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Birmingham Town Hall

Vivienne

The Statue of Sir Robert Peel was the work of a local Birmingham man Peter Hollins the first bronze statue to be cast in one piece. It was cast at Elkington & Masons Newhall St.

The statue was first sited in Congreve but was later moved to a better position in Victoria Square in 1873. In 1926 it was involved in a traffic incident involving a lorry and a gas lamp. It was repaired and the decision was made to move it to Calthorpe Park. In 1963 it was moved to Bristol Rd to stand outside the police training college.

Phil
 
great idea phil..when i have time i will try and contribute to this section....:)

lyn
 
I hope that one day that they restore both the statue and plinth to somewhere in the City Centre, rather than leaving them where they are now.

The empty plinth in Calthorpe Park makes no sense now - could do with restoring, remove the graffiti (PEEL reads like PEII).
 
Phil said:
I will have a little search about and see if I can find just what the two later extensions consisted of.

Phil
Click to expand...


I'm having a little difficulty in finding any information on the the 1837 & 1850 extensions to the Town Hall, but I have sent for a new book that may be of some help with this and some other questions so you'll have to bear with me for a while.

Phil
 
I have a small book (about 24 pages) from a charity shop, "The Birmingham Town Hall 1834-1934" and was published "by directions of the general purposes committee in connection with the Town Hall Centenary celebrations". Apparently the original building had thirteen columns and two more were added.

A newspaper cutting has been glued in which states "the solution to the mystery of the extra side pillars is to be found in the volume of architechtural plans and drawings by Charles Edge, of Birmingham - a voloume which is the feature of the present Library Exhibition." There is no date on this cutting, or on any of the others. They are quite fragile, and some are unreadable.

"In 1848 Edge devised a mortice-like addition which enclosed the architectural abutment at the rear of the Hall" This meant the extra pillars were needed, and also at the rear, to bring it "into harmony with the frontage in Paradise St."
The cost of completion was £8,520.

I hope this helps, my typing isn't very good with arthritic fingers!!

rosie.
 
Thanks jennyann. Interesting to note that the foundation stone says "Joseph Hansom" and "John Welch", but the other architect was Edward Welch. Is John / Edward the same person?
 
Thanks for the info Phil on Peel. At least I suppose his statue now stands in an appropriate place. Although it does seem odd to leave the empty plinth in the park! Viv.
 
I can't say why John Welch is named on the foundation stone with Hansom instead of Edward Welch as my information says it was Edward who assisted Hansom with the design of the building. I can tell you that along with W.P.Lloyd and Edward Tench that John Welch was one of the three men who guaranteed the funds to finish the building of the Town Hall when Hansom went bankrupt.

Phil
 
Just reading through Pevsner's architectural guide for Birmingham I see that he confirms that it was a partnership of Hansom & Edward Welch responsible for the design of the Town Hall. He also says that the original site was not big enough to accommodate their design of 14 bays by 7 bays so it was reduced to 12 bays by 7. I also note that in 1850 Charles Edge added these 2 extra bays when a new street was opened up on the north and west sides of the hall. So this may be the work being carried out in photo No 2.

Phil
 
Hi Ellbrown: Thanks for posting these photos. They are great to see. That blue sky shows the building off perfectly.
 
It doesn't tell you a lot, but here's one of the official bankruptcy Notices from the London Gazette.

Maurice :cool:
 
Nice photos Ell. Photo #4 in post 23 gives a clear view of the windows. They often seem to be obscured by pillars in other photos. Have the windows always been like this ? I don't remember ever seeing windows when you were inside the Town Hall either. I've been at concerts (1970s) and sat on the balcony but don't remember windows. Maybe they used to be covered with curtains? It definitely seems a much lighter and airy place now. Viv.
 
jennyann said:
Hi Ellbrown: Thanks for posting these photos. They are great to see. That blue sky shows the building off perfectly.
Click to expand...

No problem. Was lucky that there wasn't many people around due to the Bank Holiday. All my previous photos of it had clouds with it, so looks better with a blue sky.

I also captured the flag.


Birmingham Town Hall, Victoria Square - Forward flag by ell brown, on Flickr

From a distance - with the Iron: Man sculpture by Anthony Gormley


Birmingham Town Hall, Victoria Square by ell brown, on Flickr
 
Vivienne14 said:
Nice photos Ell. Photo #4 in post 23 gives a clear view of the windows. They often seem to be obscured by pillars in other photos. Have the windows always been like this ? I don't remember ever seeing windows when you were inside the Town Hall either. I've been at concerts (1970s) and sat on the balcony but don't remember windows. Maybe they used to be covered with curtains? It definitely seems a much lighter and airy place now. Viv.
Click to expand...

I assume that they put them in when they renovated the Town Hall from 2002 - 2008.

Wasn't too long since the Big Screen was in Chamberlain Square in front of it, but had to be moved when the renovation was complete.
 
sospiri said:
It doesn't tell you a lot, but here's one of the official bankruptcy Notices from the London Gazette.

Maurice :cool:
Click to expand...

Maurice,

An interesting snippet of the history of The Town Hall, thanks for the input.

Phil
 
It's an absolute pleasure to see such good photos of Birmingham. Keep up the good work Ell. And it's so uplifting to see the buildings being given a facelift. I remember, on the whole, very dull and dirty buildings. So nice to see these places being taken care of.

I wonder if the TH windows had been boarded over and uncovered them when they renovated the building. Viv.
 
I think where it now says TH in the windows, previously there was no windows. Seen old photos in one of my books showing people walking under that bit.
 
My new book on the town hall arrived this morning, surprisingly for a history of the town hall it mentions very little about the building of it. There were a couple of photos of interest that I Will include here, perhaps I will add some more later after I finish reading the book.

1. A clipping of an advert placed by The Street Commissioners announcing the competition for the design of a Town Hall.

2. A drawing of the site of the town hall prior to its erection at Paradise Street / Congreve St.

3. A painting of Joseph Hanson.

Phil


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Phil:

I can certainly sense your disappointment that the book didn't cover the areas in which you had an interest. I've been there myself many times! But picture number 2 is intriguing and it would be interesting to try and marry it up with maps of the area pre-1834.

Maurice :cool:
 
Hopefully these won't overlap with anything that Phil intends to post from his newly-acquired book, but they are a few newspaper snippets telling of the early history of the Town Hall.

1. The Derby Mercury dated 30th January 1833 tells of an accident during the building of the Town Hall

2. From Jackson's Oxford Journal dated 23rd February 1833 it seems that construction was already running behind schedule

3. Berrow's Worcester Journal dated 29th August 1833 was inviting people to subscribe to the cost of the new Town Hall organ

4. This notice in the Preston Chronicle dated 21st September 1833 was typical of several posted in other newspapers seeking to reassure customers that all was well with Hanson & Welch, even though it wasn't !

5. This article in the Hampshire Advertiser dated 4th January 1834 proudly described the attributes of the new organ

More to follow shortly....

Maurice :cool:
 
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