ll, opened in 1826, but was joined to Birmingham Banking
Co. in 1829.

Smith, Gray, Cooper and Co., of 1815, afterwards Gibbins, Smith, and
Goode, went in 1825.

~Banknotes.~--Notes for 5/3 were issued in 1773. 300 counterfeit L1
notes, dated 1814, were found near Heathfield House, January 16, 1858. A
noted forger of these shams is said to have resided in the immediate
neighbourhood about the period named on the discovered "flimsies." When
Boulton and Watt were trying to get the Act passed patenting their
copying-press the officials of the Bank of England opposed it for fear
it should lead to forgery of their notes, and several Members of
Parliament actually tried to copy banknotes as they did their letters.

~Bankrupts.~--In the year 1882 (according to the _Daily Post_) there
were 297 bankruptcies, compositions, or liquidations in Birmingham, the
total amount of debts being a little over L400,000. The dividends ranged
from 2d. to 15s. in the L, one-half the whole number, however, realising
under 1s. 6d. The estimated aggregate loss to creditors is put at
L243,000.

~Baptists.~--As far back as 1655, we have record of meetings or
conferences of the Baptist churches in the Midland district, their
representatives assembling at Warwick on the second day of the third
month, and at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, on the 26th of the fourth month in
that year. Those were the Cromwellian days of religious freedom, and we
are somewhat surprised that no Birmingham Baptists should be among those
who gathered together at the King's Head, at Moreton, on the last named
date, as we find mention made of brethren from Warwick, Tewkesbury,
Alcester, Derby, Bourton-on-the-Water, Hook Norton,
Moreton-in-the-Marsh, and even of there being a community of the same
persuasion at Cirencester. The conference of the Midland Counties'
District Association of Baptist Churches met in this town for the first
time in 1740.--For Chapels see "_Places of Worship_."

~Barr Beacon.~--A trial was made on January 10, 1856, as to how far a
light could be seen by the ignition of a beacon on Malvern Hills. It was
said to have been seen from Snowdon in Wales (105 miles), and at other
parts of the country at lesser distances, though the gazers at Worcester
saw it not. The look-out at Dudley Castle (26 miles) could have passed
the signal on to Barr Beacon, but it was not needed, as the Malvern
light was not only seen there, but still away on at Bardon Hill,
Leicester.-