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St George's Church Newtown

i think it was wend...such a shame its no longer there...here are 2 pics new to the forum of the inside of the church...

St_Georges_Church_Newtown_-_18-6-1959_b.jpg
 
another great pic of st georges church dated 1958 showing the gt russell st entrance..down there the other month and the gates are still there...looks like st georges school to the right of the pic.

stgeoschurch1958.jpg


stgeoschurch097.jpg
 
Thats a great pic Lyn, just how I remember it, the Tower Street gates, which are just on the edge of the pic are still there as well. Brill.
Lynne.
 
lynne thanks to john houghton for sending me this one and yes as we found out when we went down the other month all the original gates are still there...shame the church isnt..lynne until i saw this pic i did not realise just how close to the church the gt russell st entrance was..
 
I think the furthest gate from the church was the Great Hampton Row one, although I cant remember the St. Georges Place gate at all, we never had any reason for using that one...Special thanks to John Houghton.
Lynne.
 
Smashing pictures .... When you think about it there were some lovely Churches on our doorstep but as kids we didn,t take that much notice of them.
 
Thank you Lynn for those pictures of the site were the church used to be as sad as it is to see such a lovely church go at least they left a reminder plus a grassed area.
 
read it and weep eric....what a very sad picture this is but sometimes we must have the bad with the good..demolished in 1960..

thank you for posting it for us...

lyn
 
Hi there,

I was most interested to read your post about the war memorial inscription in St George's Church.
My great uncle Ernest Townsend was killed in action in 1918, he lived in Lower Tower Street.
I wonder if his name appears on the memorial.
Unfortunately I am unable to open the thumbnails. I wonder if you would be kind enough to repost them.
Many thanks
DonT
 
Hi there,

I was most interested to read your post about the war memorial inscription in St George's Church.
My great uncle Ernest Townsend was killed in action in 1918, he lived in Lower Tower Street.
I wonder if his name appears on the memorial.
Unfortunately I am unable to open the thumbnails. I wonder if you would be kind enough to repost them.
Many thanks
DonT

hi don..any thumbnail attachments that you cant open is due to the fact that the forum was hacked some time ago and we lost all of our images...some have been reposted where possable...will have a look to see if i have still got the pics of the war memorial and if so will repost them for you..hopefully your gt great uncles name will be on it..
lyn
 
the great war memorial at st georges church..sorry don but your gt uncles name does not appear to be on it..it could be that he didnt attend st georges school or was not a member of the church congregation...
please ignore the thumbnail it was an error on my part..
lyn

DSC00383_zps008df1ee.jpg


DSC00384_zps63ee60e2.jpg


DSC00385_zps146887d2.jpg


DSC00386_zps9a56ee92.jpg
 
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Hi Lyn,

That's disappointing, but thank you very much for going to the trouble of posting the photograph for me.

Best regards.

Don
 
hi don i also have a rellie who lived locally and died in ww1 but his name is not on the memorial either...i do know that one of our members has spotted a rellie on it though...

lyn
 
Morning Don,i found my great uncles name on the wooden plaque pictured on post #201,He lived in Tower street.moss
 
Hi Don
this is interesting and has raised a few questions which others might know the answers to![

My great uncle, Frank Wright, came from a family living in Hospital Street when Frank was born and then Buckingham Street when war broke out. I think they are both in St. George's parish. But Frank got married in and moved to Aston (Allesley Street) in 1915 - the same year he joined the forces.
Frank was killed in 1917 in the Somme. The family was aware that he was missing, presumed dead - but no more. I found him about five years ago via the War Graves Commission website. He is buried in Bray Cemetary, France. I also found his papers had gone back to his wife around 1920 and she was, by then, living further away from the city with another man. Whilst she knew about the stuation, either she never informed the Wrights or my ggGranma kept it to herself until she died in the 1960s. (Some of you might have picked up the trail of Flora, the coffee shop in Hospital Street etc. etc.).

Frank's circumstances must be typical of what happened to a lot of families......so, my big question is, where should people like Frank be commemorated? And were the memorials ever 'updated'?

The images of the memorial are an extremely important bit of history I had not come across before. Great website! Immensely useful!

Dawn




QUOTE=DonT;482758]Hi there,

I was most interested to read your post about the war memorial inscription in St George's Church.
My great uncle Ernest Townsend was killed in action in 1918, he lived in Lower Tower Street.
I wonder if his name appears on the memorial.
Unfortunately I am unable to open the thumbnails. I wonder if you would be kind enough to repost them.
Many thanks
DonT[/QUOTE]
 
Hi Bill
I spoke with Mum again about the church bells. She says that when her Aunt Flo organised the wedding early in October 1945, she asked for the bells and was told that could not be provided due to the rules of church bell ringing. Flo said, quite rightly that the war was now over and so investigations were made and the bells were, indeed rung. This was the first time they had been rung for a wedding since the cessation of the war.
Although Mum is now 89, she has an outstanding memory and is one of the 'voices' at the Back to Backs. I don't think this is a memory which she would have got wrong.
I know that there is a great deal of 'lost' histpry about Birmingham at a detail level, but I would assume that the parish records for St. George's are now with the Birmingham Library Archives and that the vestry records could be checked out (?). The details are that a Mrs.Flora Simcox (eldest sister of mum's deceased father, William Wright) paid for the wedding of Doreen Wright (WLA) to CQMS Edward Lloyd which took place 10th October 1945 by special license, when Edward got an unexpected short leave from his post in India and Mum was able to come home from her Land Army post at Peristone Cort, Ross on Wye. Both Doreen and Edward (Ted) returned to their bases soon after - Mum to Ross on Wye and dad to Calcutta. The November 2012 edition of Brummagem magazine has an overview.
Best regards
Dawn

ps. As the first of the Commissioner Churches, St. George's was a major new church for the town when it was built and it is a shame that its national and architectural importance have been virtually 'lost'.


Just referring back to macqueen's post - I hate to bust a family myth, but I don't think St George's ever had bells. There are none mentioned in the Victoria County History - https://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22976 - and they'd be mentioned in Mike Chester's Warwickshire Bells website as being a lost ring - https://www.warksbells.co.uk/lost.htm - and they're not there. Bells from demolished churches are generally sold on and often locally, but I can't find any reference to St George's bells anywhere.
 
Interesting about being a candidate for B'ham cathedral - just too far from city centre?
That may well have saved it had it been chosen!
 
some new photos of st georges all taken 1959 to 1960 when it was demolished...

lyn
 

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