The Messrs. Elkington have doubled their trade since the Birmingham
Exhibition in 1848, and there is reason to believe that, instead of
displacing labour as was anticipated, this invention has increased the number
and the wages of the parties employed.
* * * * *
The Britannia Metal manufacture is closely allied to the plate trade; an
ingenious improvement, well worth examination, has recently been introduced
by Messrs. Sturgis of Broad Street, by which teapots are cast whole, instead
of having the spouts and handles soldered on.
* * * * *
The Gilt Toy and Mock Jewellery Trade, once one of the staple employments of
Birmingham artizans, has dwindled away until it now occupies a very
insignificant place in the Directory. Bad cheap articles, with neglect of
novelty and taste in design, ruined it. In cheap rubbish foreigners can
always beat us, but the Birmingham gilt toy men made things "to sell" until
no one would buy.
* * * * *
FOX AND HENDERSON'S MANUFACTORY.--The London works conducted by Messrs. Fox,
Henderson, and Co., who have become known to all the world by their rapid and
successful erection of the Crystal Palace, are situated at Smethwick, about
four miles from Birmingham on the Dudley Road.
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