Academics and community groups in Birmingham – led by the University – will collaborate as never before to mark the centenary of the First World War. March 21 will see the public launch at the new Library of Birmingham of one of only five centres across the country set up to commemorate the Great War and its legacy.
The library will be the focus for workshops, exhibitions and wide-ranging research on how the conflict has shaped the past
100 years in a £500,000 project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
That the University is co-ordinating the ambitious scheme is thanks to Professor Ian Grosvenor, Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for Cultural Engagement, who led the consortium bid application for funding to set up the commemoration centre.
‘The five centres will work with communities to collaboratively co-produce research on World War One and its legacy,’ explains Ian. ‘What that means is that community groups will come forward with ideas, and we will work with them to deliver their project, which might be the history of a war memorial, the famous Zeppelin raids over Walsall or how children on the Home Front were affected by the war.’
These small-scale community projects will be funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to the tune of between £3,000 and £8,000 per scheme.
Ian, who wrote the bid, is the principal investigator, and heads a team of two co-investigators, both from the University, and academics from four other universities in the region – Birmingham City, Newman, Worcester and Wolverhampton. In addition, there are 24 cultural partners, including the Cheltenham Festivals, the BBC and the Ecumenical Commission.
In fact, marking the 100th anniversary of the Great War was on Ian’s agenda 18 months before the AHRC and HLF invited bids to open centres around the country. ‘In January 2011, I co-convened a working group with Toby Watley of the Birmingham Museums Trust and Chris O’Neil of Birmingham Institute of Art and Design to see what we as a city were going to do to commemorate World War One,’ he recalls. ‘We invited people we thought would be interested to come along – and we’ve been meeting every two months since then, trying to co-ordinate what we are going to do. As a result, we are probably the best-organised city in the country.
‘So when the call went out for bids for what was originally seven commemoration centres, I already had in place local partners who wanted to put on events and conduct research about World War One, and all of them were very interested in the idea of a centre in Birmingham.’
As well as exploring afresh the impact of the First World War on communities in Birmingham and the Midlands, Ian and his team have also had to identify themes of national importance.
‘We’ve identified certain themes we think we can lead on: one is gender and the Home Front – what happened to families – which is being led by Professor Maggie Andrews from the University of Worcester. Another is commemorations, led by Dr Joanne Sayner, and a third is the whole issue of religion and belief – the rise of spiritualism, the role of army chaplains, Quakers and pacifism – and that’s being led by Dr Michael Snape. Birmingham is a good place to do this because of its cultural diversity and its non-conformist history.’
Marking the anniversary of the war itself is important, but the commemoration is more far-reaching than that, says Ian.
‘It’s not just about what happened between 1914 and 1918; it’s the legacy of the war. For example, by 1916, training programmes for soldiers with disabilities were being held in the Jewellery Quarter; by 1930, child guidance clinics had been set up – almost certainly the result of the emotional turmoil caused to youngsters during the Great War.
‘How did people in the 1930s mark the First World War and was it different from how they marked it in the 1970s? How has the interpretation of World War One and its causes changed over the years? ‘When I wrote the bid, I had to write about what would make our centre distinctive, and I wrote about the city’s cultural diversity and the fact that Birmingham has the youngest population in Europe, raising the question of what it means to young people in Birmingham. How does World War One connect with their lives? And what’s the relevance of the war to Birmingham’s black population?’.
Ian acknowledges that such a commemoration is politically sensitive, because the past is always open to interpretation.
‘Our role in this centre is to support communities engaging in those interpretations. This is not about “we won”; it’s to critically step back and think about what the enormous conflict meant and still means – and what it does for our sense of community. I think only good will come out of it.’
The centre – based in the new library because the building is a magnet for visitors to the city – is being co-ordinated by Dr Nicola Gauld. It offers, says Ian, a ‘fantastic’ opportunity for the University to work more closely with the wider community and conduct research in a different way.
‘Civic engagement is part of the University’s strategic framework, and this is a fantastic opportunity for us to engage with the city. Research council funding now comes with an expectation of public engagement. But many of us have never worked this way – so one of the big outcomes of this will be to give academics the experience of working on a small scale with communities in order to produce research.
‘So this centre and attendant projects are about marking a significant event in history, but also about offering opportunities for outward-looking universities such as Birmingham to engage with the wider community and build relationships that will be important for the future.
‘As the principal investigator, I’m responsible for managing it and the budget and making sure we deliver the project, along with working collaboratively with all the other centres.’
As well as doing justice to the memory of World War One, Ian is confident the commemoration will lead to further funding and raise the profile of the University and its partners.
‘The centre will have to have a legacy – that of understanding the best ways of working with universities. That will be very valuable and has the potential to change the way we conduct research.’
By Ros Dodd