Birmingham Button Box: Billy and His Coat of Many Buttons

Billy Button (artist unknown), c. 1820-1830. Held at Birmingham Museums.

 A watercolour of "Billy Button" standing in front of the Town Hall. Billy was a local character known for his array of decorative buttons.

Walter Showell wrote of Billy that he was a: 

well-known but most inoffensive character, who died here May 3, 1838. His real name was never published, but he belonged to a good family, and early in life he had been an officer in the Navy (some of his biographers say "a commander"), but lost his senses when returning from a long voyage, on hearing of the sudden death of a young lady to whom he was to have been married, and he always answered to her name, Jessie. He went about singing, and the refrain to one of his favourite songs -

"Oysters, sir! Oysters, sir!

Oysters, sir, I cry;

They are the finest oysters, sir,

That ever you could buy."

was for years after [Billy's] death the nightly "cry" of more than one peripatetic shellfishmonger. [...] at his death [Billy's coat] was covered so thickly (and many buttons were of rare patterns), that it is said to have weighed over 30lbs.*

'Billy Button alias Jessy.—This rather singular character, who, for many years past, has been known in Birmingham and various towns in this county under the above names, died on Wednesday, in a lodging-house, in Thomas-street'. Birmingham Journal, 5 May 1838.

Notes

* Walter Showell, Dictionary of Birmingham (Oldbury: Walter Showell and Sons, 1885), pp. 61-62.

Tour of Lost Birmingham Nᵒ.38: Samuel Lines Captures the Bustling Centre (Victoria Square As It Was)

The Town Hall and Queen's College, painted c. 1848 by Samuel Lines Senior

Samuel Lines painted a number of topographical pictures of Birminghm. He produced the above in about 1848, but, at that time, would not have called this area Victoria Square, as it is called today. At this time Victoria was on the throne, but this space by the Town Hall became Victoria Square in the year the Queen died, 1901, when a statue of her was erected near to where it still stands today. The statue was perhaps erected here as when she visited Birmingham as Queen in 1858 she would alight from her carriage in this open area and enter a purple canopy of velvet into the Town Hall.

In Samuel Lines's painting, the area is a busy thoroughfare, just as it is today; the open space was formed naturally at a place where six streets met,* and the atmosphere of this bustling area was described in 1825:

'The junction of these streets is one of the most pleasing and lively spots in the town. An open space, receiving into one focus the radiation of six ways, there is a continual succession of objects; and being the centre of a busy manufacturing district, the throng of artizans [sic] leaving their several workshops, at the hour of One, and hurrying to their meal, has a particularly animated ans cheerful effect; especially in this time of plentiful employment.'**

Samuel Lines filled his painting with a selection of animated characters; there are cheeky schoolboys, workers grouped together chatting, an older man and a boy sitting under the lampost looking at a book, a genteel couple in a fine carriage (the lady turns towards the viewer), beggars, peddlars, a soldier in his smart red coat, a black or Asian man in orange and turquiose robes, and two workers carrying a huge urn among mant more. You can also see how the arches of the Town Hall could be walked through as two genteel ladies, dressed to impress, promenade through with a small dog. The size of these arches compared to the pedestrians beneath is very telling; the Town Hall would have been the largest building in the area by far (the church had a taller spire, but that was slim), it was a massive block of a building and must have felt huge to the inhabitants of the town. The ladies walking beneath are much smaller than they should be compared to the actual size of the arches, so Lines must have subconciously felt this a large building to make such a mistake.

Find out more about the buildings depicted in the painting below.
 

1) The wall of Christ Church
2) Corbett's Temperance Hotel, run by Joseph Corbett
3) Terraces built in about the 1760s
4) Queen's College (see below)
5) More terraces in the distance (see below)
6) The Town Hall
7) Druggist's shop, run by Samuel Wilson Suffield

Reconstruction using photographs, postcards and illustrations, of Queen's College and the buildings further along (unfinished) on Paradise Street, circa 1851, by Jenni Coles-Harris.

NOTES
* The six streets were Ann Street, Congreve Street, Hill Street, New Street, Paradise Street and Pinfold Street.
** References on request.

Portraits: Samuel Lines (1778-1863)

Samuel Lines Senior. By William Thomas Roden, 1863.

This short artist's profile is designed to give an insight into Samuel Lines (1778-1863), a topographical painter based in Birmingham whose work has been used on this blog. More will be added as information comes to light. He produced a wide body of work for over 50 years and was one of the most prominent artists in Birmingham in the first half of the nineteenth century. Three sons were also artists, Samuel Rostill, Edward Ashcroft and Frederick Thomas, to varying degrees.

Samuel Lines Senior was born in Allesley in Warwickshire and came to Birmingham in 1794 as an apprentice to a Mr. Keeling. He worked as a clock dial enameller and decorator, but also produced work for Henry Clay who ran a large manufactory on Newhall Street. Lines himself set up a drawing school on Newhall Street in the early part of the nineteenth century, which was a novelty for Birmingham, and the school prospered. He was soon able to build a house for himself and his family, on Temple Row, where he continued to teach. In 1809 he embarked on a project with three other local artists, Moses Haughton, Joseph Barber (whom Lines had studied under) and Charles Barber, to set up a life drawing school on Peck Lane, just off New Street. In 1814 the school, doing well, moved to larger rooms in Union Passage, and the same year they housed an exhibition which exhibited works from artists within a 30 mile radius of Birmingham. By 1821 the group had again outgrown their premises and consulted with wealthy patrons and local industrialists, the product of which was the formation of the Society of Arts which took up residence in the old Panorama building on New Street. This building was rebuilt in 1828. Lines took classes at the society and managed many of the exhibitions. In 1842 there was some disagreement within the society, which split into two, with the new group moving to rooms on Temple Row, called the Aetheneum.

Samuel Lines painted by Frederick Thomas Lines.
Year unknown. May be of Samuel Rostill Lines. 

Samuel Lines's Paintings and Drawings of Birmingham
with links to those that are included on this blog
Unknown date: Drawing, Bull Ring and Shambles
Unknown date: Drawing, The Birthplace of David Cox
Unknown date: Old Wagon Warehouse, Bennett's Hill
Unknown date: Dr. Freer's House in Cannon Street
Unknown date: Wheatsheaf and Shops, New Street
1800: Bradford Street and the Moat
1820: Interior of the Old Room at the Free School
c.1820: Drawing, The Top of Ann Street Towards St. Philip's
1821: Painting, Birmingham from the Dome of St. Philip's
1821: Drawing, View from Number 3 Temple Row West
1824: Post Office, New Street
1830: Bell Street
c. 1848: Painting, Birmingham Town Hall & Queen's College

1857: Painting, The Opening of Calthorpe Park (below, top)
1857: Painting, The Duke of Cambridge Leaving the Town Hall (below, bottom)

Alternative Townscapes Nᵒ.1: The Town Hall That Wasn't

How the Town Hall might have looked if John Fallows had won the
competition to build. Fallows came 2nd in the competition.

GUEST ARTICLE: By Anthony Peers, author of the book Birmingham Town Hall, available to buy now. See below.

The Triennial Musical Festival of October 1834 was celebrated in a big way. Held every three years since the 1760s, the by now internationally renowned festival had had to be cancelled two years on the trot. After a five year wait this highly popular society event was eagerly anticipated. There was a sound reason for the postponement of the festival: It had taken much longer than originally anticipated to construct the new venue in which the evening concerts were to be performed. There had been much criticism in the press about the delays in the building process. Hampered by strikes, crippling budgetary constraints and challenging issues with stone procurement the project’s architects and their contractors had worked themselves to the bone, eventually succumbing, in spring 1834, to bankruptcy. That the necessary remaining works were undertaken in time to render the building fit to hold the October Festival was something of a miracle.

The fact is things could all have turned out even worse had the Streets Commissioners, the unelected body of townsmen who commissioned the building, not been quite so sharp in relation to the project funding. Although it appears that not one of them had any experience in building contracts, most members of the committee – which was charged with choosing the design for the Town Hall, appointing the architect and setting the budget – were in trade and thus well versed in striking a bargain. First up they held an architectural competition. Although their offering of £100 for the winner was far from generous, the competition for this prestigious project attracted as many as 70 entrants. Having eventually chosen their preferred design the Streets Commissioners more than got their money’s worth from the competition through asking the winning architects (for there were two of them, working in partnership) to amend their design to incorporate elements seen in some of the other submissions. Such sharp practice and tight-fistedness by the client continued through the course of the contract.

With the architects and the contractors all but ruined by the Streets Commissioners’ unflinching parsimony, it is all too easy to see these, the town’s forefathers, as the villains of the piece. However, these men were acting on behalf of the people. The funds required for the construction of the Town Hall had to be raised through a public rate - the budget had to be tight. From our early 21st Century perspective it is interesting to reflect on the thought that if the Town Hall had been commissioned by a less commercially savvy client the ‘pride of Birmingham’ would almost certainly never have been commissioned, let alone seen through to completion.

The architectural competition itself was fraught with potential pit-holes about which the Streets Commissioners successfully negotiated their way. One, a classic of such competitions, was the temptation to fall for the ‘too good to be true’ submission. Evidence that this ruse was tried on in the Town Hall competition can be observed in Birmingham’s Central Library where the full set of competition drawings, executed by the Birmingham based John Fallows, are archived (see below and top). Producing designs for an impressive and highly decorative building - which patently could not have been built within the specified budget - this architect chanced his arm, clearly hoping that the competition assessors would be so won over by his beautifully produced presentation drawings that they would disregard all other submissions. The Streets Commissioners’ native instincts won out : Comparing this impossibly grandiose design with the other (pared back) proposals, they smelled a rat – in no way would Fallows’ submission be realisable within the budget. Recognition of the fact that they were indeed mightily impressed with Fallows’ submission can be seen in the fact that this architect was awarded the second prize in the competition.

Interior of the un-built Town Hall designed by John Fallows

Had the Streets Commissioners fallen for Fallows’ enticing ruse it can only be imagined that the outcome would have been failure and disappointment. The process of constructing the Hansom and Welch designed Town Hall may have been accompanied by delays and disasters but the building was, eventually, completed. This magnificent temple of a building stands as a testament to the collective civic spirit of the people of Birmingham, the Streets Commissioners’ thrift and the ‘never-say-die’ graft and determination of its youthful architects.

Cover photo by James Davies/English Heritage

You can discover much more about the fascinating history of Birmingham Town Hall in my recently released book. Published by Lund Humphries, it is a hardback measuring 26.2 x 23.2 x 2.8 cm. The book’s 100,000 words are generously illustrated with nearly 300 images, the majority of which are reproduced in colour. The RRP is £30.00.

Buy on Amazon.

Fallows' submission drawings are courtesy of Birmingham Library and Archive Services.

Town Hall, Guildhall and Joseph Hansom



The Town Hall in 1834

Joseph Hansom, with his partner Edward Welch, won the competition to build the Town Hall out of 67 applicants in 1831. The hall is one of the most iconic of Birmingham's buildings and its history has been traced by a number of writers. Those who have read any history of Birmingham will probably be aware of how Hansom had grossly underestimated the costs of building, and that as he had borne the entirety of the financial commitments, he was declared bankrupt before completion (and the hall had to be completed by Charles Edge). In the early 1830s though, Birmingham was teeming with political radicalism, and Joseph Hansom, influenced by Robert Owen's ideas, was part of the wider socialist movement. We do not know whether the Town Hall was built by builders in co-operatives, there were a large number of builders working on the building, but with Hansom behind the project it would have been built with the aspirations of socialism, which marks it as an important building.

Although he went bankrupt, the Town Hall was not the last of Joseph Hansom’s Birmingham commissions; in 1833 work began on the Operative Builder’s Guildhall. The Guildhall was initiated by Birmingham’s Builder’s Trades’ Union (the Operative Builder’s Union) who wanted a building for meetings, lectures and for education.* The idea was that the builders themselves would erect buildings as co-operatives without the need for the masters. Hansom, being a socialist, was a keen advocator of co-operatives. The objective of the builders trade unions was ‘to give permanency and efficiency to the efforts of the working builders to obtain secure sufficient wages and full employment for every member of their body’ and also 'to provide [...] schools for instruction in all the branches of the art of building' as well as 'a good, sound, and practical education for their children’.* There was also the desire to offer 'provision for times of illness or accident, and a comfortable retirement for the aged and infirm'.* The larger businesses and employers saw the Operative Builder’s Union as 'a direct threat to private property and capitalist enterprise', and initiated a counter-attack on those workers involved by refusing to employ them.*

The day the first stone of the Guildhall was laid there was a procession; 'bands of music, flags, banners, &c., were seen moving in all directions towards the scene of action. After parading the principal streets, amidst throngs of spectators, [...] the procession proceeded to the site of the intended building in Broad Street'.* The building was seen as part of 'the commencement of a new era in the condition of the whole of the working classes in the world'.* The excitement and optimism would be short lived though. The aim had been to raise the funds for the Guildhall from donations from the Builder’s Trades’ Unions but they suffered from organisational weaknesses and funds that were earmarked for the building of the Guildhall were used to support strikers in other towns.* In 1834 the union collapsed as did the plans for the Guildhall, which was only ever half built, but the ideas and operatives were mainly absorbed into the wider radical movements of the time.*

NOTES
** With thanks to Alex Lawrey who first let me know of this aspect of the Town Hall's construction. You can visit his site: http://www.builtheritageresearch.org/
* References available on request.