Some branches of the cotton manufacture have been localized in Birmingham, such as those of webbing for braces and girths, cords, lines, &c., probably on account of the facility with which the requisite machinery can be procured.
The umbrella trade arose from the demand for the brass furniture of these useful con trivances, which led to an attempt to execute orders for the articles complete. This attempt has been so successful that many thousand operatives are now engaged in the Birming ham umbrella trade.
In the nail manufacture as carried on in Birmingham, machinery is used by which well-formed nails are cut out of sheet-iron, with a rapidity which leaves far behind the swiftest motion of the muscles in snipping paper with scissors. There is one very large establishment, filled with machines for making nails by steam-power, where from one to two thousand millions of nails are made in a year. Screws are also formed with beautiful preci sion without heat, and by a series of mechani cal contrivances which remove the severity of the labour, and render the attention and su perintendence of women and children nearly sufficient.
Steam-engines are now very numerous in Birmingham. Their number was estimated in 1849 at 5,400 horses' power, consuming about 380 tons of coal per day, and equalling the labour of 80,400 men.
There are few large factories, properly so called, in which an article goes through the entire range of manufacturing processes; but there is a vast number of workshops, more or less extensive, in each of which portions of the work are done. One manufactured article, which is sold retail for a penny, may go through 20 workshops before it is finished ; some having 40 or 50 workmen, some 4 or 5, while some are simply the garrets of work men, who ply their trade each by his own fire side. With the exception of the metropolis, there is perhaps no town in England where there are so many persons combining in them selves the characters of master and workman, as Birmingham, and none in which there is more observable a chain of links connecting . one with another.
The School of Design is rendering much service in Birmingham. The classes have been well filled from the time of their establish ment; and it is found that boys wbo have attended those classes are sought after by manufacturers in preference to those who have not had such training. During 1850
there have been about thirty pupils in the modelling class alone : a branch of study peculiarly important in a town where so much metal casting is carried on. Some time elapsed before the Birmingham manufacturers ?ally appreciated the necessity of cultivating the arts of design, as a means of competing with France in productions of taste ; but this necessity is now well understood, and rapid advances are being made in the right direc tion.
Near Birmingham were the celebrated Soho Works. These works were built by a native of Birmingham, Matthew Boulton, and ten years afterwards, in 1774, Watt entered into partnership with him. During the remainder of the century, the Soho Works produced those numerous steam-engines which became the marvel of all Europe. But it was not merely the making of steam - engines and other large pieces of machinery that made these works famous ; other manufacturing processes were introduced ; or, more properly speaking, other manufactures preceded that of steam-engines by a few years. Buttons, buckles, watch-chains, and trinkets, were the first objects of manufacture ; then plated ware ; then ormolu vases, candelabra, clock cases, and watch stands ; then pure silver plate of the highest order of excellence. Among the various processes carried on at Soho, perhaps none has attained a more ex tended celebrity than the application of steam to coining; the engine for this purpose was erected by Boulton in 1783, but subsequently received great improvements. The Soho fac tory has been recently abandoned; and the Soho or Aston estate has been offered for sale to the town authorities, to form a Peo ple's Park for Birmingham.
Of all the towns in England, perhaps, ex cepting the metropolis, Birmingham could present the greatest variety of manufactures to the Exhibition of 1851 ; and it is on all accounts to be hoped that that town will be worthily represented. There are understood to be about 300 Exhibitors from Birmingham, who will illustrate between 40 and 50 dif rerent branches of manufacture, and will occupy about 25,000 square feet of exhibition space. All the chief departments of Bir mingham industry will be represented.