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King Edward's School, New Street 1838 - 1936

ChrisM

Super Moderator
Staff member
Links to other King Edwards Schools in the Birmingham area are below


Edgbaston


Five Ways

Camp Hill

Handsworth
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...dwards-girls-grammar-school-handsworth.16714/


Aston
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Could anyone give me, please, a bit of information about Barry’s King Edward’s School building in New Street?

I assume it has wholly disappeared and if so, where precisely did it stand and when did it go?

I am frustrated that my various childhood memories of Birmingham city centre from the early 1940s do not include it (even though my father was a pupil there in the 1910s and probably his father and uncle before him, so that it must have been pointed out to me).

Thanks

Chris
 
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chris
don't know if this link will help in any way.
https://www.pugin.com/pugbirm.htm

also if you type in king edwards school new street in google search and images. there are lots of info and photos.there is a blue plaque in new street where it was.where the yard of ale/tavern in the town is.
 
Thanks, billc, a very helpful start.

The virtualbrum picture presumably specifies the site. Trouble is, my knowledge of modern Birmingham is sketchy and I’m not sure where that modern building is, either. (My clearest images are from the early 40s to the mid 50s and that's still my mental geography, unsullied by Rotundas and pedestrianised streets!).

The building has clearly gone, totally, with just a few relics transferred to Edgbaston. From what I can see from the pictures it was a magnificent structure, outside and within. On the face of it, it appears that for a century or so Birmingham had a mini-Palace of Westminster in its midst and that its destruction, whenever that occurred, is one of the better examples of civic vandalism.

Chris
 
CHRIS
I DON'T KNOW IF THIS WILL WORK.BUT IT SHOULD BE AN AERIAL VIEW OF NEW STREET.THE SCHOOL WOULD HAVE BEEN THE BUILDING WITH A RECTANGLE SHAPE ON THE ROOF AND NEW STREET STATION BEHIND IT. IT'S FROM LOCAL.LIVE.COM IT'S THE BUILDING WITH THE RED VIRGIN TRAIN BEHIND IT.THERE IS A OLD TYPE BUILDING BEHIND THE WHITE ONE,DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT COULD HAVE BEEN.IT MAY BE THE ARCADIAN /ODEON CINEMA.

https://local.live.com/default.aspx...t=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=7447047&encType=1
 
Thank you also, Cromwell, that pins it down nicely – in my geographical terms, virtually opposite what is (was?) Marshall & Snellgrove’s.

I have a vision from 1942/3 of standing waiting for a bus, looking out over New Street to a battered Horne’s outfitters opposite, Marshall & Snellgrove’s (burnt out) to the left, Big Top to the right. Behind me, to my right the Odeon seems to exist. What is exactly behind me is the building in question, I can only assume, if it hadn’t gone by then. Whatever was there was certainly a tall building; I have a vision of a little snackbar at street level but that might have come later. If only I had taken more interest…… but at the age of six or seven, who is interested in the past?

Did it last until the 1960s?

Chris
 
Works well, billc, and thanks for it. Not much evidence of Charles Barry's work!

Chris
 
Chris... regarding the building in New Street... as a school girl I used to wait for my Midland Red Bus outside Littlewoods.... I bought a bag of sweets on the way home from there. Georgie Garrett
 
This link takes you to the original Free Grammar School erected on the same site on New Street and was demolished to erect the Charles Barry building.
We have lost so much in Birmingham over the years. The replacement King Edward School on New Street designed by Charles Barry looks as though it was a GEM. Many of the fine oak panels from the King Edward New Street Grammar School were used to build the interior of the Chapel at the "new" site. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:KES_Free_Grammar_School_original_without_tower.jpg
The other site with a few details is about Charles Barry is:: https://www.pugin.com/pugbirm.htm also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Barry An impressive list of the buildings he designed and also some of his sons followed in his footsteps.

The good thing about all this is the fact that we can still look at these
heritage buildings on the Internet and read about them also.
 
Thanks for all the helpful further comments.

The links suggested by jennyann certainly indicate that it was indeed a gem. I am still trying to find out when it met its end. The move of the school out of it is variously stated as 1939 or 1941 when it was being regarded as a fire risk. Was it damaged in 1940/41? How long thereafter did it survive? What was it used for in the meantime?

Georgie – roughly what era are you talking about? I’m so out of date that I don’t have an idea where Littlewood’s is but from what you say it’s somewhere between the Odeon and Stephenson Place.

I have in front of me a book on zoology presented to my father as a prize for physics in 1914. I suspect that it represents a more tangible memento of the school than anything to be found in the New Street of 2007.

Chris
 
Chris, I am looking on the local.live site that "billc" gave you.... On this you have the Rotunda...(on your left and looking along New Street ) small square building, then long building with about 13 windows along the length of building...(Littlewoods must have been on the ground floor of this building right by the Midland Red Bus Stops) a passage way between. (? no name)... a building on the corner that leads down to New Street Station. On the opposite side of the road to where Littlewoods was you have Union Passage.

This was about 1961... my school.. Pitmans College had just moved from Corporation Street (nearly opposite Rackhams) into Norfolk House in The Bullring... From my old classroom I watched Rackhams being built! My school was over the shops and on the corner of Union Street and Corporation Street. Now demolished and on the local.live site is now a building with turrets up the sides of it.

I can hardly recognise Birmingham... just about made out the old Lewis's! Not sure if any of this helps but it has bought back so many memories for me.. Georgie Garrett
 
More about the street than the school

Georgie..

Thanks for that. The mention of Union Passage pins it down nicely. I think we must be talking about almost the same bus stop!

You’ve prompted me to go off my own thread a bit. In another subforum there has been a link to a wonderful website which contains images of central Birmingham in the 1950s and 1960s. One of these, of New Street, caused me dredge up my memories of the centre of Birmingham at a still earlier time. They are too long and turgid to try the patience of Rod or forum members by posting them in this forum and so, for that reason alone, I have created a special page for them within my own website (one which otherwise deals with information and reminiscences relating to the Home Guard). They can be read there in the unlikely event that anyone is interested in them apart from me.

So, for a child’s view (in words, not images I am afraid) of New Street and the city centre in the middle of the war, please use this link:
https://www.staffshomeguard.co.uk/DotherReminiscencesL1staffshg
(It is quite safe and there is an easy link straight back to this thread).

Needless to say I am still interested in any further comment and information on the King Edward’s building.

Chris
 
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I will ask my friend about King Edward's school... she says her father went there! He is now in his middle 80's. Thank you for the information... I can't wait to have a look. :) Georgie Garrett
 
Thank you for the information on the commemorative medal, jennyann.

Within the noble building we are discussing were presented, with no doubt some ceremony and 60 years apart, two school prizes. Here they are.

The green one, "Zoology" by E. Brucker, was given out for Physics to a fourteen year-old pupil in 1914, probably a few weeks before the outbreak of the Great War. A cautious little book, it has never ventured farther than 50 miles or so from New Street.

The second, brown and dated 1854, entitled "English Forests and Forest Trees", has however been rather more adventurous. In the 1870s it survived the arduous journey under sail to Australia. There it still resides and is handed down from eldest son to eldest son, again no doubt with due ceremony. Its present custodian represents the fifth generation.

Chris
 
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