Pearson’s Fresh Air Fund Day at Manor Farm Park

Description:A number of ‘Fresh Air’ funds were set up in both Britain and North America during the late nineteenth century, to provide days out or sometimes summer holidays, in the countryside, to children from low income urban backgrounds.^{<small>1</small>} This was often the only opportunity that children living in towns and cities had to experience open spaces and fresh air.^{<small>2</small>} Pearson’s Fresh Air Fund was established in 1892 by Arthur Pearson, founder of the Daily Express. That year thousands of children from slum areas of East London were taken on trips to Snaresbrook in Epping Forest. By 1901, Pearson’s fund had been set up in a number of cities and towns across the country.^{<small>3</small>} The fund was active in Birmingham by 1894. A photograph of some of the organisers of the fund gathered at Uffculme, Richard Cadbury’s former home, suggests the Cadbury family were involved in the scheme, and notes on the history of the fund state that The Beeches was a destination for early day trips.^{<small>4</small>} By the 1930s Elizabeth Cadbury was allowing the Fund organisers to use Manor Farm Park, outside the grounds of Manor House, Northfield, for regular days out for children from Birmingham’s inner city schools. The aim was to enable children to spend time in what were seen as healthy surroundings, with the opportunity to get fresh air and exercise. These days out usually took place during the August bank holiday weekend. During the early days of the scheme the children were brought along the canal to Bournville and then walked to Manor Farm Park, but later they travelled by tram.

A newspaper article dating from 1929 describes Manor Farm Park as having ‘picturesque little haunts’ for ‘poor kiddies’ chosen from schools in the poorest parts of the city to enjoy, and lists the activities that were available to them, including cricket, football, swimming and paddling, followed by meals on the sports field, and an opportunity to play on swings, and a mechanical horse.^{<small>5</small>} As part of the Fund’s emphasis on improving the health of Birmingham’s children, efforts were made to include children with physical disabilities in the outings. Photographs show that the children had to wear luggage labels stating their destination when they travelled to Manor Farm Park. Records suggest that the outings continued during the first years of the Second World War, with one surviving luggage label mentioning the need for the children to take their gas masks. However, wartime shortages affected the provision of food for the children’s meals, and the outings seem to have stopped for a time before resuming in the summer of 1945 and continuing into the 1950s.^{<small>6</small>}


<font color="#666633"><small>¹ Organisations included the Children’s Country Holidays Fund, which both Beatrice Chamberlain and her half-sister, Hilda, were involved with in London during the 1890s, and which is mentioned in their correspondence in the Neville Chamberlain papers at University of Birmingham Special Collections.
² Frances Wilmot and Pauline Saul, A Breath of Fresh Air: Birmingham’s Open Air Schools, 1911-1970 (Phillimore, 1998), p.5
³ http://www.pearsonsholidayfund.org/annualreview2002/ABreathofFreshAir.htm (viewed 23 June 2010)
⁴ Notes on the history of Pearson’s Fresh Air Fund activities in Birmingham [BM&AG: 1994.F143]
⁵ Newspaper cutting, 1929 [BM&AG: 1994.F143]
⁶ Pearson’s Fresh Air Fund file [BM&AG: 1994.F143]</small></font>