Harborne
Encyclopedia
Harborne is an area three miles (5 km) southwest from Birmingham
city centre, England
. It is a Birmingham City Council ward in the formal district and in the parliamentary constituency
of Birmingham Edgbaston.
, it covered an area of 3300 acres (13.4 km²), 100 acre (0.404686 km²) of which was of woodland
and plantations.
The earliest written mention of Harborne is an entry in the Domesday Book
of 1086, however the settlement pre-dates this.
The spelling of Harborne has appeared with several variations through the centuries, and the derivation of the place name has often been disputed. One of the more probable suggestions is 'boundary brook', although 'high brow' and 'dirty brook' are also possibilities.
Harborne became part of the county borough of Birmingham and thus transferred from Staffordshire
to Warwickshire
in 1891 by the Local Govt. Bd.'s Prov. Orders Conf. (No. 13) Act, 54 & 55 Vic. c. 161 (local act). It then became part of the West Midlands
in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972
.
Harborne railway station
, at the end of the short Harborne Branch Line off the LMS
Birmingham-Wolverhampton
line at Ladywood
, opened on 10 August 1874 and closed on 26 November 1934. It is now the Harborne Walkway, a two mile (3 km) nature walk and cycling route from Harborne to Ladywood, where the canal can be followed either to Birmingham or Wolverhampton.
revealed that 21,070 lived in Harborne and that 16.5% of people were aged under 16, 62.5% were aged between 16 and 59, while 21.0% were aged over 60. The minority ethnic population made up 22.0% (4,701) of the ward’s population, compared with 29.6% for Birmingham. 61.3% of households were owner occupied and 17.6% were rented from either the local authority, housing association or other registered social landlord. The remaining 21.1% of households rented privately or lived rent free. The census found that 66.0% (10,390) of the population aged 16 to 74 were working or seeking work, this compared with 60.4% for Birmingham.
Many residents of the area are academics from the nearby University of Birmingham
, as well as medical staff from nearby hospitals including the Queen Elizabeth Hospital
.
Leeds United legend Johnny Giles
has been residing in Harborne for many years. From 1865 to 1870, Elihu Burritt
, a US Consul sent by Abraham Lincoln
, resided in Harborne in a house called New Britain Villas, Victoria Road, which still stands. Burritt was a social activist, working to promote international peace. Harborne's most notable resident was W. H. Auden
- the present day swimming baths stand on the site of his childhood home. Other famous residents include landscape painter David Cox
, the composer Granville Bantock
and Thomas Attwood
who became the first MP
from Birmingham.
Edward Augustus Freeman
was born in Metchley Abbey in 1823 and was a noted historian appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford.
The Nobel Prize
-winning chemist and physicist Francis William Aston
was born in Harborne in 1877. The Arts and Crafts
jeweller-silversmith
George Edward Hunt resided in Harborne from about 1900 until his death in 1960. The former England cricketer Dennis Amiss
was born in Harborne. In the mid/late 1990s Ocean Colour Scene
lived just down the road from the High Street. Radio show presenter Adrian Goldberg
who currently presents on Talksport was born in Harborne.
Jerome Wallington, the first person to perform as Tiny Tim in the world premier of Leslie Bricusse's Scrooge the Musical at the Alexandra theatre Birmingham and who subsequently recorded the original cast sound track at Abbey Road Studios in London was born in Harborne in 1982. Ben Richards
, currently starring in The Bill, grew up in Harborne. Keith Law lived for a while in Croftdown Road.
Soap actress, Corrinne Wicks
who is best known for her role as Dr Helen Thompson in the BBC
soap Doctors and her 2010 role in Emmerdale
, resides in Harborne.
's Gisela Stuart
. However, at local government level, Harborne ward is represented on Birmingham City Council
by two councillors from the Conservative Party
, including current council leader Mike Whitby
. The other councillor is from the Labour Party
.
In the upcoming boundary changes there is a new constituency of Birmingham Harborne created.
The ward has a Ward Support Officer.
bus routes: 11A, 11C, 22, 23, 24, 29, 29A, 448, 636 and 821. The suburb had a railway station
which opened in 1874. The station however closed to passenger traffic in 1934 and to freight in 1964.
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
city centre, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is a Birmingham City Council ward in the formal district and in the parliamentary constituency
United Kingdom constituencies
In the United Kingdom , each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one or more members to a parliament or assembly.Within the United Kingdom there are now five bodies with members elected by constituencies:...
of Birmingham Edgbaston.
Geography
As a parishParish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
, it covered an area of 3300 acres (13.4 km²), 100 acre (0.404686 km²) of which was of woodland
Woodland
Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...
and plantations.
History
There is evidence of a Roman fort at Metchley Park, near Harborne.The earliest written mention of Harborne is an entry in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
of 1086, however the settlement pre-dates this.
The spelling of Harborne has appeared with several variations through the centuries, and the derivation of the place name has often been disputed. One of the more probable suggestions is 'boundary brook', although 'high brow' and 'dirty brook' are also possibilities.
Harborne became part of the county borough of Birmingham and thus transferred from Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
to Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
in 1891 by the Local Govt. Bd.'s Prov. Orders Conf. (No. 13) Act, 54 & 55 Vic. c. 161 (local act). It then became part of the West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972
Local Government Act 1972
The Local Government Act 1972 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974....
.
Harborne railway station
Harborne railway station
Harborne railway station was a railway station in England, built by the Harborne Railway and operated by the London and North Western Railway in 1874. In addition to the passenger facilities, there was a goods shed and sidings....
, at the end of the short Harborne Branch Line off the LMS
London, Midland and Scottish Railway
The London Midland and Scottish Railway was a British railway company. It was formed on 1 January 1923 under the Railways Act of 1921, which required the grouping of over 120 separate railway companies into just four...
Birmingham-Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
line at Ladywood
Ladywood
Ladywood is an inner-city area in Birmingham, England. It is a council constituency, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the smaller Ladywood ward and the wards of Aston, Nechells and Soho. In June 2004, Birmingham City Council conducted a city-wide "Ward Boundary...
, opened on 10 August 1874 and closed on 26 November 1934. It is now the Harborne Walkway, a two mile (3 km) nature walk and cycling route from Harborne to Ladywood, where the canal can be followed either to Birmingham or Wolverhampton.
Demographics
The 2001 censusCensus
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
revealed that 21,070 lived in Harborne and that 16.5% of people were aged under 16, 62.5% were aged between 16 and 59, while 21.0% were aged over 60. The minority ethnic population made up 22.0% (4,701) of the ward’s population, compared with 29.6% for Birmingham. 61.3% of households were owner occupied and 17.6% were rented from either the local authority, housing association or other registered social landlord. The remaining 21.1% of households rented privately or lived rent free. The census found that 66.0% (10,390) of the population aged 16 to 74 were working or seeking work, this compared with 60.4% for Birmingham.
Many residents of the area are academics from the nearby University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
, as well as medical staff from nearby hospitals including the Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham is an NHS hospital in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham, situated very close to the University of Birmingham. The hospital, which cost £545 million to construct, opened in June 2010 replacing the previous Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Selly Oak Hospital...
.
Famous residents
The former Ireland andLeeds United legend Johnny Giles
Johnny Giles
Michael John "Johnny" Giles is a former association footballer and manager best remembered for his time as a midfielder with Leeds United in the 1960s and 1970s...
has been residing in Harborne for many years. From 1865 to 1870, Elihu Burritt
Elihu Burritt
Elihu Burritt was an American philanthropist and social activist.-Biography:He was born December 8, 1810, in the town of New Britain, Connecticut....
, a US Consul sent by Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
, resided in Harborne in a house called New Britain Villas, Victoria Road, which still stands. Burritt was a social activist, working to promote international peace. Harborne's most notable resident was W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
- the present day swimming baths stand on the site of his childhood home. Other famous residents include landscape painter David Cox
David Cox (artist)
- David Cox Junior :David Cox had a son of the same name who followed his calling as a watercolour painter. He was born in Dulwich, but educated in Hereford. He exhibited in London from 1827, although today he is known mainly through association with his father. He died in Streatham on 4 December...
, the composer Granville Bantock
Granville Bantock
Sir Granville Bantock was a British composer of classical music.-Biography:Granville Ransome Bantock was born in London. His father was a Scottish doctor. He was intended by his parents for the Indian Civil Service but was drawn into the musical world. His first teacher was Dr Gordon Saunders at...
and Thomas Attwood
Thomas Attwood
Thomas Attwood was a British economist, the leading figure of the underconsumptionist Birmingham School of economists, and, as the founder of the Birmingham Political Union, a leading figure in the public campaign for the Great Reform Act of 1832.He was born in Halesowen, and attended Halesowen...
who became the first MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
from Birmingham.
Edward Augustus Freeman
Edward Augustus Freeman
Edward Augustus Freeman was an English historian. His reputation as a historian rests largely on his History of the Norman Conquest , his longest completed book...
was born in Metchley Abbey in 1823 and was a noted historian appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford.
The Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winning chemist and physicist Francis William Aston
Francis William Aston
Francis William Aston was a British chemist and physicist who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery, by means of his mass spectrograph, of isotopes, in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his enunciation of the whole-number rule...
was born in Harborne in 1877. The Arts and Crafts
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
jeweller-silversmith
Silversmith
A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
George Edward Hunt resided in Harborne from about 1900 until his death in 1960. The former England cricketer Dennis Amiss
Dennis Amiss
Dennis Leslie Amiss MBE was an English cricketer and cricket administrator.Amiss suffered a serious back injury whilst playing soccer in his teenage years, which entailed him starting each day of his sporting life undergoing stretching routines to loosen up.He played cricket for both Warwickshire...
was born in Harborne. In the mid/late 1990s Ocean Colour Scene
Ocean Colour Scene
Ocean Colour Scene are an English Britpop band formed in Moseley, Birmingham in 1989. They have had five Top 10 albums and six Top 10 singles to date.-Early days :...
lived just down the road from the High Street. Radio show presenter Adrian Goldberg
Adrian Goldberg
Adrian Goldberg is a journalist and radio and television presenter.-Broadcasting career:Goldberg is a former presenter of the Breakfast Show on BBC WM...
who currently presents on Talksport was born in Harborne.
Jerome Wallington, the first person to perform as Tiny Tim in the world premier of Leslie Bricusse's Scrooge the Musical at the Alexandra theatre Birmingham and who subsequently recorded the original cast sound track at Abbey Road Studios in London was born in Harborne in 1982. Ben Richards
Ben Richards
Ben Richards is an English actor. He is best known for playing Bruno Milligan in series 4 and 5 of the British TV drama Footballers' Wives and in series 1 and 2 of its spin-off Footballers' Wives: Extra Time...
, currently starring in The Bill, grew up in Harborne. Keith Law lived for a while in Croftdown Road.
Soap actress, Corrinne Wicks
Corrinne Wicks
Corrinne Wicks is a UK actress, best known for playing Ella Hart in ITV's "Emmerdale" and Dr. Helen Thompson in the BBC daytime soap opera, Doctors, from 2000 to 2005...
who is best known for her role as Dr Helen Thompson in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
soap Doctors and her 2010 role in Emmerdale
Emmerdale
Emmerdale, is a long-running British soap opera set in Emmerdale , a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, Emmerdale was first broadcast on 16 October 1972...
, resides in Harborne.
Politics
Harborne ward forms part of the Birmingham Edgbaston constituency at Westminster, currently represented by LabourLabour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
's Gisela Stuart
Gisela Stuart
Gisela Gschaider Stuart is a German born, British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Edgbaston since 1997.-Early life:...
. However, at local government level, Harborne ward is represented on Birmingham City Council
Birmingham City Council
The Birmingham City Council is the body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local authority in the United Kingdom with, following a reorganisation of boundaries in June 2004, 120 Birmingham...
by two councillors from the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
, including current council leader Mike Whitby
Mike Whitby
Mike Whitby is an English Conservative Party politician and current leader of Birmingham City Council, a post he has held since June 2004. He is one of three Conservative councillors representing the Harborne ward in the west of the city...
. The other councillor is from the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
.
In the upcoming boundary changes there is a new constituency of Birmingham Harborne created.
The ward has a Ward Support Officer.
Public transport
Harborne is served by the National Express West MidlandsNational Express West Midlands
National Express West Midlands , formerly known as Travel West Midlands , is the trade name of West Midlands Travel Ltd , a company which operates bus services from depots in the cities of Birmingham, and Wolverhampton, as well as the boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Walsall in the West...
bus routes: 11A, 11C, 22, 23, 24, 29, 29A, 448, 636 and 821. The suburb had a railway station
Harborne railway station
Harborne railway station was a railway station in England, built by the Harborne Railway and operated by the London and North Western Railway in 1874. In addition to the passenger facilities, there was a goods shed and sidings....
which opened in 1874. The station however closed to passenger traffic in 1934 and to freight in 1964.