Back to back Transcript: 1930s Mitchell’s House
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We are now outside the Mitchell house, which is number 3 back of number 54. The Mitchell family actually
lived in this court for a hundred years. They came in the 1830s and left in the 1930s, which wasn’t very typical
of people living in the back to backs. They tended to do a ‘moonlight flit’ and move on to another house or
another court, but the Mitchell family had a great presence in this court. George Mitchell didn’t work from
home but he did work from the court. There was originally a workshop known as shopping that was over the
wash houses. That was rented out separately. The Mitchell family were a family of locksmiths from Wolverhampton, and so they used that and some of the Mitchell brothers lived in some of the other houses. This
represents the 1930s when the Mitchell family were living here, so shall we go in?
Photographs of inside the living room
Living room
(1930s song playing in the background) We are in the 1930s, there was a depression going on after the Wall
Street Crash of 1929 but there were a lot of innovative things. For a start back to backs had, by this point,
electricity, so most people could have electric light. They also, by this point, have running water in their houses. It was still cold water but it was actually tapped so that George Mitchell who was living here wouldn’t have
had to go out to the yard to collect water. He would have got straight from inside his house. Now things like
Aero bars and chocolate bars were also becoming very popular in the 1930s. They realised that milk was very
good for you. Sterilized milk was really good to have because you didn’t need a fridge for it, however they did
also encourage things like smoking to be therapeutic and so they got some things wrong and some things
right.
Now George Mitchell, when he was living here, bearing in mind that the court at its fullest had as many as sixty people living in it, by the 1930s there were only ten people living in the whole court, so there were fewer
people and George Mitchell lived here on his own, even though his family had lived in the court for a hundred
years. He was here right up until he died in the 1930s. Now we don’t know much about his family apart from
what was in the records. From some of the other houses, like the Oldfield house, we have done family history
and managed to trace descendants of theirs in Canada but for George Mitchell and his family it’s only what we
have found in the census and the trade catalogues. What we do know is that is there is a will written by his
father Ben Mitchell. His father had left in his will a piano, linen, china, all those important things that you pass
down. He had left those to his widow and daughter in 1907 and he left George £400 which was a lot of money
and enough money for him to possibly go and move to Edgbaston, a nice posh area, a nice big house but he
never did that and we have absolutely no idea what he did with his money. We can only guess: did he pay
people to come in and help him in his old age? Did he spend it on drink? We don’t know what he spent it on.
We just know that he was left £400 and he continued to live in this small house and this small court into the
1930s and so you make your own mind up as to what he did with the money.
Now other things that we have in the 1930s include radio. We’ve got a Bakelite wireless, which was very
popular. We’ve got a Box Brownie Camera over there and some photographs, lots of innovations.
Photographs of the pantry
As with the Oldfield’s house all we have is a small pantry where you could have fit a sink. Now the problem with these houses into the 1960s is that and through the 1940s is when people tried to fit other things
in but there wasn’t enough space to fit them in. So we’ve got running water now, cold water, and still
much a problem as ever was mice. They had to lay mouse traps all over the place to and prevent things
like this to try to prevent them eating their food so it was still a problem. As well as this you could also
keep a cat or something like that to get rid of the mice.
Photographs of the fireplace
Something that continued throughout the history of the back to backs is you can see that we’ve still got a
similar range. He would have done some baking because we’ve got the oven. The only difference is the
enamel cooking facilities and we’ve still got the rag rug which would have been would have been perfect
for catching flames.
Photographs of climbing the stairs and inside George Mitchell’s bedroom
George Mitchell’s bedroom
The economic standing of this court had gone down by the 1930s and continued to deteriorate. But
George Mitchell would have had, living on his own, would have a lot more space and this actually quite a
large room for him to have on his own. We’ve got a slightly posher commode and a potty under the bed.
Maybe this is what he spent his £400 on? There you go. This quite a posh one, Lid included. On the bed
he would have had a coat to keep him warm, perhaps, when it was cold in those winter nights. Here
we’ve got a hot water bottle, which would have kept him really warm. It was quite heavy when it was
filled with water. Now I’ve talked a bit about mice downstairs, swarming all over the place, but they
wouldn’t have been the only things that lived in back to backs with human beings, another issue that people would have had, because people used to flour paste for the wallpaper you’d have silver fish going
through the walls and also bugs that bugs that fell off the ceiling. There is a story about a man who as a
child used to lie on the bed poking the bugs that would fall off the ceiling with a broom handle because if
they dropped they would bite and so what his family did to try to get rid of them is build a really big fire up
and send the bugs into next door till six months later when the bugs would come back again. It was great
if you didn’t like your neighbours. Other ways to try to stop insects and things like that getting you, they
used to stick the legs of the bed into arsenic to try to stop the bugs crawling on to it. Another common
bug, as well as the fleas, lice, bedbugs and silver fish would have the house cricket. They loved the
warmth of the hearth and so you would have had crickets there.
Photographs of the stairs and the attic
Attic
We are now in the attic of the Mitchell house and here we’ve got collected memorabilia that have
been donated to the back to backs. This court was condemned for habitation in 1966 however prior
to this at least eight thousand back to backs had been demolished in Birmingham. Now this court,
even though it was condemned for habitation in 1966, people were still living here during the Second
World War and beyond it is down to the businesses that it survived. As well as the eight thousand
demolished many were blown up during the bombing of the Second World War.