|
| |
|
birmingham |
| |
|
|
|
If anywhere can be described as the first purely industrial
conurbation, it is BIRMINGHAM . Unlike the more specialist industrial
towns that grew up across the north and Midlands, "Brum" - and its "Brummies"
- turned its hand to every kind of manufacturing, gaining the epithet "the
city of 1001 trades". It was here that the pioneers of the Industrial
Revolution - James Watt, Matthew Boulton, William Murdock, Josiah
Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley and Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) -
formed the Lunar Society , a melting-pot of scientific and industrial
ideas that spawned the world's first purpose-built factory, the
distillation of oxygen, the invention of gas lighting and the mass
production of the steam engine. A Midlands market town swiftly
mushroomed into the nation's economic dynamo - in the fifty years up to
1830 the population more than trebled to 130,000.
Now the second largest city in Britain, with a population of over one
million, Birmingham has long outgrown the squalor and misery of its boom
years and today its industrial supremacy is recalled in a crop of
excellent heritage museums and an extensive network of canals. It also
boasts a thoroughly multiracial population that makes this one of
Britain's most cosmopolitan cities. The shift to a post-manufacturing
economy is symbolized by the new Convention Centre and by the enormous
National Exhibition Centre (NEC) on the outskirts, while Birmingham's
cultural initiatives - enticing a division of the Royal Ballet to take
up residence here, and building a fabulous new concert hall for the City
of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra - are first rate. Nonetheless, there's
no pretending that Birmingham is packed with interesting sights - it
isn't, though - along with its first-rate restaurant scene and nightlife
- it's well worth a day or two - at least
|
| |
|
