#LookinAtYa - Double portrait of Emma Pollard, c 1890. Emma had been a pupil and teacher at St. Clements School, Saltley. She became a missionary with her husband, Sam Pollard and sailed for China in 1887. [MS 4564 St. Clements School - Photo 69] LibraryofBirmingham St Clement's Primary School

#BehindTheScenes – During our closed week we also spent time re-pitching shelves to make space in our stores, for ….. what? Any guesses? We'll keep you posted! 😊 #WatchThisSpace LibraryofBirmingham

#BehindTheScenes . Another task we managed to complete during the Search Room Closed Week was putting our Birmingham newscutting volumes into a more manageable order. Find out more about the collection - tinyurl.com/y6zvn58z LibraryofBirmingham

#BehindTheScenes - During our recent closed week, we did some staff training as we get so few chances otherwise. This session was on Military Genealogy - hope you’re paying Attention! This refresh helps build staff confidence, which enhances our customer service LibraryofBirmingham

#MapOnATuesday . This week join us in the Caribbean with James Robertson’s map of the counties of Cornwall, Surrey and Middlesex in the Island of Jamaica (1804). The map is held in the Boulton & Watt Collection (MS 3147/31/84/1). More here - tinyurl.com/2wecjpe3 LibraryofBirmingham

Today is #InternationalDanceDay - time to slip into a seductive rumba or take up the latest Tik Tok craze. Here’s the dance card for how the St Philip’s Sunday School teachers cut a rug in 1885. Ref - LF 25.64 Scrap album of Birmingham ball programmes, 1874 – 1885 LibraryofBirmingham

As well as a famous chocolate manufacturer this year is also the 200th anniversary of another business set up by John Cadbury, Barrow's Stores.This week on our blog we explore its history from a small tea and coffee shop on Bull St. theironroom.wordpress.com/2024/04/29/bar…
📷: MS 5094, box 4

#SundayShowcase . This week it’s the Birmingham and Lewisham African Caribbean Health Inequalities Review (BLACHIR) - a collaboration between both councils. Reference - LF 21.85 LibraryofBirmingham Lewisham Council

#JosephGillott . The Victoria Works was opened in 1840 and chiefly employed young women in the manufacturing of steel pen nibs making Gillott an extremely wealthy man. Reference - New Illustrated Directory (1856), LF 06 LibraryofBirmingham

#PhotoFriday . A small group gather to watch new telephone cables being laid in Colmore Row in 1898. I wonder what they are thinking - 'this will never catch on?' Or 'where are the tin cans?!' Reference - Colmore Row 41 LibraryofBirmingham

Love these photos of our maps walls LibraryofBirmingham 😊

#FashionFirst . Birmingham is always at the cutting edge of fashion – but what were the Victorian fashionistas wearing. Here’s a fashion plate from the Crompton Rhodes Collection. Ref - MS 3383, F 391, S 623 - Plate 227. Find out more at tinyurl.com/yj66ndz4 LibraryofBirmingham

#NotMapOnATuesday ? Maps are always with us – even on a Wednesday. Here’s the Birmingham Electric Supply Company Limited map of 1889 showing the areas of Birmingham to be lighted under an Act of Parliament, August 12, 1889. MAP/304007 LibraryofBirmingham

#HappyBirthdayShakespeare . A photograph of the Shakespeare Memorial Room in the Victorian Birmingham Reference Library when there were proposals to move the room to Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings. Reference LF 53.311 LibraryofBirmingham Shakespeare B Trust Everything to Everybody

#stgeorgesday . Here’s the front cover of a prompt book for a performance of St. George and the Dragon at the Theatre Royal, Birmingham in 1845. Reference - MS 2899/1/1/2/Box 8 LibraryofBirmingham

Mike, our digitization expert, has written a blog about the 'Project Pigeon' archive and how we are making Birmingham's social history more accessible. Read more here theironroom.wordpress.com/2024/04/17/pro… Image: South Birmingham racing pigeon “liberation”, 1970s MS 4680

It's #nationalteaday - so here’s a trade card for Phillpot & Son, 28 High Street - tea importers and dealers, marking the city’s connection to arguably the nation’s favourite beverage. How do you take yours? Reference - MS 4834/1074 LibraryofBirmingham @nationalteaday

#SundayShowcase . This week we bring you George Demidowicz’s The Soho Manufactory - Where Boulton, Watt & Murdoch Made History. Reference - LF 65.225 LibraryofBirmingham Liverpool University Press

#BehindTheScenes . We’ve just started cataloguing these 19th and 20th century Colonial Office reports of African and Caribbean nations in our Black & South Asian History Collection. Making more of the collection accessible to you LibraryofBirmingham

#PhotoFriday #brumpic The interior of the Singers Hill Synagogue, Blucher Street. Built in 1856 and designed by Yeoville Thomason who also created the designs for the Council House. WK/B11/7812 LibraryofBirmingham BHC - Singers Hill