This is a brief extract from “Birmingham – the ‘Friendly’ city,” in my recently published Design and Culture - a transdisciplinary history.
Industrial Revolution – 1750-1870 - Steam, iron &glass.
This concentration of industrious enterprise meant that by the mid nineteenth century upwards of fifty per cent of all the worlds manufactured goods were produced in and around Birmingham. “It was this combination of philosophy in action through art which created the special Birmingham context for a vibrant civic culture which led to the political and artistic achievements of the 1870s and 1880s. For a few brief years, this combination enabled Birmingham to stand above other British cities and lay claim to the titles of ‘the best-governed city in the world’ and ‘perhaps the most artistic town in England.”
Birmingham has a strong industrial heritage stretching back into the eighteenth century. It was the writer and diarist James Boswell who reported a conversation held in 1774 with Birmingham born Mathew Boulton, a key member of the Lunar Society and promoter of the steam engine; “I shall never forget Mr. Boulton’s expression to me: ‘I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have – POWER.” In 1828, Giacomo Beltrami, the Italian author and explorer, commented that in Birmingham there is nothing, “but fire and smoke, forges and smiths; everything is black. It is the empire Vulcan and the seat of the useful arts.” Writing on his five-day visit to ‘radical’ Birmingham in 1835, the French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville reports:
These folk never have a minute to themselves. They work as is they must get rich by the evening and die the next day. They are generally very intelligent people, but intelligent in the American way. The town itself . . . is an immense workshop, a huge forge, a vast shop. One only sees busy people and faces brown with smoke. One hears nothing but the sound of hammers and the whistle of steam escaping from boilers. One might be down a mine in the New World. Everything is black, dirty and obscure, although every instant it is winning silver and gold.
Notebooks: From Birmingham to Dublin. 25th-30th June 1835.
Industrial Revolution – 1750-1870 - Steam, iron &glass.
This concentration of industrious enterprise meant that by the mid nineteenth century upwards of fifty per cent of all the worlds manufactured goods were produced in and around Birmingham. “It was this combination of philosophy in action through art which created the special Birmingham context for a vibrant civic culture which led to the political and artistic achievements of the 1870s and 1880s. For a few brief years, this combination enabled Birmingham to stand above other British cities and lay claim to the titles of ‘the best-governed city in the world’ and ‘perhaps the most artistic town in England.”
Birmingham has a strong industrial heritage stretching back into the eighteenth century. It was the writer and diarist James Boswell who reported a conversation held in 1774 with Birmingham born Mathew Boulton, a key member of the Lunar Society and promoter of the steam engine; “I shall never forget Mr. Boulton’s expression to me: ‘I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have – POWER.” In 1828, Giacomo Beltrami, the Italian author and explorer, commented that in Birmingham there is nothing, “but fire and smoke, forges and smiths; everything is black. It is the empire Vulcan and the seat of the useful arts.” Writing on his five-day visit to ‘radical’ Birmingham in 1835, the French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville reports:
These folk never have a minute to themselves. They work as is they must get rich by the evening and die the next day. They are generally very intelligent people, but intelligent in the American way. The town itself . . . is an immense workshop, a huge forge, a vast shop. One only sees busy people and faces brown with smoke. One hears nothing but the sound of hammers and the whistle of steam escaping from boilers. One might be down a mine in the New World. Everything is black, dirty and obscure, although every instant it is winning silver and gold.
Notebooks: From Birmingham to Dublin. 25th-30th June 1835.
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