Birmingham

United Kingdom

Birmingham is a major city in the West Midlands of England. It grew early in the Industrial Revolution as a town of skilled workshops, home to the Soho Manufactory and the steam engine developed by Matthew Boulton and James Watt, and members of its Lunar Society linked scientific inquiry with industry; the scientist Francis Galton was born there in 1822. It gained city status in 1889 and its own university in 1900. In 1849 John Henry Newman founded the Birmingham Oratory, the first Oratorian house in England, which apart from four years in Ireland was his home from 1852 until 1890.