William Mills (inventor) Kingdom at The Atlas Works, Bonnersfield. Monkwearmouth. Whilst here he produced some of Britain's earliest aluminium golf clubs: Patent, No 13545. known as Metallic Golfing Instrument Heads. He was a keen golfer and had joined the Wearside Golf Club in around 1892. Apart from his company in Sunderland, Mills also set up a company in Birmingham of the same name, which produced castings for the motor car and aircraft industries. Early in 1915, Mills opened the Mills Munitions Factory in Birmingham, making the Mills Bomb Hand Grenade. Until then, grenades had often proved as deadly to the thrower as to
Theatre in Birmingham close the Hippodrome in 1961 and 1970, but in 1979 sold it to the City Council who in turn leased it to a charitable trust. The Hippodrome's fortunes gradually revived, and by the early 21st century it was selling more tickets than any other single theatre in the country. By the 1980s Birmingham had only three large-scale professional theares, though this was still – jointly with Manchester – the highest number of any English city outside London. During the 70s, mac, then known as the Midlands Arts Centre for Young People had its own professional puppet theatre and resident theatre