Attwood, the Birmingham pro – working man MP was instrumental in the enfranchisement of the British working class. He addressed 30000 Brummies at Newhall Hill in 1832 & the government feared a revolution might take place at the behest of Attwood, a man forgotten in history, although there used to be a statue of William Attwood MP reclining on the steps of the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial at the back of #Birmingham Town Hall. Chamberlain was another great Birmingham political figure who ‘Made the Modern Birmingham’ with the ‘Civic Gospel’.
‘The Labour party would have found an ally in Attwood’
Dr Geoffrey Ingham, Financial Times (Letters):
“The early 19th century member of parliament, proto-Keynesian and pro-industry Birmingham banker Thomas Attwood must be cheering from his grave at the Labour party’s proposal to move most of the Bank of England to Birmingham “to shake up more than three centuries of association between the Old Lady and the City of London”.
“In the 1820s, Attwood railed against the City and the Bank in parliament and print: “Half the circulation of the kingdom is determined in stagnant masses into what is called the money market, in order to gorge the moneyed interest.” Rather, he advocated that “the use of credit should be expanded until the demand for labour, in all the great departments of industry, becomes permanently greater than its supply”.
“The prime minister, Lord Melbourne, summarily dismissed his impudence: “Birmingham is…
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Beverley Knight photo by Paul Coltas 
Declan Egan, Michael Watson, Simon Bailey, Lewis Griffiths photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg 
Keith Bracey the Brummie Bard Birmingham & Black Country poet & writer 