ABSTRACT
The efficiency of municipal government in effecting reforms secured Birmingham an international reputation as ‘the best-governed city in the world’. Municipal reform in Birmingham was increasingly professionalized after 1870, affecting not only the realms of sanitation and education but also more traditional aspects of voluntary ‘culture’. By 1890, the Liberal party’s dual emphases on reform and reputation had transformed Birmingham into a model of civic governance. Birmingham’s political and cultural leaders, enjoying an apparent union of interests, sought to elevate the city’s reputation through a university college that was much more than a technical school. The three decades between 1870 and 1900 saw dramatic changes in popular conceptions of improvement and its component parts, citizenship and education. ‘Social questions are so intricately mixed together,’ noted one member of the new Birmingham Ladies’ Educational Association, ‘that in order to study one we must devote some amount of attention to many.’.
