Description:Birmingham, engraved by John Dower of Pentonville, London. Published by Wrightson & Webb, Birmingham and by William S. Orr & Smith, London, is the first Birmingham map to show the coming of the railways. It shows the growth of the town in almost every direction and is the first map to show the Town Hall and the Market Hall.
Birmingham John Dower c1833-1834 MAL/65456
John Crane Dower (d.1847), was a map engraver working out of London throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century with premises in Pentonville and Fleet Street. He was succeeded by his son John James (b.1825) in the family business.
The map is aligned with 12o west of north at the top of the map. The borders enclose an area 4.54km x 3.55km centred in the middle of Edmund Street level with the rear of the School of Art.
This is the first Birmingham map to show the coming of the railways. It shows the route into Birmingham of the London and Birmingham Railway and of the proposed direct route of the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Railway, later superseded by the Grand Junction route through Duddeston. Both railways were approved by Act of Parliament in May 1833 though neither were in service until 1837. The final link to London through the Kilsby tunnel was not completed until the following year. Both lines were engineered by Stephenson’s, Birmingham to London by Robert and Birmingham to Liverpool, until 1835, by his father George.
The rapid growth of Birmingham becomes apparent when Dower’s map is compared with an earlier map such as John Pigott Smith’s 1824 & 1825 survey. New John Street to the north marks the limit of the advance of the town with the area between Newtown Row and Great Hampton Street/Constitution Hill filling with new streets and housing as is the area between Warstone Lane and Summer Hill. Substantial building development is apparent around the New Union Mill off Islington and on the borders of Edgbaston along Bell Barn Road, Sun Street and off Islington Row, however the area between Bell Barn Road and Holloway Head still remains largely undeveloped. Pudding Brook is vanishing beneath the new as yet not built-up streets running between Bristol Street and Sherlock Street. Deritend and Bordesley are filling out to Highgate and along Great Barr Street to Watery Lane. Vauxhall Gardens are beginning to be surrounded by housing but Aston seems to remain relatively rural beyond Dartmouth Street and New John Street West.
Of the buildings shown the latest were the Market Hall started in February 1833 and opened in February 1835, the Town Hall started in April 1832 and completed in October 1834 and the Scotch Church in Newhall Street which was vacated by the Presbyterians in 1834. The London & Birmingham railway route shown tentatively on this map was superseded by a different route in 1835. These dates suggest that the map must date between May 1833 when the original rail routes were approved by Parliament and 1834 when the Presbyterians left Newhall Street. c.1833-1834 seems a reasonable estimate.
Birmingham Archives and Heritage Service dates the map as c.1833, however both the British Library and the Bodleian Library have copies which they date as c.1835 and a facsimile version is currently offered for sale [Historical Images Ltd.] as ‘Old Town Plan of Birmingham, 1834’. A hand coloured version of the map appears in Orr’s Cyclopaedia published in London in 1837.