| Description | The Preparative Meeting at Farm Street was established through Friends' Adult School work and the work of the Christian Society which offered non-denominational Meetings for Worship to adult school members and their families. Founded in the early 1860s, Farm Street Division was the oldest branch school of the Severn Street First Days Schools. It was established in school rooms in the Great King Street Baptist Chapel by John Skirrow Wright but by the mid 1870s had moved to rooms in Farm Street Board School, Newtown. A further move took it to premises in Burberry Street School. Around the same time, a congregation was founded at Farm Street by the Christian Society, an organisation offering non-denominational Meetings for Worship to adult school members and their families.
By 1892 the work of the Adult School was being hindered by the lack of suitable accommodation and the following year Friends' Hall Farm Street Building Committee was appointed by Severn Street Teachers' Meeting to launch an appeal and arrange for a building to be constructed for the Farm Street Division. The Committee consisted of J.E. Baker, Cephas Butler, William Darby, Walter Barrow, Alfred J. Cudworth and John Henry Lloyd, with teachers of the Farm Street Division of Severn Street School including Arnold E. Butler, Howard B. Butler, Oliver Hutchinson, William Littleboy, Richard W. Littleboy Joseph Pettitt, Wilfred E. Southall and W. Henry Sturge. Land in Farm Street was conveyed to trustees by Lloyds Bank and was to be used as an adult school, meeting place and coffee tavern, or for purposes which would be of moral or religious benefit to the local inhabitants. The building, consisting of a large hall, 3 classrooms, a private room and a kitchen, was opened on October 13th 1894 with an inaugural address by William White.
Known as Class XI of Severn Street and managed by a central School Committee, Farm Street Division consisted of a junior and a senior section, each divided into 3 classes, and then further sub-divided. As a result of the new accommodation, in the first few months after opening, there was an increase in attendance at both the adult and junior divisions of the school. The new Hall also accommodated numerous other activities and these included Band of Hope and Temperance Meetings or entertainment every Saturday, a Bible class on Wednesdays, winter lectures on a variety of subjects on Monday evenings, as well as a Children's School on Sunday afternoons with an attendance of 400, a Monday afternoon Wives' Meeting, with an attendance of 60-70 and Christian Society Meetings for Worship with a congregation of 150-200. A social club was started to provide an alternative to the pub on week nights.
From the start of 1897, Sunday morning meetings for worship were being held and were attended by an average congregation of 42. In the same year, a Preparative Meeting was established which by 1908 had 31 members and 37 attenders. The Preparative Meeting was laid down at the end of 1985 due to falling and aging membership and rising costs. The building was sold in 1986 to the Birmingham African Methodist Evangelical Church. An evening meeting for worship continued until 1994.
Additional Farm Street Meeting records can be found at SF/3/4/5/5.
Records for Farm Street Adult School can be found at MS 703/3/11.
See SF/3 for a description of the functions of the Local/Preparative Meeting. |