Birmingham University

[Andy Davies]

Aileen Howell was half sister to my grandmother (Edith Dorothy Bick). William Bick was my great Grandfather. My mother kept this article from the newspaper! I am struggling to find out where exactly the grounds that William Bick laid out at the University can be located. If anyone has any further info on William Bick, I would very much appreciate it! Attached is a cherished photo of William Bick next to the rock garden.

Aileen Howell was half sister to my grandmother (Edith Dorothy Bick). William Bick was my great Grandfather. My mother kept this article from the newspaper! I am struggling to find out where exactly the grounds that William Bick laid out at the University can be located. If anyone has any further info on William Bick, I would very much appreciate it! Attached is a cherished photo of William Bick next to the rock garden.

Hello, my name is Andy Davies and I have a family connection with William Bick. I have prepared and attached a PDF file with some information and photographs that you may find of interest but here is a single image of William Bick and I have at least two more photographs of William in the University grounds but I'll wait until I see if you're still actively interested before I do anything else. Kind regards Andy Davies

 

[Andy Davies]

Aileen Howell was half sister to my grandmother (Edith Dorothy Bick). William Bick was my great Grandfather. My mother kept this article from the newspaper! I am struggling to find out where exactly the grounds that William Bick laid out at the University can be located. If anyone has any further info on William Bick, I would very much appreciate it! Attached is a cherished photo of William Bick next to the rock garden.

William Bick = he designed the gardens at the university, amongst other doings

View attachment 154461

Hi mikejee thanks for this posting. I wonder if you can help me. William Bick was my grandfather and I'd very much like to make sure that JulieBrum gets to see the post that I uploaded yesterday. (if you read the PDF attached to my yesterdays post you'll understand) My sister Angela, now in her 80's would love to be able to contact JulieBrum as Angela has family photos and memories that she'd love to share with Julie. Angela doesn't use a computer, so in my post I have given Julie my home address in the hope that she will post her phone number to me so that I can put Angela in contact. (I don't know how else to keep her safe. I guess that peoples interest in family history waxes and wanes, (Julies post is 3 years old). So, my question is is there anyway that you could forward my post to JulieBrum other than the the usual notification that I assume could be turned off? It would be such a shame if my sisters memories couldn't be handed on to an interested party. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Many thanks. Kind regards .. . . Andy
P.S. please feel free to takedown or block this message from public view once you've taken it in.

 

[mikejee]

Andy.
Julie is still a member of the forum, though does not seem to have accessed it for 2 years. But you could try sending a personal message through the forum by clicking on the envelope symbol at the top right hand corner of the page. Regret that I have no method myself of forwarding your message.

 

[Andy Davies]

Aileen Howell was half sister to my grandmother (Edith Dorothy Bick). William Bick was my great Grandfather. My mother kept this article from the newspaper! I am struggling to find out where exactly the grounds that William Bick laid out at the University can be located. If anyone has any further info on William Bick, I would very much appreciate it! Attached is a cherished photo of William Bick next to the rock garden.

In the background to the photo is post #30 I think htere is a flagpole. In which case that plus the info in the link in post 37 about the Bramall Building means that I think it might be roughly where the red marker is on this c1917 map (before that building existed). However, that is only a guess.
View attachment 162998

Hi as

In the background to the photo is post #30 I think htere is a flagpole. In which case that plus the info in the link in post 37 about the Bramall Building means that I think it might be roughly where the red marker is on this c1917 map (before that building existed). However, that is only a guess.
View attachment 162998

Hi, as a child I remember my mother had huge drawings of the grounds at Birmingham University. I remember them being unrolled across the opened-out kitchen table, the plans had to be held down with heavy things as they kept on springing closed and throwing the salt and pepper pots off. As far as I can recall my mother donated the plans to a museum in the town but I'm not sure which. She also donated a load of photographs of Willian Bick in the university grounds and of him with his horse and a fire engine, he was in full uniform. There was a beautiful sepia photograph taken from somewhere that would have been at the bottom of your plan, more or less at the six o'clock position looking towards the clock . It must have been taken just after it was built as there was very little else to see other than the brickwork. I'm guessing William had it to do the design of the grounds. Again, it was a long photograph that had to be unrolled and weighed down to stop it springing back. Thinking back now through 60 years of fog, I remember the pictures were donated on a 'permanent loan'. I know there was a lot of talk about the plans and the pictures and it was agreed that they must be made available for everyone to see. that was back in the back in the late 1950's or early 60's. Again as a child, (naughty child,) my friends and I used to play in the university grounds, at one time they cut a new road through some sloping land and this exposed a small tunnel, probably, about 2 foot wide by just over 2 foot high. As children the tunnel was irresistible and we got in there with candles and torches, (that always let us down with flat batteries,) we followed the tunnels under the grounds for great distances. Heaven only knows what our parents would have said!! But we did no harm and nobody got hurt, other than banged heads on the low ceilings and cut knees, we all wore short trousers back then of course. Once we were away from the damaged opening, there was no natural light and the tunnels had lots of twists and turns. I don't know what purpose the tunnels had, in some we found an expanded chamber where we could sit up, it was all very rough concrete. As we made our way through the gloom, in places we could look up and see a circular grill and daylight. It turned out that the grills were over what looked like red brick built wells that were dotted about the grounds. I wonder if they are still there. I never noticed any signs of the tunnels on the plans that we had, but they were given away. Happy days. We never knew what the tunnels were for, and of course we couldn't ask any adults what they were for, as that would have been an admission of guilt and we would be confined to the garden or bedroom. I always fancied that the tunnels were for training miners or cave explorers. If anyone knows their purpose I'd love to know, as kids, we of course were on a "mission impossible" before that title had been on any film or TV Show. It's lovely to see a bit of the old university plan again. By the way, William was my grandfather but I never met him I have some of his pen nibs and a lovey pen and ink drawing which I'll share with you now. I wish I had met him but it's lovely to think that even after more that a hundred years his work can still be seen and enjoyed, both in his ground work and drawing.
Kind regards . . . Andy

The India ink sketch is signed W A Bick and dated 1919

 

[Andy Davies]

Aileen Howell was half sister to my grandmother (Edith Dorothy Bick). William Bick was my great Grandfather. My mother kept this article from the newspaper! I am struggling to find out where exactly the grounds that William Bick laid out at the University can be located. If anyone has any further info on William Bick, I would very much appreciate it! Attached is a cherished photo of William Bick next to the rock garden.

William Bick was my grandfather and I was born and lived in the house next door to his home on the Bristol Road in Bournbrook. My sister has the original photograph of grandad standing next to the rock and the one below. William had a number of postcards made of pictures of himself in different places and it may well be that he was good at self-promotion. I photographed the original images some years ago, the copy is not as good as your newspaper article but I'm sure I could get a better copy from the original if it is of interest to anyone. Judging by all of the plant labels I would imagine that this was posed for when he first laid out the gardens.



Below, this is William at the University admiring his handy work, (or more likely the work of his team of gardeners.) I'm fairly sure that the row of houses in the distance must be along the Bristol Road. It must have been a very nice life for William, working at the University, his home was just a very short walk up to the right of this image and I imagine that he will have had more than a few pints of beer at the Gun Barrels pub that was an even shorter walk to the left.



My mother told me that her father was a big eater, but particular. She said that he would stay up all night waiting for a pear to be just right to eat, she told me about him buying the biggest turkey in the market that was delivered by the train staff from the local station, it arrived plucked and had an address label around its neck, no wrapping at all, just the dead bird with a label tied around its neck.

William used to eat several raw eggs at a time, mum said that, on one occasion, he sat on the running board of a car and ate all of the cracked eggs they had in a basket that he had bought from the market. I remember mum telling me how, with a magnifying glass, he showed her the tiny tiny worms moving on the cheese that he was eating, and how he kept a large barrel of eels in the scullery, they used to frighten her as they would make the wooden lid move and she was sure they would escape, they were of course for eating, not pets.

It's wonderful that these images, captured in one sixtieth of a second over 100 years ago, bring back lovely memories of the things that my mother told me about her father. I just wish that I had asked more questions and had taken in so much more than I can now remember.


Above. This must have been a jolly good day out for the lads!

William, (seventh from the back,) is in his usual flat cap, and is seated to the left of the gentleman in the bowler hat. Note all 15 men have a moustache of one size or another.

I'd be interested if anyone could tell me more about the image. I have it in my mind that I was told that it was what we would now call a ‘Works Outing’, for all of the gardeners, but I could be wrong. Maybe there is someone out there who can throw more light on it?

Take a moment to take in the scene, it looks like it is in castle grounds. The bus/car/coach, what do you call it? is made for all weather touring with a canopy that must extend right from the back of the vehicle to the front. The running boards run the whole length of the cab. To the right of the rear wheels, you can see what must be a chain guard that covers the chain that drives the back wheels. Protruding just in front of the windscreen you can see a curly brass horn that would have a large rubber bulb to press, to warn people to get out of the way! Note the lovely side lights either side of the cab just ahead of the windscreen, and what looks like a single large headlight at the front, above the hand crank that was used to start the engine. The lamps would be lit with a match not a switch. In my mind I see the carriage work has being painted a nice cream colour.

Don't forget to look at the motorbike to the left, you'll see that it has a side car and maybe carried some overspill passengers? Again, this is a snapshot of the original image that my sister has. I'm sorry about the poor quality of the image but I figure that any image is better than no image at all.

I'm very grateful for all of the effort that the folks of the history forum put into operating this site and I'm pleased to be able to hand on any fragments of historical information that I might have.

If anyone knows how I can make contact with "JulieBrum" who sparked my interest in this thread please contact me.

Kind regards . . . Andy

 

[DavidGrain]

The bus/car/coach, what do you call it?

That type of vehicle is called a 'char à banc' usually pronounced 'sharra bang' in English.

 

[JulieBrum]

William Bick was my grandfather and I was born and lived in the house next door to his home on the Bristol Road in Bournbrook. My sister has the original photograph of grandad standing next to the rock and the one below. William had a number of postcards made of pictures of himself in different places and it may well be that he was good at self-promotion. I photographed the original images some years ago, the copy is not as good as your newspaper article but I'm sure I could get a better copy from the original if it is of interest to anyone. Judging by all of the plant labels I would imagine that this was posed for when he first laid out the gardens.

View attachment 190049

Below, this is William at the University admiring his handy work, (or more likely the work of his team of gardeners.) I'm fairly sure that the row of houses in the distance must be along the Bristol Road. It must have been a very nice life for William, working at the University, his home was just a very short walk up to the right of this image and I imagine that he will have had more than a few pints of beer at the Gun Barrels pub that was an even shorter walk to the left.

View attachment 190050

My mother told me that her father was a big eater, but particular. She said that he would stay up all night waiting for a pear to be just right to eat, she told me about him buying the biggest turkey in the market that was delivered by the train staff from the local station, it arrived plucked and had an address label around its neck, no wrapping at all, just the dead bird with a label tied around its neck.

William used to eat several raw eggs at a time, mum said that, on one occasion, he sat on the running board of a car and ate all of the cracked eggs they had in a basket that he had bought from the market. I remember mum telling me how, with a magnifying glass, he showed her the tiny tiny worms moving on the cheese that he was eating, and how he kept a large barrel of eels in the scullery, they used to frighten her as they would make the wooden lid move and she was sure they would escape, they were of course for eating, not pets.

It's wonderful that these images, captured in one sixtieth of a second over 100 years ago, bring back lovely memories of the things that my mother told me about her father. I just wish that I had asked more questions and had taken in so much more than I can now remember.

View attachment 190051
Above. This must have been a jolly good day out for the lads!

William, (seventh from the back,) is in his usual flat cap, and is seated to the left of the gentleman in the bowler hat. Note all 15 men have a moustache of one size or another.

I'd be interested if anyone could tell me more about the image. I have it in my mind that I was told that it was what we would now call a ‘Works Outing’, for all of the gardeners, but I could be wrong. Maybe there is someone out there who can throw more light on it?

Take a moment to take in the scene, it looks like it is in castle grounds. The bus/car/coach, what do you call it? is made for all weather touring with a canopy that must extend right from the back of the vehicle to the front. The running boards run the whole length of the cab. To the right of the rear wheels, you can see what must be a chain guard that covers the chain that drives the back wheels. Protruding just in front of the windscreen you can see a curly brass horn that would have a large rubber bulb to press, to warn people to get out of the way! Note the lovely side lights either side of the cab just ahead of the windscreen, and what looks like a single large headlight at the front, above the hand crank that was used to start the engine. The lamps would be lit with a match not a switch. In my mind I see the carriage work has being painted a nice cream colour.

Don't forget to look at the motorbike to the left, you'll see that it has a side car and maybe carried some overspill passengers? Again, this is a snapshot of the original image that my sister has. I'm sorry about the poor quality of the image but I figure that any image is better than no image at all.

I'm very grateful for all of the effort that the folks of the history forum put into operating this site and I'm pleased to be able to hand on any fragments of historical information that I might have.

If anyone knows how I can make contact with "JulieBrum" who sparked my interest in this thread please contact me.

Kind regards . . . Andy

Hi Andy! I absolutely love these posts about my great grandfather! Thank you SO much for replying and for making contact with me - we are related!! So happy to be in touch!! Kind regards Julie (Nee Atherton, Dorothy's daughter)

 

[Andy Davies]

Hi Julie how wonderful to have been able to make contact with you.
I thought that I was at a dead-end and that you must have left the site. Julie I don't know how this site works but I will see if I can send you a private message to give you my email address. (if not I'll get back to you here.)
Kind regards . . . Andy

 

[pjmburns]

Hi Julie how wonderful to have been able to make contact with you.
I thought that I was at a dead-end and that you must have left the site. Julie I don't know how this site works but I will see if I can send you a private message to give you my email address. (if not I'll get back to you here.)
Kind regards . . . Andy

hover over Julie's name under her avatar and the click on "start conversation".

 

[Andy Davies]

Thank you Janice we're all sorted now and have made a wonderful contact.

I wanted to thank you in a private message but that hasn't been possible in your case. This chance dip into the Forum has opened up untold opportunities for our families to maybe get together, to share pictures and information that would otherwise been diluted by the mists of time.

My thanks to you and all those concerned with the site, and to those with an interest in Willian Albert Bick .

Kind Regards . . . Andy

 

[Richard Dye]

William Bick was my grandfather and I was born and lived in the house next door to his home on the Bristol Road in Bournbrook. My sister has the original photograph of grandad standing next to the rock and the one below. William had a number of postcards made of pictures of himself in different places and it may well be that he was good at self-promotion. I photographed the original images some years ago, the copy is not as good as your newspaper article but I'm sure I could get a better copy from the original if it is of interest to anyone. Judging by all of the plant labels I would imagine that this was posed for when he first laid out the gardens.

View attachment 190049

Below, this is William at the University admiring his handy work, (or more likely the work of his team of gardeners.) I'm fairly sure that the row of houses in the distance must be along the Bristol Road. It must have been a very nice life for William, working at the University, his home was just a very short walk up to the right of this image and I imagine that he will have had more than a few pints of beer at the Gun Barrels pub that was an even shorter walk to the left.

View attachment 190050

My mother told me that her father was a big eater, but particular. She said that he would stay up all night waiting for a pear to be just right to eat, she told me about him buying the biggest turkey in the market that was delivered by the train staff from the local station, it arrived plucked and had an address label around its neck, no wrapping at all, just the dead bird with a label tied around its neck.

William used to eat several raw eggs at a time, mum said that, on one occasion, he sat on the running board of a car and ate all of the cracked eggs they had in a basket that he had bought from the market. I remember mum telling me how, with a magnifying glass, he showed her the tiny tiny worms moving on the cheese that he was eating, and how he kept a large barrel of eels in the scullery, they used to frighten her as they would make the wooden lid move and she was sure they would escape, they were of course for eating, not pets.

It's wonderful that these images, captured in one sixtieth of a second over 100 years ago, bring back lovely memories of the things that my mother told me about her father. I just wish that I had asked more questions and had taken in so much more than I can now remember.

View attachment 190051
Above. This must have been a jolly good day out for the lads!

William, (seventh from the back,) is in his usual flat cap, and is seated to the left of the gentleman in the bowler hat. Note all 15 men have a moustache of one size or another.

I'd be interested if anyone could tell me more about the image. I have it in my mind that I was told that it was what we would now call a ‘Works Outing’, for all of the gardeners, but I could be wrong. Maybe there is someone out there who can throw more light on it?

Take a moment to take in the scene, it looks like it is in castle grounds. The bus/car/coach, what do you call it? is made for all weather touring with a canopy that must extend right from the back of the vehicle to the front. The running boards run the whole length of the cab. To the right of the rear wheels, you can see what must be a chain guard that covers the chain that drives the back wheels. Protruding just in front of the windscreen you can see a curly brass horn that would have a large rubber bulb to press, to warn people to get out of the way! Note the lovely side lights either side of the cab just ahead of the windscreen, and what looks like a single large headlight at the front, above the hand crank that was used to start the engine. The lamps would be lit with a match not a switch. In my mind I see the carriage work has being painted a nice cream colour.

Don't forget to look at the motorbike to the left, you'll see that it has a side car and maybe carried some overspill passengers? Again, this is a snapshot of the original image that my sister has. I'm sorry about the poor quality of the image but I figure that any image is better than no image at all.

I'm very grateful for all of the effort that the folks of the history forum put into operating this site and I'm pleased to be able to hand on any fragments of historical information that I might have.

If anyone knows how I can make contact with "JulieBrum" who sparked my interest in this thread please contact me.

Kind regards . . . Andy

The photos maybe old but the content is spectacular, thank you!

 

[JulieBrum]

hover over Julie's name under her avatar and the click on "start conversation".

Thank you so much! I'm thrilled to be in touch with my family who until now were names on a family tree - wonderful!