Hockley is a central inner-city district in the city of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It lies about northwest of the city centre, and is served by the Jewellery Quarter station. Birmingham's

Jewellery Quarter The Jewellery Quarter is an area of central Birmingham, England, in the north-western area of Birmingham City Centre, with a population of 19,000 in a area. The Jewellery Quarter is Europe's largest concentration of businesses involved in the ...

continues to thrive in Hockley, and much of the original architecture and small

artisan An artisan (from , ) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art, sculpture, clothing, food ite ...

workshops have survived intact. Hockley is the location of the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter and

Birmingham Mint The Birmingham Mint was a coining mint and metal-working company based in Birmingham, England. Formerly the world's largest privately owned mint, the company produced coins for many foreign nations including France, Italy, China, and much of the ...

. Vittoria Street in Hockley is home to Birmingham Institute of Art and Design's Jewellery School, and The Big Peg arts & crafts workshop cluster is nearby. Housing in the area is generally characterised by well-built Victorian villas and terraces. The Hockley Flyover murals at the "Hockley flyover" road interchange are an exemplary example of

brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the b ...

late-

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

concrete

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

and are grade II listed.

Politics

Hockley lies within the Ladywood formal district and the

constituency An electoral (congressional, legislative, etc.) district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provi ...

Birmingham Ladywood Birmingham Ladywood is a United Kingdom constituencies, constituency in the city of Birmingham that was created in 1918. The seat has been represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of the Parliament of the Unit ...

History

Hockley has been the centre of the city's

jewellery Jewellery (or jewelry in American English) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment such as brooches, ring (jewellery), rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the ...

industry since the mid-1830s, evolving out of the city's earlier button, pin, buckle and toy trades. The Quarter's strong growth quickly eclipsed the jewellery trade in nearby

Derby Derby ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area on the River Derwent, Derbyshire, River Derwent in Derbyshire, England. Derbyshire is named after Derby, which was its original co ...

, which faded away, and the Quarter made a large proportion of the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

's fine jewellery. Hockley is the location of two important 19th-century cemeteries: Key Hill Cemetery, opened in 1836 as a nondenominational cemetery (in practice, largely nonconformist); and Warstone Lane Cemetery, opened in 1847, which was originally reserved for members of the established

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

. Hockley was the first place in Birmingham to be connected to the city centre by a tram line, opened in 1873. Kathleen Dayus, born in 1903 in Hockley, wrote about the area between 1982 and 2000 in a series of books now brought together under the title ''The Girl from Hockley''.

Notable people from Hockley

* Jessie Eden - Communist and trade union leader, known for appearance in ''

Peaky Blinders The Peaky Blinders were a street gang based in Birmingham, England, which operated from the 1880s until the 1920s. The group consisted largely of young criminals from lower- to working-class backgrounds. They engaged in robbery, violence, racke ...

.'' * Billy Walton * Fred Allen (footballer) * Harry Howell (cricketer) * Jamelia * Kathleen Dayus * Daniel Sturridge * Joan Armatrading - lived in the mostly demolished area of Brookfield from age of seven. *

Benjamin Zephaniah Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (15 April 1958 – 7 December 2023) was a British writer, dub poet, actor, musician and professor of poetry and creative writing. Over his lifetime, he was awarded 20 honorary doctorates in recognition of his c ...

References

External links

Photos of Hockley

Areas of Birmingham, West Midlands {{WestMidlands-geo-stub