The Grandeur that is Birmingham

Birmingham Town Hall is used as a concert and meeting hall in Chamberlain Square in central Birmingham.

It was created as the home of the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival that had been established in 1784.

The architects were Joseph Hansom and Edward Welch, who designed the hall to resemble a classical Roman Temple - it is modelled on the Temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome. The building is actually brick, faced with Anglesey Marble. It was opened in 1834 for its first festival.

Charles Dickens gave readings here and Mendelssohn's Elijah and Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius were premiered here. The Beatles, Stones, Dylan , Pink Floyf and Queen all performed here.

Beside the Town Hall is the Chamberlain Memorial, unusually erected in the great man's life time in 1880. Its purpose was to commemorate the public service of one of my heroes: "Radical Joe" Chamberlain: businessman, councillor, mayor of Birmingham and MP for the Borough.

The plaque on the Monument states:

This memorial is erected in gratitude for public service given by Joseph Chamberlain...during whose Mayorality many great public works were notably advanced. And mainly by whose ability & devotion the Fas & Water Undertakings were acquired for the town the great and lasting benefit of the inhabitants.

Later in 1886 Chamberlain split the Liberal Party over Irish Home Rule, taking his followers and the Liberal Party Machine in Birmingham into coalition with the Conservatives, as Liberal Unionists.

He was Colonial Secretary in Lord Salisbury's Unionist Government from 1895 and presided over the Boer War. He was dominant figure in the crushing victory of the Unionists at the Khaki Election in 1900. He then split the Unionist Government in 1903 over the issue of free trade versus Empire Preference which he advocated. This helped to cause the Unionists defeat in the 1906 election.

He had a disabling stroke in 1906, and he died in 1914. He was father of Sir Austen Chamberlain and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

The monument was designed by John Henry Chamberlain (no relation), in neo-Gothic style.