LOCAL GOVERNMENT

In 1791 Bordesley and Deritend acquired their own Streets Commissioners, sixty of them including John Taylor II and John Lowe Snr. of Ravenhurst. They met at the Apollo Tavern, which could be reached by boat from Deritend Bridge. Seven Commissioners formed a quorum, their responsibilities for lighting, paving, cleansing, clearing and watching of all streets in both townships and the provision of fire-engines being performed by surveyors, rate-collectors, scavengers, clerks and labourers. Much early activity was concerned with the removal of obstructions and encroachment on streets, such as Deritend cattle market. Being responsible only for surface drainage during most of their reign, the Commissioners had no power to provide sewers or make others provide them, nor could they control the use of land.

Thus they could not prevent building across natural drainage lines, the siting of factories and waste dumps among dwellings, or the construction of back-to-back houses and over-crowded courts. There were no restrictions on leases either. Building societies bought up farm crofts, marked them out in plots, then left the lessees free to cram as many dwellings as possible onto them. It should be noted however that when built these were on the edge of town and country, and that they were probably better than the slum tenements or rural hovels from which their tenants had come.

In 1832 Birmingham and Edgbaston were linked in a new Parliamentary Borough, electing two M.P.s. The statue of one of the first two, Thomas Attwood has recently been moved to Sparkbrook, not far from the site of his residence. In 1838 the long campaign for incorporation was won, though the Borough of Birmingham had fourteen years of incomplete power ahead: to the two parishes in the Parliamentary constituency were added Bordesley and Deritend, Duddeston and Nechells, creating a municipality of 8493 acres. But the three Streets Commissions therein retained all their existing powers. The Borough put first things first, building a police station in Deritend the following year. Three years later its disputed powers to levy rates, pay police, and extend public services to areas outside those of the Commissions, were confirmed. But not until 1852 did Birmingham Council become master in its own house, then acquiring all the necessary authority except administration of the Poor Law. (This came as late as 1931). The court leet of Birmingham continued to meet, without real purpose, for two more years.

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