39. Charles and Maria Brittain of Birmingham

Charles Brittain was born in 1817 in Birmingham. His parents were Edward and Mary Brittain.

Maria Brittain was born in c. 1818 in Birmingham. Her parents were Thomas and Elizabeth Hill.

Charles and Maria were married in 1836 in Sutton Coldfield.

They had fourteen children:

• 52.1.1 - Emily Brittain (1837). Emily died in 1838.
• 52.1.2 - Charles Edward Brittain (1839)
• 52.1.3 - William Brittain (1841)
• 52.1.4 - Caroline (Carrie) Brittain (1846)
• 52.1.5 - Alfred George Brittain (1847)
• 52.1.6 - Maria Louisa (Minnie) Brittain (1850)
• 52.1.7 - (Mary) Jane Brittain (1851)
• 52.1.8 - Arthur Henry Barrett Brittain (1854)
• 52.1.9 - Henrietta Brittain (1856)
• 52.1.10 - Clara Hill Brittain (1858)
• 52.1.11 - Bertha Julia Brittain (1859). Bertha died in 1860.
• 52.1.12 - Eliza Annie Brittain (1859). Eliza died in 1860.
• 52.1.13 - Herbert Brittain (1861)
• 52.1.14 - Edith Constance Brittain (1862)

More on these individuals in Chapter 52.

In 1841, when the couple were 20, he was a silver plate worker in Handsworth. Based on location, he might have worked at the Soho Manufactory, an early factory which pioneered mass production. It operated from 1766 was the first site with a Watt steam engine in 1782, and closed in 1848.

In 1851, the family lived at 85 Bath Street, Birmingham; he was a Lay Assistant at St Mary's. Bath Street is between Aston and the City Centre. Some of the street is still there, including the listed and refurbished pub, the Gunmakers Arms but the street has been truncated.

Gunmakers Arms (credit)

In 1861, 1871 and 1881, they lived at 199 Lodge Road, Birmingham; he was the chaplain to the workhouse and asylum. 

Lodge Road is the other side of what is now the Jewellery Quarter, approaching Winson Green. It has been redeveloped. The asylum where Charles worked was at the other end of Lodge Road. It opened in 1850, renamed All Saints Hospital in the mid-C20, and closed in 2000. It has mainly been demolished but the entrance block is listed (interestingly the architect was D R Hill). It now forms offices behind the screen wall of the redeveloped Winson Green Prison (now HMP Birmingham), with which it once formed a civic group.

Winson Green Asylum

The Workhouse was the other side of the canal, and could accommodate 700 adults and 300 children. An infirmary was built in 1887, to a design championed by Florence Nightingale. One of Nightingale's signal achievements was the introduction, from the 1860s onwards, of trained nurses into the workhouse system. Before then care was by other paupers, or former servants or widows who could find no other job. Dickens' Sarah Gamp was a caricature.

Mrs Gamp, from a Victorian 'Life of Dickens' (my collection)

The whole site was redeveloped as Birmingham City Hospital, with the old workhouse entrance surviving until 2017.

Entrance to Birmingham Union Workhouse (credit and more info)

Charles died in 1882 (leaving £471), Maria in 1889.

Next (Charles' siblings)