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Exactly 100 years ago today, Birmingham expanded to the suburbs to become the second city, and it is not being celebrated ...
Birmingham City Council under fire for not celebrating 'Second City' centenary
Birmingham City Council under fire for not celebrating 'Second City' centenary
When Birmingham received the Royal Assent exactly 100 years ago today, flags were flown across the city amid a civic extravaganza. The Assent gave Brum the right to be the second city of the empire because of its huge growth under a dynamic council leadership, leading one American journalist to describe it as “the best governed city in the world”. Quite what our forefathers would make of their predecessors today for allowing the milestone to pass by almost unheeded is hard to imagine. Neil Elkes and Mail historian Carl Chinn report.
IT WAS a red-letter day for Birmingham when the Greater Birmingham Act received the Royal Assent on June 3, 1911.
Henceforth its citizens would be able to proudly claim that it was the second city of the Empire, having overtaken Glasgow which had previously held that coveted title.
This achievement had come about because of a staggering extension of Birmingham’s boundaries. It was to absorb the borough of Aston Manor and the urban district of Erdington from Warwickshire; the urban district of Handsworth from Staffordshire; and the urban districts of King’s Norton and Northfield and the rural district of Yardley all from Worcestershire.
This annexation would make Birmingham thirteen miles wide at its furthest point and five miles across at its most narrow. Remarkably, its area was set to more than treble from just 13,477 acres to 43,568, whilst its population was about to grow significantly by well over half to almost 900,000.
In point of fact, with almost a million inhabitants Kolkata, in India, was bigger than both Birmingham and Glasgow, but no-one was about to shout that out either in Scotland or the Midlands. The salient statistics were simple: in size and population Birmingham had eclipsed all its British rivals outside London.
Now Birmingham had 50,000 more people than Glasgow and covered over three times as much land. As for Liverpool and Manchester, they had been left trailing in Birmingham’s wake. Both had much less than half of its acreage and their populations were noticeably less – by 150,000 and 250,000 respectively.
Such a success had seemed unlikely a decade before when Birmingham had lagged well behind both its northern rivals. No wonder, then, that its triumph was celebrated locally on November 9, 1911 when the act of Parliament authorising the wide extension of the city’s boundaries came into force.
Flags were flown proudly from public and private buildings across the city, whilst accompanied by numerous city justices, the Lord Mayor, Alderman W. H. Bowater opened the Victoria Law Courts, where all the criminal business or Greater Birmingham would be conducted.
Then the first citizen of the second biggest city in the United Kingdom attended the annual meeting of the City Council, where he was re-elected into his office for the third year in succession.
Six days later, at the first business meeting of the Greater Birmingham City Council, the Lord Mayor announced that George Tangye of the famed hydraulic works had given to the Corporation his unique collection of Boulton, Watt and Murdock relics.
It was a most fitting and generous gift on such an auspicious occasion – for it connected the mature city with its heroic age, when it had thrust itself on to the world stage as the city of a thousand trades and had begun its rapid rise.
Manufacturing had made Birmingham. Renowned for its industrial prowess, it had a thirst for workers. Migrants from the villages of its hinterland in north Warwickshire, north Worcestershire and south Staffordshire were pulled in – as were rural folk from mid Wales, the west of Ireland, the region of Sora in southern Italy, and the Jewish ghettos of the Russian Empire.
Despite differences of ethnicity, belief and language, all were bonded by one thing and one hope: the search for work and a better life. Migration and a high birth rate quickly increased the town’s population, a growth accompanied by Birmingham’s overflow into neighbouring rural districts to grab space for building.
Quickly they fell to urbanisation. In 1832 Birmingham became a parliamentary borough. It also included Edgbaston from Warwickshire and Deritend, Duddeston and Nechells, which had been part of Aston in the same county. Six years later all were included in the new municipal borough of Birmingham.
Then in 1891, Balsall Heath was brought in from Worcestershire; Harborne from Staffordshire; and Saltley, Little Bromwich and Ward End from Warwickshire. They were followed by Quinton, which was taken from Halesowen in 1909.
All were important extensions that accelerated Birmingham’s emergence as a major city. Yet none had been as audacious as the extension of 1911.
It was made possible by a council that revelled in the title of ‘the best governed city in the world’, which had been bestowed upon it by the American journalist, Julian Ralph in 1890.
His praise stemmed from the highly-successful mayoralty from 1873-76 of the brilliant Joseph Chamberlain. Infused with the belief that the municipality owed a duty to improve life for all its citizens, Chamberlain had implemented a sweeping policy of municipal socialism and municipal action.
Amongst other initiatives, the private gas and water companies were municipalised; the building of back-to-backs was forbidden; a drainage board was established; the foundation stone for the Council House was laid; and a Medical Officer of Health was appointed.
After Chamberlain switched to national politics in 1876, a spirit of ambition continued to possess the Council – particularly with regard to Birmingham’s status.
In 1884, the first Birmingham Assizes were held; in 1887 Queen Victoria laid the foundations of the Law Courts in the newly developed Corporation Street; on January 14, 1889 a Royal Charter raised Birmingham to a city; and then in 1896, Councillor James Smith became the First Lord Mayor of Birmingham.
These expressions of dignity were reflected in ambitious council policies that impacted positively on Birmingham’s national and international image. They included the municipalisation of both the local electric supply in 1899 and of the tramways in 1903; and the opening of the municipality’s Elan water supply a year later.
Such notable achievements were matched by other developments that emphasised the waxing confidence of Birmingham. In 1900 a Royal Charter was granted to found the University of Birmingham, making it the first civic university in England. Nine years later its new buildings in Edgbaston were opened by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra – by which date Birmingham had been an Anglican diocese since 1905.
The Greater Birmingham Extension Act of 1911 was the culmination of an astounding period of change and growth in Birmingham. For generations it had been famed for the wonder of its manufactured wares; but from 1873-1914 it also became renowned for its dynamic and successful council. The city of a thousand trades was as much the best governed city in the world.
