movement, and his visit to the West Indies and subsequent reports thereon had much to do with hastening the abolition of slavery.  When the working-classes were struggling for electoral freedom and “the Charter,” Mr. Sturge was one of the few found willing to help them, though his peace-loving disposition failed to induce them to give up the idea of “forcing” their rights.  Having a wish to take part in the making of the laws, he issued an address to the electors of Birmingham in 1840, but was induced to retire; in August, 1842, he contested Nottingham, receiving 1,801 votes against his opponent’s 1885; in 1844 he put up for Birmingham, but only 364 votes were given him; and he again failed at Leeds in 1847, though he polled 1,976 voters.  In 1850 he visited Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark, and in February, 1854, St. Petersburgh, each time in hopes of doing something to prevent the wars then commencing, but failure did not keep him from Finland in 1856 with relief for the sufferers.  In 1851 he took a house in Ryland Road and fitted it up as a reformatory, which afterwards led to the establishment at Stoke Prior.  Mr. Sturge died on May 14, 1859, and was buried on the 20th in Bull Street.  His character needs no comment, for he was a Christian in his walk as well as in his talk.

Taylor, John.—­Died in 1775, aged 64, leaving a fortune of over L200,000, acquired in the manufacture of metal buttons, japanned ware, snuff boxes, &c.  It is stated that he sent out L800 worth of buttons weekly, and that one of his workmen earned 70s. per week by painting snuff boxes at 1/4d. each.  Mr. Taylor must have had a monopoly in the latter, for this one hand at the rate named must have decorated some 170,000 boxes per annum.

Tomlins.—­Samuel Boulton Tomlins, the son of a local iron merchant (who was one of the founders of the Birmingham Exchange) and Mary Harvey Boulton (a near relative to Matthew) was born September 28, 1797, at Park House, in Park Street, then a vine-covered residence surrounded by gardens.  His mother was so great a favourite with Baskerville that the celebrated printer gave her one of two specially-printed Bibles, retaining the other for himself.  After serving an apprenticeship to a bookseller, Mr. Tomlins was taken into Lloyd’s Bank as a clerk, but was soon promoted to be manager of the branch then at Stockport, but which was taken over afterwards by a Manchester Banking Company, with whom Mr. Tomlins stayed until 1873, dying September 8, 1879.

Ulwin.—­Though nearly last in our list, Ulwin, or Alwyne, the son of Wigod, and the grandson of Woolgeat, the Danish Earl of Warwick, must rank first among our noteworthy men, if only from the fact that his name is absolutely the first found in historical records as having anything to do with Birmingham.  This was in King Edward the Confessor’s time, when Alwyne was Sheriff (vice-comes) and through his son Turchill, who came to be Earl of Warwick,