A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham by Thomas Anderton
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Thomas Anderton >> A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham
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9 A TALE OF ONE CITY:
THE NEW BIRMINGHAM.
_Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald"_,
BY
THOMAS ANDERTON.
Birmingham: "MIDLAND COUNTIES HERALD" OFFICE.
TO BE HAD FROM CORNISH BROTHERS, NEW STREET; MIDLAND EDUCATIONAL CO.,
CORPORATION STREET.
1900
I.
PROLOGUE.
The present century has seen the rise and development of many towns in
various parts of the country, and among them Birmingham is entitled to
take a front place. If Thomas Attwood or George Frederick Muntz could
now revisit the town they once represented in Parliament they would
probably stare with amazement at the changes that have taken place in
Birmingham, and would require a guide to show them their way about the
town--now a city--they once knew so well. The material history of
Birmingham was for a series of years a story of steady progress and
prosperity, but of late years the city has in a political, social, and
municipal sense advanced by leaps and bounds. It is no longer
"Brummagem" or the "Hardware Village," it is now recognised as the
centre of activity and influence in Mid-England; it is the Mecca of
surrounding populous districts, that attracts an increasing number of
pilgrims who love life, pleasure, and shopping.
Birmingham, indeed, has recently been styled "the best governed city in
the world"--a title that is, perhaps, a trifle too full and panegyrical
to find ready and general acceptance. If, however, by this very lofty
and eulogistic description is meant a city that has been exceptionally
prosperous, is well looked after, that has among its inhabitants many
energetic, public-spirited men, that has a good solid debt on its books,
also that has municipal officials of high capabilities with fairly high
salaries to match--then Birmingham is not altogether undeserving of the
high-sounding appellation. Many of those who only know Birmingham from
an outside point of view, and who have only lately begun to notice its
external developments, doubtless attribute all the improvements to Mr.
Chamberlain's great scheme, and the adoption of the Artisans' Dwellings
Act in 1878. The utilisation of this Act has certainly resulted in the
making of one fine street, a fine large debt, and the erection of a
handful of artisans' dwellings. The changes, however, that culminated in
Mr. Chamberlain's great project began years before the Artisans'
Dwellings Act became law.
The construction of the London and North Western Railway station--which,
with the Midland Railway adjunct, now covers some thirteen acres of
land--cleared away a large area of slums that were scarcely fit for
those who lived in them--which is saying very much. A region sacred to
squalor and low drinking shops, a paradise of marine store dealers, a
hotbed of filthy courts tenanted by a low and degraded class, was swept
away to make room for the large station now used by the London and
North Western and Midland Railway Companies.
The Great Western Railway station, too, in its making also disposed of
some shabby, narrow streets and dirty, pestiferous houses inhabited by
people who were not creditable to the locality or the community, and by
so doing contributed to the improvement of the town. Further, the
erection of two large railway stations in a central district naturally
tended to increase the number of visitors to the growing Midland
capital, and this, of course, brought into existence a better class of
shops and more extended trading. Then the suburbs of Birmingham, which
for some years had been stretching out north, south, east, and west,
have lately become to a considerable extent gathered into the arms of
the city, and the residents in some of the outskirts, at least, may now
pride themselves, if so inclined, upon being a part of the so-called
"best governed city in the world," sharing its honours, importance, and
debts, and contributing to its not altogether inconsiderable rates.
I do not purpose in these pages to go into the ancient history of
Birmingham. Other pens have told us how one Leland, in the sixteenth
century, visited the place, and what he said about the "toyshop of the
world." Also how he saw a "brooke," which was doubtless in his time a
pretty little river, but which is now a sewery looking stream that tries
to atone for its shallowness and narrowness by its thickness. They have
likewise told us about the old lords of Bermingham--whose monuments
still adorn the parish church--who have died out leaving no successors
to bear for their proud title the name of the "best governed city in the
world."
These other pens have also mentioned the little attentions Birmingham
received from Cromwell's troops; how the Roundheads fired at Aston Hall
(which had given hospitality to Charles I.) making a breakage--still
unrepaired!--in the great staircase of that grand old Elizabethan
mansion. My purpose, however, is not to deal with past records of
Birmingham, but rather with its modern growth and appearance.
MUNICIPAL STAGNATION.
After the sweeping alterations effected by the construction of the new
railway stations in Birmingham, further improvements were for a time of
a slow, jog-trot order, although the town, in a commercial sense, was
moving ahead, and its wealth and population were rapidly increasing.
Small improvements were made, but anything like big schemes, even if
desirable, were postponed or rejected. Birmingham, indeed, some thirty
years ago, was considerably under the influence of men of the
unprogressive tradesmen class--many of them worthy men in their way but
of limited ideas. In their private businesses they were not accustomed
to deal with big transactions and high figures, so that spending large
sums of money, if proposed, filled the brewer, the baker, and
candlestick maker with alarm. They were careful and economical, but
their care in finance was apt at times to be impolitic, and their
economy has in several cases proved to have been somewhat costly.
Indeed, until recent years, the leading authorities of the town were
anything but enterprising, and their view of future possibilities very
limited. Could they have seen a little farther ahead they might have
laid out money to the great profit and future advantage of the
community. They could have erected new corporation offices and municipal
buildings before land in the centre of the town became so very costly;
the gas and water interests might have been purchased, probably at a
price that would have saved the town thousands of pounds. It is also
understood that they might have purchased Aston Hall, with its 170 acres
close to the town, on terms which would have made the land (now nearly
all built upon) a veritable Tom Tidler's ground for the town and
corporation. But our shopkeeper senators would have nothing to do with
such bold and far-reaching schemes, and were given to opposing them
when suggested by men more courageous and far-seeing than themselves.
Between twenty-five and thirty years ago it was felt by the more
advanced and intelligent portion of the community that the time had come
for the town to arouse itself, and that certain reforms should no longer
be delayed. It was beginning to be felt that the Town Council did not
fairly represent the advancing aspirations and the growing needs,
importance, and wealth of the town. Sanitary reforms were required, the
growing traffic in the principal streets called for better and more
durable roadways, and Macadamised and granite paved streets no longer
answered the purposes required. The latter were heavy, noisy, and
lumbering; the former were not sufficiently durable. Moreover, "Macadam"
consisted of sharply-cut pieces of metal put upon the streets, which
were left for cart and carriage wheels to break up and press down into
something like a level surface. When this was done it made objectionable
dust in dry weather, and in wet weather it converted the streets into
avenues of mud and puddle to be scraped up, or to be swept off, by some
curiously-devised machine carts constructed for the purpose. Carriage
people, I fear, often cursed the stone stuff they had to grind into the
roads, and pedestrians anathematized the mud and the dust.
As many people will remember, in some of the less important streets the
footways were paved with what were called "petrified kidneys"--stones
about as big as a good-sized potato, very durable but extremely
unpleasant to walk upon. Little or nothing was done to improve the
slummy and dirty parts of the town, or to remove some of those foul
courts and alleys which were not only disgraceful in appearance but were
a menace to the health of the inhabitants.
In fact, for one reason or another, the authorities left undone the
things they ought to have done, and possibly they did some things they
ought not to have done, and if allowed to go on it is probable there
would soon have been no health in us. It may, however, be admitted that
Birmingham was no worse governed than many other large towns in the
comparatively unprogressive days of which I speak, but a new race of
more advanced and energetic men were dissatisfied with the sluggish,
stagnant state of local government, and they felt that the hour had
struck for the inauguration of some large and important improvements.
Such was the state of affairs about the year 1868.
II.
ENTER MR. CHAMBERLAIN.
The present position of Birmingham and its improved appearance in these
later years are largely attributed to the work and influence of Mr.
Chamberlain. To him, certainly, the credit is largely due. At the same
time it is only fair to say that he was not the first man who had
discovered that Birmingham, some thirty years ago, was, compared with
what it should be, in many respects lagging behind. Other persons had
been impressed with the idea that the town, in a municipal, sanitary,
and social sense, was not advancing at a pace commensurate with its
commercial and material progress.
To go just a little farther back for a moment, it must be recorded that
Birmingham, in a political sense, made a great step forward when it
elected Mr. Bright as one of its members of Parliament in the year 1857.
This served to focus the eyes of the country on the midland capital, and
from this date the town became a new centre of political activity. The
great meetings addressed by Mr. Bright were not regarded as mere
provincial gatherings, but they attracted the attention of the whole
nation. The proceedings were no longer chronicled merely by the local
press, but the London daily newspapers sent representatives to furnish
special reports of our new member's speeches. Indeed, the interest and
excitement at these political gatherings was often feverish in its
intensity, and for many years Mr. Bright's visits to Birmingham were
red-letter days in the history of the town.
Mr. Bright, however, not being a resident in Birmingham, took no part
in its local and municipal affairs, and the man was wanting who would
come forward and energetically take town matters in hand. Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain was the man, and the time was ripe for him. He was known to
be smart, able, and energetic, and also to be imbued with decidedly
progressive ideas. Further, he was justly credited with having a lofty
conception of the real importance and dignity of municipal life and the
value of municipal institutions.
In the year 1869 Mr. Chamberlain was elected a member of the Birmingham
Town Council, and he began to make things spin and hum at a pace which
literally soon reached a pretty high rate. His example, and possibly his
persuasion, induced several of his friends and associates to become
candidates for Town Council membership, and in a very short time he had
a strong and influential following, made up of men of energy, substance,
and good social position, who soon began to overpower and make things
more lively perhaps than pleasant for the anti-progressives in the
Corporation. In Israelitish story we are told that a new king arose who
knew not Joseph, but in Birmingham a new municipal kingdom arose that
knew Joseph and trusted him.
The changes that soon began to take place were enough to take away the
breath of some of the nice, complacent, arm-chair, "Woodman" members of
the Town Council. If the preceding rulers of the Corporation had been a
trifle too parsimonious in the matter of expenditure, Mr. Chamberlain
and his party soon began to make amends for any trifling mistakes or
past errors in the way of economy. In a very few years the town had a
debt, I don't say of which it might be proud, but of which it very soon
felt the weight.
When Mr. Chamberlain entered the Town Council the municipal debt stood
at some L588,000. When he left it, after about ten years' service, the
debt had mounted up to the neat and imposing sum of L6,212,000. Of
course, there were very valuable assets to place against this heavy
indebtedness, assets which are likely to improve considerably in value
as time goes on--that is, if the city continues to progress and prosper.
Still, a good many people were not a little alarmed at the big figures
that grew on the debtor side of the Corporation accounts, but more
persons applauded the spirit, courage, and enterprise of those who had
taken the reins of the town into their hands.
When Mr. Chamberlain and his friends had fairly got hold of the Town
Council ropes, they set to work in strong earnest. Sanitary improvements
were promoted. The principal streets and their lighting and paving were
improved, and the general appearance of the town quickly presented a
change for the better. Trees were planted in some of the chief
thoroughfares. They did not it is true show much disposition to grow and
thrive, but they were planted and replanted, though we may still have to
lament that our Birmingham boulevards will not compare favourably with
those in some other cities. Mr. Chamberlain, however, was not the man
to be content with such trifling reforms as these. He had large and
spacious ideas in his mind, and he quickly brought them out to air and
grow.
In the year 1873 Mr. Chamberlain was elected Mayor, and in the following
year he brought forward his schemes for the purchase by the municipality
of the gas and water supplies. His proposals encountered very formidable
opposition, principally from those interested in the gas and water
companies, whose undertakings he proposed compulsorily to purchase. Some
of the shareholders in these prosperous companies were fierce in their
denunciations of his schemes. They regarded Mr. Chamberlain's proposals
as nothing short of confiscation. For years they had supplied the town
with gas and water. They had found the necessary money in the "sure and
certain hope" of having a good and secure investment for their capital,
and lo! when they had fairly established their undertakings, it was
proposed to blow out their profitable light and dash the refreshingly
remunerative water from their lips. It was hard--I don't mean the
water, but the situation! Of course the shareholders were to receive a
fair price for their properties, the gas companies practically
L1,900.000, the waterworks company L1,350,000. But still they were not
happy. They resisted the proposed purchases.
Mr. Chamberlain, however, was not the man to be daunted by the
opposition of the gas and water company proprietors. He had made up his
mind that it would be for the good of the town for these undertakings to
be in the hands of the municipality, and in spite of the Town Council
"old gang" and outraged gas and water shareholders, who felt they were
being fraudulently despoiled of certain prospective advantages, he
carried his point.
There are still those among us who, for various reasons, murmur at these
extensive purchases. They maintain, for one thing, that the possession
of the gas influenced the Corporation to turn a discouraging eye upon
the electric light. Certainly Birmingham has been rather lax in taking
up electric illumination, and possibly more enterprise would have been
evinced in this direction if the Corporation had not become dealers in
gas and water on their own terms, viz., no competition allowed. Some
self-constituted prophets shook their heads and said that before the gas
debt was paid off gas would literally have "gone out" as a general
illuminant. Before the eighty-five years allowed for the redemption of
the capital invested in the gas have elapsed a good many things may
certainly happen. So far, however, gas is not extinguished, but is in
increased demand, and even water is believed to have a future.
With regard to the water purchase, however, a good deal of opposition
was offered on special grounds. Having purchased the waterworks
undertaking the Corporation were, of course, desirous to make it pay. To
buy the thing was a blunder in the eyes of some, to let it be a source
of loss would have been a crime. Consequently, it became necessary to
force the water supply business, and the municipal authorities went
about it in a way that pressed hardly sometimes and provoked not a
little hostility and resentment.
"Waterologists" and analysts are somewhat divided in opinion as to what
is pure water, or at least good wholesome water. Some authorities take
one standard, some another. The Corporation, with an eye to business,
selected a very high standard, for this brought grist to the mill, or, I
should say, trade to the tap. It meant the closing of a large number of
wells yielding water which, under a less rigorous standard than that
adopted, would have been considered wholesome. But in this matter again,
Mr. Chamberlain and the "new gang" paid no heed to the growls of the
disaffected, and pumps were disestablished in all directions, chiefly,
it was maintained, to swell the returns of the water department. "O ye
wells, bless ye the Lord"--but few were suffered to remain.
Mr. Chamberlain, however, was not long content with having municipalized
the gas and water. In accordance with the strong impetus of his nature
he sighed for more worlds to conquer. Consequently he was soon ready
with a gigantic Improvement Scheme, to be carried out under the adoption
of the somewhat misused and delusive Artisans' Dwellings Act. His
proposal was to make a grand street and a more direct way to Aston, and
in doing so to demolish some dirty back thoroughfares and a large number
of foul and filthy unsanitary dwellings.
The scheme was a big one. It affected many interests, and before it was
carried out it caused a fierce amount of strife, ill-feeling, and
hostility. The discontent and disaffection which Mr. Chamberlain's
previous schemes aroused were but as morning breezes compared with the
storm and tempest his new proposals raised. His daring and dash almost
dazed his fellow townsfolk, for, like Napoleon, he rushed on from one
exploit to another with a rapidity that astounded his friends and
confused and overwhelmed his foes.
III.
THE ACT AND THE DWELLINGS.
Considering how many interests were affected by the Birmingham
Improvement Scheme and the adoption of the Artisans' Dwellings Act, it
may be doubted if the scheme would have passed as it did had its full
purport and meaning been fully considered and understood. Some persons
saw that they would be grievously injured, and they offered strenuous
opposition, but there were many others who only found out when it was
too late what extreme and arbitrary power was conferred upon the
authorities who put the Act into operation.
Of course the scheme was laid before the rate-payers in the usual
manner, but few realised the importance of studying it well, or grasped
the far-reaching character of its operations till too late.
Let me explain more especially what is meant by this. When it was
decided to adopt Mr. Chamberlain's scheme and make the new fine street,
land was cleared and was let on leases by the Corporation. In letting
this land, agreements were made that the new buildings, when consisting
of shops, offices, &c., should be so many storeys high, the object, of
course, being to make the properties, which would in due course revert
to the city, the more valuable. When, however, these tall buildings were
erected, adjacent premises were robbed of light and air, and when the
owners or tenants of these injured premises asked for compensation they
found out, at least in some cases, that the authorities were not liable.
I believe I am right in saying that the powers conferred by the Act
absolved them from indictments on the part of those whose property was
damaged by diminished air or light. The result was that certain
sufferers found to their mortification that they had no redress, but
must raise their chimneys at their own cost, if necessary, and in other
cases endure the inconvenience of a decreased supply of light. This was
an unpleasant revelation that caused much gnashing of teeth among the
owners of, and the dwellers in, the properties surrounding the tall
buildings erected by the leaseholders of the Corporation.
As for those whose property was required and taken under the Act, it was
all very well for owners and for those who had leases: they could not be
molested without fair and proper payment. Shopkeepers and others,
however, who were only annual tenants, had, I fear in many cases, to go
empty away. Some of these had good, old-established businesses that had
for years become identified with certain premises. It was nothing short
of ruin to them to move, but they had to take up their goods and walk.
This is the way that authorities often have to deal with the more or
less helpless in view of what they consider to be the greatest good of
the greatest number.
It will, of course, be said that some of these traders were extremely
short-sighted not to have had leases of premises that were so
all-important to them. In many cases, however, they were unable to
obtain such agreements, the landlords being unwilling or unable to grant
them. The result was that many a prosperous tradesman had his successful
career cut short and passed into a retirement he did not desire,
probably with a few warm curses upon the Town Council, the Improvement
Scheme, and the schemers.
It is not very easy to understand the just laws that should govern
compensation. When there is talk of disestablishing public-houses,
certain statesmen approve of compensation. The argument is that as
public-houses are licensed by law, their owners have been given a sort
of status and sanction, which should be properly and considerately dealt
with in case their businesses are taken away from them. But other
people also take out licences, such as tobacconists, pawnbrokers,
grocers, and wine sellers, yet when these traders are disturbed or
disestablished, compensation is never suggested.
Let us see what has happened in Birmingham. When the grand new street
was made the traffic to the northern part of the town was largely
diverted from other thoroughfares, and the consequence was that streets
and passages that were once busy highways and byways were soon
comparatively deserted. Shops became tenantless, or had to be let at
greatly reduced rents. Indeed, the depreciation of property in the
localities referred to is said to have been at least thirty per cent.
Yet the owners had no redress.
Of course it usually happens that when large reforms are effected the
noble work is done at somebody's inconvenience or cost. It is the
inevitable result, and people who are not sufferers shrug their
shoulders and complacently remark that the few must be sacrificed for
the benefit of the many. It is delightfully easy to be philosophical
and even philanthropic when our own pockets, feelings, and interests are
not concerned. The last new great Improvement Scheme would, of course,
be a great thing for Birmingham; it would also shed a considerable
amount of glory on its authors; it would likewise put a good deal of
power into the hands of its administrators, and not a little money into
the pockets of professional men. If some few persons had to suffer in
order to bring about such splendid results they must try to be
patriotic, noble citizens, or else grin and bear their discomfiture!
Those, however, who were despoiled of their businesses, or who found
their property seriously depreciated, were not likely to be consoled by
such buttered comfort. They raised their voices in impotent protest, and
denounced Mr. Chamberlain and all his works.
We do not hear very much of the Artisans' Dwellings Act now, but any
towns that contemplate adopting it should profit by the experience of
Birmingham, consider its full scope and meaning, and count the cost.
The city of Birmingham has applied the Act in connection with its last
great Improvement Scheme, and it now remains to be seen what the
results, in a commercial sense, will be. The present and succeeding
generation, at least, will have to pay off some heavy obligations in the
next sixty or seventy years, and then the city should he immensely the
richer for its enterprising policy. I say it should be, and probably it
will be, but there is a fair-sized "if" to be considered.
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