Copeley Hill Hostel, Copeley Hill, Erdington

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Date:1935 - 1968 (c.)

Description:The building for the Copeley Hill Hostel, originally called Burlington House, was given to the City by Barrow Cadbury in 1934. In his letter making the donation, Barrow Cadbury said that the building was to be used as a hostel for 30 boys in connection with Shawbury Approved School. The first boys were moved into Copeley from Shawbury in November 1935. Boys in this first intake were mostly from outside the city but it was intended that future residents would be mainly from Birmingham.

The hostel had an outdoor swimming pool and a billiards room. The building was at the far end of Copeley Hill on the northern side.

When the hostel opened in December 1935, Mr and Mrs Glascott were the warden and matron and they, together with Mrs Barrow Cadbury (Mr Barrow Cadbury being unwell and unable to attend) welcomed the first intake of 10 boys from Shawbury School.

A document below 'The wages of working boys in 1935' shows what happened to the money earned by working boys living at the hostel when it first opened.

Initially was thought that the hostel would be a short stay hostel. Boys would do their 6 months’ training at Shawbury, and then move to the hostel for a short time before returning to their parents. In practice, however, it became a longer-term stopping place for those boys who, for whatever reason, could not return to their parents.

The second problem with the hostel was that, even though long-term stays were being catered for, the hostel was being underused. The Children’s Committee in 1953 said that it could accommodate 42 children but had never been fully occupied.

The same committee noted that Milton Grange, also a boys’ hostel at the time, was likewise underused and thus decided to combine both functions – working boys’ hostel and post-Shawbury hostel – into one hostel in Copeley Hill Hostel.

A former resident, Gerry Hardware, has recorded his memories of Copeley Hostel in 1951 - the link to this can also be found below.

From 1959 Mr and Mrs Broomhall were the Superintendent and the Matron.

Their daughter, Julia, remembers the building: "it was a very rambling and very, very large double bay fronted house with massive double oak doors as the front entrance. And my first memory is how austere it looked. There was an outdoor swimming pool in the back garden. It was stone, sort of like a concrete swimming pool so it was pretty darn cold in the summer but fantastic. And the grounds were just wonderful rambling grounds and there was an area that you could have a football pitch and even in the pouring rain we were all out there playing. It was a 40-bedded hostel for working boys. Most of the boys were non school attenders. Some had got into the periphery of criminality so they came sometimes through the courts. The shortest period would be six months; Some stayed for their teenage years."

In 1967, the building was adapted so that an extra six people could be accommodated in addition to the 18 beds which existed in 1966. This remains a significant reduction from the 42 who could be accommodated in 1953 which suggests that restructuring of the building and its sleeping accommodation had taken place prior to 1966.

In 1967, replacement premises for the Copeley Hill Hostel were sought urgently as the motorway development at Gravelly Hill Interchange (Spaghetti Junction) needed the Copeley Hill site. The Children’s Committee agreed on two sites on which new hostels could be built – Frankfort Street and Villa Walk in Newtown. Accordingly Copeley Hill Hostel was closed in 1968 and the building was demolished shortly afterwards. Mr and Mrs Broomhall moved with eight of the boys to the new hostel at Copeley House.

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Image: Mr Broomhall (left) and Mrs Broomhall (3rd from right)with their daughter (3rd from left)and staff members by the front door of Copeley Hill Hostel in the 1960s. Photograph kindly donated by Julia Garrett.
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Source: This history was compiled by the Birmingham Children's Homes Project, an initiative to explore Birmingham City Council-run children’s homes between 1949 and 1990.

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Donor ref:Birmingham Archives and Heritage (95/1577)

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