191-494: The Gun Quarter is a district of the city of Birmingham , England, which was for many years a centre of the world's gun-manufacturing industry, specialising in the production of military firearms and sporting guns. It is an industrial area to the north of the city centre, bounded by Steelhouse Lane, Shadwell Street and Loveday Street. The first recorded gun maker in Birmingham was in 1630, and locally made muskets were used in
382-522: A Eurostat measure of the functional city-region approximated to local government districts, had a population of 2,357,100 in 2004. In addition to Birmingham itself, the LUZ ( West Midlands conurbation ) includes the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley , Sandwell , Solihull and Walsall , along with the districts of Lichfield , Tamworth , North Warwickshire and Bromsgrove . Beyond this is
573-476: A Lord Mayoralty was conferred on Birmingham by Letters Patent on 3 June 1896. Birmingham's ten parliamentary constituencies are represented in the House of Commons as of 2024 by one Conservative , one independent and eight Labour MPs . Originally part of Warwickshire , Birmingham expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, absorbing parts of Worcestershire to the south and Staffordshire to
764-560: A conurbation with the borough of Solihull to the south east, and with the city of Wolverhampton and the industrial towns of the Black Country to the north west, which form the West Midlands Built-up Area covering 59,972 ha (600 km ; 232 sq mi). Surrounding this is Birmingham's metropolitan area – the area to which it is closely economically tied through commuting – which includes
955-410: A Section 114 notice to say that it could not meet its financial commitments. Effectively this meant the council was bankrupt. A major contributing factor is a £1.1b sum that has been paid out since 2010, for equal pay claims. There is still a bill for £760m, increasing by £14m a month. There are also problems with a new IT system that was projected to cost £19m but is now closer to £100m. In addition there
1146-503: A broader range of specialist, higher-skilled and more lucrative activities. By the time of the English Civil War Birmingham's booming economy, its expanding population, and its resulting high levels of social mobility and cultural pluralism , had seen it develop new social structures very different from those of more established areas. Relationships were built around pragmatic commercial linkages rather than
1337-578: A century of the charter Birmingham had grown into a prosperous urban centre of merchants and craftsmen. By 1327 it was the third-largest town in Warwickshire, a position it would retain for the next 200 years. The principal governing institutions of medieval Birmingham – including the Guild of the Holy Cross and the lordship of the de Birmingham family – collapsed between 1536 and 1547, leaving
1528-534: A considerable urban heat island effect. During the coldest night recorded, 14 January 1982, the temperature fell to −20.8 °C (−5.4 °F) at Birmingham Airport, but just −14.3 °C (6.3 °F) at Edgbaston, near the city centre. Birmingham is a snowy city relative to other large UK conurbations, due to its inland location and comparatively high elevation. Between 1961 and 1990 Birmingham Airport averaged 13.0 days of snow lying annually, compared to 5.33 at London Heathrow . Snow showers often pass through
1719-515: A constantly diversifying range of products, in a highly entrepreneurial economy of small, often self-owned workshops. This led to exceptional levels of inventiveness: between 1760 and 1850 – the core years of the Industrial Revolution – Birmingham residents registered over three times as many patents as those of any other British town or city. The demand for capital to feed rapid economic expansion also saw Birmingham grow into
1910-472: A cursed people, Africa and slavery, which laid the ideological groundwork for justifying the transatlantic slave trade. The term "race" was used by the English beginning in the 16th century and referred to family, lineage, and breed. The idea of race continued to develop further through the centuries and was used as a justification for the continuation of the slave trade and racial discrimination. Slavery
2101-503: A developed factor for enslaving people; nonetheless, by the 15th century, Europeans used both race and religion as a justification to enslave sub-Saharan Africans. An increase of enslaved African people from Senegal occurred in the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. As the number of Senegalese slaves grew larger Europeans developed new terminologies that associated slavery with skin color. The Spanish city of Seville had
SECTION 10
#17327729270292292-564: A family clan. In contrast, European slaves were chattel, or property, who were stripped of their rights. The cycle of slavery was perpetual; children of slaves would, by default, also be slaves." Millions of enslaved people from some parts of Africa were exported to states in Africa, Europe, and Asia prior to the European colonization of the Americas . The Trans-Saharan slave trade across
2483-527: A form of protection against enslavement. African resistance movements were carried out in every phase of the slave trade to resisting marches to the slave holding stations, resistance at the slave coast, and resistance on slave ships. For example, aboard the slave ship Clare, the enslaved Africans revolted and drove the crew from the vessel and took control of the ship and liberated themselves and landed near Cape Coast Castle in present-day Ghana in 1729. On other slave ships enslaved Africans sunk ships, killed
2674-679: A fort for the slave trade at the Bay of Arguin . In the Middle Ages , religion and not race was a determining factor for who was considered to be a legitimate target of slavery. While Christians did not enslave Christians and Muslims did not enslave Muslims, both allowed the enslavement of people they regarded to be heretics or insufficiently correct in their religion, which allowed Catholic Christians to enslave Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims to enslave Shia Muslims; similarly both Christians and Muslims approved of enslaving Pagans , who came to be
2865-448: A glorious and advantageous trade this is ... It is the hinge on which all the trade of this globe moves." Meanwhile, it became a business for privately owned enterprises , reducing international complications. After 1790, by contrast, captains typically checked out slave prices in at least two of the major markets of Kingston, Havana, and Charleston, South Carolina (where prices by then were similar) before deciding where to sell. For
3056-591: A haven for Nonconformists from the 1660s. By 1700 Birmingham's population had increased fifteen-fold and the town was the fifth-largest in England and Wales. The 18th century saw this tradition of free-thinking and collaboration blossom into the cultural phenomenon now known as the Midlands Enlightenment . The town developed into a notable centre of literary , musical , artistic and theatrical activity; and its leading citizens – particularly
3247-583: A justification to Christianize them. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued papal bull Dum Diversas which gave the King of Portugal the right to enslave non-Christians to perpetual slavery. The clause included Muslims in West Africa and legitimized the slave trade under the Catholic church. In 1454, Pope Nicholas issued Romanus Pontifex . "Written as a logical sequel to Dum Diversas, Romanus Pontifex allowed
3438-624: A major financial centre with extensive international connections. Lloyds Bank was founded in the town in 1765, and Ketley's Building Society , the world's first building society , in 1775. By 1800 the West Midlands had more banking offices per head than any other region in Britain, including London. Innovation in 18th-century Birmingham often took the form of incremental series of small-scale improvements to existing products or processes, but also included major developments that lay at
3629-551: A maritime route to "the Indies" (India), where they could trade for luxury goods such as spices without having to obtain these items from Middle Eastern Islamic traders. During the first wave of European colonization , although many of the initial Atlantic naval explorations were led by the Iberian conquistadors , members of many European nationalities were involved, including sailors from Spain , Portugal , France , England ,
3820-574: A matter of weeks Birmingham and the Gun Quarter witnessed much preparation for ammunition and gun manufacture. Many of the workers were women due to the enlistment of men into the armed forces. The increasing mechanisation of gun manufacture in the US and Europe was a significant step in the decline of the Birmingham gun trade, which had for centuries been based on the skilled specialist craftsman. The mass-produced, so-called 'ready made' guns began to flood
4011-500: A more profitable source of labour and encouraging their use. Historian David Eltis argues that Africans were enslaved because of cultural beliefs in Europe that prohibited the enslavement of cultural insiders, even if there was a source of labour that could be enslaved (such as convicts, prisoners of war and vagrants). Eltis argues that traditional beliefs existed in Europe against enslaving Christians (few Europeans not being Christian at
SECTION 20
#17327729270294202-519: A new and larger market for the already existing trade. While those held as slaves in their own region of Africa could hope to escape, those shipped away had little chance of returning to their homeland. The Atlantic slave trading of Africans began in 1441 with two Portuguese explorers, Nuno Tristão and António Gonçalves. Tristão and Gonçalves sailed to Mauritania in West Africa and kidnapped twelve Africans and returned to Portugal and presented
4393-418: A position to call the shots." The earliest known use of the phrase began in the 1830s, and the earliest written evidence was found in an 1836 published book by F. H. Rankin. Portuguese coastal raiders found that slave raiding was too costly and often ineffective and opted for established commercial relations. The colonial South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on slave labour for
4584-906: A preferred and comparatively profitable target of the slave trade in the Middle Ages: Spain and Portugal were provided with non-Catholic slaves from Eastern Europe via the Balkan slave trade and the Black Sea slave trade . In the 15th century, when the Balkan slave trade was taken over by the Ottoman Empire and the Black Sea slave trade was supplanted by the Crimean slave trade and closed off from Europe, Spain and Portugal replaced this source of slaves by importing slaves first from
4775-465: A proto-racial law. It prevented people with Jewish and Muslim ancestry from settling in the New World. Limpieza de sangre did not guarantee rights for Jews or Muslims who converted to Catholicism . Jews and Muslims who converted to Catholicism were respectively called conversos and moriscos . Some Jews and Muslims converted to Christianity hoping it would grant them rights under Spanish laws. After
4966-530: A record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak , two tornadoes touched down within the Birmingham city limits – in Erdington and Selly Oak – with six tornadoes touching down within the boundaries of the wider West Midlands county. More recently, a destructive T6/F3 tornado occurred in July 2005 in the south of the city, damaging homes and businesses in the area. The tornado took an almost parallel path to that of
5157-505: A shared ancestor, or a mythical tribal figurehead. Place names ending in -ingahām are characteristic of primary settlements established during the early phases of Anglo-Saxon colonisation of an area, suggesting that Birmingham was probably in existence by the early 7th century at the latest. Surrounding settlements with names ending in -tūn ('farm'), -lēah ('woodland clearing'), -worð ('enclosure') and -field ('open ground') are likely to be secondary settlements created by
5348-492: A single black box later described by an official American historian as "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores". The city was extensively redeveloped during the 1950s and 1960s. This included the construction of large tower block estates, such as Castle Vale . The Bull Ring was reconstructed and New Street station was redeveloped. In the decades following World War II, the ethnic makeup of Birmingham changed significantly, as it received waves of immigration from
5539-485: A small handful of gun manufacturers and traders remain in the Gun Quarter. The last remaining large gun and rifle manufacturer in the area is Westley Richards . Due to the UK's tight laws regarding gun ownership, including sporting arms, there is only a small commercial market for firearms in the country; consequently, the majority of Birmingham's gun manufacture today is of air guns . The Gun Quarter has continued to decline in
5730-549: A tourist attraction in the early 1900s. Birmingham has a temperate maritime climate ( Cfb according to the Köppen climate classification ), like much of the British Isles, with average maximum temperatures in summer (July) being around 21.3 °C (70.3 °F); and in winter (January) around 6.7 °C (44.1 °F). Between 1971 and 2000 the warmest day of the year on average was 28.8 °C (83.8 °F) and
5921-458: A warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour." In a 2015 paper, economist Elena Esposito argued that the enslavement of Africans in colonial America was attributable to the fact that the American south was sufficiently warm and humid for malaria to thrive;
Gun Quarter - Misplaced Pages Continue
6112-541: Is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England . It is the second-largest city in Britain – commonly referred to as the second city of the United Kingdom – with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper . Birmingham borders the Black Country to its west and, together with the city of Wolverhampton and towns including Dudley and Solihull , forms
6303-461: Is a major international commercial centre and an important transport, retail, events and conference hub. Its metropolitan economy is the second-largest in the United Kingdom with a GDP of $ 121.1bn (2014 ). Its five universities, including the University of Birmingham , make it the largest centre of higher education in the country outside London. Birmingham's major cultural institutions –
6494-581: Is a projected £87m deficit for the financial year 23/24. Birmingham City Council has 101 councillors representing 77 wards as of 2018. Its headquarters are at the Council House in Victoria Square . As of 2023 , the council has a Labour Party majority and is led by John Cotton. Labour replaced the previous no overall control status at the May 2012 elections. The honour and dignity of
6685-697: Is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers ... concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object." People living around the Niger River would be transported from these markets to the coast and sold in European trading ports, in exchange for muskets and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol. The European demand for slaves provided
6876-730: Is located in the centre of the West Midlands region of England on the Birmingham Plateau – an area of relatively high ground, ranging between 500 and 1,000 feet (150 and 300 metres) above sea level and crossed by Britain's main north–south watershed between the basins of the Rivers Severn and Trent . To the immediate south west of the city lie the Lickey Hills , Clent Hills and Walton Hill , which reach 1,033 feet (315 m) and have extensive views over
7067-577: Is now Sierra Leone and took 300 people to sell in the Caribbean. In 1564, he repeated the process, this time using Queen Elizabeth's own ship, Jesus of Lübeck , and numerous English voyages ensued. Around 1560, the Portuguese began a regular slave trade to Brazil. From 1580 until 1640, Portugal was temporarily united with Spain in the Iberian Union . Most Portuguese contractors who obtained
7258-507: Is particularly a large community of Asian descent, especially from Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds, as well as Afro-Caribbeans from the Commonwealth , and a solid Chinese presence through migrants from the former colony of Hong Kong . Birmingham also has an older Irish connection, with the city having the largest population of Irish in mainland Britain and home to its only Irish quarter, Digbeth . In Birmingham, 65.9% of
7449-605: The Americas and enslave Native Americans and Africans. Inter Caetera also settled a dispute between Portugal and Spain over those lands. The declaration included a north–south divide 100 leagues West of the Cape Verde Islands and gave the Spanish Crown exclusive rights to travel and trade west of that line. In Portugal and Spain people had been enslaved because of their religious identity, race had not been
7640-800: The Anglican Diocese of Birmingham was created in 1905. There are two other cathedrals: St Chad's , seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham and the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God and St Andrew . The Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Midlands is also based at Birmingham, with a cathedral under construction. The original parish church of Birmingham, St Martin in
7831-687: The Birmingham Political Union bringing the country to the brink of civil war during the Days of May that preceded the passing of the Great Reform Act in 1832. The Union's meetings on Newhall Hill in 1831 and 1832 were the largest political assemblies Britain had ever seen. Lord Durham , who drafted the Act, wrote that "the country owed Reform to Birmingham, and its salvation from revolution". This reputation for having "shaken
Gun Quarter - Misplaced Pages Continue
8022-662: The British Empire . During both the First and Second World Wars the area played a major role in the manufacture of small arms for the British Armed Forces . After the First World War demand fell; the need for skilled, specialised labour fell as the market became flooded with cheaper, machine-made guns, and gun manufacturing in the area began a slow decline. In the 1960s, a large part of the Gun Quarter
8213-473: The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra , Birmingham Royal Ballet , Birmingham Repertory Theatre , Library of Birmingham and Barber Institute of Fine Arts – enjoy international reputations, and the city has vibrant and influential grassroots art , music , literary and culinary scenes. Birmingham was the host city for the 2022 Commonwealth Games . In 2021, Birmingham was the third most visited city in
8404-521: The Commonwealth of Nations and beyond. The city's population peaked in 1951 at 1,113,000 residents. 21 people were killed and 182 were injured in a series of bomb attacks in 1974, thought to be carried out by the Provisional IRA . The bombings were the worst terror attacks in England up until the 2005 London bombings and consisted of bombs being planted in two pubs in central Birmingham. Six men were convicted , who became known later as
8595-696: The English Civil War . By the 1690s Birmingham artisans were supplying guns for William III to equip the English Army (and successor British Army after 1707). The importance of the trade to the town grew rapidly throughout the 18th century, with large numbers of guns produced for the slave trade . The 19th century saw further expansion, with the Quarter meeting the demand for the Napoleonic Wars , Crimean War , American Civil War and
8786-641: The Fante coalition and fought African and European slave raiders and protected themselves from capture and enslavement. Chief Tomba was born in 1700 and his adopted father was a general from the Jalonke-speaking people who fought against the slave trade. Tomba became ruler of the Baga people in present-day Guinea Bissau in West Africa and made alliances with nearby African villages against African and European slave traders. His efforts were unsuccessful: Tomba
8977-644: The Frisch–Peierls memorandum of 1940, the same year that the cavity magnetron , the key component of radar and later of microwave ovens , was invented by John Randall and Henry Boot . Details of these two discoveries, together with an outline of the first jet engine invented by Frank Whittle in nearby Rugby , were taken to the United States by the Tizard Mission in September 1940, in
9168-650: The Guinea Coast and left with a few slaves. In 1564, Hawkin's son John Hawkins , sailed to the Guinea Coast and his voyage was supported by Queen Elizabeth I . John later turned to piracy and stole 300 Africans from a Spanish slave ship after failures in Guinea trying to capture Africans as most of his men died after fights with the local Africans. As historian John Thornton remarked, "the actual motivation for European expansion and for navigational breakthroughs
9359-685: The Italian states , and the Netherlands . This diversity led Thornton to describe the initial "exploration of the Atlantic" as "a truly international exercise, even if many of the dramatic discoveries were made under the sponsorship of the Iberian monarchs". That leadership later gave rise to the myth that "the Iberians were the sole leaders of the exploration". European overseas expansion led to
9550-415: The Mamluk Sultanate (1258–1517). The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade from Africa; as Elikia M'bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique : The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from
9741-456: The Netherlands , the United States, and Denmark . Several had established outposts on the African coast, where they purchased slaves from local African leaders. These slaves were managed by a factor , who was established on or near the coast to expedite the shipping of slaves to the New World. Slaves were imprisoned in a factory while awaiting shipment. Current estimates are that about 12 million to 12.8 million Africans were shipped across
SECTION 50
#17327729270299932-399: The Saracens ", claimed that due to the curse imposed upon Black people , they would inevitably remain permanently subjugated by Arabs and other Muslims . He wrote that the fact that so many Africans had been enslaved even by the heretical Muslims was supposed proof of their inferiority. Through these and other writings, European writers established a hitherto unheard of connection between
10123-430: The Soho Manufactory , pioneering the combination and mechanisation under one roof of previously separate manufacturing activities through a system known as "rational manufacture". As the largest manufacturing unit in Europe, this came to symbolise the emergence of the factory system . Most significant, however, was the development in 1776 of the industrial steam engine by James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Freeing for
10314-405: The Victorian era , the population of Birmingham grew rapidly to well over half a million and Birmingham became the second largest population centre in England. Birmingham was granted city status in 1889 by Queen Victoria . Joseph Chamberlain , mayor of Birmingham and later an MP, and his son Neville Chamberlain , who was Lord Mayor of Birmingham and later the British Prime Minister, are two of
10505-405: The West Midlands conurbation . The royal town of Sutton Coldfield is incorporated within the city limits to the northeast. The wider metropolitan area has a population of 4.3 million, making it the largest outside London. Located in the West Midlands region of England, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands . It is just west of
10696-428: The asiento between 1580 and 1640 were conversos . For Portuguese merchants, many of whom were " New Christians " or their descendants, the union of crowns presented commercial opportunities in the slave trade to Spanish America. Until the middle of the 17th century, Mexico was the largest single market for slaves in Spanish America. While the Portuguese were directly involved in trading enslaved peoples to Brazil,
10887-435: The caravel , resulted in ships being better equipped to deal with the tidal currents, and could begin traversing the Atlantic Ocean; the Portuguese set up a Navigator's School (although there is much debate about whether it existed and if it did, just what it was). Between 1600 and 1800, approximately 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa. In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along
11078-432: The demarcation line between the Spanish and Portuguese empire, but this was against the WIC-charter". The Royal African Company usually refused to deliver slaves to Spanish colonies, though they did sell them to all comers from their factories in Kingston, Jamaica and Bridgetown, Barbados . In 1682, Spain allowed governors from Havana, Porto Bello, Panama , and Cartagena, Colombia to procure slaves from Jamaica. By
11269-408: The sugar plantations on the Azores , Madeira , Canary, and Cape Verde islands . Europeans participated in African enslavement because of their need for labor, profit, and religious motives. Upon discovering new lands through their naval explorations, European colonisers soon began to migrate to and settle in lands outside their native continent. Off the coast of Africa, European migrants, under
11460-415: The " Old World " ( Afro-Eurasia ) and the " New World " (the Americas). For centuries, tidal currents had made ocean travel particularly difficult and risky for the ships that were then available. Thus, there had been very little, if any, maritime contact between the peoples living in these continents. In the 15th century, however, new European developments in seafaring technologies, such as the invention of
11651-526: The "discovery" of new lands across the Atlantic, Spain did not want Jews and Muslims immigrating to the Americas because the Spanish Crown worried Muslims and non-Christians might introduce Islam and other religions to Native Americans. The law also led to the enslavement of Jews and Muslims, prevented Jews from entering the country and from joining the military, universities and other civil services. Although Jewish conversos and Muslims experienced religious and racial discrimination, some also participated in
SECTION 60
#173277292702911842-450: The 112-mile (180 km) London and Birmingham Railway of 1838. Birmingham schoolteacher Rowland Hill invented the postage stamp and created the first modern universal postal system in 1839. Alexander Parkes invented the first human-made plastic in the Jewellery Quarter in 1855. By the 1820s, the country's extensive canal system had been constructed, giving greater access to natural resources and fuel for industries. During
12033-418: The 1620s. The Portuguese encroached onto Mbundu lands to expand their mission of trading slaves and establishing a settlement. Nzinga allowed sanctuary to runaway slaves in her nation and organized a military called kilombo against the Portuguese. Nzinga formed alliances with other rival African nations and led an army against the Portuguese slave traders in a thirty-year war. Historians have widely debated
12224-430: The 1690s, the English were shipping the most slaves from West Africa. By the 18th century, Portuguese Angola had become again one of the principal sources of the Atlantic slave trade. After the end of the War of the Spanish Succession , as part of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) , the Asiento was granted to the South Sea Company . Despite the South Sea Bubble , the British maintained this position during
12415-399: The 16th century that led to Africa being underdeveloped in his own time. These ideas were supported by other historians, including Ralph Austen (1987). This idea of an unequal relationship was contested by John Thornton (1998), who argued that "the Atlantic slave trade was not nearly as critical to the African economy as these scholars believed" and that "African manufacturing [at this period]
12606-415: The 1800s. Although there were African nations that participated and profited from the Atlantic slave trade, many African nations resisted such as the Djola and Balanta . Some African nations organized into military resistance movements and fought African slave raiders and European slave traders entering their villages. For example, the Akan , Etsi, Fetu, Eguafo, Agona , and Asebu people organized into
12797-405: The 1820s. The first side of the triangle was the export of goods from Europe to Africa. A number of African kings and merchants took part in the trading of enslaved people from 1440 to about 1833. For each captive, the African rulers would receive a variety of goods from Europe. These included guns, ammunition, alcohol, indigo dyed Indian textiles, and other factory-made goods. The second leg of
12988-445: The 18th century, at the start of the industrial revolution, it was around “tens of thousands” but by the 19th century, it was around a few million. During the early to mid-17th century Birmingham's population numbered only several thousand; the town was home to many foundries and workshops that made a wide variety of metalware, including guns. Sir Richard Newdigate , one of the new, local Newdigate Baronets , approached manufacturers in
13179-415: The 18th century, becoming the biggest shippers of slaves across the Atlantic. It is estimated that more than half of the entire slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the Portuguese, British, and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted in Africa. At the time, slave trading was regarded as crucial to Europe's maritime economy, as noted by one English slave trader: "What
13370-454: The 1931 tornado. Notable tornadoes have also struck the city in 1923, 1946, 1951, 1998 and 1999, most of which being of T2-T4/F1-F2 intensity. There are 571 parks within Birmingham – more than any other European city – totalling over 3,500 hectares (14 sq mi) of public open space. The city has over six million trees, and 250 miles (400 kilometres) of urban brooks and streams. Sutton Park , which covers 2,400 acres (971 ha) in
13561-403: The 2001, 2011, and 2021 censuses, the proportion of Christians in Birmingham decreased from 59.1% to 46.1% to 34%, while the proportion of Muslims increased from 14.3% to 21.8% to 29.9% and the proportion of people with no religious affiliation increased from 12.4% to 19.3% to 24.1%. All other religions remained proportionately similar. St Philip's Cathedral was upgraded from church status when
13752-480: The 21st century, losing approximately 25% of its manufacturing jobs in the 3 years from 2003 to 2006, and the trend is continuing, with many vacant and underused buildings. In August 2011 a controversy was created when the Birmingham Council, in an unwelcome move, decided to change the name of the Gun Quarter. The council had received a petition from a mere 50 residents from a local church group to change
13943-576: The African rulers to trade as slaves for European consumer goods. Also, Europeans shifted the location of disembarkation points for trade along the African coast to follow military conflicts in West-Central Africa. In areas of Africa where slavery was not prevalent, European slave traders worked and negotiated with African rulers on their terms for trade, and African rulers refused to supply European demands. Africans and Europeans profited from
14134-432: The Atlantic over a span of 400 years. The number purchased by the traders was considerably higher, as the passage had a high death rate, with between 1.2 and 2.4 million dying during the voyage, and millions more in seasoning camps in the Caribbean after arrival in the New World. Millions of people also died as a result of slave raids, wars, and during transport to the coast for sale to European slave traders. Near
14325-462: The Atlantic slave trade through Futa Toro , present-day Senegal . Abdul Kader Khan and Futa Toro nation resisted French slave traders and colonizers who wanted to enslave Africans and Muslims from Futa Toro. Other forms of resistance against the Atlantic slave trade by African nations was migrating to different areas in West Africa such as swamps and lake regions to escape slave raids. In West Africa, Efik slave dealers participated in slave dealing as
14516-511: The Atlantic. From 1525, slaves were transported directly from the Portuguese colony of Sao Tomé across the Atlantic to Hispaniola . A burial ground in Campeche , Mexico, suggests enslaved Africans had been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of Aztec and Mayan Mexico in 1519. The graveyard had been in use from approximately 1550 to the late 17th century. In 1562, John Hawkins captured Africans in what
14707-547: The Birmingham Six and sentenced to life imprisonment, who were acquitted after 16 years by the Court of Appeal . The convictions are now considered one of the worst British miscarriages of justice in recent times. The true perpetrators of the attacks are yet to be arrested. Birmingham remained by far Britain's most prosperous provincial city as late as the 1970s, with household incomes exceeding even those of London and
14898-476: The Borough was divided into 13 wards. William Scholefield became the first Mayor and William Redfern was appointed as Town Clerk. Birmingham Town Police were established the following year. Birmingham's tradition of innovation continued into the 19th century. Birmingham was the terminus for both of the world's first two long-distance railway lines: the 82-mile (132 km) Grand Junction Railway of 1837 and
15089-578: The British army. Military use, however, was accompanied by a major market in the Atlantic slave trade . A 1788 Parliamentary report counted over 4,000 gun makers, with 100,000 guns a year going to slave traders. The British Government began to rely heavily upon the skilled gun manufacturers of the town. The Napoleonic Wars required special efforts, and between 1804 and 1817 a total of 1,827,889 muskets, rifles, carbines , and pistols were manufactured for
15280-688: The Bull Ring , is Grade II* listed . A short distance from Five Ways the Birmingham Oratory was completed in 1910 on the site of Cardinal Newman 's original foundation. There are several Christadelphian meeting halls in the city and the Christadelphian Magazine and Publishing Group has its headquarters in Hall Green . Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved
15471-625: The Caribbean islands Curaçao , Jamaica and Martinique , as European nations built up economically slave-dependent colonies in the New World. In 1672, the Royal Africa Company was founded. In 1674, the New West India Company became deeper involved in slave trade. From 1677, the Compagnie du Sénégal , used Gorée to house the slaves . The Spanish proposed to get the slaves from Cape Verde , located closer to
15662-655: The Dutch who invested in the British West Indies and Dutch Brazil producing sugar. After the Iberian Union fell apart, Spain prohibited Portugal from directly engaging in the slave trade as a carrier. According the Treaty of Münster the slave trade was opened for the traditional enemies of Spain, losing a large share of the trade to the Dutch, French, and English. For 150 years, Spanish transatlantic traffic
15853-543: The European Catholic nations to expand their dominion over 'discovered' land. Possession of non-Christian lands would be justified along with the enslavement of native, non-Christian 'pagans' in Africa and the 'New World.'" Dum Diversas and Romanus Pontifex may have had an influence with the creation of doctrines supportive of empire building. In 1493, the Doctrine of Discovery issued by Pope Alexander VI ,
16044-482: The European mainland. A vast amount of labour was needed to create and sustain plantations that required intensive labour to grow, harvest, and process prized tropical crops. Western Africa (part of which became known as "the Slave Coast "), Angola and nearby Kingdoms and later Central Africa , became the source for enslaved people to meet the demand for labour. The basic reason for the constant shortage of labour
16235-598: The Government alone. 3,037,644 barrels and 2,879,203 locks were made and then delivered to London for assembly, and around 1,000,000 items were also delivered to the East India Company , which fought alongside the British forces. It has been estimated that production of guns and components between 1804 and 1815 averaged more than three-quarters of a million items per annum, more than two-thirds of England's production during this period. Birmingham Proof House
16426-473: The Gun Quarter claims that around this time Birmingham was the "foremost arms producer in the world", the town's closest rival being London. By the end of the 18th century the Gun Quarter had become a thriving gun-manufacturing community. Government viewing rooms were opened in Bagot Street in 1798, employing sixty or seventy people to ensure that guns produced were of the necessary standard to provide for
16617-421: The Gun Quarter made a variety of calibre weapons from high quality to the less elaborate. In general, British weapons were well made, but less decorative than those produced on the continent; above all they earned a reputation for reliability and fine craftsmanship. The outbreak of World War I saw the Government once again approach Birmingham engineering companies with the prospect of arms manufacture, and within
16808-774: The Indian Ocean to the Gulf of Aden . Others were carried across the Red Sea to Arabia and Aden , with sick slaves being thrown overboard, or they were marched across the Sahara desert via the Trans-Saharan slave trade route to the Nile , many of them dying from exposure or swollen feet along the way. However, estimates are imprecise, which can affect comparison between different slave trades. Two rough estimates by scholars of
16999-542: The Kongolese King Afonso I seized a French vessel and its crew for illegally trading on his coast. In addition, Afonso complained to the king of Portugal that Portuguese slave traders continued to kidnap his people, which was causing depopulation in his kingdom. Queen Nzinga (Nzinga Mbande) fought against the expansion of the Portuguese slave trade into Mbundu people's lands in Central Africa in
17190-929: The New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, and maize. Other items and commodities becoming important in global trade were the tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton crops of the Americas, along with the gold and silver brought from the American continent not only to Europe but elsewhere in the Old World. By the 15th century, slavery had existed in the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain) of Western Europe throughout recorded history. The Roman Empire had established its system of slavery in ancient times. Historian Benjamin Isaac suggests proto-racism existed in ancient times among Greco-Roman people . Racial prejudices were based on dehumanizing
17381-539: The Portuguese to "tap into" the "well-developed commercial economy in Africa ... without engaging in hostilities". "Peaceful trade became the rule all along the African coast", although there were some rare exceptions when acts of aggression led to violence. For instance, Portuguese traders attempted to conquer the Bissagos Islands in 1535. In 1571, Portugal, supported by the Kingdom of Kongo , took control of
17572-564: The Rivers Tame, Rea and Cole and their tributaries. To the north and west of the fault, between 150 and 600 feet (46 and 183 metres) higher than the surrounding area and underlying much of the city centre, lies a long ridge of harder Keuper Sandstone . The bedrock underlying Birmingham was mostly laid down during the Permian and Triassic periods. The area has evidence of glacial deposits , with prominent erratic boulders becoming
17763-867: The Sahara had functioned since antiquity, and continued to do so up until the 20th-century; in 652, the Rashidun Caliphate in Egypt enforced an annual tribute of 400 slaves from the Christian Kingdom of Makuria by the Baqt treaty, which was to be in effect for centuries. It supplied Africans for slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) and
17954-475: The South East, but its economic diversity and capacity for regeneration declined in the decades that followed World War II as Central Government sought to restrict the city's growth and disperse industry and population to the stagnating areas of Wales and Northern England . These measures hindered "the natural self-regeneration of businesses in Birmingham, leaving it top-heavy with the old and infirm", and
18145-582: The Spanish Empire relied on the Asiento de Negros system, awarding (Catholic) Genoese merchant bankers the license to trade enslaved people from Africa to their colonies in Spanish America . Cartagena , Veracruz , Buenos Aires , and Hispaniola received the majority of slave arrivals, mainly from Angola . This division of the slave trade between Spain and Portugal upset the British and
18336-470: The Spanish king gave permission for ships to go directly from Africa to the Caribbean colonies, and they started taking 200–300 per trip. During the first Atlantic system, most of these slavers were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly. Decisive was the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas which did not allow Spanish ships in African ports. Spain had to rely on Portuguese ships and sailors to bring slaves across
18527-588: The UK by people from foreign nations. The name Birmingham comes from the Old English Beormingahām , meaning the home or settlement of the Beormingas – a tribe or clan whose name means 'Beorma's people' and which may have formed an early unit of Anglo-Saxon administration. Beorma , after whom the tribe was named, could have been its leader at the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement,
18718-556: The Wake Green football club; Bartley and Frankley reservoirs; and Handsworth cemetery with surrounding golf courses. Birmingham has many areas of wildlife that lie in both informal settings such as the Project Kingfisher and Woodgate Valley Country Park and in a selection of parks such as Lickey Hills Country Park , Pype Hayes Park & Newhall Valley, Handsworth Park , Kings Heath Park , and Cannon Hill Park ,
18909-628: The Welsh capital Cardiff , 45 miles (72 km) south-west of Nottingham , 70 miles (110 km) south of Manchester , and 75 miles (121 km) north-north-east of Bristol . Much of the area now occupied by the city was originally a northern reach of the ancient Forest of Arden and the city remains relatively densely covered by oak in a large number of districts such as Moseley , Saltley , Yardley , Stirchley and Hockley . These places, with names ending in "-ley", deriving from Old English - lēah meaning "woodland clearing", are named after
19100-499: The age of 25 and the median age being 34 years of age, below the national average of 40. Religion in Birmingham (2021) Christianity is the largest religion within Birmingham, with 34% of residents identifying as Christians in the 2021 Census . The city's religious profile is highly diverse: outside London, Birmingham has the United Kingdom's largest Muslim , Sikh and Buddhist communities; its second largest Hindu community; and its seventh largest Jewish community. Between
19291-639: The area during the Bronze Age , when a substantial but short-lived influx of population occurred between 1700 BC and 1000 BC, possibly caused by conflict or immigration in the surrounding area. During the 1st-century Roman conquest of Britain , the forested country of the Birmingham Plateau formed a barrier to the advancing Roman legions, who built the large Metchley Fort in the area of modern-day Edgbaston in AD ;48, and made it
19482-431: The beginning of the 19th century, various governments acted to ban the trade, although illegal smuggling still occurred. It was generally thought that the transatlantic slave trade ended in 1867, but evidence was later found of voyages until 1873. In the early 21st century, several governments issued apologies for the transatlantic slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade developed after trade contacts were established between
19673-470: The borough are designated as green belt , as a portion of the wider West Midlands Green Belt. This is a strategic local government policy used to prevent urban sprawl and preserve greenfield land . Areas included are the aforementioned Sutton Park; land along the borough boundary by the Sutton Coldfield, Walmley and Minworth suburbs; Kingfisher, Sheldon, Woodgate Valley country parks; grounds by
19864-470: The captain and the rest of the crew. The captain and crew made a deal with the Africans and promised them their freedom. The Africans took control of the ship and sailed back to Africa's shore. The captain and his crew tried to re-enslave the Africans but were unsuccessful. The Atlantic slave trade is customarily divided into two eras, known as the first and second Atlantic systems. Slightly more than 3% of
20055-581: The captive Africans as gifts to Prince Henry the Navigator . By 1460, seven hundred to eight hundred African people were taken annually and imported into Portugal. In Portugal, the Africans taken were used as domestic servants. From 1460 to 1500, the removal of Africans increased as Portugal and Spain built forts along the coast of West Africa. By 1500, Portugal and Spain had taken about 50,000 thousand West Africans. The Africans worked as domestic servants, artisans, and farmers. Other Africans were taken to work
20246-475: The city became increasingly dependent on the motor industry . The recession of the early 1980s saw Birmingham's economy collapse, with unprecedented levels of unemployment and outbreaks of social unrest in inner-city districts. Since the turn of the 21st century, many parts of Birmingham have been transformed, with the redevelopment of the Bullring Shopping Centre , the construction of
20437-642: The city centre . The city does however have numerous canals , collectively named the Birmingham Canal Navigations . Historically a market town in Warwickshire in the medieval period, Birmingham grew during the 18th century during the Midlands Enlightenment and during the Industrial Revolution , which saw advances in science, technology and economic development, producing a series of innovations that laid many of
20628-575: The city via the Cheshire gap on north westerly airstreams, but can also come off the North Sea from north easterly airstreams. Extreme weather is rare, but the city has been known to experience tornadoes . On 14 June 1931, an extremely damaging T6/F3 tornado struck the city, carving an 11-mile damage path through Hollywood, Hall Green, Sparkbrook, Tyseley, Greet and Small Heath, causing extensive damage and killing 1 woman. On 23 November 1981, during
20819-586: The city. Birmingham is drained only by minor rivers and brooks, primarily the River Tame and its tributaries the Cole and the Rea . Birmingham is located significantly inland, and its nearest body of sea is at Liverpool Bay . It lies at the same latitude as Lowestoft , Britain's easternmost settlement; it is therefore much more proximate to the western coast of Wales, at Cardigan Bay . The City of Birmingham forms
21010-438: The city. The trade employed 2,867 people in 1851, out of a total of 7,731 in the whole of England and Wales. "Gun-makers" did not usually manufacture the parts for their guns or even assemble them: in keeping with the traditional nature of Birmingham's manufacturing industries , parts were manufactured by independent specialist sub-contractors and assembled by "fabricators" or "setters-up", the "makers" commissioning and marketing
21201-557: The coldest night typically fell to −9.0 °C (15.8 °F). Some 11.2 days each year rose to a temperature of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or above and 51.6 nights reported an air frost. The highest recorded temperature recorded at the Edgbaston Campus was 37.4 °C (99.3 °F), whilst a temperature of 37.0 °C (98.6 °F) was recorded at Birmingham Airport on the city's eastern edge, both recorded on 19 July 2022 . Like most other large cities, Birmingham has
21392-604: The completed guns. In the late 18th and early 19th century, barrels were mainly manufactured outside the quarter (in Aston , Deritend , Smethwick and West Bromwich ), and locks were mainly sourced from the Black Country , but other parts were usually manufactured and assembled within the Quarter. In the late 19th century, Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham listed more than fifty specialist trades involved in gun manufacture, "till late years most of them being carried on under different roofs". The Crimean War brought much business to
21583-580: The conquered Canary Islands and then from mainland Africa, initially from Arab slave traders via the Trans-Saharan slave trade from Libya , and then directly from the African West coast through Portuguese outposts, which developed into the Atlantic slave trade and expanded significantly after the establishment of the colonies in the Americas in 1492. In the 15th century, Spain enacted a racially discriminatory law named limpieza de sangre , which translates as "blood purity" or "cleanliness of blood",
21774-634: The contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the Columbian exchange , named after the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus . It started the global silver trade from the 16th to 18th centuries and led to direct European involvement in the Chinese porcelain trade . It involved the transfer of goods unique to one hemisphere to another. Europeans brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the New World, and from
21965-479: The creation of a planned market town and seigneurial borough within his demesne or manorial estate, around the site that became the Bull Ring . This established Birmingham as the primary commercial centre for the Birmingham Plateau at a time when the area's economy was expanding rapidly, with population growth nationally leading to the clearance, cultivation and settlement of previously marginal land. Within
22156-515: The crew, and set fire to ships with explosives. Slave traders and white crewmembers prepared and prevented possible rebellions by loading women, men, and children separately inside slave ships because enslaved children used loose pieces of wood, tools, and any objects they found and passed them to the men to free themselves and fight the crew. According to historical research from the records of slave ship captains, between 1698 and 1807, there were 353 acts of insurrection aboard slave ships. The majority of
22347-757: The directions of the Kingdom of Castile , invaded and colonised the Canary Islands during the 15th century, where they converted much of the land to the production of wine and sugar. Along with this, they also captured native Canary Islanders, the Guanches , to use as slaves both on the Islands and across the Christian Mediterranean. After the success of Portugal and Spain in the slave trade other European nations followed. In 1530, an English merchant from Plymouth, William Hawkins , visited
22538-411: The disease had debilitating effects on the European settlers. Conversely, many enslaved Africans were taken from regions of Africa which hosted particularly potent strains of the disease, so the Africans had already developed natural resistance to malaria. This, Esposito argued, resulted in higher malaria survival rates in the American south among enslaved Africans than among European labourers, making them
22729-552: The engines behind the trade in the capital firms, the shipping and insurance companies of Europe and America, or the plantation systems in Americas. They did not wield any influence on the building manufacturing centres of the West. Sometimes trading between Europeans and African leaders was not equal. For example, Europeans influenced Africans to provide more slaves by forming military alliances with warring African societies to instigate more fighting which would provide more war captives to
22920-550: The enslaved people exported from Africa were traded between 1525 and 1600, and 16% in the 17th century. The first Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans to, primarily, American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires. Before the 1520s, slavers took Africans to Seville or the Canary Islands and then exported some of them from Spain to its colonies in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, with 1 to 40 slaves per ship. These supplemented enslaved Native Americans. In 1518,
23111-470: The entire European continent, rendering it unthinkable to enslave a European since this would require enslaving an insider. Conversely, Africans were viewed as outsiders and thus qualified for enslavement. While Europeans may have treated some types of labour, such as convict labour, with conditions similar to that of slaves, these labourers would not be regarded as chattel and their progeny could not inherit their subordinate status, thus not making them slaves in
23302-463: The exchange of knowledge between pure science and the practical world of manufacturing and technology. This created a "chain reaction of innovation", forming a pivotal link between the earlier Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution that would follow. Birmingham's explosive industrial expansion started earlier than that of the textile-manufacturing towns of the North of England , and
23493-626: The fabric of privilege to its base" in 1832 led John Bright to make Birmingham the platform for his successful campaign for the Second Reform Act of 1867, which extended voting rights to the urban working class. The original Charter of Incorporation , dated 31 October 1838, was received in Birmingham on 1 November, then read in the Town Hall on 5 November with elections for the first Birmingham Town Council being held on 26 December. Sixteen Aldermen and 48 Councillors were elected and
23684-399: The final quarter of the 20th century. The Watt steam engine was invented in Birmingham. The resulting high level of social mobility also fostered a culture of political radicalism which, under leaders from Thomas Attwood to Joseph Chamberlain , was to give it a political influence unparalleled in Britain outside London and a pivotal role in the development of British democracy. From
23875-458: The first importance" in the development of the mechanised cotton industry . In 1741 they opened the world's first cotton mill in Birmingham's Upper Priory. In 1746 John Roebuck invented the lead chamber process , enabling the large-scale manufacture of sulphuric acid , and in 1780 James Keir developed a process for the bulk manufacture of alkali , together marking the birth of the modern chemical industry . In 1765 Matthew Boulton opened
24066-426: The first time the manufacturing capacity of human society from the limited availability of hand, water and animal power, this was arguably the pivotal moment of the entire Industrial Revolution and a key factor in the worldwide increases in productivity over the following century. Birmingham rose to national political prominence in the campaign for political reform in the early 19th century, with Thomas Attwood and
24257-647: The focus of a network of Roman roads . Birmingham was then later established by the Beormingas around the 6th or 7th century as a small settlement in the then heavily forested Arden region in Mercia . The development of Birmingham into a significant urban and commercial centre began in 1166, when the Lord of the Manor Peter de Bermingham obtained a charter to hold a market at his castle , and followed this with
24448-520: The foreign peoples they conquered through warfare. Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire , various systems of slavery continued in the successor Islamic and Christian kingdoms of the peninsula through the early modern era of the Atlantic slave trade. In 1441–1444, Portuguese traders first captured Africans on the Atlantic coast of Africa (in what is today Mauritania ), taking their captives to slavery in Europe , and established
24639-535: The former forest. Birmingham is dominated by the Birmingham Fault, which runs diagonally through the city from the Lickey Hills in the south west, passing through Edgbaston and the Bull Ring, to Erdington and Sutton Coldfield in the north east. To the south and east of the fault the ground is largely softer Mercia Mudstone , interspersed with beds of Bunter pebbles and crossed by the valleys of
24830-399: The foundations of modern industrial society . By 1791, it was being hailed as "the first manufacturing town in the world". Birmingham's distinctive economic profile, with thousands of small workshops practising a wide variety of specialised and highly skilled trades, encouraged exceptional levels of creativity and innovation; this provided an economic base for prosperity that was to last into
25021-571: The gun makers of Birmingham, and from 1854 to 1864 more than 4,000,000 barrels were proved there. Most military gun stocks were made from walnut , whereas for the cheaper African market common beech was used. During the Crimean War a large saw mill was erected in Turin by a gun maker from the quarter, and nearly a third of a million gun stocks were produced from this source alone. The Birmingham Small Arms Trade Association had supplied many of
25212-430: The guns during this period, and in 1861 fourteen of these gun smiths formed the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA). It is estimated that around 800,000 weapons were shipped from Birmingham to America during the latter's Civil War . One of the main suppliers was William Tranter , who supplied revolvers to the Confederate forces. General Custer is known to have owned a Galand and Sommerville .44 revolver , which
25403-404: The heart of the emergence of industrial society . In 1709 the Birmingham-trained Abraham Darby I moved to Coalbrookdale in Shropshire and built the first blast furnace to successfully smelt iron ore with coke , transforming the quality, volume and scale on which it was possible to produce cast iron . In 1732 Lewis Paul and John Wyatt invented roller spinning , the "one novel idea of
25594-441: The industry's products. By the 1600s Birmingham formed the commercial hub of a network of forges and furnaces stretching from South Wales to Cheshire and its merchants were selling finished manufactured goods as far afield as the West Indies . These trading links gave Birmingham's metalworkers access to much wider markets, allowing them to diversify away from lower-skilled trades producing basic goods for local sale, towards
25785-419: The largest African population . "The Treaty of Alcacuvas in 1479 provided traders the right to supply Spaniards with Africans." In addition, in the 15th century, Dominican friar Annius of Viterbo invoked the curse of Ham , from the biblical story of enslavement, to explain the differences between Europeans and Africans in his writings. Annius, who frequently wrote of the "superiority of Christians over
25976-415: The last sixteen years of the transatlantic slave trade, Spain was the only transatlantic slave-trading empire. Following the British Slave Trade Act 1807 and U.S. bans on the African slave trade that same year, it declined, but the period thereafter still accounted for 28.5% of the total volume of the Atlantic slave trade. Between 1810 and 1860, over 3.5 million slaves were transported, with 850,000 in
26167-476: The later expansion of the Anglo-Saxon population, in some cases possibly on earlier British sites. There is evidence of early human activity in the Birmingham area dating back to around 8000 BC, with Stone Age artefacts suggesting seasonal settlements, overnight hunting parties and woodland activities such as tree felling. The many burnt mounds that can still be seen around the city indicate that modern humans first intensively settled and cultivated
26358-403: The latter also housing the mini zoo, Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park . The 2021 census recorded 1,144,900 people living in Birmingham, an increase of around 6.7% from 2011 when 1,073,045 were recorded. It is the 27th largest city in Europe by population within its city boundary. Birmingham's continuous urban area extends beyond the city's boundaries: the Birmingham Larger Urban Zone ,
26549-407: The market in the 1880s; the number of Brummies employed by the trade fell from 5,500 in 1881 to 4,100 in 1911. In the 1960s, many of the traditional workshops of the Gun Quarter were demolished by post-war town planners, with the area split in two by the construction of the Birmingham Inner Ring Road . In 1963, a local newspaper, the Sunday Mercury announced the 'Death of Gun Quarter'. Today only
26740-410: The members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham – became influential participants in the circulation of philosophical and scientific ideas among Europe's intellectual elite. The close relationship between Enlightenment Birmingham's leading thinkers and its major manufacturers – in men like Matthew Boulton and James Keir they were often in fact the same people – made it particularly important for
26931-403: The mid-16th century, the Spanish New Laws , prohibited slavery of the Indigenous people. A labour shortage resulted. Alternative sources of labour, such as indentured servitude , failed to provide a sufficient workforce. Many crops could not be sold for profit, or even grown, in Europe. Exporting crops and goods from the New World to Europe often proved to be more profitable than producing them on
27122-492: The middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a racial caste, with African slaves and their future offspring being legally the property of their owners, as children born to slave mothers were also slaves ( partus sequitur ventrem ). As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, and were sold at markets with other goods and services. The major Atlantic slave trading nations, in order of trade volume, were Portugal , Britain , Spain , France ,
27313-525: The most likely people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce". He identified these as being the drive to find new and profitable commercial opportunities outside Europe. Additionally, there was the desire to create an alternative trade network to that controlled by the Muslim Ottoman Empire of the Middle East, which was viewed as a commercial, political and religious threat to European Christendom. In particular, European traders wanted to trade for gold, which could be found in western Africa, and to find
27504-425: The most well-known political figures who have lived in Birmingham. The city established its own university in 1900. The city suffered heavy bomb damage during World War II 's " Birmingham Blitz ". The city was also the scene of two scientific discoveries that were to prove critical to the outcome of the war. Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls first described how a practical nuclear weapon could be constructed in
27695-430: The name to St George and St Chad's Quarter. The Birmingham Post reported on it, in response over 4,500 signed a petition not to change the name. Hundreds of gunmakers have existed in Birmingham; some of the better-known examples include: During the eighteenth century, the Birmingham-based Farmer and Galton Gun Manufacturers produced thousands of firearms which were used by European merchants and African business people in
27886-430: The nature of the relationship between these African kingdoms and the European traders. The Guyanese historian Walter Rodney (1972) has argued that it was an unequal relationship, with Africans being forced into a "colonial" trade with the more economically developed Europeans, exchanging raw materials and human resources (i.e. slaves) for manufactured goods. He argued that it was this economic trade agreement dating back to
28077-415: The new Library of Birmingham (the largest public library in Europe) and the regeneration of old industrial areas such as Brindleyplace , The Mailbox and the International Convention Centre , as well as the rationalisation of the Inner Ring Road . In 1998 Birmingham hosted the 24th G8 summit . The city successfully hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Games . On 5 September 2023 Birmingham city council issued
28268-439: The ninth to the nineteenth) ... Four million enslaved people exported via the Red Sea , another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean , perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean. Slaves were marched in shackles to the coasts of Sudan, Ethiopia and Somali, placed upon dhows and trafficked across
28459-422: The north and west. The city absorbed Sutton Coldfield in 1974 and became a metropolitan borough in the new West Midlands county . A top-level government body, the West Midlands Combined Authority , was formed in April 2016. The WMCA holds devolved powers in transport, development planning, and economic growth. The authority is governed by a directly elected mayor , similar to the Mayor of London . Birmingham
28650-408: The north of the city, is the largest urban park in Europe and a national nature reserve . Birmingham Botanical Gardens , located close to the city centre, retains the regency landscape of its original design by J. C. Loudon in 1829, while the Winterbourne Botanic Garden in Edgbaston reflects the more informal Arts and Crafts tastes of its Edwardian origins. Several green spaces within
28841-514: The numbers African slaves held over twelve centuries in the Muslim world are 11.5 million and 14 million, while other estimates indicate a number between 12 and 15 million African slaves prior to the 20th century. According to John K. Thornton , Europeans usually bought enslaved people who had been captured in endemic warfare between African states. Some Africans had made a business out of capturing war captives or members of neighboring ethnic groups and selling them. A reminder of this practice
29032-576: The period of one year, paying 17 shillings per musket, plus 3 shillings per hundredweight for delivery to London. At the start of the 18th century, gun manufacture was concentrated in the Digbeth area, but fifty years later the trade had moved to the present-day Gun Quarter. Many of the gunsmiths also expanded to less cramped parts of the city – the Gun Quarter is a very small area, and early accounts describe many "higgledy piggledy" houses and factories with different gunshops and gunsmiths residing in close proximity to one another. A commemorative plaque in
29223-420: The population were aged between 15 and 64, higher than when compared to the national average of 64.1% in England and Wales. Furthermore, 20.9% of the population were aged under 15, higher than the national average of 17.4% while the population aged over 65 was 13.1%, which was lower than the national average of 18.6% respectively. Birmingham is one of the youngest cities in Europe with 40% of its population below
29414-481: The population were born outside the UK, an increase of 4.5% percentage points from 2011. Figures showed that the five largest foreign-born groups living in Birmingham were born in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Romania and Jamaica. In 2011, 57% of primary and 52% of secondary pupils were from non-White British families. As of 2021, 31.6% of school pupils in Birmingham were White , 37.7% were Asian , 12.6% were Black , 9.7% were Mixed race and 8.4% were Other. There
29605-403: The production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western European states which were vying with one another to create overseas empires . The Portuguese, in the 16th century, were the first to transport slaves across the Atlantic. In 1526, they completed the first transatlantic slave voyage to Brazil , and other Europeans soon followed. Shipowners regarded
29796-437: The rebellions by the Africans were defeated. Igbo slaves on ships committed suicide by jumping overboard as an act of resistance to enslavement. To prevent further suicides, white crewmen placed nets around slave ships to catch enslaved persons that jumped overboard. White captains and crewmen invested in firearms, swivel guns , and ordered ship crews to watch slaves to prevent or prepare for possible slave revolts. John Newton
29987-399: The rigid paternalism and deference of feudal society , and loyalties to the traditional hierarchies of the established church and aristocracy were weak. The town's reputation for political radicalism and its strongly Parliamentarian sympathies saw it attacked by Royalist forces in the Battle of Birmingham in 1643, and it developed into a centre of Puritanism in the 1630s and as
30178-504: The slave trade of Africans. In Lisbon during the 16th and 17th centuries, Muslims financed by Jewish conversos traded Africans across the Sahara Desert and enslaved Africans before and during the Atlantic slave trade in Europe and Africa. In New Spain , Spaniards applied limpieza de sangre to Africans and Native Americans and created a racial caste system, believing them to be impure because they were not Christian. Europeans enslaved Muslims and people practicing other religions as
30369-611: The slave trade. Between 1742 and 1760, the firm manufactured the largest part of its output for export; the period immediately before Britain's Industrial Revolution. In the 1750s, they were the chief supplier of arms to the Committee of the Company of Merchants Trading in Africa, enabling the firm to grow rapidly, making it one of the biggest and most successful businesses in Birmingham. 52°29′04″N 1°53′49″W / 52.48448°N 1.89688°W / 52.48448; -1.89688 Birmingham Birmingham ( / ˈ b ɜːr m ɪ ŋ ə m / BUR -ming-əm )
30560-435: The slave trade; however, African populations, the social, political, and military changes to African societies suffered greatly. For example, Mossi Kingdoms resisted the Atlantic slave trade and refused to participate in the selling of African people. However, as time progressed more European slave traders entered into West Africa and were having more influence in African nations and the Mossi became involved in slave trading in
30751-552: The slave traders in coastal raids. European slave traders gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Some Portuguese and Europeans participated in slave raids. As the National Museums Liverpool explains: "European traders captured some Africans in raids along the coast, but bought most of them from local African or African-European dealers." Many European slave traders generally did not participate in slave raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa
30942-518: The slaves as cargo to be transported to the Americas as quickly and cheaply as possible, there to be sold to work on coffee, tobacco, cocoa, sugar, and cotton plantations , gold and silver mines, rice fields, the construction industry, cutting timber for ships, as skilled labour, and as domestic servants. The first enslaved Africans sent to the English colonies were classified as indentured servants , with legal standing similar to that of contract-based workers coming from Britain and Ireland. However, by
31133-499: The south-western region of Angola in order to secure its threatened economic interest in the area. Although Kongo later joined a coalition in 1591 to force the Portuguese out, Portugal had secured a foothold on the continent that it continued to occupy until the 20th century. Despite these incidents of occasional violence between African and European forces, many African states ensured that any trade went on in their own terms, for instance, imposing custom duties on foreign ships. In 1525,
31324-402: The summer of 1940 to the spring of 1943, Birmingham was bombed heavily by the German Luftwaffe in what is known as the Birmingham Blitz . The damage done to the city's infrastructure, in addition to a deliberate policy of demolition and new building by planners, led to extensive urban regeneration in subsequent decades. Birmingham's economy is now dominated by the service sector . The city
31515-422: The time) and those slaves that existed in Europe tended to be non-Christians and their immediate descendants (since a slave converting to Christianity did not guarantee emancipation) and thus by the 15th century Europeans as a whole came to be regarded as insiders. Eltis argues that while all slave societies have demarked insiders and outsiders, Europeans took this process further by extending the status of insider to
31706-442: The town in 1689 with the notion of supplying the British Government with small arms . It was stressed that they would need to be of high enough calibre to equal the small arms that were imported from abroad. After a successful trial order in 1692, the Government placed its first contract. On 5 January 1693, the "Officers of Ordnance" chose five local firearms manufacturers to initially produce 200 " snaphance musquets " per month over
31897-480: The town of Tamworth and the city of Lichfield in Staffordshire to the north; the city of Coventry and the towns of Nuneaton , Bedworth , Whitnash , Kenilworth , Rugby, Atherstone , Coleshill , Warwick and Leamington Spa to the east in Warwickshire and the Worcestershire towns of Redditch and Bromsgrove to the south west. As the crow flies, Birmingham lies approximately 100 miles (160 km) north-west of London , 85 miles (137 km) north-east of
32088-430: The town with an unusually high degree of social and economic freedom and initiating a period of transition and growth. The importance of the manufacture of iron goods to Birmingham's economy was recognised as early as 1538, and grew rapidly as the century progressed. Equally significant was the town's emerging role as a centre for the iron merchants who organised finance, supplied raw materials and traded and marketed
32279-411: The trade and capture of slaves. In 1702, James Farmer began his gun manufacturing business, and within three decades had secured the investments of Samuel Galton senior (great-grandfather of Sir Francis Galton ). Galton eventually took charge of the Birmingham branch of the manufacturers on Steelhouse Lane. Guns were in high demand, a demand that Farmer and Galton aimed to satisfy. Such was the extent of
32470-478: The trade, that Hugh Thomas suggests that by 1765, '150,000 guns had been sent to Africa from Birmingham alone', being traded along with other pieces of hardware, metal or cloth, as the price for a slave. This is a shocking statistic, considering that the population of Birmingham was around 30,000 in 1765, meaning that five times more guns had been sent to Africa than were people in the city. The origins, growth and sales organisation of Farmer and Galton were shaped by
32661-411: The traditional centre point of England at Meriden , and is the most inland major city in the country, and lying north of the Cotswolds and east of the Shropshire Hills . Distinctively, Birmingham only has small rivers flowing through it, mainly the River Tame and its tributaries River Rea and River Cole – one of the closest main rivers is the Severn , approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of
32852-574: The transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas . European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage . Europeans established a coastal slave trade in the 15th century and trade to the Americas began in the 16th century, lasting through the 19th century. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central Africa and West Africa and had been sold by West African slave traders to European slave traders, while others had been captured directly by
33043-403: The triangle exported enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and the Caribbean Islands. The third and final part of the triangle was the return of goods to Europe from the Americas. The goods were the products of slave plantations and included cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum. Sir John Hawkins , considered the pioneer of the English slave trade, was the first to run
33234-410: The triangular trade, making a profit at every stop. The Atlantic slave trade was the result of, among other things, labour shortage , itself in turn created by the desire of European colonists to exploit New World land and resources for capital profits. Native peoples were at first utilized as slave labour by Europeans until a large number died from overwork and Old World diseases. Furthermore, in
33425-405: The west African coast and in the Americas which they had never previously encountered. Historian Pierre Chaunu termed the consequences of European navigation "disenclavement", with it marking an end of isolation for some societies and an increase in inter-societal contact for most others. Historian John Thornton noted, "A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans
33616-817: The wider metropolitan area with a population numbering 3,558,916 in 2019 according to Eurostat. Around 305,688 or 26.7% of the population in 2021 were foreign-born , making it a city with one of the largest migrant populations in Europe . According to figures from the 2021 census, 48.7% of the population was White (42.9% White British , 1.5% White Irish , 4.0% Other White , 0.2% Roma , 0.1% Irish Traveller ), 31% were Asian (17.0% Pakistani , 5.8% Indian , 4.2% Bangladeshi , 1.1% Chinese , 2.9% Other Asian ), 10.9% were Black (5.8% African , 3.9% Caribbean , 1.2% Other Black ), 4.8% of Mixed race (2.2% White and Black Caribbean, 0.4% White and Black African, 1.1% White and Asian, 1.1% Other Mixed), 1.7% Arab and 4.6% of Other ethnic heritage. The 2021 census showed 26.7% of
33807-415: Was a captain of slave ships and recorded in his personal journal how Africans mutinied on ships, and some were successful in overtaking the crew. For example, in 1730 the slave ship Little George departed from the Guinea Coast in route to Rhode Island with a cargo of ninety-six enslaved Africans. A few of the slaves slipped out of their iron chains and killed three of the watchmen on deck and imprisoned
33998-432: Was built in 1813, then one of only two such proof houses in England, the other being in London. The building was managed by a consortium of the town's gun traders, its purpose being to ensure that the guns manufactured in the area were safe for use. It is still in use. The number of firms in Birmingham's gun industry was 125 in 1815, 455 in 1829 (two-thirds of these in the Gun Quarter), and by 1868 there were 578 gun firms in
34189-429: Was captured by African traders and sold into slavery. Dahomey King Agaja from 1718 to 1740, opposed the Atlantic slave trade and refused to sell African people and attacked the European forts built along the slave coast in West Africa. Donna Beatriz Kimpa Vita in Kongo and Senegalese leader Abd al-Qadir, advocated resistance against the forced exportation of Africans. In the 1770s, leader Abdul Kader Khan opposed
34380-432: Was demolished by post-war town planners, with the area split in two by the construction of the Birmingham Inner Ring Road . Following the Big City Plan of 2008, the Gun Quarter is now a district within Birmingham City Centre . Many buildings in the area are disused but plans are in place for redevelopment including in Shadwell Street and Vesey Street. Birmingham became the capital of global trade in arms because Britain
34571-418: Was driven by different factors. Instead of the economies of scale of a low-paid, unskilled workforce producing a single bulk commodity such as cotton or wool in large, mechanised units of production, Birmingham's industrial development was built on the adaptability and creativity of a highly paid workforce with a strong division of labour , practising a broad variety of skilled specialist trades and producing
34762-428: Was faster to load than existing American pistols. By the nineteenth century, the introduction of the percussion system combined with the adoption of modern production methods led to Birmingham becoming the dominant producer in British firearms. A few London makers remained, such as the government-owned Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield but Birmingham produced the majority of the firearms in Britain. During this time
34953-422: Was involved in multiple wars since the 17th century. Britain's involvement caused a constant demand for wartime supplies, specifically in gun manufacturing. The British empire, expanded tremendously, between the 1600s and 1900s, so naturally, there would be an increased demand for gun manufacturing so they could expand, keep control, and quell any disturbances in its colonies. The number of guns produced increased, in
35144-418: Was less than one year during the period of the slave trade because of malaria that was endemic in the African continent. An article from PBS explains: "Malaria, dysentery, yellow fever, and other diseases reduced the few Europeans living and trading along the West African coast to a chronic state of ill health and earned Africa the name 'white man's grave.' In this environment, European merchants were rarely in
35335-439: Was little more than to exploit the opportunity for immediate profits made by raiding and the seizure or purchase of trade commodities". Using the Canary Islands as a naval base, Europeans, at the time primarily Portuguese traders, began to move their activities down the western coast of Africa, performing raids in which slaves would be captured to be later sold in the Mediterranean. Although initially successful in this venture, "it
35526-437: Was more than capable of handling competition from preindustrial Europe". However, Anne Bailey, commenting on Thornton's suggestion that Africans and Europeans were equal partners in the Atlantic slave trade, wrote: [T]o see Africans as partners implies equal terms and equal influence on the global and intercontinental processes of the trade. Africans had great influence on the continent itself, but they had no direct influence on
35717-491: Was not long before African naval forces were alerted to the new dangers, and the Portuguese [raiding] ships began to meet strong and effective resistance", with the crews of several of them being killed by African sailors, whose boats were better equipped at traversing the west-central African coasts and river systems. By 1494, the Portuguese king had entered agreements with the rulers of several West African states that would allow trade between their respective peoples, enabling
35908-471: Was operating at trivial levels. In many years, not a single Spanish slave voyage set sail from Africa. Unlike all of their imperial competitors, the Spanish almost never delivered slaves to foreign territories. By contrast, the British, and the Dutch before them, sold slaves everywhere in the Americas. The second Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans by mostly English, French, and Dutch traders and investors. The main destinations of this phase were
36099-522: Was prevalent in many parts of Africa for many centuries before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade. An article from PBS explains the differences between African slavery and European slavery in the Americas . "It is important to distinguish between European slavery and African slavery. In most cases, slavery systems in Africa were more like indentured servitude in that the slaves retained some rights and children born to slaves were generally born free. The slaves could be released from servitude and join
36290-453: Was that, with much cheap land available and many landowners searching for workers, free European immigrants were able to become landowners themselves relatively quickly, thus increasing the need for workers. Labour shortages were mainly met by the English, French and Portuguese with African slave labour. Thomas Jefferson attributed the use of slave labour in part to the climate, and the consequent idle leisure afforded by slave labour: "For in
36481-468: Was used as a justification by Spain to take lands from non-Christians West of the Azores . The Doctrine of Discovery stated that non-Christian lands should be taken and ruled by Christian nations, and Indigenous people (Africans and Native Americans ) living on their lands should convert to Christianity. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull called Inter Caetera which gave Spain and Portugal rights to claim and colonize all non-Christian lands in
#28971