page_title: Birmingham Civic Society
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Birmingham Civic Society / History
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Kings Norton Park towards St Nicholas's Church. Land given to the city by The Birmingham Civic Society
context_page_description: Birmingham Civic Society is a voluntary body in Birmingham, England, and is registered with the Civic Trust.
context_section_description: The society was founded at an inaugural meeting on 10 June 1918 in the Birmingham Council House. The first President of the Society, the Earl of Plymouth, addressed the assembled Aldermen, Councillors, Architects and other city worthies at that first meeting. He stated the aims of the Society, which were:
  to bring public interest to bear upon all proposals put forward by public bodies and private owners for building, upon the laying out of open spaces and parks, and generally upon all matters concerned with the outward amenities of the city and district. It will insist that taste is a thing that matters, and if any offence against taste is challenged at the outset, great good will be done, and converting of mean and unlovely parts of the City will gradually follow.
  Sir Gilbert Barling Bt CB CBE was the Society's first Chairman and William Haywood was the first Secretary. Its principal objectives were the stimulation of historical interest in the city, the preservation of buildings and monuments of historic worth, the prevention of vandalism and the promotion of a sense of beauty and civic pride in the lives of citizens.
  Immediately upon its foundation the Society received from an anonymous trust the sum of £15,000 (equivalent to around £596,000 in 2016) to buy land for open spaces, the land later to be vested in the Birmingham Corporation. As a result, several areas of land were purchased, transformed into parks and handed over to the City authorities. In most cases the Civic Society has retained until the present the right to be consulted about the management of these parks. Two notable parks in this gift were Kings Norton Park (25½ acres in October 1920) and Highbury Park (42 acres in 1923).
  From its earliest days the Society has taken a prominent role in advising on and lobbying for improvements to the physical development of the city. This has progressed from 1919 when it lobbied for improvements to the (then) village of Northfield right up to the present. Often, the Society has commissioned its own plans for developments either at the request of the City Council or on its own initiative. In some cases, such as the refurbishment of the Chamberlain Memorial Fountain in 1978 and the creation of formal gardens in some city parks, it has provided the funding needed to bring about the developments in question.
  The Society has also taken a number of publishing initiatives. The first of these in 1919 was an illustrated pamphlet on the right use of the City-owned portion of the Lickey Hills, followed by a Guide to Sutton Park, containing a selection of articles and a picture map of the whole park. The Society’s most recent publication is its Heritage Buildings Guide, published in 2003 with a distribution of over 500,000 to date.
  The cultural life of the city has also benefited from the Society's attentions. On its recommendation, the City Council set up an Advisory Art Committee in 1922; it played a critical role in saving the Repertory Theatre from closure in 1924, and again in 1934–35. The link with the Repertory Theatre continues through ex officio membership of the Sir Barry Jackson Trust which holds the shares of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Ltd. The Centenary Concert for Birmingham Town Hall in 1934 was organised in the manner and form suggested by the Society jointly with the City of Birmingham Orchestra.
  During the Second World War the Society played a pivotal role in saving Edward Burne-Jones' stained glass windows in Birmingham Cathedral from exposure to bomb damage. The Society had them removed and later reinstalled, whilst during the interim, most of the other windows were blown out by heavy bombing. It has worked successfully with the City Council in organising major events; in the 1920s it organised the city's Armistice Day commemorations and more recently this involved being the Council's principal partner in celebrating the bi-centenary of the Battle of Trafalgar and the 80th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth.
  The Society has played a leading role in preserving the city's statues, especially in the 1950s when m
caption: Kings Norton Park - a gift from the Society to the City of Birmingham
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