![]() ![]() īearwood Primary School appointed Tony O'Connor as head teacher in 1967. Soon after, this was converted into a gurdwara today known as the. In 1961, the Sikh community purchased the Congregational Church on the High Street in Smethwick. ![]() This came two years after race riots had hit the town in 1962 it was also set against a background of factory closures and a growing waiting list for local council accommodation. In the election, the Labour Party MP was unseated following the use of the campaign slogan, "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour" allegedly being used by supporters of the winning candidate. The ethnic minority communities were initially unpopular with the white British population of Smethwick, prompting the election of Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) Peter Griffiths at the 1964 general election. After the Second World War, Smethwick attracted a large number of immigrants from Commonwealth countries beginning in 1945, the largest ethnic group being Sikhs from the Punjab in India, the majority of whom had served in the Second World War. Īfter the First World War about 50+ Sikh families settled in Smethwick beginning in 1917, with a majority of the men being veterans of the war. A total of 80 people died as a result of these air raids. ĭuring the Second World War, Smethwick was bombed on a number of occasions by the German Luftwaffe. Many English churches have stained glass windows made by Hardman Studios in Lightwoods House, or, before that, by the Camm family. The Ruskin Pottery Studio, named in honour of the artist John Ruskin, was in Oldbury Road. The mass council house building of the 1920s and 1930s also involved Smethwick's boundaries being extended into part of neighbouring Oldbury in 1928. Ĭouncil housing began in Smethwick after 1920 on land previously belonging to the Downing family, whose family home became Holly Lodge High School for Girls in 1922. The important metalworking factory of Henry Hope & Sons Ltd was based at Halford's Lane where the company manufactured steel window systems, roof glazing, gearings and metalwork. ![]() Nearby, in Downing Street, is the famous bicycle saddle maker, Brooks Saddles. Phillips Cycles, once one of the largest bicycle manufacturers in the world, was based in Bridge Street, Smethwick. Other former industry included railway rolling stock manufacture, at the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Company factory screws and other fastenings from Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds (GKN) engines from Tangye tubing from Evered's steel pen nibs from British Pens and various products from Chance Brothers' glassworks, including lighthouse lenses and the glazing for the Crystal Palace (the London works, in North Smethwick, manufactured its metalwork). The seal carries the Latin motto " Orbis Terrarum Officina" ("The Workshop of the World") and depicts a James Watt engine, a lighthouse (representing Chance Brothers glass works), a gasometer and a blacksmith working at his anvil. ![]() Ĭigarette card issued in 1906 by Wills's Cigarettes, depicting the Borough of Smethwick's "seal used in place of arms". Work at the site later came to a standstill because of a crisis in the construction industry. In 2015 the site was being cleared to build the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital which aims to combine the Sandwell General Hospital at West Bromwich and City Hospital, Dudley Road. The site was later used by the GKN company. The company was bankrupted in 1855 by the failure of an overseas railway to pay for work done. His notable employees included William Siemens, the notable mechanical and electrical engineer. This was founded by Charles Fox, whose inventions included the first patented railway points. One notable company was The London Works, manufacturing base of the Fox Henderson Company which made the steel framework for the Crystal Palace. It is now at Thinktank, the new science museum in Birmingham. The world's oldest working engine, the Smethwick Engine, made by Boulton & Watt, originally stood near Bridge Street, Smethwick. Harborne became part of the county borough of Birmingham and thus transferred from Staffordshire to Warwickshire in 1891, leaving Smethwick in the County of Staffordshire. Until the end of the 18th century it was an outlying hamlet of the south Staffordshire village of Harborne. Smethwick was recorded in the Domesday Book as Smedeuuich, the d in this spelling being the Anglo-Saxon letter eth. It was suggested that the name Smethwick meant "smiths' place of work", but a more recent interpretation has suggested the name means "the settlement on the smooth land". Street nameplate on Rutland Road, Smethwick in April 2007, showing painted out "County Borough" lettering, and the former postal district 17 ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |