‘By the gains of Industry, we promote Art’ ‘In Birmingham you may generally recognise a board school by it being the best building in the neighbourhood, with its lofty towers, gabled windows, warm red bricks and stained glass.’ So observed the Pall Mall Gazette in 1894. The famous civic gospel shaped Birmingham as ‘the best governed city in the world.’ The inspiration for the transformation of Birmingham in the second half of the 19th century came from the sermons of ‘the greatest talker in England’ George Dawson. The men who oversaw the improvement of the town mostly sat on Sunday mornings in the pews of the Church of the Saviour. These were the men who were responsible for: a unique memorial library dedicated to the works of Warwickshire’s very own William Shakespeare; the foremost provincial institute (the Birmingham and Midland Institute); the first municipal technical school; the most famous art school in the country; and an enviable new art gallery. More improvements were developed by the town council: schools, baths and wash houses; the municipalisation of the gas and water supplies; and an impressive new thoroughfare, suitably christened Corporation Street.

The British electorate swelled dramatically with the passing of the Second Reform Act in 1867. This presented the political class with a significant challenge. Here was a large, new electorate which needed to be understood, managed, enthused, and persuaded to vote for the right candidate in local and parliamentary elections. From this time onwards education and democratic involvement of these new voters became vital for political success. In Birmingham, the town of a thousand trades, Joseph Chamberlain and his allies were faced with an electorate which had tripled in size overnight and many of whom had never previously voted or participated in politics. In response, Joseph Chamberlain and his close-knit Birmingham team developed national campaigns on issues such as universal education, democracy and tariff reform which required new methods for propagating and winning arguments that resonated across all classes and interests. At the same time they colonised Birmingham's town council, school board and other municipal bodies where they gained the practical political experience which they could transfer to the national stage. For the first time The Birmingham Political Machine lays bare how Joseph Chamberlain with his colleagues and friends was so successful that never before or since has one politician monopolised regional power as Joseph Chamberlain did for more than thirty years in the West Midlands. He made it his invincible fortress. From now on British politics would never be the same and the techniques developed by the Birmingham Machine can still be seen today.

It is striking how many nationally significant speeches have been made in Birmingham over the past two hundred years. This book looks at ten episodes when a speech in Birmingham challenged the rest of the country to embrace change and reform. More than any other city it represents Britain's provincial voice across the period. The book reflects the importance of oratory in making a political argument. It may in a sound-bite era be a dying art but these speeches fulfil the first requirement of successful rhetoric, that it be a reasoned argument to persuade its audience.