facturers, though on April 4, 1791, Thomas Gem, the solicitor to the committee for the protection of the button trade, advertised a reward for any information against the wearers of the unlawful covered buttons. The "gilt button days" of Birmingham was a time of rare prosperity, and dire was- the distress when, like the old buckles, the fashion of wearing the gilt on the blue went out. Deputations to royalty had no effect in staying the change, and thousands were thrown on the parish. It was sought to revive the old style in 1850, when a deputation of button makers solicited Prince Albert to patronise the metallic buttons for gentlemen's coats, but Fashion's fiat was not to be gainsayed. John Taylor, High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1756, is said to have sent out about £800 worth of buttons per week. Papier mache buttons came in with Henry Clay's patent in 1778. He also made buttons of slate. Boulton, of Soho, was the first to bring out steel buttons with facets, and it is said that for some of superior design he received as much as 140 guineas per gross. Horn buttons, though more correctly speaking they should have been called "hoof" buttons, were a great trade at one time, selling in 1801 as low as 5½d. per gross. "Maltese buttons" (glass beads mounted in metal) were, in 1812, made here in large quantities, as were also the "Bath metal drilled shank button" of which 20,000 gross per week were sent out, and a fancy cut white metal button, in making which 40 to 50 firms were engaged, each employing 20 to 40 hands, but the whole trade in these specialities was lost in consequence of a few men being enticed to or imprisoned in France, and there establishing a rival manufacture. Flexible shanks were patented in 1825 by B. Sanders. Fancy silk buttons, with worked figured tops, were patented by Wm. Elliott, in 1837. Porcelain but- tons, though not made here, were designed and patented by a Birmingham man, R. Prosser, in 1841. The three-fold linen button was the invention of Humphrey Jeffries, in 1841, and patented by John Aston. In 1864 so great was the demand for these articles that one firm is said to have used up 63,000 yards of cloth and 34 tons of metal in making them. Cadbury and Green's "very" button is an improvement on these. Vegetable ivory, the product of a tree growing in Central America and known as the Corozo palm, was brought into the button trade about 1857. The shells used in the manufacture of pearl buttons are brought from many parts of the world, the principal places being the East Indies, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, Panama, and the coasts of Central America, Australia, New Zealand, &c. The prices of "shell" vary very much, some not being worth more thin £20 per ton, while as high as £160 to £170 has been paid for some few choice samples brought from Macassar, a sea-port in India. The average import of shell is about 1,000 tons per year, and the value about £30,000.—There are 265 button manufacturers in Birmingham, of whom 152 make pearl buttons, 26 glass, 8 horn and Done, 14 ivory, 12 gilt metal, 3 wood, and 5 linen, the other 45 being of a mixed or general character, silver, brass, steel, wood, and papier mache, being all, more or less, used. Nearly 6,000 hands are employed in the trade, of whom about 1,700 are in the pearl line, though that branch is not so prosperous as it was a few years back.
Chemical Manufactures.—About 50,000 tons of soda, soap, bleaching powder, oil of vitriol, muriatic acid, sulphuric acid, &c., are manufactured in or near Birmingham every year, more than 20,000 tons of salt, 20,000 tons of pyrites, and 60,000 tons of coal being used in the process.
China, in the shape of knobs, &c., was introduced Into the brass founding trade by Harcourt Bros, in 1844. China bowls or wheels for castors were first used in 1849 by J. B. Geithner.
