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It lies near the centre of the kingdom, in the north-west extremity of the county of Warwick, in a kind of peninsula, the northern part of which is bounded by Handsworth, in the county of Stafford, and the southern by King's-norton, in the county of Worcester; it is also in the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, and in the deanery of Arden.
At Handsworth, too, working for a long life in the Soho manufactories as the servant, confidential assistant, and friend, lived another remarkable man, William Murdoch, the inventor of illumination by gas, and the author of the first locomotive steam engine, and of several important contributions to practical science, to which justice has scarcely been done.
In 1712, George Fentham, of Birmingham, devised his estate by will, consisting of about one hundred acres, in Erdington and Handsworth, of the value then, of 20l. per annum, vesting the same in a trust, of which no person could be chosen who resided more than one hundred yards from the Old Cross.
"But two remain, your father and grandfather. Your uncles died, both of sudden attacks of heart-disease, and curiously enough, both deaths occurred while they were visiting at Handsworth Castle." "That is quite true." The cynical banter was gone from Rockamore's tones, and he spoke with a peculiar, hushed evenness, as if he waited, on guard, for the next thrust.
It is evidently the ci-devant residence of a Birmingham manufacturer of the old school, before the suburbs of Edgbaston and Handsworth sprang up, now turned into a warehouse or receptacle for lumber.
The first diverging railway after leaving Handsworth, on the road to the north, is what, for want of a better name, is called the South Staffordshire, which connects Birmingham with Dudley, Walsall, Lichfield, and Tamworth, thus uniting the most purely agricultural with the most thoroughly manufacturing districts, and especially with that part of the great coal-field which is locally known as the "Black Country."
I remember when old Handsworth Church stood surrounded by fields, and now it is built up to with villas on nearly every side, and has a neighbouring liquor vault instead of the old-fashioned inn such as often keeps old parish churches in countenance and affords a place of refuge and refreshment for rustic churchwardens, bell-ringers, parish clerks, and the like.
We felt an inclination to visit Joel Yeardley's family, who are under convincement, and who have lately removed from near Handsworth Woodhouse. We went to breakfast. He and Frances his wife, with Thomas and John their sons, the former about nineteen, the latter seventeen years of age, received us in a very kind and affectionate manner, expressing their satisfaction at our coming to see them.
His first experiments were conducted at Doncaster; but as fuel was difficult to be had at that place, he determined, for greater convenience, to remove to the neighbourhood of Sheffield, which he did in 1740. He first settled at Handsworth, a few miles to the south of that town, and there pursued his investigations in secret.
Two miles from old Birmingham, now part of the modern town, lies Soho, in the suburb of Handsworth, which, in 1762, was a bleak and barren heath.
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