Description:Submitted by Maggie Burns, Birmingham Archives and Heritage.
In the early nineteenth century education was a privilege. The parents of upper and middle class children would pay for their education. In Birmingham King Edward’s School founded in 1552 was a free grammar school - but for boys only, girls were expected to marry, raise a family and run the house. For that, people thought, education was not particularly necessary. Gradually through the century the situation improved. By 1870 Foster’s Education Act ensured that all children, boys and girls, would receive an elementary education up to the age of twelve. This was done by local councils through the School Board. Only the privileged would have education after that age.
Emily Jane Suffield was born two years after the Education Act in 1872. The Suffields were a successful middle-class trading family with a business in the centre of Birmingham. Their drapery shop was in Old Lamb House, a half-timbered building in Bull Street. But in the 1880s the Improvement Scheme required that much of central Birmingham be demolished to make way for the new Corporation Street, and other roads linking with it. Old Lamb House was knocked down in 1886. The Suffields moved into 39 Corporation Street, but the business failed after a couple of years; according to a family story this was because the sprinklers were accidentally left on overnight, ruining the stock.
Emily Jane, usually called Jane, or Jenny by friends, was the fifth child in the family with two older brothers John and Roland, and two older sisters Edith May, and Mabel. After Jane another brother and sister were born. The Suffields were interested in literature and drama. The family still have programmes from 1872 and 83 for small dramatic entertainments put together by them at Christmas. Mabel Suffield was later the mother of the world-famous author J.R.R. Tolkien, he acted in several plays at school and wrote dramas for the family to perform. The Suffield's father John was an active member of the Central Literary Association, and of the Birmingham Dramatic and Literary Club. [1] Despite his business concerns he found time to write articles and give talks about various authors, including Chaucer, Dryden and Ben Jonson.[2] Jane’s obituary said that her knowledge of English literature was vast; she inherited books from her father, for example Dryden’s and Spenser’s poetry.
Most of the Suffields – grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins – lived in Moseley. While Jane was young her family rented houses at various times in Trafalgar Road, Russell Road, Ashfield Road, then Cotton Lane (see image on next page)[3]. Moseley was in Worcestershire until 1911, on the edge of the countryside, a pleasant suburb with trees and large gardens. Many of the Suffields enjoyed gardening.