Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 1.djvu/284

Rh I.IKMINUHAM. ham embraced the popular cause, supplying swords to the parliament anil refusing them to the king ; and in Ki li the king's carriages were seized and his messengers arrested. In the following year Prince Kupcrt appeared i the town, at the head of 2,000 men. The inha- bitants, joined with Hume of the parliamentary forces, 1 him at Camphill, and were repulsed. Some lives were lost, and part of the town was burnt by the royalists. Birmingham was the scene of serious riots in 1791. On the Hth of July in that year a dinner party was held by the Liberals to commemorate' the taking of the Bastille two years before. A counter demonstration was provoked, a mob assembled, and the outburst of violence began by an attack on the house where the Liberals hod met. The Unitarian chapel was next burnt down, and immediately after the residence of Dr. Priestley, the Unitarian minister and distinguished chemist, with his valuable books, manuscripts, and instruments. Dr. Priestley himself, whom the mob eagerly sought after, escaped with his family to AV-i- cester. The riots were continued the three following days, several places of worship and many private houses being burnt ; nor were the noters, who numbered from 8,000 to 10,000 men, finally dispersed till the night of the 17th, when several cavalry regiments arrived, and put a stop to the disgraceful proceedings. In more recent times, too, Birmingham has been the so several tumultuous meetings. In 1839 the Chartists disturbed the public peace, and caused the first institution of Uie police, who succeeded in restoring tranquillity, and have ever since maintained good order in the town, to the great advantage and increase of its manufactures. Birmingham occupies an elevated situation near the centre of England, at the south-western limit of the great central plain forming the basin of the Trent. Tho substratum of the district is the New Red sandstone. The surface, consisting generally of clay or gravel, is undu- lating, and scarcely any part of the town is flat. The scenery of the suburbs and surrounding country is very pleasant, and the air is considered healthy. Although from the character of its trade the town might naturally bo expected to be deficient in cleanliness and beauty, such is far from being the case. From the sloping surfaces, the abundance of water, good drainage, unproved pro- cesses of manufacture, and the general police of the town, its aspect is usually clean and agreeable. Collar residences are almost unknown here, but a large number of persons live in narrow courts. The inhabitants ore supplied with water by a company formed in 1825, who have a large reservoir at Aston, fed by the river Tamo. There are also numerous pumps and wells, both private and public, and some water-carts from which the poor purchase their supply. Before 183S nnient of the town was conducted by two bailiffs, high and low, two constables, a headborough, and other subordi- nate officers for the inspection of weights and measures, food, &c. The office of bailiff had gradually increased in importance with the growth of the town, and the more so from the non-residence of the lords of t lie : Under the charter of incorporation the borough is il i into 13 wards, and the government is vested in a mayor, 15 aldermen, and 48 councillors, with the " mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of the bor mingham." The mayor is the returning officer at the elections for the borough, which was constituted b the Reform Act in 1832, and returns two members t liain- being a polling-place .them division i I "Warwickshire. The limitso! th tary coincide with those of the municipal borough, and arc much more extensive than those of the pariel i . prehending in addition the par. of Edgbast tnshps. of Bordosley, Dcritend, and I)uddleston-< uni- Kechels, in the par. of Aston. Tho par. of Birming- ham is about 8 miles in circuit, while ii lulling 59,090 in! ]>opH nine.' '.o 111' eelisilS of 1861, in is.'.l, showing an increase <>( (1:1,11 I in Tho corporation has . about 130,000. Tho manufacturing industry of this great and busy town would 1 r uvoluu itself, an old-fashioned, ]. of capital illustrations of the greatness Steam-engines and fire-arms are mighty ins pressing us at once with a sense of their im the buckle and the Imi tn, the pin, the nail, ked at in 1 1 ilere, BS3U11 Leland, in the reign of limn VIII., sp mingham in a passage kct towne," with one " paroch chun li." "There bo many smith.* in tl, make knives and nil mannour of cuttinge to many lorimcrs that make bittcs, and a gn naylors," i< lie i-it.d it in 1538, and at same description would have suited it a centt Tho one stn.-t, which he calls " the beautj mingham," was, he says, a quarter of a i streets of the present borough are s 100 miles in length, and the number of inhal increases at the rate of 4,000 per annum. to this must be noted the hundred" ing up on every side beyond the limits ol which are connecting the town v. iih tlieagricoH of Warwickshire and Vonestcrshire on hand, end the great mining and nianul. nitics of Staffordshire on the oth being situated on any of the great lines < even a post town till a time 1 of persons still living. tancei recorded of the addi distant places to persons in >m, im possibility of a difficult;, i of the restoration of diaries II. a now ej and prosperity opened for the town ; wh fashion and luxury, and the foreign models, gave an ini] variety of costly and elegant of brass articles was soon alt rose into importance, ll Mill remaii cipal branches of industi 4,000 persons. The trade nf 1 peculiarity, that in timo of v although the peaceful arts : < is demand for guns and other 17th century the n transferred from London to 1 1 on to an "lutionary war t tones supplied to the British go-. in inn to the East India Company ; of the civil war in Ameiiia, tin 1 . has chic . warlike lar rate of insurance being ta an Act passed in 1813, a proof-house was the pui jiose c.l testing and Mamping all gun in the, town. Tho esl tin' dine tic, n ,,f a master, wardci use, it li 'I the T'iwer,aiid by loft o, intri'Jiii 1688, uii s of Birmingham. It is said "00 persons a it. ''i an endless va- exhibiting all dogrci s of lie.mty and uglin manufacture, probably i nu> in ed at a ve c a largo iinmbi i "payment to nearly 3,000 art: early part of this century :i very largo and cl feature of the industry of this place was "