Page:A century of Birmingham life- or, A chronicle of local events, from 1741 to 1841 (IA centuryofbirming01lang).pdf/45



Ir is not an easy thing for an inhabitant of the present busy, thickly-populated Birmingham to form a correct picture of the town as it appeared in 1741. Only one hundred and twenty-five years have passed since that date, but during that time the little hardware village has grown into one of the largest, most energetic, industrious and enterprising of the towns in Great Britain. It is a subject of no light interest to trace the growth and development of such a place, to watch how, bit by bit, and through a long series of years, the town slowly encroached on the country; how our quiet, easy-going, steady and contented forefathers gave place to the restless, striving, and happily, discontented folk who dwell and labour in it at the present time. It is the object of this work to recall the past, and thus enable our readers to form a more distinct idea of the rapid growth of the town from almost a country village to its present far-stretching and still rapidly-expanding boundaries. Mr. M. D. Hill, on resigning the office of Recorder, which he had held for twenty-five years, said, in his letter to the Mayor, "the number of the inhabitants has doubled since the year 1839, and now comprises more than half the population of the county of Warwick, and has become in reality the Midland capital of the realm.'"