Following in the Steps of the Livery Street Gang. A Self Guided Walking Tour of the Jewellery Quarter with a secret Peaky Blinder.
Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter was the home of the Livery Street Gang, a slogging gang that had many a skirmish with gangs like the Peaky Blinders. Birmingham's love affair with the jewellery industry goes as far back as the early 16th century, with evidence that local goldsmith Roger Pemberton was one of the city's first jewellers in 1553. However, it was in the mid-1770s that Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter grew up in the Northwest corner of the city. It was initially an affluent residential area of the city, but soon artisans set up their workshops in the area to cater for its wealthy inhabitants. Queen Victoria made wearing jewellery fashionable, particularly broaches and lockets. Several different specialist trades were involved in making each piece of jewellery. For example, a ring maker and stone setter were both needed to manufacture a ring. These trades started to set up close to each other to make manufacturing process easier. By 1850, half of the gold and silverware sold in London was produced in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter.
During the industrial revolution, new techniques like electroplating started to be used in the manufacture of jewellery. This allowed a cheap base metal to be coated in a more expensive metal, making jewellery much more affordable. It did, however, also contribute to another of Birmingham's less salubrious trades because it made it easier to make forgeries of coins using a cheap base metal.
Forgery was not the only crime in this area. The slogging gangs roamed the streets here as they did in most areas of the city. On this self-guided tour, you will get a taste of what this area was like during the late 1800s when the Livery Street Gang made the Jewellery Quarter their home. Be sure to check the websites of each attraction before setting off for opening hours as some of the attractions are shut some days.
Otto Pizza
Address: 14 Caroline St, Birmingham B3 1TR
Telephone: 0121 233 3370
Start a day exploring the Jewellery Quarter by grabbing a slice of pizza at Otto's at 14 Caroline Street. Otto Pizza has been voted Best Pizza in Birmingham, so it would be a shame not to stop at the old Jewellery Quarter workshop and grab a slice of wood-fired pizza. The rustic restaurant offers nine signature pizzas, but they also have vegetarian and vegan substitutes.
Soon you will walk down Northwood Street on our way to Charlotte Street. Here in 1870, members of one of the slogging gangs, thought to be the Snow Hill Gang, gathered with sticks, bricks and stones, which they hurled at a policeman as they waited for another gang to turn up for a great afternoon of fighting. The constable bravely held his ground and managed to disperse them, but they started to congregate again around the corner, so he chased them across the canal and into Lionel Street, where he was joined by another constable who had been alerted by his police rattle. They arrested two fourteen-year-old boys. One, John Giblin, an engine driver, was already well known to the police for slogging and violence despite his tender years. These kinds of events were common in the area when young boys and men, bored and eager to prove themselves, saw slogging as a part of life.
At this time, constables would communicate with their colleagues on the street by swinging their rattle. This was a standard part of police equipment, and although it was loud, it was also bulky and cumbersome, especially when chasing a suspect or being pelted with stones by the local sloggers. The Jewellery Quarter was to offer the solution. A local man, Joseph Hudson, was playing his violin, but as he finished and placed his violin on his table he didn't quite put it down as he intended. It fell to the floor, and it broke. The sound it made was jarring and led him to develop a whistle with a similar sound which was tested and found to be the best and most effective replacement for the rattle. Being situated in Buckingham Street in the Jewellery Quarter, where he had worked since the age of twelve as a toolmaker, Hudson was surrounded by tradesmen whose could help him produce the whistles. His company has gone on to produce over 450 million whistles. These whistles have been used on the Titanic, for numerous sporting events and in the D-day landings, and the company, now known as Acme Whistles, has moved just down the road to Barr Street still in the Jewellery Quarter. As you walk onto Charlotte Street, you may need your whistle to alert the police as you are confronted by a member of a more familiar gang.
Learn more about Joseph Hudson and the police whistle at https://www.acmewhistles.co.uk
•Head southeast on Caroline St toward Northwood St.
•After 0.2 miles turn left onto St Paul's Square
•In 16 feet turn right onto Charlotte St.
Peaky Blinder Statue
Address: 62 Charlotte St, Birmingham B3 1BP
Head to 62 Charlotte Street and look up to see a Peaky Blinder looking down on you from the Assay Loft Apartment Block. This apartment block was built on the former car park of the Assay Office, which had been there from 1878 until they moved to a new purpose-built office in 2015. The statue was inspired by TV's Peaky Blinders and is by the sculptor Paul Margetts. This Peaky Blinder is not the only famous gang member rumoured to have been in the streets of the Jewellery Quarter in recent times.
A local history legend has it that the Kray Twins, the infamous gangsters of the 1960s, ended their attempt to infiltrate Birmingham when they were confronted in the Jewellery Quarter by local enforcers.
If you had wandered down Charlotte Street in 1920 you may have bumped into a woman who was down on her luck and struggling to make ends meet in one of the back to back houses. Maud, as she was known, had 2 daughters and aging parents to care for and made extra money by singing in the pubs. She was known for her beautiful voice but had been abandoned a decade earlier by her husband who was a man you may know of, Billy Kimber. Even when she died six years later at only 43 Billy who by then had made a substantial amount of money on the racecourses would not pay for her funeral and she was buried in a Pauper’s grave.
Next, we will check out two museums which will give you a taste of Birmingham's History and what life must have been like for poor Maud.
•Head southwest on Charlotte St toward Holland St.
•After 0.1 miles turn left onto Parade/B4135.
•In 207 feet turn left onto Fleet St.
The Coffin Works
Address: 13-15 Fleet Street, Birmingham, B3 1JP
Telephone: 0121 233 4785
It was not just jewellery manufactured here, but also buttons, medals, trophies, coffin fixtures, and even pens.
Next, head to the Coffin Works at 13-15 Fleet Street, a wonderful museum that shows you what it was like to work in the Newman Brother's factory producing coffin fixtures. Fleet Street was the home of the notorious Fleet Street Slogging gang. The gangs' territories were relatively small, often named after a single street that made up most of that territory. This is such a street. The canals not only played an essential part in Birmingham's industrial history, but also acted as lines between different gangs' territories. Alongside Fleet Street runs the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal, which was a significant boundary between the territories of the Rough Fleet Gang and the Gun Quarter Gangs of Price Street, Loveday Street and Weaman Street.
The Jewellery Quarter residents were the elite of Birmingham's craftsmen, but were not such soft targets to the tougher members of Birmingham society as one might think. The pearl button makers, in particular, had a fearsome reputation.
In March 1874, a quarrel broke out between members of the Gun Quarter gang who lived on Loveday Street and the Rough Fleet Street Gang, who were joined by the Hanley Street and Cecil Street lads. The Loveday crew crossed the canal to Cecil Street, where they smashed windows and stoned passersby to provoke their opponents into showing themselves. Instead, a ten-year-old boy named Thomas Shelton, who the Cecil Street lads had sent to suss out the situation suffered a severe head injury from a volley of stones. A brave police constable, PC Brown, arrested a 14-year-old brass caster who was a member of the Gun Quarter Gang and helped get the young Thomas to the hospital. These kinds of battles were commonplace at this time, and the weapons used tended to be whatever was close to hand. Hopefully, you will make it out of Fleet Street in one piece and be able to head to the Pen Museum at 60 Frederick Street, but keep an eye out for those sloggers!
•Head northwest toward Fleet St.
•After 46 ft turn left onto Fleet St.
•After 207 feet turn right onto Parade/B4135
•Walk for 295 feet and take a slight right to stay on Parade/B4135.
•Continue to follow B4135 for 338 ft until you reach a roundabout.
•At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto Newhall Hill and walk 0.1 miles to continue onto Frederick St where the Pen Museum will be on your left.
The Pen Museum
Address: 60 Frederick Street - Birmingham, B1 3HS
Telephone:
0121 236 9834
The Birmingham Pen Museum is a great place to visit in the old Albert Works building built in 1863. Literacy rates grew substantially in the early 19th century, and the traditional quill had its drawbacks. It needed to be regularly sharpened, so the new steel nibs were in great demand as they did not need to be sharpened, just wiped clean of ink when you had finished. By 1870, three out of four steel pens were made in Birmingham and the steel pen opened up writing to the masses.
•Head north on Frederick St toward Albion St.
•After 0.2 miles at the roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto Vyse St.
•Walk along Vyse Street until you see the clock tower.
The Chamberlain Clock
Address: 168 Warstone Ln, Birmingham B18 6NP
Whilst you are in Birmingham, you may have spotted the world's tallest clock tower, affectionally known as Old Joe is named. It stands on the grounds of Birmingham University's Edgbaston Campus, where Birmingham Mayor Joseph Chamberlain was their first chancellor. At 100 meters tall can be seen from far and wide. It is even said to have been the inspiration for the tower of Orthanc, the Black Tower of Isengard, in J.R.R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy as well as the clock tower in Pixar's Monsters University.
However, this is not the only clock named after Chamberlain. Here in the Jewellery Quarter, the iconic Chamberlain Clock stands at the junction of the Vyse and Frederick Street with Warstone Lane. It was constructed in 1903 to mark Chamberlain's visit to South Africa and was unveiled in January 1904 by his wife.
The Jewellery Quarter is a wonderful area of Birmingham full of hidden gems, which inspired Ian Mc Millan to create his own hidden gem, which is our next stop.
•Head North on Vyse Street
The Golden Square
Address: Studio 508F, The Big Peg, 120 Vyse St, Birmingham B18 6NF
Ian McMillan's poem "Talking to Somebody about the Jewellery Quarter" was inspired by the people and workshops of the Jewellery Quarter. In 2015, it was laser-cut into the red stone seam that runs down the middle of the Golden Square on Warstone Lane, Birmingham. Can you find the poem that begins with "This place shines. It really shines”?
The reality of working in a Jewellery Quarter Workshop in Victorian times was not as glamorous as this poem makes it seem. The museum of the Jewellery Quarter is a preserved workshop from that time which gives a much more realistic picture of life in this area of Birmingham.
•Head north on Vyse St toward Pitsford St.
•After 0.2 miles turn right onto Branston St the museum will be on the right
Museum of the Jewellery Quarter
Address: 75-80 Vyse St, Birmingham B18 6HA
Telephone: 0121 348 8000
https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/museum-of-the-jewellery-quarter
By the Victorian age, 30,000 people were employed in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter. The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter is in the old Smith and Pepper factory. Here you can see the cramped conditions where people worked for an average of eleven hours a day. Children as young as eight worked in the factory alongside men and women. In the museum, you can see a tiny stool that a child would have stood on to reach their workbench.
There was a rapid expansion of the jewellery trade in this area in the 1800s. The growth of industry into this area was aided by the establishment of the Birmingham Assay Office in 1773, which was petitioned for by Boulton and other industrialists.
In 1770 there were 26 jewellery workshops in the quarter, but by 1880, this had risen to 700. However, as the Jewellery Quarter grew, living conditions fell.
Many of the people who worked in the Smith and Pepper can be found at our next stop, but not sure how many stories they will be able to tell you!
•Head northwest on Branston St toward Vyse St.
•After 49 feet continue onto Hylton St.
•After 203 feet take a slight right onto Key Hill Drive.
•Walk for 0.1 miles before turning left onto Key Hill.
•After 233 feet turn left onto Cemetery Lane.
Key Hill Cemetery
Address: Key Hill, Birmingham B18 5AH, United Kingdom
The Jewellery Quarter has two cemeteries which are now closed for burials, Warstone Lane and Key Hill Cemetery, but today we are visiting the Key Hill Cemetery, which has some great events run by the friends of the cemetery that you can see on their website. If you have been on our historical tour, you will know all about William Murphy and the Murphy Riots, and it is here in Key Hill Cemetery that William was laid to rest. You may have chosen to do our food tour, where you would have learnt all about William Bird, a pharmacist who built a huge empire after developing a popular product to keep his wife happy. Well Alfred, too, is buried in Key Hill Cemetery. Another resident of the cemetery is Joseph Chamberlain, after whom the clock we saw earlier was named.
•Head east on Cemetery Ln toward Key Hill.
•After 308 feet turn right onto Key Hill.
•Continue on for 397 feet before turning right onto Hockly Hill/B4100.
•Continue to follow B4100.
•After 0.3 miles take a slight right onto Constitution Hill/B4100.
•Walk for 0.2 miles then turn left onto Henrietta Street.
Henrietta Street
Just pause here for a second and try to imagine this area on a Sunday in August 1862. The pubs in the area are "filled with people of low reputation", and at about noon, they all spill out onto the streets intoxicated and looking for a fight. With not much to do on a Sunday afternoon, they spent their time quarrelling and fighting in the streets. Youths congregated, flocking to the area from various parts of the city and from various trades, including iron and brass works and people from the nearby Jewellery Quarter. They have gathered to gamble in games of Pitch and Toss and are noisy and violent and blocking the way for the local residents. Eventually, the police arrive, but by now, news of a good fight has spread around the city and now over 200 people are here on Henrietta Street fighting and brawling.
They may have all been fighting each other, but when the police arrive they join together against the common enemy and start to throw stones at the police. A local resident tries to offer refuge to the police but is savagely kicked for his trouble. A few arrests are made but this is just a typical Sunday in Birmingham at this time.
•Head southwest on Henrietta St toward Constitution Hill/B4100.
•After 0.1 miles continue onto Mary Ann St.
•Walk 322 feet before turning right onto St Paul's Square where you will find St Pauls House.
St Paul's House
Address: 15-20 St Paul’s Square, Birmingham B3 1QU
Telephone: 0121 272 0999
https://www.saintpaulshouse.com
St Paul's Square is the only remaining Georgian square in Birmingham, and the church in its centre was attended by the new industrialists such as Matthew Boulton and James Watt who had their own pews. Designed by Roger Eykyn of Wolverhampton, building started in 1777, and the church was consecrated in 1779. It was built on land given by Charles Colmore from his Newhall estate.
St. Paul's House is one of the square's original residential buildings, but spent many years as an industrial workshop when the area became less attractive to the wealthy industrialists who had originally inhabited these streets. It is now an excellent bar and restaurant and a great place to get dinner at the end of a day exploring the Jewellery Quarter and reflect on all the great things you have seen.
•From here it is only a three minute walk back to Ottos. Head northwest on St Paul's Square toward Cox St.
•After 177 feet turn left to stay on St Paul's Square.
•Turn right onto Caroline St in about 200 feet and Ottos will be on the right.
If you are still eager to know more why not join us for one of our interactive slogging gang tours available on toptoursglobal.com.
Learn about William Murphy who now resides in Key Hill Cemetery on our historical tour or about another resident, Alfred Bird, on our Food tour. On our drinking tour you will hear all about Jewellery Quarter resident Jessie Eden the trade union leader. Which ever tour you choose we will give you a fun couple of hours which will make you feel part of the City of a Thousand Trades.
