A Bit of a Birmingham Link: Mrs. Bullock, Wax Worker, & George Bullock, Sculptor to Furniture Maker

George Bullock (c. 1783-1818*) , sculptor, with bust of Henry Blundell, 1808,
by Joseph Allen.
Walker Art Gallery (WAG 8532).

This is a post I wrote several years ago for a website about British craft, but there are some aspects of Birmingham history that might be of interest here. Little is known of George Bullock's early years, but during his teenage years, perfecting his craft, he likely lived in Birmingham. Even less is known of his talented mother who ran a travelling museum of wax figures, seemingly settling in Birmingham, and from whom George likely learnt his skills in sculpture. 

Mrs. Bullock advertised her travelling exhibition in newspapers across the country throughout 1794 such as in Stamford in March, Birmingham in May, and Chester in October. In each stated that she had 'just arrived with a most beautiful Cabinet of WAX FIGURES' which were 'the full Size of Life'.** These were waxworks in the manner Madame Tussaud made famous. Visitors to Bullock's travelling museum could see the King, Queen and other royals, the 'unfortunate Royal Family of France' (who had been executed in 1793), notable politicians, Catherine Empress of Russia, and Dr. Franklyn [sic] of America. In every advert Mrs. Bullock noted that her stay in the town would be 'very short', encouraging customers to visit before she left, and that visitors should not bring their dogs, suggesting a previous dog-related incident.** Mrs. Bullock toured her exhibition again as in October 1800 'Mrs. Bullock's collection of wax figures' was advertised in Hull, but she also seems to have settled for a period in Birmingham as in March 1797 'Mrs. Bullock and Son' were advertised as providing modelling and drawing lessons at 29 Bull Street in Birmingham.*3* George was about fourteen.

Lost Creatures in Castle Bromwich

Taken circa 2014.

A patch of overgrown wasteland near Castle Bromwich contained, until relatively recently, two strange concrete curiosities hidden in the bramble and long grass. One was an abstract form seemingly with a tail, the other was a stylised bird. When I walked this route along the River Tame, in the early- to mid-2010s, each visit would find these statues moved through the copse, as if gently grazing. On two different occasions, burnt out cars had arrived, and the stones had seemingly waddled over to take a look. Strewn around were scorched remnants from inside the cars – scraps of maths homework, or the remains of a bag. The next time I arrived, the car would have been removed, and the statues shuffled back to shelter, snuffling under the shade of young trees.

Ancient Sites: The Rough Hill

I found Rubery Hill by accident; it slowly appeared in my peripheral vision as I walked through the council estate. The estate is dominated, along Cock Hill Lane, by five eight storey tower blocks, their original open balconies now covered by tacked-on extensions of blue-grey. Music trickled from some of the windows, a stocky man tinkered with his car, and two teenage girls hopped over the boundary wall, immaculately made up. I was immersed in life at Birmingham’s most southern edges when, initially, I realised that there was an old stone wall lining the grass verge on the opposite side of the road. Smooth sandstone blocks, moss-covered and crowned with a tall hedge, and an awareness of something else, something not housing estate, was how Rubery Hill first emerged. And then, slowly, the steep hillside pulled my gaze up to the sky. 

Ancient Sites: Search For the Holy Well

The emerging, infant waters of Holy Wells have long been valued for their healing properties, on both body and spirit. They were holy because it was believed they had been sanctified by a saint or had issued after some miraculous intervention. Pilgrims journeyed to them for absolution and renewal, and communities gathered round them in seasonal reverence, enacting adornment rituals. I am drawn to such places as curiosities, but even more so to those that have been lost to time. So, when I found the words “Holy Well”, written in a Gothic typeface on a Victorian Ordnance Survey map of hilly outlands at the southern edges of Birmingham, my curiosity was piqued. Beneath was written “Chalybeate” – a term referring to natural springs containing iron salts, which often give the water a metallic taste and, sometimes, a reddish-brown tinge. The iron content was thought to provide healing properties. All this was enough to prompt me, with a characteristic lack of planning, to set out in the direction of the holy site to discover what, if anything, remained.

Victorian Photo Album: More New Street (c. 1890)

Christ Church from New Street. Held at Birmingham Archive.

This photograph is taken at the top end of New Street, looking up to the Town Hall - taken in about 1890. On the left, the canopy belongs to the Theatre Royal, and on the right is the Royal Society of Arts with its classical portico. The spire belongs to Christ Church.

The Making of Gilt & Enamel Equipage (c. 1760s)

Equipage with egg-shaped containers and etui, c. 1760s.
Wolverhampton Museum Collection.

A previous post (here) explored eighteenth-century equipage (also called chatelaines) which were hung from women's dresses at the waist, holding and displaying objects such as watches as well as the etui shown in these examples, etui being containers of useful items such as scissors, needles and bodkins.

The Absent City: Grosvenor House by Cotton, Ballard & Blow (New Street & Bennetts Hill, 1951-3)

Grosvenor House. A rainy day in June 2012.

On the west corner of New Street and Bennett's Hill stands Grosvenor House, built in the early 1950s. There are two previous layers known for this site.

Victorian Photo Album: Chaucer's Head Bookshop (New Street, c. 1870s)

Chaucer's Head bookshop at 74 New Street, c. 1870s.
Held at Birmingham Archive @ Library of Birmingham.

See more of the Victorian Photo Album.

Victorian Photo Album: Looking Through Windows - Ornaments & Things Inside (Part Four)

The last Looking Through Windows (here, here & here) posts explored 'Greenery in the "Slums"'; and showed that despite these houses being termed 'slums' by officials, the people living them adorned and beautified their homes in multiple ways. 

With a desire to knock down these houses, the photographers took pictures of buildings with cracks in the walls and broken windows, but didn't always notice the little things, the things which can be found by zooming into the old Victorian photographs. 

The previous posts looked at plants and flowers, this one looks at ornaments on window ledges and outside, and other things which can be peeped at by zooming in.  

This Looking Through Windows explores the things that people owned which can be seen in the shadows inside the homes (some door peeking as well as window peeking was necessary). See the images below.....

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.61: A Regency Stay at the Hen and Chickens Hotel (New Street)

The Hen and Chicken's on New Street, with King Edward's school to the right, c. 1808.
Coaches would enter the rear stables through the arch.
Held by Birmingham Museums.

Were you at the “Hen and Chickens,” from which I write, however, you would be very well content with your quarters [...] I am surrounded by vases of beautiful flowers, many of them the choice productions of the green house in our rude climate, which ornament and perfume the halls and landings of the staircases, and impart an air bordering on elegance, to the general neatness and comfort of the establishment. The inn at which we are, is said to be the best in this great work-shop of iron and steel [...].*

Victorian Photo Album: Looking Through Windows - Greenery in the "Slums" (Part Three)

Part three (of three parts) of Looking Through Windows (Greenery). See part one, here and part two, here. Please contact to use these cropped images in this way - mappingbirmingham@gmail.com

During the late Victorian period many of central Birmingham's poorer housing was earmarked for demolition in a drive to revamp the city centre and move those living in these houses out to newer homes in the outer parts of the town. Hundreds of photographs of 'slum housing' (Victorian terminology, not mine) were taken of the many courts of back to back housing in the town. These images were taken was to assert the reasoning for their demolition, that they were run down, so they "frame" the buildings to tell this story. This is only one story, though, as these buildings were filled with families living their lives and beautifying their homes, and if you zoom into the images you can find traces of this. 

Click on the images, below, to view in a lightbox.

Paper Remnants: Billinge & Edwards Tool Makers on Snow Hill (c. 1810)

Trade card for Billinge & Edwards on Snow Hill, c. 1810. Engraved by Cottrell.
Held at Yale Center for British Art. B1978.43.956.

Catherine Hutton's Poem on Love & a Cosy Cottage

Held at Birmingham Archive in the Hutton Collection.

A watercolour of a small cottage accompanied by a five verse poem painted and written by Catherine Hutton (1756-1846) of Birmingham.

The poem reads:

Birmingham Women: Catherine Hutton, Writer and Home Crafter (1756-1846)

Catherine Hutton (11 February 1756 to 13 March 1846) was part of the Birmingham Hutton family, the daughter of stationer, book seller and historian William Hutton and his wife Sarah Cock.*1* Catherine was a weaver of tales as well as a needlecrafter, a weaver of threads, and was putting pen to paper right up to her death at the age of 91. She was particularly a fan of Jane Austen, as she explained 'I have been going through a course of novels by lady authors, beginning with Mrs Brooke and ending with Miss Austen, who is my especial favourite. I had always wished, not daring to hope, that I might be something like Miss Austen; and, having finished her works, I took to my own, to see if I could find any resemblance'.*2* In 1813 she published her first novel, The Miser Married (1813), and published two subsequent novels, The Welsh Mountaineer (1817) and Oakwell Hall (1819). Catherine published other fiction and articles in magazines, and her published letters outline the life of a middle-class woman at this time. 

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.60: Turner's Brass Houses (Coleshill Street, c. 1740)

Interior Mr. Turner's Brass Works from R. R. Angerstein's Illustrated Travel Diary, 1753-1755.

Reinhold Rücker Angerstein was a Swedish metallurgist from a family of iron masters, who extensively travelled Britain's industrial works in the early 1750s, including many in Birmingham and nearby. In 1754 he visited Turner's brass works in Birmingham: 

The brass-works [...] belongs to Mr Turner and consists of nine furnaces with three built together in each of three separate buildings. The furnaces are heated with mineral coal, of which 15 tons is used for each furnace, and melting lasting ten hours. Each furnace holds nine pots, 14 inches high and nine inches diameter at the top. Each pot is charged with 41 pounds of copper and 50 pounds of calamine. Mixed with [char]coal. During charging I observed that a handful of coal and calamine was first placed on the bottom of the pot, then came the mixture, which was packed in tightly, followed by about a pound of copper in small pieces, and finally again coal and calamine without copper, covering the top. This procedure was said to lengthen the life of the pot both at the top and the bottom. [...] There are six workers for the nine furnaces and casting takes place twice every 24 hours.*1*

Victorian Photo Album: Looking Through Windows - Greenery in the "Slums" (Part Two)

Part two (of three parts) of Looking Through Windows (Greenery). See part one, here. Please contact to use these cropped images in this way - mappingbirmingham@gmail.com

During the late Victorian period many of central Birmingham's poorer housing was earmarked for demolition in a drive to revamp the city centre and move those living in these houses out to newer homes in the outer parts of the town. Hundreds of photographs of 'slum housing' (Victorian terminology, not mine) were taken of the many courts of back to back housing in the town. These images were taken was to assert the reasoning for their demolition, that they were run down, so they "frame" the buildings to tell this story. This is only one story, though, as these buildings were filled with families living their lives and beautifying their homes, and if you zoom into the images you can find traces of this. 

Click on the images, below, to view in a lightbox.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.59: St. Martin's Parsonage (Smallbrook Street)

St. Martin's Parsonage, from a drawing by David Cox and engraved by William Radcliffe, published 25 March 1827. Hand coloured later.

St. Martin's Parsonage was demolished in 1826. The image above was drawn in about 1825 or 1826 by David Cox, and the original drawing is held by Birmingham Museums (see here). The Parsonage housed a long line of the rectors of St. Martin's, and stood a little distance from the church, up Edgbaston Street and at the base of Smallbrook Street.

Victorian Photo Album: Looking Through Windows - Greenery in the "Slums" (Part One)

Original full photograph of 'slum housing',
back of 52 & 54 Midland Street, late 1800s.

During the late Victorian period many of central Birmingham's poorer housing was earmarked for demolition in a drive to revamp the city centre and move those living in these houses out to newer homes in the outer parts of the town. Hundreds of photographs of 'slum housing' were taken of the many courts of back to back housing in the town. These images were taken was to assert the reasoning for their demolition, that they were run down, so they "frame" the buildings to tell this story. This is only one story, though, as these buildings were filled with families living their lives and beautifying their homes, and if you zoom into the images you can find traces of this. 

Below is part one (of three parts) of Looking Through Windows (Greenery). Please contact to use these cropped images in this way - mappingbirmingham@gmail.com

Click on the images, below, to view in a lightbox.

Paper Remnants: G. Hougton & Son "Foremost High Class Gent's Hosier's" (New Street, 1899)

G. Houghton & Son on Birmingham's New Street, 1899.
Printed by W. B. Hill & Co.

See all Paper Remnants.

Victorian Photo Album: Monumental Encounters - Framing the Theatre Royal (New Street from Bennetts Hill)

Demolition of the Theatre Royal in 1901.
Held at Birmingham Archive.

Victorian Photo Album: The Old Farrier's Arms (Lichfield Street)

Old Farrier's Arms, c. 1880s or 1890s.
Held by Birmingham Archive - WK/B11/1264.

The Old Farrier's Arms was a public house on Lichfield Street, a street which was removed as part of the Corporation Street development, completed in 1903. The buildings were constructed in the eighteenth century, and the pub probably opened in the 1840s.