7th January, 2025 in Local & Family History

A brief history of Birmingham

By Vanessa Morgan

If you’re ever walking along Corporation Street in Birmingham on a busy afternoon just stop and look around you. Listen to the noise, the chattering of voices, the distant hum of traffic, then close your eyes. When you open them again imagine you have been whisked away in a time machine and all you can see is a dried up rocky lake under a baking hot sun. This is Birmingham before the Ice Age. Learn more about Birmingham’s history from Vanessa Morgan author of new book The Little History of Birmingham.

After the Ice Age the Forest of Arden developed and then, through the Stone and Iron Ages, the Romans, the Saxons and the Normans, a small hamlet began to grow in one of its clearings. The years that followed saw Birmingham develop into a market town and then grow into a large industrial town. Now the time machine has brought you to the year 1854 and you’re standing in what was then described as a slum area. But this is all going to change because in this same year a young, ambitious man arrived in town. He’d come from London to join his uncle’s screw-making business, Nettlefolds, which was one of the largest in Birmingham. Then, when the uncle retired, and his son and nephew became partners, that business became known as Nettlefolds and Chamberlain. But aside from his business ventures, Joseph Chamberlain was to change the face of Birmingham.

Chamberlain was born in 1836 in London but has certainly been adopted as a Brummie. A bright and confident young man he was known to speak his mind and many of his contemporaries were at the receiving end of his sharp wit. By 1869 he knew where his future lay and in that year his career started when he was elected onto the town council and within a short time he began to set things into motion. He was clever and by making sure some of his friends were also elected, therefore ensuring he had no opposition, over the ensuing years Birmingham would see many improvements thanks to him. From improving sanitary to street lighting, building new schools and libraries, installing new pavements with trees being planted along those pavements, Joseph Chamberlain did it all.

In 1873 he became Mayor of Birmingham. Now Joseph saw his chance for real improvement and when the Artisan’s and Labourer’s Dwellings Improvement Act of 1875 was introduced he could turn his dream into reality. Nobody was coming to Birmingham to shop. Birmingham was looked down on by the elite shoppers who chose to go to Leamington Spa or London instead. Joseph wanted to change all that with his dream of a tree-lined street in Birmingham similar to a Parisian boulevard.

Work began in August 1878 and ninety-five acres of land, most of which was considered a slum area, was totally cleared. When it was finished Joseph got his wish, people did flock to Corporation Street and all its shops. Which was a good job because through this scheme Birmingham had been placed in a lot of debt which by the end of the 1870’s amounted to £6,212,000.

However by now Joseph had left local politics and moved into the mainstream. In 1876 he was elected a Member of Parliament with the Liberal party and within a few years had become a Cabinet Minister. He resigned from the cabinet in 1903 but, despite suffering a stroke in 1906, he remained an MP until his retirement in 1914. Sadly his retirement was short lived as he died six months later.

Evidence of Joseph Chamberlain is all around Birmingham but if anyone mentions the name Chamberlain to an outsider, they are probably more likely to think of Neville Chamberlain, rather than his father Joseph. Neville was born in 1869 in Edgbaston, Birmingham and educated at Rugby School. Not having any real ambition he was sent by his father to manage a plantation in the Bahamas, which Joseph had specifically acquired for this purpose. He returned home six years later having made his father a loss of £50,000. But undeterred his family helped him to buy a metal ship berth manufacturing company, which did prove to be a success.

So far he was showing little interest in politics however, in 1911, that was going to change. He became a member of the Birmingham Council and then, like father like son, became mayor in 1915. Following his father into the House of Commons, but not with the same party, he became the Conservative MP for Ladywood in 1918. Within five years he had risen through the ranks. First as Minister of Health and then as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then in May 1937, on the resignation of Stanley Baldwin, he became Prime Minister. Something his father didn’t achieve, which is why Neville is thought to be the more famous of the two.

By now there was unrest in Europe and, like so many who had witnessed the First World War, Neville was desperate to avoid another war with Germany. So in September 1938 he travelled to Munich to meet Adolf Hitler and returned waving a piece of white paper, with a smile on his face, and saying ‘peace in our time’. But that was not to be. Twelve months later he was forced to declare war with Germany. The next eight months were horrendous and it was feared that Germany would easily win. Everyone lost confidence in Neville Chamberlain and he was forced to resign on the 10th of May 1939. But had an undiagnosed health problem caused his lack of ability to govern. In July, after experiencing chronic stomach pain, he was diagnosed with bowel cancer and died four months later on the 9th of November 1940.