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Birmingham (/ˈbɜːrmɪŋəm/ [6][7][8] BUR-ming-əm) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in Britain[a][9] – commonly referred to as the second city of the United Kingdom[10][11][12][13][14] – with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper.[4] Birmingham borders the Black Country to its west and, together with the city of Wolverhampton and towns including Dudley and Solihull, forms the West Midlands conurbation. The wider metropolitan area has a population of 4.3 million, making it the largest outside of London.[15]
Located in the West Midlands region of England, approximately 100 miles (160 km) from London, Birmingham is considered to be the social, cultural, financial and commercial centre of the Midlands. It is just west of the traditional centre point of England at Meriden,[16] and is the most inland major city in the country,[17] 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 the city centre. The city does however have numerous canals, collectively named the Birmingham Canal Navigations.[18]
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 the foundations of modern industrial society.[19] By 1791, it was being hailed as "the first manufacturing town in the world".[20] 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 the final quarter of the 20th century. The Watt steam engine was invented in Birmingham.[21]
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.[22] From 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.[23] The city 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[update]).[24] Its five universities,[25] including the University of Birmingham, make it the largest centre of higher education in the country outside London.[26] Birmingham's major cultural institutions – the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Library of Birmingham and Barber Institute of Fine Arts – enjoy international reputations,[27] and the city has vibrant and influential grassroots art, music, literary and culinary scenes.[28] Birmingham was the host city for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.[29][30] In 2021, Birmingham was the third most visited city in the UK by people from foreign nations.[31]
Toponymy
The name Birmingham comes from the Old English Beormingahām,[32] 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.[33] Beorma, after whom the tribe was named, could have been its leader at the time of the Anglo-Saxon settlement, 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.[34] 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 the later expansion of the Anglo-Saxon population,[35] in some cases possibly on earlier British sites.[36]
History
Pre-history and medieval
There is evidence of early human activity in the Birmingham area dating back to around 8000 BC,[37] with Stone Age artefacts suggesting seasonal settlements, overnight hunting parties and woodland activities such as tree felling.[38] The many burnt mounds that can still be seen around the city indicate that modern humans first intensively settled and cultivated 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.[39] During the 1st-century Roman conquest of Britain, the forested country of the Birmingham Plateau formed a barrier to the advancing Roman legions,[40] who built the large Metchley Fort in the area of modern-day Edgbaston in AD 48,[41] and made it the focus of a network of Roman roads.[42] 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 the creation of a planned market town and seigneurial borough within his demesne or manorial estate, around the site that became the Bull Ring.[43] 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.[44] Within a century of the charter Birmingham had grown into a prosperous urban centre of merchants and craftsmen.[45] By 1327 it was the third-largest town in Warwickshire,[46] a position it would retain for the next 200 years.
Early modern
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,[47] leaving the town with an unusually high degree of social and economic freedom and initiating a period of transition and growth.[48] By 1700 Birmingham's population had increased fifteen-fold and the town was the fifth-largest in England and Wales.[49]
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.[50] 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 the industry's products.[51] By the 1600s Birmingham formed the commercial hub of a network of forges and furnaces stretching from South Wales to Cheshire[52] and its merchants were selling finished manufactured goods as far afield as the West Indies.[53] 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 a broader range of specialist, higher-skilled and more lucrative activities.[54]
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.[55] Relationships were built around pragmatic commercial linkages rather than the rigid paternalism and deference of feudal society, and loyalties to the traditional hierarchies of the established church and aristocracy were weak.[55] 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,[56] and it developed into a centre of Puritanism in the 1630s[55] and as a haven for Nonconformists from the 1660s.[57]
The 18th century saw this tradition of free-thinking and collaboration blossom into the cultural phenomenon now known as the Midlands Enlightenment.[58] The town developed into a notable centre of literary, musical, artistic and theatrical activity;[59] and its leading citizens – particularly the members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham – became influential participants in the circulation of philosophical and scientific ideas among Europe's intellectual elite.[60] The close relationship between Enlightenment Birmingham's leading thinkers and its major manufacturers[61] – in men like Matthew Boulton and James Keir they were often in fact the same people[62] – made it particularly important for the exchange of knowledge between pure science and the practical world of manufacturing and technology.[63] This created a "chain reaction of innovation",[64] forming a pivotal link between the earlier scientific revolution and the Industrial Revolution that would follow.[65]
Industrial Revolution
Birmingham's explosive industrial expansion started earlier than that of the textile-manufacturing towns of the North of England,[66] and 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 a constantly diversifying range of products, in a highly entrepreneurial economy of small, often self-owned workshops.[67] 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.[68]
The demand for capital to feed rapid economic expansion also saw Birmingham grow into a major financial centre with extensive international connections.[69] Lloyds Bank was founded in the town in 1765,[70] and Ketley's Building Society, the world's first building society, in 1775.[71] By 1800 the West Midlands had more banking offices per head than any other region in Britain, including London.[69]
Innovation in 18th-century Birmingham often took the form of incremental series of small-scale improvements to existing products or processes,[72] but also included major developments that lay at the heart of the emergence of industrial society.[19] 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.[73] In 1732 Lewis Paul and John Wyatt invented roller spinning, the "one novel idea of the first importance" in the development of the mechanised cotton industry.[74] In 1741 they opened the world's first cotton mill in Birmingham's Upper Priory.[75] In 1746 John Roebuck invented the lead chamber process, enabling the large-scale manufacture of sulphuric acid,[76] and in 1780 James Keir developed a process for the bulk manufacture of alkali,[77] together marking the birth of the modern chemical industry.[78] In 1765 Matthew Boulton opened the Soho Manufactory, pioneering the combination and mechanisation under one roof of previously separate manufacturing activities through a system known as "rational manufacture".[79] As the largest manufacturing unit in Europe, this came to symbolise the emergence of the factory system.[80]
Most significant, however, was the development in 1776 of the industrial steam engine by James Watt and Matthew Boulton.[81] Freeing for 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.[82]
Regency and Victorian
Birmingham rose to national political prominence in the campaign for political reform in the early 19th century, with Thomas Attwood and 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.[83] The Union's meetings on Newhall Hill in 1831 and 1832 were the largest political assemblies Britain had ever seen.[84] Lord Durham, who drafted the Act, wrote that "the country owed Reform to Birmingham, and its salvation from revolution".[85] This reputation for having "shaken 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.[86]
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 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.[citation needed]
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 the 112-mile (180 km) London and Birmingham Railway of 1838.[87] Birmingham schoolteacher Rowland Hill invented the postage stamp and created the first modern universal postal system in 1839.[88] Alexander Parkes invented the first human-made plastic in the Jewellery Quarter in 1855.[89]
By the 1820s, the country's extensive canal system had been constructed, giving greater access to natural resources and fuel for industries. During the Victorian era, the population of Birmingham grew rapidly to well over half a million[90] and Birmingham became the second largest population centre in England. Birmingham was granted city status in 1889 by Queen Victoria.[91] 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 the most well-known political figures who have lived in Birmingham. The city established its own university in 1900.[92]
20th century and contemporary
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.[93] Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls first described how a practical nuclear weapon could be constructed in the Frisch–Peierls memorandum of 1940,[94] 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.[95] 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 a single black box later described by an official American historian as "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores".[96]
The city was extensively redeveloped during the 1950s and 1960s.[97][98] 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 the Commonwealth of Nations and beyond.[99] The city's population peaked in 1951 at 1,113,000 residents.[90]
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[100] and consisted of bombs being planted in two pubs in central Birmingham. Six men were convicted, who became known later as the Birmingham Six and sentenced to life imprisonment, who were acquitted after 16 years by the Court of Appeal.[101] 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.[102][103][104]
Birmingham remained by far Britain's most prosperous provincial city as late as the 1970s,[105] with household incomes exceeding even those of London and the South East,[106] 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.[107] These measures hindered "the natural self-regeneration of businesses in Birmingham, leaving it top-heavy with the old and infirm",[108] and 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.[109]
Since the turn of the 21st century, many parts of Birmingham have been transformed, with the redevelopment of the Bullring Shopping Centre,[110] the construction of 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.[111][30]
On 5 September 2023 Birmingham city council issued 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 is a projected £87m deficit for the financial year 23/24.[112]
Government
Birmingham City Council has 101 councillors representing 77 wards as of 2018.[113] Its headquarters are at the Council House in Victoria Square. As of 2023[update], the council has a Labour Party majority and is led by John Cotton.[114][115] Labour replaced the previous no overall control status at the May 2012 elections.[116] The honour and dignity of a Lord Mayoralty was conferred on Birmingham by Letters Patent on 3 June 1896.[117]
Birmingham's ten parliamentary constituencies are represented in the House of Commons as of 2020[update] by two Conservative and eight Labour MPs.[118]
Originally part of Warwickshire, Birmingham expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, absorbing parts of Worcestershire to the south and Staffordshire to the north and west. The city absorbed Sutton Coldfield in 1974 and became a metropolitan borough in the new West Midlands county.[119] 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.[120]
Geography
Birmingham 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 south west of the city lie the Lickey Hills,[121] Clent Hills and Walton Hill, which reach 1,033 feet (315 m) and have extensive views over 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.[122][123]
The City of Birmingham forms 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 km2; 232 sq mi).[citation needed] Surrounding this is Birmingham's metropolitan area – the area to which it is closely economically tied through commuting – which includes 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.[124]
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 the former forest.[125]
Geology
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.[126] 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 the Rivers Tame, Rea and Cole and their tributaries.[127] 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.[128][129] The bedrock underlying Birmingham was mostly laid down during the Permian and Triassic periods.[126]
The area has evidence of glacial deposits, with prominent erratic boulders becoming a tourist attraction in the early 1900s.[130][131][132]
Climate
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).[133] Between 1971 and 2000 the warmest day of the year on average was 28.8 °C (83.8 °F)[134] and the coldest night typically fell to −9.0 °C (15.8 °F).[135] Some 11.2 days each year rose to a temperature of 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or above[136] and 51.6 nights reported an air frost.[137] The highest recorded temperature recorded at the Edgbaston Campus was 37.4 °C (99.3 °F),[138] 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.[139]
Like most other large cities, Birmingham has a considerable urban heat island effect.[140] 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.[141] Birmingham is a snowy city relative to other large UK conurbations, due to its inland location and comparatively high elevation.[142] Between 1961 and 1990 Birmingham Airport averaged 13.0 days of snow lying annually,[143] compared to 5.33 at London Heathrow.[144] Snow showers often pass through the city via the Cheshire gap on north westerly airstreams, but can also come off the North Sea from north easterly airstreams.[142]
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 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.[145] 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 the 1931 tornado.[146] Notable tornadoes have also struck the city in 1923, 1946, 1951, 1998 and 1999, most of which being of T2-T4/F1-F2 intensity.
| Climate data for Birmingham (Winterbourne),[b] elevation: 140 m (459 ft), 1991–2020 normals, extremes 1959–present | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 14.6 (58.3) |
18.8 (65.8) |
22.8 (73.0) |
25.8 (78.4) |
26.5 (79.7) |
31.7 (89.1) |
37.4 (99.3) |
34.8 (94.6) |
29.4 (84.9) |
28.0 (82.4) |
17.7 (63.9) |
16.2 (61.2) |
37.4 (99.3) |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 7.1 (44.8) |
7.7 (45.9) |
10.3 (50.5) |
13.4 (56.1) |
16.5 (61.7) |
19.3 (66.7) |
21.5 (70.7) |
21.0 (69.8) |
18.1 (64.6) |
13.9 (57.0) |
9.9 (49.8) |
7.3 (45.1) |
13.9 (57.0) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | 4.3 (39.7) |
4.7 (40.5) |
6.6 (43.9) |
9.0 (48.2) |
11.9 (53.4) |
14.8 (58.6) |
16.8 (62.2) |
16.5 (61.7) |
13.9 (57.0) |
10.5 (50.9) |
6.9 (44.4) |
4.6 (40.3) |
10.0 (50.0) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 1.6 (34.9) |
1.6 (34.9) |
2.9 (37.2) |
4.6 (40.3) |
7.3 (45.1) |
10.2 (50.4) |
12.1 (53.8) |
12.0 (53.6) |
9.7 (49.5) |
7.1 (44.8) |
4.0 (39.2) |
1.9 (35.4) |
6.3 (43.3) |
| Record low °C (°F) | −14.3 (6.3) |
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