Education in Birmingham

Every school and the history of education in Birmingham will be found in Vol.VII of the Victoria County History. The earliest known school buildings now in the City are the Trust School at Yardley, and the Grammar School at Kings Norton. Apart from church and dame schools there was no attempt to provide general education until the Bell and Lancaster systems were introduced in the early C19 th. These sought to provide basic reading and writing by the repetitive methods and division of labour then becoming usual in industry. The Severn Street School was opened in 1809. The first primary school hereabout was the Moseley CE. School, 1828. Following the 1870 Act, the Birmingham School Board was elected to aid existing (church) schools and to build non-sectarian schools. 29,000 children between 5 and 11 had to be found places. The first Board School was in Bloomsbury, Dartmouth Street, opened in 1873 for 1,059 children. It was demolished in 1969. The first school to provide education beyond 11 (for boys only) was the Bridge St. School in Cadburys' old premises. It was started by George Dixon, Chairman of the Board for 20 years, and instigator of the 1870 Act, Mayor and M.P. The first purpose-built secondary school was Waverley Road, 1892.

The Act of 1902 replaced the Board with the Education Committee of the City Council, which took over nearly 60 Board Schools and acquired voting powers on the governing bodies of 48 church schools. In '06 the George Dixon Elementary and Secondary Schools were opened in City Road, straddling the Birmingham/Edgbaston boundary. After 1911 the City took over from county authorities all the schools in the newly-acquired Districts. Some of these, e.g. at Hall Green and Kings Norton, bear inscriptions showing the name of the School Board which provided them: the Board Offices of Yardley (Warwick Road, Greet) and Kings Norton still stand. St. Lawrence's Church School (1844) carries a date-plaque, and the G.D. gable cartouche bears the initials R.P.S.S., indicating the original intention, historically apt, to name the building after Rotton Park.

The King Edward VI School, first established in the C15 th Gild Hall, was rebuilt in 1707 and in the 1830's, when Barry's Gothic design was chosen. When the New St. site was sold in 1937, the school moved to Edgbaston, where new buildings for boys and girls were built post-war The first offshoot school was established in the former Edgbaston Proprietary School building at Five Ways, now demolished. The two K.E. Camp Hill Schools have moved to Kings Heath, their '89 and '98 buildings now housing Bordesley College of Education.

Queen's College was founded in 1843, offering courses in medicine, theology, classics, and science. St. Peter's College at Saltley, founded by C.B. Adderley, opened in 1852. The Midland Institute opened in a Classical building by the Town Hall in '54, teaching art, science, music. Mason College in Edmund Street, founded by (Sir) Josiah Mason in 1875, became a University College in '96, and an independent University in 1900. Sir Oliver Lodge was its first Principal.

A Calthorpe site in Metchley Park was acquired, and Aston Webb's Byzantine semi-circle (never completed as designed) was opened in 1909. The tower was built tall enough to be seen all over the city as it then was, and named Big Joe after Chamberlain, its first Chancellor.

The post-war College of Technology at Gosta Green became the University of Aston in 1966, and demolitions for its extension have removed the City's first houses in Ryder Street. Only the northernmost tip of the campus is actually in Aston. At Edgbaston the University has become a city of 10,000 people, with architecture as diverse as the students.

In Birmingham in 1974 there are :- 25 Colleges, Education, Technology, Art, Domestic Arts, Further Education; 454 Schools. In Birmingham Metropolitan District there are in 1974, 25 Colleges of Education, Technology and Art, (Polytechnic) and Further Education: 515 Schools, including 366 Primary and 130 Secondary - most of which are or will be Comprehensive - and 19 Voluntary Aided Schools.