Roller Skates

Description:Ice skating on frozen ponds, boating pools and lakes in Birmingham’s parks was popular during both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although restrictions were placed on the activity by the Parks Committee. Bye-laws for Cannon Hill Park stated that ‘no person shall skate or slide in the park except with the consent of and under the control of the park keeper’.^{<small>1</small>} The Public Health Acts Amendment Act 1907 gave the Parks Committee the power to enclose the ice in parks and to charge admission for skating,^{<small>2</small>} and a booklet issued by the Parks Committee in 1910 giving information about the sporting activities allowed in Birmingham’s parks, contains a number of rules about ice skating, which was free of charge in Cannon Hill, Victoria, Ward End and Lightwoods parks, but subject to restrictions imposed by the ‘officer in charge’ depending on the thickness of the ice, and the weather conditions. Chairs were not to be brought onto the ice, ice hockey was not allowed, and ‘rough games and disorderly conduct’ were prohibited. Special closing times were arranged so that skating could continue beyond the usual park opening hours.^{<small>3</small>} Ice skating retained its popularity into the inter-war period, with newspaper reports featuring photographs of the ice in Cannon Hill park crowded with skaters during the cold winter of 1929.^{<small>4</small>}

The only mention of roller skating in the 1910 Parks Committee booklet was that children under fourteen were permitted to roller skate on the asphalted area of any of the city’s recreation grounds. Roller skating had been popular since the 1870s and by the 1880s there were a number of roller skating rinks in Birmingham, including one at Edgbaston next to the Reservoir, and one at Moseley on Woodbridge Road.^{<small>5</small>} Possibly there were no suitable surfaces for roller skating in parks, even though skating in parks would presumably have been free of charge. The interest in roller skating as a leisure activity in Birmingham, and evidence of discrimination against some skaters, can be seen in a <a href="http://www.search.suburbanbirmingham.org.uk/engine/resource/default.asp?resource=1750">letter written to H.F. Humphreys</a>, President of the Guild of Undergraduates at the University of Birmingham, in February 1909, from solicitors acting for the American Skating Rink in Birmingham, in response to his complaint that Ag-Bebi, a West African student studying Engineering, had been refused entry to the rink because of his ethnicity.

More asphalted surfaces in Birmingham’s parks by the late 1940s probably encouraged people to roller skate there. The Dell at Muntz Park was used for roller skating during the 1949 season, with sessions organised by the Bournbrook Entertainments Committee, although there were complaints about the surface, and suggestions that a portable rink could be hired.^{<small>6</small>} At the end of 1954, it was agreed that roller skating would be allowed in the Dell on Sunday mornings, following an application by members of a new Roller Skating club formed to further interest in speed skating and dancing in Birmingham.^{<small>7</small>}


<font color="#666633"><small>¹ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 6 December 1876 [BA&H: BCC]
² BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 27 July 1908 [BA&H: BCC]
³ BCC Parks Committee, Regulations relating to Games, April 1910 [BA&H: BCC]
⁴ Birmingham Post (18 February 1929); Birmingham Mail (18 February 1929)
⁵ Steve Beauchampe and Simon Inglis, Played in Birmingham: Charting the Heritage of a City at Play (English Heritage, 2006), p.126
⁶ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 7 March 1949; 6 November 1950 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/27]
⁷ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 6 December 1954 [BA&H: BCC]</small></font>