This article is about the Government of Birmingham, England.

Civic history

Most of Birmingham was historically a part of Warwickshire, though the modern city also includes villages and towns historically in Staffordshire or Worcestershire.

Until the 1760s, Birmingham was administered by manorial and parish officials, most of whom served on a part-time and honorary basis. By the 1760s the population growth of Birmingham made this system completely inadequate, and salaried officials were needed. In 1768, a body of "Commissioners of the Streets" was established who had powers to levy a rate for functions such as cleaning and street lighting. They were later given powers to provide policing and build public buildings.

The Reform Act of 1832 gave Birmingham its first representation in Parliament initially with only two MPs but this has been gradually expanded.

Birmingham gained the status of a municipal borough in 1838 and gained its first elected town council which took over the functions of the Street Commissioners. In 1889, it became a county borough (unitary authority) and a city. This remained unchanged until 1974 when Birmingham became a metropolitan district of the newly created West Midlands county under the West Midlands County Council. The county council was abolished in 1986 and Birmingham effectively reverted to being a unitary authority although sharing some services with other authorities in the county.

Birmingham (ⁱ/ˈbɜːrmɪŋəm/) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. It is the largest and most populous British city outside London with 1,101,360 residents (2014 est.), and its population increase of 88,400 residents between the 2001 and 2011 censuses was greater than that of any other British local authority. The city lies within the West Midlands Built-up Area, the third most populous built-up area in the United Kingdom with 2,440,986 residents (2011 census), and its metropolitan area is the United Kingdom's second most populous with 3,701,107 residents (2012 est.) and is also the 9th largest metropolitan area in Europe.

Birmingham (Live with Orchestra & Choir) is a 2013 live album by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, featuring the Orchestra of the Swan and their Chamber Choir Orchestra Conductor Andrew Powell, who was the man who did the string arrangements on the original studio albums. The album, a Comeuppance production, was released by Absolute via Universal. A DVD version of the performance was also released at the same time.

Background

The album was recorded and filmed live at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, England on 24 November 2012. The band, with the orchestra and chamber choir, made up about 50 performers together, and performed the band's first two albums The Human Menagerie and The Psychomodo in their entirety - with some of the songs entirely new to the stage. The sold-out show was a one off performance of the two albums, and also included Spandau Ballet's Steve Norman on saxophone and percussion. Aside from the two albums performed, the band also played three additional tracks on the night; "Judy Teen" (the band's UK Top 5 hit single from 1974), "Stranger Comes to Town" (the title track from Harley's 2010 album) and "Black or White" (from the 1976 album Timeless Flight. Harley commented "It's been a long time coming - something like 39 years. Now we're here, at last, with an orchestra and a choir and a big rock band, to play those first two albums pretty well the way they appeared on the original vinyl. Maybe some things should never change, in spite of progress. Welcome, my old friends."

Birmingham (/ˈbɜːrmɪŋhæm/ BUR-ming-ham) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. The city's population was 212,237 according to the 2010 United States Census. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of about 1,128,047 according to the 2010 Census, which is approximately one quarter of Alabama's population.

Birmingham was founded in 1871, during the post-Civil War Reconstruction period, through the merger of three pre-existing farm towns, notably, former Elyton. It grew from there, annexing many more of its smaller neighbors, into an industrial and railroad transportation center with a focus on mining, the iron and steel industry, and railroading. Birmingham was named for Birmingham, England, UK; one of that nation's major industrial cities. Most of the original settlers who founded Birmingham were of English ancestry. In one writer's view, the city was planned as a place where cheap, non-unionized, and African-American labor from rural Alabama could be employed in the city's steel mills and blast furnaces, giving it a competitive advantage over industrial cities in the Midwest and Northeast.