Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History and Guide Arranged Alphabetically by Thomas T. Harman;Walter Showell
page 198 of 741 (26%)
page 198 of 741 (26%)
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introduction. Messengers, of Broad Street, and Cook, of Caroline Street
(1810-20), were the first manufacturers of gas fittings in this town, and they appear to have had nearly a monopoly of the trade, as there were but three others in it in 1833, and only about twenty in 1863; now their name is legion, gas being used for an infinitude of purposes, not the least of which is by the gas cooking stove, the idea of which was so novel at first that the Secretary of the Gas Office in the Minories at one time introduced it to the notice of the public by having his dinner daily cooked in a stove placed in one of the office windows. An exhibition of gas apparatus of all kinds was opened at the Town Hall, June 5, 1878, and that there is still a wonderful future for development is shown by its being seriously advocated that a double set of mains will be desirable, one for lighting gas, and the other for a less pure kind to be used for heating purposes. ~Gas Works.~--See "_Public Buildings_." ~Gavazzi.~--Father Gavazzi first orated here in the Town Hall, October 20, 1851. ~Geographical.~--According to the Ordnance Survey, Birmingham is situated in latitude 52° 29', and longitude 1° 54' west. ~Gillott.~--See "_Noteworthy Men_." ~Girls' Home.~--Eighteen years ago several kind-hearted ladies opened a house in Bath Row, for the reception of servant girls of the poorest class, who, through their poverty and juvenility, could not be sheltered in the "Servants' Home," and that such an establishment was needed, is proved by the fact that no less than 334 inmates were sheltered for a |
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