Day mob turned on our first historian.

Byline: Carl Chinn 

THAT Saturday morning July 16, 1791, William Hutton, Birmingham's first historian, was "obliged to run away like a thief, and hide myself from the world" as a violent mob headed to attack and plunder his house at Bennett's Hill in Washwood Heath.

Despairingly he wrote that he had injured no man "and yet durst not face man. I had spent a life in distributing justice to others, and now wanted it myself. However fond of home, and whatever were my comforts there, I was obliged, with my family to throw myself upon the world without money in my pocket".

Hutton's anger, misery and hurt were well placed.

A well-known bookseller in Birmingham, he had become wealthy through his ownership of the town's only paper warehouse. Unlike so many men whose fortunes waxed and who withdrew into private life caring little for the general wellbeing, Hutton had thrown himself vigorously into public life.

He became a major figure who wrote the first history of Bir-minghain 1781. Hutton was well placed to do so. An incomer from Derby, yet was he passionately attached to the town he lived in and had a deep awareness of the workings of Birmingham.

This understanding is reflected in his circle of friends, which included members of leading families such as the Rylands the wire drawers and Pembertons the jewellers, and it is emphasised by the prominent folk who subscribed to the first edition of his work. They included Matthew Boulton, the acclaimed craftsman, thinker and owner of the Soho Manufactory; Dr John Ash, the founder of the General Hospital; Francis Egginton, the noted painter of glass; and Dr Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen.

Through Hutton's words we are pulled into a time of exhilarating change. With him we grasp the trades which thrust Birmingham on to the international stage and we perceive the men whose genius drove the city forward. We see John Taylor, the "Brummagem button king", whom Hutton praised as partly responsible for the riches, extension and improvement of the town. Rising from "minute beginnings to shine in the commercial hemisphere", he acquired a fortune and joined forces with Sampson Lloyd the ironmonger to begin Taylor and Lloyd's Bank in Dale End in 1765.

And we also see John Baskerville, whom Hutton extolled as "this son of genius". He gained his wealth through japanning, the varnishing of metal goods with a black and glossy finish, and then created an incomparable form of type on which he printed editions of the Bible, Milton's Paradise Lost and Virgil's Poems.

Hutton was excited at the "great crowd of artists" who abounded in Birmingham and he should be placed amongst them.

Keen to help his fellow citizens, he held various public offices. First an overseer of the poor he then was chosen as a commissioner of the Court of Requests, a body that aimed to speed up and make easier the recovery of debts of under forty shillings in Birmingham and Deritend.

This became Hutton's "favourite amusement", believing as he did that "there cannot be a more useful service rendered to the public, than that of doing justice between man and man, giving every one his own in the mildest way and composing differences". Yet it was his involvement with the court that led to his woes in the summer of 1791.

On July 14 rioting erupted against wealthy Dissenters, those who did not adhere to the Church of England.

Stirred up by bigoted and jealous establishment figures, mobs of poorer people attacked the places of worship and homes of those they believed were unpatriotic supporters of the French Revolution.

The next day the rioting worsened. John Ryland's house at Easy Hill, formerly the home of Baskerville, was burned as was that of the Taylors' in Bordesley. That night Hutton's house in High Street, Birmingham, was looted even though he had sought to buy off the attackers with money for drink.

Then the following morning his home at Bennett's Hill was reduced to ashes.

Hutton could not credit that he had been targeted "as I had never given offence to anyone".

Unhappily he had and elsewhere he discerned the reason - "had I been simply a Dissenter, I probably should have escaped", but his religious belief united with his involvement with the Court of Requests sealed the antagonism towards him.

Certainly Hutton claimed to have heard the mob harangued by a man who declared that it was owing to Hutton that he had lost a case in the court, whilst one of the pillagers urged the others on because he had been forced to pay fifteen shillings in the court.

Not surprisingly Hutton was embittered by his terrible experiences.

They totally altered his sentiments of man, leading him to regret "having sacrificed nearly two days a week of my time, and no small portion of my talents, to the gratui-touservice of the public for 19 years".

Despite his bitterness Hutton did not abandon Birmingham. He returned and lived in Washwood Heath until he died, aged 92, on September 20, 1815.

It was as he had wanted. Back in 1779 he had written to his wife in Derbyshire that he had gone for a walk and "passing by Aston Park wall I had a full view of our house at Bennett's Hill heightened by the blaze of a western sun; I fixed my eye upon the window of the south chamber, my tongue moved involuntarily; if it had produced a sound it would have been 'There I am likely to breathe my last'."

Buried at Aston Parish Church with his wife, a monument was later put up to Hutton's memory in St Margaret's Church, Ward End.

Hutton was succeeded by his son, Thomas, and his daughter, Catherine, a novelist. Neither had children.

Still, Hutton's name was carried on locally by his great-nephew, Samuel.

He had come to Birmingham, aged 11, in 1798 to assist Hutton's son, train in the business and inherit the family's fortune.

Afterwards Samuel set himself up in Ward End Hall.

Huttons continued to live there and at Bennett's Hill House until the late 19th century. By this time Washwood Heath was in the throes of remarkable change from a deeply rural spot into a residential and industrial part of Birmingham.

More about Washwood Heath * in next Saturday's Birmingham Mail

CAPTION(S):

William Hutton's house, now demolished. The corner of the Washwood Heath Road and Arley Road a century ago. Rural Washwood Heath in the 19th century.