where he accumulated a fortune of more than £1,000,000. So said the Birmingham Journal. November 7, 1863.
The De Berminghams had no blankets before the fourteenth century, when they were brought from Bristol. None but the very rich wore stockings prior to the year 1589, and many of them had their legs covered with bands of cloth.
A petition was presented to the Prince of Wales (June 26, 1791) asking his patronage and support for the starving buckle-makers of Birmingham. He ordered his suite to wear buckles on their shoes, but the laces soon whipped them out of market.
One Friday evening in July, 1750, a woman who had laid informations against 150 persons she had caught retailing spirituous liquors without licenses, was seized by a mob, who doused, ducked and daubed her, and then shoved her in the Dungeon.
At a parish meeting. May 17, 1726, it was decided to put up an organ in St. Martin's at a cost of £300 "and upwards." At a general meeting of the inhabitants. April 3, 1727, it was ordered that a bell be cast for St. Philip's, "to be done with all expedition."
In 1789 it was proposed that the inmates of the workhouse should be employed at making worsted and thread. Our fathers often tried their inventive faculties in the way of finding work for the inmates. A few years later it was proposed (August 26) to lighten the rates by erecting a steam mill for grinding corn.
On the retirement of Mr. William Lucy, in 1850, from the Mayoralty, the usual vote of thanks was passed, but with one dissentient. Mr. Henry Hawkes was chosen coroner July 6, 1875, by forty votes to one. The great improvement scheme was adopted by the Town Council (November 10, 1875), with but one dissentient.
A certificate, dated March 23, 1683, and signed by the minister and churchwardens, was granted to Elizabeth, daughter of John and Ann Dickens, "in order to obtain his majesty's touch for the Evil." The "royal touch" was administered to 200 persons from this neighbourhood. March 17, 1714; Samuel Johnson (the Dr.) being one of those whose ailments, it was believed, could be thus easily removed. Professor Holloway did not live in those days.
Sir Thomas Holte (the first baronet) is traditionally reported to have slain his cook. He brought an action for libel against one William Ascrick, for saying "that he did strike his cook with a cleaver, so that one moiety of the head fell on one shoulder, and the other on the other shoulder." The defendant was ordered to pay £30 damages, but appealed, and successfully; the worthy lawyers of that day deciding that though Sir Thomas might have clove the cook's head, the defendant did not say he had killed the man, and hence had not libelled the baronet.
Interpreters.—In commercial circles it sometimes happens that the foreign corresponding clerk may be out of the way when an important business letter arrives, and we, therefore, give the addresses of a few gentlemen linguists, viz.:—Mr. H. R. Forrest, 46, Peel Buildings, Lower Temple Street; Mr. L. Hewson, 30, Paradise Street; Mr. F. Julien, 189, Monument Road; Mr. Wm. Krisch, 3, Newhall Street; Mr. L. Notelle, 42, George Road, Edgbaston; and Mr. A. Vincent, 49, Islington Row.
Invasion.—They said the French were coming in February, 1758, so the patriotic Brums put their hands into their pockets and contributed to a fund "to repel invasion."
Inventors and Inventions.—Birmingham, for a hundred years, led the van in inventions of all kinds, and
