Brummagem (and historically also Bromichan, Bremicham and many similar variants, all essentially "Bromwich-ham") is the local name for the city of Birmingham, England, and the dialect associated with it. It gave rise to the terms Brum (a shortened version of Brummagem) and Brummie (applied to inhabitants of the city, their accent and dialect). "Brummagem" and "Brummagem ware" are also terms for cheap and shoddy imitations, in particular when referring to mass-produced goods. This use is archaic in the UK, but persists in some specialist areas in the US and Australia.
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The term Brummie derives from Brummagem or Bromwichham, which are historical variants of the name Birmingham.
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The Lesson of the Master. Hoboken: Melville House Publishing, 2004: 90. The Birmingham politician Joseph Chamberlain was nicknamed "Brummagem Joe" (affectionately or satirically, depending on the speaker). See, for instance, The Times, 6 August 1895: "'Chamberlain and his crew' dominated the city ... Mr Geard thought it was advisable to have a candidate against 'Brummagem Joe'".
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A song, "I Can't Find Brummagem", was written by James Dobbs (1781–1837), a Midland music hall entertainer. "The Birmingham School of Business School", a song by The Fall on the 1992 album Code: Selfish, about the "creative accounting techniques" of Trevor Long, a manager of the band, includes the lyric "Brummagem School of Business School".
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It is thought by some, including historian Carl Chinn, that around this time Matthew Boulton favoured "Birmingham" over "Brummagem" to avoid negative connotations.
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"Birmingham's what I think with. / It's not made for that sort of job,/ but it's what they gave me. / As a means of thinking, it's a Brummagem/ screwdriver" (lines 1–4).
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"Brummagem" remained a staple of British political and critical discourse into the early 20th century: The Times, 13 August 1901 quoted a House of Commons speech by a Mr MacNeill, "The initiative of the Bill ... had the 'Brummagem' brand from top to bottom. It was a mean attempt, inspired by the absurd and vulgar spirit of Imperialism, to subsidize the Crown with a parvenu title, and a tawdry gewgaw reputation". A Punch book review for December 1917 said: "But, to be honest, the others (with the exception of one quaint little comedy of a canine ghost) are but indifferent stuff, too full of snakes and hidden treasure and general tawdriness – the kind of Orientalism, in fact, that one used to associate chiefly with the Earl's Court Exhibition. Mrs. PERRIN must not mingle her genuine native goods with such Brummagem ware".
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Charles Dickens's novel The Pickwick Papers (1836) mentions it as a term for counterfeit silver coins; but Samuel Sidney's Rides on Railways (1851) refers to it as "an old-fashioned nickname for a Birmingham workman". Cartoon from satirical journal The Dart of local politician Francis Schnadhorst leaving Birmingham for London following the 1886 split in the Liberal party over Irish Home Rule: the caption bids him "Bye, bye, Schnaddy! and so you are the first to leave Brummagem." By the late 19th century, "Brummagem" was still used as a term for Birmingham.
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The Birmingham Boys (also known as the Brummagem Boys) were a street gang whose power extended from the North of England to London's underworld, between the 1910s and 1930. They lost control of the South East racecourses to the Sabini gang.
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In The Guardian "Notes from the touchline" sport report, 21 March 2003, journalist Frank Keating used the headline "World Cup shines with dinkum Brummagem" to praise the performance of Birmingham-born Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds. A particular activist in reclaiming the term as a traditional name reflecting positive aspects of the city's heritage is historian Carl Chinn MBE, Professor of Community History at the University of Birmingham, who produces Brummagem Magazine. The British poet Roy Fisher (b. 1930) uses the term in his poetry sequence, "Six Texts For a Film", in Birmingham River (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
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People from Birmingham are called Brummies, a term derived from the city's nickname of "Brum", which originates from the city's old name, Brummagem, which in turn is thought to have derived from "Bromwich- ham". The Brummie accent and dialect are particularly distinctive.
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The Birmingham Mint also became internationally renowned for its high-quality coins, as did Cadburys for its chocolate and workers' welfare and rights. With such a vast array of items being produced it was inevitable that not all would have been of high quality; and the advances of the industrial revolution enabled machines to mass-produce cheaper items such as buttons, toys, trinkets and costume jewellery. The poor quality of a proportion of these gave rise to a pejorative use of the word, "Brummagem ware", although such items were not exclusive to the city. The significant button industry gave rise to the term "Brummagem button".
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Richard H. Barham: However, as shown by James Dobbs's song "I can't find Brummagem" (see below), it remained in use as a geographical name for the city. In the Henry James story "The Lesson of the Master" (1888), the novelist Henry St. George refers to his "beautiful fortunate home" as "brummagem" to indicate that it is worth little in comparison to what he has given up to have it; he has sacrificed his pursuit of great writing in order to live the life of a comfortable, well-off man. He expresses his regret to the story's protagonist, an aspiring young writer named Paul Overt.James, Henry.
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Some people still used it as a general term for anything cheap and shoddy disguised as something better. It was used figuratively in this context to refer to moral fakery: for instance, the Times leader, 29 January 1838, reported Sir Robert Peel's slur on an opponent: "[who] knew the sort of Brummagem stuff he had to deal with, treated the pledge and him who made it with utter indifference". One particularly negative use of the word is "brummagem screwdriver", a term for a hammer, a jibe which suggested that Brummie workers were unskilled and unsophisticated, though it was similarly applied to the French and Irish.Slang Down the Ages: the historical development of slang, Jonathon Green, Kyle Cathie, 1993.
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In December 2011, Kent joined the Brummagem Mummers, inventing and playing the character Wild Bill Hitchcock, a spoof Wild West gunman, in their Mummers' Play until December 2013. In 2012, Kent became the first-known person to identify and climb all of Staffordshire's 65 1,000-foot peaks, completing his ascents on New Year's Eve. He collectively named the hills The Staffordshire Kents.
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Taylor became a cabinet maker in Birmingham. There he set up a factory in what is now Union Street to manufacturer "Brummagem toys", such as buttons, buckles, snuff boxes and jewellery boxes. He made a fortune selling silver-plated articles, and he used the plating process devised by Thomas Boulsover.Paul H. Emden's "Quakers in commerce: A record of business achievement", pp.
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Katherine Barber. (Oxford University Press: 2004) [Accessed 8 May 2006] ;Bonacker : (US) A working class person from the Springs neighborhood of East Hampton, New York; from neighboring Accabonac Harbor. ;Brummie : (UK) A person from Birmingham; also the dialect spoken there; from "Brummagem", an archaic pronunciation of Birmingham.Time online: Brummie accent is perceived as 'worse than silence' ;Buckeye : A person from Ohio.
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The stories are set in the city of Birmingham, England, since in addition to its onomatopoeic nature of a car engine revving, Brum (as a contraction of "Brummagem") is a common colloquial name for Birmingham. Although later series make no direct mention of Birmingham, calling it simply Big Town, many of the city's streets and landmarks can be seen in each episode. The show was written by a range of writers. Anne Wood primarily wrote all the first series, while the second was written by Tom Poole, Dirk Campbell, Andrew Davenport and Morgan Hall.
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All these figures are passing by the workers through a narrow pathway which brings them up against the sifted lime powder, a corrosive which symbolises the cleansing assault on their complacent rejection of useful work. The countryman (left) and the beer seller (right) In the centre of the composition is a countryman who has recently moved to the town, identifiable by his rural smock. He is holding a brick-hod and drinking beer supplied by the man in the red waistcoat who is supposed to be a "bouncer" employed in a local pub. The beer seller's costume includes examples of cheap brummagem jewellery.
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The negative use of the word was included in several dictionaries around the world. > Carts were passing to and fro; groups of Indians squatting on their haunches > were chattering together, and displaying to one another the flaring red and > yellow handkerchiefs, the scarlet blankets, and muskets of the most > worthless Brummagem make, for which they had been exchanging their bits of > gold, while their squaws looked on with the most perfect indifference.J. > Tyrwhitt Brooks, California, 1849 The term was not always used with negative meaning. A character in Jeffery Farnol's novel The Broad Highway (1910) comments: and the Rev.
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International Who's Who in Popular Music, . His musical style has most frequently been described as folk-rock, in a similar vein to Strawbs.Torch magazine, 1982. From 2008 to 2013, Kent played percussion in the Glorishears of Brummagem morris dance band and claimed to have invented a new technique of playing the drum tambourine, strapped over a shoulder, with a timpani mallet and a drumstick, to create bass drum and rim shot snare drum-type sounds.Staffordshire Newsletter, 15. 12. 2011. In 2013, Kent co-founded Mercia Morris, in which he played various pieces of percussion strapped to his body, and he became the side's music co-ordinator.The Sentinel, 5. 9. 2013, page 12Express & Star, 11. 9.
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During the 18th century Birmingham was known by several variations of the name "Brummagem". In 1731, an old "road-book" said that "Birmingham, Bromicham, or Bremicham, is a large town, well built and populous. The inhabitants, being mostly smiths, are very ingenious in their way, and vend vast quantities of all sorts of iron wares." Around 1750, England's Gazetteer described Birmingham or Bromichan as "a large, well-built, and populous town, noted for the most ingenious artificers in boxes, buckles, buttons, and other iron and steel wares; wherein such multitudes of people are employed that they are sent all over Europe; and here is a continual noise of hammers, anvils, and files".
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The town was renowned for its miscellany of metal and silver industries, some of whose manufacturers used cheap materials, exhibiting poor quality and design. The poorer-quality "Brummagem ware" was beginning to give the better more skilled metal workers of the town a bad name; Matthew Boulton of the Lunar Society and several toy makers and silversmiths realized this and campaigned to have the town's first assay office constructed. Great opposition came from the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London but royal assent was given for assay offices in both Birmingham and Sheffield on the same day. Eventually this filtered out much of the poor workmanship of silver and jewellery in Birmingham, keeping mainly the higher-quality jewellery produced, which ultimately enabled the town to become one of the most important silver manufacturing centres in the 19th century.
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According to , among UK listeners "Birmingham English in previous academic studies and opinion polls consistently fares as the most disfavoured variety of British English, yet with no satisfying account of the dislike". He alleges that overseas visitors, in contrast, find it "lilting and melodious", and from this claims that such dislike is driven by various linguistic myths and social factors peculiar to the UK ("social snobbery, negative media stereotyping, the poor public image of the City of Birmingham, and the north/south geographical and linguistic divide"). For instance, despite the city's cultural and innovative history, its industrial background (as depicted by the arm-and-hammer in Birmingham's coat of arms) has led to a muscular and unintelligent stereotype: a "Brummagem screwdriver" is UK slang for a hammer. Thorne also cites the mass media and entertainment industry where actors, usually non-Birmingham, have used inaccurate accents and/or portrayed negative roles.
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