due to the lack of finding anything i think will be interesting to anyone else on the web lately i’ll post something interesting to me found on the web lately. this is my great great great grandad’s advert in the 1862 business directory of birmingham.

i found it using historicaldirectories.org which is a) a great resource and b) a candidate for the worst search interface in the history of the web. also i can’t make much sense of the information in the urls so this link may take you to [the right page of the original directory](http://www.historicaldirectories.org/Exe/ZyNET.exe/0000AE47.txt?ZyActionD=ZyDocument&Client=Historical+Directories&Index=Historical Directories&Query=darbyshire&Time=&EndTime=&SearchMethod=1&TocRestrict=n&Toc=&TocEntry=&QField=&QFieldYear=&QFieldMonth=&QFieldDay=&UseQField=&File=E:\ZYIMAGE\DATA\HISTDIR\TXT\00000000\0000AE47.txt&User=anonymous&Password=anonymous&SortMethod=h|-&MaximumDocuments=10&FuzzyDegree=0&ImageQuality=r150g4/r150g4/x150y150g16/i850&Display=hpfr&DefSeekPage=f&SearchBack=ZyActionE&Back=ZyActionS&BackDesc=Results page&MaximumPages=1&ZyEntry=244) or it may not.