"A Striking Modern Fact"
Image:The Birmingham Post, Rev. Cohen Speech (an extract) 1933.
Rev Abraham Cohen gave many memorable and powerful speeches on behalf of the Jewish community. His arguments were remarkable not just ...
"Charles Parker and The Radio Ballads"
The Radio Ballads and the Oral History Tradition
‘England, England, and there’s nowhere like it at dawn’. These words come from a working class railway driver called Jack Pickford, who was interviewed ...
"Erdington (Aston Union) Cottage Homes / The Gardens, Fentham Road, Erdington"
ASTON UNION COTTAGE HOMES
1900 - 1912
The idea behind the cottage homes was to take children out of the workhouse – the main provision for destitute people, be they adults or children.
Birmingham ...
"George Hallett: Bearing Witness"
Photographs by George Hallett of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, exhibited as 'Bearing Witness', at the Herbert Art Gallery, Coventry, in 2004.
The Promotion of National Unity ...
"My Journey to and Life in Britain"
MY JOURNEY TO AND LIFE IN BRITAIN
My name is Sarwan Singh. I came to this country in 1960. I have lived all my life in Handsworth and worked in Birmingham. I am a member and office bearer of Indian ...
"Questions of Travel": The Lives of Benjamin Stone and Helen Caddick
All text by Dr Andy Green
“From the time I was a very young man, I have been a great traveller ” (Stone, ‘Mainly about People’, 1908).
On a wall of the Local Studies Department of Birmingham ...
"Shenley Fields (Kings Norton) Cottage Homes"
KINGS NORTON UNION COTTAGE HOMES
Birmingham had three sets of cottage homes for children built in the Victorian era - the Birmingham Union built cottage homes at Marston Green, the Aston Union built ...
[Causeway Green Hostel, Birmingham 1949]
[Submitted by Kevin Searle]
One important reason as to why the black community in London, developed around Brixton, is because many of the arrivants who migrated aboard the Empire Windrush were initially ...
‘A Birmingham workshop’, from ‘The Child Slaves of Britain’ by Robert Sherard
Sherard was a journalist who campaigned against the exploitation of child workers.
‘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. ...
‘Birmingham Wheels’, Bordesley
‘Europe Peace or Famine - Which’, by Joseph Southall
The Edgbaston Quaker artist Joseph Southall contributed occasional prints to Sylvia Pankhurst's anti-war suffragette broadsheet 'The Woman's Dreadnought'; the paper later became the 'Workers' Dreadnought' ...
‘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 ...
‘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 ...
‘Jamaicans Seeking Work in Britain’
Submitted by Birmingham Stories.
The 22nd of June, 1948, was a deeply important date in British history. This date marked the docking of the Empire Windrush, in Tilbury, Essex. The landing of the Windrush ...
‘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 ...
‘No child can resist’, Picture Post
Advertisers used images of children to catch the viewer’s eye. As families became more affluent they also targeted children as consumers. These adverts for Birmingham made ‘Bird’s Custard’ represent children ...
‘Opening of the Christian Kunzle Alpine Home for Children’, The Davos Courier
This article reports the arrival of 36 children from Birmingham Children’s Hospital at the Alpine Home for Children in Davos, Switzerland in 1932. It was believed that the health of children suffering ...