Description:This abridged biography is from The Handsworth Magazine.The full biography is available as a download.
Thomas Edward Forsyth lived at 60 Thornhill Road in Handsworth.
He is a native of the county of Durham and comes of a good old mining family, both his father and grandfather being mining engineers in the service of Sir Joseph Pease and Co., who own extensive coal mines in that part of the country. He is a lawyer. He was articled at Bishop Auckland and there admitted as a solicitor. Precluded by the terms of his articles from practising in Bishop Auckland, he cast around for a field which would afford a sufficiently wide scope for his energies and elected to give the Metropolis the benefit of his legal acumen. He gravitated to Birmingham in 1882 as managing conveyancing clerk to the late Mr M A Fitter, who occupied chambers in Bennett's Hill for upwards of forty years. Upon the death of Mr Fitter in 1893, Mr Forsyth launched forth for himself in partnership with Mr G A Bettinson. The partnership has been a success. After a tremendous fight of a fortnight's duration, before a committee of the House of Commons, the partners carried the Birmingham, North Warwickshire and Stratford-on-Avon Railway Bill. The Great Western and other railway companies offered strenuous but futile opposition and several amending bills have since been passed. The next step it is anticipated will be the making of the line. At the present time the railway communication between Birmingham and Stratford is of a round-about character. The new line will be about twenty miles long and direct and the journey ought to be made in half-an-hour.
Mr Forsyth has given ungrudgingly of his time to his duties as District Councillor. He is at the present moment Chairman of the Finance Committee, Chairman of the Technical School Finance Committee and a member of the Technical Instruction, Free Libraries, Park and Fire Brigade and Highway and Sanitary Committees. Mr J Wainwright, who acted as Chancellor of the Exchequer in our local Parliament for many years, retired from the Council in 1896 and this important office fell to Mr Forsyth. The chancellor ship is no sinecure. Albeit its fiscal concerns are confined within the boundaries of the Urban District of Handsworth, it entails an amount of scheming in order to perpetuate our traditional policy of economy and pre-supposes a capacity for mental arithmetic that, if the burden were laid upon us, we would super-induce troubles hypochondriac. Many thousands of pounds have been borrowed of late for the carrying out of public works. To mention a few of the schemes upon which the Council are just now engaged. There is the magnificent building in Golds Hill Road which, from the 29th proximo onwards will do duty as a Technical School. Upon this some £12,500 are being expended. Another heavy item is the Refuse Destructor now in course of erection. Then there are the very considerable expenses connected with the Victoria Park extensions and to drop to a somewhat less significant item, the lighting of the various public buildings in the district by electricity. Add to all this the peremptory clamouring of a section of the ratepayers just now for the immediate provision of public baths and you will begin to wonder how Mr Forsyth, who holds the strings of the public purse, manages to preserve his youthful looks.
The secret lies we fancy in his perennial exuberance of spirits. He is always bubbling over with wit and humour and thanks to a good liver and a digestion that vexes him not, he is naturally optimistic. Mr Forsyth's first battle upon the District Council was as the spokesman of the Handsworth Parliamentary Debating Society. The members thereof had grown too ambitious to hold their discursive debates on the momentous problems of the hour in the seclusion of a voluntary school any longer and were turning their aspiring eyes to the Public Buildings as to a land of promise. With a perspicuity which did them infinite credit the debaters followed up an application to the Council for the use of the Public Hall at a moderate rental by waiting upon Mr Forsyth and confiding their cherished yearnings to his safe keeping. Impressed with the educational possibilities of the Society under proper management.
This was no easy task. Prejudices had to be overcome and the matter was shelved so repeatedly that one session was completely lost to the Society. Mr Forsyth declined to budge however and several of his colleagues backed him up with a warmth that gave promise of an early victory. The concession desiderated was obtained after a protracted struggle in the Council Chamber and a meeting of the ratepayers at which some forcible remarks were made anent the ownership of public property and the rights of those who paid the piper to call the tune. Mr Forsyth presided over the first meeting held by the Mock Parliament in the Public Buildings and was unanimously elected Speaker. From that time – October 1896 ; to the present he has retained the Speaker ship. In March last he had the pleasure of receiving Sir Henry Meysey-Thompson; who gave his presidential address before a well-attended meeting of the Parliament; and Lady Meysey-Thompson. Early in the year, too, he presided over a public dinner in connection with the society.
Mr Forsyth is a member of the St James; Lodge of Freemasons and takes a keen interest in Masonic doings. He is fond of sport as will be understood when we add that he is a non-playing member of the Aston Villa Football Club and the Warwickshire and Handsworth Wood Cricket Clubs and is vice-president of the Heathfield and Selborne Cricket Clubs. He is a vice-president also of the Handsworth and District Horticultural Society.
His domestic relations are singularly happy. Eleven years ago he married Margaret Kilburn, daughter of Dr Kilburn, a native of the same county as himself and has found in her an ideal helpmate. They thoroughly understand each other and have many tastes in common. They are blessed with two children a boy and a girl.