Severn Street & Priory First Day Schools Jubilee Exhibition

Medal commissioned for the Jubilee of Severn Street and Priory First Day Schools, sold at the Jubilee Exhibition [MS 703 box 23/11]

On the afternoon and evening of Saturday 12^th October 1895, a Jubilee Exhibition was held in Bingley Hall to mark 50 years since the opening of Severn Street and Priory First Day Schools by Joseph Sturge. Opened in 1845 and 1848, the schools were the first such schools in Birmingham to provide reading, writing and Bible classes to working class men and women. By the time of the Jubilee, a total of 65470 men and women had passed through their doors and the schools were credited with transforming the social status of ‘the unkempt and uncultivated scholars of fifty years ago to the respectable artisan of today’ (‘Severn Street Jubilee Celebration’ Birmingham Daily Post, 14 October 1895). The schools were described as being ‘among the greatest factors of modern Midland life’ and many of the city’s successful and prominent citizens, alderman and town councillors were  ‘…not ashamed to attribute their success in life to the early morning adult schools.’ (‘Birmingham and its adult schools’ The Daily Graphic, 15^th October 1895).

Table showing the numbers of Severn Street and Priory First Day School members over the years from 1865 -1895, Jubilee Exhibition Programme  [MS 703 Box 31/204]

The exhibition programme [MS 703 Box 31/204] shows that the venue was divided into a number of different sections. There was a display of working processes used by trades in Birmingham which included knitting machines, lathes to make pearl buttons, glass engraving machines, printing and book-binding, electroplating and gilding, glass spinning and coffee roasting. Members of the Institution for the Blind, Edgbaston demonstrated mat making, brush making and chair seating as well as typewriting from the phonograph (an early record player), a skill which the Institution pioneered in England, so that its members could train as clerks. One of the more spectacular displays included the ‘Fairy Fountain’, lent by Tangye Brothers Limited, comprising an oil engine which supplied power to a centrifugal pump and a dynamo to produce a fountain of water which was lit up in alternating colours with electric lighting.

A section showcasing items loaned by local firms included height and weight machines from W. & T. Avery Limited, a search light lens used in electric search lights from Chance Brothers & Co., firefighting equipment lent by the Fire Brigade, and samples illustrating brush manufacture by Robert Chase & Son, pen making by John Heath & Co., and glass making by A. Arculus and Co. There were also model trains lent by the London and North Western and Great Western railway companies, a model boat from Thomas Cooke & Sons, and a model of Windsor Street Gas Works, lent by the city’s Gas Department.

Photographic reproduction of an illustration dated c. 1885 showing Bingley Exhibition Hall, Broad Street, Birmingham.  [Finding No. Broad St/182]

One of the more popular parts of the exhibition was the scientific section which highlighted some of the new technologies of the period. Visitors could pay 5 pence to listen to a telephonic transmission of a musical performance playing in Stafford for five minutes. Each 5 minute session demonstrated two different methods of broadcasting, the first using 32 ordinary phone receivers and the other using the loud-speaking telephone. Three phonographs were also on display which provided visitors with a programme of music, recitations and speeches, while three kinetoscopes treated visitors to a number of ‘moving pictures’. Other items exhibited were a silhouette machine, lent by Louis Barrow, which took profile portraits, and the latest telegraphic equipment lent by the city’s Postmaster.

Among the more unusual items, a display of items loaned by friends of the adult schools included a collection of birds of prey lent by Wilfred F. Southall; fetters weighing 42 lbs and 38.5 lbs lent by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Birmingham, Dr. Edward Ilsley, which had been used by the British Colonial Office in transporting convicts; and the fossilized remains of the Ichthyosaurus, lent by the Misses Southall. Another section displayed bicycles showing the evolution of the bike from the ‘hobby horse’ and the velocipede or ‘boneshaker’, lent by Alfred Southall to the safety bicycle and a bamboo bicycle, lent by William A. Albright, in which bamboo stems were used instead of steel tubes.

Programme of the Severn Street and First Day School Jubilee exhibition, 1895 [MS 703 Box 31/204]

Members of the adult schools lent examples of their handiwork and craftwork for another part of the exhibition. Here visitors could view samples of macramé work (knotting), antimacassars (cloth placed over the back of a chair to protect it), leather work, string work, fire brasses, paintings, fancy work, patchwork, lace, articles of clothing, fans, crewel embroidery, crocheted items, baskets, tailoring, woodwork, sweets and baking.

Musical entertainment was provided by the Police Band, Bournville Band and a Jubilee Choir specially formed for the occasion, made up of members of the Severn Street schools. Other scholars took part in performing scenes ‘representative of Eastern manners and customs’, and the United School Ambulance Corps (made up of members from Highgate, Severn St, Bristol St and Selly Oak adult schools) demonstrated aspects of first aid treatment. Limelight lantern displays depicting images of adult school activities had been taken especially for the Jubilee and were also on show in the hall. Refreshments were provided by the Birmingham Coffee Company.

The Jubilee Exhibition proved to be the largest such gathering which had ever been held in the city, with over 11000 people attending (Birmingham Daily Post, 14 October 1895).  In a letter printed in the Jubilee programme addressed to past and current scholars and their families, the organising committee of the Jubilee celebrations wrote,

It is our earnest desire that this occasion may be a time of much interest and of happy and profitable intercourse between older and newer scholars alike.

[…]

We believe this Jubilee will be a season of great thankfulness to all teachers and scholars, and we trust that your interest in the School, to whatever section you belong, remain unabated.

Eleanor Woodward, Project Archivist