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Birmingham Local Studies and History, WPS photographs, New Street Collection 29-89. No 30.
Birmingham in 1885, looking down New Street. The building on the left in Christchurch, demolished in 1899. On the right hand corner is the temperance hotel, also demolished in the late nineteenth century to make way for the current post office building facing the fountain.
Above the temperance hotel is a large advertisement for "Montserrat". This was a birmingham owned company which sold lime juice products, grown from plantations in Montserrat.
This plantation was started by the Sturge family in 1857 as part of an experiment by Jospeh Sturge to show that non-slave labour could be used profitably in the West Indies.