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Newsletter Issue 4June 2010Friends of
the Centre for West Midlands HistorySharing the Past with the Future
A Glimpse of Vanished Birmingham By Dorothy Vuong
A fascinating collection of photos of Birmingham in the 1950s and 1960s is available on the University of Birmingham web repository. The photos were taken by Phyllis Nicklin, who was the Staff Tutor in Geography in the University of Birmingham‘s former Department of Extra Mural Studies in the 1950s and 1960s. Phyllis died in post in 1969 and left behind thousands of slides she had taken for her classes.
The images are of the city centre and a selection of districts and suburbs. They document Birmingham‘s buildings, urban topography and street scenes and show many parts of the city during its re-development and the construction of the ring roads.
446 slides held at the University’s Orchard Centre Library were digitised by the ‘Chrysalis’ digitisation project of the West Midlands Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. The original project site is alas no more, but the slides are available again at http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/chrysalis.html
Some further functionality has been added, including geographical co-ordinates and a map to the approximate locations of the photos. Each image is also linked to the same location as it is today, via Google maps and streetview. The images are publicly available under a Creative Commons (Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike) Licence. They are available for anyone to download, edit, re-use and redistribute for non-commercial purposes. Picture credit: Great Russell Street Newtown, 1967
http://www.cbamh.bham.ac.uk
Friends of the Centre for West Midlands History
Day School: Plant Hunters, Parks and Gardens: Developments in Garden History in Birmingham and the Midlands By Elaine Mitchell
Whilst the future looks bright for some ofBirmingham’s historic landscapes, it remains less certain for others and in March an enthusiastic and knowledgeable audience gathered to hear about exciting plans for Winterbourne, the University’s own botanical garden in Edgbaston, as well as concerns about Highbury Park, created around the former home of Joseph Chamberlain in Moor Green.
Garden historian Phillada Ballard illuminated the complex history and development of Highbury from private garden to public park, a history that has seen Chamberlain’s ‘rus in urbe’ become what she considers one of the finest public parks. However, whilst much of the original landscape remains, modifications and concerns about the future of the house raise issues about how we deal with the challenges of maintaining historic landscapes.
Winterbourne, an Arts and Crafts garden developed around the home of John and Margaret Nettlefold, has perhaps been one of the best kept secrets of Birmingham but is now set to become an important visitor attraction thanks to its recent refurbishment. Curator, Lee Hale discussed the international influences on English Arts and Crafts garden design.
The audience travelled far with Simon Gullivertoo, with several trips to China in the company of plant hunter, Ernest Wilson. Whilst most of us go to the local garden centre for our plants, we forget that many of them originally came from rather further afield. It is thanks to Wilson that we can enjoy the glorious sight of the Handkerchief Tree in full flight.
Returning to Edgbaston, David Lambert explored the conservation of the Guinea Gardens, neighbours to Birmingham Botanical Gardens but, like Winterbourne, a well-kept secret. In the 19th century, Guinea Gardens surrounded Birmingham and these groups of small plots provided a welcome respite for city dwellers to grow vegetables and flowers or simply create their own private gardens. Their survival is extremely rare.
Both John Nettlefold and Ernest Wilson are commemorated with Blue Plaques recently erected by The Birmingham Civic Society. For opening hours of Winterbourne House and Garden go to www.winterbourne.org.uk and for The Birmingham Botanical Gardens & Glasshouses, www.birminghambotanicalgardens.org.uk. For more information on Edgbaston Guinea Gardens go to www.edgbastonguineagardens.org.uk.
Sharing the Past with the Future
Annual Conference 2010 By Paul Fantom
The Annual Conference of the Centre for West Midlands History was held on 20th March. Taking as its theme War and Society in the West Midlands, the conference, which was chaired by Dr Malcolm Dick, featured six presentations covering the regional experience from Anglo-Saxon times up to and including the Second World War.
The session opened with a keynote lecture by Dr Steven Bassett of the University of Birmingham’s School of History and Cultures, who spoke on the topic of Fortifying Mercia: Public Defences in the West Midlands in the Anglo-Saxon Period. Dr Bassett demonstrated how these fortifications have shaped the landscape and continue to have an impact up to the present day.
Dr Malcolm Hislop of Birmingham Archaeology considered Military Architecture or Military Chic? Medieval Castellated Buildings in the West Midlands. He highlighted local examples, including castles at Dudley and Stafford, and offered a reappraisal of their military credentials. This illustrated how the emphasis of castle design altered over time, from being concerned with functional military value to that of making a striking visual impact and being the focus of economic power and status.
Dr Andrew Hopper of the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester provided insight into the regional aspects of the English Civil War with his presentation on Divided War Efforts: Factional Infighting and Garrison Warfare in the West Midlands, 1642-1646. Drawing upon the examples of the striking jealousies, rivalries and the side changing that occurred, he explored the strategies of the local commanders of bothparliamentary and royalist forces, together with the crucial role played by the West Midlands during this conflict.
Peter Rhodes, a columnist for The Express and Star newspaper, gave a fascinating account of some of the experiences of local people during the First World War. Zeppelins and Bayonets: West Midlands Civilians and Soldiers in the Great War drew extensively on reminiscences and stories told to him by people who had lived through this period.
Dr Stephen Parker of the University of Worcester presented Keep Praying Through: Religion and the Home Front in Birmingham During World War Two, which looked at the contribution to the war effort of religion and its wider impact on the mainstream of events and experience, of culture and participation, during the war. As such, this work offered a further dimension to understanding the relationship between war and society.
The final presentation of the day was a thought-provoking topic delivered by Jahan Mahmood, a community historian. Birmingham’s Muslim Communities and Muslim soldiers in World War Two considered the linkages between the martial races of British India and contemporary communities. Numerous examples of heroism during the Second World War were provided, including that of Noor Inayat Khan, the first female radio operator to be sent into occupied France by the Special Operations Executive. Betrayed to the Germans, she endured torture by the Gestapo without divulging any information, before being murdered in Dachau Concentration Camp. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross, one of Britain’s highest awards for gallantry.
Are you reading this but are not a member of the Friends? If you would like to join contact Dr Malcolm Dick, Centre for West Midlands History, School of History and Cultures, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT or email [email protected] for further information.
Friends of the Centre for West Midlands History
The Friends’ visit to St Nicolas Place at Kings Norton in March was an opportunity to study at first hand the buildings and results of the work undertaken on site since the project won the BBC’s Restoration programme in 2004. The £2.5m, four year project has not only saved the Tudor Merchant’s House and the Old Grammar School but, by adaptive re-use and the successful architectural conjunction of old and new, has seen the delivery of a flourishing heritage site, archive and valuable community resource.
Twenty-two Friends and their friends were treated to a presentation on the history of the buildings on the site, an understanding of what was involved in the restoration project, what the goals of the trust were and the current uses of and community roles fulfilled by St Nicolas Place. The subsequent guided tour of the restored buildings gave first-hand evidence of how sympathetically the restorations had been managed.
Visit to St Nicolas Place By Roger Bruton
Above: The Old Grammar School Kings Norton where the top floor is older than the ground floor. Below: Friends of CWMH in the schoolroom in the Old Grammar School, St Nicolas Place. Photographs taken by Roger Bruton.
Future events for Friends of Birmingham Archives and Heritage (FOBAH)20th June 2010 2pm-3.30pm Historical walk around Birmingham city centre lead by Dr Chris Upton.
Please contact Rachel MacGregor at Birmingham Archives and Heritage or via email [email protected] for more details and booking.
Date for your diariesAston Hall has recently re-opened following a major refurbishment of the site. The Stables Range now contains exhibitions about the history of the Hall, as well as Aston itself. There is also a cafe and a shop. We are in the process of organising a visit on Friday, 15th October, which will include a guided tour at 1pm. Full details will be provided in due course.
Friends of the Centre for West Midlands HistorySharing the Past with the Future
‘The People’s Charter and no surrender!’: Chartist Voices in Birmingham By Stephen Roberts
Whenever I sit on platform one at Snow Hill railway station, waiting for the train to Worcester, I gaze into Livery Street. It doesn’t take me long to summon up the sight of a Chartist preacher strolling to his chapel. This preacher was Arthur O’Neill and he ran the only Christian Chartist Church in England.
O’Neill had arrived in Birmingham from Glasgow in December 1840 to take charge of this new church, which was at that time located in Newhall Street. He believed deeply that it was his Christian duty to fight oppression and uphold justice and the rights of the poor. He was a man with very advanced ideas. He urged his congregation not just to campaign for their political rights, but also to embrace pacifism, teetotalism and vegetarianism. The congregation numbered about 250 by August 1842 when O’Neill was arrested and imprisoned for supporting striking miners in the Black Country.
After spending a year in Stafford Gaol, he returned to Birmingham. Unlike his fellow Chartist prisoner Thomas Cooper with whom he shared a cell, his religious faith had not been shaken by the experience. O’Neill was baptized in 1846 and spent the rest of his long life as a campaigning Baptist minister. When, in 1867, there was a partial enfranchisement of working men, O’Neill was present alongside the greatly-revered John Bright at two great meetings which each attracted up to 250,000 people from Birmingham and surrounding towns.
During the second half of the 19th century no man worked harder outside Parliament for peace than O’Neill. He regularly addressed three or four meetings across the Midlands each week. Sometimes he was jeered; but he never grew angry and never gave up. O’Neill’s adopted town recognized all that he had done for democracy and peace in 1885 when his portrait was commissioned – sadly this painting is now lost.
Arthur O’Neill, a man of quiet determination, was buried at St. Mary’s Church in Handsworth in 1896 – though, unfortunately, it is no longer possible to locate his grave.
Another profoundly interesting Birmingham Chartist was George White. White was imprisoned on no fewer than ten occasions for his political activities. His Chartist campaigning in Birmingham was brought to an end after the defeat of the strikes of summer 1842 when he was imprisoned in Warwick Gaol. He had been a wanted man for several days before the authorities got their hands on him – though several ‘raw lobsters’ (as the Chartists called the police) were thrown into the canal as White and his supporters tried to prevent his arrest.
White was a different sort of Chartist to O’Neill. He did not advocate peaceful persuasion as a means of getting the vote, but rather a strategy of confrontation – mass meetings and the disruption of middle class meetings in the town hall would, he believed, intimidate the authorities. In Birmingham White had been a paid correspondent for the famous Chartist newspaper the Northern Star and in the mid-1850s he briefly re-appeared in the Black Country as the editor of short-lived periodical called The Democrat. This remarkable man, a rough diamond certainly but a sincere advocate of the people’s rights, died a pauper in a Sheffield workhouse in 1868.
Birmingham was not, during the 1840s, a Chartist stronghold, but the lives of these two men should not be forgotten. I have told their stories in Radical Politicans and Poets in Early Victorian Britain (1993) and The Chartist Prisoners (2008). Both books can be found in the University of Birmingham’s library.
If you would like to contribute to our next newsletter, please send editorial and news items to Sally Hoban at [email protected]. Please note we do reserve the right to edit material.
Friends of the Centre for West Midlands History
The Staffordshire Hoard Day School
The Staffordshire Hoard proved as popular as ever at a well attended University of Birmingham Day School on 10th April. Over 130 people came to listen to a series of talks which included a description of how the hoard was discovered and plans for its future. A donation from the attendees was given to the Hoard fund. There is a possibility of future courses on this subject, which will be announced via the newsletter.
Dr George Barnsby 1919-2010 By Sue Thomas
Regional historian George Barnsby, who died in April, was the author of a series of books and pamphlets charting the history of the working class and labour movement in the Black Country and Birmingham.
A Londoner by birth, George left school at fifteen and was called up in 1939. His time in Burma gave him contact with the last days of the Raj and he developed a lifelong opposition to colonialism which is reflected in his later study of the Bengal famine of 1943-44.
After discharge, he used his £100 gratuity to enter further education and he gained his degree from the LSE before moving to the Black Country in 1953, where he worked in schools and colleges. He took time out to study at the University of Birmingham, receiving his doctorate for work on the history of the working class in the Black Country. His publications included Socialism in Birmingham and the Black Country (1977) and Birmingham Working People (1989), as well as books and pamphlets which looked in more detail at housing, the co-operative movement and the women’s suffrage campaign. While working as a local historian he always saw his work as contributing to wider historical concerns, for instance using his detailed knowledge of wages and prices to intervene in the long-running standard of living debate.
A committed communist, he became a stalwart of the local labour movement as well as its historian. In particular he will be remembered for his anti-racist campaigning and support for multi-cultural education.
George embraced new technology with enthusiasm, building a website which reflected
his interests in jazz and football as well as history and politics. Despite decades in the Black Country he remained a devotee of Arsenal - and indeed this was the subject of his last blog entry written from his hospital bed just a week before he died.
You can find out more about George Barnsby’s work at http://gbpeopleslibrary.co.uk
Birmingham Archives Online
Birmingham Archives now has an online catalogue. Just over 300 collections (or five per cent of the holdings) are available at the moment but this will be added to and in time it will increasingly become a useful tool for researchers. Some of the more popular and heavily used collections have been catalogued first. For further information visit http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/
Sharing the Past with the Future
Objects of Affection: Pre-Raphaelite Portraits by John Brett at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham 30th April – 4th July 2010 by Aileen NaylorThe new exhibition at the Barber Institute is of interest to Friends of the Centre for West Midlands History because part of it explores connections that the 19th-century artist, John Brett had with Birmingham. Brett is best known for his early Pre-Raphaelite landscapes and later seascapes of the British coast, but this show focuses primarily on his portraits of family, friends and patrons. Most of these portraits are from private collections and exhibited for the first time.
Dr Christiana Payne, whose monograph of John Brett will be published in June, has considered the portraits and Professor Ann Sumner, Director of the Barber Institute, has investigated Brett’s relationship with Birmingham. He regularly exhibited at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists and had many important patrons here, including the iron founder and hardware manufacturer, William Kenrick, the glass manufacturer and meteorologist, Abraham Follett Osler and the architect, John Henry Chamberlain. Landscapes owned by some of these Birmingham figures are on display together with the original notes of a controversial lecture on art and education that Brett gave in the City.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and a programme of events detailed in brochures available in the Barber Institute foyer.
The Barber Institute of Fine Art is located at the University of Birmingham’s Edgbaston Campus. Admission is free and their opening hours are: Monday - Saturday: 10.00 am - 5.00 pmSunday: 12 noon - 5.00 pm
Above: Francis Martineau, 203 x 165 mm. Pencil on paper. 1865. Below: Pansy Posing for Jasper, Photograph. © Private Collections
Friends of the Centre for West Midlands History
Writing Far Above RubiesBy Anne-Marie Vukelic
For those of us fascinated by Victorian history, who has not been educated, enlightened, and entertained in some way by the works of Charles Dickens?
A visit to Rochester in 2005 motivated me to begin examining Dickens’ life in greater detail, but to my surprise I found my attention being drawn repeatedly to the shy, clumsy - somewhat disorganized - wife who lived her life at the side of this hugely talented, impatient, and restless man.
Little has been recorded about Catherine Dickens, and yet, within the numerous pages that have been written about her famous husband, I found her coming to life; and so began the random jottings which eventually became the novel, Far Above Rubies.
Through Catherine’s eyes, I observed her ambitious young husband progress from unknown journalism to celebrated authorship. I felt her dismay when he sidelined her not once, but twice, in preference for her younger sisters, and I experienced her struggle to narrow the gap that separated their vastly different worlds.
My research also brought me into contact with the lives of a number of noteworthy Victorians including William Thackeray, Wilkie Collins and The Baroness Burdett Coutts; and upon seeing how their paths crossed with Dickens’ own, I was inspired to include them in the novel in a blend of fact and fiction.
As my research and writing drew to an end, I dreamt of Dickens’ quite vividly one night. I was seated on a bench overlooking the Malvern hills, and, wearing a checked suit and small bowler hat, he approached me. I cannot remember much of what we said to one another, but I impressed upon him the sadness that I felt for both he and Catherine that their union had ended so unhappily. Upon waking, I picked up a pen and wrote what eventually became the opening words to the novel.
Far Above Rubies by Anne-Marie Vukelic is published by Robert Hale.
New Committee Member: Connie Wan
Connie is currently in the final year of her PhD at the University of Birmingham where she is undertaking a Collaborative Doctoral Award in association with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA). Her studies are focused
on a set of 56 drawings in the permanent collection of the RBSA by the sons of 19th century Birmingham artist, Samuel Lines (1778-1863). Lines was both an artist and drawing master who was born in Coventry but moved to work in Birmingham. He later succeeded in opening an art academy on Temple Row West (adjacent to the Old Joint Stock), which he ran with his five sons who worked there at various points in their careers.
As well as completing a thesis, Connie is also required to write an academic catalogue related to these works that depict a range of subjects including views of rural Birmingham and studies from nature. As a result, her research has led her to pursue diverse themes in local history, which have ranged from researching 19th century plans of the Herefordshire Beacons, to architectural studies of church interiors in Staffordshire, Shropshire and North Wales. Last year, she curated her first exhibition Rediscovering the Lines Family: Drawings of Birmingham and Beyond, which took place at the RBSA. Her research interests remain very much attached to the Midlands in the nineteenth-century, especially concerning art tuition and the development of art institutions.
Since joining the committee, Connie has taken an active role in developing the Friends for West Midlands History Research Group, which is designed to bring together people and organisations interested in the region’s rich history. Together with Sally Baggott and Sally Hoban, she is in the process of establishing events and projects to support the network of individuals engaged in the group. The group is suitable for, but not restricted to, active scholars, postgraduate students, heritage professionals or local historians. If you are interested in joining the group please contact Connie at [email protected].
