Birmingham and Moseley Society Journal

Description:In contrast to the general movement to open up green spaces in the city to provide parks for Birmingham’s urban and suburban population during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Moseley Park and Pool was created as a private park, open only to keyholders and their guests. It was established on land from the former grounds of Moseley Hall when Salisbury Road was cut in 1896. A group of businessmen formed a local consortium and leased land around the ‘Great Pool’ to lay out the park and clear the pool, and members of this group built houses in Salisbury Road and Chantry Road, overlooking their property.^{<small>1</small>} The park was opened by Austen Chamberlain on 29 September 1899, accompanied by Mary Endicott Chamberlain, the third wife of Joseph Chamberlain, and other relatives. Mary Endicott Chamberlain gave an account of this event in a letter to her mother: ‘in the afternoon we went to Moseley to assist at the opening of a little private park, common to a certain number of houses by the member for East Worcestershire’.^{<small>2</small>} She describes sitting on a hillside in the sunshine, and meeting the chairman of the park committee, Mr Heaven, and his wife, who apparently pronounced their name ‘’Eaven’. The 1901 census gives details about some of the residents of Salisbury and Chantry Roads, who included a chartered accountant; a solicitor; a wine and spirit merchant; a civil engineer for the city surveyor of Birmingham; and a manufacturing jeweller. All households had at least one live-in servant.^{<small>3</small>} It is clear from this evidence that the majority of people using the park saw themselves as solidly middle class, with enough wealth to pay an annual subscription of one guinea. They seem to have preferred to mix with other members of Moseley society rather than spend time in the nearby Cannon Hill or Calthorpe parks.

The Birmingham and Moseley Society Journal contains a number of articles giving details about entertainments held in Moseley Park and Pool. This article, containing a report on a summer garden party, includes a photograph taken by a member of the Park and Pool board of directors, Mr F.D. Tippetts, which shows a group of well-dressed children enjoying the entertainment. A later article dating from November 1911, appealing for more subscribers, emphasised how the park provides a retreat from the suburb which had apparently become ‘a continuation of, rather than apart from, the city’s bustle and noise’.^{<small>4</small>} The author also reveals other anxieties about the spread of the city into Moseley, commenting that the park is safe for children to be sent with their nurse, to enjoy the ‘pure air and beautiful surroundings, a place…which, by reason of its being open to subscribers and their families only, is free from many objections which unfortunately belong to public parks’.^{<small>5</small>}


<font color="#666633"><small>¹ Alison Fairn, A History of Moseley (Birmingham, 1973), pp.55-6
<small>² Mary Endicott Chamberlain to Mrs Endicott, [UBSC: AC4/3/915]. Austen Chamberlain was MP for East Worcestershire from 1892 to 1914 when he became MP for Birmingham West.
<small>³ 1901 census, http://www.1901censusonline.com
<small>⁴ Birmingham and Moseley Society Journal (November 1911), pp.763-9
<small>⁵ Birmingham and Moseley Society Journal, p.767</small></font>