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Northfield, Birmingham

Northfield is a residential area in outer south Birmingham, England, near the boundary with Worcestershire, which it was historically within. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the wards of Kings Norton, Longbridge, Weoley Castle and the smaller ward of Northfield that includes West Heath and Turves Green.

Mentioned in the Domesday Book and formerly a small village, then included in north Worcestershire, Northfield became part of Birmingham in 1911 after it had been rapidly expanded and developed in the period prior to World War I. The northern reaches of Northfield fall within the Bournville model village and the southern housing estates were originally built by Austin Motors for their workforce.

A centre of the Midlands nail making industry during the 19th century and home to both the Kalamazoo paper factory and the Austin motor company's Longbridge factory in the 20th century, today Northfield is predominantly a residential and dormitory suburb of metropolitan Birmingham. Northfield stands on either side of the main A38, heading south from the centre of Birmingham to Bromsgrove and onwards all the way to Cornwall.

Pre-history
Northfield was occupied or visited in the Stone Age as evidenced by a yellow Chert neolithic scraper discovered in Quarry Lane and a stone axe-head found on Tessall Lane, dated to the New Stone Age. It is also possible that Northfield was occupied in the Bronze Age as large burnt mounds of heat-shattered stones have been identified alongside Northfield's streams evidencing occupation of the area over a lengthy period of time. One of these mounds found near Merritts Brook Lane is 16 metres across. Two further mounds, one on Griffin's Brook near Woodlands Park Road and another at the foot of Bell Hill, were radiocarbon-dated to c1070 BCE and c1120 BCE respectively. The usage evidence is not totally conclusive, but the hot stones are believed to have either provided heating for domestic cooking or Bronze Age saunas.

Roman, Saxon and Norman periods
Before Roman times the area round Northfield most likely belonged to the Celtic tribe, Dobunii, there is little evidence of Saxon settlement and the area was probably mainly Celtic. The name was original nord feld, an Anglo-Saxon phrase and Northfield was probably named because the area is to the north of Bromsgrove. Northfield was also near the northern edge of the Saxon kingdom called Hwicce as were Kings Norton and Yardley and was near the northern edge of the area settled by Saxons arriving from the south.

What is now the route of the Bristol Road South through Northfield had become known as the Upper Saltway (part of the historic Ryknild Street), because it was one of the routes used to transport salt extracted from the Droitwich brine springs all the way to Saltfleet on the Lincolnshire coast. The salt was then loaded onto ships and exported to France and Scandinavia for trading purposes.

The Romans also used the road that became the Upper Saltway as a frequent route between settlements and marching forts. Roman occupation evidence was discovered by chance near the Bristol Road South in Northfield when Pigeon House near Hill Top Road was demolished in c1921 (as the Bristol Road was being widened) and the Northfield hoard of 16 Roman coins was found buried. The trove included coins of Claudius II Gothicus (268–270 CE), Diocletian (284–305 CE), Maximian (285–286 CE), Constantius (305–306 CE), Constantine (306–337 CE). The excavation also revealed a Roman aqueduct that indicated a Romano-British building of some status had once stood on the site. In 1963 a Roman coin was found in nearby Rednal by a Janet and Stephen Harris. The coin was a dupondius struck during the reign of the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius who ruled Rome and Britain from 138 to 161 AD. The tiny coin was struck from brass and would have been worth about the price of a loaf of bread.

Northfield was in a Saxon settlement or a Celtic area that Saxons had conquered in North Worcestershire, which in 1086 became part of the lands of William Fitz-Ansculf, a Norman knight. The village Nordfeld is described in the Domesday Book as having a priest as well as seven villeins, sixteen bordars, six cottars, who shared enough land for thirteen ploughs, two serfs and a bondswoman (a slave). St. Laurence's Church, Northfield dates from the 12th century, nearby is the Great Stone Inn with a medieval timber framed hall and the 17th Century village pound where stray animals were kept; the large rock in the pound, a glacial "erratic" (see Geology below), was formerly in the road at the corner of the inn, and was used as a mounting-block by horse-riders; it was removed in the interests of road safety in the 1950s. The area round the church, the inn and the pound are a conservation area because of their historic importance. A local joke describes Northfield as "where they sell beer by the Stone and ale by the Pound".

Civil War period
During the English Civil War Northfield stood on the northern border of royalist Worcestershire and right next to parliamentary Warwickshire and there were regular minor skirmishes and conflicts between the forces of the two opposing sides. Hawkesley House in West Heath, which belonged to the royalist Middlemore family, was besieged and seized by parliamentary forces who fortified the building but were re-expelled subsequently by royalist forces in May 1645 and the house was then razed to the ground. Prince Rupert of the Rhine, commander of the Royalist cavalry, lived in Longbridge House and used it as his headquarters throughout the siege of Hawkesley House. Hawksley House is now an archaeological site.

There are traditions that Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, slept in Selly Manor on his way to the Battle of Bosworth Field. Later Robert Catesby, of the Gunpowder plot fame, and Oliver Cromwell are both said to have also visited Northfield and also stayed at Selly Manor House.

19th century
Throughout the early part of the 19th century Northfield was known for its nail making industry based in cottages and small workshops next to the Church. Within the ward in 1831 there were 122 men recorded as being employed in the industry. However the industry was already in decline – in 1841 there were 74 nailers and in 1884 there were only 23 with seven of those in West Heath. Nailer's workshops had been present in Northfield, Groveley, West Heath and Turves Green. By the start of the 20th century nailing had moved to central Birmingham factories, ceasing to be a cottage industry. Also nearby were a number of grain mills on the banks of the River Rea, where locally grown corn and wheat was ground.

Northfield was on the main road between Birmingham and Worcester. In 1762 this route was turnpiked and the Northfield tollgate was on the site of the modern-day corner of Rochester Road. Today the original turnpike is known as the Bristol Road South. The 'Bell and Bluebell Inn' at the junction of Bell Lane and Bell Holloway was a coaching station for travellers until a new 'Bell Inn' was built on the Bristol Road in 1803. There was a small separate hamlet on Bell Lane where several late 18th-century and early 19th-century cottages still survive. From 1766 a cross-country route was also turnpiked from Northfield to Wootton Wawen, Henley-in-Arden. In 1868 N E S A Hamilton's The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland described the parish as follows:

 * Northfield, a parish in the upper division of the hundred of Halfshire, county Worcester, 6 miles South-West. of Birmingham, its post town, and 2 West of the King's Norton station on the Gloucester railway. It is situated on the small river Rea, and on the road from Birmingham to Worcester.

 * The parish contains the hamlets of Selly, Hay, Shendley, and Bartley. A portion of the inhabitants are employed in nail making. There are chemical works and freestone quarries. The surface is flat towards the East, but hilly in the West. The soil is a fertile loam, producing good crops of wheat and beans.

In 1870 Northfield railway station was opened providing new business opportunities. Charles Pegram, a local industrialist built houses for railway workers, also a roller skating rink and a temperance hotel all near the station.

20th century
Victoria Common was laid out and landscaped on the site of the former public common land called Bradley's Field by Birmingham City Council as a municipal recreation area to mark Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, was never completed and reopened to the public until 1901. The park has changed little since it was first opened (though trees have grown and matured), excepting the additions of several tennis courts laid in the 1930s and a children's play area built in the 1950s and renewed since. A tributary of Griffin's Brook ran through the park but was piped underground as far as St Lawrence Road during landscaping. The original grand entrance gates, park-keeper's residential lodge, gardeners' workshops and nursery greenhouse all stood on the Bristol Road South where the Northfield Shopping Centre precinct now stands. During the first decade of the 20th century Austin Motor Works and Kalamazoo both entered the area, providing plentiful and well paid employment for Northfield residents.

In 1900 visitors arriving via Northfield railway station could visit the skating rink on West Heath Road next to the bridge over the River Rea. Unfortunately the skating rink was used during the First World War as a munitions factory and following an accident the rink was destroyed by fire. Another notable building of the area was The Bath Tub open air lido (now demolished), opened on 1 July 1937 in Alvechurch Road, where 20,000 people had gathered to watch the opening ceremony by Gracie Fields with Mantovani and his orchestra and the M.P. for Northfield and Kings Norton, Ronald Cartland, the brother of Dame Barbara Cartland, the novelist. The lido which had been built by Percy Hollier, who intended it to be "Birmingham's brightest entertainment spot" and which included a 180-foot-by-90-foot swimming pool as well as a putting green, lawn for archery and a children's playground, only operated for three years and was closed due to commercial failure. Laughtons took over the site with Eddystone Radio during World War II, when its semi-rural location helped it to avoid attack by German air raids. The lido site is now covered by a housing estate.

Northfield Library serves the area. It was opened in 1906, but was destroyed by fire in 1914 in a suspected arson attack by the Suffragettes. It was rebuilt in the same year by the Free Libraries Committee. The façade remains the same; however, in 1984, the library building was doubled in size to accommodate more books. The library celebrated its centenary in 2006. West Heath library also serves the area.

As recently as 1900 Northfield was still a village within the rural north Worcestershire countryside. The residential Austin Village was built during World War I to house factory workers. Northfield was absorbed into Birmingham in 1919 and within 20 years, a succession of private and council housing developments had completely swallowed Northfield up into the City of Birmingham. The extensive housebuilding continued before and after World War II through extensions to the Bournville Model Village and several estates of temporary Prefab housing in West Heath, although new house provision has slowed down to a much less dramatic rate since the 1970s.

By 1900 a large mansion on the Bristol Road South near St Lawrence Road called Gainsborough House, originally built in the 17th century, was renamed The Priory and became home to the Convent of our Lady of Charity housing up to twenty nuns and girls. The grounds of the Priory nearly reached Heath Road South and included a circuitous woodland walk and a large lake. Demolished in the 1990s the Priory and its grounds are now covered by a modern housing estate and an extension to the Royal Orthopedic Hospital.

Birmingham Corporation Tramways operated a network of electric trams in Birmingham between 1904 until 1953. It was the largest narrow-gauge tramway network in the UK, built to a gauge of 3 ft 6 inches and the fourth largest tramway network in the UK after London, Glasgow and Manchester. The tram-tracks ran in both directions along the central grassed reservation of the Bristol Road South but also ran right through the centre of Northfield, with cars and commercial vehicles having to give way to the trams on the rails set into the road. Both routes that ran through Northfield, Route 70 (Navigation Street to Rednal) and Route 71 (Navigation Street to Rubery) were closed down on 5 July 1952. Eventually, over a number of years, the rails were covered by tarmac during several road -repair schemes during the 1950s and 1960s.

A major housing development in Northfield was the Egghill Estate in the west of the district. It was built by the city council during the 1950s and 1960s, with hundreds of properties being built. There were several multi-storey blocks of flats as well as lower blocks of flats and a shopping centre among the concentration of low-rise housing. By the 1980s, however, the estate was plagued by crime and the declining quality of the housing stock. In 2000, the city council decided to demolish the entire estate to make way for a new housing development. A decade on, however, the redevelopment is far from complete. Some of the old houses remain, while only a small number of new housing association properties have been built, and the bulk of the estate remains derelict and undeveloped. When the redevelopment is finally completed, it is expected that the new Egghill Estate will include improved shopping and community facilities.

There are many pre-war and post war council houses, maisonettes, flats and tower blocks in Northfield Constituency.

Historical
During the Middle Ages Northfield formed part of the Halfshire Hundred in the county of Worcestershire.

Westminster
Birmingham Northfield is a parliamentary constituency. Its Member of Parliament (MP) is Gary Sambrook Conservative Party (United Kingdom) who was elected on 12 December 2019.

District council
The councillor elected to represent the Northfield ward on Birmingham City Council is Kirsten Kurt-Elli Labour Party (United Kingdom).

Geology
Northfield is built on a well-drained stretch of gravel and sand that had been laid down under a prehistoric shallow sea and enriched by sediments from ice age glaciers. The natural heath land had grown on a flatter area between the nearby Lickey Hills and Redhill. The Northfield area includes a wide geological range of rocks of various ages. The stratigraphic sequence, which is the basis for the area's diversity of landscape and habitat, comprises:

 * Barnt Green rocks – Precambrian tuffs and volcanic grits
 * Lickey Quartzite – a Cambrian quartzite
 * Rubery sandstone – a fossiliferous sandstone of lower Silurian age
 * Keele Clay – a Carboniferous clay
 * Clent Breccia – a Permian breccia that consists of angular fragments mostly of volcanic rock embedded in a sandy matrix of the same general composition. Clent breccia is the most common sandstone under central Northfield.
 * Bunter Pebble Beds – beds of Triassic water-worn pebbles
 * Keuper marl – a late Triassic sandstone. Deep wells, sunk through the Keuper formation into the Bunter sandstones below were used to supply the whole of Birmingham with drinking water before the Elan Valley scheme was carried through. Examples of such wells occurred in Northfield, Selly Oak and at Longbridge.

Northfield stands on a small part of the Northfield—Dudley plateau, which constitutes part of the South Staffordshire Uplands and was covered by a massive glacier that stretched all the way from Wales during the last ice age approximately 10,000 – 13,000 years ago. The evidence for this lies in the occurrence of numerous Erratic boulders or far-travelled ice-borne stones, some of which are of immense size, as well as the vast deposits of glacial sands and gravels in the district. The composition of many of these boulders shows that they originated from as far away as Scotland or Snowdonia in Wales, such as the massive boulder discovered while Rowheath playing fields were laid out. Another large boulder is the one after which the Great Stone Inn is named. This glacial erratic from North Wales stood for ten thousand years at the corner of Church Hill and Church Road until it was moved several metres into the adjacent pound during the 1950s. Others indicate a more local origin, such as the Wrekin district in Shropshire. The subsoil layers under Northfield, West Heath and Turves Green also contains a coal seam that would indicate that an extensive prehistoric tropical forest once existed here.

Waterways
The River Rea runs through Northfield on its way from its source to the North Sea. The river rises in Waseley Hills Country Park and after dropping 70 metres in the first mile passes through Northfield, West Heath and onwards to Kings Norton, Selly Oak and Digbeth in the centre of Birmingham. Near Gravelly Hill Interchange, about 14 miles from its source, the Rea becomes a tributary of the River Tame and its waters eventually discharge into the North Sea via later connections with the River Trent and eventually the Humber Estuary. Although now culverted for much of its route through Birmingham and often reduced to a sluggish trickle, due to changes in agricultural usage and other demands, the River Rea was once a major waterway and served several working mills in West Heath and provided water for the skating rink and open air lido (now both demolished).

A tributary of Griffin's Brook flows through Northfield's Victoria Common and parallel to Heath Road South on its way to Bournville although it is piped underground now for most of its route since the 1970s, surfacing only briefly to feed the pond near Hole Farm Road, then in Woodlands Park and next near the Valley Pool boating lake, after which it joins up with Griffin's Brook proper which is then renamed the Bourn Brook until it flows into the River Rea. In the 18th century Griffin's Brook was prone to flooding and in the summer of 1786 was reported as being "eight times swollen to such a degree as to interrupt or greatly incommode carriages and passengers on the Bristol Road."

Merritt's Brook rises as springs in fields to the south-west of Northfield, crossing Bell Holloway and flowing parallel to the Bristol Road South until it flows into the lake at Manor Farm. From there the brook flows into Griffin's Brook just west of the A38 near Griffin's Brook Lane.

Roads
The A38 Bristol Road South, which runs between Birmingham and Worcester and eventually Cornwall, passes to the west. The M42 and M5 Motorways are also close, providing national connections.

Industry
Northfield is perhaps most famous for the Longbridge plant, the Austin Rover car factory located in the Longbridge Ward. This factory was built in 1905 making Austin cars, and gradually expanded over the next 70 years to build higher volumes of vehicles by successive carmaking combines including BMC, British Leyland, Austin Rover, Rover Group and most recently MG Rover. In April 2005 MG Rover went into administration with the loss of more than 6,500 jobs. The company assets were bought by Chinese carmaker Nanjing Automobile three months later, and low volume production began in May 2007 with just over 200 workers employed at the factory making MG TF sports cars. However, the majority of the factory site was demolished, with plans to regenerate the area with a new town centre for Longbridge, new shops, parks and homes, which it is claimed will help with the unemployment suffered by the former workers of the Rover factory. Other developments are a park and ride for the station, with some buildings owned by Network West Midlands demolished to make way for it.

In 1913 Oliver Morland and local Quaker businessman F Paul Impey moved their Kalamazoo paper factory from central Birmingham to an extensive site near the Bristol Road South between Northfield and Longbridge. The factory developed as a major supplier of business stationery and computer multi-part forms, employing predominantly female factory workers, until it closed in the 1980s. Kalamazoo moved into the IT industry, specialising in ERP systems for automotive dealerships, with their headquarters located nearby. In 2001 an American firm, UCS acquired Kalamazoo Computer Group PLC and the business was re-branded as Kalamazoo Ltd until 2003 where it was renamed Kalamazoo-UCS Ltd. After the 2006 UCS merger of Reynolds and Reynolds, the UK company was renamed Kalamazoo-Reynolds Ltd. In November 2012 Kalamazoo-Reynolds rebranded to Reynolds and Reynolds Ltd. Reynolds and Reynolds UK still operate at the site in Northfield today.

Demography
The 2001 Population Census recorded that 23,042 people were living in the ward with a population density of 4,417 people per km2 compared with 3,649 people per km2 for Birmingham. The percentage of the population represented by ethnic minorities is low in comparison to other wards with a figure of 4.9% (1,130) as opposed to 29.6% for Birmingham in general.

The 2021 Population Census recorded that 10,404 people were living in the ward with a population density of 4,470 people per km2. The percentage of the population represented by ethnic minorities is low in comparison to other wards with a figure of 16.4% (1,711) as opposed to 51.3% for Birmingham in general. The largest religious group was Christianity at 56.5% (5,549).

Secondary
Some secondary age school children from Northfield attend Turves Green Boys' School or King Edward VI Northfield School for Girls, both on Turves Green. However, with Northfield falling within the various catchment areas for several secondary schools others choose to travel to:
 * Colmers School and Sixth Form College, located in Rednal
 * Kings Norton Boys School – a boys' foundation secondary school, sixth form centre and Science College for around 750 pupils aged 11 to 18, located on Northfield Road in Kings Norton
 * Kings Norton Girls School – Kings Norton Girls School is a girls' foundation secondary school, sixth form centre and Language College for pupils aged 11 to 19. It is located in Selly Oak Road in Kings Norton.
 * Bournville School – Bournville School and sixth form centre is a coeducational, state comprehensive school, with Specialist Business and Enterprise College and Music College status, for students aged 11–19 years, located on Griffins Brook Lane, Bournville.
 * Shenley Academy – a coeducational secondary school, sixth form centre and Science and Performing Arts College for students aged 11–19 years, located on Shenley Lane, Weoley Castle
 * St Thomas Aquinas Catholic School – a Catholic school located on Wychall Lane in Kings Norton
 * Balaam Wood School – a mixed school for students aged 11–16, located on New Street, Frankley
 * St. Paul's School for Girls - a Catholic all-girls' school on Vernon Road, Edgbaston

Primary

 * Meadows Primary, Bristol Road South
 * Turves Green Primary
 * Ley Hill Junior, Rhayader Road now called The Orchards Academy
 * Bellfield Junior, Vineyard Road
 * Wychall Primary, Middle Field Road
 * Trescott Primary, Trescott Road
 * Cofton Primary, Wootton Road
 * St Brigid's Catholic Primary, Frankley Beeches Road
 * St John Fisher Roman Catholic Primary, Alvechurch Road
 * Woodcock Junior, Far Wood Road
 * St. Laurence Church School, Bunbury Road (formerly located in Church Hill, opposite St Laurence's Church)

Religious sites

 * Hollymoor Community Church, The Old Chapel (formerly Hollymoor Hospital Chapel) Manor Park Grove, B31 5ER
 * St. Laurence's Church, Church Hill
 * St Bartholomew's Church, located on the corner of Hoggs Lane & Allens Farm Road
 * Our Lady And St Brigids Roman Catholic Church, Frankley Beeches Road (former church site)
 * Northfield Methodist Church, Chatham Road
 * Northfield Baptist Church, 789 Bristol Road South (on the high street opposite Lloyds TSB bank)

Sporting facilities

 * North Worcestershire Golf Club on Frankley Beeches Road opened in 1907. The club was closed in April 2016 after becoming financially unsustainable, with shareholding members making a deal for sale and redevelopment with Bloor Homes. Subject to planning approval, the site will provide up to 1000 homes, a new primary school, a community hub and an eco-park. The site was previously ruled out for development in the Birmingham Development Plan.
 * Northfield Town F.C. – Northfield Town Football Club had its origins on Victoria Common in the 1950s and played its matches at the rear of the telephone exchange on Church Road. The team is now based on Shenley Lane, Selly Oak.
 * Northfield Swimming Pool and Fitness Centre – Opened in May 1937 and designed by Henry Simister for Birmingham Baths Committee as a municipal baths, the fitness suite was added in the 1980s. The handsome Art Deco building was finally demolished in 2017 to be replaced by a modern construction.
 * Noticeable gyms in the area include Everlast (formerly Sports Direct), Urban Fitness and Nuffield Health.

Hospitals
Northfield is served by the NHS Trust Selly Oak Hospital, now part of the University Hospital Trust and due to close shortly to move into new premises, occupies the premises of the former Kings Norton Union Workhouse although the infirmary buildings have not been used as wards for many years, but as offices and consulting rooms. Currently, part of the hospital is used as the main treatment centre for military casualties from Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as hosting the main prosthetic limb production and fitment centre in the West Midlands. The specialist Royal Orthopaedic Hospital stands on the Bristol Road South, George Cadbury bought the Woodlands, as it was originally called, and gave it to the Crippled Children's Union in 1909 to be used as a hospital. A new £8 million out-patients department was opened in May 2011. The addition contains 24 consultation rooms, treatment rooms and other facilities replaced the temporary out-patients buildings that had been used since 1992.

Hollymoor Hospital, a psychiatric facility on Tessal Lane in Northfield, was built as an annexe to Rubery Lunatic Asylum by the Birmingham Corporation, opening in 1905. Hollymoor Hospital served as Northfield Military Hospital in the Second World War: it closed in 1995 and has largely been demolished.

Retail
The former Grosvenor shopping centre, has been renamed 'Northfield Shopping Centre' and contains several leading retail stores including Wilko, Iceland, WH Smiths, Greggs, New Look and Holland and Barrett. The shopping centre is also home to the Northfield Cobbler for shoe repairs and key cuttings. The shops in Northfield town centre run along what used to be the main A38 (Bristol Road South; the A38 proper now bypasses the town centre) and include Home Bargains, Aldi, B & M (opened March 2011), plus a Sainsbury's supermarket on the junction with Frankley Beeches Road (previously based in the Grosvenor shopping centre). There is also a covered market in the Bristol Rd shopping area. This shopping area serves a large region and is used by residents outside Northfield ward itself.

In June 2010, Northfield Radio Link scheme was launched across the town centre to allow shops to quickly share information with each other, security and the police to make the town safer.

A traditional farmers' market is held on the second Saturday of the month from 9-1:30 at Kings Norton Green and a car boot sale is held most Saturdays during the year in a field on Merrits Brook Lane.

Public facilities
There are also has a number of public facilities in Northfield town centre including Northfield Library, Northfield Community Partnership (help into jobs and community support), Connexions (help into jobs for young people), The Shop (advice for young people), Citizens Advice Bureau, Northfield Neighbourhood Office, Northfield Ecocentre and Victoria Common park.

Transport
The ward is served by both Northfield railway station and Longbridge railway station on the Cross-City Line. Several bus routes pass through the ward, including routes 18, 20, 20A, 27, 61, 63 and 76 operated by National Express West Midlands, routes 19, 39, 39A, and 55 are operated by Kev's Car and Coaches and route 46/46A operated by Stagecoach Midlands.

Northfield is centred on the main A38 road, which runs southwards from Birmingham and leads to Bromsgrove, Worcester, Gloucester, Bristol, Exeter and eventually Bodmin in Cornwall. The section of this road through Northfield was traditionally very congested around the old village centre, but in 2006 a relief road was built, which has significantly improved the situation. The relief road involved widening a part of an existing road Bell Lane, a new by pass was also built and named, "Sir Herbert Austin Way" in recognition of Herbert Austin, 1st Baron Austin who started producing cars at the Longbridge plant and built Austin Village in the Northfield part of Turves Green.

Annual carnival
Northfield Carnival traditionally takes place every year on the first Saturday of July, run entirely by volunteers, in Victoria Common, a park located behind Northfield Shopping Centre.

Notable people with links to Northfield

 * Jane Bunford – Britain's tallest ever person.
 * George Byrne – England cricketer.
 * George Cadbury – industrialist and founder of the famous chocolate brand.
 * Jocelyn Cadbury – public benefactor and Member of Parliament.
 * Gary Critchley – 1980s convicted of murder though the conviction may be unsafe.
 * Lewis Goodall- Journalist and Broadcaster
 * George Langton Hodgkinson – Anglican clergyman and first class cricketer.
 * Digby Jones – Baron Jones of Birmingham, businessman and politician.
 * Ian Lavender – stage and TV actor, best known as Private Pike in Dad's Army
 * The Rockin' Berries – 1960s pop band.
 * Stuart Linnell - broadcaster.
 * Sarah Smart - actress, lived in Northfield until 1987.
 * The Stratocastors - Indie rock band.

title: Northfield, Birmingham


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Bernard Cowan

Bernard Cowan (June 11, 1922 – July 17, 1990) was a Canadian actor, producer and writer. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He was occasionally credited under his nickname, Bunny Cowan. His name was pronounced with emphasis on the first syllable of "Bernard" and last name as "cow in".

Cowan worked as the announcer on many CBC television series such as The Pierre Berton Show, Front Page Challenge and Wayne and Shuster. He also worked on such animated series as Spider-Man, The Marvel Super Heroes, Rocket Robin Hood, The King Kong Show, and the Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer voicing Spotty the Elephant.

Bernard Cowan was the father of the Canadian disc jockey and voice actor Rob Cowan, and the cousin of Paul Soles, whom Cowan frequently employed as a voice actor on his productions.

He died in July 17, 1990, at the age of 68.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Bernard Cowan


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Kings Norton

Kings Norton, alternatively King's Norton, is an area of  Birmingham, England. Historically in Worcestershire, it was also a Birmingham City Council ward within the Government of Birmingham, England. The district lies 6.5 miles south-southwest of Birmingham city centre and is within 1.5 miles of the north Worcestershire border. Kings Norton has been split into two wards, Kings Norton North and Kings Norton South.

History
There was Romano-British occupation near the later town. Excavations at Kings Norton found signs of a small Romano-British settlement, including Roman pottery and a Roman ditch at Parsons Hill, near Icknield Street.

Kings Norton derives its origin from the basic Early English Nor + tun, meaning North settlement and belonging to or held by the king, when Kings Norton was the northernmost of the berewicks or outlying manors of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. Before 1066 these manors with many others in Birmingham had belonged to Earl Edwin, the Anglo-Saxon Earl of Mercia. When in that year a Viking army sailed up the River Humber to invade England, Edwin went to do battle, but was heavily defeated at the Battle of Fulford Bridge near York. King Harold arrived the next day, and after defeating the Vikings at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, immediately marched back south to be himself defeated at the Battle of Hastings. Edwin and his broken remnant of an army were unable go with him. Thus, after the Norman Conquest, when William punished Harold's supporters, Edwin was not amongst them and did not forfeit his lands. Two years later, however, Edwin revolted against William who confiscated his holdings to give as rewards to his followers. Bromsgrove and its berewicks he kept, with himself both as tenant-in-chief and manorial lord. Thus, the manor became Kings Norton remained royal from Domesday until 1804.

Civil war
Kings Norton was the scene of a couple of minor incidents during the English Civil War. In the first of these, a force led by Prince Rupert of the Rhine, numbering some 300, was resting on Kings Norton Green. There, they were surprised by a smaller group led by Lord Willoughby of Parham. A skirmish took place, in which fifty of Prince Rupert's men were killed, and twenty were taken prisoner. The Parliamentarian force lost twenty men. This took place on 17 October 1642.

In a later incident, Queen Henrietta Maria arrived in Kings Norton with an army of around 5,500 men that she had raised in Yorkshire. It is believed that she stayed the night in the Saracen's Head, while the army camped on land behind the church, now Kings Norton Park (giving rise to the modern road name "Camp Lane"). There is also a public house on this road named The Camp Inn.

Markets and fairs
In 1616, King James granted permission to hold markets and fairs at Kings Norton. Both the original fairs and the market eventually fell into disuse. At some later date, a mop fair began to be held on the Green on the first Monday of October. A mop fair was a hiring fair where people would go looking for employment. After the decline of hiring fairs, the mop became a village fête organised by the Round Table and raising money for local people. More recently, the Round Table handed over running the mop to a commercial fun fair. A new farmers' market was set up in 2005, operating on The Green once a month.

Industrialisation and expansion
In 1796, the Worcester and Birmingham Canal was built through Kings Norton, linking Birmingham to the River Severn. This was linked to the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal by Kings Norton Junction, allowing access to Stratford-upon-Avon and, more significantly, the Grand Union Canal. Just beyond the junction is a rare example of a guillotine lock used here as a stop lock.

Discontent with Parliamentary under-representation led to the Priestley Riots in Birmingham 1791, in which buildings including Moseley Hall were burnt down in King's Norton.

Kings Norton, along with many of the small towns near Birmingham, expanded considerably in the 19th century with a railway link into Birmingham passing by the new Bournville factory just to the north. Historically, Kings Norton had been part of Worcestershire, but from 1898, it was part of the King's Norton and Northfield urban district until added to Birmingham in 1911 by the Greater Birmingham Act.

Urbanisation
During the 20th century, the area grew further with additional private and public housing. In October 1920, 25½ acres of land at Kings Norton (just below St Nicolas' Church) were purchased by the Birmingham Civic Society and afterwards presented to the city for the benefit of the citizens of Birmingham. The Society also designed and paid for the formal gardens, gates on the Pershore Road side and stone benches.

In 1937 the Birmingham Medical Officer of Health reported that 'a substantial number of dwellings in King's Norton village [are] unfit for human habitation', with many of the houses affected over a hundred years old. In June 1937 the City Council ordered the making of clearance orders, under section 25 of the Housing Act, 1936. With the clearance of city centre slum housing, there was a pressing need for additional social housing in Birmingham. As part of this programme, the City Council built several new housing estates in Kings Norton, including the Wychall Farm and Pool Farm estates in the 1950s and the Primrose and Hawkesley estates in the 1960s and 1970s. These new estates occupied land that had previously been open farmland, most notably the area known as the Three Estates (Pool Farm, Primrose and Hawkesley), which lies mostly to the east of the Birmingham and Worcester canal and the A441 Redditch Road.

In the mid-1970s, a large housing estate featuring both private and social housing as well as a small shopping area (although many of the shops have long since closed), a public house, a primary school and a day centre was built on what was once the Kings Norton Golf Course and is often colloquially referred to as the 'Golf Course Estate'.

The Wychall Farm housing estate, which is in the historic parish of Kings Norton, was developed by the city council during the 1950s, and also included Wychall Farm Primary School, for pupils aged 5–11 years, which opened in 1956. However, the housing fell into increasing disrepair towards the end of the 20th century and by the summer of 2006 a demolition programme had begun on the estate, with 500 homes demolished to make way for a 350-home housing association development. Within three years, most of the demolition had been completed and some of the new homes were already occupied.

Education
Over the years, Kings Norton has had many educational institutions named after the area and built in the area. Some include:
 * Ark Kings Academy
 * Cadbury Sixth Form College
 * King's Norton Boys' School
 * Kings Norton Girls' School
 * St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School
 * Broadmeadow Junior School
 * Fairway Primary School
 * Hawkesley Church Primary School
 * Kings Norton Primary School
 * St Joseph's Catholic Primary School

Places of interest
St Nicolas' Church dates from the 13th century, and the spire dates from the 15th century. In addition, the Green contains three later medieval buildings from the 15th century: the Old Grammar School, the Saracen's Head and number 10 The Green. In the summer of 2004, two of these ancient buildings, the Saracen's Head and the Old Grammar School, were the winners of the BBC's Restoration competition and were awarded over £3 million towards the cost of major refurbishment. In 2006, planning permission was granted for the restoration of these buildings, and work started.

The Old Grammar School and Saracen's Head were reopened to the public in June 2008, and in December 2008 were renamed as Saint Nicolas Place.

It is possible to visit "Saint Nicolas Place" to see the room where Queen Henrietta Maria is reputed to have stayed 1643.

Kings Norton Park
Kings Norton Park is an urban park in Kings Norton. It contains a small to medium-sized skateboarding park made from a mixture of polished concrete and steel equipment for use in Skateboarding, BMX Stunt Riding, and use by other extreme sports enthusiasts providing a mixed environment consisting of both flat urban terrain, as well as the more common ramps and railings.

Amongst some of the features available are a concrete half pipe with a deck at each end, a Funbox that includes a flat rail, stairs with a ledge on either side, a Vulcano which also has ledge, as well as a concrete spine with Coping.

There's also two Roll-in's at either end of the skatepark, one with a long, shallow gradient side ramp at the street end.

Transport
Modern Kings Norton lies on the A441 Pershore Road South, which runs between Birmingham and Redditch to the south. It also has a railway station on the Cross-City Line. The line of Icknield or Ryknild Street, a Roman road running northwards from Alcester via Metchley Fort in Edgbaston towards Sutton Coldfield and beyond, can be traced through the eastern edge of the district.

Buses run to Birmingham city centre every few minutes along the Pershore Road and are mostly operated by National Express West Midlands. Previously Midland Red West operated service 146 to Redditch and Evesham but this was cut back to operate between Redditch and Evesham only.

Industry

In 1918 and 1919 the Kings Norton Metal Company produced British one penny coins on contract from the Royal Mint, these pennies are identified by a mintmark to the left of the date of "KN". The company also produced coins for other countries. This company, many years later after many partnerships and takeovers, was in part to become the Birmingham Mint located at the site of the Heaton mint in Icknield Street, Birmingham

A substantial paper mill was built by James Baldwin & Sons Ltd in the 1860s on Lifford Lane, which was operational until 1967. Part of the mill building still exists as the Lakeside Centre.

Kings Norton is home to the world-famous glass manufacturers Triplex (now part of Pilkington).

Redevelopment
A number of redevelopment projects have proved necessary because of the deteriorating quality of the social housing in Kings Norton.

In 1999, the Pool Farm, Primrose and Hawkesley housing estates, collectively known as the 'Three Estates', were awarded a regeneration grant as part of the government's New Deal for the Community programme (NDC). The award of £50 million is designed to run over ten years. Unlike earlier government regeneration programmes, NDC is able to focus on issues such as health and employment as well as on housing. Following considerable consultation, a major rebuild of the estates is planned.

A major redevelopment of the Wychall Farm estate, in the historic parish of Northfield, in the west of Kings Norton, was started in 2001. The previous housing was built using a system build approach that had exceeded its projected life-span. Bromford Housing Association have led the redevelopment.

A large, new, private housing estate was built on the site of Monyhull Hall Hospital, just inside the boundary of Kings Norton ward.

Notable residents

 * Brian Aherne, Oscar-nominated actor born in Kings Norton.
 * Pat Aherne, actor born in Kings Norton.
 * Andy Akinwolere, BBC Blue Peter TV programme presenter, was educated here, at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School
 * The Revd W. V. Awdry, creator of Thomas the Tank Engine, was a curate at King's Norton from late 1940 to 1946
 * Jane Bunford Britain's tallest person lived in the district.
 * Reg Bunn (1905–1971), artist
 * Neville Chamberlain, Lord Mayor of Birmingham 1915–1917 and subsequently Prime Minister 1937–1940, lived in King's Norton for most of his life, as did his wife Anne
 * Harold Roxbee Cox, Baron Kings Norton, aeronautical engineer "Lord Kings Norton"
 * Jack Daniels Co-designer of Morris Minor and Mini.
 * George Dawson, non-conformist preacher and advocate of the Civic Gospel
 * Martin Depper, racing driver
 * Thomas Hall, non-conformist preacher, pamphleteer, author of 'The loathsomeness of long hair', appointed to Kings Norton Parish in 1629
 * Mick Harris, musician, best known for drumming in Napalm Death in 1985–1991; also engaged in a number of side-projects musically varying from jazz, death-grind to ambient industrial
 * Kenneth Horne, Radio Broadcaster and Comedian
 * Raymond Huntly, Actor
 * Walter Hyde (1875-1951), operatic tenor, was born here
 * Alan Napier, actor, best known for playing the butler Alfred Pennyworth in the 1960s Batman television series
 * Alan Nunn May, a physicist and a Russian spy, was born and lived the early part of his life in Kings Norton.
 * Janet Parker (1938–1978), medical photographer and victim of smallpox
 * Charles Piers Egerton Hall, who became one of the 50 executed and murdered by the Gestapo on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler on 30 March 1944 following "The Great Escape"
 * Philip Stainton, actor born in Kings Norton.
 * Enoch Powell, politician and Conservative MP/ Ulster Unionist Party MP, moved to King's Norton in 1918, where he lived until 1930.

Politics
Kings Norton is a ward of Birmingham City Council, a metropolitan unitary authority. Three councillors have been elected for Kings Norton since the local government elections in May 2011. At present Kings Norton is made up two Birmingham City Council Ward's (Kings Norton North and Kings Norton South), represented by Alex Aitken (KNN, Labour) and Peter Griffiths (KNS, Labour) (Labour).

Kings Norton became part of Northfield district in 2006, partitioned from Selly Oak. In 2004, the ward boundary was changed as part of citywide boundary alterations overseen by the Boundary Commission for England. This saw the addition of a small area of the Birmingham, Hall Green constituency in the east of the ward, and a small area of the Birmingham, Northfield constituency at the south of the ward in the West Heath area.

Most of Kings Norton lies within Kings Norton ward which is part of Birmingham, Northfield and is represented by Gary Sambrook, although some parts of Kings Norton lie within Birmingham, Selly Oak and are represented by Steve McCabe.

Kings Norton ward has adopted a Ward Support Officer with the current holder of the title being Bob Barr.

title: Kings Norton


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The Night I Fell in Love (song)

"The Night I Fell in Love" is a song on the Pet Shop Boys' 2002 album Release. The lyrics were written by Neil Tennant and the music co-written with Chris Lowe.

The song describes a homosexual encounter between a teenage boy (who is telling the story) and his rap music idol after a concert. The idol is never named, but references in the lyrics to Dr. Dre and homophobia in rap music make it possible to identify him as music superstar Eminem. The most obvious reference is when the musician refers to Eminem's song "Stan":

 * Then he joked "hey man, your name isn't Stan, is it? We should be together!"

Discussing the song's inspiration Tennant said: "Eminem's defence of the homophobic lyrics on his albums has always been that he's not speaking as himself, he's speaking as a character, and he's representing homophobia in America...I thought it would be quite interesting to take that method and just to imagine a scene where a boy meets a famous rap star backstage at his concert and is surprised to discover he's gay and ends up sleeping with him. Just to present rap in this homosexual context. I mean, there obviously are gay rap stars."

Eminem responded to the track in his song "Canibitch", in which Eminem and Dr. Dre run over the Pet Shop Boys with their car:

 * [BOOSH! BOOSH!] [BOOSH! BOOSH!] (What was that?) Pet Shop Boys

Reception
Robert Christgau said of the track, "The Eminem track is . . . wondrous, transcendent, a blow against rap homophobia, a great work of art. If buying this album is the only way you can hear it, don't hesitate."

title: The Night I Fell in Love (song)


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Nicholas Hammond

Nicholas Hammond (born 15 May 1950) is an American and Australian actor and writer who is best known for his roles as Friedrich von Trapp in the film The Sound of Music and as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the 1970s television series The Amazing Spider-Man. He also appeared in the film Spider-Man and its two sequels.

Early life
Hammond was born on May 15, 1950, in Washington, D.C., the son of Colonel Thomas West Hammond, Jr. by his wife Eileen Hammond (née Bennett). Hammond's father was American of English descent and an officer in the U.S. Army, and his mother was English and had played a role in Much Too Shy in 1942. Hammond has one elder brother, David (b. 1946). Hammond's parents had met and married in London during World War II when his father had been posted in the United Kingdom. After the war, the couple moved to the U.S. permanently, and because the Colonel had an army job, the family moved numerous times to various army stations across the country during Hammond's childhood. Nicholas Hammond graduated from the Landon School in Bethesda, Maryland, before attending and graduating from Princeton University. Col. Hammond died in 1970.

Career
Hammond was 11 years old when he made his acting debut as Robin Rhodes in the Broadway play The Complaisant Lover in 1961, playing alongside Michael Redgrave and Googie Withers.

At the same time, he began to shoot for the 1963 film Lord of the Flies, which marked his film debut. After this, Hammond played what was to be his most notable screen role: Friedrich von Trapp (the elder of the two boys) in the 1965 hit The Sound of Music.

Hammond's next acting role came in 1970, when he appeared in Conduct Unbecoming, his first role as an adult. In 1972 Hammond appeared as Peter Linder in Skyjacked. In 1973 he made a guest appearance on The Brady Bunch in season 4, episode #090, "The Subject Was Noses", as the high school hunk, Doug Simpson, who loses interest in Marcia after her tragic football accident. That year Hammond also appeared in The Waltons episode "The Townie", as Theodore Claypool Jr.

After making the transition from juvenile to young leading man, Hammond spent several seasons in daytime soaps, such as General Hospital. He also appeared on many television shows of the 1970s including Hawaii Five-O.

In the late 1970s Hammond re-joined fellow The Sound of Music alumnus Heather Menzies (who played Louisa von Trapp) for one episode of the TV adaptation of Logan's Run. He also contributed to The Sound of Music Family Scrapbook.

Spider-Man
From 1977 to 1979, Hammond played the role for which he is perhaps best known, as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the television series The Amazing Spider-Man. Hammond described his approach to the character: "I liked the idea of taking a fantasy hero and making him believable as a person. I made it clear going into it that I wasn't interested in doing something that was just a camp joke."

The series aired sporadically on CBS, with 13 episodes airing over two seasons. A pilot movie appeared in the fall of 1977, with the series returning as a mid-season replacement for five episodes in the spring of 1978. While the show did well in the ratings, CBS was unwilling to commit to a regular timeslot due to its relatively weak showing in the lucrative adult demographic. The second season aired six episodes, each an hour long, in the fall of 1978 and winter of 1979, with a final two-hour episode in the summer of that year. Although Hammond played Peter Parker in the television series, in all of the scenes in which Spider-Man is seen performing stunts or without dialogue, a stunt double was filmed by a second camera unit.

Later career
After the Spider-Man series ended, Hammond guest-starred on a number TV shows of the early 1980s, including The Love Boat, Magnum, P.I., Murder, She Wrote, and he played recurring roles on Falcon Crest and Dallas.

After being cast as yachtsman Dennis Conner in the 1986 Australian TV miniseries The Challenge, about the 1983 America's Cup challenge, Hammond liked the country so much that he decided to stay. He later became an Australian citizen and has since then appeared in several television miniseries filmed in Australia.

Among these was an important role as an American WWII officer based in Far North Queensland, in the major miniseries Fields of Fire, series I and II, set in the cane fields of tropical Australia. His character represented the gentler side of the culture clash between Australians and Americans. He had a starring role as Sir Ivor Creevy-Thorne in Mirror, Mirror, an Australia/New Zealand extended miniseries (a complete story of 20 serialised episodes, with cliffhangers between each of the episodes). Hammond also guest-starred in various Australian television series, including satirical television programs such as BackBerner and CNNNN, the science fiction program Farscape, and dramatic series such as The Flying Doctors, MDA and the Australian/USA co-production Mission: Impossible (which was filmed in Australia).

In 2005, Hammond portrayed television producer Aaron Spelling in Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure, a fictionalized television movie based on the creation and behind the scenes production of Dynasty.

Hammond is a writer for Australian television, having written both the miniseries A Difficult Woman and the television film Secret Men's Business. In 2009, he made his directing debut with Lying Cheating Bastard, a play he co-wrote with magician James Galea.

In 2019, he portrayed director Sam Wanamaker in the Quentin Tarantino film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Personal life
Hammond married Laura Soli in 1980, and the couple divorced in 1984. He moved to Australia in the mid-1980s and now lives in Sydney, with the Australian actress Robyn Nevin.

He has remained close friends with his Sound of Music siblings, several of whom joined a multitude of other actors and co-stars for the 'Save the Rose Theatre' campaign's street event, amid talent from many international productions.

title: Nicholas Hammond


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Longbridge plant

The Longbridge plant is an industrial complex in Longbridge, Birmingham, England, currently leased by SAIC as a research and development facility for its MG Motor subsidiary. Vehicle assembly ended in 2016.

Opened in 1905, by the late 1960s Longbridge employed around 25,000 workers, building cars including the original Mini.

In the Second World War, the main plant produced munitions and tank parts, while the nearby East Works of Austin Aero Ltd at Cofton Hackett produced Short Stirling and Hawker Hurricane aircraft.

Since the collapse of MG Rover in 2005, part of the site has been redeveloped for commercial and residential use.

White and Pike: 1895–1901
The original site and factory development was undertaken by Birmingham-based copper-plate printers White and Pike Ltd. Looking to consolidate a number of small sites around Birmingham, and diversify into new areas, they chose a series of 20 agricultural fields in Northfield eight miles to the south of the city on the Bristol Road at Longbridge. The site was bounded by Lickey Road, Lowhill Lane, the Midland Railway's main Birmingham to Gloucester mainline, and the Halesowen Joint Railway with the Great Western Railway. The purchase also included Cofton Hill, which rose 70 ft above its surroundings. Designed by Stark & Rowntree of Glasgow and constructed by James Moffatt & Sons of Camp Hill, the factory was built at a cost of £105,000, opening in the first quarter of 1895. Unfortunately, the venture failed, and the site was repossessed by the bank in 1901.

Austin: 1906–1914
Herbert Austin, who was born in Buckinghamshire and raised in Yorkshire, escaped his intended railway engineering apprenticeship and learnt his trade under an uncle in Melbourne, Australia. He returned to England in 1893 as manager of an Australian company relocating to Birmingham. In 1901, with the Vickers brothers, he founded and ran Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company, which became Britain's largest car manufacturer.

In 1905, he fell out with the Vickers brothers, and looking to found his own motor car company, Herbert Austin undertook numerous exploratory rides around Birmingham in his Wolseley 7.5-horsepower On 4 November 1905, he found the derelict printing works, owned by a financier, E A Olivieri. Friends came forward with financial help, and with additional invoice financing from Frank Kayser of Kayser, Ellison and Company, and William Harvey du Cros of the Dunlop Rubber Company, enabled Austin to buy the site and an additional 8 acre from Olivieri for £7,500 on 22 January 1906. Austin and his initial workforce of the Austin Motor Company had, in fact, moved into the derelict buildings before this date, as Austin was so focused on showing his new car at the British Motor Show, to be held in November 1906 at Olympia, London. On paper, the first Austin was described as a 25-30 h.p. high-class touring car with a four-speed gearbox and a chain-driven transmission. Each car had a material and quality guarantee and the first car was produced at the end of March 1906, at a price of £650. Some 50 hands were employed during the first year and they produced about a dozen cars.

By 1908, 1,000 workers were at a factory, which covered 4 acre; a night shift was introduced to help create adequate supply to meet the rising demand for products. By September 1912, workshops covered more than 8 acres, output was running at 1,000 cars a year and employee numbers were 1,800. Austin built their own bodies and their coachbuilding department was one of the largest in the country. They built their own artillery wood wheels and made the hubs for wire-spoked and pressed-steel wheels. In February 1914, the company was floated as a public company and £250,000 of new preference shares were issued to the public and listed on the stock exchanges.

The new funding paid for the construction of additional workshops and the transition of the plant from mechanical drive with its great shafts and belts to electric drive. Two four-cylinder vertical gas engines of 200 hp each, designed by the Anderson Foundry Co. of Glasgow, coupled to three-phase alternators built by Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget of Sweden, provided the electricity.

World War I
The Longbridge plant was part of a significant rapid mobilisation process, which took place across Europe on the outbreak of World War I. Machines that had been used to build Austin cars were employed to produce munitions, and all the resources of the factory were harnessed to serve the armed forces.

As the demand for weapons and equipment of every kind continued to increase, the factory was expanded. The area between the existing buildings and the Midland Railway mainline were built on. The expansion also enabled the 1915 construction of Longbridge railway station within the boundaries of the works, allowing the Midland Railway to run workers' trains direct from Birmingham New Street.

By 1917, the factory site trebled in size, and possessed its own flying ground at Cofton Hackett, south of the main works, which was operated by the newly formed Austin Aero Company. The employees, many of whom were women, rose to over 22,000 during the peak years.

Between 1914 and 1918, over 8,000,000 shells were produced along with 650 guns, 2,000 aeroplanes, 2,500 aero engines, and 2,000 trucks. In recognition of this, Herbert Austin was knighted in 1917 and he was also honoured by Belgium for employing 3,000 Belgian refugees at Longbridge.

North works: 1917
With the need to expand capacity, the company bought Longbridge farm. Located north of the existing site, it became known as Longbridge North works, bounded again by the railways, Bristol Road, and Longbridge Lane. After the farm buildings had been demolished and the River Rea placed in a covered culvert, the company began development in June 1916:
 * Machine shop 850 ft × 270 ft finished by December 1916
 * Forge which became operational in March 1917
 * Mess room seating 4,000
 * Administrative blocks
 * Power house, equipped with 12 Lancashire boilers, which powered three 1500 kW turbo generators to supply 386 electric motors

1919
The works and plant had grown to over 10 times their prewar size; no peace-time products were being made. The Armistice terminated the war suddenly, contracts were cancelled at very short notice.

Major wartime additions to plant included a large steel foundry, a very large sheet-metal pressings shop, and a very large and complete hardening and heat-treatment shop.

The interwar years
Before the end of the war, plans were announced for concentrating on the production of a 20 hp car when peace returned. In addition, the engine used for the 20 hp model was adapted for an Austin tractor, running on kerosene, which won many agricultural awards between 1919 and 1921. A 13-ton truck was also produced, using the same engine.

For a short time Austin Aero Company's postwar programme also included a range of aeroplanes. The Austin Greyhound two-seater fighter was one, and the Austin Ball single-seater another. Then, a single-seater biplane with folding wings was sold at £500, with a fourth called the Austin Whippet.

After 1921, Austin became interested in smaller vehicles, including a 12 hp car and the tiny, and still familiar, Austin 7. In many ways, the car was a miniature version, scaled down with the characteristic simplicity of Lord Austin's products.

World War II
On the outbreak of World War II, the factory was mobilised again. The manufacturing of cars was largely abandoned and the machines were turned to the production of armour-piercing ammunition for the QF 2-pounder, QF 6-pounder, and QF 17-pounder antitank guns, steel boxes, jerrycans, mines, depth charges, and helmets.

Longbridge also produced parts for tanks, while aircraft were produced at the Austin Aero shadow factory at nearby Cofton Hackett. Fairey Battle light bombers and Mercury and Pegasus aero engines were produced, along with the Short Stirling four-engined heavy bomber and Hawker Hurricane fighter. Nearly 3,000 aircraft were built, along with 36,000 suspension units.

Bren guns and mortars were manufactured in West Works, in the area later known as West 4 Upper.

Trentham buildings, Number 2 paint shop, was still referred to as the Beaufighter line by some people during the 1970s.

The building known as the Flight Shed in Cofton Lane was where the airframes received their final quality check and wings were fitted to Hurricane fighters. Lancaster wings were fitted as the aircraft left the shed. Hurricanes were lifted up the raised airfield on a motorised skid. The skids were still there at the rear of the Flight Shed during the 1980s. Lancaster bombers were transported by road to RAF Elmdon for flight testing.

Having such a concentration of wartime production meant that the area was a prime target for bombers. Erdington was made famous for being the first part of England to be bombed by the Germans, who had presumably been trying to hit Longbridge.

After the war
After the war, Leonard Lord took over as chairman. He laid plans for a rapid expansion, new models, and overseas marketing. In June 1946, the millionth Austin was produced. It was painted in a matte cream and signed by the chairman and the workpeople at a special celebration.

Austin collaborated with Jensen Motors to manufacture the Austin A40 Sports, an aluminium-bodied, four-passenger convertible — with bodies manufactured by Jensen - not at their West Bromwich plant - but at another site in Pensnett, near Dudley -  and transferred to Longbridge for final assembly. Later Austin collaborated with the Donald Healey Motor Company on the Healey 100.

In 1952, Austin was amalgamated with Morris Motors Limited and became BMC.

Harold Wilson's government arranged for BMC to be amalgamated into British Leyland in 1968.

Nationalisation
The British Leyland company ran into financial difficulties and was refinanced by the government in 1975. The government thus became the dominant shareholder, but unlike most nationalised industries, British Leyland (later called BL) remained a public company.

Derek Robinson, or "Red Robbo" as he was dubbed by the media, became synonymous with the strikes that severely affected production at the Longbridge plant in Birmingham in the 1970s. Between 1978 and 1979, the then government-owned British Leyland attributed 523 disputes to Robinson, the factory convenor at Longbridge. However, Robinson's responsibility for these incidents, most of which were brief stoppages led by individual shop stewards, has been overstated. He was eventually sacked amid intense press attacks. Many of the votes for strikes were cast in Cofton Park opposite Q-Gate.

Expansion work at Longbridge was completed in 1979 to allow a new assembly line for the forthcoming new supermini car, which was launched in 1980 as the Austin Metro. The Metro was in production virtually unchanged for 10 years, becoming one of the most popular cars ever to be produced at the plant. The major part of the expansion was the erection of "New West Works", where the body shells were assembled, with extensive robotic input - a first for British Leyland. The shells were then carried on an enclosed conveyor over the Bristol Road to the Car Assembly Buildings in South Works, where the cars were assembled and tested. This arrangement endured until car production at Longbridge ceased in 2005. Indeed, the overhead conveyor bridge was one of the first features to go when demolition of the plant began.

Privatisation and subsequent liquidation
By the 1980s, BL had been severely rationalised, and many businesses and other factories within its empire had either been closed or sold off. It had also entered into a collaborative deal with Japanese firm Honda, which gave BL a new lease on life and Honda entry into the UK market.

The Austin Metro, which was introduced in 1980 and discontinued in 1990 when it was relaunched as an updated model under the Rover marque, was easily the most successful product to be produced at Longbridge in the final quarter of the 20th century.

In 1988, the Longbridge plant, along with the rest of Austin Rover, was sold to British Aerospace, which renamed it as the Rover Group in 1989.

In 1989, a new Longbridge-built model was launched, the second-generation Rover 200 (the original version had been launched in 1984). The 200 series was sold in the hatchback, coupe, and cabriolet body styles, and also formed the basis of the Rover 400 saloon and estate. It was consistently one of the most popular small family cars sold in Britain throughout its production life, and remained a common sight on British roads for many years after it ceased production. The 200 and 400 were replaced by all-new models in 1995, this time being completely separate model ranges, with the new Rover 400 being derived from the Honda Civic.

In 1994 BMW, fearful of their small size relative to their rivals in a progressively globalised car market, bought Rover Group and the Longbridge plant passed into the hands of BMW, but continuing heavy losses alarmed BMW shareholders, and in 2000, Rover Cars and the Longbridge factory were sold to the Phoenix Consortium, which renamed it MG Rover Group, in a management buyout for the token sum of £10.

At the time, many financial commentators claimed that the plant was not modern enough and that the company would surely run out of money within a few years. In April 2005, this happened; the Phoenix Consortium put the MG Rover group into administration, leaving more than 6,000 workers without jobs. Another factor in MG Rover's meltdown was the fact that it had not launched an all-new model since the Rover 75 more than six years earlier. In contrast, the likes of Ford and Vauxhall, and indeed most other Western European mass-market carmakers, had replaced most if not all of their model ranges since the late 1990s.

Nanjing and SAIC ownership
Chinese automobile company Nanjing acquired the remaining assets of MG Rover, including the lease to the Longbridge plant, three months after it went into receivership. In August 2008, MG TF production restarted, some three years after the collapse of MG Rover, using only part of the old Austin works, Austin's original South Works. Most of the rest of the site has since been demolished for redevelopment, including a new local centre, south of Longbridge Lane.

The scaled-down car plant at Longbridge had less production capacity than before. More than half the factory site was sold off and cleared, and the land restored to provide land for homes and businesses with a target of creating 10,000 jobs and 1,450 homes.

Nanjing Automotive Corporation was acquired by Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) during late 2007 into 2008, resulting in the Longbridge site coming under the ownership of SAIC. The UK engineering function known as SAIC Motor Technical Centre UK (SMTC) was moved from its site in Leamington into the Longbridge during 2008. In 2010, the SMTC was unveiled showing the engineering areas and styling studio.

During this time, the engineers at Longbridge had worked on the MG 6, which was based on the Roewe 550 to make it ready for UK launch. MG Motors was created as the UK manufacturing company for SAIC, and in April 2011, began manufacturing the MG 6 from semiknocked-down (SKD) kits that come from the SAIC Lingang Plant China. The cars arrive from China, essentially complete, requiring only the fitting of engine and front suspension, nose trim, and wheels at Longbridge, which no longer has functional body welding/assembly or paint shops. Production of the MG TF was discontinued around this time, with a mere 906 having been built at Longbridge since production restarted almost three years previously. Production of the MG 3 supermini began at Longbridge in 2012, and by 2014, the plant employed around 400 workers, up from just over 200 people who were there when production restarted.

The new MG GS SUV was due to be launched in May 2016, and body kits were arriving in a readymade format. The rear suspension as found on the VW Tiguan was to be fitted in Longbridge, as well as the engine and UK-specification dashboard. Any factory extras such as HID headlights, would also be stored and fitted at the Longbridge plant. Various parts of the 4x4 system, including parts to the rear axle, would have been fitted in the UK.

On 23 September 2016, MG announced that all car production had ceased at Longbridge. Henceforth, all MG vehicles would be imported into the UK.

Starting on 19 January 2020, the last surviving assembly buildings CAB1 and CAB2, and the paint shop are to be mostly demolished to make way for further new housing, although parts of the buildings are to be retained. The former production facility will now only be used to sell cars and research and development of future models.

Popular culture
Shortly before MG Rover went into administration in 2005, The Chemical Brothers' video for their single "Believe" contained scenes filmed inside the Longbridge factory.

Also, images from the Longbridge production line and from the Mini were used to introduce the United Kingdom's entry in the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest hosted at the city of Birmingham.

Several references to the Longbridge plant – where some characters work – are made in the novel The Rotters' Club and its sequels The Closed Circle and Middle England by Jonathan Coe.

title: Longbridge plant


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Epidermolysis bullosa

Epidermolysis bullosa (EB) is a group of rare medical conditions that result in easy blistering of the skin and mucous membranes. Blisters occur with minor trauma or friction and are painful. Its severity can range from mild to fatal. Inherited EB is a rare disease with a prevalence in the United States of 8.2 per million live births. Those with mild cases may not develop symptoms until they start to crawl or walk. Complications may include esophageal narrowing, squamous cell skin cancer, and the need for amputations.

EB is due to a mutation in at least one of 16 different genes. Some types are autosomal dominant while others are autosomal recessive. The underlying mechanism is a defect in attachment between or within the layers of the skin. Loss or diminished function of type VII collagen leads to weakness in the structural architecture of the dermal–epidermal junction (DEJ) and mucosal membranes. There are four main types: epidermolysis bullosa simplex (EBS), dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB), junctional epidermolysis bullosa (JEB), and Kindler syndrome. The diagnosis is suspected based on symptoms and confirmed by skin biopsy or genetic testing.

There is no cure for the condition. Management involves wound care, pain control, controlling infections, nutritional support, and prevention and treatment of complications. About half a million people are affected globally. It occurs equally commonly in males and females.

Classification
Epidermolysis bullosa refers to a group of disorders that involve the formation of blisters following trivial trauma. Over 300 mutations have been identified in this condition. They have been classified into the following types:

Epidermolysis bullosa simplex
Epidermolysis bullosa simplex (EBS) is a form of EB that causes blisters at the site of rubbing. It typically affects the hands and feet, and is typically inherited in an autosomal dominant manner, affecting the keratin genes KRT5 and KRT14. Therefore, there is a failure in keratinization, which affects the integrity and the ability of the skin to resist mechanical stresses.

Junctional epidermolysis bullosa
Junctional epidermolysis bullosa (JEB) is an inherited disease affecting laminin and collagen. This disease is characterized by blister formation within the lamina lucida of the basement membrane zone and is inherited in an autosomal recessive manner. It also presents with blisters at the site of friction, especially on the hands and feet, and has variants that can occur in children and adults. Less than one person per million people is estimated to have this form of EB.

Dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa
Dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB) is an inherited variant affecting the skin and other organs. DEB is caused by genetic defects (or mutations) within the human COL7A1 gene encoding the protein type VII collagen (collagen VII). DEB-causing mutations can be either autosomal dominant or autosomal recessive. Epidermis bullosa pruriginosa and albopapuloid epidermolysis bullosa (Pasini's disease) are rare subtypes of this disease.

Pathophysiology
The human skin consists of two layers: an outermost layer called the epidermis and a layer underneath called the dermis. In individuals with healthy skin, there are protein anchors between these two layers (Dermo epidermal junction) that prevent them from moving independently from one another (shearing). In people born with EB, the two skin layers lack the protein anchors that hold them together, resulting in extremely fragile skin—even minor mechanical friction (like rubbing or pressure) or trauma will separate the layers of the skin and form blisters and painful sores. EB  individuals manifest unremitting skin blistering that evolves into chronic wounds, inflammation, and fibrosis. People with EB have compared the sores with third-degree burns. Furthermore, as a complication of the chronic skin damage, people with EB have an increased risk of malignancies (cancers) of the skin. Virtually any organ lined or covered by epithelium may be injured in inherited EB. External eye, esophagus, upper airway, and genitourinary tract are the epithelial surfaced tissues that are at particular risk.

Diagnosis
EB can be diagnosed either by a skin (punch) biopsy at the edge of a wound with immunofluorescent mapping, or via blood sample and genetic testing.

Treatment

Research has focused on changing the mixture of keratins produced in the skin. There are 54 known keratin genes—of which 28 belong to the type I intermediate filament genes and 26 to type II—which work as heterodimers. Many of these genes share substantial structural and functional similarity, but they are specialized to cell type and/or conditions under which they are normally produced. If the balance of production could be shifted away from the mutated, dysfunctional keratin gene toward an intact keratin gene, symptoms could be reduced. For example, sulforaphane, a compound found in broccoli, was found to reduce blistering in a mouse model to the point where affected pups could not be identified visually, when injected into pregnant mice (5 μmol/day = 0.9 mg) and applied topically to newborns (1 μmol/day = 0.2 mg in jojoba oil).

As of 2008, clinical research at the University of Minnesota has explored allogeneic bone marrow transplantation for RD and junctional EB, treating a two-year-old child who is one of two brothers with EB. A second transplant has also been performed on the child's older brother. A Missouri boy has also successfully undergone the transplant, as well as a 5 year old boy from Alabama. So far there have been 12 successful transplants. Another transplant is scheduled for a California baby. A clinical trial is planned for 30 subjects. However, the immune suppression that bone marrow transplantation requires causes a risk of serious infections with large scale blisters and skin erosion. Indeed, at least four people have died in the course of either preparation for or institution of bone marrow transplantation for EB, out of only a small group of patients treated so far. The mechanism of action of this therapy is unclear as hematopoietic stem cells are not thought to contribute to epithelial lineages. Rather, it is speculated that cross-correction from tissue-resident graft-derived immune cells contributes to the observed clinical benefit.

A pilot study performed in 2015 suggests that systemic granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) may promote increased wound healing in people with dystrophic EB. Transplanting skin derived from genetically modified stem cells onto the wound surfaces has been studied with a report of improvements in one person.

A 2017 clinical trial with male RDEB (recessive dystrophic EB) patients conducted successful grafting of type VII gene corrected keratinocytes (COL7A1 gene correction using retrovirus transduction), without any serious adverse effects. Type VII collage formation was observed at the dermis-epidermis junction in significant amounts.

A 2020 study demonstrated the safe allogenic grafting of acellular dermal matrix/scaffolds in EB patients without any observed infection or necrosis and instead noted fewer required dressing changes, promoted wound healing, pain reduction, and an overall improvement in the quality of life of the patients.

In 2022, a pharmaceutical gel made out of birch bark extract from Betula pendula and Betula pubescens was approved by the European Union as a treatment for epidermolysis bullosa.

Monitoring
The Epidermolysis Bullosa Disease Activity and Scarring index (EBDASI) is a scoring system that objectively quantifies the severity of EB. The EBDASI is a tool for clinicians and patients to monitor the severity of the disease. It has also been designed to evaluate the response to new therapies for the treatment of EB. The EBDASI was developed and validated by Professor Dedee Murrell and her team of students and fellows at the St George Hospital, University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia. It was presented at the International Investigative Dermatology congress in Edinburgh in 2013 and a paper-based version was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology in 2014.

Prognosis
A 2014 study classified cases into three types—EBS, JEB and DEB—and reviewed their times of death. The first two types tended to die in infancy and the last in early adulthood. In a survey of 11 families affected by the disease, lack of awareness of the disease by both the public and health care providers raised concerns about the care provided.

Epidemiology
An estimated 20 per million live births are diagnosed with EB, and 9 per million people in the general population have the condition. Of these cases, approximately 92% are EBS, 5% are DEB, 1% are JEB, and 2% are unclassified. Carrier frequency ranges from 1 in 333 for JEB, to 1 in 450 for DEB; the carrier frequency for EBS is presumed to be much higher than JEB or DEB.

The disorder occurs in every racial and ethnic group and affects both sexes.

Society and culture
In 2010, Emma Fogarty, a campaigner for DEBRA Ireland (the EB charity), was awarded a People of the Year Award. Actor Colin Farrell has campaigned with Fogarty on behalf of affected people.

In 2014, Pearl Jam lead vocalist Eddie Vedder together with his wife Jill McCormick co-founded the EB Research Partnership, a non-profit organization dedicated to finding a cure for EB. McCormick is childhood friends with Ryan Fullmer, whose son, Michael, was born with EB. Vedder, McCormick, Ryan Fullmer, and his wife Heather founded Heal EB. In 2014, they merged Heal EB with the Jackson Gabriel Research Foundation to create the EB Research Partnership. The EBRP hosts several annual fundraising events. To date, they have raised $12 million to fund research to find a cure.

On 1 March 2019, heavyweight boxer Luis Ortiz was named an honorary ambassador for the EB community by the EB Research Partnership. Ortiz's daughter, Lismercedes, was born with EB.

Movies
The condition was brought to public attention in 2004 in the UK through the Channel 4 documentary The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, chronicling the life and death of Jonny Kennedy, an Englishman with EB. In the United States, HBO ran a documentary, My Flesh and Blood, in 2003. Additionally, the film Butterfly Girl follows Abigail Evans with the disease. In Canada, The Sports Network's award-winning documentary on Jonathan Pitre led to extensive coverage on the boy's disease, treatment, and death.

Other names
Other terms used to describe those affected include "butterfly children" as the skin is fragile as a butterfly's wings, "cotton wool babies", or "crystal skin children".

title: Epidermolysis bullosa


text:
Arthur–Merlin protocol

In computational complexity theory, an Arthur–Merlin protocol, introduced by, is an interactive proof system in which the verifier's coin tosses are constrained to be public (i.e. known to the prover too). proved that all (formal) languages with interactive proofs of arbitrary length with private coins also have interactive proofs with public coins.

Given two participants in the protocol called Arthur and Merlin respectively, the basic assumption is that Arthur is a standard computer (or verifier) equipped with a random number generating device, while Merlin is effectively an oracle with infinite computational power (also known as a prover). However, Merlin is not necessarily honest, so Arthur must analyze the information provided by Merlin in response to Arthur's queries and decide the problem itself. A problem is considered to be solvable by this protocol if whenever the answer is "yes", Merlin has some series of responses which will cause Arthur to accept at least $2/3$ of the time, and if whenever the answer is "no", Arthur will never accept more than $1/3$ of the time. Thus, Arthur acts as a probabilistic polynomial-time verifier, assuming it is allotted polynomial time to make its decisions and queries.

MA
The simplest such protocol is the 1-message protocol where Merlin sends Arthur a message, and then Arthur decides whether to accept or not by running a probabilistic polynomial time computation. (This is similar to the verifier-based definition of NP, the only difference being that Arthur is allowed to use randomness here.) Merlin does not have access to Arthur's coin tosses in this protocol, since it is a single-message protocol and Arthur tosses his coins only after receiving Merlin's message. This protocol is called MA. Informally, a language L is in MA if for all strings in the language, there is a polynomial sized proof that Merlin can send Arthur to convince him of this fact with high probability, and for all strings not in the language there is no proof that convinces Arthur with high probability.

Formally, the complexity class MA is the set of decision problems that can be decided in polynomial time by an Arthur–Merlin protocol where Merlin's only move precedes any computation by Arthur. In other words, a language L is in MA if there exists a polynomial-time deterministic Turing machine M and polynomials p, q such that for every input string x of length n = |x|,
 * if x is in L, then $$\exists z\in\{0,1\}^{q(n)}\,\Pr\nolimits_{y\in\{0,1\}^{p(n)}}(M(x,y,z)=1)\ge2/3,$$
 * if x is not in L, then $$\forall z\in\{0,1\}^{q(n)}\,\Pr\nolimits_{y\in\{0,1\}^{p(n)}}(M(x,y,z)=0)\ge2/3.$$

The second condition can alternatively be written as
 * if x is not in L, then $$\forall z\in\{0,1\}^{q(n)}\,\Pr\nolimits_{y\in\{0,1\}^{p(n)}}(M(x,y,z)=1)\le1/3.$$

To compare this with the informal definition above, z is the purported proof from Merlin (whose size is bounded by a polynomial) and y is the random string that Arthur uses, which is also polynomially bounded.

AM
The complexity class AM (or AM[2]) is the set of decision problems that can be decided in polynomial time by an Arthur–Merlin protocol with two messages. There is only one query/response pair: Arthur tosses some random coins and sends the outcome of all his coin tosses to Merlin, Merlin responds with a purported proof, and Arthur deterministically verifies the proof. In this protocol, Arthur is only allowed to send outcomes of coin tosses to Merlin, and in the final stage Arthur must decide whether to accept or reject using only his previously generated random coin flips and Merlin's message.

In other words, a language L is in AM if there exists a polynomial-time deterministic Turing machine M and polynomials p, q such that for every input string x of length n = |x|,
 * if x is in L, then $$\Pr\nolimits_{y\in\{0,1\}^{p(n)}}(\exists z\in\{0,1\}^{q(n)}\,M(x,y,z)=1)\ge2/3,$$
 * if x is not in L, then $$\Pr\nolimits_{y\in\{0,1\}^{p(n)}}(\forall z\in\{0,1\}^{q(n)}\,M(x,y,z)=0)\ge2/3.$$

The second condition here can be rewritten as
 * if x is not in L, then $$\Pr\nolimits_{y\in\{0,1\}^{p(n)}}(\exists z\in\{0,1\}^{q(n)}\,M(x,y,z)=1)\le1/3.$$

As above, z is the alleged proof from Merlin (whose size is bounded by a polynomial) and y is the random string that Arthur uses, which is also polynomially bounded.

The complexity class AM[k] is the set of problems that can be decided in polynomial time, with k queries and responses. AM as defined above is AM[2]. AM[3] would start with one message from Merlin to Arthur, then a message from Arthur to Merlin and then finally a message from Merlin to Arthur. The last message should always be from Merlin to Arthur, since it never helps for Arthur to send a message to Merlin after deciding his answer.

Properties

 * Both MA and AM remain unchanged if their definitions are changed to require perfect completeness, which means that Arthur accepts with probability 1 (instead of 2/3) when x is in the language.
 * For any constant k ≥ 2, the class AM[k] is equal to AM[2]. If k can be polynomially related to the input size, the class AM[poly(n)] is equal to the class, IP, which is known to be equal to PSPACE and is widely believed to be stronger than the class AM[2].
 * MA is contained in AM, since AM[3] contains MA: Arthur can, after receiving Merlin's certificate, flip the required number of coins, send them to Merlin, and ignore the response.
 * It is open whether AM and MA are different. Under plausible circuit lower bounds (similar to those implying P=BPP), they are both equal to NP.
 * AM is the same as the class BP⋅NP where BP denotes the bounded-error probabilistic operator. Also, $$ \exists \cdot \mathsf{BPP}$$ ( also written as ExistsBPP) is a subset of MA. Whether MA is equal to $$ \exists \cdot \mathsf{BPP}$$ is an open question.
 * The conversion to a private coin protocol, in which Merlin cannot predict the outcome of Arthur's random decisions, will increase the number of rounds of interaction by at most 2 in the general case. So the private-coin version of AM is equal to the public-coin version.
 * MA contains both NP and BPP. For BPP this is immediate, since Arthur can simply ignore Merlin and solve the problem directly; for NP, Merlin need only send Arthur a certificate, which Arthur can validate deterministically in polynomial time.
 * Both MA and AM are contained in the polynomial hierarchy. In particular, MA is contained in the intersection of Σ2P and Π2P and AM is contained in Π2P. Even more, MA is contained in subclass S$P 2$, a complexity class expressing "symmetric alternation". This is a generalization of Sipser–Lautemann theorem.
 * AM is contained in NP/poly, the class of decision problems computable in non-deterministic polynomial time with a polynomial size advice. The proof is a variation of Adleman's theorem.
 * MA is contained in PP; this result is due to Vereshchagin.
 * MA is contained in its quantum version, QMA.
 * AM contains the problem of deciding if two graphs are not isomorphic. The protocol using private coins is the following and can be transformed to a public coin protocol. Given two graphs G and H, Arthur randomly chooses one of them, and chooses a random permutation of its vertices, presenting the permuted graph I to Merlin. Merlin has to answer if I was created from G or H. If the graphs are nonisomorphic, Merlin will be able to answer with full certainty (by checking if I is isomorphic to G). However, if the graphs are isomorphic, it is both possible that G or H was used to create I, and equally likely. In this case, Merlin has no way to tell them apart and can convince Arthur with probability at most 1/2, and this can be amplified to 1/4 by repetition. This is in fact a zero knowledge proof.
 * If AM contains coNP then PH = AM. This is evidence that graph isomorphism is unlikely to be NP-complete, since it implies collapse of polynomial hierarchy.
 * It is known, assuming ERH, that for any d the problem "Given a collection of multivariate polynomials $$f_i$$ each with integer coefficients and of degree at most d, do they have a common complex zero?" is in AM.

title: Arthur–Merlin protocol