Taxing Times for City's Pioneer Newspaper Man ; Local History As the Birmingham Post Celebrates Its 150th Anniversary Chris Upton Looks at the Life and Times of John Frederick Feeney, Founder of the Newspaper

Summary

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Birmingham in 1857. A town of some 260,000 people, two central railway stations and the same number of MPs. A town with only one decent theatre (on New Street) and one suburb (Edgbaston). A place with just two public buildings, whose councillors met in the pub (even when they were on duty) for want of anywhere better. And if the conduct of its politics was grubby, even worse was the grubbiness of the streets and the courts, where most of the people lived. So much for the positive side. Then there were the critics. They would say that it was a town with only one work of art (the statue of Lord Nelson) and a population whose only interest was in making money.

There were others, however, who knew that there was more to Birmingham than this. The government had cause to remember Birmingham well, for when the issue of Reform seemed to be pushing England towards to revolution, Birmingham had been in the front line.

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Extract

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Taxing Times for City's Pioneer Newspaper Man ; Local History As the Birmingham Post Celebrates Its 150th Anniversary Chris Upton Looks at the Life and Times of John Frederick Feeney, Founder of the Newspaper

And when the Chartists had been pressing their case for a truly democratic system of government with the vote for all adult men and women, Birmingham had been there too. And anyway, what was wrong with making money?

When the Chartist protests in 1839 had turned into riot and disorder in the Bull Ring and Peel had sent in the metropolitan police to maintain the peace, the first spark that led to the trouble had been a man reading a newspaper. An unlikely reason for civil war, you might think, except that ...

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