from Tutin, the inventor. It was much used
a hundred years ago, in the manufacture of buckles.

_Umbrellas_.--The name of the man who first carried an umbrella in this
town (about the year 1780) has not yet been enrolled among our
"Birmingham Worthies," but he must have been known to some of our
fathers, for it is not much more than 100 years ago since Jonas Hanway
walked down the Strand, shielding his wig from the wet with the first
umbrella seen in London. The metal work required for setting-up,
technically called "furniture," has long been made here, and gives
employment to about 1,700 hands, two-thirds of whom are females.

_Vinegar_.--Fardon's Vinegar Brewery, Glover Street, is worth a visit,
if only to look at their five vats, each upwards of 30ft. high and 24ft.
in diameter, and each capable of storing 58,000 gallons. But, besides
these, among the largest of their kind in the world, there are thirteen
24,000 gallons vats, five 15,000, and twenty seven 10,000.

_Vitriol_.--The Oil of Vitriol in 1800 was reduced from 3s. per lb. to
1s.; in 1865 it was sold at 1d.

_Watchmaking_.--Few names of eminent horologists are to be found in the
lists of departed tradesmen; so few indeed that watchmaking would seem
to have been one of the unknown arts, if such a thing was possible at
any period of the last two hundred years of Birmingham history. Messrs.
Brunner (Smallbrook Street), Swinden (Temple Street), and Ehrardt (Barr
Street West) take the lead at present among private firms, but the
introduction of a watch manufactory is due to Mr. A L. Dennison, who,
though not the originator of the notion, after establishing factories in
America (in or about 1850) and Switzerland, came to this country in
1871, and, with other gentlemen in the following year started the
Anglo-American Watch Co. (Limited), a factory being erected in Villa
Street. The trade of the Co. was principally with America, which was
supplied with machine-made "works" from here until the Waltham, Elgin,
and other firms over there beat them out of the market, a not very
difficult operation, considering that our fair-trading cousins impose a
25 per cent. duty on all such goods sent there by the free-traders of
this country. The Villa Street establishment was purchased in 1875 by
Mr. William Bragge, who developed the business under the name of The
English Watch Co., the manufacture being confined almost solely to
English Lever watches, large and small sized, key