Why go
Knowing how Birmingham grew makes its varied heritage easier to understand. The market explains its commercial beginnings, while workshop museums show the importance of specialised trades. The Lunar Society and the reform movement add another dimension: this was a city where practical invention and public debate developed alongside industrial production.
The full story
In 1166, Peter de Birmingham received a royal charter to hold a market. The market associated with the Bull Ring helped turn a village into a market town, establishing commerce long before Birmingham's industrial expansion. By the sixteenth century, access to iron ore and coal supported metalworking. During the seventeenth century, arms manufacture became an important trade, concentrated in the Gun Quarter. Rapid growth followed from the middle of the eighteenth century, as Birmingham developed into a major industrial centre. The Lunar Society brought thinkers and industrialists together during this period. Political reform became another part of the city's identity. Thomas Attwood's Birmingham Political Union organised large meetings on Newhall Hill in the years before the Great Reform Act of 1832. After the Second World War, immigration from the Commonwealth and elsewhere further shaped Birmingham's population and culture.