Birmingham: Pigs Take Precedence (New Street in 1817)

Pigs Take Precedence (New Street in 1817)
Speaker: Paulette Burkill

In Handsworth Historical Society’s collection is a ten-page booklet, published for some of her friends in January 1877 by someone we know only as LB of Bromsgrove House, Aston Manor, with her memories of New Street sixty years earlier in 1817, when she was only twelve. This illustrated talk takes us up one side of the street and back down the other side, with its fascinating mixture of shops, businesses, hotels and private houses, so difficult to imagine today.

Paulette has been Secretary of Handsworth Historical Society (formed 1952) since 1986 and now looks after the majority of their archives at home after the Society relinquished their 47 year tenancy of Handsworth Old Town Hall in January 2025, as they could no longer afford the upkeep. She also helps with enquiries to the Society.