Handsworth, West Midlands
Encyclopedia
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
in the West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The Local Government Act 1894
Local Government Act 1894
The Local Government Act 1894 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The Act followed the reforms carried out at county level under the Local Government Act 1888...
divided the ancient Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
parish of Handsworth into two urban district
Urban district
In the England, Wales and Ireland, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected Urban District Council , which shared local government responsibilities with a county council....
s: Handsworth and Perry Barr
Perry Barr
Perry Barr is an inner-city area in north Birmingham, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the smaller Perry Barr ward and the wards of Handsworth Wood, Lozells and East Handsworth, and Oscott, which elect three councillors to...
. Handsworth was annexed to the county borough
County borough
County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control. They were abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in England and Wales, but continue in use for lieutenancy and shrievalty in...
of Birmingham in Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
in 1911. Perry Barr UD would survive until 1928 when it was split between Sutton Coldfield
Sutton Coldfield
Sutton Coldfield is a suburb of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Sutton is located about from central Birmingham but has borders with Erdington and Kingstanding. Sutton is in the northeast of Birmingham, with a population of 105,000 recorded in the 2001 census...
and West Bromwich
West Bromwich
West Bromwich is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands, England. It is north west of Birmingham lying on the A41 London-to-Birkenhead road. West Bromwich is part of the Black Country...
.
History
The name Handsworth originates from its SaxonAnglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
owner Hondes and the Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
word weorthing, meaning farm or estate. It was recorded in the Domesday Survey
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
of 1086, as a holding of William Fitz-Ansculf
William Fitz-Ansculf
William Fitz-Ansculf was a Norman-French landowner who suceeded his father, Ansculf de Picquigny.-Birth and early life:William's date of birth is not known, though it was likely in Picquigny, Somme, France in the mid 11th Century...
, the Lord of Dudley, although at that time it would only have been a very small village surrounded by farmland and extensive woodland.
From the thirteenth century through to the eighteenth century, it remained a small village until Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...
who lived at the nearby Soho House
Soho House
Soho House , Matthew Boulton's home in Handsworth, Birmingham, England, is now a museum , celebrating his life, his partnership with James Watt and his membership of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. It was designed by Samuel Wyatt and work on the current building began in 1789...
set up the Soho Manufactory in 1764 on Handsworth Heath. Accommodation was built for the factory workers, the village quickly grew, and in 1851, there were over six thousand people living in the township. Forty years later over thirty-two thousand were counted at the census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of 1881, and by 1911, this had more than doubled to 68,610.
The development of the built environment was sporadic and many of Handsworth's streets display a mixture of architectural types and periods - among them some of the finest Victorian buildings in the city. Handsworth has two grammar schools - Handsworth Grammar School
Handsworth Grammar School
Handsworth Grammar School is voluntary aided grammar school that admits boys from the age of eleven and boys . The school was founded in 1862 and is located in Handsworth, Birmingham, England. it is situated just off the A41, near the junction with the A4040...
for boys and King Edward VI Handsworth
King Edward VI Handsworth
King Edward VI Handsworth School is a voluntary aided grammar school for girls aged 11–18 and is located in Handsworth, Birmingham, England. It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI. The school was founded in 1883 as King Edwards Aston. In 2001 there were 932 girls on roll,...
Girl's Grammar School. St Andrew's church is a listed building in Oxhill Road which also held Sunday School classes in a small building on the corner of Oxhill Road and Church Lane. It also contains Handsworth Park
Handsworth Park
Handsworth Park is a park in the Handsworth area of Birmingham, England. It lies 10 minutes by bus from the centre of Birmingham and comprises 63 acres of landscaped grass slopes, including a large boating lake and a smaller pond fed by the Farcroft and Grove Brooks, flower beds, mature trees and...
, which in 2006 underwent a major restoration, the vibrant shopping area of Soho Road, and St. Mary's Church, Handsworth
St. Mary's Church, Handsworth
St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, also known as Handsworth Old Church, is an Anglican church in Handsworth, Birmingham, England. Its ten-acre grounds are contiguous with Handsworth Park and it is just off the Birmingham Outer Circle and south of a cutting housing the site of the former Handsworth...
containing the remains of the founders of the Industrial Revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
- Watt, Murdoch and Boulton.
Birmingham historian Dr. Carl Chinn
Carl Chinn
Professor Carl Stephen Alfred Chinn MBE, Ph.D. is an English historian, writer, radio presenter, magazine editor, newspaper columnist, media personality, local celebrity, and famous Brummie, whose working life has been devoted to the study and popularisation of the city of Birmingham in England...
noted that during World War II the boundary between Handsworth and the outlying suburb of Handsworth Wood
Handsworth Wood
Handsworth Wood is a loosely defined area in the north west of Birmingham, England. It is also a ward within the formal district of Perry Barr. Located within the metropolitan county of the West Midlands since April 1, 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, it was previously a part of the...
marked the line between being safe and unsafe from bombing, with Handsworth Wood being an official evacuation zone, despite being at least ten miles away from any countryside that might now qualify as "green belt" land, and being on the periphery of many "high risk" areas. (ref: Carl Chinn (1996) Brum Undaunted: Birmingham During the Blitz, Birmingham Library Services) During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, West Indians had arrived as part of the colonial
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
war effort, where they worked in Birmingham munitions factories. In the Post-war
Post-war
A post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...
period, a rebuilding programme required much unskilled labour and Birmingham's industrial
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
base expanded, significantly increasing the demand for both skilled and unskilled workers. During this time, there was direct recruitment for workers from the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
and the area became a centre for Birmingham's African-Caribbean community
British African-Caribbean community
The British African Caribbean communities are residents of the United Kingdom who are of West Indian background and whose ancestors were primarily indigenous to Africa...
.
A tram depot was erected near Birmingham Road, next to the border with West Bromwich
West Bromwich
West Bromwich is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands, England. It is north west of Birmingham lying on the A41 London-to-Birkenhead road. West Bromwich is part of the Black Country...
, during the 1880s
1880s
The 1880s was the decade that spanned from January 1, 1880 to December 31, 1889. They occurred at the core period of the Second Industrial Revolution. Most Western countries experienced a large economic boom, due to the mass production of railroads and other more convenient methods of travel...
, and remained in use until the tram service around the midlands was closed in 1939. Although it has since been demolished, a replica of the depot was created later in the 20th century at the Black Country Living Museum
Black Country Living Museum
The Black Country Living Museum is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings, located in Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The museum occupies a urban heritage park in the shadow of Dudley Castle in the centre of the Black Country conurbation...
in Dudley
Dudley
Dudley is a large town in the West Midlands county of England. At the 2001 census , the Dudley Urban Sub Area had a population of 194,919, making it the 26th largest settlement in England, the second largest town in the United Kingdom behind Reading, and the largest settlement in the UK without...
.http://www.bclm.co.uk/map16.htm
The West Indian population in Birmingham numbered over 17,000 by the 1961 census count. In addition, during this time, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
ns, particularly Sikhs from the Punjab
Punjab region
The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...
arrived in Birmingham, many of them working in the foundries
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
and on the production lines in motor vehicle manufacturing, mostly at the Longbridge plant
Longbridge plant
The Longbridge plant is an industrial complex situated in the Longbridge area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. It is currently owned by SAIC Group and is a manufacturing and research and development facility for its MG Motor subsidiary....
some 10 miles away.
By the early 1960s, there was much racial tension in the country and a great deal of this was being felt in Handsworth.
Heathfield Estate
Architect Samuel WyattSamuel Wyatt
Samuel Wyatt was an English architect and engineer. A member of the Wyatt family, which included several notable 18th and 19th century English architects, his work was primarily in a neoclassical style.-Career:...
had developed a friendship with Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton
Matthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...
, for whom he designed Soho House
Soho House
Soho House , Matthew Boulton's home in Handsworth, Birmingham, England, is now a museum , celebrating his life, his partnership with James Watt and his membership of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. It was designed by Samuel Wyatt and work on the current building began in 1789...
in 1789. In 1790, Boulton recommended Wyatt to his friend James Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...
, for whom Wyatt designed Heathfield Hall. Watt died in the house in 1819, and was buried in St Mary's Churchyard (although his tomb is now in the subsequently expanded church).
After a series of subsequent owners who had slowly sold off the associated lands for development of semi-detached villas, in the 1880s engineer George Tangye
Richard Tangye
Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye was a British manufacturer of engines and other heavy equipment.-Biography:...
bought Heathfield Hall. He lived in the house until his death in 1920. After the family sold the house, from 1927 the hall was demolished and the lands redeveloped.
What was the Heathfield Estate is now the land that comprises West Drive and North Drive.
Civil unrest
These problems had started during the 1950s, but the major problems did not begin until a riot in 19811981 Handsworth riots
The 1981 Handsworth riots were three days of rioting that took place in the Handsworth area of Birmingham, England in July 1981. The major outbreak of violence took place on the night of Friday 10/11 July, with smaller disturbances on the following two nights....
, during which similar riots took place in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
and Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
as well. Handsworth's most notable rioting took place in September 1985 and also overspilled into neighbouring Lozells
Lozells
Lozells is a loosely-defined inner-city area in the West of Birmingham, England. It is centred on Lozells Road, and is known for its multi-racial population. It is part of the ward of Lozells and East Handsworth and lies between the districts of Handsworth and Aston.Lozells has a high population...
. As in many parts of Britain, the conflict between black people
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
in Birmingham, including the police service, fire service and all other local authorities was the start of unrest.
The 1985 Handsworth riots
1985 Handsworth riots
The second Handsworth riots began on 9 September 1985 and finished two days later. The riots were reportedly sparked by the arrest of a man near the Acapulco Cafe, Lozells and a police raid on the Villa Cross public house in the same area. Hundreds of people attacked police and property, looting...
claimed the life of a local post office owner, who was killed when a firebomb was hurled through the window of his shop.
After the 1985 riots caused a huge publicity shock to world perception of British sub-urban integration, the approach to a mostly hostile community were reviewed. Local government was forced into building new community relations as a way of managing both racial and cultural differences. Encouragement was provided by arts organisation like West Midlands Ethnic Minority Arts Service, Pogus Caesar the director also documented the riots and Black Audio Film Collective's making of the film 'Handsworth Songs'. Private groups such as Shades of Black
Shades of Black
Shades of Black is a community organization in the Handsworth area of Birmingham, England, formed after the Handsworth riots in the mid 1980s, extending from the 1990s to work in other deprived areas including Stechford....
, which works closely with the community and is still going strong today.
There was another, less serious riot September 1991, where youths looted local shops.
In 2005, further rioting broke out, in which two people were killed, many injured, and countless damage to property occurred, resulting in the biggest investigation to ever be undertaken by West Midlands Police. The riots were sparked by rumours that a young black girl had been raped by a group of Pakistani youths, although no evidence was found to suggest the crime took place, and the supposed victim was never found.
On 8th August 2011, further rioting took place in the Handsworth area, specifically on the Soho Road.
Musical legacy
Handsworth has produced some notable popular musical acts: Steel PulseSteel Pulse
Steel Pulse is a roots reggae musical band. They originally formed at Handsworth Wood Boys School, in Birmingham, England, composed of David Hinds , Basil Gabbidon , and Ronald McQueen .-History:...
(whose first studio album
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
Handsworth Revolution
Handsworth Revolution
Handsworth Revolution is a reggae album by Steel Pulse. It is named after the Handsworth district of Birmingham, England, the band's home....
is named after the area), Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, MBE is a British singer, songwriter and guitarist. Armatrading is a three-time Grammy Award-nominee and has been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist...
, Pato Banton
Pato Banton
Pato Banton is a reggae singer and toaster from Birmingham, England. He received the nickname 'Pato' from his stepfather, and 'Banton' from the disc jockey slang for a "heavyweight DJ".-Biography:Born in Birmingham, Banton first came to public attention in the early 1980s when he worked with The...
, Benjamin Zephaniah
Benjamin Zephaniah
Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah is an English writer and dub poet. He is a well-known figure in contemporary English literature, and was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008....
, Swami
Swami (band)
Swami are a critically acclaimed British Indian pop/alt/bhangra band from Birmingham, England. It is also the pseudonym of the band's lead performer, producer, DJ and guitarist Diamond Duggal , who founded the band with his brother Simon Duggal...
, Apache Indian, Ruby Turner
Ruby Turner
Ruby Turner is a British R&B and soul singer, songwriter and actress. In 1967, she relocated with her family to Handsworth, Birmingham, England when she was nine years old...
and Bhangra group B21 and Jamaican musicians such as Mighty Diamonds, Alton Ellis
Alton Ellis
Alton Nehemiah Ellis, OD, was a Jamaican musician best known as one of the innovators of rocksteady music and was often referred to as the "Godfather of Rocksteady". In 2006, he was inducted into the International Reggae And World Music Awards Hall Of Fame.-Biography:Ellis was born in 1938 and...
, Burning Spear
Burning Spear
Winston Rodney, OD , also known as Burning Spear, is a Jamaican roots reggae singer and musician. Burning Spear is known for his Rastafari movement messages.-History:...
and Dennis Brown
Dennis Brown
Dennis Emmanuel Brown was a Jamaican reggae singer. During his prolific career, which began in the late 1960s when he was aged eleven, he recorded more than 75 albums and was one of the major stars of lovers rock, a sub-genre of reggae...
have performed in Handsworth, rare photographs of these musicians are held in Pogus Caesar
Pogus Caesar
Pogus Caesar is a British artist, television producer and director. He was born in St Kitts, West Indies, and grew up in Birmingham, England.-History:...
's OOM Gallery Archive. In addition, Steve Winwood
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...
and progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
drummer Carl Palmer
Carl Palmer
Carl Frederick Kendall Palmer is an English drummer and percussionist. He is credited as one of the most respected rock drummers to emerge from the 1960s...
were born in Handsworth.
The tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Webster Booth
Webster Booth
Leslie Webster Booth , better known by his stage name, Webster Booth, was a British tenor. He is largely remembered today as the duettist partner of Anne Ziegler, but he was also one of the finest British tenors of his generation and was a distinguished oratorio soloist.He was a chorister at...
was born in Handsworth in 1902, and began his singing career as a child chorister at the local parish church of St. Mary’s
St. Mary's Church, Handsworth
St. Mary's Church, Handsworth, also known as Handsworth Old Church, is an Anglican church in Handsworth, Birmingham, England. Its ten-acre grounds are contiguous with Handsworth Park and it is just off the Birmingham Outer Circle and south of a cutting housing the site of the former Handsworth...
. Together with his duettist wife Anne Ziegler
Anne Ziegler
Anne Ziegler was an English singer, known for her light operatic duets with her husband Webster Booth. The pair were known as the "Sweethearts in Song" and were among the most famous and popular British musical acts of the 1940s.-Life and career:She was born Irené Frances Eastwood in the Sefton...
, he became a mainstay of West End musicals
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
and wartime
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
musical films. A BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Showbiz Hall of Fame article described him as "possessing one of the finest English tenor voices of the twentieth century."
Events
Handsworth ParkHandsworth Park
Handsworth Park is a park in the Handsworth area of Birmingham, England. It lies 10 minutes by bus from the centre of Birmingham and comprises 63 acres of landscaped grass slopes, including a large boating lake and a smaller pond fed by the Farcroft and Grove Brooks, flower beds, mature trees and...
has hosted numerous events: The Birmingham Tattoo
Birmingham Tattoo
The Birmingham Tattoo is held annually at the National Indoor Arena in the centre of Birmingham, England. The military tattoo features massed military bands, and spectacular displays. The event takes place for two weekend performances in November or December...
, The Birmingham Festival (both originally called Handsworth- rather than Birmingham-) and the Flower Show, and in 1967 The Birmingham Dog Show. The Scouts Rally was another annual event held in the park for many years when scouts from a wide area congregated and paraded. The Handsworth Carnival grew out of the Flower Show and Carnival; Caribbean style carnivals began in Handsworth Park, in 1984, with a street procession via Holyhead Road. Also, the guitarist Richard Michael hails from this area. In 1994 the carnival was held in Handsworth Park for the last time. The following year it was moved from the park out onto the streets of Handsworth, since which time it has been known as the Birmingham International Carnival
Birmingham International Carnival
Birmingham International Carnival takes place biennially in August in Birmingham, England. It is a celebration of African-Caribbean culture, arts, food and entertainment.Caribbean style carnivals were held in Handsworth Park, Birmingham, from 1984 to 1994...
. In 1999, it was again held in a park, but this time in Perry Barr Park. Handsworth Park also hosts an annual Vaisakhi Mela.
Education
Among education providers is the Rookery School, a 100 year old mixed state primary school still housed largely in its original buildings.Notable residents
- Francis AsburyFrancis AsburyBishop Francis Asbury was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now The United Methodist Church in the United States...
, born in Handsworth, bishop of the Methodist Episcopal ChurchMethodist Episcopal ChurchThe Methodist Episcopal Church, sometimes referred to as the M.E. Church, was a development of the first expression of Methodism in the United States. It officially began at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784, with Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke as the first bishops. Through a series of... - Matthew BoultonMatthew BoultonMatthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...
(1728–1809) Lived in Soho HouseSoho HouseSoho House , Matthew Boulton's home in Handsworth, Birmingham, England, is now a museum , celebrating his life, his partnership with James Watt and his membership of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. It was designed by Samuel Wyatt and work on the current building began in 1789...
. Buried in St Mary's Churchyard. - Ian EmesIan EmesIan Ronald Emes is a British animator and film director, from Handsworth, Birmingham, England, known for his work with Pink Floyd, who have used his animated films as back-projections in concert and released them as extras on their DVDs...
, animator and film director - Bert FreemanBert FreemanBertram Clewley Freeman was an English footballer who was one of the most prolific goal-scorers of his time, playing at centre forward for Woolwich Arsenal, Everton, Burnley and Wigan Borough...
(1885–1955), England international footballer was born in Handsworth - Jimmy MooreJames Moore (footballer born 1889)James "Jimmy" Moore was an English footballer who played at inside-left for Derby County and made one appearance for England in 1923.-Football career:...
, England international footballer was born in Handsworth - William MurdochWilliam MurdochWilliam Murdoch was a Scottish engineer and long-term inventor.Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England.He was the inventor of the oscillating steam...
(1754–1839). Inventor. He was the first to make extensive use of coal gasCoal gasCoal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made by the destructive distillation of coal containing a variety of calorific gases including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and volatile hydrocarbons together with small quantities of non-calorific gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen...
for illumination and a pioneer in the development of steam-power. In 1777, he entered the engineering firm of Matthew BoultonMatthew BoultonMatthew Boulton, FRS was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engines, which were a great advance on the state of the art, making possible the...
and James WattJames WattJames Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...
, whose experiment on the distillation of coal and wood first brought gas lighting to a practical stage, illuminating their factory with it in 1803. Presented with the Rumford MedalRumford MedalThe Rumford Medal is awarded by the Royal Society every alternating year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe". First awarded in 1800, it was created after a 1796 donation of $5000 by the...
by the Royal SocietyRoyal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
. Buried in St Mary's Churchyard. - George Ramsay (1855–1926) Secretary/Manager of Aston Villa in the most successful period of the club's history. Buried in St Mary's Churchyard.
- Tommy RobertsTommy RobertsWilliam Thomas 'Tommy' Roberts was an English professional footballer who played for Soho Villa, Leicester Fosse, Preston North End, Burnley, Tottenham Hotspur, Dick Kerrs X1, Chorley and England at international level.- Football career :Roberts began his career at non League Soho Villa and later...
, Professional footballer. - Benjamin ZephaniahBenjamin ZephaniahBenjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah is an English writer and dub poet. He is a well-known figure in contemporary English literature, and was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008....
(born 1958) poet and writer, grew up in Handsworth. - Mr Hudson singer
- Apache Indian, dancehall artist
- Army Lion stencil artist
- Jim Shaft Ryan DJ
External links
- Birmingham City Council's Handsworth Ward pages
- Digital Handsworth
- Pogus Caesar OOM Gallery Archive - photographs of Handsworth Riots (1985)
- Handsworth Historical Society
- / OOM Gallery photographs of Black Audio Film Collective in Handsworth 1985
- Handsworth community and sport
- / OOM Gallery Archive /photos of black musicians
- Handsworth History
- Birmingham History Forums
- Vanley Burke