King's_Norton_and_Northfield_Urban_District

King's Norton and Northfield Urban District

King's Norton and Northfield Urban District

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King's Norton and Northfield Urban District was a local government administrative district in north Worcestershire, England, from 1898 until 1911.[5] Much of its area was afterwards absorbed into the neighbouring Borough of Birmingham, under the Greater Birmingham Scheme, and now constitutes most of the city's southern and southwestern suburban environs.[6]

Quick Facts Population, • 1901 ...

Creation

See also: Evolution of Worcestershire county boundaries

The District was originally created in 1894 as the King's Norton Rural District, under the Local Government Act 1894, and succeeded the former King's Norton Rural Sanitary District upon which its area was largely based. It was later reconstituted as an urban district on 1 October 1898, by the Local Government Board Order, No. 38,127,[7][8] and was accordingly renamed the King's Norton and Northfield Urban District. Both as a rural and an urban district it comprised only those civil parishes of the King's Norton Poor Law Union then wholly within the Administrative County of Worcester,[9] namely the parishes of King's Norton, Northfield and Beoley.

Governance

Electoral Wards

The District was arranged into the following wards for the election of local councillors:

King's Norton Civil Parish

  • King's Norton Ward
  • Moseley (Moor Green) Ward
  • Moseley (Wake Green) Ward
  • King's Heath (East) Ward
  • King's Heath (West) Ward
  • Stirchley (North) Ward
  • Stirchley (South) Ward
  • Rednal and Rubery Ward
  • Wythall Ward

Northfield Civil Parish

  • Northfield Ward
  • Selly Oak (East) Ward
  • Selly Oak (West) Ward
  • Bartley Green Ward

Beoley Civil Parish

  • Beoley Ward

Committees

The District Council was organised into several committees with responsibility over a number of areas:

General Purpose Committee

Baths, Parks and Cemeteries Committee

When the committee was initially set up it was as the Cemeteries Committee, with a separate sub-committee that had specific responsibility for baths and parks. However, from May 1898 onwards, the Baths & Parks Sub-Committee ceased to exist and the Cemeteries Committee assumed their duties, altering its title to reflect this change.[10]

Building Committee

Education Committee

The committee was formed on 1 June 1903, and consisted of 40 members, of whom 28 were District Councillors.

Pensions Committee

The committee had distinct sub-committees for the following areas of the District: King's Norton & Stirchley, Moseley & King's Heath, Wythall & Beoley, Northfield, and Selly Oak.

Distress Committee

The Committee consisted of 25 members, of whom 12 were District Councillors, 8 were Guardians of the King's Norton Poor Law Union, and the remaining 5 were "persons experienced in the relief of distress".

Demography

According to the 1911 census the District had a population of 81,153, large enough to become a county borough.

Amenities and services

During its existence the District Council provided public amenities for its populace in the form of two cemeteries, two swimming baths, several parks and recreation grounds, and a handful of free libraries. The council also ran a number of elementary schools, as well as being responsible for the local volunteer fire service:

District Cemeteries

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Public Baths

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Public Parks

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Free Libraries

Proposals for the provision of Free Libraries in the District were first mooted in 1902, and following the adoption of the Libraries Acts the next year, a scheme to establish libraries throughout its area was set up.[21] Between 1905 and 1909 seven new libraries were built across the District, with the land being donated by local philanthropic businessmen and the building work funded through the benevolence of Dr Andrew Carnegie.[22]

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Council Schools

Until the Education Act 1902, elementary education within the District was provided through a combination of a number of voluntary schools established by religious organisations, such as the Church of England National Schools and the non-denominational British Schools, together with those schools built and maintained by the local school boards for King's Norton and Beoley, who had been set up in the wake of the Elementary Education Act 1870. Under the 1902 Act the urban district council was designated a local education authority, and thereafter assumed the duties of the former King's Norton and Beoley School Boards, which were accordingly abolished, inheriting their existing school buildings, as well as being given the power to establish new elementary schools within the area.

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Fire Service

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Abolition

Map showing those areas of King's Norton and Northfield civil parishes included within the Borough of Birmingham under the Greater Birmingham Act of 1911, coloured pink, together with those areas specifically excluded from the Borough, marked out in red, and as follows:
A. The far western tip of the Bartley Green Ward
B. The southern part of the Rednal portion of the Rednal and Rubery Ward
C. The whole of the Wythall Ward, which became a separate civil parish

The Urban District was finally abolished in 1911 as part of the provisions of the Greater Birmingham Act,[51][52] when much of its area was incorporated into the County Borough of Birmingham,[53] and thereby became associated with Warwickshire.[54] This included the greater part of the civil parish of King's Norton, with the exception of a substantial still largely rural area in the south-east of the parish, which afterwards constituted the new civil parish of Wythall,[55][56] as well as a small part of Rednal in the far south-west, which was added to the civil parish of Cofton Hackett.[57][58] It also included most of Northfield civil parish, save for a little under 200 acres at its extreme north-western tip which was transferred to the civil parish of Illey,[59][60] then part of the Halesowen Rural District.[61] It did not, however, include Beoley civil parish, which remained in Worcestershire, and which, along with Wythall, initially formed a separate rural district temporarily administered by the Bromsgrove Rural District Council, until both became part of that district on 31 March 1912.[62]

References

Notes

  1. [1]
    The County Borough of Birmingham took over the governance of that part of the civil parish of King's Norton comprising the wards of King's Norton, Moseley (Moor Green), Moseley (Wake Green), King's Heath (East), King's Heath (West), Stirchley (North), Stirchley (South), and most of the Rednal and Rubery ward; as well as nearly all of the civil parish of Northfield, comprising the wards of Northfield, Selly Oak (East), Selly Oak (West), and the greater part of the Bartley Green ward.
  2. [2]
    Bromsgrove Rural District assumed responsibility for the new civil parish of Wythall, comprising the former Wythall ward of King's Norton Parish, as well as the civil parish and ward of Beoley. As the civil parish of Cofton Hackett was already within this district, it also succeeded in that part of Rednal transferred to that parish from the Rednal and Rubery ward of the King's Norton parish.
  3. [3]
    Halesowen Rural District succeeded only in that area of the Bartley Green ward of Northfield parish that had been transferred to Illey civil parish, which was already part of the district.
  4. [4]
    This was the address of the offices of Mr Edwin Docker, Solicitor and Clerk to the Council.
  5. [5]
    Youngs (1991), Local Administrative Units, Vol. II, p. 763.
  6. [6]
    Those parts of the former Urban District of King's Norton and Northfield taken into Birmingham are now represented by the City's modern residential suburban districts of Bartley Green, Bournbrook, Bournville, Brandwood End, California, Cotteridge, Druid's Heath, Hawkesley, Highter's Heath, King's Heath, King's Norton, Kitwell, Lifford, Longbridge, Moor Green, Moseley, Northfield, Rednal (part of), Rubery (part of), Selly Oak, Selly Park, Shenley, Stirchley, Ten Acres, Turves Green, Wake Green (part of), Warstock, Weoley Castle, Weoley Hill, West Heath, and Woodgate.
  7. [7]
    The full title of the order appears to be The County of Worcester (King's Norton and Northfield Urban District) Confirmation Order, 1898
  8. [8]
    Twenty-Eighth Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1898-99, p. 319; Census of England and Wales 1901 (63 Vict. c. 4), County of Worcester: Area, Houses and Population ... (Cd. 1293), p. 12.
  9. [9]
    The District of Balsall Heath, which had originally been in Worcestershire and had constituted the most northerly part of the Parish of King’s Norton, had already been transferred to Birmingham County Borough on 1 October 1891, and accordingly for the purposes of the Local Government Act 1888 was deemed to be in the Administrative County of Warwick.
  10. [10]
    Pugh (2010), The Heydays of Selly Oak Park, p. 17.
  11. [11]
    Butler, Baker & Southworth (2005), Selly Oak and Selly Park, p. 98.
  12. [12]
    McKenna (1992), In the Midst of Life, p. 26.
  13. [13]
    Hampson (2001), Bournville and Weoley Castle, p. 42.
  14. [14]
    Following Birmingham Corporation’s takeover of Lodge Hill Cemetery in 1911, it later became the site for the City’s first municipal crematorium, which was built here in 1934. Designed by the Arts & Crafts architect Holland W. Hobbiss, the crematorium opened for use in 1937; see McKenna (1992), In the Midst of Life, p. 26; Butler, Baker & Southworth (2005), Selly Oak and Selly Park, p. 98.
  15. [15]
    McKenna (1992), In the Midst of Life, p. 29.
  16. [16]
    Butler, Baker & Southworth (2005), Selly Oak and Selly Park, p. 92.
  17. [17]
    Rowntree (1936), The Birmingham Battery and Metal Company, p. 62.
  18. [18]
    Dent (1916), Public Parks and Gardens of Birmingham, p. 36.
  19. [19]
    The recreation ground is generally known locally as "Selly Park Rec.", or simply "The Rec." However it is also occasionally, and erroneously, referred to as "Selly Park"; this sadly even includes R. K. Dent, who incorrectly used this name in his book, see Dent (1916), Public Parks and Gardens of Birmingham, p. 36.
  20. [20]
    Selly Park Local History Group (1997), A Walk Around Victorian Selly Park, Occasional Paper No. 1 (Selly Park Local History Group, Birmingham), p. 4.
  21. [21]
    'The Library, Selly Oak', in the Souvenir Programme for the Selly Oak and Bournbrook Shopping Week Festival, May 11th to 17th, 1911, inclusive (The Selly Oak and Bournbrook Traders' and Ratepayers' Association, 1911), p. 35.
  22. [22]
    In 1911, as a result of the Birmingham extension scheme, all seven libraries were transferred to the control of the Birmingham Free Libraries Committee; see The Fiftieth Annual Report of the Free Libraries Committee: April 1st, 1911, to March 31st, 1912. (City of Birmingham, Birmingham, 1912), pp. 1 & 8.
  23. [23]
    Butler, Baker & Southworth (2005), Selly Oak and Selly Park, p. 94.
  24. [24]
    Dowling, Giles & Hayfield (1987), Selly Oak Past and Present, p. 12.
  25. [25]
    Smith (2001), Northfield Past & Present, p. 53.
  26. [26]
    Caswell (1996), Northfield, p. 26.
  27. [27]
    Notes on the History of the Birmingham Public Libraries: 1861-1961 (Birmingham Public Libraries, Birmingham, 1962), p. 9.
  28. [28]
    Campbell (1995), The Suffragettes in Birmingham.
  29. [29]
    Caswell (1996), Northfield, p. 27; Smith (2001), Northfield Past & Present, p. 53.
  30. [30]
    The note is also recorded as having a slightly different wording of "For the new library"; see Notes on the History of the Birmingham Public Libraries: 1861-1961 (Birmingham Public Libraries, Birmingham, 1962), p. 9.
  31. [31]
    Gumbley (1991), Bournville, p. 1.
  32. [32]
    Chew (1995), Images of Strichley, p. 69.
  33. [33]
    Tupling (1983), The Story of Rednal, p. 35.
  34. [34]
    Hastings & Nash Society (1987), Discovering Northfield, p. 58.
  35. [35]
    Stephens (1964), A History of the County of Warwick, Vol. VII, p. 544.
  36. [36]
    Mouthaan & Ward (2005), Raddlebarn School, p. 4: "Foreword" by Professor Carl Chinn.
  37. [37]
    Dowling, Giles & Hayfield (1987), Selly Oak Past and Present, p. 35.
  38. [38]
    Stephens (1964), A History of the County of Warwick, Vol. VII, p. 527.
  39. [39]
    Stephens (1964), A History of the County of Warwick, Vol. VII, p. 538.
  40. [40]
    Butler, Baker & Southworth (2005), Selly Oak and Selly Park, p. 8594.
  41. [41]
    The school buildings are now home to the Selly Park Technical College for Girls Archived 31 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine.
  42. [42]
    Green (1998), King's Heath, p. 63.
  43. [43]
    'Birmingham Official Directory', Kelly's Directory of Birmingham (including the Suburbs and the Boroughs of Smethwick and Aston Manor, with a Plan engraved expressly for the work, 1911, (Kelly's Directories Ltd, London), p. 1139: entry for "King's Heath Volunteer Fire Brigade" under the section for "Fire Brigades".
  44. [44]
    Butler, Baker & Southworth (2005), Selly Oak and Selly Park, p. 93.
  45. [45]
    Dowling, Giles & Hayfield (1987), Selly Oak Past and Present, p. 11.
  46. [46]
    'The Suburbs of Birmingham', Kelly's Directory of Birmingham (including the Suburbs and the Boroughs of Smethwick and Aston Manor, with a Plan engraved expressly for the work, 1911, (Kelly's Directories Ltd, London), p. 356: entry for "King's Heath Volunteer Fire Brigade" under "Public Establishments" in section for "King's Norton".
  47. [47]
    'The Suburbs of Birmingham', Kelly's Directory of Birmingham (including the Suburbs and the Boroughs of Smethwick and Aston Manor, with a Plan engraved expressly for the work, 1911, (Kelly's Directories Ltd, London), p. 358: entry for "Fire Engine Station" under "Public Establishments" in section for "Northfield".
  48. [48]
    Smith (2001), Northfield Past & Present, p. 63.
  49. [49]
    Cock Lane is now called Frankley Beeches Road.
  50. [50]
    'Birmingham Professional and Commercial Directory', Kelly's Directory of Birmingham (including the Suburbs and the Boroughs of Smethwick and Aston Manor, with a Plan engraved expressly for the work, 1911, (Kelly's Directories Ltd, London), p. 694: entry for "King's Norton & Northfield Fire Station, Moseley Branch".
  51. [51]
    The full title of the Act is 1 & 2 George V, c. xxxvi: An Act to confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board relating to Birmingham, though it is regularly referred to by its short title of the Local Government Board's Provisional Order (1910) Confirmation (No. 13) Act 1911.
  52. [52]
    The Act attained Royal Assent on 2 June 1911; see Journals of the House of Lords, Beginning Anno Primo Georgii Quinti, Including the Sittings for Judicial Business during the Prorogation, 1911-12, Volume CXLIII [143], p.236; Journals of the House of Commons, From January 31st, 1911, In the First and Second Years of the Reign of King George the Fifth, to December the 16th, 1911, Session 1911, Vol. 166, p. 263.
  53. [53]
    The actual Local Government Board's order is termed the Birmingham (Extension) Order, 1911. It partly came into operation on 9 November 1911, and was fully in force from 1 April 1912.
  54. [54]
    Stephens (1964), A History of the County of Warwick, Vol. VII, p. 3.
  55. [55]
    Youngs (1991), Local Administrative Units, Vol. II, pp. 482 & 493; Stephens (1964), A History of the County of Warwick, Vol. VII, p. 21; Goodger (1990), Kings Norton, p. 46.
  56. [56]
    Later boundary alterations in 1966 actually transferred a small part Wythall civil parish to the City of Birmingham. The area in question, lying to the north of Hollywood, became the southern half of the Highter's Heath district; see Jones (1975), Maps of Birmingham, pp. 59-61, especially the relevant map.
  57. [57]
    Youngs (1991), Local Administrative Units, Vol. II, pp. 475 & 493; Stephens (1964), A History of the County of Warwick, Vol. VII, p. 21; Goodger (1990), Kings Norton, p. 46.
  58. [58]
    Conversely the 1966 boundary changes actually led to the most northerly part of the civil parish of Cofton Hackett, the area around Cofton Common, being absorbed into the City of Birmingham; see Jones (1975), Maps of Birmingham, pp. 59-61, particularly the relevant map.
  59. [59]
    A number of publications incorrectly state this area was transferred to Lapal civil parish: Page & Willis-Bund (1913), A History of the County of Worcester, Vol. III, p. 194, which also wrongly calls it "the Bartley Green area" (This exact phrase does appear in the Act itself, but in the context of referring to only that part of the Bartley Green ward of Northfield parish that was excluded from the Borough of Birmingham, and was accordingly illustrated as such on the accompanying maps. The phrase, however, has been misinterpreted and its use in the County History of Worcestershire is consequently misleading, in as much as whilst the area in question was part of the Bartley Green ward, it was merely open agricultural land that lay some distance to the west of the actual settlement of Bartley Green, which was, in fact, incorporated into Birmingham under the Act); Stephens (1964), A History of the County of Warwick, Vol. VII, pp. 21-22; and Hastings & Nash Society (1987), Discovering Northfield, p. 1, which appears to simply follow the County History of Warwickshire in this.
  60. [60]
    The subsequent boundary changes in 1966 resulted in some of this originally excluded area, along with parts of the neighbouring civil parish of Lapal to its north, being transferred to the City of Birmingham. This later addition included the western parts of what had become the districts of Moor Street and Woodgate, with the modern boundary thereafter running along the eastern edge of the M5 motorway as far south as Kitwell; see Jones (1975), Maps of Birmingham, pp. 59-61, especially again the relevant map.
  61. [61]
    Census of England and Wales 1911 (10 Edward 7 and 1 George 5, Ch. 27), Vol. I, Administrative Area; Counties, Urban and Rural Districts, &c. (Cd. 6258), p. 338; Youngs (1991), Local Administrative Units, Vol. II, p. 485.
  62. [62]
    Youngs (1991), Local Administrative Units, Vol. II, p. 473.

Bibliography

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  • Campbell, Norma (1995), The Suffragettes in Birmingham, (St Alban's CE School, Birmingham)
  • Caswell, Pauline (1996), Northfield, Images of England, (Tempus Publishing Limited, Stroud), ISBN 0-7524-0679-5
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52.416°N 2.160°W / 52.416; -2.160
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