PREFACE

This booklet seems to be an unfinished collection of material compiled by John Morris Jones, former Headmaster of George Dixon Junior School, during the period 1960 - 1980. He wrote over 30 booklets in which he covered almost every district of the City of Birmingham. This booklet appears to comprise material for his own school as well as some material about Sheldon written for Blakenhale Primary School. It is presented here as unfinished work.

In many ways they were the first detailed local history studies aimed at the non-historian, and particularly focussed at children.

At the time they were produced typewriters and simple ink duplicators were the major tools; mistakes were hard to remove and maps were even more difficult to reproduce clearly.

Since that time individuals and local history groups have added somewhat to JMJ's work but his series still forms a good platform for our young people to start from.

As a school librarian I found them a superb resource but difficult for some pupils to use - hence this effort at improvement.

I have made no attempt at editing or corrections except obvious typographical errors, nor at bringing things up-to-date with the latest discoveries and developments.

My aim has simply been to make the document more accessible to young readers - splitting long, hard paragraphs and with my limited cartographic skills to redraw more clearly those maps which did not 'Gestetner' very well.

Thanks are due to Mr Andrew Blizzard (former Schools' Liaison Officer with Birmingham Central Library Local Studies Department) for some copies of original documents.

Clinton Davies

Autumn 1988 & Spring 1998

Index