Birmingham Accommodation is your guide to hotels in Birmingham and other accommodation including B&Bs and Guest Houses. |
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History of Birmingham
In the Saxon 6th Century Birmingham was just one small settlement in thick forest - the home (ham) of the tribe (ing) of a leader called Birm or Beorma.
Geography played a major role in the transformation of Birmingham from a hamlet worth 20 shillings in 1086 into Britain's centre of manufacturing in the 20th Century. It was a dry site with a good supply of water, routes converging at Deritend Ford across the River Rea. There was easy access to coal, iron and timber.
The de Bermingham family held the Lordship of the manor of Birmingham for four hundred years from around 1150. In 1156 Peter de Birmingham obtained a market charter from Henry II and in 1250 William de Bermingham obtained permission to hold a four day fair at Whitsun.
In addition the family allowed many freedoms to their tenants and there were no restrictive obstacles to trade. Developing as a market centre, Birmingham also saw the beginnings of small scale smithing and metal working. Craftsmen were listed amongst the taxpayers in 1327. When Leland visited Birmingham in 1538 there were 1500 people in 200 houses, one main street with a number of side streets, markets and many smiths who were selling goods all over England.
By supplying the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War (1642-46) with swords, pikes and armour, Birmingham emerged with a strong reputation as a metal working centre. By 1731 the population had grown to 23,000 and manufacturing business thrived. By the time of the Industrial Revolution Birmingham had become the industrial and commercial centre of the Midlands.
During the Victorian era, the population of Birmingham grew rapidly to well over half a million and Birmingham became the second largest population centre in England and the third in Britain after Glasgow and then London. Birmingham's importance led to it being granted city status in 1889 by Queen Victoria.
The city built its own university in 1900, The University of Birmingham, which became the first of Britain's Redbrick universities.
Birmingham was originally part of Warwickshire, however the city expanded in the late 19th and early 20th century, absorbing parts of Worcestershire to the south and Staffordshire to the west. The city absorbed Sutton Coldfield in 1974, and at the same time became part of the new West Midlands county.
Birmingham suffered heavy bomb damage during World War II during the Birmingham Blitz, and partly as a result of this the city centre was extensively re-developed during the 1950s and 1960s, with many concrete office buildings, ring-roads, and now much-derided pedestrian subways. As a result, Birmingham gained a reputation for ugliness and was frequently described as a "concrete jungle".
In recent years however, Birmingham has been transformed, the city centre has been extensively renovated and restored with the construction of new squares, the restoration of old streets, buildings and canals, the removal of the pedestrian subways, and the demolition and subsequent redevelopment of the Bull Ring shopping centre, which now includes the architecturally unique Selfridges building.
In the decades following World War II, the face of Birmingham changed dramatically, with large scale immigration from the Commonwealth of Nations and beyond.
Birmingham's transition from an industrial centre to a tourism and services economy is best illustrated by the hosting of the first official summit of the G8 at the International Convention Centre (May 15 to May 17, 1998).