Tales of the City - The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword

 

Last Thursday Liz and I caught the bus over to Birmingham.

We wandered down the magnificent Great Western Arcade...

And popped into 200 Degrees, opposite the cathedral, for a fancy coffee.

I'd booked tickets for The Pen Museum in Birmingham's historic Jewellery Quarter which you may remember Nikki and I visiting earlier this year. Liz loves pens and all things calligraphy so she was keen to see it for herself. 

At its peak Birmingham was home to over one hundred pen factories manufacturing 10,000 varieties of pens and employing over 8,000 people with women making up over 75% of the workforce. 

In the 19th century three-quarters of everything written down in the world was written with a pen made in Birmingham - get your head round that!!!

The Pen Museum is housed within a former pen factory, The Argent Works, built in 1863 in the Italianate style, on Frederick Street. 

The Industrial Revolution created a demand for affordable writing instruments. Birmingham's manufacturers were the first to adopt steel nibs, which were more reliable than the traditional goose quill pens and, from the mid to the late 19th Century, the city dominated the world's production of pens. It was estimated that three-quarters of the world's pens were made in Birmingham and the mass-production of pens which made them affordable to all, significantly impacted on the rise of global literacy in the 19th Century. By the end of the century the number of pen manufacturers in Birmingham declined to just twelve and, after WWII, the mass market success of the ballpoint pen made traditional pen nibs obsolete.

The female press operators were expected to produce a minimum of 14,000 nibs per day with fines incurred for less than perfect nibs and also for eating, drinking, toilet breaks and even singing during their average 12 hour working day. 

Like The Coffin Works (HERE) and The Silver Factory (HERE), the Pen Museum doesn't gloss over the hardships Britain's working classes endured, it's so important we're reminded of how awful the days were before Health and Safety regulations and Trade Unions. 

There's an area when you can practice your calligraphy....

Liz's is the parsnips, mine's the sword.

There's a fascinting video as well as some recorded conversations with several nonagenarians who worked in Birmingham's pen factories in the 1930s and 1940s. 

And like last time, we had a go at making our own nibs.

This is the amount each woman was expected to make per day (a single one took us about 15 minutes!)

After having our handwriting analysed, we ransacked the fabulous (and very competitively priced) gift shop.

By now we were ravenous so headed to the pub opposite, The 1000 Trades. 

Birmingham has been known as The City of A Thousand Trades since the 19th Century from the wide range of skilled manufacturing industries including metalworking, guns, jewellery and - of course - pens! 

Lunch was a Med Veg Posh Sandwich (menu HERE) served with vegetable crisps and homemade coleslaw along with the most delicious Goat's Milk IPA (don't worry, it wasn't really made with milk!)

We wondered if the saying, His Nibs, originated in Brum? I'll have to ask next time I visit.

The Pen Museum opens on Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays from 11am - 4pm and on Sundays from 12pm - 4pm.

There's currently a Two for One deal if you book online so we paid a total of £8.50 - an absolute bargain! See HERE.