[1] The room was opened by William Sawyer in 1740, taking over a property that had previously been used as a school.
[2] Before this the town's principal assembly rooms had been at the Hart's Head in Bull Street, which had served this purpose since 1649.
[2] Assemblies were held weekly at Sawyer's and included dancing, conversation and games of cards.
[3] Regular subscription concert series were also given at Sawyer's from the 1740s by Barnabas Gunn and John Eversman[1] often being followed by a ball.
The reputation of Sawyer's room as a fashionable venue never recovered from the visit of the Duke of York in 1765,[4] when he remarked that "a town of such magnitude as Birmingham, and adorned with so much beauty, deserved a superior accommodation, that the room itself was mean, but the entrance still meaner"[3] As a result of this insult, new assembly rooms were built at the Royal Hotel in Temple Row, funded by subscription and opening in 1772.