Description:In 1905, the Birmingham Board of Guardians bought a house on Summer Hill Terrace to use as the city’s first receiving home for children. Its purpose was to relieve overcrowding in the cottage homes by providing short term accommodation and initial accommodation before more permanent arrangements were made for the children. Summer Hill opened as a receiving home in 1910.
In 1912, the receiving home (despite initially having sufficient beds for 140 children) was housing 37 boys and 38 girls.
New regulations in 1913 prevented children under three from being in the workhouse for more than six weeks. The receiving home was a way of ensuring that these regulations could be adhered to.
Initially, Summer Hill was part of Western House, the workhouse, and was not considered independent of it until 1918.
When they arrived, children were cleaned, dressed and seen by a doctor. If they were thought to be ill or infectious, they were put in the home’s isolation ward. In 1919, the receiving home was described as providing “a period of cleansing and quarantine”.
Boys and girls were kept largely separate with a girls’ wing on one side of the building, and a boys’ wing on the other.
After their time in Summer Hill, children might be moved on to the cottage homes at Marston Green, Erdington or Shenley. If the children were Roman Catholic they would be sent to the certified schools at Coleshill (boys), Maryvale (girls) or Handsworth (girls). Those children who were orphaned or abandoned may have been boarded out (similar to modern-day fostering). In the early years, others might have stayed in the home for a short time and then returned home but this short-stay function was later taken over by the probationary (short stay) homes at the cottage homes in Erdington and Shenley.
In 1912, the three Poor Law Unions which were responsible for Birmingham's poor were merged into one and it was decided that Summer Hill would become the receiving home for all children brought into the care of the Guardians. The previous alternative receiving homes, based at Oaklands in Selly Oak and Reservoir Cottages in Erdington, were thus to be used as probationary (short stay) homes instead.
Summer Hill Homes was initially run by a ‘head attendant’ (namely Miss A Spencer) but, when she left in 1918, the decision was made to appoint a married couple as head attendants – Mrs and Mr Blandford who had previously been foster parents at Shenley Fields. The couple left Summer Hill in 1936. At this stage, as there were few older boys coming into the home, it was decided that, in future, a qualified nurse would be appointed as matron and no superintendent would be appointed.
Initially children attended local schools. By 1921, however it was proving difficult to find places in local schools, some of which did not want to take the children of Summer Hill. Thus the Home opened its own temporary school – Summer Hill Receiving Home School - in January 1921. By March 1921, there were more than 60 children attending the school.
1921 also saw the rebuilding of the girls’ section of Summer Hill. Because of the problems of accommodation this was causing and generally higher demand for places than Summer Hill could cope with, 20 children were placed in a temporary home – the Old Merit Block at Dudley Road Hospital.
In 1938, the central block of Summer Hill Homes was opened as a remand home for both boys and girls. The plans were short-lived however as, in 1939, all the children were evacuated from Summer Hill and the home and school closed. The home was used as a home for elderly men. Neither the school nor the receiving home opened again after the war.
The impressive building can still be seen on the terrace above when driving along Sand Pits.
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Image: Summer Hill receiving home in approximately 1910, reproduced with the kind permission of Peter Higginbotham (www.workhouses.org)
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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.