Description:The people shown enjoying the fresh air in this painting are benefiting from the philanthropy of a man who made his home in Birmingham only in the latter part of his life. After a career in London and Hull, Samuel Walliker was appointed Postmaster of Birmingham in 1881, a post he held for ten years. On his retirement, as was the custom, his colleagues presented him with a lavish illuminated book, in which both his professional achievements and his philanthropic activities were celebrated.
Walliker set up The Society for Promoting Country Trips and Garden Parties for Poor Old People in around 1882. The Edgbastonia magazine, proudly claiming Walliker as an Edgbaston resident, explains:
‘The Society aims at providing a pleasant drive into the country and a dinner and tea for worthy old persons of 70, and upwards […] Only such old people as have no other known chance of getting a day in the country are selected […] the friends and patrons of the Society are […] invited to consent to entertain some of the aged poor’.<small><sup>1</sup></small>
Edgbaston homes, with their 'rural' setting and generously proportioned gardens, provided some of the venues.
‘An old lady, at one of the parties at ‘The Dales’, stood gazing at the lovely flowers and ferns in the conservatory, and almost in a whisper said: “I am glad I got a ticket to come here. I never thought the world had anything so beautiful. It must be something like heaven”’.<small><sup>2</sup></small>
Just visible in the picture reproduced here (the location of the house is unknown) is a conservatory.
Exposing the poor to the beauty of flowers was a major concern for Walliker. As President of the Kyrle Society (Window Gardening Section), he promoted the provision of window boxes for slum dwellers, by which, in the words of the illuminated address, ‘thousands of dark homes in Birmingham courts have been brightened by the grace of growing plants’. The Kyrle Society was a national organisation founded in 1878, with the aim of ‘decorating the walls of hospitals, school-rooms, mission-rooms, cottages etc.; the cultivation of small open spaces, window-gardening, the love of flowers, etc.; and improving the artistic taste of the poorer classes’.<small><sup>3</sup></small> The wisdom of directing money and effort to providing floral window boxes, when the recipients often lacked the basic necessities of life, was questioned even at the time. However, it reflected a common view that the poor should be encouraged to better themselves and that improving their ‘taste’ could assist them in doing so. Even the country trips for the elderly were seen in the context of ‘improvement’:
‘Great care has been exercised in selecting worthy recipients of this boon, as well as in guarding against everything calculated to weaken that helpful spirit of self reliance, which all charitable efforts should strive to foster rather than impair’.<small><sup>4</sup></small>
An interesting exchange takes place between Walliker’s two main philanthropic activities: we see the poor being transported from urban space into rural space in Edgbaston and other locations, and a token of that open space in the form of flowering plants being taken back into the ‘dark courts’ of the town.
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> Edgbastonia (June 1892)
<sup>2</sup> Edgbastonia (June 1892)
<sup>3</sup> http://www.vauxhallpark.org.uk
<sup>4</sup> Edgbastonia (June 1892)</small></font>