Skip to main content

Birmingham, The City Of A Thousand Trades

The city dubbed as the “workshop of the world” and “the city of a thousand trades” – Birmingham – lies in the West Midlands region of England. After London, it is the second most populated country in Britain and it is quite popular for its relevance as a tourist spot and as a center of commercial activity in the United Kingdom.

Undeniably, one can say that if you know the rich history of this city, you definitely have a good view of how the whole of Britain developed into what it is now. So, for those interested in the inspiring cultural and historical growth of the United Kingdom as a dominating world power, then a look into the development of Birmingham is definitely a must.

Its early beginnings…

Birmingham had humble beginnings. It was first recorded as a small village that was worth no more than twenty shillings as written in the Domesday Book of 1086. Based on the narratives, the place which extended on to the banks of the River Rea was just a farming hamlet occupied by an Anglo Saxon community during the sixth century. Although there were many variations in the name of the town, the most popular of which was “Bremingham”. It got its name from the phrase "Breme inga ham", which means “home of the descendants of Breme.”

Birmingham was also known as “Bermingeham” and “Bromwicham”. These earlier names were used as a basis for naming other important factors in the growing society. “Brummagen”, a dialect and accent name was derived from the word “Bromwicham”. Now people simply refer to this native language as the “Brummie dialect” and the people from the city are referred to as “Brummies”.

The transformation of the simple town

The evolution of Birmingham as a farming community to a manufacturing site was gradual. Its expansion was quite slow but definitely steady as it ranked the third biggest town in the county of Warwickshire during the 1300’s. While other towns developed as a prime settlement, Birmingham catered to traders and manufacturers of fabric and metal products. At that time, the castle of Birmingham became an important power base not just for the constituents of the town but for those interested in trade in the western part of Britain.

During the fourteenth century, the population of the town reached a thousand and the thriving local industry now involved tanning. The trade links also expanded as alliances with East Anglia and Bristol were formed. Little did the civil war do in hampering the town’s growth. It became a trading and manufacturing town of high status and it started to export metal products to London and Europe. Over the years, its industrial importance increased. Now, it is one of the best places to start a business in the United Kingdom and it has become a national commercial center of Europe.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is an iPad the right choice for you?

I've heard a lot of rave comments about Apple's latest creation - the iPad. People are literally craving for it. I, for one, used to lust over this gadget. But then, I checked its specs and I'm beginning to wonder.. Is the iPad for me really? Let's see... If I were to buy a 16gb iPad, that would cost me $499 (or even more since I'm from the Philippines and I'll have to shipping fees, etc.). That's a huge sum of money for some device with very low mem capacity. With that amount, I can get a netbook with an 80GB capacity or more. Another problem I have with the iPad is that it can't run flash. I won't be able to look into browser-based apps and flash-driven content and sites. I'd probably have to say goodbye to FB games then. The iPad also doesn't have a USB port (you'll need a dock connector) and you can't directly install music, photos, movies, etc. on it (apart from those you get from the itunes store). Sooo disappointing. It do...
1 comment
Read more

FREE SOFTWARE REVIEW: Byki Express Japanese Language Software

I have a cousin that lives in Japan now and I am very much interested in learning Japanese. That is why I was on the hunt for Free Foreign Language Learning Software this morning. Fortunately, the search was not that hard. There are dozens of free programs that teach the Japanese language. One of those which I downloaded is the FREE Byki Express Desktop Software. Basically, Byki is not merely focused on teaching the Japanese language. Rather, it is a language learning system that you can use to learn sixty-four different languages (Afrikaans, Albanian, Altai, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Belorussian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Buriat, Chechen, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Haitian, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malay, Mirandese, Mongolian, Norwegian, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Music in Shakespeare's "The Twelfth Night"

In general, music was made in the very same way that literary works are created- through the imaginative and inventive minds and hearts of highly creative beings. They are also mostly made for the same definitive purpose- to be a medium created to impart a particular image or idea open for various interpretations of the audiences. As such, an effort that demands a combination of both music and literary artistry should be considered as a uniquely challenging piece worthy of recognition and analysis. A perfect example of this is Shakespeare’s The Twelfth Night . To carefully examine the effect of musical incorporation in literary works, this paper aims to explore: “The use of music- particularly songs- in order to enhance the thematic focus of the play, the Twelfth Night.” For this purpose, we will identify the theme supported by the songs as: Happiness is a grand opportunity that comes rarely and therefore, should be seized readily. Moreover, throughout the play, happiness is more o...
Post a Comment
Read more