Industry of Birmingham
As I walked around Birmingham I looked at the abandoned factories. Even though we were told that Birmingham was a big industrial centre, these abandoned factories really grabbed my attention. As I looked at these factories I imagined smoke coming out of the chimneys, the sound of machines and people working and vans or trucks driving in and out of the gates, but as I took another look, all these things were gone and only an old building was left. This made me wonder, how did these factories come to be here and why were these factories abandoned?
A medieval market town
It’s the year 1166, A Norman Lord of the Manor, Peter de Birmingham, buys a royal charter from Henry II, this permits him to hold a market at his castle at Birmingham, he uses this authority to charge tolls on the market’s traffic. This project is known as the first market in Birmingham. This small market was soon transformed into a successful market by its Norman lords. The agricultural trade of the area became concentrated on the town of Birmingham and this encouraged the development of agricultural industries. But before the success of the market, settlements were scattered. After the agricultural industries were formed these towns started to merge together to form one big town, Birmingham. With a big village and widely visited market it was necessary to make new roads to the market. Another idea of the Norman lords was to lease land to merchants, this turned out to be a great success and the market town grew only bigger. After twenty-three years, the market town had gotten a name, ‘’ The town of Birmingham’’. The market kept growing and so did the population, these things had a positive influence on one another, the bigger the population, t...
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...lishing of new factories needed to be prevented and that some old factories had to be removed. This enormous loss of both factories and factory workers caused for a lot of buildings to be abandoned. After some years, when the industry and population were successfully reduced, some people moved into Birmingham (again). But it wasn’t and would never be the industrial centre it had been before.
Conclusion
My conclusion is a lesson that can be learned from the history of Birmingham, you can start with something small and with enough effort it will become big, but nothing will last forever. With Birmingham it started with a small market but with enough effort it turned into a big industrial centre, but it’s not the centre we know now, because it was ‘ruined’ by the interventions after WWI and WWII. But who knows? Maybe in 100 years it will be an industrial centre again!
The Bishop of Hamburg Grants a Charter to Colonists (1106) is a legal document commissioned by Frederick, Bishop of Hamburg, outlining the rights of the Hollanders in regards to the land he was offering for them to colonise. Furthermore, the charter was signed by “Henry, the Priest, to whom we have granted the aforesaid churches for life” in addition to the “laymen, Helikin, Arnold, Hiko, Fordolt, and Referic” . Produced in 1106, this source reveals the value of land in the economic climate of the Middle Ages. This source is “a perpetual benediction” , and thus is destined to the current and future Bishop landowners of the area, to bind them in legal agreement, according to the specific payment and dimensions laid out in the charter. This source illuminates the value and power of the ecclesiastical order of the land. This source reveals the interplay of the church and the secular clergy, the nobility and landowners, and the laity, with further insight into measurements and economic currency used in the 12th century Medieval Europe. Not only was this charter a means of granting land ...
White, Langdon. "The Iron and Steel Industry of the Birmingham, Alabama, District." Economic Geography (Vol. 4, No. 4 (Oct., 1928)): pp. 349-365.
Because the manors supplied their own source of materials that were needed for community the society became self sufficient. Essential needs such as food, cloth, fuel, lumber, and other goods were produced from the land or animals. Consequently the few outside purchases made were things that weren’t grown on in that region such as salt and iron. Document 3 states, “International trade was carried on only to serve the demands of the wealthy, and it was largely in the hands of aliens [different peoples]—Greeks, Jews, Moslems. Local society made almost no use of money.’’ This shows that there was little need for international trade, those of the few who participated were meeting the demands of the wealthy. Also the trade heavily relied on people
The most important reasons being the terrible weather conditions and the frequent flooding of the river Severn, sometime the water levels reaching extreme heights, also an increase in industry in that area.
McGahey, Richard, and Jennifer S. Vey. Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America's Older Industrial Areas. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution, 2008. Print.
Cities during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century showed great increase in population in Britain and created terrible conditions for the poor working class and their families. These unbelievably harsh living conditions can be seen on image 1 and 3 where families are forced to live in an overcrowded and inadequate room. There was a very high demand of houses and many were constructed in terraced rows that can be seen in image 4. Some of these houses had just a small yard at the rear where an outside toilet was placed. Others were ‘back to back’ without yard as shown in image 2. The people who lived in cities needed cheap homes as the Industrial Revolution continued to grow.
...of steam engines in factories freed the factories to go anywhere. Previously, machines had been powered by the swift flowing water of rivers. Once freed from that constraint, factories were built in more convenient locations, nearer to consumers.
...ted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, A Source Book for Medieval Economic History. New York: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965, p. 28.
Early in the quarter we read definitions offered by Mumford, Wirth, and others discussing city development as a political, social and economic force, not simply a construction of buildings and environments, but one that encompasses all the activities that bring life to these structures. I discuss some of the forces that dramatically transformed London into the city it is today. During the Industrial revolution, London’s development was increasingly shaped by social and political forces that evolved into policies that changed the physical characteristics of the city. Without this critical development it is unlikely that London would have survived the rapid economic growth it experienced during this period of intense technological
Maintaining a balance between urban development and natural systems is essential to ensure that, for example, soils are still able to buffer potential contaminants or that ground stability is sustainable for buildings and infrastructure. The land in 1867 was mostly being used for agricultural as farming was key to the primary industry. In 1916 the residential business has increased rapidly as an increase in human activity has resulted in a need for new homes. Then in this present day the industrial industry took a rapid boost as machinery was needed to provide a safe, efficient transport link (hub) for civilians.
February 2014. http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/361/361-02.htm. Sommerville, J.P. Economy and Society in Early Modern England. The "Social structure" of the. February 2014.
Reynolds, Susan, ‘Medieval Urban History and the History of Political Thought”, Urban History 25 (1982), 14-23
The Norman conquerors arrived in England towards the end of the 11th Century. In the year 1066, some crucial events that led to the development of the modern English la...
...acted by the pollution that the steam engine produced due to carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. Cities became dominated by polluted rivers and smoke-filled air, which in turn created poor living and working conditions.
For example the city center of Coventry, it has a rich history going back to before the fourteenth century when it was one of the wealthiest towns in British, but since the second world war, with the demise of the manufacturing industry, its past had become smothered by