| AdminHistory | On 7 January 1868, the General Purposes Committee presented a report in which it recommended that an estate named ‘The Shawberries’ at Shustoke should be rented to build an Industrial School to take in boys deemed by the justices not to be criminals, but at risk of turning to crime. The report was approved, and the estate taken on a lease of 21 years, at an annual rent of £130. The Industrial School was established to provide an environment that would allow poor and vulnerable children the opportunity to learn skills that would help them to find useful work later on. Many went into employment such as tailoring, shoemaking, glazing and farm labour.
The Industrial School Committee was appointed in November 1868 for the purposes of overseeing and administering the Industrial School. The school itself was not self-supporting; each inmate cost 7s a week to support, towards which the government granted 5s per pupil, although the adjoining farm did yield a small profit that generated additional income. In 1884 the Council authorised a proposal on behalf of the committee to extend the new school, and was estimated to cost £1355.
Returns were made gleaned from enquiries on the boys’ progress two years after the end of their detention at the school during the years 1889 - 1897. From these returns, it was found that around 85 per cent of the boys were found to be conducting themselves creditably following their release, whilst just 2.5 per cent had turned back to crime, a marked improvement on the 1884 figures. Favourable reports were also made of the boys who had been sent to Canada, a trial emigration scheme having begun as early as 1884. The committee was able to obtain the assistance of Mr J.T. Middlemore, Member of Parliament for North Birmingham, a Councillor, and founder of the Birmingham Emigration Homes. Around eight to twenty boys were sent to Canada each year, at the cost of £10 per head, Middlemore travelling with the pupils to ensure that they were placed in suitable employment upon arrival.
In 1889 further extensions were authorised, with the new building able to accommodate 160 pupils, having been designed to receive juvenile offenders committed by the Birmingham magistrates. In 1896 there were only 131 boys in the school, and an agreement previously made with the London School Board in 1882 was revived. By this agreement the London School Board could send boys to the school by paying the difference between the Treasury allowance and 7s per week.
The Reformatory and Industrial Schools Act of 1891 empowered local managers of Industrial Schools to apprentice or dispose of well-behaved inmates in trade, service or by emigration, before the expiry of his period of detention. With the passing of the Industrial Schools Amendment Act, 1894, it was stipulated that a boy sent to an Industrial School should remain under the supervision of the managers until he reached the age of eighteen years, giving the managers authorisation to recall the boy for three months if they deemed it necessary for his protection.
In 1896 a departmental report advised the Treasury that the grant and obligation of the Local Authority should cease after three years’ detention, if the boy was above the age of 14 and half years of age. This was to encourage the practice of ‘licensing out’, as it was more widely felt that lengthy detention had a negative impact on young lives, with the prospect of a license providing an incentive to good conduct, whilst keeping the boy under probation. The committee decided to grant the license to all boys at the age of fifteen who were fit, and who had received a satisfactory character reference from the master of the school. By 1902 the school had reached full capacity, with 166 inmates. In March 1903, the Industrial Schools Committee was disbanded, its function passing to the new Education Committee (see BCC/1/BH/1). |