Category: Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery

The Great and the Good.

It was a pleasure to meet the Revd Tom Merry and his sister in Brandwood End today as they searched for family graves. Both had travelled from Gloucestershire and Worcestershire respectively and had spent an interesting morning investigating burial records to help locate several graves.

They were both surprised to see the prominence of the family grave of their great grandfather William Adams, shared with one set of their grandparents.

William, known as Bill,  was a notable benefactor to the City of Birmingham, a county councillor, magistrate and chairman of Birmingham Football Club.

After his death in 1911 (and burial at Brandwood End) his house in Moseley called ‘Sorrento’ became a hospital for WW1 wounded and then later a well known local maternity hospital.

William was despatched from his home town of Sheffield to Birmingham, to establish a new branch of Refuge Assurance, a company founded by his father Henry Adams.

Whilst in the cemetery they were also able to locate 3 other family graves.  Our thanks for allowing The Friends to be part of this interesting investigation.

Looking Back……2006

I just came across the photograph below, taken at the time of a ‘podcast’, and thought our longer serving members may like to be reminded of the stalwart support that the Friends received from two of our founder members, Anne Courbet and Barrie Simpson.

Sadly, Barrie is no longer with us but even though Anne has moved away, she is still very active in her support of the Friends.

Note the sad condition of the chapel roof above and how it looks now. This does show how far we have come to improve the condition of this building.

 

Tree re-cycled to help local charity.

Lovely to see this ‘wishes’ tree at Kings Norton cemetery in aid of  ‘Matt’s Mission’, a local registered charity founded in 2011 and dedicated to granting wishes to children with life threatening illnesses, recovering from a life threatening illness, have a severe disability, and also offering siblings support and counselling.

The tree is a ‘self setter’ removed from a grave in Brandwood End….so no waste!

If you are visiting Kings Norton, why not call into the office reception and support this worthy cause?

Thank you to all our collaborators.

This Web site and our Facebook page always receive so many interesting and positive stories and comments about Brandwood End Cemetery.

We are so excited to realise that many other people are as fascinated by the varied interesting aspects of the cemetery as we are.

A special thank you to Gary Staples and Andrew Thornton for sharing their photographs and research with the Friends. With contributions from  Balsall Heath Local History Society, Moseley History Society and members of Kings Heath Local History Society we are now amassing a great archive of information featuring those, less well known but none the less important people who are buried or remembered in Brandwood End. Thank you all for sharing.

Tree Information

For those of you who have an interest in trees, these are the latest editions to the cemetery…….

10 standards:

2 x Malus baccata ‘Street Parade’ (crab apple)

2 x Quercus palustris (Pin oak)

2 x Liquidambar styraciflua Worplesdon (Sweet gum)

2 x Liriodendron tulipifera (Tulip tree)

2 x Prunus ‘Accolade’ (Flowering cherry)

Look them all up on the magnificent ‘google’- they are all really beautiful and interesting trees.

What a wet, wet, wet Tree Planting.

Year 6 pupils from St Albans R C Primary took part in a fantastic tree plant in the Cemetery today and despite the rain….a good time was enjoyed by all. Our thanks to Birmingham Trees for Life for organising this planting event, to replace some of the aged ‘Poplars’ felled recently.

Birmingham Trees for Life had lots of assistance today as they were joined by the Lord-Lieutenant of the West Midlands- John Crabtree and his wife, who came well prepared to plant alongside the pupils.

Our local Councillor, Mike Leddy, popped along and  a gaggle of Tree Officers also made an appearance!!

Our thanks to everyone at BTFL for continuing with this tree replacement project and the Tree Officers, local Ranger Dean and BCC Woodland Team for making this all possible. Following the event everyone enjoyed a ‘warm up’ in the Lodge with drinks and biscuits.

As they made their way back to school, Ranger Dean led a short Tree Walk for pupils with lots of interesting information. Despite the miserable weather we all had a lovely morning and the cemetery now has 10 more interesting standard trees along its boundary.

Our thanks to Bereavement Services staff and the ‘Friends’ who also supported this event.

 

Dry and sunny for 2019 Remembrance Event

Today’s Remembrance event was very well attended. Representatives of West Midlands Police, West Midlands Fire Service, Local Councillors, The Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (RAOB), the Catholic Women’s League, FBEC and members of the local Beaver Pack all laid Wreaths at the Cross of Sacrifice.

Deacon David Fairbotham gave a short thought provoking Service of Remembrance and the Wreath Laying was preceded by a Bugler and 2 minutes silence.

 

Everyone then processed down the main Drive to the WW1 Memorial, where further wreaths were laid.

Our thanks to everyone that attended this event. We have collected a few photographs via this link should you wish to see more.

 

 

2019 marks the Centenary of Remembrance.

The annual tradition that first took place in 1919 to pay tribute to the war dead.

Although the First World War was brought to a close by a ceasefire – the Armistice – on 11 November 1918 – the final peace treaty was signed more than seven months later, on 28 June 1919.

As that moment approached, the Government’s thoughts turned to how to commemorate both an international victory and the impact of so many lives lost on foreign soil. More than 1.1 million soldiers who had been born in Britain and elsewhere in the Empire died in the ‘Great War’. Half of these have no known grave and few were buried on home soil.

A Peace Committee chaired by Lord Curzon, Foreign Secretary, declared Saturday 19th July 1919 a Bank Holiday and outlined a celebration running over four days, including a Victory March through London, a day of Thanksgiving services, a river pageant, and a day of popular festivities.

Numerous representatives of the allied nations were in attendance and the Peace March was one of the most impressive spectacles ever witnessed by Londoners and the world. Nearly 15,000 troops took part in the march, led by the victorious Allied commanders.

The Cenotaph – July 1919

The idea was conceived to erect a temporary memorial structure in Whitehall to be the end point of the great procession where the march would pause to honour the dead.  Edwin Lutyens, at the request of the then Prime Minister Lloyd George, designed and built the Cenotaph (literally ‘Empty Tomb’ in Greek) which was a wood and plaster construction.

At its unveiling by King George V, the base of the monument was spontaneously covered in wreaths to the dead and missing from The Great War and such was the extent of public enthusiasm for the construction it was decided that The Cenotaph should become a permanent and lasting memorial.   Re-made from Portland stone, its inscription reading simply “The Glorious Dead” and unveiled by King George V on 11th November 1920 just as the ‘Unknown Warrior’ was borne past en route to burial in Westminster Abbey, the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London, has since played host to the Remembrance Service for the past nine decades.