Barrow’s Stores, c. 1880 [MS 5094, box 4] For many Birmingham citizens in the 19th and 20th centuries, the high-end grocery shop and later department store known as Barrow’s Stores was synonymous with high quality products and high levels of customer service. Its origins are shared with those of another well-known Birmingham Quaker business, Cadbury’s which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. Beginnings Both developed from the small shop opened on Bull Street by John Cadbury on 4th March 1824 to sell ‘Fine Teas, Spices, Freshly Roasted Coffees and Cocoa’. After experimenting with g ..read more

Introduction Over the years our service has received many collections relating to community heritage projects. The outputs of these initiatives have enabled us to document and make available information relating to communities hitherto often neglected in the historical record – for example recent immigrants and ethnic minorities or the LGBTQ+ community. For many years content came in as physical objects like audio tapes with paper transcripts, but over the last two decades there has been a noticeable shift to hybrid or wholly digital formats. We recently had an enquiry from an academic researc ..read more

When the British arrived in India, they acknowledged the importance of the language as an official means of communication in some local provinces. Turner Macan was a British officer who was assigned as an interpreter to the commander-in-chief of the British army in 1818. Well versed in the protocol and etiquettes of courtly language, Turner was instrumental in translating the correspondence and dispatches issued by the royal court and simultaneously translated communication while dealing with local princes. AKM903, Faridun Tests his Sons, Front. Folio from the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) of Shah ..read more

Birmingham Dog Show 1905. Woman with Prize Dogs. [MS 3196 Benjamin Stone, Box 16, Print 37] As the annual Crufts (held last month at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC)) demonstrates, dogs of all shapes and sizes are generally beloved by us humans, so for National Pet Month, we thought we’d delve into our collections to see what we dog-related items we hold. ‘Dog Show’ catalogues in the stacks [L 25.4] We have many volumes of past dog show programmes [L 25.4] in our stacks.  Our oldest and longest running sequence starts from ‘Second Great Annual Exhibition of Sporting and other ..read more

Sons of Rest, Handsworth Park, 1950s, Ref: WK/H5/557 Can any of us in 2024 really imagine the psychological impact of World War One – millions dead, many more wounded and injured physically and mentally. The understanding of the unwritten agreement between humans regards how to treat one another, completely shattered.  In the often overlooked first paragraph of Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence, first published in 1928, the voice of the narrator states – ‘Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins.’ One r ..read more

Portrait of Dr. Mary D. Sturge. [MS 3949] Birmingham has a strong history of humanitarian and philanthropic citizens, some of whom are more well known than others. The Sturge family is well known, for instance, as being an influential Quaker family that moved to Birmingham in the early 19th century. Joseph Sturge was an English Quaker, abolitionist and activist; Charles Sturge was mayor of Birmingham.  The women of the Sturge family were equally as influential and active in the community. In celebration of Women’s History Month, the theme of which this year is Women Who Advocate for Equit ..read more

Extract from the 4th edition of Volume 1 of the Philip Harris Ltd Catalogue of Scientific Instruments, 1908 [H/110/1] For this year’s British Science week (8th – 17th March 2024), I decided to write about a Birmingham-based company called Philip Harris Ltd. Since my childhood, I’ve had an interest in scientific matters, especially chemistry and physics. I remember using equipment made by Philip Harris Ltd in the chemistry laboratory in my secondary school, especially the weighing scales in glass cabinets used to measure out chemicals and laboratory glassware. Extract from the 4th edition of Vo ..read more

Re-numbered parish collections It has been a while since I wrote about the parish collections (EPs) progress, and I thought for this week’s blog an update might be welcome. Back in 2022 I wrote about working on creating a structured catalogue for 27 more parish collections using our cataloguing database. In the last two years, the project expanded to become a broad progress survey across all the parish collections held in the Archive. This progress survey looked at the work that had been completed for each collection and what needed consolidating. A progress survey spreadsheet was created in 2 ..read more

On Saturday it will be 101 years since the birth of Graham Winteringham, architect. He is best known for designing the new theatre for the Birmingham Rep on Chamberlain Square which opened in 1971 and won a RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) award in 1972. Until then, the theatre company had been based at the UK’s first purpose-built theatre (opened in 1913), now known as The Old Rep, on Station Street opposite New Street Station. By the 1960s, larger, more modern facilities, in a more prominent position in the city centre were well overdue to match the national and international rep ..read more

Following the current Bournville Amnesty International group’s visit to Archives & Collections in September, it’s salutary to look back through the Bournville Amnesty archive collection (MS 2184/1) to the period from the 1980s to the 2020s. Some current members will recall with affection and admiration the perseverance of others in those years. The papers record the contribution of stalwarts such as Frank Rock, Alma Evers and Betty Chesner, while this time also saw the arrival of future activists who became leaders. Letter from Theresa Stewart agreeing to arrangements for Human Rights Day ..read more