Mr Horsley was born in 1807, in 1890, he wrote down his memories, which were printed in the Handsworth Chronicle over a period of weeks. In these short articles it brings to life, Handsworth and Perry Barr. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have:

HANDSWORTH CHRONICLE 17^th MARCH 1890

Octogenarian Memories

More than 70 years have we known this rapidly increasing suburb of Handsworth and seen from period to period its changes and growth. Though that growth has not been like the giant strides of such cities, as Melbourne and Chicago, yet I have been rapid for a small village and sparse population in the centre of an old state like England.

One who has observed the disappearance of the powered and china pig-tailed head and the topped and Hessian booted leg of the gentleman of his native Brummagem; who has noted the nankeen breeches and swallowed-tailed coat of the third George, brilliant in gilt or plated buttons; who has been awakened by the long-dreary tones of the watchman as he proclaimed the weather of the early morning before he left his beat; one who has walked in youthful days through the painful pebble-paved street, noting the irregular and ugly Georgian houses of the now metropolitan erections of the latter years of the reign of our good Victoria; who has rambled through the woody walks, ornamented with numerous variegated lamps and listened with delight to the music provided on Gala Nights at Vauxhall Gardens, could not fail to observe the changes taking place with accelerated speed in the suburbs of his native town. How vast they have been since mounted upon a Welsh pony, a man to take care of him, as, in his eleventh year, he used to ride through the then small roadside village of West Bromwich, now so large and populous – to Wolverhampton on business to collect debts and obtain offers for spoons and forks for our father.

This was about 1817

At this time we were thought so youthful that some scrupulous customers almost objected to pay us.

Handsworth was then a small pleasant suburb to our neighbouring town. Our first knowledge of it was that our maternal grandfather, Tom Horsley, owned and occupied a cottage as his country house at the bottom of Heathfield Road then called Bristnal’s End. He was himself a button manufacturer in the neighbourhood of Gosta Green, Birmingham. This was a white rough cast house on the site of the present game and fish shop opposite Trinity Church The cottage was adorned with posts and chains in front, built in the style of the day, without a hall, the door opening into the front room. It had a good garden with flourishing fruit trees at the back. Whether the picturesque house, occupied by the Rev. Pelham Maitland opposite, was then built, I do not know, but presume it was not.

We possess and old Psalter which belonged to an aunt which contains dates from 1800 to 1818 with other writing regarding our family. Our great grandmere, I have been told, used to give us rides on her foot amusing us with the nursery tales of the day, both here and in Birmingham.

At this time, Mr John Wadhams, then young, was acquainted with Mr. Horsley.

The father of Mr Wadhams was a farmer of the old stamp, fond of a good horse and a bold foxhunter. He occupied some of the land by Bristnalls End and his widow afterwards farmed at Church Hill Farm for many years, much respected and well known as Mrs. Peggy Wadhams. Mr J Wadhams afterwards purchased Wellhead House, Perry Barr and some forty acres of land around it, which continued in the family for many years. The land was sold to the Calthorpe family and residence and grounds of the Quaker Wadhams family. At that period one side of Soho Hill was occupied by the park pales of the grounds of the clever and practical Matthew Boulton; the other by a pleasant house or two in the midst of agreeable fields and gardens. One of these was afterwards the residence of Mr. Evett a great coach proprietor in the palmy days of coaching. His eccentric but good natured wife might be seen oddly dressed, carrying a mop or other domestic article bought in Birmingham and she was occasionally passed by her husband and daughter in their carriage and pair, which she had refused to occupy. About this time, we used to go with a cousin to see bears baited and bulls toss dogs about the crowed, near the site of the present Local Board. This was at the wakes of those years. Should these reminiscences interest our more refined Handsworth population of the present day? They may be continued as memorials of bygone days in our Merry England.

H.H.H.H.

[We shall heartily welcome further contributions from HHHH who we may inform our readers is in his 83^rd year]

HANDSWORTH CHRONICLE 29^th March 1890

The Wadhams family occupied the farm called Church Hill for many years and across its fields was a pleasant footpath to the Parish Church. The last occupant was the widow Mrs Margaret, more commonly known as Mrs Peggy Wadhams, one of whose nieces the write married. Mrs Peggy was an excellent woman and much valued by her family and neighbourhoods. The cottage of William Horsley, mistakenly called Tom Horsley was occupied many years by an eccentric and rather unsocial man named Pinks, who considered himself the only gentleman in the neighbourhood. Mr Haughton lived opposite, being a retired draper from Bull Street, Birmingham, I suppose, although keeping a carriage and pair was disqualified. Mr Pinks had a son of rather weak intellect, remarkable and well known in his day by the title of Billy Pinks. He was passionately fond of music and played fairly awkwardly upon the violin and was an amusing butt for the practical jokes of the young man of his day. The road to Perry Barr at an early period contained no building except a cottage or two and a house upon the site of the house of Mr Geo. Bragg erected afterwards, and a small farm near the site of the former tollgate. As a boy, the writer has heard repeatedly, the then Rector of Handsworth, Mr Freer, before he was attacked by paralysis and thought him a very able preacher. He also afterwards knew Mr Richard Freer, his son, who married a daughter of the celebrated opponent of the Reform Bill, Sir Charles Wetherall and was made Archdeacon of Hereford. The lady was cousin to him. Richard, commonly called “Dick” Freer was a curate of the Parish Church with Rev. Daniel Walton, with whom the writer was upon intimate terms of friendship. How different the church was in those days, with two galleries, in the organ one of which we sat. Mr Haughton of Birchfield occupied a large square pew in the larger gallery. He was a chatty and agreeable man. Many have been the times; he has taken our arm from the house called “Crocketts”, in the Wolverhampton Road, where we had met as members of the National School Committee. There were no newly made roads leading from it, beyond it, no railway, no Endwood Court, the residence of Mr. J. B. Clarke. How well do we remember it’s being built by Mr Rupele, after a life of pecuniary vicissitudes. It was built regardless of expense, and is a residence for a nobleman, contrasting powerfully with the Jerry buildings of so many of the showy Villa’s one sees around. Walking onwards towards Hampstead one came upon the residences of members of the Whately Family, Councillor Clarke, so called then; and the Squire-like merchant William Wallis, who rode into Birmingham upon his glossy, well groomed stead, accoutred in buck-skin beeches, top boots, with hand whip and a coat with shining buttons, adorned and brilliant. The country about Hampstead was then delightfully rural with picturesque and it’s brook well stocked with fish. A surgeon named Partridge eminently popular in Birmingham as an accoucheur was found angling there in the few leisure hours he could command. We knew him well, and painted his portrait in our youth, and remember we had a difficulty to keep him awake, perhaps in consequence of his repeated professional calls in nights previous. The giant mind of Watt was striving before this period, aided by the practical skill and orderly mind of the elder Boulton, to perfect the application of steam to the arts of life. Murdock too was endeavouring to apply gas to the lighting of towns. How great have been the results of their labours, leading from the use of the lumbering hackney coach and the expensive but more elegant post chaise. To the cheap steam trams and rapid railway to today; also to the wonderful and varied applications of steam machinery to the arts of life. Gas, too has been variously used and has not yet seen the extent of its purposes in domestic and scientific affairs. During these years, the first and most memorable French revolution had upset and confounded the ideas of mankind, and seized upon the minds of such men as Burke, Southey, and even Wordsworth. England was then in a white military heat, volunteers patriotically abounding. Militia regiments were on permanent duty, even restless and troublesome. Squalling children were quelled by nurse calls for the strong-willed and selfish Corsican berry to take them. The “Rawhead and bloody bones” of former days had found. A substitute, the best game of the boys of the period was to play at soldiers and cut off the head of the great enemy of England. We remember going in a post-chaise to visit, with our parents, a military camp at Sutton Coldfield and dining in a refreshment tent with them. Probably Wild Green was frequented, by Booth and other bad characters as highwaymen. This man was a notorious coiner, and was even believed to have murdered his own brother and also a peddler who used to pass his bad money. He, at this time occupied a farm near Queslett. For some years afterwards held by Mr John Clarke. The writer lived at Yew Tree Cottage and adjoining and has frequently seen blanks of some counterfeit coins, picked up about the premises, and has also seen a plate engraved to imitate the notes of Dudley Bank, with the castle upon them. The farm belonged to the eccentric and miserable elder Squire Gough, who is said to fear to turn his tenant out. Many anecdotes passed current of the doings of the old square, among others that he was said to keep a running bull to frighten persons from trespassing upon his park; also to save his money in a stocking and bank it when the stocking was full; and not to admit a woman to enter his hall. The dreaded booth was afterwards hanged for coining. The runners, as the detectives of that period were called, took soldiers to aid them from Birmingham surrounded the house and took him before he was able to destroy the whole of his bad money. Although he was said to be burning notes as rapidly as he could whilst they surrounded his house. To be continued next week.

HANDSWORTH CHRONICLE 5^TH April 1890

At this early period the Perry Barr estate was heavily timbered, the old square allowing his trees to grow even to the detriment of his tenantry. These noble beech trees, some of which still adorn the lanes, must have been young at the time. The road which leads so directly to the Scott Arms at Great Barr was not then made. This road to Walsall was a circuitous one. Its lane were very beautiful especially one leading by Mr. Moore’s, the seedsman. I think, called the Rocky Lane joining the old Walsall Road near the bottom of Hamstead Hill. Near this stop, resided Mr Wren, a descendant, I believe of the great Sir Christopher, the celebrated architect of St Pauls and so many of the London churches after the great fire. Returning to Handsworth, we tenanted from 1832 to 1834 or 1835, one of the houses built by the Rev. Daniel Walton, in Heathfield Road then a Schoolmaster and curate of Handsworth’s Old Church, during the lives of the Rector Hargreave and Woolly who held the living in commendum during the youth of the Rev. Peel. Mr Walton was a most industrious man, an able Latin scholar, a tolerable amateur painter, a good ornithologist, being greatly devoted to the keeping of his aviaries. He succeeded in wintering a nightingale, feeding it chiefly upon a particular kind of maggot, and sedulously attending to the temperature of the room in which he kept it. I remember a droll anecdote, which occurred at this time. The writer, fresh from the town and ignorant of the changes which take place in the plumage of birds between their first and second year, caught a young bird and seeing it was not a sparrow, sent it into Mr. Walton’s house to ascertain it’s species, when, lo, it turned out to be young robin, not yet arrived at the dignity of possessing a red breast. The changes from age and season, which take place in birds, sometimes puzzle even better naturalist than the writer. We once had the pleasure of dining at a bachelors’ party at Mr. Walton’s house, and met several of his former pupils and the parents of his present ones. One of the former was a young Moillet, a son of the merchant and banker who, after earning a fortune in Birmingham purchased property in his native Switzerland, near Geneva, to enjoy it. The father of Mr. Walter Williams was also there and occupied a large share of the conversation with his somewhat boastful tongue. He lived at that date at Oxhill. At this party we also had the honour and pleasure to meet Dr Gibson who married the niece of Mr. Watt. He was one of the most gentlemanly men it was ever our good fortune to meet. Mr. Walton by great industry had obtained his Degree, by walking up to Oxford, several years to do so, as he informed me. He, although not a man of extraordinary ability was what is perhaps better, a most industrious and painstaking one. A few doors from us lived Mr. Butler, a retired tradesman from Birmingham. He was a good neighbour and kindly gave us information in preparing our first continental trip to France and Switzerland. Not so facile as now, when one was obliged to encounter the slow dusty diligence, having no aid from steam, as we dragged over the roads of France, so apparently interminable, interesting as they were as presenting features of men and manners so differing and fresh, to the eyes of a young and ignorant islander on his first adventurous journey. But we are digressing from Handsworth. Not its least remarkable inhabitant Mr. Muntz who resided first, near the Old Soho Road and afterwards at the house at Perry Barr, formerly belonging to the Spencer family near Wellington Road. It was amusing to see him as he strode into town to his works, the very type and emblem of personal capaciousness; a stalwart and muscular man, as say the Bard of Avon “ Bearded like a Bard”, but more amply perhaps and beards unshaven were rarer than; clad in a most capacious suit of broadcloth parading a large and formidable staff to the public awe. It was the writer’s luck to sit near him and hear his remarks upon the orators in a public debate upon the engrossing currency question, at the period very prominent. The clear and able reasoning of the Veteran Cobbet, the enthusiastic and sometimes raving fluency of Attwood, and the monotonous prosing of Jones, then occupying the Pantechanthica in New Street, now Hyams, all received his criticism in turn. Muntz was a man of sound sense, although so eccentric personally. Handsworth Hall, upon the site of Hall Road, was occupied by Mr Grice, who educated two sons for the Church of England, and a daughter of his became the amicable and devoted nurse-wife of the reformer Thomas Attwood until his death, accelerated, no doubt, by his enthusiastic labours in the causes of reform and for the success of the Political Union of 1832. The writer, although never interesting himself much in Politics, painted a portrait of one, and not the least able – of the radicals, so called, of the day. This was exhibited; surrounded by candles in the shop of Josiah Allen in Colmore Row, Birmingham, on the night of illumination which took place to celebrate the passing of the Act. The leader we speak of was George Edmunds, who did much of the hard work which obtained the victory of the reformers. Edmunds was an intelligent man, as we judge from the conversations which took place whilst we painted his portrait. He behaved with great friendship towards us. We also painted a portrait of Mrs Edmunds which greatly pleased him. He practised as a solicitor popularly afterwards, but was no rewarded we fear, by his richer friends in his declining years and became a sad wreck before his death. Forgive us, Reader for so frequently digressing, but thoughts and memories range widely, and carry us out of our more direct course too often. One of the notable inhabitants of the Hollyhead Road was Mr Aston, the Master of Rose Hill School. An amusing incident happened at one of his periodical examinations of his pupils. A company being assembled, one of the boys then being examined appeared much discomposed and pulling wry and distressed faces. Being asked by the master why he did so, answered bluntly and loudly “Please Sir, I’ve got a belly ache”. This reply so unexpected and innocent tickled the risible faculties of the audience, among whom were the Rev. Richard Freer, Rev. Arthur Montague Wyatt, the first incumbent of Perry Barr who enjoyed the plain spoken confession of the poor lads ventral sufferings. Amazingly one of the most agreeable of my colleagues upon the Nations School Committee was Mr. Atkins who then resided in Church Lane, who was a mild and gentlemanly man in manners. Buildings almost ceased for a short distance beyond Crocketts Inn, where we assembled, until one approached the village of West Bromwich. One of its best known inhabitants was Mr. Pope, the nurseryman. He related many anecdotes of the Earl of Dartmouth, a most amicable and unassuming gentleman. Like the grand old man of the present day had a great fondness for the Axe, freely pruning the Sandwell Park trees. One day when he climbed one of them, some persons having business with him, were passing and being strangers personally, and doubtful if they were on the right track for the hall, seeing a plainly dressed woodman in the tree, as they supposed, shouted out “My man, can you tell us if we are going right for the Hall”. The Earl quietly, directed them, then descending the tree rapidly, and by a short cut, reached the Hall before them to transact the business they came upon, doubtless to their surprise and confusion. The Earl was accustomed to walk about the lanes of West Bromwich plainly habited and in a most unobtrusive manner. A commercial traveller wishing one day to drive down one of the lanes, and seeing his progress obstructed by an unattended vehicle left on the road, called out familiarly to his Lordship “My good man, will you have the goodness to shift that vehicle to make room for me to pass”. His Lordship willingly acceded to the request. The traveller was afterward informed by Mr Pope who overheard the request of the rank of the individual made use of so familiarly and with so little ceremony.

HANDSWORTH CHRONICLE 12^th April 1890

About the year 1839, the writer left his residence in one of the older row of houses in Hampstead Row, married the eldest daughter of Mr. John Wadhams of Wellhead House and retired to a farm he possessed near Warwick, between that city and Henley in Arden. Here, he still followed his profession of landscape painting, but tempted by the agents of Lord Donner amid whose game reserves his land lay, he disposed of it advantageously to that nobleman and returned to Handsworth to occupy another house under the Rev. Daniel Walton. Here he did not remain long, for Mrs Wadhams of Wellhead, dying, he left to reside with the remainder of the family. Thence he made another journey to the continent, and visited the larger lakes of North Italy – Lagos, Maggiore, Como and Orta, studying them, especially Como, elaborately. Returning, he remained several years at Wellhead House and afterward left to live in the pleasant cottage Yew Tree, near Queslett. Residing five years there, he studied with ardour and delight the pleasantry and landscape scenery; the neighbourhood including Great Barr, Perry Barr common, since enclosed Kings Standing etc. Here it may be well to say a few words of the families who possessed and occupied the estate of Perry Barr. It’s then Esquire John Gough was a different man from his father, and although not a man of great parts rendered himself beloved and popular with his tenantry by his many kind and considerate actions for their benefits founding and endowing the Church and building the Parsonage house. He spent his time in promoting the welfare and social harmony of his tenants by inviting them to meet him periodically at the houses of each other, alternately for a friendly chat and discussion of their affairs. They met occasionally at the residence of my father-in-law, Mr Wadhams and smoked a pipe and indulged in a glass of brown ale, in spite of the total abstainers, then less rampant that at present. Mr Gough and his lady treated me with kindness and liberality and through the influence of the Rev. Daniel Walton gave me the free range of the park for sketching with no running bull to scare or discommode me. Pardon my egotism to name it and the following anecdote. Some years afterwards, about the time of the Crimean Ward, by death of Mr Gough, the Estate fell into the hands of the late Lord Calthorpe, also a well disposed and amiable man. Soon afterwards, we left Perry Barr and took a house and a few acres of land at Maney under the Rector of Sutton Coldfield. Here we had the honour of giving a few lessons in sketchings from nature to three of the Hon. Misses Calthorpe. These ladies had been studying under a London artist named Stanley. A friend of the writer and being about to return to Perry Barr, they consulted him with respect to their continuance of study at home. Mr Stanley named me, knowing I resided somewhere in the neighbourhood of Birmingham. Their then Governess, Miss Hazlitt, a relative of the eloquent essayist of the same name, wrote to me and requested to see some of my sketches. The ladies were considerably advanced in drawing, but were desirous to sketch from nature herself. They had good natural abilities but did not remain long enough at Perry Barr, to derive much benefit from my instructions, we fear. This eldest Miss Harriet, now Lady Alfred Churchill at present in favour at Court, fancied one of our sketches of Teignmouth, Devon and requested the loan of it to copy. She returned it to me at Maney together with a brace of pheasants for the loan. Knowing her younger brother the Hon. Somerset Calthorpe, was appointed aide-de-camp to the commander of the army in the Crimean, his relative, we enquired after him, and her Ladyship informed the writer that he had obliged to perform his duties in his dress boots, others sent him bring lost in the shipwreck which happened at that period on its passage to Sebastopol, with clothing and provisions to the Army. This disastrous loss afterwards caused much suffering to the poor soldiers during the first winter, probably lengthening the siege and adding to the unpopularity of its first stage. Returning to Handsworth we may say a word or two on the medical profession in it fifty years since. It was well supplied with surgeons at that time. William Hammond an early friend of the writer was an able practitioner much employed by the poor, many of whom also adored him. His exertions were great, indeed much too severe for his powers. Unwisely over employing them, he contracted a habit of resorting to stimulants to sustain him under them. By these causes combined his mental powers gave way and he became an incurable lunatic and died some years later in a lunatic asylum “Poor Fellow”, It was a sad case, the writer thinks, of a noble mind o’verthrown”. Another well know surgeon who had a considerable practice was Mr Welsh. We met him several times in company with his beautiful wife. We regarded her to be not only the most beautiful woman in Handsworth but even unrivalled, so far as we know, in the neighbouring town of Birmingham.

HANDSWORTH CHRONICLE 19^th April 1890

We will now give a few words to the recollection of the family of Rhodes which resided near the Wolverhampton Road and near the Wagon and Horses Inn. Mr Rhodes, a gentleman of independent means, was a rather singular and weak minded. He was dominated by an idea that his three sons were of the stuff of which artists are made. Never was anyone more mistaken. Swayed by this idea he placed his eldest son under a first rate portrait painter, a contemporary of Sir Thomas Lawrence a favourite court painter of that day, and in respects his equal. The progress of the young man proved an utter failure. He was an agreeable young man and might have succeeded fairly as a military man’ but was almost deficient in capacity for fine art. Never-the-less, the strongly biased father endeavoured to educate his remaining two sons in the same direction, utterly failing in both instances. However, the whole family died early in life. We never knew a more mistaken instance of incapacity of judgement respecting the idiosyncrasies of sons. We were borne out of our opinion by the eminent artist Creswick, a fiend and schoolfellow; also by the able sculptor Mr Hollins, and also a long and valued friend of the writer. We were anxious to make some enquiries, a few days since, and entered the chemists shop of Mr. Hues, formerly occupied by a first cousin of ours, Thomas Sheward, a young man overflowing with animal spirits and of strong sporting proclivities who led us when a boy in our visits to witness the bull and bear bailing mentioned before in these memories. It was so many years back that Mr. Hues did not remember his name, but remembered Mr. Brown who succeeded him in the business and remained in it some time. In the course of conversation which followed, we remarked that a Mr. James Swain resided near, when Mr. Hues informed us that he only died last week there. Mr. Swain was a very old inhabitant of the parish. His father resided many years ago at Hampstead Mill. We were acquainted with the younger part of the family and also with Mr. Hollister, who resided there some years afterwards. Mr. Cave, the well-know auctioneer, then a youth, was with Mr. Hollister at that time, and we judged from long chats we had with him, returning from Perry Barr Church, that he would some time or other be a Man of Mark. The Murdock family resided in this part of Handsworth, viz, near Mr. Hues shop. The writer was not acquainted with the elder and most gifted of the family, old Mr. Murdock and his eldest son William, but was on friendly terms with Mr John Murdock, a worthy gentleman who interested himself with daguerreotype, then recently invented, and now after many improvements called photography. It’s first specimen, although interesting, even admirable at this period, were sorry affairs, in comparison with the beautiful productions of today. It was scarcely anticipated that our daily source of life and light would be so accurate and minute an artist in printing all the beauties of detail upon other objects besides the retina of the human eye. Photography is most beautifully seen in the wonderful details of old architecture or armour, or other metal ornaments and objects of still life. But in spite of its minute, almost painful accuracy in depicting landscape scenery, makes one sometimes exclaim from Bryon’s description of modern Greece “ We start for life is wanting there”. Still this accurate finish of the photograph has directed and improved the technique of the artist and attracted the eye and attention of the ignorant and indifferent observer of nature and fine art. Our high state of civilisation enables us to appreciate its merits and it serves greatly to aid and diffuse the love of graphic art – far and wide are its flights and influence. It penetrates our remotest villages and by-places and spreads through our worldwide and rapidly advancing colonies. We will now relate a melancholy incident which occurred in our father-in-law Mr John Wadham’s family. The eldest son William Wadhams, a good looking and rather powerful young man, was going to bed, believed he heard footsteps upon the premises at Wellhead. He therefore hastened down stairs, half dressed and gun in hand, and discovered three man in the yard, no doubt with felonious intentions. He fired at their legs and they were about to take flight when he attempted to arrest one of them, but struggling he was knocked down by a large piece of timber picked up in the yard. Then they made off. Being a brave young man, on rising, he unwisely pursued them, although almost in a naked state. At the end of the first field from the house he overtook one of them attempting to get over a fence. He caught hold of him and pulled him back, and whilst struggling upon the ground with him, the confederates sized the gun and with its stock commenced beating him unmercifully upon the back of his head and shoulders. After rendering him insensible they left him and made their escape, taking the gun with them. On recovering his senses, he returned home, astonishing his father, now downstairs, by his wild and excited manner, and the bloody state of his shirt. He was seriously bruised, and I fear, never thoroughly recovered from the effects of this terrible beating. The ruffians were never discovered, although one or more were strongly suspected, and one of the suspected punished with penal servitude for the commission of another crime. Our brother-in-law lived many years after, but was seized with paralysis in middle age. We were distressed with his care of him more than fifteen years before his death.

HANDSWORTH CHRONICLE 26^th April 1890

A notable man was Mr. Jabet, a solicitor he lived with his sister in the Wellington Road. We had the pleasure of drinking a cup of tea with him and several of his friends. One of these was a brother of Sir Daniel Gooch the fortunate chairman of the Great Western Railway, who did so much to relieve it of its financial difficulties. The gentleman was one of a North of England family, which sent four engineers to aid in the rapid and increased development of the railway system. The eldest brother, less known than Sir Daniel died many years ago. Another brother, John Valentine Gooch, was farming in the north, but finding what an opening there was for engineers at this time, he became one, and was appointed to superintend the making of the grand junction from Birmingham to Stafford. He lodged at Perry Barr Bridge and because very intimate with the Wadhams. At Wellhead, the writer met with him repeatedly there. His mother and sister also settled in Handsworth and in this neighbourhood. A younger brother of William Wadhams, was articled to him, but died young; he was a promising youth; he was employed to take several journeys to test a new locomotive on the South Western Railway where Mr Gooch was his employer was then engaged. The weather in that summer being very sultry and trying, caused him to be attacked by brain fever and he succumbed to it in a few days, to the great grief of his employer and his own family. We saw him a few weeks earlier and observed how much he was improved and how intellect his features had become. Mr Jabet was not wanting in literary ability and published an amusing work called “Nosology”. He was a rather a shy and precise man; he interested himself greatly in the old and new libraries of Birmingham and was, perhaps, the promoter and their amalgamation; after that was accomplished, the writer who had subscribed many years to the new library, was presented with a ticket for the newly joined.I may be allowed to say a few words of the founding of Perry Barr Church, Mr. Gough, I believe, employed the builder, whose name I forget, chiefly without an architect in it’s erection, and we have heard it said on good authority, that he might have built it more cheaply and in better style had he employed an architect. The Rev. Daniel Walton attempted to paint a picture of the ceremony on its opening, but in whose possession that attempt now is, the writer knows not. Its first incumbent, the Rev. Arthur Montague Wyatt, was the writers’ friend. Unfortunately by an oversight, the parsonage was built upon land not entitled to Lord Calthorpe, which circumstance and other disagreements arose between the incumbent and the family; which ended in an arrangement for Mr. Wyatt to relinquish the incumbency and retire to a small preferment he held in South Wales, he has been dead many years. Thus, it happens, that year-by-year, the writer has lost friend after friend, until he almost seems to “to stand alone”. As Bryon says “Like Adam’s recollection to his fall”. He has wandered through Handsworth’s host of new and well-kept streets, acquiring and wondering at its changes, like Rip Van Winkle in Irving’s humorous tales, after a long sleep. We had now better conclude, we have not much more of interest to add, and perhaps have written too much already, but hope this fast and more advanced age wll forgive in these few reminiscences of past days, the garrulity and egotism of an old age of almost abnormal length. The minds of the young of the present, rush on with more than the telegraphic speed of thought, disdaining the cautious and feebler movements of the old. Whilst reflecting that not only these recollections, but memory itself must soon cease; and that he must be prepared to “Shuffle” off this mortal coil. Thankful for heavens blessings and forbearance, we will not finish with the epitaph of Ben Johnson “This life’s a jest, and all show it,I thought so once, but know I know it”

But rather with the beautiful lines of Robert Montgomery, in his admirable poem of “The Grave”

There is a calm for those who weep

A rest for weary pilgrims found

They softly lie and sweetly sleep

Low in the ground

The storm that wrecks the wintry sky

No more disturbs their deep repose

Than summer evenings latest sigh

The shuts the Rose

And dare to add its concluding stanza

The sun is but a spark of fire

A transient meteor in the sky

The soul immortal as its Sire

Shall never die

H. H. H. H.

See Hobday