Talk:Economy of Birmingham

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[edit] Steam engines

Is this:

The long-established industrial processes in the city meant that it was actually quite late in adopting the methods of the Industrial Revolution - manufacturing was so efficient and workshops so small that the steam engine, developed in Birmingham by Boulton and James Watt around Ó1770, did not find widespread use in the city for another sixty years

true? Andy Mabbett 11:13, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

According to Hopkins, yes - and I've read the same in other places. A multitude of small workshops couldn't make effective use of steam power, and rather than having a big factory with a production line, the city itself was effectively a production line with no overall owner. The Gun Quarter is a good example - loads of little independent workshops all doing one particular process, and taking parts just down the road to someone else for the next stage of manufacture or assembly, whereas a purpose built factory would have taken in metal ingots at one end and turned out guns at the other end. Birmingham's industrialisation started very early, which meant it didn't adopt "modern" methods in the late 18th/early 19th century. I believe this had become quite a problem by the mid 19th century, it was certainly mentioned in one of the older city histories I saw the other day. --Brumburger 13:14, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] IMI/ Kynoch

Neiether IMI nor Kynochs feature in this article, and neither has its own article. Andy Mabbett 11:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why exactly is that cleenup poster still there?. It was there last time I looked at it a few months ago and nothing has changed. The article doesn't look too bad to me so I am going to remove the poster. IMO it looks unprofesional to have editorial notes sitting at the top of articles. If I have time I will contribute to this. Bob Matthews 19:46, 21 October 2005 (UTC)