Description:This home has had a number of different functions during its long history and a number of different names including 'the Birmingham Children's Remand Home', 'the Boys' Remand Home', 'the Junior Remand School', 'the Moseley Road Remand Home' and finally, 'Athelstan House'. The following text is our best effort at extrapolating this complex history from the written records available.
The home opened in 1911 as Birmingham Children's Remand Home having been paid for by Barrow and Geraldine Cadbury. At this stage, the home was run by a voluntary committee which worked closely with the City Council.
According to the registers from the early years of the remand home, many of the children brought into the home were not on remand but were destitute and were brought into the home for just for just a short while before being sent back to their parents, to an independent orphanage or into the workhouse. At this time, both boys and girls were being brought into the home.
In the 1930s, it was the only remand home in Birmingham and accommodated boys who were aged over 10, 15 in total. At this time, known as the Moseley Road Remand Home, the running of the home was taken over by the Education Committee of the Council. Another part of the same building was in use as a hostel for working boys.
During the Second World War, all the children were evacuated to Bell Heath Lane in 1940 (and then to Fircoft College in 1941). At the end of the war, the older boys went to Forhill while boys up to the age of 12 went back to the Moseley Road home which, at this time, was known as the Junior Remand Home.
In 1948, it accommodated 30 children – boys aged 8 to 12 and girls aged 8 to 14.
“The premises were built in a pleasant style reminiscent of many of the buildings in Bournville and are well adapted for their functions. Pleasant airy dormitories for four to six or seven boys each, a large neat, dining room, playrooms with lockers for the possessions of each individual boy, and good sanitary and kitchen accommodation were provided. A large hut was subsequently added to serve as a schoolroom in which a qualified teacher wrestles with the educational problems of a constantly changing population” [Children’s Committee 1953]
In 1966, Athelstan House was still a remand home and accommodated 30 boys aged under 13½. Older boys were sent to Forhill.
The Children’s Committee minutes of February 1966 state that Athelstan House needed to be replaced as the Moseley Road area was scheduled for industrial development and thus would not be suitable as a location for a remand home.
However, Althelstan did not close. The following year, a decision taken to make the centre, now known as, Athelstan House into a reception centre for both boys and girls – a 16 bed home for 13-16 year olds. The remand function of Athelstan being taken over by Forhill.
Athelstan was king of England from about 924 to about 940, there is a local connection as, before his reign as King of England, he was King of Mercia (the Midlands counties) as was his father before him.
Girls were only accommodated at Athelstan, for a short time however. In 1972 the home became a boys' only observation and assessment centre.
The view of a senior residential care officer at Athelstan House from 1974 to 1977:
“It had the function of being an assessment centre. Boys were remanded to us for three weeks or six weeks by the juvenile court and our job was basically to keep them contained and while they were there, assess them. So, we put them in various situations where we could assess their behaviour and attitudes and whatever else. There was a school on the site so it was totally contained, they didn’t leave unless they went out on some kind of special treat, which was usually a Sunday afternoon.Sometimes we took them out to the park in the evening, occasionally they would get a treat like a trip to the ice rink or something, but not very often. More often than not it was an enclosed thing, there were big fences at the back. I think they are still there probably”.
By 1981, the home was accommodating both boys and girls once more. In 1982, Athelstan House became the district centre for the central district. As such it provided reception and other facilities (including placement and management) for the 13 other community homes in the central district.
In 1988, it was planned that the residential side of the work at Athelstan House, as a district centre, would be moved to the recently closed Melplash building on Moseley Road. Remaining at Athelstan house would be the Fostering and Adoption Team, Child Abuse Team and Children’s Services. Residential care continued at Athelstan House, however, until it closed.
Athelstan House closed on 23rd May 2001.
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Image: Athelstan House standing unused in 2010.
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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.