Middlemore House, Weoley Park Road, Selly Oak

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Date:1949 - 1954 (c.)

Description:Middlemore House was one of the buildings owned by the Middlemore Emigration Homes – an independent organisation which emigrated children to Canada and Australia.

When emigrations were curtailed by the Children Act 1948, Middlemore Emigration Homes went through a change in activities and, during the changeover period, leased its main building, Middlemore House, to the City Council.

The building was leased from September 1949 to enable the City Council to provide short-term accommodation for children of school age. It was leased furnished from Middlemore Emigration Homes and could accommodate between 100 and 120 children.

The need to lease the building arose because of two related factors. The first was that Middlemore Emigration Homes had been accommodating 30 children in the care of the Council and, in 1948, asked that alternative provision be made for them. The second factor was that there was significant overcrowding in Erdington and Shenley Fields Cottage Homes.

The initial lease was for two years at a cost of £2,300 per year, but this time period was later extended.

One woman who went into Middlemore House shortly after it was taken over by the Council remembers her short stay in the home:
"I can remember the front where there were two enormous sides. The girls' bedroom was at one side and the boys' bedroom was the other and then downstairs was the hall. There was a path out of the back of the building that used to lead through the fields to the church in Bristol Road where we used to go and that was lovely because we were dressed up. The girls were dressed up in duck egg blue coats with lovely bowler hats, navy. Absolutely lovely, I loved that.

"It was a big place. I would say there were only fifty boys and girls, maybe not that many. I had the feeling that it had just opened as a children’s home so I’m not sure."

In 1954, the building was being underused – in July 1954 only 46 children were living there and many of those needed long-term care, not the short stays for which the building was intended. The lease was to run until September 1955, but was surrendered a year early.

The building has since been used as the library of Westhill College but was demolished in 2004.

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Image: The building photographed during its demolition in August 2004. Reproduced with kind permission of the photographer, Tommy McCormick
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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.