The family from which Mr. Muntz descended was originally Polish, but for a few generations had been domiciled in France, where they occupied a handsome chateau, and belonged to the aristocracy of the country. Here the father of Mr. Muntz was born. At the time of the Revolutionary deluge that swept over France, the Muntz family, in common with so many hundreds of their countrymen, emigrated; and after a time, a younger son, Mr. Muntz's father, who seems to have been a man of great enterprise and force of character, became a merchant at Amsterdam. This step was very displeasing to his aristocratic relatives, but he followed his own course independently. In a few months he left Amsterdam for England, and established himself in Birmingham. At the age of 41 he married an English lady, Miss Purden, she being 17 years of age, and they resided in the house in Newhall Street now occupied by Messrs. Benson and Co., merchants, as offices, where, in the month of November, 1794, Mr. George Frederic Muntz was born. It is believed that his baptismal names were given him in honour of Handel, the composer. At the time of his birth the house stood amid fields and gardens, and the old mansion known as "New Hall," was in close proximity, standing on the ground now occupied by the roadway of Newhall Street, just where the hill begins to descend towards Charlotte Street. The mother of Mr. Muntz was a lady of great acquirements and considerable mental power. She undertook the early education of her son, and was singularly qualified for the work. At the age of 12 he was sent to a school at Small Heath, kept by a Dr. Currie, where he remained for one year, and from that time he never received any professional instruction. He had, however, a hunger for knowledge that was insatiable, and, with the assistance of his excellent mother, he pursued his studies privately. He became very well up in ancient and modern history. At a very early age he was associated with his father in business, and soon became a very apt assistant. His father's somewhat premature death in 1811 brought him, at the early age of 18, face to face with the stern realities of life, for he became, so to speak, the head of the family, and the mainstay of the two businesses with which his father had been connected--the rolling mills in Water Street and the mercantile establishment in Great Charles Street. There he continued a hard-working, plodding; life for many years; but on the fortunate discovery of the fact that a peculiar alloy of sixteen parts of copper with ten and two-thirds of spelter made a metal as efficacious for the sheathing of ships' bottoms as copper itself, at about two-thirds the cost, he left the management of the old concerns pretty much to his brother, the present Member, and devoted his own energies to the development of the business of making "Muntz's Metal." This business secured him a colossal fortune, and his name as the