Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/232

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220
SHOWELL'S DICTIONARY OF BIRMINGHAM.

otherwise might have had to pine away in the close-built quarters of this and neighbourhood towns. The buildings, which will accommodate sixty persons, were opened April 16, 1873, and take the place of a smaller establishment to which Miss Ryland hid devoted for some years a house at Sparkbrook. The average number of inmates is put at fifty, and the number who pissed through the house in 1883 was 1,052. the expenditure for the year being £1,780 8s. The income was derived from annual subscriptions, £901 10s.; special subscriptions, £347 11s. 6d.; paid by hospitals for maintenance of patients, £192 6s.; grant from the General Hospital, £26 5s.; share of Hospital Saturday collection, £211 0s. 4d. The Secretary, from whom all information can be received as to terms of special and other tickets, is Mr. E. J. Bigwood, 3, Temple Row West.

Servants' Home and Training Institution, established in 1860, finds shelter for a time to as many as 210 young women in the course of a year, many looking upon it as the only home they have when out of a situation. In connection with it is a "training School" and laundry, where a score or more girls are taught. Both parts of the institution pay their way, receipts and expenditure (£180 and £350 respectively) generally balancing. The Servants' Home is at 30, Bath Row, where there is a Registry for servants, and also for sick and mouthy' nurses.

Town Mission—Established in 1837, and re-modelled in 1850. This institution seeks work in a variety of ways, its agents visiting the homes of the poor, the wards of the Hospitals, the lodging-houses, and even the bedsides of the patients in the smallpox and fever hospitals. In addition to the providing and looking after the "Cab-men's Rests," of which there are sixteen in the town, the Mission employs a Scripture reader specially to deal with the deaf and dumb members of the community, about 200 in number. At the Noel Road Refuge (opened in 1859) about 40 inmates are received yearly, and at Tindal House (opened in 1864) about half that number, the two institutions having (to end of 1883) sheltered 1,331 females, of whom nearly a thousand have been brought back to moral and industrious habits. The income of the Society for 1883 was £1,690 17s. 3d., the expenditure being a little over that amount, though the laundries connected with the Refuges more than pay their way. The office is at the Educathional Chambers, 90, New Street.

Young Mens Christian Associahtion.—Instituted in 1849; incorporated in 1873. For many years its meetings were held at the Clarendon Chambers, but when the notorious "Sultan Divan" was closed in Needless Alley, it was taken for the purposes of this institution, the most appropriate change of tenancy that could possibly be desired, the attractions of the glaring dancing-rooms and low-lived racket giving place to comfortable reading-rooms, a cosy library, and healthy amusements. Young men of all creeds may here find a welcome, and strangers to the town will meet friends to guide them in choice of companions, or in securing comfortable homes. — A similar Association is that of the Church of England Y.MC.A., at 30, Paradise Street, which was commenced in 1849, and numbers several hundred members.—At a Conference held Nov. 24, 1880, it was decided to form a Midland District Union of Y.M.C.A.s in this and the surrounding counties.

Young Women's Christian Association, 3, Great Charles Street.—The idea of forming an institute for young women was first mooted in 1874, a house being taken for the purpose in Colmore Row in 1876, but it was removed to Great Charles Street in 1882, where lodgings may be obtained for 2s. 6d. a week. From returns sent in from various branches in connection with the Association, it would appear that the number of members in Bir-