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First council Houses in birmingham, possibly UK.

mikejee

Super Moderator
Staff member
Attached is a cutting from 1971, where it is stated that what are possibly the first publicly built houses for normal people (ie not the prime minister) were to be saved. Unfortunately, if you go down Wright St in streetview this doesn't seem to have happened. nothing remains. This cutting did, however soleve the identity of a picture I took at the time. Even Phil coukln't place it. I think you will agree that that is where my photo was taken.
Mike

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Polly
Probably because i heard that they were the first council built houses, possibly from the paper, and thought i'd drop by and take a picture. There were also some others nearby on the film that I still haven't identified, that look a bit like Lawrence St, but aren't the same as other pictures of lawrence st houses.
Mike
 
Mike

I told you that I knew them but just couldn't place them, I've probably drove past them a hundred times when I used to fill my freezer at Rowfreeze.

Its a typical example of Birmingham Council though, demolish the oldest public housing stock in the country and leave ordinary common street terraced housing a few doors away. It's not as if they didn't know their origins. If they needed the space to build newer houses. Then surely the money could have been found to move them to another site. It wouldn't have cost that much I'm sure.

Phil
 
Polly
Probably because i heard that they were the first council built houses, possibly from the paper, and thought i'd drop by and take a picture. There were also some others nearby on the film that I still haven't identified, that look a bit like Lawrence St, but aren't the same as other pictures of lawrence st houses.
Mike
It's a good job you did take a photo of them! It really makes me angry that so much of our history gets demolished - especially as it seems to be replaced with ugly buildings. Perhaps you could post your other photos on here and see if anyone recognises them. I have started to take photos of buildings and Streets - I just wish I had done it years ago.
Polly
 
what a shame mike that they went back on their word to preserve that housing...typical though...

lyn
 
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Not just a great shame, but a catastrophe, for history, Same old story, one party in power promises, and then other is elected and totally ignores the first president. Paul
 
An article in January 1971 about the first council houses in the country in Lawrence Street. Aston University tried to save these houses but the campaign was unsuccessful. Viv.
 

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And the outcome reported in March 1971. Viv.
 

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I sometimes wonder if Birmingham should have changed its motto from 'Forward' to 'Sweep out the old and bring in the new'. I guess it was too long a sentence! :eek:
 
I sometimes wonder if Birmingham should have changed its motto from 'Forward' to 'Sweep out the old and bring in the new'. I guess it was too long a sentence! :eek:
An interesting thing about the word Forward as used by Birmingham, when I worked for Forward Trust a subsidiary of Midland Bank, I was told that FT had to get permission from the City to use the word in their name. Was this true or another urban myth. I see the much heralded rebirth of Midland Bank for the UK branches of HSBC has finished in the bank now being known as HSBC UK.
Such is progress.
Bob
 
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Going back to Mike’s first post, the picture of 36-39 Wright Street, Small Heath could be very significant. Could it be last picture of the lovely structure in its grand state?

The heading of the clip from Evening Mail of 1971, says... “First Council Homes to be preserved.”

It uses the term “maisonettes” in Wright Street, Small Heath and says they were built 122 years prior to 1971, being 2 years before the Great Exhibition of 1851 (They would therefore be Victorian) and thought to be the first to be built for artisans and their families by a public body.

In 1849 I don’t think there was a council, so what would that public body be? It states that the buildings are to be preserved.

There is an article in the Birmingham Post of October 28th 1974 with the very poor picture as shown, but they do look like the buildings concerned. They are described as a derelict bricked-up pair of Georgian cottages with a preservation order. This would indicate that they were older than stated.

£38,000 for an artisan school caretaker, they didn’t like that!

Attached is a cutting from 1971, where it is stated that what are possibly the first publicly built houses for normal people (ie not the prime minister) were to be saved. Unfortunately, if you go down Wright St in streetview this doesn't seem to have happened. nothing remains. This cutting did, however soleve the identity of a picture I took at the time. Even Phil coukln't place it. I think you will agree that that is where my photo was taken.
Mike

24A_36-39_Wright_St.jpg


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I suspect that the houses, which seem to be a favoured design in some places, were constructed at the behest of a philanthropic organization or wealthy individual. Small Heath sees to have developed in a quite industrial manner.
There are similar houses in Paignton, Devon. They were built for artisans by the wealthy Singer family.
 
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Whist clearing out my mother's house I found an interesting book by Carl Chinn (and signed by him) titled Homes for People 100 years of council housing in Birmingham. Published 1991 by Birmingham Books. The final chapter, The Future, makes interesting reading in retrospect!
 
We lived in a number of council houses between 1952 and 1964, in some lovely places , always though Birmingham was a very generous Council. Paul
 
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