The Move To Birmingham

The Knight family had been farmers for generations, living in a small cottage at Sheldon. Their life had been quiet and peaceful and they had worked hard, growing their food and keeping a few cows, chickens and sheep and pigs, but in 1775 the bottom was knocked out of their world. The land on which they lived was to be enclosed, and John Knight had to take the most important decision of his life.

He could either remain at Sheldon and pay far higher rents, or he could move to Birmingham to try to make a living there. John Knight thought long and hard, for he had a wife and three children to look after. In the end he made the decision that he had to move away from the village where he had lived all his life. He would go to the great town of Birmingham, seven miles away, and try to make his living there. Birmingham had several thousand people living there - compared with Sheldon which only had about 100 altogether.

Even farmers of larger properties had to make the decision of whether to stay and spend a very large sum of money on enclosing their fields or move to the towns. On the whole the small farmers lost, while the larger landowners gained considerably.

It was with heavy hearts that the Knight family began to pack away their few possessions, ready for the move that was to take them into an unknown and uncertain future. Even though Birmingham was only a few miles away from Sheldon, John had only been there once. He had walked there and back in a day, but what need had he to go to the town ? He could get or make everything he needed at Sheldon.

John Knight knew of someone who had a cart and would take them and all their possessions to Birmingham for three shillings (fifteen pence). Even though this was expensive they had to accept it.

The man with the cart arrived at the Knight's cottage very early one March morning in 1775. It was bitterly cold and snow lay on the ground. John and the man loaded their furniture onto the open cart - their chest, a table, some chairs, two beds and a few other things, all that they owned - and prayed that it would not rain or snow that morning. To get themselves and their furniture wet would greatly increase their misery.

As they moved slowly away from the cottage, old Widow Knight tearfully waved goodbye. She had decided to remain in Sheldon with another widow, a friend of hers, instead of moving to Birmingham at her age. She realised that she might never see her family again.Mary Knight sat in the cart weeping and held the baby in her arms. Sarah who was now just over a year old, had been born in the winter of 1773.

The Knights were not the only family on the move to Birmingham that morning, for they saw three other carts piled high with furniture like theirs, going in the same direction. Perhaps there was a little comfort to be gained, thought Mary, in knowing that they were not the only ones who were having to leave their homes.

Toll-gate on Turnpike

They made their way along the turnpike towards Birmingham, paying tolls at the toll-gates they passed through.

As the morning wore on the sun broke through the clouds and the snow sparkled in the sunlight. From a distance the children got their first view of Birmingham. It looked almost pretty, with the River Rea sparkling in the bright sun and they could see the tall spires of two churches. Their father told them that the one on the hill on the right was St. Phillip's Church, and that the other with the very tall spire was St. Martin's. From the top of Highgate Hill they could see the whole town of Birmingham laid out before them.

However, what really amazed Will and Tom was the great number of buildings - they had never seen so many houses and big buildings before. In Sheldon there had only been a few cottages and a small church.

As their cart wove its way through the narrow, busy streets of the town, Will and Tom felt excited, and they began to forget how upset they had been earlier that morning. They had never seen so much activity or heard so much noise.

At one point their cart could hardly pass through a street because it was so crammed with people and with traders selling their wares. They began to make their way towards the opposite end of the town from the one they had first seen from the heaths on Highgate Hill.

Here they hoped to find a house to rent, for it was an area where lots of small houses had been built closely together around courtyards, and where, John hoped, the rents were not too high.