of the Royal Society of Artists were rebuilt on modest lines, and the classic portico which was a striking architectural feature of New St. disappeared to make room for utilitarian shop fronts. Queen's College remains an ornament to Paradise St., though it was used in 1921 mainly for commercial purposes instead of for theological training, owing to the exigencies of ecclesiastical finance. The Repertory theatre in Station St. was erected in 1913 through the munificence of Barry V. Jackson, founder of the Pilgrim Players, and the enthusiasm of John Drinkwater, the playwright.
" Highbury," Moor Green, formerly the residence of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and the adjoining residence, " Uffculme," the home of the late Mr. Richard Cadbury, were during the war converted into orthopaedic hospitals for disabled soldiers. When they ceased to' be- under the control of the Ministry of Pensions they were to revert to the Corporation as gifts from Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. Barrow Cadbury. " Sorrento," Wake Green Rd., Moseley, was acquired by the citizens' committee during the war for the treatment of paraplegic war pensioners. The Princess Mary Con- valescent Centre for Disabled Soldiers is at Rednal, and one of the city asylums at Rubery was still occupied in 1921 by the Ministry of Pensions for orthopaedic cases. The old Children's Hospital in Broad St. was used for various Government purposes during the war, and larger premises were provided by voluntary contributions, with up-to-date equipment for the treatment of sick children, in Ladywood Road. A hospital for nervous diseases was established after the war at Edgbaston.
Libraries. Several important additions have been made to the public libraries of the city. In addition to the central reference and lending libraries, which adjoin the Midland Institute, there were in 1921 21 branch lending libraries and news-rooms, two branch reference libraries, a reading-room at Witton and a delivery station in the outlying district of Quinton, as well as a new commercial library and a patent library in the council house. The central refer- ence library contains nearly 300,000 volumes, including the well- known Shakespeare Memorial Collection of 17,000 volumes, of which a separate catalogue was printed in 1903; the Birmingham collection, of which a 1,140-page catalogue was published in 1918, a collection of poetry relating to the World War; the Sir Benjamin Stone collection of photographs; large Byron, Milton and Cervantes collections and a collection of manuscripts and other relics of Boul- ton and Watt.
The lending libraries contain nearly 250,000 volumes, the annual users numbering about 2,300,000. The lending libraries were in 1921 being converted to the open-access system. An important innovation is the commercial library, containing about 3,000 vol- umes, the collection of trade catalogues and files of 220 periodicals, which was opened at the end of the war.
Municipal Bank. The Municipal Bank, which was established mainly through the efforts of Mr. Neville Chamberlain when he was lord mayor, loaned 300,000 to the Government during the war, this amount being invested in small sums by 30,000 depositors, who were all employed persons. Owing to the opposition of the joint-stock banks through their parliamentary representatives in 1915. the operations of the bank were severely limited during the war, but its success in promoting thrift among the working-classes induced Parliament to extend its powers in 1919 and in that year over 300,- ooo was transferred from the war-time organization to a permanent municipal institution, the first of its kind in England.
The University. A new chapter in the history of the univer- sity of Birmingham began with the visit of King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra to open the new buildings at Edgbaston on July 7 1909. The site, given by Lord Calthorpe, the principal landlord of the district, comprises 40 ac., near the Bourn Brook and about 3 m. from the Mason College (in the centre of the city) where the faculties of art, medicine and the department of education are still carried on. The new build- ings designed by Sir Aston Webb, mainly for the technical side of the university, cover a large semicircle and its diameter, with a central tower 325 ft. high, erected to commemorate the foundation of the university by its first chancellor, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. The great hall and workshops, laboratories, model mine and power station for the engineering and allied departments were lavishly equipped to meet the special needs of the district, but the financial stringency arising out of the war has prevented the erection of the other large buildings necessary to make the design symmetrical, and to complete the accommodation for the chairs contemplated when the scheme was launched. The faculties of sciences (pure and applied) and of commerce are now housed on the Edgbaston site.
In 1919 the Treasury grant was increased to 38,000; the city council now contributes 15,000 per annum; and in 1920-1 a public appeal for funds resulted in about 300,000 being raised for the purpose of reducing the debt on the university and to increase the efficiency of the existing departments, though the amount
available for these purposes was reduced by the fact that about 147,000 of the above-mentioned total was ear-marked for special objects, some of which involved additional expenditure out of the university funds. Tfte chairs, lectureships, etc., endowed since 1910 include physics, electrical engineering, metallurgy, town plan- ning, agricultural zoology) a research department subsidized by the Board of agriculture), Russian, Italian and brewing. Some of these new endowments are attached to old professorships. For in- stance, Sir George Kenrick endowed the physics chair in memory of the late Prof. J. H. Poynting, who had occupied it ever since Mason College was opened in 1880, 20 years before the university charter was granted. Public subscriptions endowed the pioneer chair of electrical engineering, which thus became in 1913 a memorial to the first vice-chancellor (Alderman C. G. Beale). The chairs al- lotted to modern European languages are quite new and the ap- pointment of a lady as Italian professor is also an innovation. The chamber of commerce was responsible for the establishment of a chair of Russian during the war. The school of brewing has been supported by the trade ever since the foundation of the university, but the chair was not permanently endowed until 1919.
Lord Robert Cecil succeeded the late Mr. Chamberlain as chan- cellor in 1918; Sir Gilbert Barling was elected vice-chancellor in place of the late Alderman Beale in 1914, and Mr. C. Grant Robert- son, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, was appointed principal on the resignation of Sir Oliver Lodge in 1919. Other important recent events in connexion with the university were the granting by its council of 15 free entrance scholarships for Birmingham residents (1912); the erection of a women students' club adjoining Mason Col- lege (1914); the transformation of the new buildings into a military hospital, and the women's hostel into a nurses' home during the war; and the subsequent linking-up of Birmingham with Bristol and the northern universities for matriculation and parliamentary purposes. The library was in 1921 being reorganized and enlarged. The volumes accessible to students number about 100,000. The teaching staff increased from 117 in 1910 to 216 in 1920, and the number of full-time students from 958 to 1,754 i" the same period. It is a distinctive feature of Birmingham among modern universities that it does not include in its membership part-time students, these being provided for at the Midland Institute and the Municipal Technical School. On the other hand the university gives generous help to the Workers' Educational Association, both through its governing body and through individual members of the teaching staff. The income of the university increased from 57,143 in 1910 to 114,434 i n '9 20 ar "d its expenditure from 69,780 to about 118,320. In consequence of the generous response to the appeal made in 1921 the council and senate hoped to make further additions to the salary list and the curriculum in the near future.
Commerce and Manufactures. After the war the Birmingham chamber of commerce entered into possession of the Colonnade hotel in New St., converted into a commodious suite of offices and conference-rooms. The enormous iron-and-glass structure erected by the Government on the Corporation playing fields at Castle Bromwich, for use in connection with the aerodrome estab- lished there during the war, provided in 1921 excellent accommoda- tion for the Birmingham section of the British Industries Fair.
Other large buildings erected during the war facilitated the de- velopment of local industries. Fort Dunlop is an entirely new suburb occupied by the makers of tires, golf balls and other rubber goods. The new factories erected by large firms now amalgamated in the Vickers-Metropolitan group have been converted from the manu- facture of tanks, Handley-Page aeroplanes, artillery limbers, am- bulances and engines-of-war into the more peaceful occupations associated with the production of railway carriages, wagons and electrical apparatus of all kinds. Some idea of the revolution in local industries produced by the war may be gleaned from the fact that a Birmingham firm of penmakers in the early stages of the war contracted to produce 12 million cartridge clips and that another firm in the jewellers' quarter made 72 million army buttons in one year. Under the direction of a local munitions committee, be- fore the establishment of the Ministry of Munitions, the smaller manufactories in the city were affiliated to the national shell factory at Washwood Heath, where the shells were produced in the rough and finished in the smaller workshops. The output of shells in Birmingham during the last two and a half years of the war was 15 millions. Fuses and munitions for quick-firing guns were produced in even larger quantities, the local engineers and cycle-makers being specially qualified for the precision work required for these munitions. The manager of the Birmingham gas department acted as secretary of the munitions committee, and also organized the manufacture of toluene as an ingredient for high explosives throughout the country. At the B.S.A. works 10,000 rifles and 2,000 Lewis guns per week were manufactured. From the returns of the Ministry of Munitions it appears that, although the weight of shells produced in Birmingham was not the heaviest on record, the number and variety of articles supplied for the use of the army, navy and air force in Birmingham was greater than in any other part of the country. Some of the smaller parts produced for engines-of-war by the local brass manufacturers were measured at the Government depots in thousands of millions.
