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CANAL SIDE HEBREW CEMETARY YONDER

  • Thread starter Thread starter hmld
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hmld

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HAS THE ANCIENT JEWISH CEMETARY, MOST INTERRED FROM THE JEWELING ZONE, BEEN RECLAIMED? IT IS CONSECRATED GROUND.
NEARBY THE FORMER ACCIDENT HOSPITAL, ADJACENT V WAYS. QUITE SMALL.
 
I'm no expert on the subject, but about 20 years ago I did pick up a duplicated booklet I couldn't resist entitled "Birmingham Jewry, 1749 - 1914", by Aubrey Newman, then (1980) Reader in History at the University of Leicester and co-founder of the Birmingham Jewish Research Group. It deals mainly with the 1851 and 1871 censuses, which are very well researched. Page 10 notes that the first record of Jews in Birmingham was an unnamed Jewish person met by Daniel West on 29 May, 1749. According to Aris's Birmingham Gazette, a Hungarian, Mayer Oppenheim had set up a glass house in Snow Hill by 1762, and at least eight Jewish Traders were listed in Sketchley's Directory for 1767.
In 1780 William Hutton referred to the Jewish settlement in the Froggery (later occupied by New St Station), branching off Peck Lane. A small house in this street was rebuilt or converted as a basic synagogue, and the garden was used for burials.
In December 1783, Aris's Gazette advertised a plot of land in Granville St, next to "the Jew's Burial Ground", and another was consecrated in 1823 between Bath Row and Islington Row.
The first map below shows both old and new cemeteries as they were in 1839. The old one, off what is now Granville St, was taken over by the railway by 1876, while the new one, south of Islington Row, but also on the western side of the canal, ended up cut back with railways on both both sides, as shown on the second map from 1914. I can't say what's there now.
I think it's a fascinating story, worth more study.
Peter
 
It is a fascinating subject as you say Peter. I found this at Birmingham de, it adds little to your post, but I thought it worth reading.

Jewish cemeteries were situated at Granville Street (The Froggery) from 1783 and later in a passage named Betholom Row between Bath Row and Islington Row, consecrated in 1823. The original Jews' Burial Ground disappeared in 1845 with the building of the railway and New Street Station. The bodies from Betholom Row were later reinterred in the Jewish section of Witton Cemetery which was added in 1869.
 
I was quite fascinated to learn about the early Jewish cemeteries last week, and when I was in Brum last Tuesday I got to the sites of the 'Old' cemetery off Granville Street, and the 'new' cemetery off Islington Row Middleway, opposite Five Ways Station. Stupidly, I forgot to take a camera, but I was quite surprised to find that part of the 'new' site is still there, although redevelopment nextdoor is threatening to smother it. Being tall I could see over the parapet wall of the widened Middleway, between the canal and the railway. There was with a steel staircase behind leading down from the bridge parapet to the the cemetery, but it doesn't look as if it had ever been used which is about two feet above canal water level. Mature silver birch trees and still a few gravestones, leaning at various angles. The atmosphere reminded me of the Old Jewish burial ground in Krakow, which we visited last year. It is described on a website I found as a piece of Jewish history under threat, from the development on its north border.
I see the railway wasn't built for some time after the next Jewish Cemetery at Witton was officially opened on 14 February, 1871, five years before the railway was opened Bournville to Granville St in 1876, while the later extension into New Street came in 1885 and the extension to the new Central Goods station of Suffolk St in 1887.
Peter
 
I visited this Jewish cemetery a few years ago, situated on Islington Row. I found it a fascinating historical site and went to take my cousins there last year - to find the entrance all boarded up and no way into the cemetery. So I emailed the Secretary of the Birmingham Jewish Assocn. She told me that the site had been cleared because of vandals, drug addicts and alcoholics using it (how very very sad). They dis-interred as many of the remains as they could and they were re-buried at the Jewish Cemetery in Witton.
A sad reflection of our times I'm afraid, it was such a peaceful site when I visited (admitedlly on a sunny Sunday afternoon).
Charlie
 
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