FOR PLACING THE

COPPER-PLATES.

Prospect of Birmingham,          to face the Title. 
Plan, ........................................   43
Alm’s-houses, ................................  58
St. John’s Chapel, Deritend, .................  111
St. Bartholomew’s, ...........................  113
St. Mary’s, ..................................  115
St. Paul’s, ..................................  116
Old and New Meetings, ........................  117
New Theatre, .................................  123
Hotel, .......................................  130
Free School, .................................  203
Charity School, ..............................  209
Workhouse, ...................................  215
Old and Welch Cross, .........................  229
St. Martin’s Church, .........................  232
St. Philip’s, ................................  246
General Hospital, ............................  256
Canal, .......................................  265
Navigation Office, ...........................  267
Brass Works, .................................  329

HISTORY &c.

* * * * *

Some account of the derivation of the name of Birmingham.

The word Birmingham, is too remote for certain explanation.  During the last four centuries it has been variously written Brumwycheham, Bermyngeham, Bromwycham, Burmyngham, Bermyngham, Byrmyngham, and Birmingham; nay, even so late as the seventeenth century it was written Bromicham.  Dugdale supposes the name to have been given by the planter, or owner, in the time of the Saxons; but, I suppose it much older than any Saxon, date:  besides, it is not so common for a man to give a name to, as to take one from, a place.  A man seldom gives his name except he is the founder, as Petersburg from Peter the Great.

Towns, as well as every thing in nature, have exceedingly minute beginnings, and generally take a name from situation, or local circumstances.  Would the Lord of a manor think it an honour to give his name to two or three miserable huts?  But, if in a succession of ages these huts swell into opulence, they confer upon the lord an honour, a residence, and a name.  The terminations of sted, ham, and hurst, are evidently Saxon, and mean the same thing, a home.

The word, in later ages reduced to a certainty, hath undergone various mutations; but the original seems to have been Bromwych; Brom perhaps, from broom a shrub, for the growth of which the soil is extremely favourable; Wych, a descent, this exactly corresponds with the declivity from the High Street to Digbeth.  Two other places also in the neigbourhood bear the same name, which serves to strengthen the opinion.

This infant colony, for many centuries after the first buddings of existence, perhaps, had no other appellation than that of Bromwych.  Its center, for many reasons that might be urged, was the Old Cross, and its increase, in those early ages of time must have been very small.