Soho is an area that is in Central

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

and Smethwick, approximately 2 miles north west of Birmingham city centre on the A41. The name is an abbreviation of South House, denoting that it was located to the south of Handsworth. The section of the A41 separating Handsworth from

Winson Green Winson Green is a loosely defined inner-city area in the west of the city of Birmingham, England. It is part of the ward of Soho. It is the location of HM Prison Birmingham (known locally as Winson Green Prison or "the Green") and of City Hospi ...

is known as Soho Road. Soho expanded dramatically during the 19th century with the construction of numerous houses and factories, and immigration from the Commonwealth was centred in these homes during the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the immigrants who settled in Soho were of

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n origin. Further housebuilding took place by the local council during the 1960s and 1970s. Soho falls partly in the Soho ward of the City of Birmingham and partly in the Soho and Victoria ward of the Borough of Sandwell.

Soho ward, Birmingham

Until 1911 the part now within Birmingham formed part of Handsworth District, and is now a

ward Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...

within the council constituency of

Ladywood Ladywood is an inner-city district next to central Birmingham. Historically in Warwickshire, in June 2004, Birmingham City Council conducted a citywide "Ward Boundary Revision" to round-up the thirty-nine Birmingham wards to forty. As a result o ...

Demography

The 2001 Population Census found that 25,634 people were living in Soho with a population density of 5,369 people per km² compared with 3,649 people per km² for Birmingham. Soho covers an area of 4.8 km². The ward is a very ethnically diverse area with ethnic minorities making up 76.2% (19,522) of the ward's population, compared with 29.6% for Birmingham.

Ethnicity Population

*White British – 20.48% *White Irish – 2.20% *White Other – 1.17% *Mixed: White and Black Caribbean – 2.80% *Mixed: White and Black African – 0.22% *Mixed: White and Asian – 0.81% *Mixed: Other – 0.95% *Indian – 26.77% *Pakistani – 13.99% *Bangladeshi – 3.88% *Other Asian – 2.31% *Afro-Caribbean – 18.13% *African – 1.44% *Other Black – 2.42% *Chinese – 0.69%

Politics

Soho Ward is represented by three

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

councillors on

Birmingham City Council Birmingham City Council is the local government body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local council area in the United Kingdom ...

; Sybil Spence, Chaman Lal and Dorothy Hargreaves. Soho Ward has adopted a Ward Support Officer with the current holder of the title being Tariq M. Khan. In 2014, James Turner Street, in the Winson Green area of the ward featured in the TV series ''

Benefits Street ''Benefits Street'' is a British documentary series broadcast on Channel 4. It was first aired on 6 January 2014, and ran for five episodes. The show was filmed by documenting the lives of several residents of James Turner Street, Winson Green, ...

''.

Places of interest

Industrialist

Matthew Boulton Matthew Boulton (; 3 September 172817 August 1809) was an English manufacturer and business partner of Scottish engineer James Watt. In the final quarter of the 18th century, the partnership installed hundreds of Boulton & Watt steam engin ...

opened his "

Soho Manufactory The Soho Manufactory () was an early factory which pioneered mass production on the assembly line principle, in Soho, Birmingham, England, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It operated from 1766–1848 and was demolished in 1853. B ...

" (an early

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

) there in 1761. Boulton himself resided at

Soho House Soho House is a museum run by Birmingham Museums Trust, celebrating Matthew Boulton's life, his partnership with James Watt, his membership of the Lunar Society of Birmingham and his contribution to the Midlands Enlightenment and the Ind ...

, now a community

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

of the Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery run by

. The parish

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

is dedicated to St John Chrysostom. The area is served b
Handsworth Library
Winson Green Prison and City Hospital are located within the

area of the ward. Soho is home to a Train Care Depot and the

Soho Foundry Soho Foundry is a factory created in 1775 by Matthew Boulton and James Watt and their sons Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. at Smethwick, West Midlands, England (), for the manufacture of steam engines. Now owned by Avery Weigh-Tr ...

, which was

and James Watt’s famous factory. Most of the rest of the area is industrial with some housing. Soho-Pool-Handsworth

Transport

Soho had stations on the

London & North Western Railway The London and North Western Railway (LNWR, L&NWR) was a British railway company between 1846 and 1922. In the late 19th century, the L&NWR was the largest joint stock company in the United Kingdom. In 1923, it became a constituent of the Lon ...

built

Stour Valley Line The Stour Valley Line is the present-day name given to the railway line between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, in England. It was authorised as the Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Stour Valley Railway in 1836; the title was often shortened to the ...

between Smethwick Rolfe Street and the closed Winson Green railway station, and on the Great Western Railway between Handsworth & Smethwick and Hockley (replaced by

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

). It is currently served by the

West Midlands Metro The West Midlands Metro (originally named Midland Metro) is a light-rail/tram system in the county of West Midlands, England. Opened on 30 May 1999, it currently consists of a single route, Line 1, which operates between the cities of Birmi ...

on the former GWR line with a stop at Soho Benson Road.

References

External links

Birmingham City Council Soho WardSandwell Trends, Soho and Victoria Ward
{{Authority control Areas of Birmingham, West Midlands Former wards of Birmingham, West Midlands Smethwick Conservation areas in England