‘My Life’s Battles’ by Will Thorne
Will Thorne (1857-1946) was born into a poor family in Farm Street, Hockley on 8 October 1857. His father was a brick maker, and on weekends he would drink and get into fights. His mother and sisters ...
‘Inspector and Starved Child', National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Birmingham Branch Fourth Annual Report
In the late 19th century many children were seen as victims, not of the cruelty of the workplace, but of their parents and neighbours. The NSPCC entered the homes of the poor to expose instances of cruelty. ...
‘In the Happy Days of Our Childhood’ by Maria Cadbury
In the late 18th and 19th centuries seaside holidays became popular with those families who could afford them. With improved transport links, this popularity gradually spread to the working classes who ...
‘In the Happy Days of Our Childhood’ by Maria Cadbury
Maria wrote this memoir much later in life at the request of her niece. Maria was born in 1838 and was the daughter of John Cadbury and his wife Candia Barrow. They lived in Calthorpe Road, Edgbaston, ...
‘Hampshire Village Play’ from ‘Back to the Village’ series
‘Ginger A Story’
Ginger tells the story of a fictional boy named Harry Smith and how poverty and his stepfather’s cruelty turned him to crime. He was placed in Middlemore Homes and sent to Australia. The story ends happily ...
‘Gang Magasine’, Bumper Christmas Number
The ‘magasine’ contains jokes, competition pages, verses, puzzles and games, stories and gang notices. The members of the gang were Alan Thompson (captain and editor of the ‘secret club’ magazine), Graham ...
‘Children of the poor’ taken on an outing of the Birmingham Cinderella Club to Sutton Park by J. Crwys Richards
‘Children of the poor’ taken on an outing of the Birmingham Cinderella Club to Sutton Park by J. Crwys Richards
‘Children of the poor’ taken on an outing of the Birmingham Cinderella Club to Sutton Park by J. Crwys Richards
Social reformers like Charles Dickens and Mary Carpenter in the 19th century, and Robert Sherard in the 20th were concerned that being out on the street put children in moral and physical danger. They ...
‘Birmingham Wheels’, Bordesley
‘Before and After’ photographs of Henry from the Annual Report of Middlemore Homes
Middlemore Homes relied on public donations to fund their work. ‘Before and after’ photographs were used to promote the Homes and raise money by showing the physical and moral improvement of the children. ...
University of Birmingham Great Hall as a Military Hospital Ward
The story of the 1st Southern General Hospital in Edgbaston starts with the work of Lord Haldane, whose reforms as Minister of War between 1905 and 1912 included the creation of the Territorial Army. ...
William Mills (1856-1932)
Although William Mills is famous as the Birmingham inventor and engineer who developed the hand grenade familiarly known to First World War British soldiers as the 'Mills Bomb', he was born in Sunderland ...
Mills Grenade
This First World War hand grenade is one of the original ‘Mills Bombs’ manufactured at the Mills Munitions Factory in Bridge Street West, Newtown, Birmingham, which supplied the bomb to the British and ...
Fables and Illustrations, by Joseph Southall
This powerful nightmare vision of a weapon of mass destruction is by the Quaker artist Joseph Southall who lived and worked in Edgbaston. 'The Obliterator' appeared in his anti-war pamphlet 'Fables and ...
Remedial Electrical and Bed-frame Wiring Work in Highbury's Greenhouse
This photograph shows soldiers at work in a pioneering programme at Highbury Hospital to improve the care of the wounded. During the First World War the modern concept and practice of medical rehabilitation ...
Contributions of Africans in Birmingham from 1950
Introduction
This exhibition offers an insight into the experience of African migrants in Birmingham since 1950. In the sixty years since 1950 Birmingham has changed beyond all recognition physically, ...