On Saturday, November 21st, the Friends of Moseley Road Baths group will be taking part in the annual Birmingham History Day event at the University of Birmingham during which we will be discussing our Pool of Memories project.
Full details of what is a full day’s programme are included below. Admission costs £14 (including lunch), £10 (without lunch).
The following Saturday (November 28th) the Baths feature again in a Birmingham University Day School entitled Buildings at risk in Birmingham and the West Midlands. The event will include a one-hour talk on the history and importance of Moseley Road Baths, it’s current condition and the prospects for its restoration. The speaker will be Steve Beauchampé who is both a member of the Friends group, and one of the team involved in the production of Great Lengths – the historic indoor swimming pools of Britain (Malavan Media, 2009), part of English Heritage’s Played in Britain series of books.
Other buildings to be featured at the Day School include Weoley Castle, Matthew Boulton’s Soho Foundry works and Berthold Lubetkin’s Modernist buildings at Dudley Zoo. The event (which we appreciate is not cheap) costs £34 (lunch and refreshments included).
If you are interested in attending either of these events please contact Sandra Ilott at the university on 0121 415 8102 or e-mail s.e.ilott@bham.co.uk
Birmingham History Day 2009
Saturday 21st November – 10am – 4:50pm
Large Lecture Theatre, Arts Building, Edgbaston Campus, University of Birmingham
10.00am Welcome and Introduction, Malcolm Dick
10.10am Sally Baggott, Matthew Boulton 2009, Past, Present and Future
10.40am Shena Mason, 2009: A Legacy in Print. Matthew Boulton: ‘Selling what all the World Desires’ and A Lost Landscape: Matthew Boulton’s Gardens at Soho
11.10am Refreshments
11.35am Ted Rudge, Winson Green to Brookfields through Time and In and Around Ladywood through Time
11.55am Tony Rees, ‘An Obscure Philanthropist’: Frank Mathews 1871-1948 and the welfare of invalid children
12.25pm Norman Bartlam and the News Team, The History Show DVD
1.00pm Lunch
1.50pm Doreen Hopwood, Sources, databases and websites for Family History at Birmingham Central Library
2.10pm Anna Keast, Winterbourne Memories
2.30pm David Callaghan, ‘History Detectives’, Community driven project to uncover the hidden histories of ethnic minorities who migrated to the West Midlands prior to WWII.
2.50pm Steve Beauchampé and Jenny Austin, Moseley Road Baths, Pool of Memories project
3.20pm Refreshments
3.40pm Sian Roberts, New History Projects in Birmingham Central Library
4.10pm Henrietta Lockhart, Birmingham – A City in the Making. Planning the New History Galleries in Birmingham Museum
4.40pm Final Questions
4.50pm Finish
On Friday December 4th, clad in fancy dress, I shall be doing a sponsored swim at the Moseley Road Baths in an attempt to keep the baths open for public use. It will be just 75 years since I swam my first mile there, at the age of 7, in 1934, while a pupil at Tindal Street School.
Birmingham Mail photographers say they will be there at 1.30p.m. So shall I
in the garb Friends of MRB have photographs of.
I hope to start swimming at 2p.m.
Thanks for the comment Philip! I’ll pop up a blog post when I get chance, see if we can get some people along to cheer you on! Best of luck!