Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) was the son of a shoemaker in Camberwell London. At sixteen, he was apprenticed to Nettlefold's, his uncle's screw making business in Birmingham.

He was later made a partner in the firm which became the world's largest manufacturer of metal screws under his management.

Chamberlain retired from business in November 1873 upon being elected Mayor of Birmingham; an office that he held until May 1876. As mayor he took public control of the gas, water and sewage supply.

Thanks to his efforts, ordinary people received a continuous supply of piped water and did not have to draw polluted water from contaminated wells. This greatly reduced the incidence of contagious disease and, in particular, the infant mortality rate.

Chamberlain was fiercely opposed by vested interests, but showed resolute courage, risking personal bankruptcy by guaranteeing the debts incurred by the council in the acquisition of waterworks, drainage systems and other such assets.

In 1876, he was elected as Liberal MP for Birmingham and began a parliamentary career during which he became Colonial Secretary and President of the Board of Trade. As such, he was a major international statesman of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His political career was effectively ended by a stroke in 1906.

However, his second son from his first marriage, Austen, and his only son from his second marriage, Neville, both became prominent politicians.

Austen Chamberlain (1863-1937) was Foreign Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Admiralty and Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) became Chancellor of the Exchequer and then Prime Minister.

In 1840, the Elkington Brothers purchased John Wright's electroplating patent. Wright, a surgeon by trade, had discovered how to coat a metal object with a thin layer of silver by submerging it in an electrified chemical solution.

The Elkingtons opened an electro silver-plating works on Newhall Street in 1841. Shortly afterwards Josiah Mason, the Birmingham pen-maker, bought a 33% stake in the business. He persuaded the Elkingtons to concentrate on plating small affordable items such as jewellery and cutlery.

The factory prospered and by 1880 the Elkingtons owned a further six works, employing a total of over four thousand staff.

George Elkington endowed St Mary's Church in Selly Oak which contains a series of stained-glass windows dedicated to members of his family.

Joseph Gillot (1799-1873) served his apprenticeship as a cutler in Sheffield but came to Birmingham in 1821 where he manufactured steel buckles and chains.

He subsequently invented mechanised procedures for the mass productions of pens and improved the design of the steel pen nib by making it more pliable through the insertion of slits.

He entered into partnership with Willliam Mitchell in 1859 and together the pair, who owned the Victoria Works in the Jewellery Quarter, cornered two-thirds of the global pen market.

Gillot, who became immensely wealthy, owned the Perrot Estate in the Rotton Park area of Edgbaston which he developed as a middle-class suburb. He also patronised the arts and was a close friend of the painter Turner.

The Gillot family home was at the Grove on Westbourne Road in the Chad Valley area of Edgbaston.

The Gough's acquired their wealth through a combination of shrewd husbandry, carefully-arranged marriages and their profitable activities as politicians and statesmen.

Sir Henry Gough-Calthorpe (1749-1798) inherited the baronetcy of Edgbaston from his father, also Sir Henry, who had married into the landed Calthorpe family of Norfolk.

Sir Henry Gough-Calthorpe created a Georgian suburb on his Edgbaston estate, most of which has survived as the Edgbaston Conservation Area. This area of Egbaston became known as Calthorpe after Sir Henry was created Baron Calthorpe in 1796.

His sons, the second and third Barons Calthorpe, refused to allowed industrial development or high-density terraced housing on their estate and preserved a belt of green spaces, part of which was subsequently developed as the Edgbaston campus of the University of Birmingham.

The title Baron Calthorpe became extinct upon the death of the 10th baron in 1997. However, the family still owns 1,500 acres in Edgbaston and Ladywood which is managed by the Calthorpe Estates.

Under his management, the school's academic standards were improved, many local boys won scholarships to Oxford, and the school accumulated an impressive book collection, now in Birmingham Central Library.

Thomas Hall was a puritan who wrote an influential pamphlet: "On the Loathsomeness of Long Hair". He also argued that the right to govern was derived from personal merit and could not be justified by the "Divine Right of Kings".

His influence was so great that Kings Norton, part of the royal estate of Bromsgrove, declared for Parliament during the English Civil War. After the monarchy was restored in 1660, Thomas Hall was sacked from all his posts and exiled.

Ralph Heaton II set up his own business as a die sinker and manufacturer of brass chandeliers on Bath Street. After the Soho Mint closed in 1850, he  bought four of its steam-powered screw presses at auction.

Since these presses had been designed in the 1780's, when Mathew Boulton had first established the Soho Mint, many believed that they were obsolete and would constantly break down without expensive maintenance. However, they continued to operate efficiently until the early 1900's.

Using these presses, Ralph Heaton II established the Birmingham Mint and manufactured coinage for the British, foreign and colonial governments. Indeed, a large percentage of the world's coinage was minted in Birmingham during the mid-19th century.

For example between 1853 and 1857, Ralph Heaton II produced 55 tons of finished copper coins for the Royal Mint and 750 tons of bronze Napoleon III coins for the French Second Empire. The four 18th century presses produced around 110,000 coins daily throughout the 1850's.

In 1860, the Birmingham Mint moved to larger premises on Icknield Street in the Jewellery Quarter. Shortly afterwards it won a contract to manufacture most of the bronze coinage for the newly unified Kingdom of Italy. Ralph Heaton II died two years later in 1862.

Thomas Holte inherited the family fortune in 1592. He supported James I when the latter claimed the English throne in 1603 and received a knighthood in return.

He subsequently purchased a baronetcy so that his son Edward would also be a knight and built Aston Hall, an impressive ancestral home, where he entertained Charles I in 1642.

Sir Thomas remained loyal to the King during the English Civil War when Aston Hall was attacked by militia from Birmingham, a parliamentary town.

Sir Thomas had a fearsome reputation; it was rumoured that he starved his daughter to death because she refused an arranged marriage. However, it is more likely that she died from a chronic wasting disease.

His son Edward married without permission and was disinherited although Aston Hall was later bequeathed to Edward's son, Sir Robert Holte.

James Horsfall was a Digbeth wire drawer who invented high tensile steel wire. In 1853, he patented a heat treatment process that strengthened the wire. At around the same time he purchased Hay Mill, a disused water mill on the River Cole which he converted to steam, and built a factory village with a church and school alongside the mill.

The high-strength wire manufactured at Hay Mill was used in the production of needles, fish hooks and umbrella frames. The entire global supply of piano wire was manufactured at Hay Mill in the mid-19th century.

In 1855, Horsfall entered into partnership with Joseph Webster of Penns Hall in Walmley. The new firm of Webster and Horsfall manufactured 30,000 miles of armoured wire for the first Transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866.

Webster and Horsfall still trades today, manufacturing wire and strip products from the original factory site off the Coventry Road in Hay Mills.

Sampson Lloyd II (1699-1779) was the son of a Welsh Quaker farmer who moved to Birmingham in 1698. After his father's death in 1725, Sampson went into business with his brother Charles.

The pair became successful ironmasters but Charles died prematurely in 1741 whereupon Sampson II took sole control of the business. He subsequently bought a farm in Sparkbrook, then still open countryside, where he built a splendid neoclassical mansion, now a grade II listed building.

However, Sampson II is best known as the founder of Lloyds Bank which he established in 1765, at the age of 66, in partnership with his son Charles Lloyd and the button manufacturer John Taylor.

The first branch of the bank, originally known as Taylor's and Lloyds, opened at 7 Dale End in what is now the Retail Quarter of central Birmingham.