A very heavy hailstorm did damage at
the Botanical gardens and other places, May 9, 1833. There have been a
few storms of later years, but none like unto these.
~Hector.~--The formation of Corporation Street, and the many handsome
buildings erected and planned in its line, have improved off the face of
the earth, more than one classic spot, noted in our local history,
foremost among which we must place the house of Mr. Hector, the old
friend and schoolfellow of Dr. Samuel Johnson. The great lexicographer
spent many happy hours in the abode of his friend, and as at one time
there was a slight doubt on the matter, it is as well to place on record
here that the house in which Hector, the surgeon, resided, was No. 1, in
the Old Square, at the corner of the Minories, afterwards occupied by
Mr. William Scholefield, Messrs. Jevons and Mellor's handsome pile now
covering the spot. The old rate books prove this beyond a doubt. Hector
died there on the 2nd of September, 1794, after having practised as a
surgeon, in Birmingham, for the long period of sixty-two years. He was
buried in a vault at Saint Philip's Church, Birmingham, where, in the
middle aisle, in the front of the north gallery, an elegant inscription
to his memory was placed.
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