VIII.

THE BIRMINGHAM BELGRAVIA.


Seeing how Birmingham has grown and prospered, it is interesting to
consider what might have been the result if the town and its outskirts
had not been fairly pleasant for well-to-do people to reside in.
Fortunately, there is one extensive west-end suburb--Edgbaston--which
forms a suitable, healthy, and desirable residential locality for the
Birmingham upper classes. But for the existence of this well laid out--I
was going to say genteel, but Heaven forbid--neighbourhood, a very large
number of its wealthiest manufacturers and professional men would
doubtless now reside some distance from the city. An increasing number
of those who work in Birmingham now live--at least have their
houses--outside its limits, owing to facilities afforded by the
railways; but Edgbaston is still a rich, well-populated suburb within a
very easy distance of the centre of the city. Mr. Schnadhorst, when he
pulled political strings in Birmingham, regarded Edgbaston as a fine,
good piece of vantage ground from an electoral point of view, since it
kept so many rich residents within the pale of the town, and added so
much to its influential voting power.

Edgbaston is chiefly, I might almost say entirely, the property of the
Calthorpes, and the late Lord Calthorpe, also his predecessor, were wise
in their day and generation, and they had agents who were shrewd and
far-seeing. They saw the importance of reserving Edgbaston and laying it