BIRMINGHAM HOME FRONT WW1

[Terry Carter]

Hello all

I need a bit of help please. I am putting together material that is going to be published about Birmingham in the Great War. I have to admit I do have a lot of material and information that I have collected since the publication of my Birmingham Pals book.

However, I am short on pictures. Birmingham Central Library is closed until September 2013

Recruiting, Munitions, War worker's badges etc or anything interesting to do with Birmingham on the home front or any Ephemera..

I can offer a full acknowledgement if any forum member would like to help me out with a picture or two, and it goes without doubt that the Great War Forum and the Long Long Trail will get a special mention.

Thank you

Terry

[GraemeClarke]

Hi

Birmingham City Police officers joining up

Regards,

Graeme

[redbarchetta]

Terry,

Not sure if you want to extend in to physical objects, but the silver cigarette case below was presented to Chief Inspector Ping for his assistance in getting wounded soldiers from the railway station (New St?) to 'the Birmingham War Hospitals'...

Can email you a better image if you want to use it. Not researched this, I'm afraid, so cannot tell you any more than is written on it...

James

[GraemeClarke]

?????

[Terry Carter]

Graham & James

Sorry for not getting back, I was busy yesterday. Thank you both for replying

Thanks for the offer Graham, shall I download it off this site or would it best if you emailed it?

Yes James I would like a better picture of the case. Hospital trains stopped at Selly Oak Goods Station, in Bham, and the wounded were transported from there to the 1st Southern General Hospital (Bham University)

Terry

[GraemeClarke]

Morning Terry

I do not think an e-mailed pic will be any better than the one above. It probably need grayscaling.

Just for your info, have researched the Birmingham City Police RoH, both wars, after being given access to their records,

Regards,

Graeme

[Alan Tucker]

Graham & James

Sorry for not getting back, I was busy yesterday. Thank you both for replying

Thanks for the offer Graham, shall I download it off this site or would it best if you emailed it?

Yes James I would like a better picture of the case. Hospital trains stopped at Selly Oak Goods Station, in Bham, and the wounded were transported from there to the 1st Southern General Hospital (Bham University)

Terry

Terry - wrong hospital. The Birmingham War Hospitals named on the case were Rubery and Hollymoor served from Rubery Station.

[redbarchetta]

Terry - wrong hospital. The Birmingham War Hospitals named on the case were Rubery and Hollymoor served from Rubery Station.

Alan,

Is that because the hospitals referred to on the case are VAD hospitals, whereas Bham Uni was a 'proper' hospital?

Thanks

James

[Alan Tucker]

VAD motor transport moved patients from station to hospital and there would have been VADs at the hospital but it was not a VAD Hospital. See below from my forthcoming Great WarTrail of Birmingham....

City Asylum, Rubery Hill. The City Council handed over the City Asylum at Rubery Hill, built in 1882, as a war hospital as well as the nearby Hollymoor Annexe. Rubery Hill became the 1^st Birmingham War Hospital (Rednal) with its first patients arriving on July 30 1915. This hospital and Hollymoor nearby were managed by the War Hospitals Committee which answered to the Asylums Committee of the City Council. All existing patients were to be transferred to asylums outside the city. Fewer alterations were needed at Hollymoor as it was a more recent building. The main structural alteration at Rubery was the provision of two operating theatres on part of the former ‘female airing court’. Colonel Barling became senior surgeon and Dr Suffern the administrator of both hospitals. The latter had arrived in 1889 and during the war was given the rank of Colonel. Miss Turner was matron at Rubery.

The hospital closed in the early 1990s and only the chapel, porter’s lodge and the Medical Superintendent’s house remain. The Superintendent’s house is now called Leighton House and belongs to Headway, a private medical firm. A planning application was made in 2012 to turn the chapel into thirteen apartments. It was gutted by fire in 2000. The former hospital site is now known as Rubery Great Park and is a substantial residential area.

Hollymoor, Tessall Lane, which opened in 1905, became the 2^nd Birmingham War Hospital (Northfield) with its first patients on July 5 1915 with initial accommodation for 640 patients. Later 946 beds were made available by erecting tents in the grounds. Patients would be brought from Rubery Station in motor ambulances and cars. Miss Buckingham became matron at Hollymoor. After January 1 1918 Hollymoor became the Birmingham Special Military Surgical Hospital for orthopaedic cases. Some of the earliest medical staff in this specialism were Americans. In December 1915 George Cadbury had provided the ‘Beeches’ as an auxiliary to the hospital with 40 beds at its height. The Blackwell Recovery Hospital, near Bromsgrove, was used for convalescence and could look after 112 men. A Ladies Committee provided many extras, including a hut where two films a week were shown. The Tramways Committee, Aston Villa and Birmingham City Football Club gave the patients free tickets. At the end of the war Hollymoor became a Ministry of Pensions hospital.

21280 men passed through the gates of Hollymoor Hospital. They were not all totally happy. Sergeant J.H. Daly wrote to the Birmingham Post in September 1916 on behalf of Anzacs at the hospital. The medical treatment and nursing care were of the ‘best’ but there was a problem about ‘freedom’ – “the out of bounds being within a few yards of the fences and, from what I can gather, we have to thank those of days gone by for this. It seems they were allowed more freedom but did not know a good thing when they had it. They came in at all hours and also the worse for drink; consequently those of us who follow have to suffer through men of that description”. It is not clear whether he was referring to earlier patients or inmates. The hospital closed in July 1994.

‘History of Hollymoor Hospital’. Fay Crofts. Brewin. 1998

Many of the hospital buildings still exist including the entrance building, the chapel (now called St Bartholomew’s) and prominent water tower. Some of the buildings are used as a surgery, pharmacy and a nursery.

[redbarchetta]

Very interesting. Thanks, Alan.

James

[Alan Tucker]

Should have said that Bham Uni - the 1st Southern General - was a Territorial Force hospital as was its offshoot the 'Dudley section' which later became the 2/1 Southern General Hospital (now City Hospital)

[Magnumbellum]

Should have said that Bham Uni - the 1st Southern General - was a Territorial Force hospital as was its offshoot the 'Dudley section' which later became the 2/1 Southern General Hospital (now City Hospital)

What was very recently confusingly renamed 'City Hospital' (as if there were only one hospital in the city of Birmingham) was always known as Dudley Road Hospital, because it is in Dudley Road. I suspect, therefore, that any hospital on that site in WW1 as an offshoot of the 1st Southern General Hospital at Birmingham University would have been known as the 'Dudley Road section', not the 'Dudley section' - it is a long way from Dudley.

[Alan Tucker]

What was very recently confusingly renamed 'City Hospital' (as if there were only one hospital in the city of Birmingham) was always known as Dudley Road Hospital, because it is in Dudley Road. I suspect, therefore, that any hospital on that site in WW1 as an offshoot of the 1st Southern General Hospital at Birmingham University would have been known as the 'Dudley Road section', not the 'Dudley section' - it is a long way from Dudley.

I am using contemporary terminology. They abbreviated it.

[liliasodell]

Hi Terry.

I'm not sure if this is of interest, or too late - but my grandfather joined the Warwickshire Yeomanry in April 1915, and in October 1915, with a number fellow enlistees, he was sent to Birmingham on an enlistment drive for the WY. He was allocated Corporation Street, and told to walk up and down, looking for likely young men to accost!

Eljo

[vicrus]

My grandfather joined E division of the Birmingham City Police on 10th June 1912.

He resigned on 21 May 1915 to join the WY although on his police record it states that he joined the MGC

Also on his police record it states that he was "awarded a guinea for skill in rendering first aid to a varicose vein" on 5th July 1915 but it doesn't say which uniform he was wearing.

[Terry Carter]

Hello Vicrus

This was taken from the sister site "Long Long Trail" concerning WY :-

• 19 August 1918 : renamed as 100 Battalion MGC.

Terry

[GraemeClarke]

Vicrus

Who was your relative in the B.C.P. ??

Regards,

Graeme