Description:The idea of the service girls’ home was that it would be for older girls under the care of the Guardians, who had finished their schooling and training, and would be found jobs in domestic service (generally as maids). They would move out of the cottage homes to live at the Service Girls’ Home until they were settled in their jobs and no longer under the care of the Guardians. In this way, the service girls’ homes were the forerunners of the working girls’ hostels.
It was not uncommon for young women to move back into the Service Girls’ Homes if they lost their jobs – this was principally because many of the jobs in domestic service were live-in and so, if they lost their jobs, they would have nowhere to live. According to the Union minutes of the time, young women would then be helped to find alternative work.
The Service Girls’ Home at 375 Moseley Road was initially run by a voluntary association and was used by the Board of Guardians to place older girls coming out of the cottage homes in return for a £175 annual fee paid by the Board to the voluntary association.
In June 1912, the Board of Guardians took over the home and ran it itself. The matron, Mrs MA Howell, who had run the home ‘for many years’ when it was an independent home, was appointed as Matron.
Linked to the Moseley Road Service Girls’ Home was the Newhall Street Training Home (101/102 Newhall Street) which trained girls in the skills they would need for domestic service. While this was used by the Board to train former cottage homes girls, it was not run by the Union but was independent.
Just two years later, however, the Board felt that the home was not big enough, largely because the girls were being taken in by the home from a wider geographical area.
The home moved to new premises on Beaufort Road in July 1914.
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Image: A promotional shot used by Birmingham's children's Department in 1967. At this stage, the Birmingham Children's Homes project does not have any photographs of this children's home.
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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.