Published by William Cornish in 1862. containing 808 pages. The areas covered are Birmingham, Edgbaston, Aston, Erdington, Moseley, Gravelly Hill, Handsworth, Harborne, King's Heath, Nechells, Perry Barr, Selly, Saltley, Small Heath, Smethwick, Ward End and Witton.
It contains an alphabetical list of people in the area along with their occupation and address plus a classified trades directory. These directories are not the same, however, there are people who are in one but not the other.
The really juicy part is the numerical directory. This is an alphabetical list of streets with lists of virtually every head of household. Not ‘every’ house number is listed (mainly due to the fact that the family may have been out, or they may have doubted the motives of the canvasser) but the vast majority are there.
The date of the directory is important as it makes it an ideal index and searching aid for the 1861 census. You can simply look up the name of your ancestor in the directory, get the address and ‘then’ go to the street indexes of the census, a major time saver!
