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Birmingham's Working Horses

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The Union Paper Mills Saltley in 1895, the mills were owned by Smith Stone & Knight,
 
Hardings still had Horse and carts delivering the bread and cakes in 1952, I went to work there for a month after leaving school on the vans and carts before starting as an apprentice painter and decorator.
 
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A funeral was always an impressive sight long ags. The horses were in excellent order with the chains and buckles highly polished and the carriages were always a sparkling brilliant black.
 
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A canal horse pulling a barge along a Birmingham canal.
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Hardings bread, oooh another blast from the past..
 
Hi Stitcher, the man leading the horse with the boat is/was "Caggy" Stevens from the Black Country and was still working a "butty" in 1989.
BTW, have you got the same book as me? "Birmingham's Working Horses"?
 
Hello David, I do not have a book but the same picture could well be in a book. I have a load of newspaper cuttings and I have been told that some of these could be Old Brum magazines that have been cut up. Because I used to entertain foreign visitor with informative tours of the city, I get given these when an old friends parents or friends pass on to the grave. Some are in a dreadful state but others are sometimes very good and unusual.
stitcher
 
Thank you for that David,, I have already said that I am having a sort out and I have several bags and boxes of papers and pages from books, I do have a few books but some of them are about Warwick and Kenilworth Castles and the like so they are not good material for this forum. I will keep on doing a bit and leaving a bit as I press on with my favourite pastime, x.stitching.
 
There is another very good book on the subject that you can get "Birmingham's Horse Transport" by Eric Armstrong from the Tempus Publishing Group. It well worth a look even if you only borrow it from the local library.

Phil
 
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I did not attend this function because I was too busy but I know what I missed.
 
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An Ansell's Brewery dray in 1951.
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The winner of The Lord Mayor's Show 1948The people and the horse in this photo worked for British Rail delivering parcels.
 
I was thinking along those lines myself Paul, a lot of the horse pictures are obviously on newspaper and I have a suspicion that they are cut up pages of the Old Brum magazines. As I am going through them I could drop them into the rubbish bin but there is always a chance someone will be interested in them.
stitcher
 
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I must apologise again because the only information with this one is that the West Midlands Mounted Police are escorting a horse bus that was used for carrying dignitaries.. Because some of the pictures wirh this one are from Cannon Hill Park, I would assume this one is as well.
 
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This horse named Robin, a brown Shire won the Birmingham Challenge Cup in 1937 and he was stabled at Holiday Street stables.

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hi Stitch, my Dad was a carter on the GWR and as kids we always went to the horse
shows, either at Cannon Hill or Kings Heath, usually on May Bank Holiday.
There used to be some beautiful animals, all the brasses would be shining, Oh!
Happy, Happy Days. Bernard ps As for the date most of them look pre/war.
 
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Hello Bernard, nice memories. I have said before that I worked on the milk with a horse and cart and the horses always knew the houses where a few bits of bread were left out for them. I was only fifteen and we had to dress the horse in the morning, in the winter we had to hammer the studs into the horses shoes to stop them slipping on the snow and ice, then when we got back to the depot we had to undress them and hang the collar, bridle and traces up on hooks. Every now and again we had to wipe all the leather-work with an oily rag but I don't know what the oil was.
I am having a little rest from sewing so I can get through some papers and photos in my spare-room tidy-up. Some of these pictures need quite a bit of work to make them viewable but I will go through them all and post what I can, then I can sit in the background and look at what other people post.
stitcher
 
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Sid Rawlins Transport won this one, the show was held in Harborne but that is all I have.

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Handsworth Dairies won this one for the cleanest and best decorated entrant.
 
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I think this is the last of the horses, I have come across the route for the horse parades in Cannon Hill Park and because a couple of bits of text mentioned Cannon Hill I would imagine the majority of the pictures were taken there.
The first one is a flour wagon usually to be seen at Avoncroft Museum.
The middle one was a show winner and owned by Rowlands Bakery and unfortunately I know nothing about the third one.
 
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The first one is obviously an M&B dray. The second one as we can see is a Co-op milk cart and the third one is a bakers cart outside the bakery on Harborne High Street.
I do not have a date for any of these and I think taht is the last of the horse pictures I have.
img426.jpgSorry about that Mike, here it is again.
 
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Stitcher
for some reason the dray comes up as "invalid attachment". Don't kno wif others have hte same problem or my computer
 
A poor quality picture loaned to me recently.I have been told by this gentlemans grandaughter that the horse was called Kit.
 

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Great photo mossg. As my great grandfather was a baker in Lozells this photo has helped me to paint a picture of how they sold the bread. For a while my great great grandfather lived with him and was listed as a hawker. I wonder if this is how he sold bread outside the bakery to shops. You are lucky to be able to talk to the gentlemans granddaughter.
 
My mother once told me that as a young woman she was quite conversant with horses. Her father who had quite a few horses working along the canal would not countenance a young woman being down on the 'cut'. Accordingly she applied to Scribbans Bakery for employment distributing bread by one of their horse drawn carts. They said it was unlikely that she could do the job as the horse was not easily controlled.

I gather she soon showed them how. This would be around the late 1930's period prior to WW2.
 
Saw this sign today exhibited in London.
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It advertises a "flying common stage waggon" from Birmingham and/or Chipping Norton to the Bell Inn, Wood Street, London. I have posted in this thread as #1 has a map showing the location of the Castle, George and Albion coaching inns in the High Street, Birmingham. I do not know the date of the sign but it is probably pre-1840, when the railways began to dominate. I have no idea either of the frequency of the service or how much it cost, but would be very interested to know. Thanks, Dave
 
For those that lived in the Witton area during the 50's, how about the Co-op milkman Fred and his horse called CORKY. They were both such friendly souls, there was always an apple waiting for corky at our house on the weekly bill day.
 
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