My Gift From a Nobel Prize Winner

Monday, 8 August 1881 - Birmingham, UK

University of Birmingham asked me to look up one of their most famous students: Francis William Aston. He attended Mason College which will merge with Birmingham Medical School to become Birmingham University. Aston went on to graduate from University of Cambridge where he stayed on to do research. There he will improve the mass spectrograph and use it to discover isotopes in a large number of non-radioactive elements. He will also prove William Prout’s hypothesis of the whole number rule which states that the masses of the elements are whole number multiples of the mass of the hydrogen atom. For this he will be awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

High Street, Harborne and the ominbus from Birmingham

F.W. Aston is currently in the town of Harborne. Once a medieval hamlet, the omnibus and train have turned it into a suburb of nearby Birmingham, which will one day engulf it. At this point though Harborne still has a country feel about it. There are still small farms about. Their gooseberries and strawberries are famous.

St. Peter's  Church tower

At the center of town is St. Peter’s church which dates back to Saxon times. (I was assured St. Chad himself had preached here.) The current church dates back to the 1860s but the tower was built in the 1300s. The rest of the town though is fairly new. Victorian homes line the streets.

On South Street, Bull Street and York Street there is lower income housing for the working class, but these are not poorly made back-to-backs. Only two sides, not three, butt against their neighbors and they have gardens in the back. Far cry from the slum workers lived in not long ago.

With historic records and DNA scan, I was able to track down the brilliant Francis William Aston. He was in his parents’ garden making mud pies. He will be four next month. I don’t know if its fair to record such a brilliant mind while that mind is still developing, but the folks back home seem to love seeing legends in their youth.

Wanting to get closer to record the lad without scaring him, I pretended I didn’t notice him until I got to the gate. “Oh, hello, young man. Can you tell me where the post office is?”

Francis William Aston (many years later)

He nodded and pointed in the correct direction. Bright lad.

“My word,” I said. “Whatever are you doing?”

“Making mud pies. Want one?” He generously held one out to me.

“Why, yes!”

Aston stood up, his short pants and his legs covered in mud. I hoped his mother would be merciful with him. He came to the gate, holding his gift out to me. I pulled out my handkerchief and carefully took it. “Why thank you very much, young man.”

“Francis. My name is Francis.”

“Thank you, Francis. My name is Dr. Wendell Howe. Very pleased to make your acquaintance. This is a very well-crafted mud pie.”

“The dirt under that bush over there makes the best ones.” Aston said with an air of expertise.

“Francis!” I heard a women’s voice call.

“That’s Mummy.” Aston informed me. “Got to go.” And he turned and dashed off.

I carefully carried my acquisition to a local shop and found a wooden jewelry box. The clerk must have thought me barking mad to put a mud pie in it. I carefully packed it with tissue paper.

I know the University of Birmingham will be very pleased with what I have accumulated today for them. Not only do I have a recording of Francis William Aston as a child, but I have his very first chemistry experiment!

Living Back to Back

Tuesday, 2 August 1881 - Birmingham, England

I have been traveling about Birmingham recording buildings that will be destroyed by German bombs in the Blitz or over-zealous city planners. Today I tried to record buildings no one is sorry to see disappear.

Once a small village and now near the city center, Digbeth was the first industrial district of Birmingham. Starting with the late middle ages with the influx of blacksmiths, Digbeth rang with the sound of anvils. Other workshops and factories began springing up.

One problem with the industrial age (mainly 1750-1850) was the factories came before trains and trams. Workers had to walk to work. Housing had to be crammed into small spaces and had to be low cost. One solution was the back-to-back house.

Nicer back-to-back houses around a courtyard

The back-to-back was so named because the back of the house butted up against the back of another house, or a shop or factory. The sides were shared with the houses beside you. Windows were only in the front of the house, because that was the only open side. They were generally two story, with a parlor/kitchen/dining room on the bottom, and a bedroom on the second floor. Sometimes a third floor was added. The stairwell was narrow and steep, so accidents were common. Some houses had no stairs at all but a ladder built against the wall you had to climb to get to the next floor.

This might have made quaint Bohemian lodgings for college students, but these were usually crammed with large families. Add to that poor lighting and ventilation (windows on one side, remember?) No plumbing and crowded conditions made for poor sanitation. The only heat came from a small coal-fired stove, which added to the black soot that coated the neighborhood. Disease spreads quickly in this sort of environment.

A common site in the crowded Victorian slums

Birmingham isn’t the only city with slums but she is one of the first to do something about it. In 1874, then Lord Mayor Joseph Chamberlain began improving water, sewer and gas utilities by making them the city’s responsibility. He implemented a plan to tear down the slums, sending the tenants to the less crowded suburbs. Some will end up in back-to-backs again, but these will be ones in better condition.

Back-to-backs houses
due for demolition

Those who can afford it have already moved to the suburbs, leaving only the poorest in these slums. Many of them are Irish, the largest minority group currently (1881) in Birmingham. Unable to pay for passage to America or Canada, they took a boat across the Irish Sea to try to escape poverty. Poverty just followed them. Most of the Irish are unskilled labor and prefer to work construction to factory work. Chamberlain's  plan to build affordable but decent housing in the suburbs will not only given them new homes but jobs as well in the demolition and construction. Those that remain in Digbeth will be in a less crowded, more healthy Digbeth.

Joseph Chamberlain

Joseph Chamberlain is one of the few mayors anywhere who was able, in only a few years, to leave his city in much better shape than he found it. He made his fortune here in Birmingham and he has certainly repaid the city. The grateful citizens erected a memorial to him in Council House Square just last year. No, Joseph Chamberlain isn’t dead. He is in Parliament right now as the President of the Board of Trade (later called Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.) Although he will never be Prime Minister, he is becoming one of the most influential politicians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

As for Digbeth, it’s already looking much better. Some day it will be home to the biggest St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Great Britain as the community celebrates it’s Irish heritage, as well as the tenacity of their ancestors who clawed their way out of poverty so their children could live better lives.

Digbeth already enjoying improvements

Birmingham’s Last Back-to-Back (now a museum)

This Man's Home IS a Castle

Saturday, 23 July 1881 - Tamworth, England

Today I took the train to town of Tamworth, only 14 miles northeast of Birmingham’s city Centre, to visit its most impressive building--Tamworth Castle. Some day it will be a museum, but now it’s a residence. I had written a letter to the current occupant, a Mr. Thomas Cooke, telling him I was a historian from the University of Cambridge (well, that’s not a lie) and asking if I could visit. He sent me an lovely invitation.

Tamworth

Thomas Cooke is a amiable, if no-nonsense man in his late fifties. He has a factory in Tamworth that employs 500 making clothes for the working classes. Victorians invented “off-the-rack” for those who could not afford tailored clothes. Or in Mr. Cooke’s words, “No reason an honest working man should have to wear ragged cast-offs. My clothes may from an assembly line, but they are well-made and smart looking.”

Tamworth Castle

I asked Mr. Cooke how long his family had owned Tamworth Castle. “My family has lived here since 1867, but I don’t own it. The Townsends own it, but have been renting it out since 1833. Did you know Sir Robert Peel lived here before me? I understand he bred imported Irish pigs with local pigs to create the Tamworth pig while he lived here.”

Tamworth Piglets

“Oh yes, hardy breed.” I didn’t tell him that it’s the Tamworth pigs ability to adapt to so many climates that made it so popular with off-world colonies.

Cooke is very proud of his home, even if he doesn’t own it. He said he loved showing it off. Even invited his workers here for outdoor tea parties. He knew all about it’s history and regaled me with stories as he showed me about the place.

Cooke's Drawing Room in Tamworth Castle

Tamworth Castle dates back to about 1070 and is one of the best preserved motte-and-bailey castles surviving in England. There was even an earlier castle here dating back to the Saxons. Queen Aethelflaeda, daughter of Alfred the Great, built it in 913 to fight the invading Vikings. I got the impression Cooke greatly admired this feisty lady.

Ariel View of Tamworth Castle

Over the years many additions were made to the Norman Castle. Rather than building beside the old fortification, as other castles have, the lords here built inside the walls, retaining the original look of the motte-and-bailey on the outside. Cooke gave a lively account of all the battles that had been fought here. I’m sure University of Birmingham will love shifting through his tales to see what is true and what is local legend--both of equal importance.

George Townsend II

Like many castles, Tamworth fell into disrepair. Luckily it was inherited by Field Marshal George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend through his marriage to Charlotte Compton, the grandniece of 1st Earl Ferrers in 1751. George Townsend was one the great movers and shakers of his time. He had little interest in the castle but his son, George II decided to restore Tamworth to it’s full medieval glory. Unfortunately that included the wing from the Elizabethan period. He tore out the original windows to put in Gothic ones. When Junior died in 1811, the castle was not quite finished and his estate was bankrupt. Still he devoted his life to saving this building so we can forgive him his lack of historic accuracy.

The ruined fortune of the Townsends forced them to rent out the property. In 1897 they will be have to sell and Cooke will have to move. Luckily for the rest of us the Tamworth Corporation will buy it and turn it into a museum opening in 1899. In the meantime, the castle is Cooke’s.

Tamsworth Castle Museum Opening Day - 1899

“So you are now Lord of the Castle, eh?” I said.

Statue of Aethelflaeda
erected on castle grounds 1913
1000 years after she built 1st castle

“I’m only renting that title, but it is romantic to be living in a medieval castle. Pity there isn’t a Lady of the Castle. My poor wife died some time ago. I suppose my daughter is the lady of the castle now. She’s my housekeeper.”

“You might get married again.”

Cooke snorted. “I’m fifty-eight, sir. What woman would want an old duffer like me?”

I suppressed a smile. My files show that Thomas Cooke in 1884 will marry Frances Wann, age thirty-five. They will have a daughter later that year and name her Aethelflaeda. Fitting that the last “queen” of Tamworth Castle will be named for it’s first.


Tamworth Castles official website -- more photos and history

You can follow Tamworth Castle on Twitter at @TamworthCastle

A video of Tamworth Castle museum

The Saxons Returned to Tamworth Castle

The Best an Orphan Could Hope For

Friday, 15 July 1881 - Birmingham, UK

Today I visited the Mason Orphanage in the Birmingham suburb of Erdington, exactly five miles from Birmingham’s city center. The custodians were eager to show me about, no doubt thinking me a wealthy philanthropist.

Mason Orphanage

The Orphanage was opened in 1869 by Sir Joshua Mason, the pen king. Mason was the largest manufacturer of writing pens in Britain. Don’t go looking for a Mason pen, for he made them for other distributors who put their own names on the pens. When Mason couldn’t find anyone who wanted to help poor children, he had to pay for the building himself.

The orphanage was needed. The lot of the orphan in the 19th century is not good. Most are either homeless or in workhouses where they are worked like slaves for a roof over their heads and some gruel (watered-down oatmeal--emphasis on watered down.)

By Victorian standards Mason’s Orphanage is progressive. The children are clothed in something other than rags, sleep in clean beds, get adequate meals and are given an education (things workhouse children don’t get.) Indeed this is a better deal than Joshua Mason received as a child. He had to go to work at a very early age, and never was able to attend school.

Mason girls attending class

By our standards, the orphanage is horrible. The children wear uniforms, sleep in crowded dormitories, the food is boring and flavorless and their spare time is spent doing chores around the orphanage. Some of the staff are mean, and those that aren’t understandably can’t give the children individual attention.

Dormitory in the Mason Orphanage

Perhaps the cruelest practice is the children are not allowed to leave to visit kin. Relatives can come here but only on specified dates in January and June, in the middle of the week, between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m. with a limit of three relatives. I suppose the custodians believe that the relatives should have just taken the child in, but too often they are just too poor to feed one more mouth. Contact with relatives would benefit the child so he would know that someone does care about him.

My guide assured me that all the children are of legitimate birth with both parents dead. They do not except “foundlings.” This always bothered me about the Victorians. Not only is poverty considered a crime, but a child is held personally responsible for whether or not his parents got married. But what is truly deplorable is a man in this society can seduce some young naïve girl and then waltz away, leaving her and the baby to suffer the wrath of proper society. The “hussy” and her “illegitimate” child are victims, not criminals.

Perhaps the saddest spot on the orphanage grounds was a burial plot with its little gravestones. I’m sure none of these children were starved or beaten to death. Most Victorian families will lose at least one child to some disease like Scarlett Fever or Diphtheria. No, what I found heart-breaking is that their lives were short and tragic. They never had a real childhood.

Cemetery at the Mason Orphanage

In the next century Mason Orphanage will be converted into a school. It will be closed in 1960 and torn down in 1964. All the little bodies will be dug up and cremated to make room for development. Almost all the records of the orphans will be destroyed as unimportant. Children disregarded in life and even more in death.

I know this boggles the mind. In our own 27th century every parent has to fight long and hard with the Population Growth Regulators to be given the privilege to even have a child. Any orphans are instantly snatched up by eager relatives. Children are considered precious and not nuisances to be ignored.

The orphanage currently holds 150 boys, 300 girls and 50 infants. The vast majority will reach adulthood with enough education to get a decent job. They will have a better life than they would have without Sir Joshua Mason. At least they will have a life.

World’s First Industrial Town

Monday, 4 July 1881 - Birmingham, England

The Industrial Revolution “officially” started about 1750. Birmingham beat everyone by two centuries! John Leland in 1536 commented on the extraordinary number of smiths and ironmongers in the town. Birmingham is now hailed as the world’s first industrial town! (All right, Manchester makes that claim, too, but they did it using a Birmingham invention.)

John Dudley

How did this happen? In the Middle Ages towns were either incorporated and run by a city council or were ruled by the lord of the local manor. In 1510 Birmingham was a village of about 1000 ruled over by the powerful de Birmingham family. Then in 1530, John Dudley, who was practically running the country for under aged King Edward VI, cheated the de Birminghams out of their manor. John was soon beheaded and his descendants hung onto, but pretty much ignored, Birmingham.

What did Birmingham do when left to its own devices? Did it fall apart without tight control? On the contrary, it thrived! Free enterprise, unshackled by foolish bureaucrats, flourished. By 1700 the population had become 15,000 as merchants and artisans poured into the town. Since it is located close to iron and coal, smiths were especially attracted. The town was a center first of sword making, then guns.

Furthermore, due to the lack of restrictive Trade Guilds, workers could easily trade one profession for another until they found their best niche. Shops could manufacturer more than one item, or even invent new ones. There was a higher degree of social mobility. Luckily the self-made businessmen who came into power were more interested in commerce than land so saw to it that this free enterprise continued.

This atmosphere of free-thinking drew in philosophers, scientists, authors, religious dissenters and political radicals. It became the heart of the Midlands Enlightenment and the subsequent Industrial Revolution. The Lunar Society of Birmingham was the leading scientific association of the 18th century of Britain with members like Joseph Priestley, James Keir, Matthew Boulton, James Watt, William Withering and Erasmus Darwin. They kept close ties with other centers of the enlightenment in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and even Europe and America, freely exchanging ideas.

1758 Patent Drawing
Roller Spinning Machine
which started the cotton mills

In 1709, Abraham Darby I opened the first successful coke-fired blast furnace in nearby Coalbrookdale. This plant would created the first rails for trains and the world’s first cast-iron bridge. In 1741, Lewis Paul and John Wyatt, using their recent inventions, opened the world’s first cotton mill. John Roebuck, James Keir and Joseph Priestly made great advances in chemistry that could be applied commercially, practically inventing industrial chemistry.

In 1775, James Watt and Matthew Boulton created the industrial steam engine, freeing manufacturers from water mills and horse-power to run their factories with the plentiful local coal. Even though Watt had made his discovery while working at the University of Glasgow improving Newcomen’s steam engine, he came to Birmingham for the iron workers to make his invention practical. The age of steam started in Birmingham. Between 1760 and 1850, Birmingham residents registered over three times as many patents in manufacturing technology than any other city.

Ironically it will be the later developed northern manufacturing centers who will take full advantage of cotton mills and steam engines. In the 18th century Birmingham’s major industries will be small high-priced metal items like button, buckles, guns and jewelry. This means a well trained, higher paid workforce.

Between 1700 and 1750 the population quadrupled. By 1775 it was the third largest city in England. By 1850 it will be second only to London. In the 19th century small workshops still dominate making screws, locks, tools, toys, guns, jewelry, etc. However large factories are becoming much more common. Innovation will continue. In 1856, Birmingham’s Alexander Parkes will invent parkesine--the world’s first plastic!

Birmingham today (1881)

This rapid growth has led to ill thought-out housing that quickly degraded into slums. While Birmingham was one of the first cities to have industrial blight, it was also one of the first to do something about it, largely due to one man--Joseph Chamberlain. Also thanks to the trains, which came in 1837, and the horse-drawn trams, which came in 1873, public transportation has allowed the population to spread out of the overcrowded city, into the surrounding villages as commuters.

Birmingham has not done badly for a city with no port, built away from the major Roman roads. She is a “backwater” village that made the most of her isolation to become the first industrial town when no one was looking.