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Brandwood End Cemetery

Thanks Colin,
This is really useful. My Barra 3 are coming on Wednesday to do the firebook but I will divert some of them to look at this. I think that we will have two options a) create a new field on the access data base we were using - this may not be possible to create but I'll ask the IT people at school b) Put the buried bit at the start of the comment - this would be the easiest thing to do. Not all the deaths were recorded on the CWGC but I seem to remember that some of the others were found from buria records. We will do what we can to make this a really useful site and honour our war dead.
Best wishes,
Doug and team (although they don't know what they are in for!!!)
 
Dear all,
The good news is that the website is now live. If you go on our main webpage at www.swanshurst.org you'll find it in the middle row with a green symbol. It is slow progress entering the names. I have a team of five helpers but they struggle with my photographs of the hand-written originals. Also they face the proble that the person who wrote down names and address is often random with spelling. I will carry on with it over Christmas and am aproaching 2,000 names. We have covered the years 1899 to 1904. In the future the site will have a facility so that you can contact me as the administrator and put comments about those buried. I don't want them to be just names but to convey the idea that they, like us, once lived. In the short term if you ca connect yourself to any of these early names and can give any details on them then please reply to the thread and I will add your comments to the names. Also if yo notice any obvious mistakes then likewise contact me and I will make changes. I have written an article for Carls magazine about the site and it will appear in either March or April.
 
Hi Doug,

My great great grandfather was buried at Brandwood on 18th December 1899, in section B1 Grave 35. His name was John Fleming of Rose Cottage Vicarage Road. He's been transcribed as John Hemming. He was for years a brass caster/brass founder in Barford Street South. Making amongst other things candlesticks. At Rose Cottage he also had a grocers, and a sub post office.
Northfield
 
Great News Doug. Although (as far as i know), I have no one in Brandwood, it means that now 4 cemeteries are computerised and accessable for Burials.
Keep it up.

Brian
 
Hi Northfield,
This is just what I wanted people to do. Thank you so much. I will add the details to your g g grandfather's name (and make the alterations!) now.
Merry Christmas,
Doug
 
Hi Doug,
Thank you for that. And I wish you all the best with this great project.
Merry Christmas to you too.
Northfield
 
Dear all,
We are in to 1908 with the entries!!! That menas that the years 1899 to 1908 are covered with 3,500 names added. I want these not just to be names but also details about the people buried and so if you know anyhting about the people then let me know and I will add it to their information.
Doug
 
Doug, The first burial took place on 15th April 1899, a 5 year old boy named Charles Downes, who's name appears on the list you might like to add that to his details.
You've still got another 20 years before you get to the first of mine to be buried there.
Keep going
 
As far as I know the 1st one of my close relatives to be buried was my Grandad Roland Bolton from Pershore Road Stirchley he passed over on 3rd August 1939 my Nan and Uncle are in the same grave. My Mother and Father, and lots of Aunts and Uncles are also buried at Brandwood End
 
My grandmother is buried at Brandwood End in an unmarked grave. She was Rose Hanson (nee Martin) and died in 1927. The family lived at 6 Bromwall Road, Yardley Wood in 1924, having moved from Gothic Terrace in Clifton Road, Aston. I think my grandfather William Thomas Hanson (known as Tom) was buried there as well. Granddad Tom worked as General Foreman Carpenter on the huge house building programme that Birmingham Council were working on at the time all along Yardley Wood Road from Swanshurst Park through Billesley past the Common eventually including the Haunch at the Valle out to Yardley Wood, Highters Heath and Warstock. He died in 1945.

Judy
 
Dear all,
Thank you so much for replying. I was almost in a state of dispair when I saw how slow we were going but I gave it a real push over Christmas and have recruited more people to the team so that they are about 12 if they all turn up. 3,600 now passed and we are in the middle of 1908. It is fascinating but hard work and throws up many intriguing facts: why does child mortality fall so fast after 1905? Why does a small road such as Middleton in Kings Heath have so many deaths? And who were thse people and don't they deserve to have more than just a name and date recorded? Don't hold your breath for your entires because at the speed we are going I think we could be up to 1915 by July and then 1930 by next year.

Colin don't forget you can pop in to see it in progress if you contact me.
Best wishes,
Doug
 
Doug I am sorry to hear you found yourself close to despair with your project but very glad to hear that you didn't give up and have recruited more people to help. Your project is definitely raising some questions - I wonder why there were less child deaths after 1905? You also seem keen to know more about the people buried there - for Key Hill and Warstone Lane cemetery pictures of old memorials/inscription details are often posted on here and forum members see what they can find out about the person/people buried - it may be worth a try if there are any that particularly interest/puzzle you. Keep up the good work! Polly
 
Dear Doug
I can give you more in the way of details on one of your recent 1908 entries - Eliza Jane Parkes (nee Harris).

She died of 'shock and pneumonia from burns, due to falling against the fire whilst in a fainting condition': the incident happened at home (92 Highbury Road, Kings Heath) on 09/04/1908. Her husband William was called from work and took her to the Queens Hospital, where she passed away on 11/04/1908. There was an Coroner's inquest held on 13/04/1908 at the Victoria Courts. She was buried in B12 773 at Barndwood End 18/04/1908.

William had been left with five children between the ages of 15 and 3. He married again in the September to a single mother (Ann Jervis), who had a five year old daughter. They went on to have three more daughters together. One of these daughters (Marjorie) died at Selly Oak Hospital in 1930, after abdominal surgery. She is buried in the same grave, B1 773; there is a small urn placed by her work colleagues.
William died in 1939 and joined Eliza and Marjoie in this grave.
Ann, his second wife died in 1951 and her cremated remains were also interred in this plot. I wonder how many men lie with both of their wives?
William was the brother of my great grandfather, Alfred Parkes; who is buried just a few yard away in B2 634

Please let me know if you would like more information; I have a copy of the inquest into the death of Eliza Jane, which makes interesting (and rather sad) reading.
Regards
Andy Parkes
 
Hi Polly,
Thank you for your kind words. The problem is the time it takes to do the entries. My team work on a Wednesday dinnertime and by the time they have eaten sandwiches and settled down they have about half an hour to enter data. I have photographed four volumes so far and they have to contend with both dodgy photographs and haphazard spelling. The main thing is that it is continuing and really interesting. I've got an article about it in Carl's magazine in March. Not certain whether we can do pictures but would love people to add details.
Best wishes,
Doug
 
Hi Andy,
This is just what I wanted!!! I will add these details to her record.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Doug
 
Andy - the details on your relatives are very interesting to read - although also sad - poor Eliza dying in that way. Doug - I have had a look at the webpage and searched for Eliza Parkes just to see how easy it was to use and it is brilliant. Well done for all that you achieved so far. I can see that it will become an invaluable research facility for people researching family buried at Brandwood Heath. I hope more people come up with more information/stories for you.
Polly.
 
Jayell said:
My grandmother is buried at Brandwood End in an unmarked grave. She was Rose Hanson (nee Martin) and died in 1927. The family lived at 6 Bromwall Road, Yardley Wood in 1924, having moved from Gothic Terrace in Clifton Road, Aston. I think my grandfather William Thomas Hanson (known as Tom) was buried there as well. Granddad Tom worked as General Foreman Carpenter on the huge house building programme that Birmingham Council were working on at the time all along Yardley Wood Road from Swanshurst Park through Billesley past the Common eventually including the Haunch at the Valle out to Yardley Wood, Highters Heath and Warstock. He died in 1945.

Judy
Click to expand...
Hi Judy,Your Granddaddy must have built the council
house we moved into in Cleeve Road Yardley Wood, that was in 1932.I moved back there in 1953 when I came out of the army.
Enid and I got a house on the Overspill Scheme at Burton on Trent in 1957. My sister in law lived in Cleeve Road until her death last year. Take care now Bernard
 
Hello Bernard - Yes, it's quite possible that my granddad was involved in the building of houses in Cleeve Road - small world isn't it? I think it might have been his work on this large development of houses by Birmingham Council that enabled them to move from the back to back house in Aston to the house in Bromwall Road. Unfortunately my grandmother died after only 3 years of living in a cleaner environment.

Judy
 
Hello again, I was only two and a half when we moved from Balsall Heath to Yardley
Wood, but it have been a culture shock for my older brothers!My earliest memory is
of sitting with what little furniture we had on the top of a GWR lorry, and going under
the railway bridge on Stratford Road Camp Hill. Oh Where have all those years gone???
All eighty of them. Bernard.
 
Great news indeed.
Unknown to most people are the almost identical twin chapels, boarded up out of use, and mostly hidden out of sight in Lodge Hill!
Brian
 
Yes Brian, I wish that they could/would do something about Lodge Hill. Spoils an otherwise well cared for cemetery.
 
What excellent news! my Dad passed over in 1986 and the service was in the red brick chapel as was all of my other family that were buried there before him, It hurts every time I visit and see the chapels in such a state. It will be wonderful to see the loo's and other building back in use for the community.
 
I've posted some pictures of the Lodge Hill Cemetery chapels on Wendy's thread. (Don't know how to do a link!)
rosie.
 
Here's the link Rosie https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=8116&page=3



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