Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/76

64 last Musical Festival, the Town Hall was lit up by Messrs. Whitfield, of Cambridge-street, and the novelty is no longer a rarity, a company having been formed to supply the houses, shops, and public buildings in the centre of the town.

Electro Plate.—As early as 1838. Messrs. Elkington were in the habit of coating ornaments with gold and silver by dipping them in various solutions of those metals, and the first patent taken out for the electro process appears to he that of July 6, 1838, for covering copper and brass with zinc. Mr. John Wright, a surgeon, of this town, was the first to use the alkaline cyanides, and the process was included in Elkiiigton's patent of March 25, 1840. The use of electricity from magnets instead of the voltaic battery was patented by J. S. Wolrich, in August, 1842. His father was probably the first person who deposited metals for any practical purpose by means of the galvanic battery. Mr. Elkington applied the electro-deposit process to gilding and silverplating in 1840.—See "Trades," &c.

Electoral Returns.—See "Parliamentary."

Emigration.—In August, 1794. Mr. Russell, of Moor Green, and a magistrate for the counties of Warwick and Worcester, with his two brothers and their families. Mr. Humphries, of Camp Hill Villa, with a number of his relatives, and over a hundred other Birmingham families emigrated to America. Previous to this date we have no record of anything like an emigration movement horn this town, though it is a matter of history how strenuously Matthew Boulton and other manufacturers exerted themselves to prevent the emigration of artisans and workpeople, fearing that our colonies would be enriched at the expense of the mother country. How sadly the times were changed in 1840, may be imagined from the fact that when free passages to Australia were first being offered, no less than 10,000 persons applied unsuccessfully from this town and neighbourhood alone. At the present time it is calculated that passages to America. Canada. Australia, &c., are being taken up here at an average of 3,000 a year.

Erdington.—Another of the ancient places (named in the Domesday Book as Hardingtone) surrounding Birmingham and which ranked as high in those days of old, though now but like one of our suburbs, four miles on the road to Sutton Coldfield. Erdington Hall, in the reign of Henry II., was the moated and fortified abode of the family of that name, and their intermarriages with the De Berminghams, &c., connected them with our local history in many ways. Though the family, according to Dugdale and others, had a chapel of their own, the hamlet appertained to the parish of Aston, to the mother church of which one Henry de Erdington added an isle, and the family arms long appeared in the heraldric tracery of its windows. Erdington Church (St. Barnabas) was built in 1823, as a chapel of ease to Aston, and it was not until 1858 that the district was formed into a separate and distinct ecclesiastical parish, the vicar of Aston being the patron of the living. In addition to the chapel at Oscott, the Catholics have here one of the most handsome places of worship in the district, erected in 1850 at a cost of over £20,000, a Monastery, &c., being connected therewith. Erdington, which has doubled its population within the last twenty years, has its Public Hall and Literary Institute, erected in 1864. Police Station. Post Office, and several chapels, in addition to the almshouses and orphanage, erected by Sir Josiah Mason, noticed in another part of this work. See also "Population Tables," &c.

Estate Agents.—For the purposes of general business. Kelly's Directory will be found the best reference. The office for the Calthorpe estate is at