Town Improvement, Streets Commissioners & Borough Council

The Commission held power and added to it for 83 years, 1769-1852. The Act of 1801 authorised the appointment of a Watch Committee, winter night-watchmen, and the building of Public Offices. In 1806 the general market was moved to the cleared green, thence-forward called the Bull Ring. The market tolls were leased from the lord of the manor for 21 years. The Nelson monument was erected by public subscription and a pyramid fountain, 'Pratchet's Folly'. The cattle market was moved to Dale End, but the horse fair remained in New Street. The Public Offices, Commission H.Q., Court House and Jail, opened in 1807 on and beside site of present Moor St. Station. New streets were now being laid out fast, but the Vestry lacked the money to pave them and the Commission lacked the authority.

The Act of 1812 empowered the Commission to pave all the town's highways, existing and future. This permitted the planning of a comprehensive drainage scheme, but it meant that the Turnpike Companies were relieved of maintenance of stretches of highway while still exacting tolls thereon. All new streets were to be 14 yards wide, hence even slum streets are wide- - but there was no restriction on the number of dwellings packed between them. Granite setts, still to be seen in a few streets, were favoured for surfaces, but were costly, so macadam was used more generally. Flagstone pavements were being laid from the early C19 th .

The Smoke Abatement Act of 1844 did little to improve the atmosphere poisoned by 300 factory chimneys: incomplete combustion caused a constant smoke pall over the Rea valley - even Bingley House on Easy Hill was affected - and soot rained down. The first whale-oil lamps were replaced by gas fishtails in 1818, 16 years after Wm. Murdoch's first ones at Soho. The Birmingham Gas Co. was formed to light 16 other streets, with its works on Gas Street, getting coal by feeder from the canal basin.

The manor house moat site was bought in 1816, cleared and opened as Smithfield Market the next year. It was then and for many years an open market. The market rights were bought from Christopher Musgrove in 1824, so that both the lord's seat and the last of his ancient privileges had then gone. The orchards north of New Street were crossed by Bennetts Hill, Waterloo and Cherry Streets in the 1820's. Steps climbed the slope behind Christ Church at the top of New Street.

37.1. Map 25a

The Commission planned a covered Market Hall in 1826, and it was finally opened in 1834, the same year as the (incomplete) Town Hall. This was built at the junction of five streets west of Christ Church: intended as 'a material focus for the loyalty of the inhabitants', it towered over its mean neighbours. Gothic style was chosen for the new King Edward VI School in New Street, but this was an early success for the style which was to reign for most of the Victorian period: for the Town Hall the classical Corinthian style was preferred, the design being copied from the Temple of Jupiter Stator in Rome. The Market Hall was Doric, said to be England's finest, and very successful.