Birmingham- the hub of the industrial revolution

Barbara and I spent a few days last week in Birmingham, the UK's second-largest city, in the heart of the Midlands. It is a vibrant city, criss-crossed with canals from the industrial revolution, many of which today are lined with trendy bars and restaurants. 

Although the more northern city of Manchester was the first industrialised city (posting of 28 April 2022), centred on the textile industry and coal, Birmingham was the first major manufacturing city in the world, producing a diverse range of products in small workshops with exceptional levels of inventiveness. In the core years of the industrial revolution, between 1760 and 1850 Birmingham residents registered over three times as many patents as those of any other British town or city.

These included major developments which were essential to the emerging industrialisation. In 1709 the Birmingham-trained Abraham Darby moved to Coalbrookdale in Shropshire and built the first blast furnace to successfully smelt iron ore with coke, transforming the quality, volume and scale on which it was possible to produce cast iron. But the most significant development was that of James Watt and Matthew Boulton, who in 1775 formed a partnership to exploit Watt's patent for a steam engine with a separate condenser, a much more efficient use of fuel than in the older Newcomen engine which was in use at the time (posting of 10 August 2017). The new engine was rapidly adopted by the Cornish tin and copper mines and was later refined by the Cornish mining engineer Richard Trevithick (posting of 25 April 2015).

The gilded statue of Boulton, Watt and their employee
and later partner William Murdoch, at Centenary Square

As Birmingham expanded in the 19th century many 'back-to-back' terraced houses, with shared courtyards, were built to house the rapidly increasing population and Court 15, built in the 1830s, is the last surviving court of houses that once dominated cities in the Midlands. Now a museum in the heart of the city it is an interesting insight into how everyone who lived in back-to-back, or ‘court’ housing, shared a brewhouse (wash-house) to do their washing and a small number of outdoor toilets. Overcrowding and poor sanitation was common; this court of 11 houses was once home to as many as 60 people, with only four 'privies' between them! It was common for families to take in lodgers to help pay the rent, and these lodgers would often share a bedroom with the family's children, separated from them by a makeshift curtain.

In the courtyard at Court 15 with my sister Pat and her husband Bill

Dudley is a town in the 'Black Country' about 8 miles from the centre of Birmingham, and well worth a visit for the excellent Black Country Living Museum, an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings including a working replica of the Newcomen steam engine. The site also contains an underground drift mine and colliery surface buildings, showing the site's coal mining heritage.

A highlight of the site is an area where houses, shops, workshops and public buildings have been dismantled and rebuilt brick by brick to create an early 20th-century village, activities in the buildings being demonstrated by staff in period costume. The village has been the location for many TV series and films.

We didn't know what to expect from our brief visit to Birmingham, but it certainly did not disappoint and we only scratched the surface of the many attractions on offer.

@barrywills