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The Original All Roller Talk Discussion Board Archive >
English Developement of the Birmingham
English Developement of the Birmingham
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sbrc
184 posts
Nov 26, 2009
9:46 AM
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very interesting nick , there are a few people i know who were in the mrs around the 1960's era , still keeping pigeons today ,these type of pigeons are still flown in club flies today in the birmingham area,although sadly its seems to be in decline ,
i do know someone who has some of the club minutes books of the mrs up in his attic , i have the club minutes books of the south birmingham roller club which ran from 1964 to 1976 those same mrs members were also in this club ,
thanks for the article
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ezeedad
1079 posts
Nov 26, 2009
12:03 PM
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Thanks for posting that article, Nick. Very interesting. Part of it reminds me of a guy I know who brings his birds in to his back porch after flying them.
Also The popularity of the twizzle at the time this was written. I believe it must have been a respectable form of performance which is now all but extinct.
Paul G
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birdman
752 posts
Nov 26, 2009
12:18 PM
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"In any event, it is known and accepted that flying tumblers were common in England, particularly in the “West Midland” counties of Staffordshire and Worcestershire, for at least two hundred years prior to 1900. What is not commonly known is that the term, “roller” was usually reserved as a description of a pigeon's performance, and was rarely used to describe a distinct breed.".....
"While flying tumblers were bred in profusion throughout England in the 19th century, the deep “rollers” seemed unique to the cities of Birmingham and Newcastle. So it was that in his 1899 treatise, The Practical Pigeon Keeper, Lewis Wright wrote: “Tumblers often make two, three, or more backward revolutions without stopping; and lastly, there is the true Birmingham Roller, which turns over backwards with inconceivable rapidity through a considerable distance like a spinning ball.” .....
Those two paragraphs above could sure open up the purebred vs. performance debate.....lol
....
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JBow
128 posts
Nov 26, 2009
9:43 PM
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Good Read Nick. Jim Bowen
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Ballrollers
GOLD MEMBER
2171 posts
Nov 27, 2009
7:44 AM
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Both of these articles speak to the diverse and indistinct background of the Birmingham Roller; so much so that, as late as 1930, they were still trying to distinguish the breed apart from the other tumbling varieties, drawing the distinction based on performance and flyng time. It is clear that the breed was primarily defined by performance.
Cliff
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Scott
2631 posts
Nov 27, 2009
10:32 AM
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Only when you don't want to read it that way Cliff (the Birmingham Roller breed being in question) what you state is what some use to justifying mongralizing the breed , the breed has never been in question before.
( the so-called West of England high-flying tumbler and the Birmingham Roller stand now as two individual breeds)
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Scott Campbell
" God Bless "
Last Edited by on Nov 28, 2009 9:17 AM
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nicksiders
GOLD MEMBER
3894 posts
Nov 27, 2009
10:54 AM
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Scott, Cliff is just mumbling the James Turner language that the Birmingham Roller is not a specific breed, but is designated only by a performce. If you have a Birmingham Roller that is an out and out stiff it is not a Birmingham Roller because it lacks a Birmingham Roller type performance. This is what James told me and many others also witnessed and there is a strong following of that train of thought, especially in the far Southeast. It is often used, as you say, by those who excuss or defend the mongralizing of the breed.
The biggest change in my attitude of today is that I don't care what they do to the breed. I have mine and there is enough of us who do not jeapodize the integrety of the bird that will allow the bird to remain pure as it can be. I no longer hold ill feelings for those who do fly mongralized birds; some of my best friends are color breeders(LOL)......they really are, seriously.
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Just My Take On Things
Nick Siders
Last Edited by on Nov 27, 2009 11:01 AM
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pigeon pete
441 posts
Nov 27, 2009
12:26 PM
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Cliff,
Did MR A C Carp ever visit England, or was he re-writing what he had read in the fancy press?
If he was 70 when he wrote the article, and spent his youth going around the Black country visiting the guys who had been breeding rollers since the 1830's then his writings would have great validity.
This article is quite vague in an important point.
Writing in 1930, he talks about the early English fanciers, which could mean 1910 or 1820 !
I never heard mention of a club called The Birmingham Roller club. But to this day there is a club in Birmingam called the Midland Roller Club which caters for tumblers. Confusing or what?
I have read similar stories about the 'early days'
but it involved the development of the roller and the tippler. On the face of it this seems a little more credible.
If you put a blue tippler on a perch next to a roller it can often be hard to tell them apart, but I don't think anyone could mistake the roller and the modern West, or even the old wests I have seen in old illustrations. Writers of the history of the development of the roller are to a large extent surmising and supposing and putting 2 and 2 together.
Very often the 'facts' are a collection of guesses and correlations which always makes me think of the old saying, - Correlations do not imply causation.
The same applies to articles written in 1930 and in 2009. Writers then were closer to the period in question, but could be as far away from the facts as we could well be. I think old articles are like old men, just because they are old it doesn't mean they are right,lol I'm not saying the guy was wrong but how do we know he was right when there is no clear time line of the History, just a patchwork of guesses and extrapolations, both opinions old and new.
Pete.
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toronto15
285 posts
Nov 27, 2009
1:36 PM
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Great read Nick.Thank-You for posting it. Glen.
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DeepSpinLofts
1602 posts
Nov 27, 2009
2:48 PM
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Re: "Although many tumbler fanciers flew kits of pigeons that tumbled, twizzled, and plated, the “champion” of any kit was the pigeon which rolled deep and solid for many yards."
COMMENT: Makes sense to me!
Marcus
Deep Spin Lofts
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ducket
64 posts
Nov 28, 2009
12:39 AM
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Hej Lads & Lasses,
The article by Mr Karp has already been debated on this forum, once before, the Birmingham Roller, the West of England Tumbler and the Tippler were already 3 distinct breeds before the 1900`s, there were 3 seperate groups of fanciers in different parts of England, who were developing the 3 breeds as we know them today, if you do not understand that now, then you will never understand it.
Those Roller West cross`s in the 1930`s are nothing more than, what is known in England (in the N.E anyway) as Garden Tumblers, these Garden Tumblers are just cross`s, they are all over England, in fact I saw a small kit of them when I was in Newcastle this summer.
You`s can believe that the Birmingham Roller was developed from the Garden Tumbler in the 1930`s but to me that theory is a load of Rubbish.
Eric Laidler
Denmark.
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Ballrollers
GOLD MEMBER
2172 posts
Nov 28, 2009
8:25 AM
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Good post, Pete. It is, indeed, difficult to go back 70 years and try to identify what the truth of any matter is based on the articles written at the time. Yet it is all that we have to go on. Should we accept what they said, without question? Of course not.....and I suspect that goes for any of the articles written by anyone. All they really do is give us clues as to what the facts are and was happening at the time. We have to recognize that personal opinion, prejudice, and heresay permeate the articles. Observations and conclusions drawn rarely identify cause and effect relationships, if at all. I suspect that Mr. Karp is no more an authority than was Mr. Rottenbacher, Mr. Pensom, or any of the other authors of pigeon articles of the time. Yet we should not disregard any of them.
Cliff
PS Nick and Scott....you guys made a broad generalition that may not apply to any given individual roller fancier....a quantum leap to unjustified conclision based on my post. I said nothing about, justifying mongrelization of the breed, James Turner, or the Southeast. But we do see that a number of authors and notable pigeon men of the time, including Pensom, distinguish the BR from other tumblers of the time, primarily based on performance, and point to the diversity of the genetic background of the BR. We have been over this ground many times before and I have sighted many articles to substantiate this this posititon. But I do not believe that these facts makes the BR any less a distinct breed today.
Last Edited by on Nov 28, 2009 8:29 AM
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Scott
2638 posts
Nov 28, 2009
9:16 AM
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Cliff , nick hit it square on the head on who and why this non-sence is passed on and why you yourself promote it.
I didn't mention names because I don't take those individuals seriously where the sport is concerned.
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Scott Campbell
" God Bless "
Last Edited by on Nov 28, 2009 9:23 AM
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Scott
2639 posts
Nov 28, 2009
9:21 AM
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Who is Mr Karp and what standing does he have in our sport ? wasn't he and old American Roller guy ?
(I suspect that Mr. Karp is no more an authority than was Mr. Rottenbacher, Mr. Pensom, or any of the other authors of pigeon articles of the time. Yet we should not disregard any of them.)
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Scott Campbell
" God Bless "
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pigeon pete
442 posts
Nov 28, 2009
9:22 AM
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Yes Cliff.
When an article is contempary they can br relied on, well no not really. Look at the debate on these forums about where to newer colours came from.
Any one of us could write our own article expounding the facts as we see them. Lets say 3 of us did our own article, and in 50 years time someone could read one of them, and they say it must be right he was there at the time. Unless the other two articles, which could state the opposite opinion had survived, there would be nothing to say that the article wasn't historicaly correct. If we cannot agree what has happened or is happening here and now, and in living memory, how can we take seriously an article written by a person in different country many years after the fact? Fact- people make stuff up and write it down .
And to answer your final sentence to me, If it isn't telling me something I need to know about my pigeons, and it isn't realtive, I can and often do disregard it.
regards,
Pete.
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ducket
65 posts
Nov 28, 2009
1:32 PM
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I have already stated on another thread, that the first WEST club was formed in Bristol in 1907 and that they held 3-4 fly`s a year, 3 o/bird fly`s, 1 y/bird fly, here are the results from one of those fly`s,
1st, Mr Milliener, 9 birds, 10hrs 6mins.
2nd, Mr Pippin & Begbie, 9 birds, 9hrs 40mins.
3rd, Mr Harris & Scully, 9 birds, 9hrs 32mins.
4th, Mr Ball, 11 birds, 8hrs 28mins.
The Tippler is thought to have it`s origins in Macclesfield (Sheffield) in 1843, again it was the coal miners around Sheffield that bred the "Macclesfield Tippler". quote "it was also said that the Macclesfield Tippler was unknown in the Midlands until 1875". June 5th 1922, Jack Cockayne of Sheffield flew 3 birds (2 blues, 1 black) for a record time of 19hrs 35mins.
Eric Laidler
Denmark.
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Ballrollers
GOLD MEMBER
2175 posts
Nov 28, 2009
2:58 PM
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Eric,
Mr. Ball? My ancestors hail from England....In doing my genealogy I discovered that my ancestors even had a dovecote at the manor house in Berkshire, England and in Wokingham back in the 1400-1600s! I do not know their geographical proximity to Sheffield, or the Black country that we hear so much about.
Cliff Ball
Last Edited by on Nov 28, 2009 3:05 PM
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ducket
66 posts
Nov 29, 2009
12:49 AM
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Hej Lads & Lasses,
Cliff,
Wokingham is west of London, near Reading.
This is all I have on the man,
"A grand patron of the breed before WW1 was Mr Bell, a member of a Liverpool family of veterinary chemists. The Bristol agent of the firm was W.Ball who was a prolific writer on the breed and one of Bristols outstanding breeders.
Eric Laidler
Denmark.
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Ballrollers
GOLD MEMBER
2180 posts
Nov 29, 2009
8:32 AM
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Thanks, Eric.
Cliff
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