Write Stuff For Brum

Just a few pence allows us to pick them up readily from a variety of shops.

And most of us have a couple hanging around our person, either in handbags or nearby drawers at home and work.

But pens weren't always so available.

It wasn't until Birmingham manufacturuers John Mitchell, Joseph Gillott and Josiah Mason began the mass producing them from 1822 that everyday people began to come into contact with them.
Until John Mitchell pioneered his hand pressing techniques at his factory on Newhall Street in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter those that could write had to rely on the Quill pen.

The flight feathered items were developed from the offerings from crows, eagles, owls and turkeys.
And it was only the very learned and well connected in society who used them.

Steel pens preceeded the biro and the brains in Birmingham who made them cheap and accessible have been credited with spreading literacy throughout the world.

Much has been reported on Joseph Gillott's development of pens, as it is he who began using machinery to the process them.

In the 1820s the production of steel pens was a labour intensive business.
Each nib had to be cut out individually from a shteet of steel, and this was followed by a protracted procedure of moulding, slitting and and annealing before it was ready to use.

As a result it was a costly item, retailing at one shilling (5p) each.
That's not to say that the job could not be done quickly by a skilful pair of hands.
Gillott himself clamied to have made 144 pens on the moring of his marriage to John Mitchell's sister.

He then went on to apply similar presses used in button-making to steel pens.
Such mechanisation required plenty of cheap labour, a production line of operations and large premses.
From a garret in Bread Street, now Cornwall Street in Birmingham city centre, Gillott moved economically upwards to a workshop in Church Street.

He then took over a larger workshop in Newhall Street.
And finally, in 1839, he moved his business to one of the first purpose-built factories in Birmingham - The Victoria Works in Graham Street.

There he employed around 450 workers, mainly women and girls, who stamped out nibs at an extraordinary speed.
The price dropped from a shilling each to a few pence for 144 (a gross).

All in all, the Birmingham steel pen trade was producing more than 700 million pens a year, and it's no exaggeration to say that it transofrmed the writing habits of the world, just at the time when literacy levels were on the rise.

It has been estimated that three-quarters of the writing done in the Victorian era was done with Birmingham pens.
And today the city's contribution to the development of education and literacy throughout the world is kept alive by The Birmingham Pen Trade Heritage Association.

You can learn more about the Birmingham pen makers and pens at The Penroom Museum at the Argent Centre, on Frederick Street in Hockley.