Analysis of Water from Gloster Cottage, 30 Metchley Lane
The Calthorpe Estate was still being developed during the 1880s as a comfortable retreat for the wealthy; but within its boundaries were many farms and small dwellings that pre-dated the Victorian expansion. ...
Birmingham City Council Improvement Committee Minutes
The appointment of the Improvement Committee in July 1875 marked the earliest initiative by the City Council to tackle Birmingham’s slums. The originator of the scheme was the mayor, Joseph Chamberlain, ...
Bournville Family, by Bill Brandt
Black and white photographic print by Bill Brandt depicting family sat in garden of a house on the Weoley Castle Estate.
Bournville Family, by Bill Brandt
This photograph was taken by a London-based photographer called Bill Brandt, forming part of an album in the Bournville Village Trust archive that remained unknown to the photographic world until the ...
Boy with sibling, London, by Nick Hedges
Hedges tried to capture the human face of homelessness. This photograph shows that positive family relationships existed despite the difficult conditions. The boy and his sibling are shown under the watchful ...
Drawing of a Middlemore Girl
As an Edgbastonian, John Middlemore was proudly celebrated in the pages of the Edgbastonia magazine:
‘A benevolent Edgbaston gentleman who has solved one of the difficult social problems of modern ...
Floor tiles from 'Longworth', Edgbaston
These floor tiles, from 24 Priory Road, were rescued from the home of John Thackray Bunce, editor of the Birmingham Daily Post from 1862 to 1898. His daughters Kate and Myra were students at the Birmingham ...
Gas Wash Boiler
Example of the type of modern labour-saving household applicance often found in new municipal homes during the 1930s.
'Going to bed', by Joscelyne Gaskin
Joscelyne Gaskin (1903-1993) was the daughter of the Birmingham artists and designers Arthur Joseph Gaskin and Georgie Evelyn Cave France. Her parents both worked in a variety of media, with Georgie initially ...
'Grace before Meat', by David Wilkie
Oil painting by David Wilkie (1785-1841).
‘Grace before Meat‘ shows three generations of a family saying a prayer before sharing a meal together. In paintings like this, Wilkie presented an intimate ...
Handmade admission ticket to ‘The Consul’s Will’
Arthur Wallis (1874-1933), wrote under the pseudonym P. Bentley and produced scripts, advertising posters, admission tickets and ‘quotes from the critics’.
Independent Labour Party Minutes
This is a page from the 1914-1921 minute books of the Birmingham Branch of the Independent Labour Party, which was chaired for most of the First World War by the Edgbaston artist Joseph Southall. Under ...
Oral Testimony of Annie Florence Hackett
There are very few early twentieth century oral testimonies or first hand accounts giving details of the experiences of Bournville Works' employees. Annie Florence Hackett’s account is typical of those ...
Ration Book
While the later 1950s would be characterised by Harold MacMillan’s assertion that ‘you’ve never had it so good’, 'Austerity Britain’ lasted well into that decade. This ration book was allocated to a resident ...
Sporrophon Gramophone (weight driven)
One elderly resident of Kingstanding Estate in east Birmingham recalled that as tenants gradually began to settle into their new lives they also started to manage their money better and got better dressed.1 ...
Sunderton Road Children's Home (no. 18), Brandwood End
This opened as a purpose-built home for eight children in 1952 on the newly-built Woodthorpe Farm estate.
The home was part of a programme of new children’s homes, each built on newly developing housing ...
'The Baby-House', by Millais
Etching by John Everett Millais (1829-1896).
The Victorian nursery, with its dolls and dolls' houses, provided an early training in motherhood. Millais, perhaps not insignificantly, entitled his etching ...
The Moor Pool News
Cover of the Moor Pool Estate magazine, designed to publicise leisure and social activities, advertise local shops and businesses and provide other news for residents of the Moor Pool Estate.