Philip Williams.

Although the bank had been started entirely through the exertions
of Mr. Geach, who naturally expected to be appointed the manager, he
was left out in the cold, and the appointment fell upon Mr. Bassett
Smith. This gentleman had been a clerk to the firm of Gibbins, Smith,
and Co., until their stoppage, and he afterwards was manager of a
bank at Walsall, which appointment he threw up when he came to the
District Bank. He held his position as manager here for many years,
but was eventually induced to retire; He certainly was not a great
banking genius. He was led more by impulse and feeling than by sound
business judgment and coolness, and he often made mistakes in his
estimate of the customers. Some—whom he liked—would
“get on” easily enough, while others, equally worthy of
attention, might ask in vain for slight accommodation. Nor was his
manner judicious. I was in the bank one day, when a highly
respectable man brought some bills to the counter to be placed to his
account. The clerk took them to Mr. Smith, who was near the counter;
he turned them over in his hand, and giving them back to the clerk,
with a contemptuous gesture, said, loud enough to be heard by
everyone there, “No!—a thousand times no!” Had the
customer been a swindler he could not have been treated with greater
insult and contumely. It was a fortunate thing for the bank when Mr.
Barney became manager. From that time the bank has assumed its proper
position. Under its new designation of the “Birmingham and
Dudley District Banking Company” it has taken rapid strides.
There is every reason now for thinking it is highly prosperous, and
is likely to have a future of great use and profit. The new premises
are an ornament to an ornamental part of the town, and are very
conveniently arranged; but to people with weak eyes, the light from
the windows, glaring in the face as one stands at the counter, is
most unpleasant, and some steps to modify its effect might be
judiciously taken.

Immediately after Mr. Bassett Smith had been appointed manager of
the District Bank, some gentlemen, amongst whom Mr. Gammon, of
Belmont Row, was very prominent, thinking that in all fairness Mr.
Geach should have been elected, seeing that he was the originator of
the scheme, and had done the greater part of the preliminary work,
determined to form another bank. There was to be no mistake this
time, for Mr. Geach’s name was inserted in the prospectus as the
future manager. He was at this time only 28 years of age. He had been
resident but a very few years in the town, but had already the
reputation of being one of the most able young men in the place. His
manners, too, were singularly agreeable. On the faith of his name,
the public readily took up the necessary number of shares. So great
was the energy employed, that in seven weeks from the opening of the
District Bank, its competitor, the Birmingham and Midland Bank, had
commenced business.

Having been so long in the office of the Bank of England, in Union
Street, the young manager naturally thought it the best locality for
the new bank; and as there was a large shop vacant in that street, a
few doors below Union Passage, on the right-hand side going down, it
was taken, and in these temporary premises the bank commenced, on the
23rd of August, 1836, its prosperous and most useful career.

Mr. Robert Webb was the first Chairman of the Board of Directors;
Mr. Thomas Bolton, merchant, of New Street, was one of the most
active members. Mr. Samuel Beale, after a time, joined the board, and
was very energetic. He soon formed a friendship for the manager which
only terminated with life. Mr. Henry Edmunds, who so recently retired
from the post of managing director, but who still holds a seat at the
board, was sub-manager from the opening; and Mr. Goode, who now fills
the manager’s seat, went there as a clerk at the same time.

The tact and energy of the manager, and the shrewd business
capacity of the directors, soon secured a very large business. In a
very short time the building now held by the Conservative Club, which
the bank had erected a little higher up the street, was occupied, and
here the business was conducted for more than twenty-five years. The
building included a very commodious residence for the manager, and
here Mr. Geach took up his abode with his family.

During the preliminary disturbances in 1839, which culminated in
the Bull Ring riots, Mr. Geach received private information one
afternoon, which induced him to take extra precautions for the safety
of the books, securities, and cash. While this was being done, the
clerks had collected a number of men and some arms. They also
obtained, and took to the roof, a great quantity of stones, bricks,
and other missiles, which they stored behind the parapets. The men
were so placed, that by mounting an inner stair they could ascend to
the roof, from which spot, it was proposed, in case of attack, to
hurl the missiles upon the mob below. News was soon brought that the
mob was congregating in Dale End and that neighbourhood. At the
request of some of the magistrates who were present, Mr. Geach
started off for the barracks, galloping through the mob, who threw
showers of stones, brick-ends, and other disagreeable missiles at
him, and shouted, “Stop him,” “Pull him off,”
“He’s going for the soldiers,” and so on. His horse was
a spirited one, and took him safely through. He reached the barracks
and secured assistance. He then came back by another route to the
bank, and the expected attack was averted. There is no doubt that his
energetic conduct that day saved the town from violence and
spoliation.

It is not my intention in this paper to sketch the character of
Mr. Geach. I have now only to deal with him in reference to the
bank, which he so ably managed, and in which down to his death he
felt the warmest interest. About 1839 or 1840 he began to engage in
commercial transactions on his own account, and these growing upon
him and requiring much of his personal attention, he, about 1846 or
1847, resigned his position as manager, and was succeeded by his old
friend and colleague, Mr. Henry Edmunds. Mr. Geach, however, though
no longer engaged in the active management, was appointed managing
director, and in this capacity was generally consulted on all the
more important matters.

Mr. Edmunds is a man of altogether different type to his
predecessor. Mr. Geach had been bold in his management, to a degree
which in less skilful hands might have been perilous to his
employers. Mr. Edmunds’s principal characteristic, as a manager,
was excessive caution. But, although so utterly varying in character,
both men were peculiarly fitted for their post at the time they were
in power. Boldness and vigour gave the bank a large connection, and
established an extensive business. Caution and carefulness were quite
as essential in the times during which Mr. Edmunds guided the
destinies of the bank. In that speculative period of twenty-five
years, his prudence and cool judgment were valuable qualities, and
they served good ends, for the “Midland,” under Mr.
Edmunds, was pre-eminently a “lucky” bank. He had no
occasion for the more brilliant qualities of his predecessor; the
bank was offered more business than it cared for; and his caution and
hesitation saved his directors much trouble, and his shareholders
considerable loss.

As in process of years the business increased, the old premises
were found to be too small, and the directors contemplated
enlargement. Some energetic spirits on the board advocated the
erection of a new building. It was debated for some time, but it
finally resulted in the erection of the present palatial banking
house at the corner of Stephenson Place. It is no secret that Mr.
Edmunds disapproved of the step, and, indeed, at the dinner given to
celebrate the opening of the new premises, he expressed, in plain
terms, his opinion that they had made a mistake, and that they had
better have remained where they were.

Be that as it may, the business was removed to New Street in 1869,
at which time, I believe, Mr. Samuel Buckley was Chairman of the
Board of Directors. One can imagine the satisfactory feelings of his
mind as he reflected that within a very few yards of the magnificent
bank, of which he was then the head, he, comparatively unknown, took
years before a situation in the warehouse of a merchant, Mr. Thomas
Bolton, which then stood on the site of the Midland Hotel. In this
business Mr. Buckley rapidly rose in the estimation of his employer,
becoming, first his partner, and subsequently his successor. The
business, when the old premises were required for other purposes, was
removed first to Newhall Hill, and finally to Great Charles Street,
where it is still carried on as Samuel Buckley and Co.

Shortly before the removal to New Street, Mr. Edmunds began to
wish for a less laborious position. Following the precedent in Mr.
Geach’s case, he was made managing director, and Mr. Goode took
the well-earned position of manager. This arrangement existed until
about twelve months ago, when Mr. Edmunds retired altogether from the
active administration of the business. He retained, however, a seat
at the board as one of the ordinary directors. On this occasion, the
board, with the sanction of the shareholders, to mark their sense, of
his admirable judgment and unceasing industry, voted him a retiring
pension of £1,000 a year. His portrait now hangs in the board-room at
the bank, near that of his friend, Mr. Geach. May the walls of this
room, in the future, be adorned by the “counterfeit
presentment” of successive managers as good and true as these
two, the pioneers, have proved themselves!

Mr. Goode’s qualifications for the post he occupies are not
only hereditary, but are supplemented by the experience of more than
forty years in this bank, under the able guidance of the two
colleagues who have preceded him. His acute perceptions and great
financial skill qualify him admirably for the post, whilst his
undeviating courtesy has made him very popular, and has gained for
him “troops of friends.”

Notwithstanding the enormous increase in the business of the town
and neighbourhood, there was no other bank established in Birmingham
for more than twenty-five years. One reason, probably, was that, by a
clause in an Act of Parliament, it was made incumbent upon all banks
established after it became law, to publish periodical statements of
their affairs. This seemed to many shrewd men to be an obstacle to
the success of any new bank, although it was felt that there was
ample room for one. The passing of the Limited Liability Act opened
the way. It was seen that by fixing the nominal capital very high,
and calling up only a small portion of its amount, there would always
be so large a margin of uncalled capital, that the periodical
publication of assets and liabilities could alarm no one. Taking this
view, and seeing the probability of a successful career for a new
banking institution, a few far-seeing men—notably the late
Messrs. John Graham and Henry Clive—soon attached to themselves
a number of influential colleagues, and at the latter end of 1861 the
prospectus of the Birmingham Joint Stock Bank was issued. Mr. G.F.
Muntz was chairman, Mr. Thomas Short, vice-chairman, and Messrs. John
Graham, H. Clive, R. Fletcher, J.S. Keep, W. Middlemore, C.H. Wagner,
and W.A. Adams were directors. The capital, to the required extent,
was eagerly subscribed. Mr. Joseph Beattie, of London, was appointed
manager, and the bank opened its doors, in Temple Row West, on New
Tear’s Day, 1862.

The directors, at their preliminary meetings, had come to some
very wise resolutions, having for their tendency the creation of
public confidence in the good management and complete stability of
the new venture. One of these was that no one of the directors could
at any time, or under any circumstances, overdraw his account at the
bank. Recollections of what had been done aforetime showed the public
the wisdom of this step, and the shares became consequently in good
demand, and soon reached a fair premium. The directors, with great
judgment, had made a large reserve of unallotted shares, and now that
they had become a popular investment, they offered them to large
traders at par, on condition of their opening accounts at the new
bank. Other inducements were held out to attract business, and in a
very short time the bank was doing at least as large a business as
some of its competitors.

The appointment of Mr. Beattie was a most judicious one. He is,
unquestionably, a very able man of business; and his untiring energy
and perseverance are very remarkable, even in these days of hard
work. Under such management, and with so good a board of directors at
his back, it is no wonder that the bank now occupies a foremost place
amongst its fellows.

The Worcester City and County Bank is the last, but it bids fairly
to become by no means the least, amongst the banks of the town. The
parent bank was established in Worcester in 1840. It was a prosperous
and successful local bank of no great celebrity until the failure of
Messrs. Farley and Co., of Kidderminster, in 1856. The directors then
opened a branch establishment in that town, which was successful
beyond expectation. Encouraged by this, they afterwards opened
branches at Atherstone, Bridgnorth, Bromsgrove, Cheltenham,
Droitwich, Evesham, Ludlow, Leominster, Presteign, Malvern, and
Tenbury, and in 1872 they resolved to establish a bank at Birmingham.
Lloyds and Co. had just removed from Moilliet’s old premises in
Cherry Street, to their new bank, in Ann Street, and, rather
unwisely, left the old place in Cherry Street to be let to the first
comer. The Worcester company became the tenants, and opened their
bank in 1872, under the management of Mr. J.H. Slaney. This gentleman
retired in about twelve months, and was succeeded by Mr. James Leigh,
the present manager of the Birmingham Banking Company. When he
accepted his present post, Mr. F.W. Nash took the helm. The bank
seems, in the short time it has been established, to have been very
successful, for the premises, after having been twice enlarged, are,
it is said, now too small; and it is understood that a plot of land
in Ann Street, near the corner of Newhall Street, has been secured,
and that Mr. F.B. Osborne is engaged upon plans for the erection, on
this site, of a new banking house, which will be no mean rival to
those already in existence, adding another fine architectural
structure to the splendid line of edifices which will soon be
complete from the Town Hall to Snow Hill.

There only remains one more bank to mention, and I cannot remember
its name. It was opened some ten or twelve years ago in the tall
building at the west corner of Warwick House Passage, now occupied by
Mr. Hollingsworth. It was under the management of Mr. Edwin Wignall,
who had been sub-manager at the District. It had but a short life.
The careful manner in which the stone pavement of the vestibule and
the steps leading from the street were cleaned and whitened every
morning, and the few footmarks made by customers going in and coming
out, gained for it the name of the “Clean Bank,” by which
title it will be remembered by many. The business that had been
collected was transferred to the Midland, and the New Street bank was
closed.

My sketch of the Birmingham Banks is now complete. It is very
satisfactory to reflect that in the long space of sixty-three years
over which it ranges, there have been only two cases in which the
creditors of Birmingham banks have suffered loss; and really it is
greatly to the credit of the good old town that these losses have
been, comparatively, so insignificant. In the bankruptcy of Gibbins
and Co., in 1825, the creditors received 19s. 8d. in the pound. In
the more recent case—that of Attwood and Co.—they
received a dividend of 11s. 3d. Both these cases compare favourably
with others at a distance, where dividends of one or two shillings
have not been infrequent. The banking business of the town is now in
safe and prudent hands, and there is strong reason for hoping that
the several institutions may go on, with increasing usefulness and
prosperity, to a time long after the present generation of traders
has ceased to draw cheques, or existing shareholders to calculate
upon coming dividends.

As I stood, not long ago, within the splendid hall in which the
Birmingham and Midland Bank carries on its business, my mind reverted
to a visit I once paid, to the premises, in the City of Gloucester,
of the first county bank established in England. Perhaps in all the
differences between bygone and modern times, there could not be found
a greater contrast. The old Gloucester Bank was established in the
year 1716, by the grandfather of the celebrated “Jemmy
Wood,” who died in 1836, leaving personal property sworn under
£900,000. Soon after his death, I saw the house and “Bank,”
where he had carried on his business of a “banker and
merchant.” The house was an old one, the gables fronting the
street. The upper windows were long and low, and were glazed with the
old lead-framed diamond-shaped panes of dark green glass. The
ground-floor was lighted by two ancient shop windows, having heavy
wooden sashes glazed with panes about nine inches high by six wide.
To the sill of each window, hung upon hinges, were long deal
shutters, which were lifted up at night, and fastened with
“cotters.” There were two or three well-worn steps to the
entrance. The door was divided half-way up: the upper portion stood
open during business hours, and the lower was fastened by a common
thumb latch. To the ledge of the door inside, a bell was attached by
a strip of iron hooping, which vibrated when the door was opened, and
set the bell ringing to attract attention. The interior fittings were
of the most simple fashion; common deal counters with thin oaken
tops; shabby drawers and shelves all round; one or two antiquated
brass sconces for candles; a railed-off desk, near the window; and
that was all. In this place, almost alone and unassisted, the old man
made his money. I copy the following from “Maunder’s
Biographical Dictionary:” “In conjunction with the bank, he
kept a shop to the day of his death, and dealt in almost every
article that could be asked for. Nothing was too trifling for
‘Jemmy Wood’ by which a penny could be turned. He spent the
whole week in his banking-shop or shop-bank, and the whole of the
business of the Old Gloucester Bank was carried on at one end of his
chandlery store.”

Now-a-days we go to a palace to cash a cheque. We pass through a
vestibule between polished granite monoliths, or adorned with choice
marble sculpture in alto-relievo. We enter vast halls fit for
the audience chambers of a monarch, and embellished with everything
that the skill of the architect can devise. We stand at counters of
the choicest polished mahogany, behind which we see scores of busy
clerks, the whole thing having an appearance of absolute splendour.
Prom Jemmy Wood’s shop to the noble hall of the Midland, or the
Joint Stock, is indeed a long step in advance.

It has often occurred to me that it would be a wise plan for
bankers to divide their counters into distinct compartments, so that
one customer could see nothing of his next neighbour, and hear
nothing of his business. The transactions at a bank are often of as
delicate a nature as the matters discussed in a solicitor’s
office; yet the one is secret and safe, and the other is open to the
gaze and the ear of any one who happens to be at the bank at the same
time.

In closing this subject, I wish to express my thanks to Mr. S.A.
Goddard for his assistance. His great age, his acute powers of
perception, and his marvellously retentive and accurate memory,
combine to make him, probably, the only living competent witness of
some of the circumstances I have been able to detail; while the ready
manner in which he responded to my request for information merits my
warmest and most grateful acknowledgments.

JOHN WALSH WALSH AND THE ASTON FÊTES.

No one possessing ordinary habits of observation can have lived in
Birmingham for anything like forty years without being conscious of
the extraordinary difference between the personal and social habits
of the generation which is passing away, and of that which has arisen
to succeed it. Now-a-days, as soon as business is over, Birmingham
people—professional men, manufacturers, shopkeepers, and,
indeed, all the well-to-do classes—hurry off by rail, by
tramway, or by omnibus, to snug country homesteads, where their
evenings are spent by their own firesides in quiet domestic
intercourse. A generation ago, things in Birmingham were very
different. Then, shopkeepers lived “on the premises,” and
manufacturers, as a rule, had their dwelling houses in close
proximity to their factories. Business, compared with its present
condition, was in a very primitive state. Manufacturers worked at
their business with their men, beginning with them in the morning and
leaving off at the same hour at night. The warehouse closed, and the
work of the day being over, the “master” would doff his
apron, roll down his turned-up shirt sleeves, put on his second-best
coat, and sally forth to his usual smoking-room. Here, in company
with a few old cronies, he solaced himself with a modest jug of ale,
and, lighting his clay pipe, proceeded with great solemnity to enjoy
himself. But, one by one, the habitués of the old smoking
rooms have gone to “live in the country,” and the drowsy,
dreary rooms, becoming deserted, have, for the most part, been
applied to other purposes; whilst in many of those that are left, the
smoke-stained portrait of some bygone landlord looks down upon the
serried ranks of empty chairs, as if bewailing the utter degeneracy
of modern mankind.

The room at the “Woodman,” in Easy Row, is an exception,
for it still maintains its ground. It is a large, well-lighted, and
well-ventilated apartment. Its walls are adorned with a number of
good pictures, among which are well-executed life-size portraits of
two eminent men—James Watt, the engineer, and Sir Joshua
Reynolds, the father of the English school of painting. In this room,
years ago, when the sunny, courteous, and humorous “Jem
Onions” was the host, a number of notable men used to assemble.
Here you might meet men who at that time, or since, have been known
as mayors, alder-men, and councillors. Here, “Blue-brick
Walker” first propounded his scheme for superseding the
“petrified kidney” pavement. Here “Wedding-ring
Edwards,” in his quaint, sententious manner, growled out brief
epigrammatic sentences, full of shrewdness and wisdom, most strangely
seasoned with semi-contemptuous sarcasm. Here Isherwood Sutcliff,
with his well-dressed, dapper figure, and his handsome Roman face,
was wont to air his oratory; and here occasionally he, placing his
right foot upon a spittoon, would deliver himself of set orations;
most carefully prepared; most elegantly phrased; copiously garnished
with Byronic quotations; and delivered with considerable grace and
fervour. These orations, however, having no basis of thought or force
of argument, and, indeed, having nothing but their sensuous beauty of
expression to recommend them, fell flat upon the ears of an
unsympathetic audience, composed mainly of men whose brains were
larger and of tougher fibre. Here, too, came occasionally the mighty
and the omniscient Joe Allday, and when he did, the discussion
sometimes became a little more than animated, the self-assertive Joe
making the room ring again, as he denounced the practices of those
who ruled the destinies of the town. Here one night, lifting his
right hand on high, as if to appeal to Heaven, he assured his
audience that they “need not be afraid.” He would
“never betray the people of Birmingham!” Here, too,
last, but certainly not least in any way, might almost nightly be
seen the towering figure of John Walsh Walsh: his commanding stature;
his massive head, with its surrounding abundant fringe of wavy hair,
looking like a mane; his mobile face, his bright—almost
fierce—eye; his curt, incisive, and confident style of speech,
showing him to be, beyond all question, the most masterful and
prominent member of the company.

He was born at Mansfield, in Nottinghamshire. His peculiar double
patronymic was the result of a curious mistake made by one of the
sponsors at his baptism. Being asked in the usual way to “name
this child,” the poor man, in his nervousness, gave, not only
the intended name of John, but inadvertently, the surname also; and
so the infant became John Walsh Walsh, a name which its owner used to
say was worth hundreds a year to him in business. “Anybody could
be ‘John Walsh,’ but ‘John Walsh Walsh’ was unique,
and once heard would never be forgotten.”

Coming to Birmingham in pre-railway times, he found his first
employment in the office of Pickford and Co., the great carrying
firm. Here his marvellous energy, his quickness of apprehension, his
mastery of detail, his accuracy of calculation, and his rapidity as a
correspondent, soon raised him to a good position. He had, however,
higher aims, and having the sagacity to foresee that the use of
aërated beverages, which had just been introduced, must soon become
general, he left the office and commenced the manufacture of soda
water, a business which he successfully carried on as long as he
lived, and which is still continued in his name by his successors.
This business fairly afloat, his energies sought further outlet, and
he soon, in conjunction with his partner, Mr. Nelson, commenced at
Leamington the manufacture, by a patent process, of artificial
isinglass and gelatine. This business, too, was successful and is
still in operation, Nelson’s gelatine being known all over the
world. Besides these, he had a mustard mill, was an extensive dealer
in cigars, and for many years was associated with the late Mr.
Jefferies in the manufacture of marine glue. About 1851 he took over
an unsuccessful co-operative glass manufactory in Hill Street, which
his vigorous management soon converted into a great success. The
business growing beyond the capabilities of the premises, he removed
it to the extensive works at Lodge Road, where he continued to
conduct it until his death, and where it is still carried on by his
executors for the benefit of his family.

He was for some years a member of the Birmingham Town Council, and
was one of its hardest workers. Much might be said of the energetic
manner in which he opposed all weakness in action, and of the manly
vigour of his advocacy of all schemes for the benefit of the town of
his adoption. It will be especially remembered how hard he worked to
induce the Council to buy Aston Park for the town, when its price was
low, and how he used to chafe at the thought that double the present
area of the park might have been purchased, for less money than was
ultimately paid for the portion now held. In the Council, as
everywhere else, the strange influence he could bring to bear upon
other men, and the power he possessed of infusing a portion of his
own superabundant energy into the minds of others, was continually
manifested; and he will long be remembered in the Council Chamber as
one of the most original thinkers, and one of the shrewdest
observers, that ever sat upon its benches.

But his name will, probably, be longer held in remembrance in
connection with the colossal fêtes at Aston Park, in 1856, of which
he was the originator, and to the success of which he devoted himself
with untiring energy and unwearied industry. The idea of the fêtes
originated at the “Woodman” on an evening in the spring of
1856. The room, on this occasion, was nearly full; Walsh occupied the
principal seat. Not far from him was the versatile, erudite, somewhat
dogmatic, but always courteous and polite, John Cornforth. There too,
was Ambrose Biggs, who since, as Mayor, so fully justified the choice
the Corporation made when they elected him to be their head. Nearly
opposite was seen the gentlemanlike figure of poor Joseph Collins,
whose untimely death, a few years later, created an intense feeling
of sorrow in the minds of all who knew him. The worthy host, Jem
Onions, occupied his usual seat. At a short distance was seen the
upright figure and full round face of genial, but somewhat fussy,
George Tye, his countenance beaming with good nature, and his eye
bright with the light of poetic and artistic intelligence; and there
also were many others, whose names I cannot at this moment
recall.

The conversation that night was more than usually animated, and
was carried on with much propriety and intelligence. Walsh led a
discussion on the folly of the Corporation in refusing to buy a
portion of Aston Park, including the Hall, which had been offered to
them, as he said, “dirt cheap.” Biggs, a little way off,
took up a subject with which he was more intimately
connected—the Queen’s Hospital, whose financial affairs,
just then, were in a lamentable state of collapse. One set of talkers
in the room were intent upon the one topic; at the other end, the
other subject was uppermost. Thus the two matters became somewhat
“mixed up” in the ear of a listener, and thus they suddenly
jostled together in the mind of Walsh. All in a moment the thought
arose—”Why not borrow the park and give a pic-nic for the
hospital?” With him, such a matter required little
consideration; with him, to conceive was to act. In a few minutes he
was on his legs, and at some length, with considerable eloquence and
characteristic energy, he, amid the rapt attention of the company,
propounded the scheme which had suggested itself. He was followed by
other speakers; the scheme was rapturously received by the audience;
it was unanimously resolved that if the use of the park could be
obtained, the fête should be held; a deputation was appointed to wait
upon the proprietors of the park; and a provisional committee, with
Mr. Walsh as chairman, was elected to carry out the
preliminaries.

No time was lost. In a few days the desired permission to hold a
fête in the park was obtained. Other gentlemen joined in the
movement, and a large and influential permanent committee was formed.
Walsh took up the matter with his usual energy and with most sanguine
views. This was to be no mere pic-nic now! It was to be such a
fête as Birmingham had never witnessed, and would not readily forget.
The attractions were to be such as would draw people, from all
quarters. The preparations were to be on the most gigantic scale, and
the result was estimated by Walsh at a clear gain of £250 or £300 to
the hospital. Some of the more cautious thought the scheme a little
wild, and on far too extensive a scale for success; but the
indomitable chairman, who had fully considered the pros and
cons, threw into the movement the whole force of his almost
superhuman energy, and carried conviction to the minds of the most
timid of his colleagues. The scheme was enthusiastically resolved
upon, although, as Walsh said, after the fêtes were over, “Some
of us were actually frightened at what we had undertaken.”

The fête was to be held on the 28th of July. It fell on a Monday.
By common consent business was to be suspended. As the day
approached, it became obvious, from the enormous demand for the
tickets, that the attendance would far exceed the expectations of the
most sanguine. Another 25,000 tickets were ordered from the printer,
by telegraph. The refreshment contractors were advised of the vastly
increased number of hungry customers they might expect. Bakers were
set to work to provide hundreds of additional loaves. Orders were
given for an extra ton or two of sandwiches. Scores more barrels of
ale and porter came slowly into the park, where, within fenced
enclosures, they were piled, two or three high, in double lines.
Crates upon crates of tumblers, earthenware mugs, and plates arrived.
Soda water, lemonade, and ginger beer were provided in countless
grosses, and in fact everything for the comfort and convenience of
visitors that the most careful forethought could suggest, was
provided in the most lavish profusion.

At length the day arrived. The weather was delightfully fine. The
village of Aston was gaily decorated; the Royal Standard floated from
the steeple, and the bells chimed out in joyous melody. The quaint
Elizabethan gateway to the park was gay with unaccustomed bunting.
The sober old Hall had a sudden eruption of colour, such as it had
probably never known before. Flags of all colours, and with strange
devices, met the eye at every turn. Waggon after waggon, laden with
comestibles, filed slowly into the park. The rushing to and fro of
waiters and other attendants showed that they expected a busy day of
it. As noon approached, train after train deposited at the Aston
station hundreds and thousands of gaily-attired Black Country people.
Special trains ran from New Street as fast as they could be got in
order; all the approaches to the park were crammed with serried
lines—three or four abreast—of omnibuses, waggons, cabs,
carts, and every other imaginable vehicle; whilst thousands upon
thousands of dusty pedestrians jostled each other in the crowded
roads. Fast as the ticket and money collectors could pass them
through the gates, continuous streams poured on for hours, until at
length the number of persons within the grounds exceeded the enormous
total of fifty thousands!

The old Hall was thrown open, and hundreds of people strolled
through its quaint rooms and noble galleries. The formal gardens were
noisy with unaccustomed merriment. From the terrace one looked upon
preparations for amusements, and old English games of all
descriptions. Platforms for dancing, and pavilions for musicians,
stood here and there. Beyond, in the valley, a long range of poles
and skeleton forms showed where the fireworks were in preparation.
Down in a corner stood a large stack of firewood through which, when
lighted, the “Fire-King” was to pass uninjured. Swings,
merry-go-rounds, and Punch and Judy shows were rare attractions for
the young; and soon the whole of that enormous assemblage of people,
in the sunlight of a glorious July day, seemed to be thoroughly
enjoying themselves.

Suddenly, in one corner, there arose a deep-toned murmur, like the
sound of the roaring of the waves upon a broken shore. It deepened in
tone and increased in volume, until the whole area of the park was
filled with this strange sound. It was the noise of laughter
proceeding simultaneously from fifty thousand throats! From a
mysterious-looking shed in the valley opposite the terrace, Mr. John
Inshaw and some of his friends had just launched a balloon, shaped
like an enormous pig! Piggy rose majestically over that vast sea of
upturned faces, which he seemed to regard with much attention. But at
length, apparently disgusted at being so much laughed at, he started
off in the direction of Coleshill, and, to the intense amusement of
everybody, persisted in travelling tail foremost.

All classes were represented at the fête. Here you might see a
group of well-dressed folks from Edgbaston, next some pale-faced
miners from the Black Country, and then the nut-brown faces of some
agricultural people. All seemed intent upon fun and pleasure, and so,
throughout that long summer day, the crowd increased, and every one
seemed to be in a state of absolute enjoyment.

As evening wore on, other sources of interest arose. The famous
Sycamore Avenue—now, alas, going fast to decay—was
lighted up by innumerable coloured lamps. I am old enough to remember
the illuminations of the famous Vauxhall Gardens in London, but I
never saw there so fairylike a scene as that glorious old avenue at
Aston presented that evening.

Then came the fireworks! No such display had ever before been seen
in the Midland Counties. The nights of rockets, the
marvellously-ingenious set pieces, and the wonderful blue lights,
gave intense delight; and the grand chorus of “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
when any specially brilliant effect was produced, was something not
to be easily forgotten; but the climax was reached when, as a finale,
the words

came out in glowing fire. Then the people shouted and applauded as
if they were frantic. And so, amid the gratulations of everybody, the
first of the Aston Fêtes came to an end.

No sooner was the fête over, than a clamour arose as to the
disposal of the profit. It was argued that as the money raised had so
far exceeded expectation, it ought, in fairness, to be divided
between the two hospitals. Correspondence in the newspapers became
warm, and almost angry. Walsh was pestered with all sorts of
suggestions, and a deputation waited upon him, urging the
“claims” of the General Hospital. Walsh received them with
politeness, but with reticence, and they left dissatisfied. It was a
difficulty, but Walsh was equal to it. Summoning his committee, he
urged that the fête having been given for a specific purpose, that
purpose must be fulfilled, and the whole sum must go to the
Queen’s. “But,” said he, “I’ll tell you what
we can do: we can give a good round sum on account to the
Queen’s, and we can get up another fête for the General.” A
bomb-shell could hardly have created greater astonishment, and the
project, at first, was met with disfavour. It was thought that it
would not “do” a second time; that the novelty of the
affair was over; that people would not go twice; and that the result
would be a failure. Walsh urged that what had been done had only
“whetted the appetite” of the public; that thousands
regretted not having been present; and that the result would be
certain success. His energetic advocacy carried the point, and before
the committee separated, a second fête, to be held on September 15th,
was resolved upon.

Meanwhile, it was resolved to hand over a cheque for £1,500, on
account, to the Queen’s Hospital, which was accordingly done; and
on the 22nd of August, at a meeting of the Council of the Hospital,
at which Alderman Ratcliff presided, it was resolved (inter
alia) that Walsh should be elected a Life Governor; that a marble
tablet recording the event should be erected in the vestibule of the
hospital; and that a dinner should be given to the chairman,
officers, and committee of the fête, such dinner to take place at the
“Woodman,” where the fête originated. The dinner
subsequently took place, under the presidency of the late Mr. Thomas
Upfill. It was stated incidentally that the total receipts amounted
to £2,222 12s. 5d.; that donations had been received by the Fête
Committee amounting to £93 13s.; and that they had secured annual
subscriptions amounting to £26 14s. 6d.

Pending these matters, Walsh and his friends had not been idle.
Preparations for the second fête were commenced, and energetically
urged forward. Guided by experience, the work was somewhat less
laborious, but the dread of failure made the committee doubly
anxious. Just before, there had been great rejoicing in London to
celebrate the peace with Russia, and there had been a magnificent
display of fireworks in Hyde Park. It was known that a considerable
quantity, unused on that occasion, still lay in store at Woolwich
Arsenal. Walsh opened a correspondence with the authorities; went to
London; and finally induced the Government, not only to make a free
grant of the fireworks, but to send down a staff of skilled
pyrotechnists to superintend the display at the fête. Additional
attractions in great abundance were provided. The Festival Choral
Society promised its assistance, and everything augured well, if only
the weather should be fine.

Monday, September 15th, came at last. Fortunately, it was a very
beautiful autumnal day. Nearly all the shops in the town were closed,
and everybody talked of the fête. As the day wore on, the excitement
became intense. The town literally emptied itself into Aston Park. A
newspaper of the time, says, “from the corner of Dale End to the
park, the road was one continued procession of cabs, carts, and
omnibuses, four abreast.” Trains disgorged their thousands, and
from far and near the people came pouring in, until, to the utter
amazement of everybody, the park was considerably fuller than on the
previous occasion, and the total number of visitors was estimated to
be at least 90,000.

Walsh was in his glory. With triumphant glee he mounted a chair on
the terrace, and began a short speech, with the words,
“We’re a great people, gentlemen; we’re a great
people.” He then went on to say that he was “going to turn
auctioneer,” and a huge clothes basket full of grapes—the
entire contents of one of his own forcing houses—being brought
to him, he proceeded in the most facetious manner to offer them,
bunch by bunch, for sale, and he realised in this way a very large
addition to the funds of the fête.

But space fails, and the account of this, the second fête, must
only record that in every respect it was a success; that, over and
above the prodigious number of tickets that had been sold, the
enormous sum of £1,200 was taken at the gates for admission;
and that, financially as well as numerically, it far exceeded its
predecessor.

It only remains to add, that four days afterwards, Messrs. Walsh,
Cornforth, Biggs, and Collins attended the Board Meeting of the
General Hospital, and handed over a cheque for £1,700 on account;
that at the next committee meeting it was resolved that the aggregate
results of both fêtes should be ascertained, and that the amount of
the entire profits of both should be divided in equal moieties
between the two hospitals.

So ended the great Aston Fêtes, the memory of which, and their
financial results, will be perpetuated by the marble slab at the
Queen’s Hospital, which bears the following
inscription—

The late Prince Consort, who was President of the Queen’s
Hospital, caused copies of the tablet to be prepared for presentation
to each of the four gentlemen named, and to Mr. Onions, at whose
house the fêtes originated. Each copy bears the autograph signature
of the Prince. I saw one the other day, occupying a place of honour
in the house of its possessor, who showed it to me with manly pride,
as a memento of his share in the work of the great Aston Fêtes.

G.F. MUNTZ, M.P.

The second Parliament of Queen Victoria was dissolved July 23rd,
1847. Mr. Muntz had represented Birmingham in both, having been
elected on the retirement of Mr. Attwood, in January, 1840, and
re-elected at the general election in July, 1841. It was customary in
Birmingham, before the passing of the last Reform Bill, to hold, on
the eve of elections, a meeting of non-electors, in order that the
working men, then outside the franchise, should have a
“voice,” although they had no vote, in the choice of the
Members for Birmingham. From 1844 Mr. Spooner had represented the
town, but on this occasion the Liberal electors were determined, if
possible, to eject him. Mr. William Scholefield opposed his
re-election. There was another candidate, Mr. Sergeant Allen, but as
he only polled 89 votes he may, for the present purpose, be left out
of the question. The contest lay between Mr. Spooner and Mr.
Scholefield. The leaders of the Liberal party naturally supposed that
the candidature of Mr. Scholefield would have the support of Mr.
Muntz, and that the two Liberal candidates would be able to work
together, having a joint committee. To the astonishment of the whole
town, Mr. Muntz resolutely declined to have anything to do with Mr.
Scholefield or his friends. Upon this becoming known, there was great
dismay in the Liberal camp, and Mr. Muntz became very unpopular. All
kinds of proposals were made to induce him to change his mind, but he
remained obstinate, and, in addition, stubbornly refused to canvass
for himself, or to allow his friends to canvass in his name.

Matters stood thus when the meeting of non-electors was held in
the Town Hall. It was a very hot afternoon, and the hall was crammed.
The leaders of the Liberal party took, as usual, the right of the
chairman, and filled the principal seats in front. Mr. Muntz was
“conspicuous by his absence.” The proceedings had gone on
for some time, and on the name of Mr. William Scholefield being
proposed as a candidate, the whole audience rose enthusiastically,
and the Town Hall rung with cheers, such as the Liberals of
Birmingham know so well how to bestow on a Liberal favourite or a
Liberal sentiment. In the midst of this demonstration, when the
meeting was in a state of fervid excitement, George F. Muntz quietly
came up the orchestra stairs, and took unobserved a seat upon a back
bench, near the organ. I was within two yards of him. He wore a brown
holland blouse, and had with him a paper bag, and as he placed his
hat on the seat beside him, he emptied the contents of the bag into
it. As he did so I saw that he had provided himself with half-a-dozen
oranges.

In the course of the speeches that were made, much regret was
expressed at the determination of Mr. Muntz to stand aloof from the
party in this election, and it was hinted that if the Conservatives
should retain the seat, Mr. Muntz personally would be to blame. Muntz
heard it all pretty quietly, and at length, greatly to the
astonishment of most who were there, who were not even aware of his
being present, his stalwart figure rose, like an apparition, at the
back of the gallery. Standing on a seat so as to make himself seen,
he shouted out, “Mr. Chairman!” The applause which greeted
him was met with sober silence by Mr. Scholefield’s friends. He
went on—I remember his very words—”I was going into
the Reform Club the other day, and on the steps I met Joe Parkes: you
all know Joe Parkes. Well, he said to me, ‘I say, Muntz, you must
coalesce with Scholefield.’ I said, ‘I shan’t do anything
of the sort; it is no part of my duty to dictate to my constituents
who shall be my colleague, and I shan’t do it.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you don’t, I shall recommend the
electors to plump against you.’ Well, I gave him a very short and
a very plain answer: I told him they might plump and be damned!”
The uproar, the laughter, the shouts that ensued cannot be adequately
described. In the midst of the din, Muntz coolly stooped, took a
large orange from his hat, bit a piece out of it, which he threw
away, and then facing that mighty and excited crowd, proceeded to
suck away in as unconcerned a manner as if no one were present but
himself. When the noise had somewhat subsided, he commenced an
elaborate defence of his conduct, and said he had been taunted with
being too proud to ask for the votes of the electors.
“That’s not the reason,” he said; “I knew I had
done my duty as your representative, and that I deserved your votes;
and I knew that I should get them without asking; but if it is any
satisfaction to anybody, I take this opportunity to ask you now,
collectively, to vote for me. As for your second vote, that has
nothing to do with me. Choose whom you may, I shall work cheerfully
with him as a colleague, and I have no fear of the result.”

This little speech was altogether characteristic of the man. It
showed his stubborn wilfulness, his intense egotism, his coarseness
of manner, and his affectation of eccentricity. But it exhibited also
the fact that he thoroughly understood that he was liked by the bulk
of Birmingham people, and that he knew the majority of unthinking men
would take his bluntness for manliness, and his defiance of the
feelings and opinions of his political associates, for sturdy and
commendable independence. He alienated many friends by his conduct on
this occasion, but he won his election, coming in at the head of the
poll. By dint of strenuous exertions—made necessary by his
obstinacy—Mr. Scholefield came in second. The poll stood at the
close—Muntz, 2,830; Scholefield, 2,824; Spooner, 2,302; Allen,
89. From this time till his death, ten years later, he and Mr.
Scholefield held their seats without further opposition.

In the House of Commons he succeeded, mainly by force of lungs, in
gaining attention; but he was looked upon as a political oddity,
whose utterings were amusing, if nothing more. The only good I
remember him to have done as a Member of Parliament was inducing the
Government of the day to adopt the perforating machine in the
manufacture of postage stamps.

His personal appearance was remarkable and handsome. He was tall
and exceedingly muscular, and must have possessed enormous physical
power. At a time when shaving was universal, he wore his beard. It is
generally believed that he never shaved. This is a mistake. He shaved
until he was nearly 40 years old. His youngest brother, Mr. P.H.
Muntz, the present M.P., as a young man had been sent for some years
to North Germany, and when he came home in 1833, he had a fine beard.
Mr. G.F. Muntz thereupon resolved to allow his to grow, and when he
went to Parliament this peculiarity attracted much notice. H.B., the
celebrated caricaturist, was not slow to make it the subject of one
of his inimitable sketches. In the collected edition there are 917 of
these famous pictures, all admirably drawn, and excellent likenesses.
Mr. Muntz is depicted in No. 643, under the title of “A
Brummagem M.P.” The historical stick, the baggy trousers, and
the flowing and Homeric beard, are graphically represented. The
reason given for his carrying the stick was quite amusing. It was
stated that the then Marquis of Waterford had made a wager that he
would shave Muntz, and that Muntz carried the stick to prevent that
larkish young nobleman from carrying the intention into practice.

The family from which Mr. Muntz descended was originally Polish,
but for a few generations had been domiciled in France, where they
occupied a handsome chateau, and belonged to the aristocracy of the
country. Here the father of Mr. Muntz was born. At the time of the
Revolutionary deluge that swept over France, the Muntz family, in
common with so many hundreds of their countrymen, emigrated; and
after a time, a younger son, Mr. Muntz’s father, who seems to
have been a man of great enterprise and force of character, became a
merchant at Amsterdam. This step was very displeasing to his
aristocratic relatives, but he followed his own course independently.
In a few months he left Amsterdam for England, and established
himself in Birmingham. At the age of 41 he married an English lady,
Miss Purden, she being 17 years of age, and they resided in the house
in Newhall Street now occupied by Messrs. Benson and Co., merchants,
as offices, where, in the month of November, 1794, Mr. George
Frederic Muntz was born. It is believed that his baptismal names were
given him in honour of Handel, the composer. At the time of his birth
the house stood amid fields and gardens, and the old mansion known as
“New Hall,” was in close proximity, standing on the ground
now occupied by the roadway of Newhall Street, just where the hill
begins to descend towards Charlotte Street.

The mother of Mr. Muntz was a lady of great acquirements and
considerable mental power. She undertook the early education of her
son, and was singularly qualified for the work. At the age of 12 he
was sent to a school at Small Heath, kept by a Dr. Currie, where he
remained for one year, and from that time he never received any
professional instruction. He had, however, a hunger for knowledge
that was insatiable, and, with the assistance of his excellent
mother, he pursued his studies privately. He became very well up in
ancient and modern history. At a very early age he was associated
with his father in business, and soon became a very apt assistant.
His father’s somewhat premature death in 1811 brought him, at the
early age of 18, face to face with the stern realities of life, for
he became, so to speak, the head of the family, and the mainstay of
the two businesses with which his father had been connected—the
rolling mills in Water Street and the mercantile establishment in
Great Charles Street. There he continued a hard-working, plodding;
life for many years; but on the fortunate discovery of the fact that
a peculiar alloy of sixteen parts of copper with ten and two-thirds
of spelter made a metal as efficacious for the sheathing of
ships’ bottoms as copper itself, at about two-thirds the cost, he
left the management of the old concerns pretty much to his brother,
the present Member, and devoted his own energies to the development
of the business of making “Muntz’s Metal.” This
business secured him a colossal fortune, and his name as the
fortunate discoverer is still familiar in every commercial market in
the world.

Mr. Muntz married early in life the daughter of a clergyman, by
whom he had a large family. He resided first at a pretty rustic place
overgrown with ivy, near Soho Pool, called Hockley Abbey. From thence
he removed to Ley Hall, near Perry Barr; and finally he went to
Umberslade Hall, near Knowle, where he resided for the remainder of
his life.

After the great commercial panic of 1825, the question of the
proper adjustment of the English currency became a prominent topic of
discussion, and various sections of society held contradictory
theories. A distinct school of thought upon this subject arose in
Birmingham, and comprised amongst its members some very able men of
all shades of general political opinion. It became famous, and its
theories being urged with great skill and ability, forced themselves
upon public attention. Mr. Muntz, as a very young man, embraced their
opinions, and advocated them by tongue and pen. In 1829 he wrote a
series of letters to the Duke of Wellington upon this subject, which
were marked by great ability. It was not, however, until the
agitation for the Reform Bill commenced that Mr. Muntz became much
known as a politician. He took up this cause with great ardour, and,
being gifted with considerable fluency of speech, a powerful voice, a
confident manner, and a handsome presence, he soon became immensely
popular. Thomas Attwood, Joshua Scholefield, and George Frederic
Muntz were the founders of the Political Union. The two former, as
president and vice-president respectively, were of course in the
foremost rank, but their young and ardent lieutenant, Muntz, was as
powerful and popular as they. His strong and manly voice, and bold
outspoken words, had a strange and powerful influence with his
audiences. He was a popular favourite, and when the Political Union
held their first monster meeting at Beardsworth’s Repository, on
January 25th, 1830, Muntz was the chairman. As has been written of
him, “His burly form, his rough-and-ready oratory, his thorough
contempt for all conventionalities, the heartiness of his
objurgations, and his earnestness, made him a favourite of the
people, and an acceptable speaker at all their gatherings.” When
Earl Grey, who, as Premier, had endeavoured unsuccessfully to pass a
Reform Bill, resigned, and “the Duke” took his place, bells
throughout the country were tolled, and black flags floated from many
a tower and steeple. The country was in a frenzy of anger and
disappointment. A monster meeting was held on Newhall Hill, and
there, in half a dozen words, Muntz sounded the knell of the new Tory
Ministry. In tones such as few lungs but his could produce, he
thundered in the ears of attentive and eager listeners the words,
“To stop the Duke, run for gold.” There were no telegraphs
in those days, but these words were soon known through the country. A
run commenced, such as had seldom been known before, and if it had
continued would have produced disastrous effects. The Duke was
furious. Warrants were prepared for the apprehension of Attwood,
Scholefield, and Muntz, for sedition; but the Ministry had not
courage to put them in action. The excitement became more and more
intense, and the great Duke, for the first time in his life, was
compelled to yield. He resigned, and the unsigned warrants were found
in the pigeon-holes at the Home Office by his successors.

The Tory party—Conservatives had not then been
invented—seeing how hopeless the struggle was in which they
tried to defeat the nation, gave way eventually, and the Reform Bill
of 1832 became law. The president and vice-president of the Political
Union—Attwood and Scholefield—became the first Members
for Birmingham, and political feeling was quiet for a time. It was
soon seen, however, that, although the people had taken the outworks,
the citadel of corruption had not yet been completely conquered. The
church-rate question rose to the front, and became a burning matter
of dispute. In Birmingham, on this question, public opinion ran very
high. For many years the church-rate had been sixpence and ninepence
in the pound per annum. This was felt to be a most intolerable burden
by Churchmen themselves, and the Dissenters thought it a most unjust
and unrighteous imposition. For some years there had been very angry
discussions on the subject, and most unseemly altercations at the
vestry meetings. On Easter Tuesday, the 28th March, 1837, a meeting
was called for the election of the churchwardens of St. Martin’s,
and for the making of a rate. It was held in the Church. The Rev. Mr.
Moseley, rector; Mr. Joseph Baker, who at that time was clerk to Mr.
Arnold, the Vestry Clerk; Mr. Gutteridge, surgeon; Mr. Freer, and
others, took their places in a pew on the north side of the organ.
Mr. Muntz, Mr. George Edmonds, Mr. Pare, Mr. Trow, and others in
great numbers, sat on the south. The Rector took the chair, and
proposed Mr. Reeves as his warden for the coming year. To this, of
course, there was no opposition, but on the rector saying he should
now proceed to elect a people’s warden, a row began. Mr. Pare
contended that the rector—ex officio—had no right
to act as chairman while the parishioners elected their
warden. Muntz proposed another chairman; the parish books were
demanded to be shown; but Mr. Baker put them under his feet and stood
upon them. Muntz mounted to the top of the pew and demanded the
books, and a scene of great disorder and riot ended in nothing being
done. The whole scene appears to have been one of indescribable
confusion. The rector was a timid, nervous man, who seemed during the
whole proceedings to have almost lost his wits. When Baker refused to
give up the books, a rush was made upon the rector’s pew, amid
cries of “Pitch him over,” “Get the books,”
&c. The panelling of the pew was smashed to atoms. In the midst
of the scene, Muntz’s burly form was seen, brandishing his
well-known stick. Gutteridge is described as “making incessant
grimaces and gesticulations, in a manner which induced the crowd to
call him ‘Punch,’ and to ask him why he had not brought
‘Judy’ with him.” In fact, the whole proceeding was a
disgraceful brawl.

For his complicity in this business a criminal information was
laid against Muntz, and he was brought, with two or three others, to
trial at Warwick, before Chief Justice Park and a special jury. The
charge was “tumult, riot, and assault upon Gutteridge and
Rawlins.” The trial commenced on Friday, March 30, 1838, and
lasted three entire days. The result was a virtual acquittal, Mr.
Muntz having been found guilty of “an affray,” and not
guilty on the other twelve counts of the indictment. Campbell was
counsel for the prosecution, and Wilde for the defence, and some
sparring took place between them. Campbell in a very rude and
insulting manner, chaffed Muntz about his beard, and Wilde
retorted with considerable scorn. The cost of the defence was over
£2,000.

In January, 1840, upon the retirement of Mr. Attwood from
Parliament, Mr. Muntz became a candidate for the vacant seat, and was
opposed by the notoriously bigoted Tory, Sir Charles Wetherell. The
association of his name with the riots at Bristol a few years before
did not add to his prospects of success in Birmingham. It was
thought, however, that his relationship to Mr. Spooner would give him
a chance, but the poll showed 1,454 votes for Mr. Muntz, and only 915
for Sir Charles.

From the time of his entering the House of Commons, Mr.
Muntz’s political and public character seems to have become
deteriorated. Whether increasing riches brought increasing
conservatism of thought can be hardly ascertained now; but there is
no doubt that from this time the hereditary aristocratic tendencies
of his mind began to gather force. The head of the paternal tree had
long returned from exile to the family chateau, and resumed the
position of a landed seigneur; and his son, George Louis Muntz,
cousin of George Frederic, had just been elected a Member of the
French Chamber of Deputies. Why should not the Muntzes become a
family of equal position in England? No doubt this feeling became a
ruling passion, and influenced his every thought.

Still, he was a very vain man, and had always told his friends,
publicly and privately, that at least he was politically
honest and consistent; and he was desirous—spite of his change
of views—to retain this self-given character. Hence all sorts
of eccentricities, inconsistencies, and absurdities. Hence his
constant habit of speaking one way and voting another, and hence his
morbid sensitiveness to anything like adverse criticism. In fact,
from this time he became utterly incomprehensible, and but for the
grateful recollection of the many services of his younger days, would
probably have found himself deserted by his political friends.

At this time, too, the egotism, which in his later years became
more manifest, began to show itself. He evidently thought himself
somebody, and did not hesitate to say so on all occasions;
until, at length, it was painful to listen to a speech of his. I
remember, about the time of the Crimean war, when the organisation of
the English army was found to be so lamentably deficient, there was a
society established in Birmingham called by some such name as
“The Administrative Reform Association.” A large meeting
was held in Bingley Hall, at which all the leading Liberals of the
town were present. George Dawson made a capital speech, and Muntz had
“a long innings.” As we came out, poor Dawson said to me,
“They won’t be able to print Muntz’s speech
verbatim.” “Why not?” said I. “Why, my dear
fellow, no printing office in the world would have capital I’s
enough.”

I have spoken of his dislike to adverse criticism. No one, now,
can imagine how he would rage and fume if any newspaper dared to
doubt the wisdom of any remark of his. Why, he nearly killed poor
Chidlow, the bookseller; shaking him almost to pieces for merely
selling a paper in which he was severely criticised. While as for
The Birmingham Journal, no red rag ever fluttered in the eyes
of a furious bull ever caused more rage than the sight of that paper
did to Muntz. That they should dare to doubt his
infallibility was a deadly crime and an unpardonable sin.

In opposition to this paper, Muntz started a paper of his own,
The Birmingham Mercury, by which he lost a good deal of money,
and did little good. The debts in connection with this newspaper were
not paid until after his death.

He certainly was a psychical curiosity, and his ways were
“past finding out.” He was bold and fearless physically,
but there his courage ended. He avowed himself to be a Republican,
yet he was an innate aristocrat. He was always declaiming against
despotism and tyranny in the abstract, yet he was domineering and
arbitrary in his household, in his family, and in his business. He
affected primitive simplicity, yet was one of the vainest of men. In
fact, his whole nature was a living contradiction.

About the year 1852 he lost, by death, his youngest daughter, to
whom he had been devotedly attached. This was a severe blow to him,
and from this time the robust physical frame began to exhibit tokens
of decay. His hair became gray, and streaks of silver were seen in
his magnificent beard. At the election in March, 1857, it was
observed that he had greatly changed. He continued to attend the
House of Commons until the end of May, when he was somewhat suddenly
taken severely ill. It was discovered by the medical attendants that
internal tumours, of an alarming nature, had formed, and from this
moment his recovery seemed hopeless. He bore his illness with great
firmness, although his weakness became pitiable, and the fine frame
diminished to a mere skeleton. He became at length unconscious, and
on the 30th of July, 1857, he quietly passed away in the presence of
his family.

The disposition of his vast wealth was marked by great
eccentricity. His will, when published, caused much adverse
criticism, and uncomplimentary epithets were freely used. Suffice it
to say here, that his property was most unequally, if not unfairly,
divided amongst his family, and that he did not leave a farthing to
the Charities of the town of his birth—the town which had done
so much for him, and for which he had always professed so much
attachment.

JOSEPH GILLOTT.

About a hundred and fifty years ago, a gentleman, whose name I
have not been able to ascertain, owned the premises in Icknield
Street West, now known as Monument House, and in his garden, near the
house, he built the tall octagonal tower, now known as the Monument,
respecting the origin of which so many various legendary stories are
current. It was, no doubt, erected to enable its owner, who was an
astronomer, to obtain from its upper chamber a more extensive field
of view for his instruments, and thus to enable him to make
observations of the heavenly bodies when they were very low down in
the horizon. I am informed, however, by an old inhabitant of
Edgbaston, that his father told him, when a little boy, that it, was
built by a gentleman named Parrott, who formerly lived in the top
house in Bull Street, at the corner of Steelhouse Lane. This
gentleman had removed to the house now called Monument House, and
built the “Monument” in his garden to enable him—when
from age he became too much enfeebled to enjoy it himself—to
watch from its upper storeys the sport of coursing, which was
extensively practised in the pleasant fields and meadows which then
surrounded the house. Be that as it may, it is certain that the tower
was, a century ago, known by the name of “Parrott’s
Folly.”[A]

A [ In a Directory for the year 1800, Monument
House is named as the residence of Mr. Parrott Noel.]

From the top storey of this lofty building there was a very
extensive range of vision, but when first built there was little to
be seen but green fields and open country. Of the few buildings
visible, Ladywood House, still standing, occupied the foreground, and
was surrounded by a pleasant park. Apparently just beyond was the
fine old mansion known as New Hall, which stood where now Great
Charles Street intersects Newhall Street, the present roadway being
the very site which the house then occupied. St. Philip’s Church
was being built, and the scaffold of its unfinished tower and dome
looked like a huge net of wickerwork. A little to the left, Aston
Hall, in the clear atmosphere, seemed only about a mile away. Beyond,
on a gentle eminence, Coleshill was distinctly visible, and in the
far distance the tower of St. Mary’s Church at Coventry reared to
the dim and hazy sky its exquisitely tapered and most graceful
spire.

I stood within this upper room, a few years ago, on a pleasant
evening in the summer-time. From its windows there is still a very
extensive view, but how changed! On all sides but one there is
nothing to be seen, under the dingy cloud of smoke, but a weary,
bewildering mass of dismal brick and mortar; and even on the
north-west, where there are still a few green fields and pleasant
gardens in the neighbourhood of the two reservoirs, the eye, reaching
beyond there, comes upon the dark and forbidding regions to the west
of Dudley. As on that glorious evening I turned my telescope to this
point, I was startled by a very curious sight. I had placed the
instrument in such a manner that its “field” was completely
filled by the ruby-coloured disc of the setting sun. As I looked, I
saw the singular apparition of a moving “whimsey” at the
top of Brierley Hill, dark and black against the shining surface. It
was an extraordinary illusion, for it looked exactly as if the rising
and falling beam of the engine were attached to the surface of the
sun itself.

On the same side, I saw, almost at the foot of the tower on which
I stood, a little enclosed garden. It contained at one end a long,
low, pavilion-like building, and, here and there, some pleasant
alcoves and garden seats. I heard the sound of merry voices, and, I
saw two or three sets of gentlemen playing the game known by the
unpoetical name of “quoits.” Upon inquiry I was told that
this was the private ground of the Edgbaston Quoit Club, a select
body, consisting mainly of well-to-do inhabitants of that pleasant
suburb. By the courtesy of one of the members, I was a few days
afterwards conducted over these premises. It was not a club day, so
we were alone. The low pavilion, was, I found, the dining-room of the
club—for on club days the members met to dine, as a preliminary
to the play. It was plainly and very comfortably furnished, and every
arrangement seemed to have been made that could conduce to the
convenience of the members. At one end was a long row of hat-pegs,
and upon these, at various angles, hung a singular assortment of
garden hats and caps, of every imaginable shape and colour. They were
the négligé head-coverings of the members, and though
altogether dissimilar in most respects, they were alike in
one—they were all of very large size.

Phrenologists tell us that the size of a man’s head is
indicative of his mental power, and these hats certainly bore out the
theory, for their owners were mostly self-made men, and were, without
exception, men of mark. I will not mention the name of any of those
now living, but two of the largest hats there belonged respectively
to Walter Lyndon and Joseph Gillott.

Mr. Gillott, we are told, in a newspaper published soon after his
death, was “born of poor but honest parents.” I should like
very much to inquire here, how it is that novel writers, magazine
contributors, and newspaper reporters always write “poor
but honest.” Is there really anything antithetic or
antagonistic in poverty and honesty? To my mind the phrase always
seems offensive, and it will be well if it is discontinued in the
future. It is one of those little bits of clap-trap so common among
reporters, who use phrases of this kind continually, without a
thought as to their appropriateness.

However, Joseph Gillott was born in Sheffield about three months
before the present century commenced. His parents were poor,
but they managed to give him a good plain education, and they taught
him self-reliance. They taught him, too, to train and cultivate the
fine faculty of observation with which he was naturally endowed. In
very early life, we are told, he, by forging and grinding the blades
of pen-knives, contributed greatly to the income of the parental
household. It is said that even at a very early age, his quick
perception and his acute nervous organisation enabled him to produce
much finer work than others of far greater experience in the same
trade, whose obtuseness had kept them in a state of comparative
drudgery all their lives.

When he became of age, and was “out of his time,” the
cutlery trade in Sheffield was very much depressed, and he came to
Birmingham, hoping to obtain employment in a trade which, owing to a
caprice of fashion, was just then in an inflated condition. This was
the business of making steel buckles, and other articles of polished
steel for personal adornment. In this he was very successful, and
soon after his arrival in the town, he took a small house in Bread
Street, a little way down on the right from Newhall Street, and here
he started business for himself. He had no capital, but he had great
skill. Mr. S.A. Goddard, who used to buy from him, tells me that he
made very excellent goods, and “came for his money every
week.” He was a very excellent workman, and possessing as he did
the native perception of fitness which we call “taste,” he
soon obtained abundance of orders, and became prosperous.

At this time the steel pen trade, which has since grown to such
enormous dimensions, was only in a tentative condition. Josiah Mason,
in conjunction with Perry, of The Morning Chronicle newspaper,
was experimenting, and two brothers, named respectively John and
William Mitchell, were actually making, by a tedious method, a fairly
good article. They were assisted in their work by a sister. By some
fortunate accident, Gillott and Miss Mitchell met, and after a brief
courtship they entered into an engagement to marry. She spoke to her
intended husband of the nature of her occupation, and Gillott at once
conceived the idea that the press, the useful implement then
used principally in the button trade, might, if proper tools could be
made to suit, produce pens in large numbers very rapidly. With his
own hands, in a garret of his house, he secretly worked until he had
succeeded in making pens of a far better quality than had yet been
seen. His process was one in which, unassisted, he could produce as
many pens as twenty pairs of hands, working under the old system,
could turn out. There was an enormous demand for his goods, and as he
wanted help, and secrecy seemed needful, the young people married,
and Mr. Gillott used to tell how, on the very morning of his
marriage, he, before going to the church, made with his own hands a
gross of pens, and sold them at 1s. each, realising thereby a sum of
£7 4s.

Continuing to live in the little house in Bread Street, the young
couple worked in the garret, no one else assisting. As an
illustration of the primitive condition of the steel pen trade then,
it may be mentioned that at this period the pens were
“blued” and varnished in a common frying-pan, over a
kitchen fire. Orders flowed in so rapidly, and the goods were
produced in such quantities, that the young couple made money faster
than they knew what to do with it. They were afraid to invest it, as
they did not wish it to ooze out that the business was so profitable.
It has been stated that Mr. Gillott had several banking accounts open
at this time, being afraid that, if he paid all his profits into one
bank, it might excite cupidity, and so engender competition. It is
also said that he actually buried money in the cellar of his house,
lest his marvellously rapid accumulation of wealth should become
known.

At length the demand for his pens became so great that it was
impossible to resist the urgent necessity for larger premises and
increased labour. Mr. Gillott, accordingly, removed to Church Street,
and subsequently took other premises, up the yard by Mr. Mappin’s
shop in Newhall Street. About the same time, he removed his family to
the house at the corner of Great Charles Street, where the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers had its offices until its recent
removal to London. After a few years, he commenced to build the
premises in Graham Street, where the business has, ever since, been
carried on. At the time the building was erected, there were few
“factories,” properly so called, in the town, and most of
the work of the place was conducted in the low, narrow ranges of
latticed-windowed buildings known as “shopping.” Mr.
Gillott’s was, I think, the first Birmingham building in the
modern factory style. It was admirably planned, and expensively
built. Even, now, when hundreds of factories have arisen, its solid
and substantial appearance externally, and the arrangements inside,
for order, and for the organisation of labour, are not surpassed by
any of its rivals.

As soon as Mr. Gillott’s appliances were of sufficient extent
to supply very large quantities, he commenced to advertise
extensively, a practice which he continued during the remainder of
his life, and which his son and successor still follows up in a
modified form. I perfectly remember, more than forty years ago, his
advertisements in tine magazines, and on the cover of the “Penny
Cyclopædia.” Like everything that Mr. Gillott did, they bore
the impress of original thought. After giving his name and address,
and a few other particulars as to his wares, the advertisements went
on to say something like this:

The advertisements invariably had the fac-simile of Mr.
Gillott’s signature, as now; a signature better known, perhaps,
than any other in the world, and one with which almost every human
being who can write is perfectly familiar. Of course it will be
understood that the quantities given above are altogether imaginary.
It is impossible to remember the exact figures after so many years,
but they are inserted to show the form the advertisements then
took.

Faster than the improved facilities at his command enabled him to
produce, came the demand for his pens. To meet this, he brought from
time to time into use many mechanical appliances, the product of his
fertile and ingenious brain, until at length every one of the old
processes was superseded, and labour-saving machinery substituted.
The price of the pens fell from a shilling each to less than that sum
per gross, and the steel pen came into universal use. The enormous
number of yens produced in Mr. Gillott’s works can scarcely be
set down in figures, but may be estimated roughly, from the statement
made at the time of his death that the average weight of the weekly
make of finished pens exceeded five tons. I have tried, by
experiment, to arrive at an approximate estimate of the number
of pens this weight represents. I have taken a “scratch”
dozen of pens, of all sorts and sizes, and ascertaining their weight,
have calculated therefrom, and I find that the result is something
like sixty thousand grosses, or the enormous number of nearly nine
millions of separate pens, sent out from this manufactory every
week.

In the course of the forty or fifty years during which Mr. Gillott
was in business, many other manufactories of steel pens were
established, at some of which, probably, greater numbers of
pens were produced than at his own, but the amount of business
transacted was in no case, probably, so great. Mr. Gillott did not
compete in the direction others took—lowness of price. Like his
brother-in-law, Mr. William Mitchell, he preferred to continue to
improve the quality. It is somewhat remarkable that, after long years
of active and severe competition, these two houses—the oldest
in the trade, I believe—have still the highest reputation for
excellence.

It has often occurred to me that the invention of steel pens came
most opportunely. Had they not been invented, Rowland Hill’s
penny postage scheme would probably have failed. There would not have
been, in the whole world, geese enough to supply quills to make the
required number of pens. Had Byron lived a little later on, his
celebrated couplet would not have apostrophised the “gray goose
quill,” but would probably have run something like this:

My purpose, however, in this sketch is not to write a history of
the trade by which Mr. Gillott raised himself to fame and fortune,
but rather to describe the man himself, as he moved quietly and
unobtrusively among his fellow men. One of his chief characteristics,
it has always struck me, was his intense love of excellence in
everything with which he had to do. It was a frequent jocular remark
of his that “the best of everything was good enough for
him.” In this—perhaps unknowingly—he followed Lord
Bacon’s advice, “Jest in earnest,” for he, certainly,
earnestly carried out in life the desire to do, and to possess, the
“best” that could be attained. Of this peculiarity, some
very pleasant stories can be told.

Soon after he had purchased the beautiful estate at Stanmore, near
Harrow-on-the-Hill, which he loved so much, and where, in company
with his old friend, Pettitt, the artist, he spent so much time in
his latter years, he resolved to adorn the grounds with the rarest
and most beautiful shrubs and trees obtainable. The trustees of the
Jephson Gardens, at Leamington, about the same time, advertised for
sale some surplus plants of rare kinds, and Mr. Gillott paid the
gardens a visit. He had selected a number of costly specimens, when
his eye fell on a tree of surpassing beauty. He inquired its price,
and was told that it was not for sale. He was not a man to be easily
baffled, and he still tried to make a bargain. He was at length told
that an offer of £50 had already been made for the tree, and refused.
His reply was characteristic: “Well, I’ve made up my mind to
have that tree, and I’ll give £100 for it. This offer, with the
amount of those I have selected, will make my morning’s purchases
come to three or four hundred pounds. If I don’t have this tree,
I won’t have any.” He had it, and it still adorns the
magnificent lawn at Stanmore.

Few people know that he had a fancy for collecting precious
stones, simply as rarities. Poor George Lawson (whose tall, erect,
and soldier-like figure was well known in the streets of Birmingham
and at picture sales, and whose thoroughly good-natured, genial,
hearty manner, and singular wealth of humour, made him the favourite
“of all circles, and the idol of his own”) told me a
capital story illustrative of this. One of Mr. Lawson’s daughters
complained to him of tooth-ache, and he advised her to have it
extracted. The young lady, who had inherited a large share of her
father’s rare humour, went immediately to the dentist and had the
objectionable tooth removed. There had been a calf’s head on the
dinner-table that day, and the young lady, on her return, obtained
from the cook one of the large molars from the jaw of the calf,
which, having been carefully wrapped in paper, was presented to her
father as her own. He saw through the trick in an instant, and
affecting great astonishment at its enormous size, he put it in his
waistcoat pocket, as a curiosity, forming in his own mind a little
plot for the following day, when he had an engagement to dine out.
The dinner party was at Walter Lyndon’s house at Moseley, and
here he met Gillott. Lawson, at table, was seated next to a gentleman
from London, who wore on his forefinger a ring containing a very
magnificent diamond; so large, indeed, as to excite Lawson’s
attention so much that at length he spoke, “You must really
excuse me, but I cannot help admiring the splendid diamond in your
ring.” “Yes, it’s a pretty good one,” said the
gentleman, handing it to Lawson for inspection. It was passed round
the table until it reached Gillott, who carefully inspected it and
said, “It’s a very good one; but I think I have one
that’ll ‘lick’ it.” Putting his hand into the breast
pocket of his coat, he brought out two or three shabby-looking
screwed-up bits of paper. Selecting one of these, he opened it, and
produced therefrom an unmounted diamond, far surpassing in size and
purity the one in the ring. Precious stones generally became at once
the topic of conversation, and it was wondered whether an emerald of
equal size would be of equal or, as one contended, even greater
value. One gentleman present said that an emerald so large had never
yet been seen. Gillott’s eye twinkled with a merry humour, as,
from another bit of paper, he produced an emerald larger than the
diamond, and a minute afterwards trumped both these with a splendid
ruby. It was now Lawson’s turn. Assuming a serious look, he said
that Mr. Gillott’s specimens were certainly very remarkable, but
he could “beat them hollow.” Then, with an air of great
mystery and care, he produced from his pocket the carefully-enveloped
tooth, which he exhibited to his astonished friends as the identical
tooth taken from his daughter’s jaw the day before.

It is well known that Mr. Gillott had accumulated a very large and
fine collection of violins and other stringed musical instruments.
These, when sold by auction after his death, fetched, under the
hammer, upwards of £4,000. About twenty years ago an old friend of
mine in Leicestershire, who had met with some heavy losses, desired
to sell a fine Stradivarius violin, which had been in his family more
than a century, and he sent it to me that I might offer it to Mr.
Gillott. I called upon him to ask permission to bring it to him for
inspection. I can recall now the frank, honest, homely Yorkshire tone
with which he said, “Nay, lad! I shan’t buy any more
fiddles; I’ve got a boat-load already.” He wouldn’t look
at it, and I sent it back to its owner, who is long since dead.

World-wide as was his reputation as a manufacturer, he was almost
equally renowned as one of the most munificent and discriminating
patrons of Art. Possessing, naturally, a most refined taste, and
having very acute perceptive powers, he instinctively recognised the
true in the work of young artists; and when he saw tokens of
more than common ability, he fostered the budding talent in a very
generous spirit. So much was thought of his judgment, that the fact
of his having bought a picture by an unknown man was quite sufficient
to give the artist a position. I heard a story from a Liverpool
artist the other day, very characteristic of Mr. Gillott’s firm
and determined, yet kind and generous, nature. It is well known that
he very early recognised the genius of the gifted Müller, and became
his warm supporter. One result of his patronage was that others
sought the artist, and by offers of large prices and extensive
commissions, induced him to let them have some of his pictures, which
Gillott was to have bought. Müller appears to have become inflated
by his great success, and he, in this or some other way, managed to
annoy his early friend and patron in a very serious manner. His
punishment was swift, severe, and sure. Gillott immediately packed
off every Müller picture he possessed to an auction room in London,
with directions that they should be extensively advertised as his
property, and sold without the slightest reserve. This step so
frightened the Art-world that “Müllers” became a drug in
the market, and poor Müller found himself neglected by his quondam
friends. He soon came in penitence to Gillott, who again took him by
the hand, and befriended him until his untimely death in 1845, at the
age of 33. At the sale of Mr. Gillott’s pictures after his
decease, Müller’s celebrated picture, “The Chess
Players,” fetched the enormous sum of £3,950.

The story of Mr. Gillott’s introduction to the great landscape
painter, Turner, has been variously told, but the basis of all the
stories is pretty much the same. It seems that Gillott, long before
Ruskin had dubbed Turner “the modern Claude,” had detected
the rare excellence of his works, and longed to possess some. He went
to the dingy house in Queen Anne Street, and Turner himself opened
the door. In reply to Gillott’s questions, he said he had
“nothing to sell that he could afford to buy.”
Gillott, by great perseverance, obtained admission, and tried at
first to bargain for a single picture. Turner looked disdainfully at
his visitor, and refused to quote a price. Still Gillott persevered,
and at length startled the artist by asking, “What’ll you
take for the lot in this room?” Turner, half-jokingly, named a
very large sum—many thousands—thinking to frighten him
off, but Gillott opened his pocket book, and, to Turner’s utter
amazement, paid down the money in crisp Bank of England notes. From
this moment the two men, so utterly unlike in their general
character, but so strangely kindred in their love of Art, became on
intimate terms of friendship, which lasted until Turner’s death
in 1851. Mr. Gillott’s collection of Turner’s works was the
largest and finest in private hands in England, and, when they were
sold, realised more than five times the money he had paid for
them.

Mr. Gillott was not, in any sense, a public man, and he took no
active part in politics. He had a great dislike to public companies,
and I believe never held a share in one. He had a very few old
friends with whom he loved to associate. He was very hospitable, but
he had a strong aversion to formal parties, and to every kind of
ostentation. His chief delight was to act as cicerone to an
appreciative visitant to his magnificent gallery. He was a frequent
visitor to the snug smoking-room at the “Hen and Chickens,”
where poor “Walter” always brought him, without waiting for
an order, what Tony Weller called the “inwariable” and a
choice cigar. He did not talk much, but, when he spoke, he had always
“something to say.” He left early, and went from there,
almost nightly, to the Theatre Royal, where he occupied, invariably,
a back seat of a certain box, and here, if the performances were a
little dull, he would often enjoy a comfortable nap.

In private life he was cheerful, easily pleased, and unaffected.
He was greatly beloved by children and young people. I wrote the
other day to a lady, at whose father’s house he was a frequent
visitor, asking for her recollections of him; and the reply is so
pleasant and graphic, that, without her permission, I shall quote it
verbatim:

Personally, Mr. Gillott was rather short, and was of broad and
sturdy build. He had a remarkably firm step, and there was a rhythmic
regularity in his footfall. He was fond of light attire, and
generally wore a white hat. There was an air of freshness in his
appearance that was very pleasant, and he had such a remarkably clean
look that I have often thought that his cleanliness was
something positive, something more than the mere absence of
dirt. He had a curious way, as he walked, of looking dreamily upon
the ground a few yards in front of him, and when anyone met him his
eye would rise with a kind of jerk; then with a piercing glance he
would intently, for a moment only, “take stock” of the
passer by, and drop his eyes again.

For the last two or three years of his life he was haunted by a
fear of impending blindness. The thought of being shut out from the
sight of his pictures caused him much gloomy apprehension. Happily,
his fears were not realised. He retained his sight and other
faculties unimpaired until his death. On the 26th of December, 1872,
he, in accordance with his annual Christmas custom, assembled all his
family to dinner, at his house in Westbourne Road, and in his kindly,
affectionate manner spoke hopefully of meeting them there on the same
day of the following year. It was not to be. On the next day he felt
somewhat unwell; in two or three days bronchitis and pleurisy
supervened; and in the afternoon of Friday, the 5th of January, 1873,
his long, honourable, and useful life terminated.

HENRY VAN WART, J.P.

Many years ago I was one of a small dinner party of gentlemen at a
house in the Hagley Road. I was a comparative stranger, for I only
knew the host and two others who were there. I was a young man, and
all the other guests were men of middle age. The party had been
invited for the purpose of introducing me to “a few old
friends,” and I was to be married the next day to a relative of
the host. Sitting opposite to me at table was a gentleman of some
fifty or sixty years of age, whose fine oval face and ample brow
struck me as having the most benevolent and “fatherly”
expression I had ever seen. The custom had not then quite died out of
toasting the guests at dinner parties, and upon a hint from the host
this gentleman rose, and in simple and apparently sincere phrase,
proposed to the company to drink my health. I mention it now, because
I remember in what a kindly, genial way he pointed out to me the
course of conduct best calculated to secure happiness in the state
into which I was so soon to enter. I recollect, too, how his voice
faltered as he spoke of his own long and happy experience as a
husband and a father, and mentioned that in one great trouble of his
life it was the loving support of his wife that enabled him to bear,
and eventually to overcome it. The speaker was Henry Van Wart.

I suppose the impressionable state of my own mind at the time,
made me peculiarly susceptible to external influences, and fixed
minute circumstances more intensely on my memory; so that I now
vividly recall the thought which then occurred to me—that I had
never before seen so much gentleness and calm quiet benignity in a
man. The impression then rapidly formed has lasted ever since,
for in all the long years from that day until his death I never had
cause to abate one jot of the reverential feeling with which he then
inspired me. I have had hundreds of business transactions with his
house; I have seen him often in the magistrate’s chair; and I
have met him publicly and privately, and he had always the same
bland, suave, courteous, and kindly bearing. Strength of character
and gentleness of conduct and manner were so combined in him that he
frequently seemed to me to be a living proof of the truth of a saying
of poor George Dawson: “The tenderness of a strong man is more
gentle than the gentleness of the most tender woman.”

Mr. Van Wart was an American by birth, and a Dutchman by descent.
His ancestors emigrated from Holland about the year 1630 to the
colony of New Netherland, established in North America by the Dutch
in the year 1621. The capital of this settlement was named New
Amsterdam, and was built upon the island of Manhattan, the entire
area of which, now completely covered with buildings, and comprising
the whole site of the city of New York, had been bought from an
Iroquois chief, in fee-simple, for twenty-four dollars, being at
about the rate of a penny for twelve acres! In 1652, New Amsterdam,
then having about a thousand inhabitants, was incorporated as a city.
Twelve years after, the entire province was seized by the British,
under Colonel Nichols, and was re-named by him “New York.”
The Dutch made some unsuccessful attempts to recover possession, and
they held the city for a short time, but in 1674 the whole colony was
ceded by treaty to the English, who held it until the War of
Independence. When they quitted it, on November 25th, 1783, Henry Van
Wart was exactly two months old.

The struggle for the independence of the American states had been
going on with varying success for many years, but the tide at length
turned so decidedly against the British, that an armistice was sought
and agreed upon. Hostilities were suspended, and a conference met in
Paris. Here a treaty, acknowledging the independence of America, was
agreed to by England, and signed on the 3rd of September, 1783. On
the 25th of the same month, Henry Van Wart was born at a pretty
village on the banks of the Hudson, called Tarrytown, a place since
celebrated as the “Sleepy Hollow” of Washington
Irving’s delightful book, but at that time remarkable as the
scene of one of the most distressing incidents in all the wretched
struggle then just over—the capture of the unfortunate Major
André.

Mr. Van Wart, feeling little inclination for his father’s
business of a farmer, was apprenticed to the mercantile firm of
Irving and Smith, of New York. In accordance with the usage of the
times, he became an inmate of the household of Mr. William Irving,
the head of the firm. Mr. Irving, like his gifted brother,
Washington, was a man of extensive reading and considerable taste,
culture, and refinement. Mr. Van Wart’s intercourse with the
Irving family, had, no doubt, a considerable influence in forming his
character. He probably learned from them the courtesy and kindness of
manner which distinguished him through life.

On the termination of his apprenticeship in the year 1804, Mr. Van
Wart married the youngest sister of his employer, and was despatched
by the firm, who had unbounded confidence in his integrity and
judgment, to organise a branch of the house at Liverpool. Here his
eldest son, Henry, was born in 1806, soon after which the Liverpool
concern was abandoned, and Mr. Van Wart returned to America, where he
remained for some considerable period.

Soon after the birth of his second son, Irving, in 1808, Mr. Van
Wart returned to England with his family, and commenced business in
Birmingham. He first occupied a house on the left-hand side of the
West Bromwich road, at Handsworth. The house, which is occupied by
Mr. T.R.T. Hodgson, is a stuccoed one, with its gable towards the
road; it stands near the “New Inn.” After a short time he
removed to the house at the corner of Newhall Street and Great
Charles Street, which was, until recently, occupied by the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

He afterwards bought a stone-built house in Icknield Street West.
This house stood on the right-hand side near the present Wesleyan
Chapel. It is now pulled down. In connection with this purchase, a
curious circumstance occurred. As already stated, Mr. Van Wart was
born a few days after England had acknowledged the independence of
America. Those few days made all the difference to him. Had his birth
occurred a month earlier, he would have been born a British subject.
As it was, he was an alien, and incapable of holding freehold
property in England. To get over this difficulty, he had to apply
for, and obtain, a special Act of Parliament to naturalise him. This
having passed, he was enabled to complete the purchase of the house,
to which he soon removed. Here his celebrated brother-in-law,
Washington Irving, came on a visit, and in this house the greater
part of the “Sketch-book” was written.

In 1814, the second American War was closed by treaty, and all the
world was at peace. Business on both sides of the Atlantic became
suddenly inflated, and there being at that time no restriction upon
the issue of bank notes, mercantile transactions, to enormous
amounts, were comparatively easy. Urged by American buyers, Mr. Van
Wart purchased very large quantities of Birmingham and other goods,
which he shipped to New York. In a very short time, however, a
revulsion came. Prices fell rapidly, in some cases to the extent of
50 per cent; American houses by scores tottered and fell; the Irvings
could not weather the storm, and their fall brought down Mr. Van
Wart.

As soon as he was honourably released from his difficulties, he
commenced another kind of business. He no longer sent his own goods
for sale abroad, but bought exclusively on commission for other
merchants. This business rapidly grew into one of the most extensive
and important in Birmingham; was continued by him until the day of
his death, and is still in active operation.

Having sold his house at Springfield to Mr. Barker, the Solicitor,
he removed to a house at the top of Newhall Hill, then quite in the
country: This house is still standing, but is incorporated with Mr.
Wiley’s manufactory, and is entirely hidden from view by the
lofty buildings which have enclosed it. From here, about 1820, he
removed to Calthorpe Road, then newly formed, where he occupied a
house—the seventh, I think—on the left-hand from the Five
Ways. From the back windows of this house he could look across fields
and meadows to Moseley, there not being, with the exception of a few
in the Bristol Road, a house or other building visible. Here
Washington Irving was almost a constant visitor. Here
“Bracebridge Hall”—the original of which was Aston
Hall—was written, and in this house some of the most delightful
letters published in Irving’s biography were penned. After a few
years, Mr. Van Wart finally removed to “The Shrubbery” in
Hagley Road, where he continued to reside until his death.

After the death of his excellent wife, which occurred in 1848, he
went on a long visit to America, and while there narrowly escaped
death. He was proceeding from Boston to New York, up Long Island
Sound, when a storm arose, and the vessel was wrecked upon the
Connecticut shore. She lay some fifty yards from the land; some of
the passengers got on shore something as St. Paul did upon the island
of Melita. Mr. Van Wart, deeming it safer to hold to the wreck,
remained until he was getting benumbed, and feared losing the use of
his limbs. Letting himself down into the water, he paddled and swam
amongst the broken stuff from the ship until he reached the shore. He
was, however, too much exhausted to get upon the land, but some one,
who had observed his struggles, dragged him, quite insensible, from
the water. He was carried on men’s backs some half a mile, to a
farm house, where he was hospitably treated, and nursed until he
recovered.

The character of a man who had so little of the “light and
shade” of average humanity, and the placid current of whose life
seemed so unrippled, offers none of those strong contrasts, and
subtle peculiarities, which render the analysis of more stormy and
unequal minds comparatively easy. His frank and open speech; the
kindly grasp of his hand; his ever-ready ear for tales of trouble or
difficulty; the wise counsel, which was never withheld; the general
bland and suave manner; the pleasant smile, and his remarkably
genial, hearty greeting, will be long remembered, and they make it
difficult to say anything of him, except in panegyric.

There is one point, however, on which a word or two may be said,
as I think he has been somewhat misunderstood. It has been said of
him that he was “incapable of strong friendly attachments.”
I am of opinion that this impression may have been caused by his very
genial manner and hearty bearing. These may have led some to think
that he felt towards them as a friend in the highest sense, while
he looked upon them merely as acquaintances. His
friendliness was general and diffusive, and certainly was not
concentrated upon one or two objects, as is the case sometimes with
intenser natures. That he was capable of lasting friendship,
however, one little circumstance will show. Mr. S.D. Williams, of the
Reservoir Road, one of the most intellectual men of whom Birmingham
could boast, was an invalid for a very long time before his death,
and, I believe, had not been outside his own gates for nearly thirty
years. During the whole of that long time, up to within a few weeks
of his death, Mr. Van Wart never missed paying him a visit every
Saturday evening. On these occasions they invariably played whist, a
game of which Mr. Van Wart, being a particularly skilful player, was
remarkably fond. His punctuality in this matter was something
remarkable; at eight o’clock to the minute he arrived, and at
five minutes to twelve exactly his coachman brought the carriage to
take his master home.

As a merchant, he was intelligent, sagacious, straight-forward,
methodical, and strictly honourable; and his cordial manner made him
a universal favourite both among manufacturers and customers. He was
much beloved by his clerks and assistants, many of whom grew gray in
his service. He was American Vice-Consul for a time, but from his
first coming to England does not seem to have taken any great
interest in American politics. During the Civil War in the States,
although his sympathies were altogether with the North, he took no
public part in the dispute, standing in strong contrast to his
countryman and fellow townsman, Mr. Goddard, who wrote voluminously,
and whose writings had a very marked effect upon the public opinion
of England on that great question. As an English politician, Mr. Van
Wart was neither very active nor very ardent. He was a Liberal, but
inclined to Whig views. He opposed Mr. Bright in his first contested
election for Birmingham, but there is reason for thinking he
regretted it afterwards.

When the town was incorporated, in 1838, he was chosen to be one
of the Councillors for Edgbaston Ward, and on the first meeting of
the Council, was elected Alderman, an office he held for twenty
years. He might have been Mayor at any time, but he invariably
declined that honour. He was one of the first creation of Borough
Magistrates, and he conscientiously fulfilled the duties of that
office until near his end, when increasing deafness rendered him
incapable.

In private life he was greatly beloved. Those who had the pleasure
of the acquaintance of Mrs. Van Wart say that he always treated her
with remarkable deference and consideration, “as if she were a
superior being.” His intercourse with his gifted brother-in-law,
Washington Irving, seems to have been of the most close and
affectionate character. His presence at an evening party was always
greeted with a hearty welcome, up to the latest period of his life;
and it was pleasant to see, when he was verging upon his 90th year,
how young ladies seemed as desirous to meet his kindly glance as
their great-grandmothers may have been sixty years before.

Up to a year or two before his death, his robust constitution; his
quiet, regular habits; his equanimity of disposition, and his
temperate method of life, preserved his strength and vigour almost
unimpaired. Few can forget his hale and hearty presence, as he strode
along the streets of Birmingham; his peculiar walk—the strange
jerky spring of the hinder foot, and the heavy planting of the front,
as if he were striking the earth with a powerful blow—marking
his individuality, whilst the pleasant kindly smile of greeting, and
the full firm tones of his manly voice, gave evidence of vigour very
rare in a man of his age. Even to the last his strength seemed
unimpaired, and he succumbed to a chance attack of bronchitis, but
for which his constitution seemed to possess sufficient stamina to
have made him a centenarian. He died at his residence on the 15th of
February, 1873, being then in his 90th year.

He was a well-informed man, and had a most retentive memory. He
had a great fund of quiet humour, and could tell a good story better
than most men. He was a good judge of character, and, as a
magistrate, could distinguish between what was radically bad in a
prisoner, and the crime which was the outcome of want and
wretchedness. During his long Birmingham life of nearly seventy
years, he was universally respected, and when he descended into the
grave it may be said that there was no one who could say of him an
unkindly word.

He was mainly instrumental in the establishment of the Birmingham
Exchange, the idea of which originated with Mr. Edwin Lander. He
exerted himself greatly in the establishment of the company which
erected the buildings, and he was its chairman until his death. The
members of this institution, to mark their sense of his worth,
commissioned Mr. Munns to paint his portrait; and if any reader is
desirous to see the “counterfeit presentment” of what Henry
Van Wart was, he has only to enter the principal hall of the
Exchange, where he will find a full-length portrait, at 87 years of
age, of a man who, more than any other I have known, was entitled
to—

CHARLES SHAW, J.P., &c.

Just before the Great Western Railway Company began the
construction of their line from Oxford to Birmingham, I was passing
down Great Charles Street one afternoon, when my attention was
attracted by some unusual bustle. Near the spot where the hideous
railway bridge now disfigures the street, there was a row of carts
and vans backed up to the curbstone of the pavement on the left. From
a passage by the side of a large square brick-built house some
brokers’ men were bringing a variety of dingy stools, desks,
shelves, counters, and other odds and ends of office furniture. Near
the front door of the house, stood, looking on, a well-dressed,
stout-built, florid-complexioned man, of middle height, and,
apparently, of middle age. As I slackened my pace to observe more
intently the operations of the brokers’ men, this gentleman
approached me, and in courteous tones, and as if appealing to me for
sympathy, said, “You can’t imagine the pain these
proceedings are giving me; I was born in this house more than fifty
years ago; I have never been away from it long together; I’ve
been familiar, all my life, with the ‘things’ they are
carting away, and to see the old place stripped in this way, hurts me
as much as if I were having one of my limbs cut off.” As he
spoke, his voice became tremulous, and tears—actual
tears—rolled down his cheeks. I was amazed; I was completely
thunder-struck. The man who thus spoke, and who then shed tears, was,
of all men in the world, the very last I should have thought capable
of a tender emotion, or of a sentimental feeling about a lot of
worn-out stools and tables. He was generally considered to be the
hardest man in Birmingham, and that this man should be capable
of sentimentalism, even to tears, was a mystery to me then, and will
be a surprise to most of those who only knew the man superficially.
He was no other than Charles—or, as he was universally called,
“Charley”—Shaw. The railway company, requiring the
site of his business premises for the construction of their line, had
bought the place, and an auction sale that day had disposed of the
well-worn effects that were being carted away.

Probably no Birmingham man occupying a prominent position, was
ever so unpopular as Charles Shaw. He was generally disliked and
somewhat dreaded. He was unscrupulous and regardless of truth, where
truthfulness and his interests were antagonistic. His manners,
frequently, went far beyond the limit of decent behaviour. I hope,
however, spite of his many failings, to show, in the course of this
sketch, that he had many redeeming qualities; that he was a most
useful citizen; and that he was not altogether so black as he was
painted.

He certainly was a strange mixture of good and bad qualities. He
seemed to be made up altogether of opposites. He was very bitter
against any one who had offended him, yet he was not permanently
vindictive. He was grasping in business, yet he was not ungenerous.
He was a most implacable enemy, yes he was capable of warm and most
disinterested friendship. He could descend to trickery in dealing,
yet as a magistrate he had a high and most inflexible ideal of
honour, honesty, and rectitude. He could be coarse in his conduct and
demeanour, and yet he could occasionally be as courteous and
dignified as the most polished gentleman. He was overbearing where he
felt he was safe, yet where he was met by courage and firmness he
yielded quietly and quickly.

My own introduction, and subsequent acquaintance, were strangely
characteristic of the peculiarly antithetic nature of the man. They
began in ill-temper, and resulted in commercial relations of a most
friendly nature, extending over many years, without a second unkindly
word. The first time I saw him occurred one day when I was making a
round of calls upon the merchants of the town, to exhibit a case of
samples of goods of my own manufacture, and I called upon Mr. Shaw.
Going up the passage I have mentioned above, and climbing a rickety
stair, I found myself in a room containing a couple of clerks. Upon
my inquiring for Mr. Shaw, one of them went into another room to
fetch him, and I took the opportunity to note the peculiarities of
the place. It was a long room with a sloping ceiling; there were two
or three very old, ink-stained, worm-eaten desks; a dingy map hung
here and there, and a few shelves and wooden presses were arranged
upon the walls. The place had been whitewashed once, no doubt, but
the colour was now about the same as that of a macadamised road, and
the whole place seemed dirty and neglected.

Presently Mr. Shaw appeared. I had heard his character pretty
freely discussed, and I was prepared for a rough reception. He looked
at my samples, and inquired very minutely into the prices of each. As
to one article, which I quoted to him at fifteen shillings the gross,
I said that in that particular item I believed my price was lower
than that of any other maker. He said nothing, but left me, went back
to his private office, returned with a file of papers, and selecting
one, addressed me in angry tones, saying, “Now, just to show you
what a blessed fool you are, you shall see an invoice of those
very goods, which I have just bought at fourteen shillings.” I
was mistaken, that was very clear; but I said, “It appears that
I am wrong as to those, but here are other goods which no one but
myself is making; can we do business in these?” This put him in
a violent rage, for he stormed as he said, “No! You’ve made
a consummate fool of yourself by making such a stupid remark.
I’ve no confidence in you; and where I’ve no confidence
I’ll never do business.” By this time I was getting a little
warm myself, and as I fastened up my case of patterns, I said,
“I hope, Mr. Shaw, that the want of your confidence won’t be
the death of me. I always heard you were a queer fellow; but if you
generally treat people who call upon you on business in the way you
have treated me, I’m not at all surprised at the name you have in
the town.” He looked at me furiously; came two or three strides
towards me, as if he would strike me; but, stopping suddenly, said,
“I think you’d better be off.” “I quite agree with
you, sir,” I replied; “it’s no use my stopping here to
be insulted.” Upon this he returned to his private office; the
two clerks, who, during the “shindy,” had been intently
searching inside their desks for something they had lost, now put
down the lids, and, looking at each other, grinned and tittered
openly, while I, to their intense relief, took up my hat and
departed.

Two or three weeks subsequently, I had completed an article in my
business which was strikingly novel, and I went out to show a sample
of it to my customers. Passing Mr. Shaw’s warehouse, the thought
occurred to me that it would be good fun to call upon him again, and
I accordingly soon found myself on the scene of the former interview.
Mr. Shaw was there, and to my bold greeting, “Good morning, Mr.
Shaw,” made a sulky-sounding acknowledgment. I went
on—”I was here the other day, and you told me you had no
confidence in me; but I’ve plenty of confidence in myself, and so
I’ve come again.” This seemed to amuse him, and he asked,
“Well, what is it?” I then showed him the sample article,
and told him the price was thirty-six shillings the gross. He looked
at it attentively, and said, “H’m! Costs you about
eighteen.” I was in a bantering humour, and I replied, “No,
I don’t think it costs me more than twelve; but I don’t mean
to sell any under thirty-six.” “Well,” said he,
“it’s a very good thing. Send me ten gross.” From that
moment we were excellent friends; I did business with him for many
years, and our intercourse was always warm and friendly.

Mr. Shaw’s father was originally a working maker of
currycombs, an article, before his day, entirely made by hand. In
conjunction with his brother, he invented and took out a patent for
cutting out and shaping the various parts by machinery, and so
producing the entire article much more cheaply than before. It was a
great success; they readily sold as many as they could produce, and
their profit was enormous; it has been estimated by a competent judge
to have been as high as two hundred per cent. They soon became rich,
and established themselves as home and foreign merchants, and when
they died, left, for that period, very large fortunes. They were both
men of ability, but of no education, and they retained to the last
the coarse, habits of their early life. Mr. Charles Shaw, the subject
of this sketch, was brought up in the factory, his daily associates
being the working people of the place. Having himself no
innate refinement, the want of good examples, and the
prevalence of bad ones, at this period of his life, had a permanent
effect upon his habits and manners, which in all his after prosperity
he could never shake off. Had he been liberally educated, and in
early life had associated with gentlemen, he might have risen to be
one of the leading men of the nation. He had enormous energy and
great powers of steady, plodding perseverance. He had great influence
over others, and his disposition, and capability to lead and to
command, were sufficient, had they been properly trained and
directed, to have carried him to a front rank in life. His early
disadvantages prevented him from becoming other than a
“local” celebrity; but, even circumscribed as he was, he
was a very remarkable instance of the combined effects of energy and
method. He amassed a very large fortune, and left in full and active
operation several very important trading concerns. Besides his
various branches of foreign commerce, he was a manufacturer of
currycombs, iron and brass candlesticks, frying pans, fenders, cast
and cut nails, and various other goods; and, upon the whole, he may
be said to have been the most active and efficient merchant and
manufacturer, of his generation, in the Midland Counties.

In politics he was one of the very last of the old school of
Tories, and he occasionally acted as a leader of his party in the
town. His extreme opinions, and his blunt speech in relation to these
matters, frequently got him into “hot water.” He was not a
“newspaper politician,” for, singularly enough, he was
rarely seen to look at a newspaper, even at the news-room (then
standing on the site now occupied by the Inland Revenue Offices, on
Bennetts Hill), which he regularly frequented. Upon political topics,
I am not aware that he ever wrote a single line for publication in
his whole life.

Mr. Shaw was very generous to people for whom he had a liking. He
has assisted many scores of struggling men with heavy sums, on loan,
merely out of friendship. I happen to know of one case where he, for
fifteen or twenty years, continuously assisted a brother merchant, to
the tune of £10,000 to £15,000, on merely nominal security, for which
assistance he, for the most part, charged nothing whatever.

In the great panic of 1837, Mr. Shaw, singly, saved the country
from ruin and disaster. At the time when the panic was at its height,
and the tension was as great as the country could bear, it became
known to a few that one of the great financial houses in Liverpool
was in extremities. They had accepted on American account to enormous
amounts, and no remittances were forthcoming. One Birmingham bank
alone held £90,000 worth of their paper, and acceptances to enormous
amounts were held in London, and in every manufacturing centre in
England, Ireland, and Scotland. Application had been made to the Bank
of England for assistance, to the amount of a million and a quarter,
and had been refused. Ruin seemed imminent, not only to the house
itself, but to the whole country. The calamities of 1825 seemed about
to be repeated, and alarm was universal. Mr. Shaw took up the matter
with his usual skill and wonderful energy. He went to London, and had
three interviews with the Governor of the Bank of England and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer—Mr. Francis Baring—in one
day. He told them that they had no choice; that they must
grant the required relief; that to refuse would be equivalent to a
revolution, and would involve national loss to probably fifty times
the amount now required. He undertook to obtain security to a large
amount in Birmingham alone. Only the other day I had in my hand a
bill for £8,000, given by one Birmingham merchant, as a portion of
this security. He succeeded. The relief was granted. The house
recovered its position, and still holds on its prosperous way; but,
except the consciousness of well-doing, Mr. Shaw had no reward. The
pecuniary value of his services to his country in this extremity it
is impossible to estimate; it is enough to say here that they
out-weighed, and cast into the shade, his many personal faults and
weaknesses. I have always thought, and still think, that the
Government ought at least to have knighted him, as only a very slight
acknowledgment of the invaluable and peculiar service he had rendered
to the nation.

Almost everybody knows that Mr. Shaw was, for many years, chairman
of the old Birmingham Banking Company. In this capacity he was
no doubt the means of introducing a large amount of profitable
business. Unfortunately for the company, the manager of the branch
establishment at Dudley made enormous advances to an ironmaster in
that locality. The amount at length became so large that the
directorate became alarmed, and deputed their chairman, Mr. Shaw, to
see what could best be done for the interests of the bank. Mr. Shaw
took the matter in hand. There was a good deal of secrecy about his
manner of treating the matter, and eventually some of his colleagues
on the direction were suspicious that he was making use of his
position in the bank for his own advantage. He was called upon to
show his private account with the concern in question, to which he
gave an unqualified refusal. His colleagues intimated to him that he
must either do so or resign. The next post brought his resignation.
Offering no opinion either way, but looking at the transaction as an
outsider, I think it was an unfortunate business “all
round.” The bank lost money, and eventually collapsed, but I
fully believed then, and I always shall believe, that if Charles Shaw
had been at the helm, the bank never would have closed its doors. I
believe he had energy enough, and influence sufficient, to have
averted that great calamity; and I am firmly of opinion that the
company had sufficient vitality to have overcome the drain upon its
resources, and that it might at this moment have been in vigorous
existence.

Many amusing stories are current as to Mr. Shaw’s shrewd and
keen transactions, and of cases where he himself was overreached. One
of the best of these he used to tell with much humour.

When the Great Western Company cut through Birmingham, for their
line to the North, a cemetery, pretty well filled, was on the route
they selected. It was the Quakers’ burial place, adjoining
Monmouth Street, exactly where the Arcade commences. Mr. Shaw, being
a director, negotiated the purchase of many Birmingham properties.
This burial ground was one, and the Quaker community had for their
agent a very shrewd spokesman. Shaw and he had a very tough fight,
for the Quaker drove a hard bargain. At length terms were settled,
and a memorandum signed. The negotiations had then lasted so long,
that the contractors were waiting for this plot of land to go on with
the work. Mr. Shaw therefore asked for immediate possession.
“Oh, no, friend Shaw,” said the Quaker, “not until the
money’s paid.” This caused further delay, and annoyed Shaw.
Preliminary matters being settled, the money was eventually handed
over, and Shaw obtained the keys. The next day the Quaker appeared
and said, “Now, friend Shaw, as everything is settled, I am come
to arrange for the removal of the remains of our friends who are
buried there.” “Don’t you wish you may get it?”
said Shaw; “we’ve bought the freehold; all it contains is
our property, and we shall give up nothing.” This was a
surprise, indeed, for the Quaker. He had nothing to say as to the
position Shaw had taken up, and he had to submit to the modification
of many stringent conditions in the deed of sale, before Shaw would
give way.

Such, sketched in a hasty manner, is an attempt to portray the
apparently contradictory character of Charles Shaw. It may be a
failure; but it, at least, is an honest endeavour. Such men are rare,
and the ability to translate into words their peculiar mental
workings is rarer still. I, however, shall be bold to say that if few
Birmingham men have had so many failings, none probably have
possessed so much commercial courage and ability.

Soon after his retirement from the Board of the Birmingham Bank,
he had a slight attack of paralysis, from which he never properly
recovered. Others followed at intervals, with the result that his
fine physique was completely broken up. In the first week of
December, 1864, I spoke to him on the platform of the Great Western
Railway at Snow Hill. He was being half carried to the train, on his
way to the sea-side. He never returned to Birmingham, but died at
Brighton, January 4th, 1865, being 73 years of age. He was buried in
the Churchyard of St. George’s, Great Hampton Row.

ROBERT WALTER WINFIELD, J.P.

Mr. Joshua Scholefield, who had represented Birmingham from its
incorporation in 1832, having been elected five times, died somewhat
unexpectedly in July, 1844. The Liberal party in the town was then in
a somewhat disorganised condition, and there was considerable
difference of opinion as to the choice of his successor. A large
majority was disposed favourably towards his son, Mr. William
Scholefield. The more advanced section of the party was of opinion
that the many services of Mr. Joseph Sturge to the Liberal cause were
such as to entitle him to a place in Parliament. Neither section of
the party would give way. The Conservatives, who had previously
contested four elections unsuccessfully, in two of which Mr. Richard
Spooner had been the candidate, saw that the divided ranks of their
opponents gave them a better chance of success than they had
previously had, and they brought forward Mr. Spooner again. This time
he was successful, the result of the poll being that Mr. Spooner
received 2,095 votes; Mr. W. Scholefield, 1,735; and Mr. Sturge,
346.

I was living in London at the time, but had arranged to spend a
few days in August with a friend at Edgbaston. He was a Conservative,
and I a Liberal; but before I came down he had taken a ticket in my
name, which entitled me to be present at the only purely Conservative
dinner at which I was ever present. It was given at the Racket Court
Inn, in Sheepcote Street, by the Conservative electors of Ladywood
Ward, to celebrate Mr. Spooner’s return.

By virtue of my introduction, and in deference to me as a
stranger, I was placed near the chairman at table. He was a man of
singularly bland and kindly manners, and there was a frank and manly
modesty in his style that attracted my notice at once. In simple but
appropriate, in unaffected yet dignified, phraseology, he went
through the usual “loyal and patriotic” toasts. When it
came to the toast of the day, he rose and congratulated the company
upon the triumph of those principles which they all conscientiously
believed to be right and true. There was no exultation over a
discomfited foe. There ran all through the speech a benevolent and
friendly feeling for both of the defeated candidates. Still, there
was the outspoken feeling of intense gratification that the cause
which he supported had been victorious. I have seldom listened to a
speech where joy for a victory was so little mixed with exultation
over the vanquished. In fact, although I differed altogether from the
speaker in politics, I felt that the speech was that of a man devoid
of all bitterness, whose kindness of spirit led him to rejoice, not
over the defeat of his opponents, but at the success of his own
cause. Tie speech was in excellent taste from beginning to end.

The chairman was Robert Walter Winfield, and this was the first
time I had met him. His singular courtesy to myself, as a stranger, I
shall never forget. His perfect self-possession, when some of the
company became a little too demonstrative, kept the table in perfect
order. When he retired, my friend took his seat, and slily poured me
a glass from Mr. Winfield’s decanter. I found then, that during
that long afternoon he had taken nothing but toast and water, which
had been prepared to resemble sherry, and which he had taken from a
wine-glass as if it were wine.

I cannot say that I ever became very intimate with Mr. Winfield,
although we knew each other pretty well; but limited as my means of
acquaintanceship were, I watched his life with interest, because he
struck me always as being one of the very few men I have known, who
have been able to bear great success without becoming giddy with the
elevation; who have gone through life modestly and without
assumption; and who have won thereby the esteem of all those whose
esteem has been worth caring for.

Robert Walter Winfield was descended from an ancient family, which
had been settled in Leicestershire for several generations. His
grandfather, Edward Winfield, came to Birmingham about the middle of
the last century, and resided in a large house, on the site of the
Great Western Railway Station in Snow Hill. Here Mr. Winfield’s
father was born. He was a man of independent means, but appears for
some short time to have been engaged as a merchant. He married a lady
from Loughborough, named Randon, and built for his own occupation the
house in the Hagley Road, Edgbaston, now occupied by Mr. Alfred Hill,
the son of the late eminent Recorder of Birmingham, Matthew Davenport
Hill. The house is now called “Davenport House.” It was, I
believe, the first house erected on the Calthorpe estate. In this
house, in April, 1799, Robert Walter Winfield, the third son, was
born. His father died in his childhood. After his education was
complete, his mother placed him with Mr. Benjamin Cooke, whose name
as a manufacturer is still remembered in Birmingham. Mr.
Winfield’s mind, being a peculiarly receptive one, readily
grasped all the details of the business, and he soon wished to enter
life on his own account. His trustees having great faith in his
prudence and industry, advanced him the necessary capital, and he
commenced business before he was twenty-one years of age. Just at the
bend which Cambridge Street takes to arrive at the Crescent, there is
a stuccoed building, almost hidden by the lofty piles around it. In
this building he started on his commercial career, and in these works
he continued to carry on his business until his death, some fifty
years afterwards.

Beginning in a comparatively small way, he started with a strict
determination to conduct his business upon thoroughly honest and
truthful principles. He had the sagacity to see that the surest way
to success was to gain the confidence of his customers, and he firmly
held through life to the system of rigid adherence to truth; to the
plan of always making honest goods; and to the avoidance of
every kind of misrepresentation as to the quality of his wares. He
used to say that all through his long and successful business career
he never lost a customer through misrepresentation on his part, and
that he generally found that one transaction with a fresh man secured
a permanent customer.

Another leading principle in his business programme was to employ
the best workmen he could find, and the highest talent for superior
offices he could secure. He probably paid higher wages and salaries
than any manufacturer in the district. This proved to be wise economy
in the long-run, for his goods became famous for excellence in design
and workmanship, and were sought and prized in every market of the
world.

As his business fame increased, the development of his trade
became enormous. Pile after pile of extensive blocks of buildings
rose, one after another, on ground adjoining the original
manufactory, until at length the entire establishment covered many
acres of ground. Many of these buildings were five or six storeys
high. The machinery and tools were all of the very best quality that
could be obtained, and use was invariably made of every suitable
scientific appliance as soon as discovered. For many years Mr.
Aitken, whose name in Birmingham will always be remembered in
connection with Art, was at the head of the designing department of
the works. His correct knowledge and wonderful skill in the
application of correct principles of form and colour to articles of
manufacture for daily use, raised the fame of Mr. Winfield’s
house as high, artistically, as it was for excellence of material and
workmanship.

Mr. Winfield was one of the first, if not the very earliest, to
apply the stamping process to the production of cornices,
cornice-pole ends, curtain bands, and other similar goods. The
singular purity of colour which, by skilful “dipping” and
lacquering, he was able to produce, at a period when such matters
were little attended to, secured for his goods a good deal of
admiration and a ready sale. At the time of the great Exhibition of
1851, the goods he exhibited obtained for him the highest mark of
approval—the Council Gold Medal. The Jury of Experts reported,
in reference to his brasswork, that, “for brilliancy of polish,
and flatness and equality of the ‘dead’ or ‘frosted’
portions, he stood very high; and that in addition to very perfect
workmanship, there frequently appeared considerable evidence of a
feeling for harmony and for a just proportion and arrangement of
parts.” It is also mentioned that “in the manufacture of
metallic bedsteads he has earned a deservedly high
reputation.”

In addition to his brassfoundry trade, he gradually added the
manufacture of brass, copper, and tin tubing, gas-fittings and
chandeliers, iron and brass bedsteads, ship’s fittings, brass
fittings for shop fronts, and general architectural ornamental metal
work of all kinds. He afterwards purchased the large establishment
near his own works, called the Union Rolling Mill, where he carried
on a very extensive wholesale trade in rolled metals of every kind,
and brass and copper wire of all descriptions; and he was, for forty
years, largely engaged in the coal business.

For a very long period Mr. Winfield was the sole proprietor of the
extensive business he had created. He was assisted by his only son,
Mr. John Fawkener Winfield, whose promising career was cut short by
untimely death. This was a blow from which Mr. Winfield never
entirely recovered. He soon afterwards took into partnership his
relative, Mr. C. Weston, and his old confidential clerk, Mr. J.
Atkins. His health began to fail about this time, and he retired from
the active control of the concern, retaining, however, his position
as head of the firm until his death.

His marvellous success did not arise altogether from brilliant
mental qualities. I am disposed to attribute it to higher reasons. It
seems to me that his high moral sense of integrity and right, and the
benevolence of his character, had more to do with it. These led him
constantly through life to give his customers excellence of quality
in the goods he made, combined with moderation in price. In the
execution of a contract he always gave better rather than inferior
goods than he had agreed to supply. He would never permit any
deterioration of quality either in material or workmanship. Where his
competitors sought to reduce the cost of production, so as to enable
them to sell their goods cheaper, his ambition led him to raise and
improve quality. The fact of his goods being always honestly made, of
good materials well put together, gave him the preference whenever
articles of sterling excellence were required. He was one to whom the
stigma implied in the term “Brummagem” would not apply, for
he consistently carried out principles of integrity in business, and
so earned for himself the right to be held up as a type of a
high-minded, upright, conscientious English merchant.

But he had a higher and a nobler mission than that of mere
money-getting. He was a practical philanthropist. Quietly, modestly,
unostentatiously, “he went about doing good.” Placed in a
position of command over many young people, he, early in life,
recognised the fact that his duty to them was not fully done when he
had paid them their wages. He resolved to do his best to raise them,
mentally and socially. In this he was so successful, that at this
moment there are many men occupying positions in life unattainable by
them but for his assistance. There are clergymen, merchants, musical
professors, and others, who began life as boys at Winfield’s; and
there are probably some scores of large manufactories now in active
operation in the town, the principals of which, but for Mr.
Winfield’s large-hearted and practical provision, would have
remained in the ignorance in which he found them.

Some thirty or forty years ago there was, nearly opposite the
manufactory in Cambridge Street, a long, low, upper room, which was
used as a place of worship by a small body of Dissenters, and was
called Zoar Chapel. Mr. Winfield became the tenant of this place for
week-day evenings, and opened it as a night-school for the boys in
his employ. In order to secure punctuality of attendance, he made the
rule compulsory that every boy in the factory under eighteen years of
age should attend this school at least three times a week. There was
ample provision made for teaching, and no charge was made. The
proceedings each night opened with singing, and closed with a short
prayer. Once a week regularly, Mr. Winfield, Jun., held a Bible
Class. Occasionally, too, the father would do so, and he frequently
attended and delivered a short and simple address. Many parents
eagerly sought employment for their children at the works, that their
sons might secure the benefit of the school, and Mr. Winfield soon
had the “pick” of the youths of the town. The school
attendance grew rapidly, and the little chapel was soon found too
narrow. Larger premises were taken, and a class for young men was
established. This class Mr. J.F. Winfield—then rapidly rising
to manhood—took under his own charge, while the juniors were
under the care of voluntary teachers.

So beneficial in every way was the little institution found to be,
that it was resolved to develop it further. Mr. John
Winfield—inheriting his father’s practically benevolent
spirit—matured a plan, and requested his father to celebrate
his coming majority by carrying it into effect. This was done, and
the handsome school-room which now occupies a central position in the
works was erected. Upon this building, including the cost of an organ
and of the necessary fittings, Mr. Winfield spent no less than
£2,000. The instruction was no longer left to voluntary effort. A
properly qualified schoolmaster was engaged, and the Government
Inspector was requested to pay periodical visits. Drawing was made a
special feature of the instruction, and the successful pupils in this
class received Government rewards. Music also was taught. In fact,
the school became a model of what an educational establishment should
be. Once every year—on Whit Thursday—there was a
fête at The Hawthorns, to which the scholars were invited.
These gatherings were looked forward to with much pleasure, and few
were absent. Music was provided, and appropriate addresses were
delivered. Sumptuous hospitality was shown, and every effort was made
to make these occasions socially enjoyable and morally beneficial.
The prizes and certificates of proficiency were distributed in the
school-room, at Christmas, in the presence of the whole of the
employés of the establishment.

The school soon obtained more than local fame, and was visited
from time to time by distinguished persons. At the time of the
establishment of the Institution of Social Science, when the great
Lord Brougham delivered his magnificent inaugural oration in the Town
Hall, he was the guest of Mr. J.F. Winfield, and visited the works.
The pupils and workpeople were collected in the school, and there had
the gratification of listening to some of the wise words of that
“old man eloquent.” At this time the average nightly
attendance at the school was something like 250 pupils. No one can
calculate the good that has resulted from the establishment of this
institution. No one can tell the feeling of gratitude that still
rises in the minds of hundreds of well-to-do people for the benefits
they there received. It has been very gratifying to me on many
occasions to see in pleasant villas and cozy cottages the engraved
portrait of Mr. Winfield, occupying a place of honour on the wall,
and to hear gray-headed men say of him that he was the best friend
they ever had, and that but for him they might have remained in the
degradation from which he assisted them to rise.

Mr. Winfield could scarcely be called a public man. Early in life
he served the office of High Bailiff, and was placed upon the
Commission of the Peace. He did not, upon the incorporation of the
town, seek municipal honours, and he rarely took part in political
action. He was a very warmly-attached member of the Church of
England, and in this connection was ardently Conservative; but,
although nominally a Conservative, he was truly Liberal in all
secular affairs. He was an earnest helper in the movement for the
better education of the people, and their elevation in other
respects. He certainly always took the Conservative side at election
times, but he never attempted unduly to influence his
employés. Indeed, on polling days it was his habit to throw
open the gates of his manufactory, so that his men might have full
liberty to go and record their votes as they pleased. Whenever he did
appear on a public platform, it was to aid by his presence or his
advocacy the cause of the Church to which he was so much devoted, or
to assist in some charitable or scholastic effort.

As a magistrate, he was one of the most regular attendants at the
Public Office. I have seen him there many times, and have frequently
been struck with the thought that when he passed sentence, it never
sounded like an expression of the revenge of society for a wrong that
had been done, but seemed rather to resemble the sorrowing reproof of
a father, hoping by stern discipline to restrain erring conduct in a
disobedient child.

Very early in life he married Lucy, the only surviving child of
Mr. John Fawkener, of Shrewsbury, and took up his residence in a
large red brick house in New Street, which has only lately been
pulled down. It stood nearly opposite the rooms of the Society of
Artists. Its last occupant was Mr. Sharman, professor of music. About
the year 1828, Mr. Winfield built a house in the Ladywood Road, which
he named “The Hawthorns,” and here he resided all his life.
The neighbourhood was then entirely open, and from his house to his
manufactory was a pleasant walk amid fields, through the noble avenue
of elms that led to Ladywood House and Vincent Street bridge, and
from thence by the bank of the canal to the Crescent. I often walked
to town in his company, and admired with him the gorgeous apple
blossoms of the trees in the valley now filled up by the railway. We
stood together one day in 1846 or 1847, and saw the first barrowful
of soil removed from the canal bank, near the Crescent bridge, to
form the opening which is now the railway tunnel.

In private life few men have been more generally beloved. He was
the embodiment of kindliness and consideration for everybody. His
domestic servants and workpeople were warmly devoted to him, and many
of them remained nearly all their lives in his service. Only very
recently one of his domestic servants, who had continued after his
death in the service of a member of his family, died at an advanced
age, fifty-five years after entering his household. He was
essentially a “domesticated” man, and his conduct as a
husband and father was marked by unvarying benevolent regard and
affectionate consideration. The death, in 1861, of his only son was
the great trial of his life. His hopes and his ambitions had
culminated in this son; and when he was removed, the father staggered
under the blow, and never properly overcame the shock it gave him.
From that time he gradually failed in health, and retired from active
life. Change of scene and release from labour were of no avail. He
eventually became a confirmed invalid, and on the 16th of December,
1869, he passed away, to the great grief of his family. His loss was
greatly deplored by his domestics and workpeople, and the whole
population of Birmingham joined in expressions of regret at the loss
of one who was so universally beloved and respected.

He was followed to his grave in the beautiful churchyard at Perry
Barr by the few surviving members of his family, by many friends, and
by the whole of the people employed at the works. The day was a
bitter wintry one, and the rain came down heavily. It was a touching
sight; thousands stood bare-headed beneath the inclement sky, as the
body of their friend was laid to its rest, and, amid sobs and tears,
joined with tremulous voices in singing—

CHARLES GEACH, M.P.

I mentioned, in the sketch of Mr. Gillott, that all the members of
the Edgbaston Quoit Club had very large heads, and that this fact
seemed to bear out the phrenological theory, that size of head was
indicative of mental power. As a further proof I may mention here,
that the late Mr. Charles Geach had the largest head in Birmingham. I
was told by the tradesman who used to supply him with hats, that such
was the extraordinary size of his head, that his hats had always to
be specially made for him. The theory in his case certainly was fully
justified, for if ever a man lived who had powerful mental qualities,
it was the gentleman whose name stands at the head of this
sketch.

Mr. Geach was born in the county of Cornwall, in the year 1808;
and at a suitable age took a situation as junior clerk in the head
office of the Bank of England, in London. There, his quickness,
accuracy, and ready grasp of complicated matters, soon proved to his
superiors that he was no ordinary youth, and he was rapidly promoted.
In 1826, when the branch was established in Birmingham, Captain
Nichols, the first manager, who had noticed Geach at work, sought and
obtained permission from the directors to include him in the staff of
clerks which he brought down. Geach, accordingly, at the age of 18,
came to the town with which his whole future life was destined to be
connected.

For ten years he worked assiduously as a clerk, rapidly rising in
position at the bank, quickly attaching to himself a large circle of
friends, and gradually securing amongst business men a character for
industry, perseverance, sagacity, and courtesy. In 1836 he was
engaged in the establishment of two of the local banks, and in August
of that year he became manager of the Birmingham and Midland
Bank.

Mr. Geach, in the days of his great prosperity, often referred
with manly pride and becoming modesty to these early days. I remember
some twenty years ago his coming down specially from the House of
Commons one night to take the chair, at the Temperance Hall, at a
meeting of the Provident Clerks’ Association. In the course of
his remarks that evening, he spoke of the mercantile clerks as a body
for whom he should always feel sympathy; a class to which he felt it
to be an honour to have once belonged, and from which he himself had
only so recently emerged. He mentioned then, that “when he first
came to Birmingham some twenty-five years before, he did not know a
soul in the place which had since elected him to be its Mayor, and in
which he had, by industry and prudence, gained the esteem of so many
friends, and achieved a position very far beyond his expectations and
his merits.” Only a very few weeks before his death, he made
some observations of a similar character, at the annual dinner given
by the Midland Bank Directors. Indeed, it was his frequent habit to
point out to young men that, by the practice of habits of industry,
prudence, diligence, and observation, success such as his—in
kind, if not in degree—was open to them.

Soon after Mr. Geach came to live in Birmingham, he took
apartments at Handsworth. An attachment soon sprung up between him
and the daughter of a Mr. Skally, who kept a school at Villa Cross.
After a short courtship, the young couple were married, Mr. Geach
then being about 24 years of age. The house in which he wooed and won
his wife is now an inn. It stands at the angle formed by the junction
of the Heathfield Road and the Lozells Lane; and is known by the sign
of the Villa Cross Tavern.

When the Midland Bank was opened, Mr. Geach went to reside on the
premises, and here he lived for about ten years. He removed, about
1846, to Wheeleys Hill, and from thence, a few years later, he went
to reside at a large mansion at Chad Hill. For the last two or three
years of his life he lived principally in London, occupying the
house, No. 9, Park Street, Westminster.

About the year 1840, the Park Gate Iron Manufacturing Company was
in active operation at Rotherham, near Sheffield. Most of the shares
were held in Birmingham, and the directors, with one exception, were
Birmingham men. They were Joshua Scholefield, Joseph Gibbins, Henry
Van Wart, Thomas Pemberton, Samuel A. Goddard, and Samuel Evans, of
Cradley. For a time the company was prosperous, but about 1842 came a
revulsion, and iron rapidly fell in price from £10 to £5 per ton. The
company became greatly embarrassed. Most of the directors became sick
of the concern, and lost all interest in it. The business was
neglected by all the directors except the two last named. At one
period the company was in such straits that their bills would have
been dishonoured had not Mr. Goddard given his private cheque on the
Bank of England for £3,000. At this period Mr. Geach was consulted,
and after some negotiations he bought the whole concern for an old
song. The nominal purchaser was Mr. Joshua Scholefield, but, somehow,
Mr. Geach had secured for himself the largest share. The business was
now carefully looked after, and began to recover itself. All at once
came the “railway mania” of 1844 and 1845, when all England
went mad for a time. George Hudson, the linen draper of York, from
whom I once took an order in his little shop near the Cathedral, was
then the most notable man in the country. He soon became known as the
“Railway King,” and, as he was presumed to have the faculty
of transforming everything into gold, he was fêted and almost
worshipped by all classes of society. Under the excitement created by
visions of untold wealth derived from making railways, iron rapidly
rose in price to double its recent value. Mr. Geach at this time, I
am able to state upon competent living authority, “took three
orders for 30,000 tons of railroad iron, at £12, which did not cost
over £6 per ton.” This laid the foundation of Mr. Geach’s
marvellous success, and from this period he commenced to identify
himself with large enterprises, until at length he was associated
with some of the most important mercantile transactions of the
period.

About this time there was living at Wednesbury an eccentric
Independent Minister named Hardy. He is still remembered there for
his extraordinary fancy for preaching about the “seven golden
candlesticks.” When he took this topic for a sermon, his hearers
knew that for six or seven Sundays at least he would speak of nothing
else. And, lest his hearers should not be duly impressed with the
subject, his practice was never to go more than a year or two without
going over the whole ground anew. This worthy minister was somewhat
of a mechanic, and in connection with a coach-axle maker named
Rollason, the plan was conceived of “faggoting” bars of
iron radially round a centre-bar, so that the laminæ of the iron
should range like the concentric rings in a tree. The chief
difficulty was the necessity of rolling the axles before they could
be hammered. Mr. Dodd, of the Horseley Works, showed how this could
be done by a reversing action, and Mr. Hardy patented both processes.
Mr. H. Wright, who was afterwards a partner in the works, tells me
that he assisted to draw up the specifications. Money being wanted to
work the concern, a small private company was formed with a capital
of £2,000. Mr. Hardy was manager, and Mr. T. Walker was clerk. This
company was carried on for about two years, when, becoming involved,
and none of the partners caring to invest more money in it,
application was made to Mr. Geach. This was in 1838.

Mr. Geach, perceiving the superiority of Hardy’s method over
any other, induced some twelve or more gentlemen to join in the
purchase of the works and patents, Mr. Wright and Mr. Hardy being of
the number. The new company assumed the name of the “Patent
Shaft and Axletree Company.” Mr. Wright was appointed general
manager; Mr. Hardy superintended the forge; and Mr. Walker assisted
generally. Mr. Hardy withdrew about 1840, when Mr. Walker took the
management of the forge. In 1841, Mr. Wright removed to Rotherham, to
manage the Park Gate Works, and Mr. Walker became sole manager of the
Shaft and Axletree business. In 1844, Mr. Geach bought out all the
partners—Mr. Wright being the last—and so became the sole
proprietor. Up to this time there had been no financial success, and
no dividends had been paid. About this time the sudden rise in
prices, consequent upon the railway enterprise of the period and the
enormous demand for the manufactures of the works, turned the
fortunes of the concern, which then commenced its career of
marvellous success. It soon became one of the most important concerns
in Staffordshire. It was carried on by Mr. Geach, as sole proprietor,
until his death, when Mr. Walker purchased it. It was soon afterwards
converted into a limited liability company, and it is now, under the
chairmanship of Mr. Walker, who has been so long connected with it,
one of the best conducted and most prosperous concerns in the
district. The present number of people employed in the establishment
is about six thousands.

In addition to these two important concerns, Mr. Geach was a
partner in a large manufactory near Dudley. He was extensively
engaged as a contractor for several railway companies. He was an
active promoter and director of the Manchester, Sheffield, and
Lincolnshire, and of the Shrewsbury and Birmingham Railways. He was
also one of the concessionnaires of the Western Railway of
France; and to his wonderful administrative ability and power of
organisation the success of that company is mainly due.

Although so closely connected with the railway interest, and
although, as a proprietor in most of the leading railway companies,
he was constantly called upon to attend meetings, his great energies
found other spheres of action. He was a promoter, and one of the most
active directors, of the Crystal Palace Company, at Sydenham; and he
was a director of the Great Eastern Steam-ship Company.

Busy as his commercial life was, he found time to devote to duties
of a more public character. In 1843 or 1844 he was elected one of the
Aldermen of Birmingham. Here he was very active and useful. Up to his
time, the finances of the Borough had been managed with little skill
or system. His great financial knowledge, and his clear vision of the
right and the wrong, in public book-keeping, enabled him to suggest,
and to carry into operation, great improvements in the management of
the Corporation accounts. In 1847 he was Mayor, and in that office
won the goodwill of everyone by his suavity of manner and his
untiring industry. Two or three years afterwards, the pressure of
other duties compelled him to retire from municipal office.

It is needless to tell Birmingham men that in politics Mr. Geach
was a Liberal. His public political life commenced at the time of the
agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws. During that exciting
period he was the guiding spirit of the local Association, and
transacted the whole of the business with the central body at
Manchester. He was active in promoting the elections of his friends,
Joshua and William Scholefield, with both of whom he was on terms of
intimate friendship. His political creed was very wide and eminently
practical. He had no abstract theories to which everything must bend.
His eye saw at a glance the right thing to do, and he set to work
energetically to do it, or to get it done.

In the year 1851 there was a vacancy in the representation of the
city of Coventry, and Mr. Geach was solicited to stand as a
candidate. I saw him on the platform of the old railway station, in
Duddeston Row, on his way to the nomination. He was very reliant, and
spoke of the certainty he felt that he should be successful. There
was, however, no excitement, and no undue elevation at the prospect
of the crowning honour of his life being so near his grasp. He was
opposed by Mr. Hubbard, the eminent London financier, and by Mr.
Strutt, who was afterwards created Lord Belper; but he was returned
by a considerable majority, and at a subsequent election he was
unopposed. He held the seat until his death.

In a very short time after his election, he began to take part in
the debates. He was not a fluent speaker; indeed he was hesitating,
and sometimes his sentences were much involved; but, as he never
spoke except upon topics with which he was perfectly familiar, he was
listened to with the respect and attention which are always, in the
House of Commons, accorded to those who have “something to
say.” Upon financial topics he soon was looked upon as an
authority, and there were many who looked upon him as a possible
future Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Soon after his return to Parliament he became the host of the
illustrious Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth. It was in Mr.
Geach’s carriage that the great exile rode triumphantly through
the crowded streets of Birmingham, amid the plaudits of the entire
population. Few who saw it can forget how Geach’s face was
lighted up with smiles of delight, as he sat beside Kossuth in his
progress, with George Dawson on the box. Kossuth, albeit not unused
to the applause and ovations of his grateful countrymen, said that he
had never before received himself, or seen in the case of others, so
magnificent and enthusiastic a reception.

In person, Mr. Geach was tall, and stoutly built. His height was,
probably, two or three inches beyond six feet. He had a bright,
clear, fair complexion, and an ample brow. His face would have been
strikingly handsome but for an undue preponderance of the under jaw,
which gave the lower part of the face too massive an appearance. He
had singularly agreeable manners. His grasp of the hand was firm and
cordial. He was entirely free from the “airs” which some
self-made men put on. In his appearance there was evidence of power
and influence that rendered any assumption superfluous. He was always
ready to listen, and to give his friends the benefit of his large
knowledge and experience. He was very generous, even to those who had
in early life crossed his path. Only the other day I was told that
one of his greatest opponents having died in straitened
circumstances, Geach took charge of his sons, and placed them in
positions to raise themselves to opulence. In private life he was
greatly beloved. A lady, who had ample opportunities of forming a
correct judgment, tells me that “as a husband and father his
excellence could not be exceeded; and altogether he was the very
best man I have ever known.”

Soon after his retirement from the management of the Midland Bank,
the shareholders and directors, to mark their sense of his services,
and their esteem for him as a man, voted him a magnificent service of
plate. A fine full-length portrait was about the same time placed in
the board room of the bank. The painting is by Partridge, and is a
very excellent characteristic likeness of Mr. Geach in the prime of
his life.

In the autumn of 1854 he was somewhat enfeebled by the pressure of
Parliamentary and commercial duties, and took a trip to Scotland to
recruit his strength. Soon after his return to London, he was seized
with an internal disorder, which reduced his strength very much. He
was recovering from this attack, when a return of an old affection of
one of his legs took place. From this time his ultimate recovery
seemed doubtful. It was at one time contemplated to amputate the left
foot, but in his prostrate condition this was considered unsafe and
hopeless. He gradually became weaker, and on Wednesday, November 1st,
1854, he died, in his 46th year. He left a widow and four children to
mourn his loss, and a larger circle than most men possess, of
warmly-attached friends to honour and respect his memory.

WILLIAM SANDS COX, F.R.S., &c.

Rather more than thirty years ago, I was very desirous to obtain
an influential introduction to Dr. Jephson. I mentioned my wish to an
old friend in Birmingham, who undertook to obtain one for me, and in
a few days told me that if I called upon Mr. Sands Cox, at his house
in Temple Row, some morning early, that gentleman would give me a
letter introducing me to the great Leamington physician. I
accordingly presented myself as directed, and was shown, by a
somewhat seedy-looking old woman—who evidently looked upon me
with considerable suspicion—into a small room in the front of
the house, where, seated at a writing-table, I found the subject of
this sketch.

I had expected to see a man of commanding appearance, with some
outward indication of mental power, and with the intelligent
brightness of eye and face which generally distinguishes men of the
consummate skill and extensive knowledge which I was told he
possessed. I was, however, greatly surprised to see only a
heavy-looking, middle-aged, rather bulky man, with a miser-like
expression of face. There was no fire in the room, and, for a cold
morning, he seemed to be rather thinly clad, his only attire being a
pair of trousers, without braces, and a night-shirt. The wearer had
evidently hurried from his bed-room to his study, without the
customary ablutions, and his tangled hair and scrubby beard were
innocent of comb and razor. On being invited to be seated, I with
some difficulty found a chair, for almost every square foot of
surface in the place—floor, chairs, tables, shelves, and every
other “coign of vantage”—was piled up with books,
reports, law papers, printers’ proofs, and other literary matter,
begrimed with dust, and apparently in the most hopeless condition of
muddle. On the table itself was the opened correspondence of the day,
and although it was very early morning, a separated portion,
consisting of fifteen or twenty documents, and an equal number of
letters already written, folded, and neatly addressed, showed that he
had been early at work; whilst a large quantity of manuscript,
thrown, sheet upon sheet, upon the floor, and the stump of a candle,
that had burnt very low in a very dirty candlestick, proved
conclusively that he had been hard at work until late on the previous
night.

He received me with courteous politeness, read my note, and said
how happy he should be to comply with the request it contained;
“but,” said he, “you must excuse me now. I have to
finish my correspondence, get my breakfast, and make myself a little
more presentable. Will you call again in an hour?”

Of course I was punctual. I found him completely metamorphosed,
and he now—in a soberly-cut coat of black, a brilliant black
satin waistcoat, and white necktie—looked, as he always did in
this dress, like a well-to-do English country clergyman. He was quite
ready for me; handed me a very cordial recommendation to Dr. Jephson;
and asked if he might trouble me with a small parcel for the doctor.
I found afterwards that, in order to secure attention from a man
whose time was so fully occupied, he had entrusted me with a
presentation copy of a work he had just published, on “The
Amputation of a Leg at the Hip Joint,” an operation which, he
had recently, I believe for the first time in English surgery,
successfully performed.

Such was my introduction to William Sands Cox, and such the
commencement of an acquaintance which resulted in intimacy of many
years’ duration, in the course of which I had frequent
opportunities of studying his character, and becoming acquainted with
his many peculiarities.

The family to which he belonged was one of the oldest in
Warwickshire. His ancestors for many generations resided in the
neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon. His father, the late Edward
Townsend Cox, came to Birmingham in the latter part of the eighteenth
century. He was articled to Mr. Kennedy of Steelhouse
Lane—father of Rann Kennedy. He afterwards practised, with
great success, as a surgeon, for more than half a century, dying at a
very advanced age, only a very few years ago. His quaint figure, as
he drove about the town in an antiquated phaeton, drawn by a
patriarchal pony, must be familiar to the memory of all but the most
juvenile readers.

William Sands Cox was born in 1802, in the house now occupied as
offices by Mr. Barrows, No. 38, Cannon Street. Being intended by his
father for the medical profession, he had a most liberal education;
and, after passing a few years as assistant to his father, he was
sent (a most unusual course at that time) to complete his studies at
the very best medical schools in London and on the continent.

Upon his return to Birmingham, his foreign experiences enabled him
to see that the greater number of country practitioners of that time
were sadly deficient in medical and surgical knowledge; were
lamentably ignorant of anatomy, pathology, and general science; and
were greatly wanting in general culture. With rare self-denial he,
instead of acquiring, as he easily might, a lucrative private
practice, resolved to devote his life to the elevation of the
character, and to the more regular and scientific education and
instruction, of the future members of the profession to which he
belonged.

With this view, he started a modest medical and surgical
class-room in Snow Hill. He soon collected a number of pupils, and,
in order to secure greater accommodation, he, about the year 1830,
removed to an old chapel in Paradise Street. This, having been
properly fitted up, was named the “School of Medicine,” and
it soon became a recognised institution. Being enriched from time to
time by collections of medical and surgical preparations and
appliances, it gradually grew in size and importance, and, being
generously and very largely endowed by many benevolent persons, was
eventually incorporated by Royal Charter as the “Queen’s
College.” From this time the indefatigable founder determined
that it should be worthy of the illustrious name it bore. From his
own resources; by his father’s assistance; by the aid of many
influential inhabitants of the town; and by persistent appeals to the
rich and benevolent of all ranks, money was rapidly accumulated. At
length, with the princely and munificent assistance of Dr. Warneford,
he had the satisfaction of seeing the noble buildings that adorn
Paradise Street completed, and the kindred institution, the
Queen’s Hospital, in full and successful operation.

There was something marvellous in the power he possessed of
influencing others. He was by no means fluent of speech; his manners
were shy, awkward, and retiring. He had little grace of person or
ease in conversation, yet he somehow was more successful than most
men of his time in winning friends, and obtaining aid for the great
work he had set himself to accomplish. Probably his indomitable
perseverance lay at the root of the secret. How he influenced the
good Dr. Warneford has long been matter of record. From first to
last, I believe I am within the mark when I mention £25,000 as the
sum which he induced Dr. Warneford to bestow upon the two
institutions. As I write, I have before me a letter written from the
Doctor’s house to a member of the College Council, of which the
following is a transcript:

The amount of labour Mr. Cox expended for the benefit of the
Queen’s Hospital was something beyond belief. Early and late he
was busy for its advantage; thousands of autograph letters appealing
for help fell from his pen. No chance of help was too remote for him
to see; no one too high in rank for him to appeal to; no one so poor
but could be asked to do something. It was he who brought Jenny Lind
to sing gratuitously for its benefit. It was he who induced managers
of theatres, music halls, and other places of amusement, to set apart
certain nights as “Queen’s Hospital Nights.” It was he
who obtained Her Majesty’s patronage and support; and “last,
but not least,” it was he who organised the annual ball at the
Town Hall, which for fifteen or twenty years was the most fashionable
and delightful re-union in Birmingham, and which brought in a very
large annual profit to the funds of the hospital. His appeals to
noblemen and gentlemen to become stewards at these balls were
literally strewed broadcast through the land. Amongst others, he was
bold enough once to ask the great Duke of Wellington; and he used to
show, with some pride, the letter he received in reply, which was
written in the Duke’s most characteristic manner. The original, I
believe, still hangs, framed, in the Secretary’s room at the
hospital; and as I think it likely to be interesting, as a specimen
of the Duke’s epistolary powers and peculiarities, I append a
copy:

The last time I saw Mr. Cox, in connection with these
institutions, was in 1862, at the time of the great bazaar on behalf
of the hospital. It was a hard week’s work for many, and it
resulted in a profit of about £3,500. Mr. Cox’s homely figure
during that week, was “here, there, and everywhere,”
encouraging everybody, and assisting in every way, even to helping
the college porter to carry large and heavy hampers of goods across
the street from the college to the Town Hall. I have a perfect
remembrance of his sitting, on the last day of the bazaar, with
another gentleman, in the ticket office, to receive the sixpenny fees
for admission. I recollect then to have seen again the strange,
miserly expression which had struck me at my first introduction; and
I noticed, too, the eager “clutch,” with which he grasped
the money as it came in, and how he chuckled with delight as he made
up into brown paper parcels each pound’s worth of silver as it
accumulated. How, too, his eyes twinkled; how he rubbed his hands
backwards and forwards over his mouth, as he jerked out “Another
pound, Mr. ——; I believe we shall get £50”; and how,
when the doors were closed, he triumphantly handed over to the
treasurer more than sixty packets, of £1 each, as the result of the
sixpences paid for admission on that one day.

Unfortunately, his mind was creative only. Like many
parents, who never can be brought to understand that there comes a
time when their children are mentally capable of “running
alone,” he, in his later years, failed to see that these two
institutions, the children of his brain, no longer required leading
strings, or his unaided nursing. Hence, as the establishments
grew beyond his personal power of supervision, he became jealous of
everyone connected with their management, and sought still to be sole
director. As the founder, his will was to be absolute law; everybody
must consult his wishes, and bow to his decision; and although he
had, with advancing years, become less capable, and had always been
wanting in the sustaining power which successfully carries
on great work, he insisted upon regulating every matter of detail
and discipline connected with the two institutions.

The result was inevitable. Difficulty after difficulty arose. A
painful disease at this time attacked him, making him more irritable
and exacting. Professors and other officers of the college retired
one after the other. Friends fell off. Subscriptions were dropped.
Pupils were withdrawn, and complete anarchy prevailed. At length
Chancery was appealed to, and Mr. Cox, having been defeated, retired,
somewhat sulkily and disdainfully, from the town—disappointed,
dejected, dispirited, and with a feeling which embittered the
remaining years of his life—a feeling that he had been very
greatly misunderstood, and most ungratefully treated.

Sands Cox, in private life, was gentleness and simplicity itself.
At a dinner party, while ladies were present, he was very quiet; but
the merry twinkle of his eye when the conversation became animated,
showed that he was keenly alive to all that was going on. After the
ladies had retired, he generally joined in the conversation, and had,
almost always, some quaintly curious story, which, told, as it always
was, in a shy way, as a schoolboy might tell it, was irresistibly
droll.

He had few amusements. He was fond of a quiet rubber; kept a tame
monkey, whose grotesque antics were to him a perpetual source of
gratification; and he was very fond of fishing. With the fly rod he
was very skilful, and he would occasionally steal a few days’
holiday to indulge in trout or salmon fishing. He did not disdain,
however, the far humbler sport that lay within an easy reach of
Birmingham, and I occasionally went with him to a favourite spot for
perch fishing. On one occasion, by an accident, he lost his bagful of
baits, and had to use some of mine. Finding it inconvenient to come
to me every time he wanted to bait his hook afresh, he took half the
worms from my bag, which he crammed—all slimy and crawling as
they were—into the pocket of a nearly new satin waistcoat. At
another time, just as he was about to put on a fresh bait, his line
became entangled in a bush, so as to require both hands to disengage
it. Without the slightest hesitation he put the worm into his mouth
to hold it while his hands were engaged with the line, and he seemed
greatly to enjoy the laughter which his queer proceeding forced from
those who were present.

In the course of his professional career, many honours were
bestowed upon him. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society; was
elected a member of the French Institute; and was honorary member of
nearly every important surgical school in Europe. He was also created
magistrate and Deputy-Lieutenant for the County of Warwick. He had,
though few knew it, considerable influence in quarters where his name
might hardly be expected to be known. He was generally consulted as
to the fitness of local gentlemen proposed for magisterial honours;
and as none of the parties are now alive, I may state that some days
before the Queen’s visit to Birmingham, in 1858, it was to Mr.
Cox that application was made for information respecting the then
Mayor, upon whom there was some hesitation as to whether the honour
of knighthood should be conferred. Mr. Cox suggested, in reply, that
the honour, although of course nominally given to the Mayor, would
really be granted as a compliment to the town, which had chosen him
as the chief magistrate. Acting on this suggestion, the Government of
the day, as is well known, decided on the honour being bestowed.

I have alluded to some indications of a miserly disposition in Mr.
Cox. These were, at the time, a psychological puzzle to my mind; but
I have learned since that a man may have strong acquisitive
instincts, and yet be without selfishness; that he may be even greedy
to acquire, and yet deny himself in almost every possible way, in
order to benefit others; and that the faculties of benevolence and
conscientiousness will, in many cases, direct into unselfish channels
the riches which have been accumulated by the mere animal instinct of
selfish acquisitiveness.

Such is a faithful and honest attempt to exhibit something of the
character, habits, and manners of one of Birmingham’s most worthy
sons; a man who, whatever his faults and failings, did much to
elevate the noble profession to which he belonged, and thereby to
alleviate the sufferings of thousands of his fellow creatures, not
only of his own time, but for generations to come. To him,
unquestionably, we owe the existence of two of our noblest
institutions—the Queen’s College and Hospital; and yet,
strange to say, the town possesses no memorial of him. Others, who
have done comparatively little for the place, have their portraits in
the Corporation Gallery; yet Sands Cox is unrepresented. Surely the
time has arrived when this should be remedied; surely, now that the
grave has closed over his remains, the irritation and ill-feeling
created by his somewhat imperious will and dogmatic manner, should be
forgiven and forgotten, and only his self-denying devotion to the
good of his native town should be remembered. Surely it is not too
late to see that some fitting memorial of the man, and his work,
should show to posterity that his contemporaries, and their immediate
successors, were not unmindful of, nor ungrateful for, the great and
noble work he was privileged to accomplish.

GEORGE EDMONDS.

In the early part of the present century, a house, which is still
standing, in Kenion Street, was occupied by a Dissenting Minister,
who had two sons. One of these sons, fifty years afterwards, told the
following story:

The narrator of this story, and the chief actor in the simple
drama was George Edmonds. I mention this little event because it
shows that the spirit of hostility to tyranny, and the scorn of
oppression, cruelty, and persecution, which he manifested in his
after life, were inborn, and a part of his nature. The same noble
spirit which induced him, like the good Samaritan, to bind up the
wounds, and to succour and defend the friendless soldier, gave his
tongue the eloquence, and his soul the fire, to denounce, in the
presence of assembled thousands, the malpractices of those then in
power, and the injustice of the laws under which the people
groaned.

George Edmonds was born in the year 1788, at the house in Kenion
Street of which I have spoken. His father was the Minister of the
Baptist Chapel in Bond Street. He was very popular as a preacher, and
he appears to have been a man of much culture. An engraved portrait
of him may be seen in the window of Mr. Massey’s shop at the top
of Mount Street. He was possessed of considerable humour, and was
almost as celebrated as the great Rowland Hill for making droll
remarks in the pulpit. It is told of him that, reading the fourth
chapter of Philippians, and coming to the thirteenth verse, he
read, “I can do all things;” here he paused, and said,
“What, Paul?—do all things? I’ll bet you half-a-crown
of it;” then, suiting the action to the word, he placed the coin
on the leaf of the book; but on reading the concluding portion of the
verse, he said, “Oh, that alters it! I withdraw the bet,”
and then went on with his reading.

Under his father’s care, George Edmonds received a really good
education, and became an excellent classical scholar. His knowledge
of Greek was extensive and profound. He was not apprenticed or
articled to any business or profession, and he appears to have
devoted his early manhood entirely to study. His favourite pursuit
was the science of language, and in this branch of learning he became
probably one of the best-informed men of his day. He was in constant
correspondence with the most eminent and learned philologians of his
time. I shall have occasion, further on, to mention this topic
again.

In the year 1823, I find that he was keeping a school in Bond
Street, near the chapel; his pupils, no doubt, being mainly the sons
of the members of the congregation. This life appears to have been,
to him, somewhat of a drudgery; and he longed for more active duties,
and a larger sphere of work. At that time the strict etiquette which
now governs all legal matters did not exist. The young schoolmaster
having volunteered on one occasion to assist a friend to conduct a
case in the old “Court of Bequests,” found the self-imposed
task very much to his taste. He took up the profession of an
Advocate, and in that court and the magistrates’ room at the
Public Office he soon became a busy man. His clear insight gave him
the power of instantly possessing himself of the merits of a case,
while his fluency of speech, his persuasive manner, and his
scholastic acquirements were great advantages. He soon obtained
considerable influence among the respectable old gentlemen who at
that time sat as judges in the one court and magistrates in the
other. His intense love of fun, and his powerful irony, made these
courts, instead of dull and dreary places, lively and cheerful. Many
droll stories are told of him, one of the best of which relates to
his cross-examination of a pompous witness. Edmonds began by asking,
“What are you, Mr. Jones?” “Hi har a
skulemaster,” was the reply. In an instant came the crushing
retort from Edmonds, “Ho, you ham, his you?” He continued
to practise in the Court of Bequests until it was abolished, but he
was ineligible in the newly-established County Court, not being an
attorney. He then articled himself to Mr. Edwin Wright, and in the
year 1847 was admitted as a solicitor, which profession he followed
actively, up to the time of the illness which removed him from public
life.

He was a powerful and successful advocate. His fault, however, in
this capacity was that he identified himself too much with his case.
He seemed always determined to win. True justice and fairness were
not considered, so long as he could gain the day. Hence, when another
advocate was opposed to him, the matter assumed, generally, the
aspect of a professional tournament, in which victory was to be
gained, rather than that of a calm and impartial investigation, in
which the truth was to be ascertained and a just award made.

At the time of the incorporation of the town in 1838, and the
establishment of Quarter Sessions, Mr. Edmonds was appointed Clerk of
the Peace. He was then seriously ill, and was supposed to be dying.
It was understood at the time, that the appointment was made as a
solace to him in his then condition, and as a recognition, which
would be pleasant to him, of the services he had rendered to his
native town. It was not expected that he would survive to undertake
the duties of the office. He, however, lived to perform them for more
than thirty years. He himself had so little expectation of recovery
that, from what he supposed to be his dying bed, he wrote to Mr.
William Morgan, urging him to announce himself as a candidate for the
office, so soon, in all probability, to become vacant. Mr. Morgan
refrained from so doing, and Mr. Edmonds nominated him his deputy. In
that capacity Mr. Morgan acted at the first Sessions held in the
town.

As years rolled on, Mr. Edmonds became at times very absent in
mind, causing occasionally great merriment in court by the ludicrous
mistakes he made. When the Sessions-room was altered a few years ago,
the jury box was placed on the opposite side of the court to that it
had formerly occupied, but Mr. Edmonds’s mind never realised the
change. While juries were considering their verdict, it was Mr.
Edmonds’s practice to engage in conversation with some of the
barristers; and he sometimes became so lost in these discussions as
to take no heed of his duties. Mr. Hill, the Recorder, enjoyed these
little scenes intensely. On one occasion, when the jury was waiting
to deliver a verdict, the Recorder had to call him from one of these
little chats, to receive it. Edmonds turned to the old spot, and
seeing no one there, said, “There is no jury, sir.” Upon
which, Mr. Hill, smiling, said, “If you’ll turn round, Mr.
Edmonds, you’ll see the jury laughing at you.” In some
confusion, Edmonds turned round, and, his mind being somewhat
uncollected, he asked, “What say you, Mr. Foreman, are you
guilty or not guilty?” On another occasion he took up, by
mistake, from his desk, an indictment against a man who had been
tried and sentenced, and charging the prisoner, who was a female,
read, “John Smith, you stand indicted,” &c. The
Recorder, jocularly rebuking him, said he had never known a woman
named John Smith before. The woman was sent down, and Edmonds
insisted in having the real John Smith up, and he again began the
charge. The prisoner laughed in his face, and told him he had been
tried once, and got ten years, but he wouldn’t mind being tried
again if the judge would make it five.

But George Edmonds had a higher claim to grateful recollection
than could be based upon mere forensic skill or professional duty.
His it was to help to apply the first impulse to the movement which
eventually broke down the strong bulwarks of territorial oligarchy.
His it was to wear the political martyr’s crown; his to beard a
profligate Court, and a despotic, tyrannical, and corrupt Government;
his to win, or to help to win, far nobler victories than were ever
gained by Marlborough or Wellington: victories of which we reap the
benefits now, in liberty of thought and speech, in an unfettered
Press, in an incorrupt Parliament, in wiser laws, and in unshackled
commerce. His manly voice never counselled aught but obedience; but
it was never silent until it had assisted to ensure for his
fellow-countrymen, that the laws he taught them to obey were just and
impartial, and were equitably administered.

When Mr. Edmonds was a mere child, the great Revolution in France
gave the English advocates of freedom hopes that the “appointed
time” would soon arrive. The obstinacy of the King, which had
already caused the loss of America, once more made itself manifest,
and crushed these hopes. War was declared against France in 1793, and
(with the exception of a period of thirteen months, from March, 1802,
to April, 1803, and a few months in 1814-15) raged until the Battle
of Waterloo, in June, 1815. Daring the whole of this long period the
hopes of English freedom lay dormant. With the return of external
peace came fresh visions of internal reformation. Major Cartwright,
Sir Francis Burdett, and other advanced politicians formed themselves
into a society, which, in memory of one of England’s most worthy
sons, they named the Hampden Club. They advocated annual Parliaments,
universal suffrage, and vote by ballot. Provincial reformers adopted
their creed. George Edmonds, then some 27 years old, took up the
cause with great zeal, and advocated it with much eloquence and
fervour. Cobbett, by his writings, and Hunt, by his speeches, aided
the movement. The Tory party was alarmed, and Lord Liverpool’s
Government was so exasperated, that a crusade against the popular
cause was resolved on.

Meanwhile, the Hampden Club counselled their Birmingham friends to
bring matters to an issue, by electing a “Legislatorial
Attorney,” who was to proceed to the House of Commons, and
formally demand to be admitted as the representative of Birmingham.
The advice was taken, and on the 12th of July, 1819, a great meeting
was held on Newhall Hill, for the purpose indicated. George Edmonds
was the chairman and principal speaker, and was admittedly the local
leader.

The Government was not slow to take action. On the 30th of the
same month, the Prince Regent issued a proclamation, warning all His
Majesty’s subjects against treasonable and seditious meetings,
and malpractices generally, and saying, inter alia—

At the time this Proclamation appeared, Edmonds was editing and
publishing in Birmingham a weekly political paper, under the title of
Edmonds’s Weekly Recorder. Number 8 of this paper, dated
August 7, 1819, lies before me. The Proclamation is printed at full
length on the front page, and the next column contains the opening
sentences of a letter from Edmonds to the Prince Regent. This letter
is of great length, and is written in a well-supported strain of
splendid irony all through. To copy it at length would occupy too
much space. I may, however, be allowed to quote a short extract or
two. Speaking of the meeting on the 12th July, of which he
acknowledges himself to have been the chairman, he says: “I, and
may it please you, sir, being a very loyal man, was very careful,
although it was quite unnecessary, to admonish the people to obey the
laws; and I can assure you, sir, that I have not heard of a single
instance of disloyalty, or violation of the laws, which occurred
during the said meeting. And while we are upon the subject, permit
me, sir, to lament that your Royal Highness did not in your Royal
Proclamation lay down the law which had been violated by the
people of Birmingham.” “Finding, however, contrary to our
expectations, that your Royal Highness considers that we have acted
unlawfully, we must humbly petition that the precise law we have
violated may be pointed out, that we may not, through ignorance,
be led to do wrong again. Some persons have supposed the
Proclamation to be law, but I have said to them, ‘A
Proclamation is a Proclamation, and not the law of
Parliament.’ In the same manner as your Highness profoundly
speaks, in your Royal Proclamation, of those ‘unlawful
assemblies’ which are ‘contrary to law.’ Truisms, an
please your Royal Highness, are much better than
falsehoods.”

The number of the Weekly Recorder for August 14th, 1819,
contains a long address to his “Fellow-townsmen,” signed by
George Edmonds. It commences by stating that “the last week has
been a very important one in the annals of Warwickshire, and indeed
of England…. Five of us, Major Cartwright, Mr. Wooler, Mr. Lewis,
Mr. Maddocks, and myself, have had true bills found against us for a
conspiracy to elect a Member of Parliament, and at the next Assizes
the indictment will be tried.”

The grand jury brought in the “true bill” on Monday,
August 9th. The trial did not take place at the Assizes then being
held, and the indictment was afterwards removed by certiorari
into the Court of King’s Bench. It came on for trial at Warwick,
on August 7th, 1820, before the Lord Chief Baron Richards. When the
special jury was called, only four answered to their names. Mr.
Barber was the foreman, and on taking the book into his hands, one of
the defendants asked him whether he had “ever expressed any
opinion as to the merits or demerits of this case.” The Judge
interfered, and said that “as a special juryman he was
not bound to answer the question.” Eight names were then added
from the common jury list, and the trial proceeded. Denman was
counsel for Edmonds, and Matthew Davenport Hill for Major Cartwright.
The others defended themselves in person. The Judge summed up
unfavourably, and after twenty minutes’ deliberation the jury
gave a verdict of guilty against all the defendants. Judgment,
however, was deferred.

On May 28, 1821, the Attorney-General moved the judgment of the
court. The Lord Chief Justice Abbott, afterwards Lord Tenterden,
recapitulated the arguments as to the legality of the jury, and held
that no legal challenge could have been made until a full jury
appeared; and as in this case the challenges had been made before the
full jury had assembled, there were no grounds for a new trial.
Several motions in arrest of judgment were subsequently made, but
eventually Mr. Edmonds was sentenced to twelve months’
imprisonment in the common gaol of the county, and he was thereupon
removed to Warwick, where, within the walls of the gaol, he spent
every minute of the period for which he had been sentenced.

Upon his restoration to liberty, he published the following
characteristic advertisement in the Birmingham newspapers:

Mr. Edmonds’s trial, so far from impeding the popular cause,
gave it a forward impetus. It was contended that the jury had been
improperly impanelled; and Mr. Peel, afterwards Sir Robert, was
compelled to admit in the House of Commons that such was the case, as
the panel did not contain the proper number of names. The great
Jeremy Bentham took up the case, and published a pamphlet impugning
the legality of the whole proceedings, and exposing the utter sham of
the special jury system. Peel, much to his honour, brought into the
House, and carried, a bill to amend the whole jury system, and thus
Edmonds’s trial led to the abolition of a great public scandal
and a national grievance.

Henceforward, Edmonds was the recognised leader of the Birmingham
Radicals, and the agitation for Parliamentary Reform commenced anew.
The Whigs, though favourable, held aloof, looking upon it as a
hopeless case. In the year 1827, Mr. Charles Tennyson, afterwards
known as Mr. Tennyson D’Eyncourt, proposed to the House of
Commons that the two seats forfeited by the disfranchised borough of
East Retford should be transferred to Birmingham. The proposition was
supported by Sir James Mackintosh and others, but was eventually
negatived. The mere proposition, however, revived the dying embers of
Birmingham political life. All classes, and all sections of
politicians, hailed the proposal with delight. Tories, Whigs, and
Radicals united in a requisition to Mr. George Attwood, who was then
High Bailiff, to hold a town’s meeting, which was held
accordingly on June 25th, 1827, at Beardsworth’s Repository. At
this meeting, resolutions in favour of Mr. Tennyson’s proposition
were proposed and seconded by gentlemen belonging to the three
parties, Tories, Whigs, and Radicals. A committee, thirty-two in
number, composed of men of all shades of opinion, was appointed to
work in support of the enfranchisement of the town. Edmonds’s
name was left out for strategic reasons: a convicted conspirator, it
was thought, would do the cause no good. He, however, endorsed the
scheme heartily, worked energetically, and spoke frequently and
eloquently in its favour.

The proposition, as I have said, was negatived by the House of
Commons, but it had borne good fruit in Birmingham. Henceforth the
timid Whigs came once more into the sunlight of political life; and
the Tories, being divided in opinion on the measure, split into two
sections, with the result that the ultra party, which had
monopolised all municipal power, was broken up. Prom this time united
action became possible, and more reasonable relations were
established between the active and the passive Liberals. The extreme
Radical section, seeing that the men of moderate views had joined in
the movement for the Reform of Parliament, became less extravagant in
their demands. On the 14th of December, 1829, sixteen gentlemen,
called together by circular, met at the Royal Hotel, and founded the
great Political Union. Rules having been prepared, it was proposed to
hold a Town’s Meeting, under the presidency of the High
Bailiff—Mr. William Chance—to ratify them. That
gentleman, on the proposal being made to him, stated that he could
not view it as “any part of his duty to call a meeting of the
inhabitants of the town for any such purpose.” The meeting was,
notwithstanding, held at Beardsworth’s Repository, on the 25th
January, 1830, Mr. G.F. Muntz being chairman. About 15,000 persons
were present, and a number of resolutions, embodying the principles
and objects of the new organisation, were proposed and carried; some
“unanimously,” some with “one dissentient,” and
some “by a majority of at least one thousand and one;” and
the “General Political Union between the Lower and Middle
Classes of the People,” became an accomplished fact.

From this time, for more than three years, nearly the whole of Mr.
Edmonds’s time was devoted to the cause he had so much at heart.
Night after night, and month after month, he fanned the flame of
popular feeling, until it culminated in the unparalleled meetings on
Newhall Hill. At the one held on May 14th, 1832, there were nearly
200,000 persons present. Mr. Attwood occupied the chair, and the
proceedings commenced by the vast assembly singing a hymn composed
for the occasion by the Rev. Hugh Hutton, the two final verses of
which were as follow:

At this meeting, what has been described as “one of the most
solemn spectacles ever seen in the world” took place. After it
had been determined to petition the House of Lords “not to drive
to despair a high-minded, generous, and fearless people,” Mr.
Clutton Salt took off his hat, and, calling upon the people to follow
his example, the entire assembly stood uncovered as they repeated
after him the Union vow: “In unbroken faith, through every peril
and privation, we devote ourselves and our children to our
country’s cause.” The sound of the thousands of voices in
unison, as they uttered these words, has been described as resembling
the sound of the waves of the sea on a rocky shore.

Earl Grey, on the adverse vote of the House of Lords, had resigned
on the 9th of May. The Duke of Wellington and Sir R. Peel endeavoured
to form a Government, but failed utterly; so that on the 18th, Earl
Grey returned to power. “At the personal request of the King, a
large number of the Tory peers consented to absent themselves from
the House of Lords during the further discussion of the Reform
Bill.” “By the first week of August the bills had received
the Royal assent, and the political excitement which had kept the
country agitated for nearly two years was suddenly changed into
complete listlessness and apathy.”

Meanwhile, the personal sacrifices which Mr. Edmonds had made, and
the sufferings he had endured, were not unheeded by his friends. On
April 25th, 1831, a meeting was held, under the presidency of Mr.
John Betts, at which it was resolved to raise a subscription in his
behalf, in recognition of “his superior talents, his tried
integrity, and the persevering industry with which he has, for a long
series of years, devoted himself to the great cause of public
liberty, and more especially to the rights, privileges, and welfare
of his fellow-townsmen.” Mr. Thomas Attwood was appointed the
treasurer, and a committee of twenty of the leading Liberals of the
town took charge of the movement, which resulted in a handsome sum
being presented to Mr. Edmonds.

Mr. Edmonds was not one to become politically listless and
apathetic. He considered the passing of the Reform Bill to be only
the stepping-stone to other beneficial measures. At his instigation
it was resolved that the Political Union should not be dissolved, but
should be “kept firmly united.” On May 20th, 1833, another
monster meeting was held on Newhall Hill, at which the Government was
censured for passing the Irish Coercion Bill; for refusing the right
to vote by ballot; for persevering in unjust and cruel Corn Laws; and
for continuing the House and Window Taxes.

George Edmonds was one of the most active agitators for the grant
of a Charter of Incorporation to the town. He was generally selected
to be either proposer or seconder of the Reform candidates, at the
elections. Few political meetings of any kind, were held at which he
was not only present, but took an active part; and even when old age
had bent his frame and weakened the tones of his once trumpet-like
voice, he would occasionally make the walls of the Town Hall ring, as
he denounced oppression, or called upon his fellow-townsmen to rise
to vindicate a right. His spoken addresses were singularly clear and
forcible in their construction. His language was very simple, and was
nearly pure Saxon, and his enunciation of every syllable of each word
distinct and perfect. He was a born politician, and a bold and
fearless leader. He had a very genial disposition, and a charitable
heart; but was impulsive, and was very strong in his resentments. He
was what Dr. Johnson might call “a good hater.” He combined
the fierceness of the lion with the gentleness and docility of the
lamb.

Hitherto, I have spoken of Mr. Edmonds chiefly in reference to his
professional career and his political activity. I now turn to a phase
of his character which is little known, but which is not in any way
less remarkable. As a scholar and a philologian he had rare
abilities, and a rarer industry. Having, somewhat early in life,
possessed himself of a copy of the works of Dr. Wilkins, who was a
bishop in the reign of Charles II., he became impressed with the
thought that a universal language was within the bounds of human
possibility, and he set himself diligently to work out the problem.
During the whole of his busy political life; all through his active
professional career; amid the strife and the worry, the turmoil, and
the rancour, of the controversy in which he was so prominent; it was
his habit to rise from his bed at three or four o’clock in the
morning to endeavour to master this intricate task. In the failures
of others who had essayed this gigantic work, he saw only incentives
to fresh exertions. Nothing daunted him. Failing to find in ordinary
type, as used by printers, the necessary symbols to embody his
thoughts, he, at enormous expense, had an entirely new fount, from
his own designs, made expressly for the book which was to be the
crowning monument of his life. Finding no printing-office willing to
undertake a work of so unaccustomed a nature, he fitted up a room in
his house in Whittall Street, and here, by his own hands, the whole
of the type was set. Mr. Massey, of Friday Bridge, informs me that he
printed the book, and he has obligingly placed at my disposal
a few specimens of the peculiar types used. The result was, a thick
quarto volume, every page of which bristles with evidences of acute
erudition, and the most accurate reasoning and discernment. It bears
the title of “A Universal Alphabet, Grammar, and Language,”
and it has for a motto a text from the book of
Zephaniah—”For then will I turn to the people a
pure language, that they may call upon the name of the
Lord.”

He seems to have aimed at the production of an “Alphabet of
Characters,” which should indicate the various sounds of the
voice, and he succeeded. “I thought,” he says, in the
preface to his book, “and still think it, theoretically, a near
approach to perfection. Into this character I translated the whole of
St. Matthew’s Gospel, and various extracts from the Psalms
and other books.” “With great reluctance, and not without
much pain,” he came to the conclusion that this system was
impracticable, and he “therefore gave up the idea altogether of
that character, and looked about for some other.” It then
occurred to him that the Roman alphabet “might be supplemented
by certain marks, so as to represent all the elementary sounds;”
and this resulted in his compiling an alphabet containing forty
symbols, of which five—ai, au, oi, ou, and oo are
compounds; the remaining thirty-five are the ordinary letters, some
of which have marks under them, like the dash we make under a word in
writing to indicate greater force or emphasis, thus—U D Z o d
z.

Having arrived at this point, he intimates his belief that his
next discovery was the result of direct inspiration. “I am far
from superstitious, yet I must confess, with regard to this
discovery, I have long felt as though I had been no more than a mere
instrument, accomplishing the will of Another; and that the direction
of my thoughts, and my ultimate convictions, were only a part of the
development of my own mind, enforced and controlled by some internal
law, which ensured its own effects without any original exercise of
my own reason. One thing is certain: I cannot tell how it was brought
into my own i mind, and I have no recollection of the process which
ultimately revealed to me a knowledge of the power and essential
importance of the discovery.”

The discovery of which he speaks is that the “success of the
Philosophic [language] turned upon the proper use of two short vowels
and three nasal consonants. These are the short u, as in
faithful, and the i in pin, and the consonants, m, n,
and n [i.e., ng]. One of these three consonants is to be
found in the centre of every root of the [philosophic] language. They
resemble the reed in the hautboy—they give B metallic ring in
the words where they occur. They may be compared to the sound of the
trumpet in a concert; the other consonants are the sound of the
drum—rub-a-dub-dub.”

It is of course impossible, in a short notice like this, to give a
thousandth part of the methods and arguments by which Mr. Edmonds
works out his theory; but I shall attempt to make his process clear
by one or two short examples.

He starts by assuming that, as all words are reducible to nouns as
a first principle, so the whole of the nouns can be classified into
forty “genera.” These genera are each divisible into
“differences,” and the differences are sub-divisible into
“species.” He gives a list of the “genera,” each
of which is composed of two vowels and two consonants; and then, in a
series of very elaborate tables, he proceeds to show how words of
every possible signification can be built up from the materials thus
provided and classified. For instance, amongst the genera,
onji is the root-word for insects, anji for fish,
enji for birds, and inji for beasts. Taking
anji—or fish—for my example, because it is the
shortest, I may mention that he divides fish into nine
“differences,” two of viviparous, five of oviparous, one of
crustacea, and one of scaly river fish. I will give one example of
each class, merely pointing out that the letters anj occur in
the middle of each name. The final letters give the species,
and the initials the specific fish indicated, thus:
Panjoo is whale, Banjoi is skate, Danjo is
herring, Kanja is gurnet, Danji is sea-perch,
Danjai is eel, Banjino is plaice, Vanjoinoi is
star-fish, and Fanjino is salmon.

The same process of building up words from simple roots is carried
on all through the whole range of thought and action; and the result
as a whole is that, as a theoretical system, the entire subject is
successfully worked out.

Whether it will ever be carried out in practice is extremely
doubtful. Some Spanish enthusiasts were so enraptured with Mr.
Edmonds’s book that they sought and obtained an interview with
the late Emperor Napoleon, with a view to secure his patronage of the
new scheme. The expression of his opinion was short, but shrewd. He
said the only way to establish universal language was to first
establish universal empire; and that, he thought, would not be
possible just yet.

In July, 1867, Mr. Edmonds, when 79 years of age, married, at the
Old Church, Leamington, as his second wife, Miss Mary Fairfax, of
Barford, near Warwick, the descendant of a truly noble family. She
was 75 years of age at the time. Their natures and dispositions,
however, being so very dissimilar, this proved to be an unhappy
union, and after living together three weeks only, they separated by
mutual consent. His mind at this time—and, indeed, for some
previous time—must have been giving way. Eventually, he was
placed in the asylum at Winson Green. From thence he was removed to a
private asylum at Northampton, where he died in the year 1868, being
80 years of age.

His funeral at the General Cemetery was attended by most of the
leading Liberals of the town, and by great crowds of admirers.
Charles Vince, who was so soon to follow him, delivered a very
eloquent address over the open grave, in which he said, “For the
firmness with which he maintained his convictions, and for the zeal
and ability with which he advocated them, he will always have a name
and a place in the history of his native town, if not in the history
of his country. To the honour of his memory it will be said that he
held his opinions honestly; laboured for them diligently; devoted
great gifts and rare energy to their promotion; and amply proved his
sincerity, and won the crown of the conscientious, by the things that
he suffered.”

It is, in my opinion, not very creditable to the Liberal party in
the town that George Edmonds has no public memorial. The generation
passing away may remember his face and figure; but before it goes, it
has a duty to its successors to perform. That duty is to leave some
lasting memorial, in the shape of a statue, bust, or portrait, of the
man, who, sacrificing his own freedom, helped thereby to gain for his
countrymen liberty of thought, liberty of speech, and liberty to
carry on in the future the beneficent policy which he advocated with,
so much eloquence and perseverance.

THE EARLY DAYS OF CHARLES VINCE.

With reverent pen and loving spirit, I sit down to write of one
whose sunny smile brightened every circle upon which it shone; whose
massive intellect and clear mental vision discovered subtle truths
and deep symbolic meanings in common things; whose winning and
graphic eloquence made these truths and meanings clear to others,
showing them that not a blade of grass springs by the roadside, nor
an insect flutters for a day in the gladdening light of the
spring-time, but has its lesson, if men will but search for it, of
tender mercy and fatherly care. His broad and catholic spirit was
wide enough to embrace within his friendship men of widely divergent
thought and belief. His life was one long and eloquent lesson to us
all. If ever man deserved the blessing following the words,
“Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, my
brethren, ye did it unto me,” that man was Charles Vince, for of
him, more emphatically than can be said of most of us, it may be
recorded that “he went about doing good.”

It is not necessary to sketch the mature character of one so
recently taken from amongst us. The shadow of his homely figure has
scarcely faded from our streets, and the sound of his eloquent voice
still seems to vibrate in our ears. It seems but yesterday that, on
that cold and cheerless day, his lifeless but honoured remains were
borne to the grave through the crowds of sympathising people who
thronged the busy streets to see the last of him they knew so well
and loved so heartily. Little could be added to the warm tributes
that were paid so recently to the memory of the gifted, truthful,
fearless, earnest, hard-working Christian teacher, who, in the prime
of his life and the zenith of his powers, was removed from the sphere
which he adorned by the purity of his character, and benefited by the
power and graces of his intellect.

But these tributes referred mainly to what he was, and what he
did, in the later part of his career, and in the maturity of his
powers. In some of them the references to his parentage, his birth,
and his boyhood, were singularly inaccurate. In one periodical of
large circulation and great influence, statements full of error and
misrepresentation went forth to the world unchallenged. It is my
purpose, therefore, in this paper, to correct the mistakes of those
who wrote, being imperfectly informed; and to give, as I had it from
the lips of his friends, his schoolfellows, and his relatives, a
simple, but at all events a strictly accurate, record of the few and
unromantic events of the early days of one who became so fruitful in
goodness and in charity.

With the view that this little sketch should at least be free from
serious error, I made, the other day, a special pilgrimage to
Vince’s birthplace—the pleasant town of Farnham in Surrey.
I stood before the lowly cottage in which he first drew breath; I sat
in the little room where his father and his mother taught him
practical lessons of truthfulness and sympathy; I looked into the
little plain deal cupboard his father made for him, in which he
stored the books he loved so well and studied so intently. I talked
with his schoolfellows and the companions of his boyish days, and
listened to those who were the chosen friends of his youth-hood, and
I noted the brightening of the eye, and the more fervid tones of the
voice, as one after another told me of the budding intellect, and of
the germination of the warm and tender spirit, of him they were all
so proud of.

After a long continuance of cold and cheerless weather, the
morning of Saturday, the 26th of May, 1877, was bright and genial. An
unclouded sun, and a warm south-western wind, awoke the birds to
melody, and gave the flowers new fragrance. As the train bore me
through pleasant Surrey, the fields not only smiled—they
absolutely seemed to laugh with joy at the advent of the first day of
summer, and when we stopped at the pretty station of plutocratic
Surbiton, the air was laden with the perfume of lilacs and of
hawthorn blossom. From a dense thicket, nearly overhead, came
cheerfully the melodious notes of “the careful thrush,”
who, as Browning says—

As the train passes on, I see, beyond the silvery Thames, the
stately front of Hampton Court Palace. A little further on we pass
Esher, where, on a tree-girt hill, the lofty pediment of Claremont
peeps through the trees, and reminds me that here, sixty years ago,
the hopes of England were quenched by the death of the youthful
Princess Charlotte. Strange, that this house should have been the
death-place of the unthroned heiress of England, and, forty years
afterwards, of the dethroned crafty old French king, Louis
Philippe.

When we stop at Woking Common, I feel at home. Here,
half-a-century ago, when there was not even a hut on the spot which
is now a busy town, I used to play as a boy. Yonder is the
Basingstoke canal, where, with willow wand and line of string from
village shop, I used to beguile the credulous gudgeon and the greedy
perch. Just up that lane to the right, on the road to Knap
Hill—famed the world over for its hundreds of acres of
rhododendrons—is the nurseryman’s shed to which, in the
summer, cart-loads of the small, wild, black cherries came from
Normandy, for seed. Here the boys of the neighbourhood had the
privilege of gorging themselves gratis with the luscious fruit, on
the simple condition that they placed the cherry-stones in bowls
provided for the purpose. As the train moves on, we dash through a
deep cutting of yellow-coloured sand, and emerge upon a wild and
dreary region. On the hills to the right are a gaol, a reformatory,
and a lunatic asylum; and on the left is the “Necropolis,”
where London, in the black and sandy soil, deposits the myriads of
its dead. All around, the ground is olive-coloured with unblossomed
heath, bright and golden here and there with the flowerets of the
prickly gorse. Dense and dismal plantations of black-looking Scotch
firs are enlivened at intervals by the delicate and tender green
spikelets of a sprouting larch. On we rush for miles through this
sombre region, through dank morasses, and past dark and gloomy pools,
from one of which a heron rises majestically. On, until, in a broad
and airy region, the red coats of soldiers are seen dotted here and
there amongst the heather. In the distance are the serried lines of
the tents of Aldershot. Just beyond this point the train suddenly
enters the chalk formation, and comes simultaneously into a
cultivated district. A mile or two further, and the train stops at
Farnham; birthplace of Toplady, who wrote the beautiful hymn,
“Rock of Ages;” of William Cobbett, sturdiest of English
yeomen; and of Charles Vince, who, coming to Birmingham an utter
stranger, so endeared himself to its people, that he was universally
beloved; and when he died, was followed to his grave by thousands of
the principal inhabitants, amid the tearful regrets of the entire
population.

As I leave the station, and approach the town, I see on my left,
nestling under a cliff, an old timbered house, bearing on its front
the inscription, “Cobbett’s birthplace.” It is an inn,
and I enter in search of refreshment. A somewhat surly man appears,
and tells me that he “ain’t got no cold meat.” I
persevere, and am told that I can have some bread and cheese,
which are accordingly served. I ask the landlord—for such the
man is—if there are any relics of Cobbett remaining in the
house? The reply is, “not as I knows on.” I am told,
however, that he is buried in the churchyard hard by, and that his
grave is “right agen the front door,” and this is all the
man knew, or cared to tell, about the matter.

The most striking peculiarity of Farnham, as seen from the cliff
behind the “Jolly Farmer,” is the abundance of hop gardens.
As far as the eye can reach, in all directions, little else appears
to be cultivated. At the time I visited it, the appearance was very
singular. From the tops of distant hills; creeping down into the
valleys; even to the back doors of the houses in the principal
street, the whole surface of the earth seemed clothed with stiff
bristles. About two thousand acres of land in this parish alone are
planted with hop bines, and as each acre takes three thousand
hop-poles to support the climbing crop, it follows that there were
five or six millions of these poles standing bare and upright before
the astonished eye. No wonder that a conical hill at a little
distance looked like a gigantic hedgehog.

At the extreme westerly end of the main street of the town there
is a small house on the left, standing some twenty feet back from the
line of the other buildings. The space between the house and the
street is now covered by a conservatory. A greenhouse adjoins the
house on the west side, and a large piece of ground fronting the
street for some distance is occupied as a nursery, and, when I saw
it, was gay with flowers and verdure. In the year 1823 this house,
together with a large plot of adjoining land (now built upon), was
the property of Charles Vince’s father, and in this little house
Charles Vince was born. The father was by trade a builder and
carpenter, and was very skilful. If he had any intricate work on
hand, it was his habit to go to bed, even in the day-time, in order
that he might, undisturbed, work out in his mind the proper means of
accomplishing the end in view. He held a sort of duplex position. He
was foreman to, and “the life and soul of the business” of,
Messrs. Mason and Jackson, builders; but he had a private connection
of his own, which he worked independently. He was greatly liked, and
the late Sir George Barlow, a landed proprietor of the neighbourhood,
made him a kind of factotum on his estate. He seems to have been a
very original character; to have had superior abilities as an
artificer; and to have had most of the qualities which go to form
what is called a “successful” man. He was, however, a bad
financier; he did not understand “business;” and so he went
on through life, contented to remain where he was; his abilities
securing to him competence and comfort; enabling him to give his
children a good education; and to maintain his position as a
respectable and worthy member of society. He had something of the old
Puritan about him, and was “brimful of fun and humour.” He
was very original in speech and thought, and he was very earnest in
his religious life and practice. A good story was told me of his
quaint manner. At the chapel of which he was a member, one of the
ministers having died, a successor was appointed, who in some way
caused a division amongst his people, some of whom seceded. Mr.
Vince, senior, remained. Some weeks afterwards it was decided by
those who still held to the old chapel that it would be better for
the minister to leave, but this decision was not made public. A few
days after, one of the seceders, meeting Vince, said, “I
understand you’re going to buy your minister a new pulpit
gown.” “No,” was the reply, “you’ve missed
it; we’re going to buy him a new travelling
cloak.”

Mrs. Vince, senior, was a member of a very good family in Sussex,
and was a woman of superior mental powers. She is described as a very
industrious, careful, motherly woman; one to whom all the neighbours
applied for advice and assistance in any trouble or emergency, and
never in vain, for her heart was full of sympathy and her brain of
fertility of resource. She was a pious, humble, God-fearing woman,
who did her duty; trained her children carefully; set them the
example of a truthful, practical, and loving Christian life; and had
the satisfaction of seeing the results of her excellent example and
precepts carried into full life and activity in the career of her
only son.

Such were the parents of Charles Vince, and such the influences
which surrounded his childhood. He was a bright, intelligent boy; he
never had any trouble with his lessons, and was remarkably quick in
arithmetic. His father was very proud of him, and he was sent to the
best school in the place. It was kept by a nephew of the celebrated
William Cobbett. “Tommy” Cobbett, as he was always called,
seems to have been a favourable specimen of a country schoolmaster in
those days. On his leaving the town, about 1837 or 1838, a Mr.
Harrington took his place, and Charles Vince remained as a pupil for
a time, but Harrington went to old Mr. Vince to say that he felt he
was dishonest in taking his money, for “Charles ought to take my
place and teach me.”

Upon leaving school, Charles was duly bound apprentice to Messrs.
Mason and Jackson, where he was taught by his father. Without
indentures of apprenticeship in those days, an artificer had no
status in his trade; yet it would seem, in this case, that the
“binding” was regarded by each party as little more than a
necessary formality, for the youth did not spend the whole of his
time in the service of his nominal employers. He was always with his
father, and Sir George Barlow took a great fancy to him. He worked on
at his trade, however, for some years, and only left the
workman’s bench to assume the vocation of a teacher.

His parents were members of the Congregational Chapel in the
place, and their son was a constant attendant at the Sunday school,
first as a scholar and afterwards as a teacher. When he was about 17
or 18 years of age, one of his relatives, and the then master of the
British School in the place, conceived the idea of establishing a
Mechanics’ Institute. Vince joined the movement with ardour, and
the little institution was soon an accomplished fact. A grammar
class, to which Vince attached himself, was very popular among the
young men of the town, and they soon after established a debating
club. Here the latent talents in Vince developed themselves. He
became a fluent speaker, and was soon asked to deliver a lecture.
Being half a poet himself, he chose Poetry as his topic, and seems to
have given himself up to the preparation of his subject with a
determination to succeed. One of his old I companions (whose towering
head, by the way, would be a splendid artist’s “study”
for an apostle) told me that at this time they read together
“Paradise Lost,” a great part of which he said he could
still repeat from memory. Vince used to declaim aloud the
“bits” that pleased him, and “he was never tired”
of the passage in the tenth book, where the poet, describing the
change which followed the Fall, says—

The condition of his mind at this time was so eloquently described
to me by this friend, that I shall quote his words as I took them
down from his own lips: “To ordinary appearance his mind was
like a common flower; with beauty, perhaps, that would not catch the
unobservant eye; but intimate as I was, I could discover in his
homely talk, beauties that those who only knew him slightly could not
observe, because he kept his petals closed. He did not open to many,
but I saw, or thought I saw, the germs of what he afterwards
became.”

The lecture was a great success, and the conductors of the Sunday
school had no difficulty afterwards in persuading him to give short
addresses to the children. He appears about this time to have decided
to become a preacher, and his character became deepened and
intensified by the determination. This is so well described in a
letter from Farnham that I shall again quote: “When he first
fully made up his mind to give his attention to preaching and
teaching, he and I were deputed to visit a village about an
hour’s walk from this town to canvass the houses, and see if a
Sunday school could be established. I remember it was about this time
of the year, and with what delight my friend seemed to drink in all
the beauties of Nature on that quiet Sunday morning. He seemed, to
look on these things with new eyes; and he often, in years long
after, referred in sermons and in speeches to that Sunday
morning’s walk.”

The Sunday school was established, and here, “in one of
Surrey’s prettiest villages,” Vince preached his first
sermon in a cottage.

At this time, too, he became a politician, taking his lessons and
forming his political creed from a most unlikely source, apparently.
This was the Weekly Dispatch, a paper that in those days was
scarcely thought to be proper reading for young people. He read it,
however, with avidity, and there is no doubt that it had much to do
with forming his political character, and in laying the foundation of
the sturdy inflexibility with which he held to his political
principles. One of his early friends says, “He liked the
Weekly Dispatch. The politics, being racy, had a great
attraction for him, and he used to drink them in
ravenously.”

From this time he was the “pet speaker” of the place.
His lectures at the Mechanics’ Institute were delivered
frequently, and became immensely popular. The lecture-room was far
too small for the eager listeners who crowded to hear him. “A
large market room” was taken, and here, when he lectured, there
was no space for many who wished to hear him. He preached on Sundays
in the villages around, and at length was asked to occupy a pulpit in
Farnham itself. “I remember,” says one of his friends,
“his first sermon in the old Congregational Chapel. The place
was crammed to excess, by people too who were not in the habit of
attending such places.”

All this time, this “carpenter, and son of a carpenter,”
worked diligently at his trade; but a sudden vacancy occurring in the
management of the Farnham British Schools, he was asked to become the
master. He did so. He left the carpenter’s bench on a Saturday,
and became schoolmaster on the following Monday. This, however, was
but a temporary arrangement, for he was at the time negotiating with
the managers of Stepney College to become a pupil there; and, an
opportunity shortly afterwards occurring, which he had very promptly
to accept or refuse, he somewhat abruptly vacated his seat as a
schoolmaster, and became once more a scholar.

This was in 1848. He remained in the college four years, and he
soon learned to laugh heartily at his Farnham Latin and his Farnham
lectures. He was in the habit, while at the college, of going on
Sundays to hear the best preachers in the Metropolis, and he has told
me that he often walked from Stepney to Camberwell to hear Melvill,
who was then the most popular preacher in London.

At the end of his academic career he was invited to become the
minister at Mount Zion Chapel, in Birmingham. How he laboured here
every one in the town can testify, and I need not say one word; but
there is one fact that should be more generally known, as it shows
one result of his work. In the year before he came to Birmingham
(1851), the sum collected in this chapel for the Baptist Missions was
£28 4s. 11d. The report for 1874—the last under his
care—gives the amount collected in the year as £332 5s. 5d.

I am obliged to omit much that is interesting, but I have at least
shown that his childhood’s home was comfortable and respectable,
and that he did not spend his boyhood among companions unworthy of
him. In his native town his memory is as warmly cherished as it is in
Birmingham. His last public act there was to preach the first sermon
in a new and remarkably handsome Congregational Church, and it is
said that on that occasion, the number of people who sought to hear
him was so great, that the Church, although a spacious one, would not
contain the half of them. “There was no room to receive them;
no, not so much as about the door.”

A handsome gothic cross has recently been erected over Vince’s
grave. It bears the following inscription:

JOHN SMITH, SOLICITOR

Everybody in Birmingham knew “Jack Smith, the lawyer.” It was
something worth remembering to see him drive up New Street in the
morning on his way to his office. Everything about his equipage was
in keeping. The really beautiful pair of ponies; the elaborate
silver-trimmed brown harness; the delicate ivory-handled whip; the
elegant little carriage; the smart boy-groom behind; and the radiant
owner in front. Most carefully, too, was the owner “got up.” His white
hat; his well-fitting coat, with its gay flowers in the button-hole;
his scrupulously clean linen; the bright buff waistcoat; the blue
necktie, and the diamond pin, all seemed to harmonise with his broad,
merry, brown face as he passed along, with a sort of triumphant air,
glancing from side to side, and greeting with a roguish, happy-looking
smile such of the foot passengers as he happened to know. Everybody
turned to look at him; and most people looked as if they felt it to be
a compliment to be recognised by him in the street.

John Smith was the son of Mr. Dyer Berry Smith, a printer, engraver,
and wholesale stationer in a very extensive way of business in
Prospect Row. Forty or fifty years ago his firm was known all over the
country, for they printed the bill-heads for nearly every grocer in
the kingdom, the imprint, “Smith and Greaves, sc.,” being prominent
on every one. John was born in Prospect Row, in the year 1819. He
was intended by his father for the medical profession, and spent some
years in preliminary studies. He was exceedingly fond of chemistry, in
which he became very proficient, and the study of which continued to
be a favourite pursuit all his life. He had also considerable skill as
an anatomist, and it is known that, within a few years of his death,
having caught a mole in his garden, he dissected it most skilfully,
with a view to discover the peculiarities of the eyes and optic nerves
of that singular animal. His knowledge of chemical and medical
science was, in after life, of great service to him. No doubt it was a
considerable factor in the marvellous defence he made of Palmer,
the Rugeley poisoner, which, though unsuccessful, was universally
considered amongst lawyers to have been a masterpiece of professional
skill.

Having abandoned the idea of becoming a medical practitioner, as not
affording scope for his energetic spirit, he was articled to the
late Mr. Alexander Harrison, the solicitor. Immediately after
the expiration of his articles, Smith made his appearance in the
Bankruptcy Court as an Advocate. In this capacity he showed very great
tact, and an intimate knowledge of every minute point of practice. His
pleasant voice and manner soon made him a favourite; and he applied
himself to this branch of his profession with such success, that it
may be said that down to his death there was scarcely a bankruptcy
case of any importance in the Birmingham Court in which he was not
professionally engaged on one side or the other.

He possessed consummate ability, an imperturbable temper, and
great confidence in himself. His marvellous coolness under the most
embarrassing circumstances, his quickness of apprehension, his ready
wit, and his boundless fertility of resource, have won him many
a legal victory. It is but justice, however, to add that his easy
notions as to truthfulness occasionally carried him over difficulties
which would have been insurmountable by a man of more acute moral
sense.

His memory was very tenacious. I had once a very remarkable instance
of this. I was dining at the “Acorn” one Monday, and Smith was there.
He came to me after the cloth was cleared, and said, “Didn’t I see you
at Vince’s Chapel last night?” On my replying in the affirmative, he
began to eulogise the sermon, which he said he had repeated the night
before, word for word, to some friends at his house, after he got
home. Knowing his failing, I smiled incredulously, but he began
immediately to recite the sermon verbatim, and I verily believe that
he could have gone through the whole without a mistake of a single
word.

It is well known that he was often short of money. On one occasion he
wrote to George Edmonds, asking for a loan of seven pounds, adding,
“on Wednesday I will faithfully promise to repay you.” Edmonds sent
the money, and on Wednesday called at Smith’s office, expecting to be
repaid. After the usual civilities, Edmonds asked for the cash. Smith
affected to be ignorant, but on Edmonds saying, “Well, I’ve got your
note promising to repay me to-day,” said, “Let’s look at it, old
fellow; there must be some mistake.” The note was produced, and after
reading it, Smith said, “I thought you must be wrong, and I find it
is so; this note says that ‘on Wednesday I will’—what? Pay? No.
‘Faithfully promise.’ Well, I do now faithfully promise to repay you,
but Heaven knows when you’ll get the money.”

Some years ago one of the Banks brought an action against some one
who owed them money, and Smith was retained for the defence. He first
attempted to compromise the action, but he found that his client had
in some way so annoyed the directors and the manager, that they would
not entertain any proposition; the case therefore stood for trial
at Warwick Assizes. Smith hit upon a very novel expedient. He caused
subpœnas to be served upon every clerk in the bank and upon the
manager. The latter had what is technically called a subpœna duces
tecum, in virtue of which he was under an obligation to produce at
Warwick the whole of the books of the establishment. This caused great
dismay, it being seen that if the trial were to go on, the business of
the bank must be entirely suspended. The result was that Smith’s terms
were accepted, and the action was settled.

During the “railway mania” of 1845 a company was formed in Birmingham
for making a railway from Wolverhampton to Birkenhead, and Smith was
its solicitor. The company, like many others, “came to grief.” The
directors were great losers, and much litigation followed. In those
days there were no “winding up” arrangements, and the creditors of
defunct companies had to sue individual directors to recover the
amount of their claims. One action in connection with this company
came on for trial at Warwick, in 1847 or 1848, before the late Mr.
Justice Patteson. Mr. M. (the present Justice M.) was counsel for
the defence, and Smith was a witness for the plaintiff. The Judge was
deaf, and Smith’s loud voice and clear replies evidently pleased him.
He complimented Smith, who was soon in one of his best humours,
his broad, merry face beaming with smiling good-nature. His
examination-in-chief being over, Mr. M. got up, prospectus in hand,
and majestically waving a pair of gold eye-glasses, said, “Well, Mr.
Smith, I see by this prospectus that the solicitor of this company
is John Smith, Esquire, Upper Temple Street, Birmingham; are you
‘John Smith, Esquire?'”

Smith (with great energy): “I AM!”

Mr. M. (evidently disconcerted): “Oh! very good, Mr. Smith; very good!
H’m! I see by your prospectus that you had a large number of persons
connected with you in this matter. You had, I see, Parliamentary
agents, solicitors, London solicitors, local solicitors, consulting
engineers, acting engineers, surveyors, auditors, secretary, and a
variety of other officers. Had you standing counsel, Mr. Smith?”

Smith (folding his arms, and with the greatest possible coolness):
“No, we hadn’t, Mr. M.; but I remember the subject being discussed
at one of our board meetings, and I mentioned your name as that of
a rising young man at the Bar, and there was some idea of retaining
you.”

The effect was electrical. Everybody in court was convulsed with
laughter. The judge put down his pen, threw himself back in his chair,
and laughed until he shook like a piece of blancmange. As soon as
he could recover himself, he asked, in tones tremulous with suppressed
mirth, “Are you satisfied, Mr. M.?” Mr. M. was completely nonplussed;
could make no defence; tried to “rub it off” by delivering himself of
a homily upon the degradation it was to the Bar of England that
some of its members should be capable of lending themselves to the
promotion of “Bubble Companies;” but it would not do. He lost his
temper; he lost his case; and it was many years before he heard the
last of it.

Some friends of mine had been directors of this company, and I had a
good deal to do with winding it up. Smith’s bill was a curiosity.
Two items in it are probably unsurpassed in the whole records of the
taxing masters’ offices. They were as follows:

It is needless to say that the greater part of these charges was
disallowed.

I met him one morning on the platform of the old Duddeston Row
Station. We were both going to London. He proposed that we should ride
together, but as I had taken a second-class ticket and he a first, I
pointed out the difficulty. “Oh, never mind,” said he; “come in here,
they never charge extra for any friends of mine;” so I was persuaded
to go in his carriage. We were alone, and he kept me laughing the
whole of the way. On arriving at Camden Town, where the tickets were
then collected, I took from my purse the amount of the excess fare, so
as to be in readiness for the collector. As soon as he appeared at the
window, Smith set up an unearthly scream; put on a most extraordinary
expression of face; and feigned madness. This behaviour so frightened
the poor collector, that, keeping his eye fixed upon Smith, he
mechanically held out his hand; took my ticket without looking at it;
and hurried from the carriage, evidently congratulating himself upon a
lucky escape.

Smith occasionally got into trouble with the “powers that be;” and in
one case, where he was obstinate, an “attachment” was issued, under
which he was confined for a few days in Coventry Gaol. He became, in
a day or two, the life and soul of the place. I was shown a letter
written by him from prison to the opposing solicitor, asking him to go
over to arrange terms of settlement. “You can come at any time,” wrote
Smith; “you’ll be sure to find me at home.”

He certainly was no common man, and but for one or two unfortunate
deficiencies in his character, he might have risen to great heights
in his profession. He had abilities of no common order, and he had
a “taking” way that was very fascinating. Even those who knew his
failings, and could hardly accord him their respect, could not help
liking the man. His somewhat untimely and sudden death caused much
regret. On the morning of September 23rd, 1867, in accordance with
his usual practice, he went for a ride on horseback, returning to his
house in Sir Harry’s Road about half-past ten. Feeling somewhat faint,
he retired to his room; a fit of apoplexy supervened. Mr. Samuel
Berry, and Mr. Oliver Pemberton, were hastily summoned. On their
arrival, Smith was found to be insensible, and by twelve o’clock at
noon he had ceased to breathe. He was in his 49th year.

CHRISTIAN’S PÂTE DE LICHEN, OR ICELAND MOSS PASTE, An invaluable Lozenge for Coughs, Colds, Hoarseness, Sore Throats, Bronchitis, &c. Boxes. 1s., 2s.6d., and 4s.6d. each. CHRISTIAN’S DANDELION CHOCOLATE, Recommended to persons predisposed to Liver Affections, Weak Digestion, Flatulence, &c., as an article of diet. Packets, 6d., 1s., 2s., and 5s. each. Christian’s Oriental and Odoriferous Perfumes, These Perfumes, prepared for the use of The Prince & Princess of Wales, on their visit to Birmingham, contain, in a concentrated form, the aroma of the most delicate flowers, and are unrivalled for their freshness and durability. PURE SODA & OTHER WATERS, Prepared with Artesian Well Water, on the most approved modern methods, and guaranteed equal to any made. Extract from Analyst’s Report.—”The water used is, of many hundreds analysed by me from the neighbourhood of Birmingham, undoubtedly THE BEST IN ALL RESPECTS.” THE SELTZER WATER Stimulates the stomach and is a grateful antacid and alterative. LITHIA AND POTASS WATER Are much recommended in Gouty and Rheumatic affections. LEMONADE AND GINGER BEER Of fine flavour and particularly refreshing. GINGER ALE, A fine tonic, possessing the full flavour of Jamaica Ginger. Prices in Syphons, 3s. to 4s. Bottles, 1s.3d. to 2s.6d. per dozen. Prepared only by ARBLASTER (late Christian), CHEMIST & SODA WATER MANUFACTURER, New Street, and 7, Hagley Road, BIRMINGHAM.

Albert C. Neal, (SUCCESSOR TO SAMUEL WHITEFIELD, SEN.,) MANUFACTURER OF Feather Beds, Palliasses, Wool, Hair, and Spring Mattresses MADE OF THE BEST AND PUREST MATERIALS. Feather Merchant and Purifier Show Room for Bedsteads and Bedding A SPLENDID STOCK OF FEATHERS ALWAYS ON HAND. 52, OXFORD STREET. DISINFECTING, PURIFYING, AND STEAM LAUNDRY WORKS— VIADUCT WORKS, OXFORD STREET, BIRMINGHAM.

FROM COLLARD AND COLLARD. ROGERS AND PRIESTLY, COLMORE HOUSE, COLMORE ROW, Opposite Temple Row West and St. Philip’s Church, BIRMINGHAM, PIANOFORTE MANUFACTURERS. FOR SALE OR HIRE, OR ON THE ONE, TWO, OR THREE YEARS SYSTEM. PIANOFORTES, AMERICAN ORGANS, and HARMONIUMS by all the Best Makers.

WILLIAM DOWNING, (CHAUCER’S HEAD,) DEALER IN RARE, CURIOUS, AND OUT- OF-THE-WAY BOOKS. SETS OF STANDARD BOOKS. BOOKS IN ELEGANT BINDINGS. Catalogues issued on the 15th of each month, gratis and post- free. 74, NEW STREET, BIRMINGHAM.

THE “ALPHA” PATENT PORTABLE GAS MAKING APPARATUS. BRILLIANT, CONVENIENT, ECONOMICAL. For Large and Small Users of Gas. IN BUILDINGS OF EVERY CLASS. IN ALL COUNTRIES. SEVERAL THOUSANDS IN USE. By means of this Apparatus any person can have, in any building, Gas of great brilliance and absolute purity, without trouble or danger. No coal or lime, no retorts, purifiers, or gas-holders are employed. In the manufacture there is no dirt, no smell, no unsightly and expensive buildings. It requires no skilled labour in fixing or use, and there are no extras. Prices—12 Lights, £16 16s.; 26 Lights, £30; 40 Lights, £42 10s.: 60 Lights, £55; 100 Lights, £90; 150 Lights, £146; 200 Lights, £185; 300 Lights, £265; 400 Lights,£350; 500 Lights, £430. For further particulars, apply to the Proprietor of the Patent, H.L. MULLER, 22, MARY ANN STREET, BIRMINGHAM; 147, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, LONDON, E.C.; ALSO AT 71, NEW STREET, BIRMINGHAM, Where the Machines can be seen in operation daily.

RUDLAND & SMITH, CARPETS AT WHOLESALE PRICES. Patent Duplicate-Marking Whist Table, price £10. GENERAL HOUSE FURNISHERS, UNION PASSAGE AND LITTLE CHERRY STREET, BIRMINGHAM.

HATS. HOSIERY. SHIRTS. GLOVES. UMBRELLAS. SCARFS. BRACES. COLLARS. PORTMANTEAUS. RAILWAY RUGS. TRAVELLING BAGS. DRESSING GOWNS. SHIRTS … SIX FOR 30s., 42s., 45s., and 48s. PERFECT FIT GUARANTEED.

CHARLES CORFIELD, Homœopathic Chemist, (Established 1846,) 26, BENNETTS HILL, BIRMINGHAM, (Chemist to the Birmingham Homœopathic Hospital and Dispensary,) Prepares all the Medicines used under Homœopathic Treatment. Homœopathic Medicines in Tinctures, Globules, Pilules, and Triturations, supplied in the greatest Purity. CORFIELD’S HOMŒOPATHIC COCOA, 1s.6d. and 1s.4d. per lb. CORFIELD’S BROMATINE, A preparation containing the essential property of Cocoa, 1s. and 2s. boxes. MEDICINE CASES RE-FILLED.

THE BIRMINGHAM INDIA-RUBBER COMPANY MANUFACTURERS OF WATERPROOF LADIES’ CIRCULAR AND HOOD CAPES, JACKETS, SKIRTS, &c. COATS & CAPES, In special MATERIALS and SHAPES, for RIDING, DRIVING, SHOOTING, YACHTING, FISHING, WALKING, &c. CARRIAGE APRONS, Coachmen’s Coats, CAPES WITH SLEEVES, Hats, Hat Covers, &c. OF Surgical Elastic STOCKINGS, KNEE CAP, BELTS, BANDAGE WEBS, &c. INVALIDS’ BEDS For Hot or Cold Water; Airproof Beds, CUSHIONS AND PILLOWS WATERPROOF BED SHEETING BASSINETTE AND CRIBS SHEETS, &c. Enemas, Urinals, and Pessaries, IN GREAT VARIETY; And every description of SURGICAL, HOSPITAL, AND DOMESTIC REQUISITES in the Trade. COMPETENT FEMALE ASSISTANTS IN ATTENDANCE 124, New Street, Birmingham.

HASSALL & SINGLETON, IRONFOUNDERS, FREEMAN STREET, BIRMINGHAM. Register Stoves. Tile Grates. Tile Hearths. English and Foreign Marble Chimney Pieces. Enamelled Slate Chimney Pieces. Sole Makers of the “Birmingham” Range; also, the “Lichfield” and “Staffordshire” Ranges, &c.