Description:The need for residential nurseries had become apparent in the Second World War with the Public Health, Maternity and Child Welfare Committee of Birmingham Council reporting on ‘the urgent necessity to supplement the number of Day Nurseries by the provision of a Resident Nursery for the care of children of mothers whose war-time activities prevented their attendance at a Day Nursery’.
The need for residential nurseries, however, continued after the cessation of hostilities. Perry Villa was one of four residential nurseries which opened in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War (the others being The Meadway, Hawthorne House, Field House).
The building dated from around 1838 – a vicarage in four acres of land next to what is now Perry Park (and Alexander Stadium).
Perry Villa was used as a short-term residential nursery from 1944. It was purchased by the Public Health, Maternity and Child Welfare Committee at a public auction with a view to building a maternity hospital on the site. It was agreed, however, given the need for residential nursery accommodation, to use the building as a nursery until such time as the maternity hospital was to be built. It had accommodation for 32 children.
The nursery was closed in 1953 after the need for nursery accommodation had waned significantly, largely because of a reduction of the numbers of children going into care. At the time of closure, there were 301 beds available in residential nurseries, with only 252 in use of which 14 were for children of staff members.
In 1954, the building was used as a training centre for Civil Defence personnel in relation to dealing with unexploded bombs.
The building has since been demolished.
Image: Perry Villa as it looked in the 1920s reproduced here with the kind permission of the Handsworth Historical Society http://www.handsworth-history.org/
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.