French Walls Houses and Rents Records

Papers about Gardens.
A very small bundle of papers kept by the Foundry clerk R. Hootton concerning the division of a field to make gardens for the tenants at French Walls in 1819.

Rent Books, Ledgers and Papers about Rents.
Various examples of rent books and ledgers for the French Walls estate and the houses have survived, but no one series is complete. There are also various papers relating to rents. Note that two of the notebooks listed among the miscellaneous records of French Walls (MS 3147/25/1 and 3) contain a lot of information about the houses, rents and tenants.

Rent Books, Ledgers and Papers about Rents.
Estate Rent Book.
This book contains a running account of debtors and creditors. It runs from January 1820 to 1823, and then from July 1832 to June 1848. The reason for the break is unclear, but the re-starting of the account coincides with John Thomas succeeding John Dawn as Head Clerk.

Rent Ledgers, Hill Row and French Walls Houses, 1818-1866.
These ledgers are divided up into separate accounts for each tenant. They cover the houses at French Walls and at Hill Row, and the gardens at the site. They also include references to an 'old row.' The rental of these houses continued long past the death of James Watt Jr. in 1848.

Other Rent Books.
Rent collected at French Walls, 1 Jul. 1833-30 March 1840.
The account in this small pocket book is headed ‘Rent collected at French Walls by Mr. J. [James] Ward.’ It covers the rental of a group of 22 houses.

Rent Book, French Walls [?],6 Jan. 1840-30 March 1846.
It is unclear exactly which houses this rent book covers, as it appears to include more than the other two rent books described here.

Rent Book, Hill Row and French Walls, 7 October 1833-26 June 1848.
This small volume contains running quarterly accounts of rents paid to James Watt Jr. for the tenancies of 22 houses, presumably the same 22 houses as covered in James Ward’s pocket rent book previously described. However this book does not differentiate between the houses at French Walls and those on Hill Row.

The Houses and Rents records are arranged as follows:
Papers about Gardens
Rent Books, Ledgers and Papers about Rents

More detailed information on each series is given in the Description field, while reference numbers and covering dates of the actual records, and a list of the old reference numbers will be found in the pdf of the full series list attached. Item level lists are available in the searchroom of Birmingham Archives and Heritage.

There are no restrictions on access to or use of the French Walls Houses and Rents records. However fragile items or those in a poor state of repair may not be served at the discretion of the Duty Archivist.

The records listed here are the surviving records relating to the houses on the site of French Walls, the iron and steel works in Smethwick owned by James Watt Jr.There were various houses on the French Walls site, including a row referred to as Hill Row. James Watt Jr. rented out these houses mainly to French Walls workers and other employees of the Soho firms. Rent and upkeep of the houses was administered by the clerks at Soho Foundry.