Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men

Hitherto, I have spoken of Mr. Edmonds chiefly in reference to his professional career and his political activity. I now turn to a phase of his character which is little known,...

His marvellous success did not arise altogether from brilliant mental qualities. I am disposed to attribute it to higher reasons. It seems to me that his high moral sense of int...

The disposition of his vast wealth was marked by great eccentricity. His will, when published, caused much adverse criticism, and uncomplimentary epithets were freely used. Suff...

My own introduction, and subsequent acquaintance, were strangely characteristic of the peculiarly antithetic nature of the man. They began in ill-temper, and resulted in commerc...

Mr. Gillott was not, in any sense, a public man, and he took no active part in politics. He had a great dislike to public companies, and I believe never held a share in one. He...

The firm of Coates, Woolley, and Gordon occupied, in 1815, the premises in Cherry Street now held by the Worcester City and County Bank. The business was, at a date I cannot lea...

From this time forward there seems to have been great want of a strong head and a steady eye amongst the directors. The plausibilities of Mr. W.H. Beaumont--who had succeeded hi...

Bennetts Hill was considered _the_ street of the town, architecturally. The Norwich Union Office then held aloft the same lady, who, long neglected, looks now as if her eyes wer...

In person, Mr. Geach was tall, and stoutly built. His height was, probably, two or three inches beyond six feet. He had a bright, clear, fair complexion, and an ample brow. His...

This Tablet records that a Committee of Manufacturers and Tradesmen of Birmingham projected and carried out, on their own responsibility, the two Fetes Champetre, which took pla...

A little more than ten years after that cold January day of which I wrote, this King lay, dying, at Windsor. It was early summer, and I, a boy of fifteen, was one of a group of...

Railway travelling then was in a very primitive condition. Except at the _termini_ there were no platforms. Passengers had to clamber from the level of the rails by means of iro...

The work of destruction went on undisturbed until nearly ten o'clock, when suddenly, from the direction of High Street, a troop of Dragoons, with swords drawn, came at full gall...

Now-a-days we go to a palace to cash a cheque. We pass through a vestibule between polished granite monoliths, or adorned with choice marble sculpture in _alto-relievo_. We ente...

These sketches, with the signature "_S.D.R._," were originally published in the _Birmingham Daily Mail_ newspaper. The earliest were written, as their title indicated, entirely...

The condition of his mind at this time was so eloquently described to me by this friend, that I shall quote his words as I took them down from his own lips: "To ordinary appeara...

In the year 1823, I find that he was keeping a school in Bond Street, near the chapel; his pupils, no doubt, being mainly the sons of the members of the congregation. This life...

By means of this Apparatus any person can have, in any building, Gas of great brilliance and absolute purity, without trouble or danger. No coal or lime, no retorts, purifiers,...