ChesH, in an article by Carl Chinn in the Birmingham Evening Mail, Saturday 18th February 2006, he told how Joseph Chamberlain wanted to sweep away the slums "Close to the Council House and the middle class shops of Bull Street, lay a clutch of short streets many of which were filled with dilapidated dwellings that were homes to some of the poorest Brummies. The death rate was twice that of wealthy Edgbaston, sickness and poverty stalked the district. .......... the aim was achieved by an Act of Parliament ............ One of them (streets) was The Gullett, short and narrow it became infamous and was supposedly the domain of ruffians and villans. In reality its people were amongst the poorest in the city and were mostly widows, children and the elderly.
Another was London Prentice Street which was declaimed as a "nasty, dirty, stinking thoroughfare". But it was also home to the poorest, many of whom were migrants from the west of Ireland..........Demolitions began in August 1879 ........
I kept this article because my g. grandparents were living at 42 London Prentice Street in 1881.