| Description | The initiation of Domestic Missions in A Mission across various towns in England took place between 1835 and 1844. The first Annual Meeting of the Members and Friends of the New Meeting Ministry to the Poor was held in the Graham Street schoolroom on Sunday, 24 August 1845, following a sermon preached by the Reverend John Kenrick at the New Meeting House. A resolution was passed 'heartily rejoicing in the benefits which the Society has already conferred, and attributing the success to the Divine Blessing on the active and judicious cooperation of the minister Mr. Brooks, and went on to express confidence in his zeal and judgment in promoting the important the important subjects of the Institution'.
John Gent Brooks, the first minister of the Mission, was a stocking weaver from Hinckley, who had spent much of his spare time helping the poor. Under his guidance, a house was established in 'The Gullet' to provide a ragged school for pauper children and public worship. The street contained some of Birmingham's worst housing, and later disappeared when the area was dealt with under the Birmingham Improvement Scheme, 1875. The Mission served the poorest streets in the immediate neighbourhood of the New Meeting House, Brooks devoting most of his energy to the streets lying between Lichfield Street, St. Bartholomew's Chapel, Cary's Court and John Street.
The Mission had an Evening School that met four times a week, twice for boys and twice for girls. The average attendance for the first eight months was 60 boys and 70 girls, many of the pupils having had no opportunity to attend Sunday School owing to extreme poverty. A Mutual Improvement Society was also founded in 1844, its object being 'to counteract the temptations of the public-house by opening a room at a cheap rate by where young people could meet for conversation and to read newspapers and magazines, to improve one another in the Mutual Instruction plan and to hear lectures'.
Another room was set aside as a news-room, adult classes were held and a lending library established. The society soon had 130 members on the roll. More suitable accommodation was found for the Mission at Bailey Street in 1847, after which the Mission moved again to Lawrence Street in 1848. A day school had been opened for girls in 1848, and a library, savings club and Teachers' Benevolent Society had also been established, and began to grow and prosper by the early 1850s.
When the Reverend Brooks died in 1854 he was succeeded by the Reverend R.E. Dunne, who served until 1863 when he was succeeded by the Reverend John Wilson. In 1866, on the suggestion of Joseph Chamberlain with a promise to provide all necessary means, arrangements were made for the supply of hot, nutritious dinners in the winter to children under the age of fifteen who were work, subject to circumstances. The scheme was initially experimental, offered to twelve boys and twelve girls, but was later expanded and continued for many years.
In 1881 the Mission's school buildings and classrooms were improved and redecorated, and the Chapel and Sunday and Day Schools had contact with around 500 families. The Mission's schools were closed on 25 March 1879, as the extension of the work of the Birmingham School Board meant that these institutions were no longer necessary. On 10 August 1888 the subscribers of the Mission became the owners of new buildings on Fazeley Street, comprising a Chapel, two large schoolrooms with adjoining classrooms, with fittings and equipment.
In 1882 the Reverend Wilson was succeeded by the Reverend E.T. Russell of Leicester, followed in 1887 by the Reverend F. Teasdale (1887 - 1890), then by the Reverend Thomas Pipe (1891 - 1910). Pipe, and his successor, the Reverend Charles Thrift (1910 - 1932), believed that the work of the Mission should take an increasingly moral dimension, arguing: 'Social reconstruction must come by individual improvement in character'. The Mission continued to work effectively, and in one winter week he reported that the total attendance of the various meetings, services and clubs provided by the Mission stood at 1,500.
With the appointment of the Reverend R. Weir Davidson (1933 - 1937) the Mission began to face difficulties, as the rapid demolition of the nearby slums and the movement of its regular worshippers to outlying suburbs made his work more difficult. Wartime bomb damage and the evacuation of schoolchildren during the Second World War (1939 - 1945) added to these difficulties, although it remained operational throughout the war, engaging in much needed welfare work, providing comforts for frontline troops and the like.
After the war, with more and more functions relating to social welfare being transferred to local and national government, the future role of the Mission seemed uncertain. At a meeting of the Subscribers of the Fazeley Street Mission of 30 January 1947 it was resolved that the freehold land, buildings and other assets of the Mission be sold, and the organisation was more or less disbanded, although the subscribers still met up until 1951 to discuss any other business that followed in the wake of this decision. |