Sawyer's Assembly Rooms

Sawyer's Assembly Rooms in Old Square, Birmingham were the leading assembly rooms in Birmingham during the early period of the Midlands Enlightenment.[1]

The room was opened by William Sawyer in 1740, taking over a property that had previously been used as a school.[2] Before this the town's principal assembly rooms had been at the Hart's Head in Bull Street, which had served this purpose since 1649.[2]

Assemblies were held weekly at Sawyer's and included dancing, conversation and games of cards.[3] Regular subscription concert series were also given at Sawyer's from the 1740s by Barnabas Gunn and John Eversman[1] often being followed by a ball.

The reputation of Sawyer's room as a fashionable venue never recovered from the visit of the Duke of York in 1765,[4] when he remarked that "a town of such magnitude as Birmingham, and adorned with so much beauty, deserved a superior accommodation, that the room itself was mean, but the entrance still meaner"[3] As a result of this insult, new assembly rooms were built at the Royal Hotel in Temple Row, funded by subscription and opening in 1772.[3] Despite this, Sawyer's room continued under Sawyer's own ownership until 1779 when it was taken over by James Cresshull, who operated it for a further 75 years.[2]

References
  1. Money, John (1977), Experience and identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands, 1760-1800, Manchester University Press, p. 83, ISBN 0719006724, retrieved 2013-02-24
  2. Hill, Joseph; Dent, Robert K. (1897), Memorials of the Old Square, Birmingham: Achilles Taylor, pp. 84–85, OCLC 8263180
  3. Pendleton, Muriel (2010), From bullbaiting to theater and oratorio attending: The cultural development of Birmingham during the eighteenth century, Long Beach, CA: California State University, pp. 27–28, retrieved 2013-02-24
  4. Stephens, W. B. (1964), "Social History before 1815", in Stephens, W.B. (ed.), The City of Birmingham, The Victoria History Of The County Of Warwick, VII, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 209–222, retrieved 2013-02-24
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