author
Walter Showell
1835–1901
A Victorian brewer and local publisher whose name became closely linked with one of Birmingham’s best-known reference books. His work helped preserve the city’s people, places, trades, and stories for later generations.
1 Audiobook
Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham A History and Guide, Arranged Alphabetically
by Thomas T. Harman, Walter Showell
About the author
Best known in print through Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham, he was a Birmingham-born brewer and businessman who lived from 1832 to 1901. The book was compiled by Thomas T. Harman for Walter Showell & Sons, and Showell's name became the one most readers remembered.
Outside publishing, he built a major brewing business in Oldbury and was associated with Crosswells Brewery, where Showell's ales were widely distributed across the Midlands. That mix of local enterprise and civic pride helps explain why his name stayed attached to a guide devoted to Birmingham's history, institutions, and everyday life.
Modern catalogues and literary records continue to list him as the figure behind the dictionary, which remains a useful window into nineteenth-century Birmingham. Even if he was not the sole writer, his role in sponsoring and publishing the work secured his place in the city's printed history.