• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Royal visits to Birmingham

maggieuk

maggieuk

The Fairybrain of Brum
Hi all hope i am posting this in the right place..does anyone know if there was a royal visit to Birmingham in the late 50s or very early 60s. i remember standing in Lodge rd Hockley with a crowd of people all waving Union Jacks, but being young at the time i cant remember what is was about..and its driving me mad trying to remember.:)
 
The Queen Mother visited and toured Birmingham around 1958. I was on traffic duty at the Fox & Goose that day.
 
The Queen Mother came to Birmingham via train in l958 and it was a huge occasion at New Street Station where I worked at the time. Mr. Smith, the head Station Master at that time,got all dressed up for the occasion with a
morning suit and a buttonhole. The office staff were allowed to wait along Queen's Drive for the the Queen Mother to get into her car after arriving on Platform One. I remember in the days before the visit that the white lines on the edge of the Platform One were repainted and the Platform was scrubbed down and generally tidied up. It was a day I will always remember. The Queen Mother looked amazing.
 
Hi everyone, I can remember seeing the Queen with Prince Phillip (must have been just after they were married) driving along Hagley Rd. ? into Birmingham - can't remember the year but I was a child.
Sheri
 
It was about 1956/7, I was at All Saints school, All Saints Rd, Hockley and I can remember standing outside the school with all the other kids waving our little flags when a young Queen Elizabeth drove past. What the visit was for I have no idea.
I can also remember seeing a young Queen Elizabeth after we moved to Shard End in 1958, and she opened the All Saints Church in Shard End. That was the church where I got married in 1969.

Hanco
 
It seems I have got the date wrong for the queens visit to Shard End, according to the web site it was 1955. But I can definetley remember seeing her up there. Thinking back, my aunt lived near there at the time so I must have been visiting her with my mother.
Anyway I did see her.

Hanco
 
The Queen made a visit to the Joseph Lucas factory Great King Street in 1955.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If I can remember rightly we saw the Queen and Phillip in their car driving down, I think, Ladypool Road, Sparkbrook/Ballsal Heath. This must have been mid 50's. Why they were in Brum I don't know, just doing a tour of Britain I guess.
 
There was a royal visit in the fifties, because as I said on another thread I was under the illusion that it was the official opening of the Q.E.Hospital and this is what I foolishly stated in my post as I had always believed until it was pointed out that the official opening had been much earlier.

Anyway back to the visit, I stood in Priory Rd Edgbaston along with my Grandfather and hundreds of others, as she passed by on the way to the Q.E. to open some part of it.

Apart from seeing the Queen for a few seconds as she passed by, the best part of the day was collecting chestnuts that were all around on the ground in Priory Rd and roasting them when we got home.

Phil
 
It would have been about May 1958 I transferred into the CID. Some time following that I, together with other officers were detailed as internal security at, what I seem to recall was a old persons home or medical facility that had recently been built. As memory again serves me it was somewhere off Monument Road, Ladyood.
The Queen and Price Phillip opened the establishment.

I recall this so well for it was as a result of a tall tale I told my mates I had to attend the Chief Supt, CID, that evening, to explain as to how I had shared the gents toilet with Prince Phillip. It was a lesson I learned of how fast gossip could travel in the force. The tale whilst partially accurate was gloriously added to by a vivid imagination. Far too involved to relate to here..
Yes it was late 58 early 59 that I had my Royal encounter.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Prince Philip opened the "new" Bull Ring in the early 1960's. There's a video on the birminghammail.net website. Maybe he left the Queen in a woolshop or summat..:biggrin:
 
If it was the university rather than the college of advanced technology (CAT) that preceded it then it would be quite a bit later than 1954, as the university didn't recieve its charter till 1966. It might have been something to do with the CAT

mike
 
There was a visit to the city by The Queen and Duke on 3rd November 1955, and they visited Cadbury's at Bournville, King Edwards School, Lucas's Great Hampton Street and opened new colleges of Technology, Commerce and Art at Gosta Green, there's a couple of photo's in Alton Douglas's Birmingham in the Fifties Vol 1.
My memory of the visit, the school went to The Pavilion Picture House at Stirchley, saw a film of the Coronation and then travelled to Bournville, where we stood to watch them drive past, I seem to remember having a small tin box containing chocolate.
The Queen Mother visited Kynoch's, Witton and H. Samuel Ltd., Hunters Road, Hockley on 2nd May 1957.
The Queen and the DOE also visited the Scouts' Jubilee Jamboree at Sutton Park, on 3rd August 1957.

Colin
 
Prince Philip opened the "new" Bull Ring in the early 1960's. There's a video on the birminghammail.net website. Maybe he left the Queen in a woolshop or summat..:biggrin:
Click to expand...

I have a photo of Prince Philip on the steps of the Birmingham Mail Building on his own, may be while the queen was checking out the wool shop.
I will find it and scan it.
Also I think it was Princess Alexandra who visited the special school on Shenley Fields Road around 1970. I have a photo of that too, I must find these things.:) Mo
 
maggieuk said:
Hi all hope i am posting this in the right place..does anyone know if there was a royal visit to Birmingham in the late 50s or very early 60s. i remember standing in Lodge rd Hockley with a crowd of people all waving Union Jacks, but being young at the time i cant remember what is was about..and its driving me mad trying to remember.:)
Click to expand...
Hi maggie. I remember the Queen and Prince Phillip came to Birmingham I was standing opposite the Council House next to the press platform I had a good view and rembember that the Queen wore a coat & hat in an emerald green her complexion was like porcelain, it must have been the early 50s as I was a teenager still at school.
 
I worked for Sumlock comptometer in 1962/63 and remember the Queen and Prince Philip driving past C & A. can't be more precise than that. Jean.
 
I remember the Queen and Prince Philip visiting Birmingham, and it must have been the early to mid 1950's, I think. My auntie was working at the Grand Hotel at the time and we all went into one of the function rooms with a view over Colmore Row to see them drive past.
 
I remember at least two Royal visits - one which much have been about 1950/1951 when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Birmingham, I was taken with other school friends to see them from Burlington Street School


and we stood near The Midland Fan Co.Limited, which was situated near what is now Dartmouth Circus, the King was in uniform, I can't remember what the Queen wore, but I do remember my mother and older people at the time remarking how ill the King looked.

The other occasion also in the 1950s but later was when the present Queen and Prince Phillip visited, and I stood in the crowd watching as they past the Barton's Arms/Aston Hippodrome, I don't know the date or occasion, but perhaps they were en route to Sutton Park for the Jamboree in 1957.
 
I can just remember being taken to stand at a roadside somewhere locally in the early 50s and wave a little union flag on a stick. The Queen's car drove past and she looked at me and waved.
It was ME, not the hundreds of others surrounding she waved to, I thought at the time.
Could it have been near the Hall of Memory in Broad Street?
 
I have been told a story of the Queen visiting Lucas's and from all your posts it seems it was in the 1950's. At the time my nan's sister, Lilly Heath, worked at Joseph Lucas and decorated a bridge in paper flowers for the Queen visit. My nan still had the book which showed how to make flowers out of crepe paper.
 
Princess Margaret came to birmingham but I can't remember whether it was 50s or 60s.

She went to Villa Park and there were performances by gymnasts and bands.

My policeman Dad was on duty and he stood next to the Princess and was amazed at how tiny she was.
 
It would be seen that the city was well patronised in the fifties.

Another 'encounter' I had with the Queen and Prince Phillip was standing on crowd control in Steelhouse Lane for their procession to pass. I was a cadet at the time and could date the visit, due to my other work, to be between October, 1955 and April, 1956. No idea of where they were attending.
Will.
 
Alberta said:
Princess Margaret came to birmingham but I can't remember whether it was 50s or 60s.

She went to Villa Park and there were performances by gymnasts and bands.

My policeman Dad was on duty and he stood next to the Princess and was amazed at how tiny she was.
Click to expand...
It must have been the 60s that Princess Margaret came to Birmingham, my children were very young we were on a visit to Cannon Hill Park and I think she opened the mac centre, perhaps some one can verify this. Malta.
 
According to "Birmingham Remembered" by Alton Douglas, Princess Margaret opened the Birmingham Post and Mail Buildings on 26 October 1965 with her then husband Anthony Armstrong-Jones (now Lord Snowdon).
 
I remember the queen visiting much later as well... she visited around 1970/71 to open Chelmsley Wood shopping centre and again sometime in the the early/mid eighties via city centre, I remember going into Sketchley Dry Cleaners (round the corner from the Cabin pub opposite Lewis's) and she and Princess Margaret came past in a big car, I still don't know why they were in brum, I am sure it was about 1985.
 
l remember princess Margaret making a visit in the early 50s, l worked at John Wrights and me and the girls l worked with walked down to Cuckoo Bridge to see her car pass, l was really impressed as she was so tiny also thought she looked so much better in person than what her pictures showed......she really was everything one imagined a princess looked like.....remember the princess look coates that was in fashion at the time.....l had one it was green ...but of course l had a waist then and was proud of it the waist l mean ..wish l could say the same now:cry:....Brenda
 
Back to the 1950s, there certainly was a Royal visit in 1957 or 1958, when the Queen came to the Council House. I'm not sure of the date, and it's too late to answer that question now. But I've got my 1957 and 58 diaries out and will go through all the scribble then.
I remember it quite well because I was working for the City Achitect's Department at the time, and had to replace the corridor flooring, staircase windows and do a colour scheme for the first redecoration in 50 years. Meanwhile my colleague John Harrison did the refurbishment of the Lady Mayoress's Boudoir (or lavatory) which was to be used by Her Majesty.
Peter
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top