| Description | Minutes of committee established in 1930 and which was in existence until 1946 to approve non-University owned lodgings for men and women students, together with partial records covering the period 1927 to 1930 of predecessor committee which approved private lodgings for women students, and minutes of reconstituted Lodgings committee which was established in 1956 and which appears to have had the same terms of reference as the earlier Lodgings committee.
Both the Women Students' Lodgings committee and the Lodgings committee reported to University Council, and the reconstituted Lodgings committee also reported to Council from its formation in 1956 to the 1960-1961 academic session. From 1961, the committee reported to Senate.
Minutes of the Women Students' Lodgings committee cover the period from 17 November 1927 to 27 June 1930. It is clear from the minutes that there had been earlier meetings of the committee, since the minute numbers for 1 April 1927 begin at 35 and the minutes refer to a previous meeting held on 1 April 1927. In addition, University Council minutes contain a copy of a report of the Women Students' Lodgings committee dated 2 June 1926 (see UB/COU/1/20)
Membership of this committee consisted of Charles Grant Robertson, the Vice Chancellor; Jane Milne, Senior Tutor for Women Students; Hilda Walton, Warden of University House; Miss Keay, Miss Hammond, Miss Collier, and the Registrar, and the Secretary. There is a reference in minutes of the meeting held on 22 June 1929 to the addition of a representative of Senate to the committee membership, and Professor Sargant Florence joined the committee.
The committee's primary responsibility was to inspect and approve private lodgings in Birmingham for women students, but it also approved lodgings for women students spending a term abroad, and considered applications from students to live with relatives. The minutes include names and addresses of relatives of students, and for private lodgings approved, and the names of householders removed from the list of approved lodgings, and the names and addresses of those who had applied for admission to the list and were not approved. Addresses and brief details about the accommodation and householders are given for accommodation abroad, mostly in France and Germany, though there are also addresses in Spain listed from the early 1930s. Addresses in Spain are not listed after 1936, presumably due to the Civil War, and no addresses in Germany are included after 1937.
Minutes of the meeting held on 17 November 1927 include a list of approved lodgings for women students which includes information about prices and the type of accommodation provided. The minutes state that every student was required to notify the secretary of the Lodgings committee as soon as a choice had been made from the list. Houses approved by the University were 'either of the hostel type, where from eight to fifteen students may live, or else they are homes where a student shares the family life - with special arrangements for study'. The minutes record that hostel type accommodation approved in the 1930s included the Birmingham Settlement, the YWCA in Selly Oak, Woodbrooke Settlement, Carey Hall, and Kingsmead, though the majority of these were usually approved as residences for Social Study Diploma students.
Minutes of the meeting held on 27 June 1930 refer to University Council's acceptance of Senate's recommendation that the Women Students' Lodgings committee amalgamate with a committee to supervise arrangements for approved lodgings for men students. Membership of this new committee consisted of the Vice-Chancellor, Warden of University House, Warden of Chancellor's Hall, Professor P. Sargant Florence, J. S. Stephens, Mrs Keay, Miss Collier, head of Edgbaston High School, Miss Hammond, Jane Milne, Senior Tutor for Women Students, and the Registrar and the Secretary. This meeting was the first held by the amalgamated committee, and the minutes record the decision to inspect the conditions of lodgings on the current approved list, and also of houses not on the approved list but where students were living, during the summer vacation before deciding whether to make it compulsory for men students to live in lodgings on the approved list, as was already the case for women students. The minutes also refer to a separate list of approved lodgings for international students, apparently drawn up following assistance from the student East and West Society. A list of lodgings for international students, dated August 1930, is included with the minutes, but minutes of the meeting held on 25 May 1932 report objections from international students to having a separate list of approved lodgings, and record the committee's agreement that the lists would be amalgamated, with residents accepting international students indicated with an asterix rather than being listed separately
Minutes of the meeting held on 27 October 1930 include a copy of the Secretary's report on the inspection of lodgings for men students, and minutes of the meeting held on 24 March 1931 confirm that Council had approved the recommendation from the Senate that all men students living in lodgings had to live in those on the approved list unless exempted by the Lodgings committee. Annual reports submitted to the Lodgings committee on the inspection of houses are included with minutes of meetings held in November each year. These reports are also included with minutes of University Council, and copies are also found in the set of Senate report books covering the period to 1945, (see UB/SEN/4)
Minutes of meetings held in 1933 and 1934 mention complaints that some students who had changed residence, particularly international students, had not notified the committee as requested, though by 1934 it appears that most were complying with regulations. Minutes of the meeting held on 24 November 1938 refer to a rule of the Lodgings committee that accommodation would be offered on lists either for men or women students and not on both lists, effectively meaning that segregation of men and women students was imposed on those living in private lodgings as well as in University owned halls of residence.
There were no meetings of the committee between June 1939 and February 1940, and the impact of the Second World War is clear from the business discussed at subsequent meetings. Minutes of the meeting held on 20 February 1940 mention that a number of women students had been affected by billeting arrangements for medical students, and were living in non-registered lodgings in accordance with arrangements made by Billeting Authorities at the Hospitals Centre. Minutes of the meeting held on 13 February 1941 mention the number of houses damaged by enemy action, and other houses where there were no ARP approved shelters or nearby public shelters. These minutes also refer to the appointment of a sub-committee for Women's Lodgings, but no records survive.
According to the minutes, lists of approved lodgings were not published during the war, but students and parents were asked to make sure that proper air raid shelters were available as well as facilities to continue study during alerts at any accommodation they rented. The minutes also state that male students not living in their own home or at Chancellor's Hall had to notify the Secretary of the name and address of the householder they proposed to lodge with before going into residence.
No formal meetings of the committee were held between February 1941 and 15 May 1944. Minutes of this meeting mention the long waiting list of women students who could not be accommodated in University House, and difficulties in finding lodgings as accommodation was being requisitioned by the billeting authorities. The minutes mention that some men students being accommodated at Beeches, Bournville, and also refer to the bequest of Winterbourne to University and the suggestion that it should be used as temporary accommodation in conjunction with University House, and the possibility that students living at home might take another student to share the accommodation. Minutes of the meeting held on 9 March 1945 refer to the need for an expanded list of approved lodgings and recommend that approaches be made to heads of schools in the locality, members of University staff, parents of undergraduates, and the Guild of Graduates, as well as repeating local advertisements, and making enquiries about using one of the 'Civil Defence' hostels in the centre of Birmingham. Minutes of the meeting held on 1 November 1945 refer to the acute need for acommodation for use as hostels for university students, and also state that, because of the increased number of students entering the university, and the increased difficulty in securing suitable lodgings, particularly for women students and for students coming from 'the Dominions', there was a need to appoint a full-time officer to supervise lodgings arrangements, to inspect lodgings, and to act in the capacity of a Welfare Officer. The minutes specify that the appointed officer should be a woman and should be attached to the Registrar's staff. Minutes of this meeting also mention problems in finding lodgings for women applicants for entry for teacher training, especially those living a distance from Birmingham.
No further minutes are recorded until 1 August 1946 which refer to the appointment of Edith Teverson, acting Warden of University House, as full-time Lodgings Warden and Assistant Woman Tutor. Minutes of this meeting also mention alterations to Winterbourne to accommodate additional students, huts provided at Chancellor's Hall for a sleeping annexe, and arrangements for international students to be housed temporarily in a new hostel in Easy Row, run in conjunction with the British Council, with a member of staff in the Oil Engineering Department to be responsible for housing Iranian students.
It appears that no Lodgings committee met between August 1946 and February 1956. Minutes of the first meeting of the reconstituted committee, held on 17 February 1956, refer to the August 1946 meeting. Membership of the committee established in 1956 consisted of the Vice-Chancellor, the University Medical Officer, Julia Friend, Warden of University House; Dr Kathleen Hall; P. C. Hordern, Warden of Chancellor's Hall, members of Council, members of academic staff, Edith Teverson, the Lodgings Warden, and the Secretary.
Meetings were held once a year, and committee minutes typically include reports of the Lodgings Warden and discuss alterations to regulations governing approved lodgings, and cases relating to individual students' problems with lodgings or students living in non-approved lodgings. The report of the Lodgings Warden for 1956 explains the procedure for the addition of lodgings to the approved list, and the inspection process. It also gives figures for the number of men and women students in lodgings from the 1950-1951 academic session to the 1955-1956 academic session. No Lodgings Warden reports are included with minutes for 1959 to 1962 inclusive, though the minutes state that copies were kept in 'minute books' which do not survive. However, minutes of University Council do include copies, and these can be consulted at UB/COU/1/54-56
Lodgings Warden reports are included again in minutes of the meeting held on 13 June 1963, and with minutes of subsequent meetings. The 1969 report mentions that the post of the Lodgings Warden and Student Welfare Adviser has been amalgamated, and contains commment on this. A section on student welfare work appears in the 1970 report and afterwards.
Minutes of the meeting held on 5 May 1966 set out changes in the membership and constitution of the Lodgings committee whereby the Wardens of University House and Manor House, and the President of Chancellor's Hall would no longer serve as ex-officio members of the committee, and the Wardens and Presidents of all halls of residence, including the new halls on the Vale site, would elect two of their number of serve on the Lodgings committee for up to three consecutive sessions.
The minutes are a valuable source of information for charting changing attitudes towards the provision of accommodation and the type of accommodation expected, on the part of both the University authorities and the student body. For example, minutes of the meeting held on 28 February 1957 include a copy of a memorandum on student accommodation by the Guild of Undergraduates expressing the need for new halls of residence, setting out some of the current problems with private lodgings including lack of standardised prices, lack of status of landladies, poor standards of accommodation, limited study facilities, lack of flexibility in provision of meals, and the inconvenient location of some lodgings, and suggesting solutions including the need for the Lodgings Warden to find landladies 'who will accommodate overseas and coloured students without discrimination'. The memorandum also raises questions about whether students could be allowed to live in flats. The 1957 report of the Lodgings Warden includes a response to this memorandum, opposing the suggestion that students might be able to live in flats, and further resistance to this proposal is expressed in minutes of the meeting held on 6 May 1958, with committee members citing concerns about the demands of domestic work, isolation, and illness going unnoticed but conceding that students over twenty one who were in their second or third year might be allowed to live in flats 'subject to careful inspection and supervision'. There is further discussion in minutes of the meeting held on 21 January 1959 about a recommendation accepted by Council and a revised regulation providing for a student over the age of twenty to request permission from the Lodgings Warden to live in flats, though there must be a responsible householder or housekeeper on the premises
The debate about whether to allow students to live in flats and the extent to which the University should exercise parental control over its students, can be followed in committee minutes dating from the 1960s. Minutes of the meeting held on 11 February 1964 include a copy of a memorandum from the Executive of the Guild of Undergraduates asking that the regulation on the occupation of flats be amended to allow mature students in any year of their degree, to live in flats. Minutes of the meeting held on 5 May 1966 contain details about further discussion of amendments to the regulations on students living in flats, mention the trend for students to prefer flats, and question whether the University should build self-catering flats in future rather than traditional halls of residence. Minutes of the meeting held on 7 November 1966 recommend the repeal of the Lodgings Regulations and their replacement with Student Residence Regulations, to be approved, and copies of both documents are included. The new regulations permitted any second year student to apply for permission to live in a flat, and the 'responsible person' claus was deleted when two or more students shared a flat. Minutes of the meeting held on 8 May 1969 contain a copy of the revised Student Residence Regulations, and minutes of the meeting held on 3 July 1971 note that, under revised regulations, students over the age of majority were no longer required to live in University approved accommodation and, with the lowering of the age of majority from twenty one to eighteen, this included almost all students. As a result of this change, the committee discussed little business relating to regulations for the remainder of its existence.
By the 1970s there were other University committees dealing with various aspects of student accommodation, so the Lodgings committee had comparatively less work. However, the Lodgings committee brought together representatives of a variety of sections of the University, and provided a link between the Lodgings Office and the Senate. A major concern for the committee during this period was the growing shortage of accommodation, partly due to increasing student numbers, but also to other factors affecting the city of Birmingham including changes in government legislation. Minutes of the meeting held on 3 June 1971 mention the joint Accommodation Survey carried out by the Secretary's Office and the Guild of Students Welfare Committee, and include a copy of a booklet on lodgings and flats entitled 'Living in Birmingham' produced by the Lodgings Warden and the Student Welfare Adviser and the chairman of the Guild of Students Welfare Committee. Minutes of the meeting held on 2 March 1972 contain discussion about accommodation shortages which be addressed by the provision of additional accommodation at the Griffin Close site, and also include a copy of a report of the Academic Consultative Conference on student accommodation convened by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals in December 1971, a copy of the University of Birmingham and Guild of Students Joint Accommodation Survey final report, with comment by the Lodgings committee on some of the points raised, and another copy of 'Living in Birmingham'
Minutes of the meeting held on 1 March 1973 include a copy of the second edition of 'Living in Birmingham' and a report on the availability of accommodation dated October 1972. The annual report of the Lodgings Warden, with in minutes of the meeting held on 7 March 1974, set out the reasons for hte accommodation crisis, which include changes to Birmingham's policy on multiple occupancy, to social security allowances which meant that it was no longer profitable to rent to students, and increasing mortgage costs which meant that young married couples were taking privately rented accommodation which had previously been used by students.
Minutes of the meeting held on 4 March 1976 note that the opening of University owned self-catering accommodation at Maple Bank had alleviated the lodgings crisis, but the annual report of the Lodgings Warden for 1975-1976 mentions the effects of the Rent Act 1974, which protected tenants' rights, on householders who had previously rented to students. By this point, the Lodgings Warden's student welfare responsibility included the allocation of places in the University Day Nursery, and the management of the welfare problems of parents and children as well as typical student finance and accommodation issues, and a certain amount of welfare and counselling, though the 1976-1977 annual report mentions that there was now a full-time Welfare Officer in the Guild of Students. Minutes of meetings held during the 1970s routinely include copies of annual reports of the Lodgings Warden and record the committee's comment on the reports. The annual reports themselves contain statistics on term-time resident, visits to the Lodgings Office, figures for sub-standard accommodation reported or inspected, and visits made by Lodgings Office staff.
Further shortages of accommodation are referred to in minutes of the meeting held on 3 March 1977 in which the Lodgings Warden's annual report describes accommodation pressures, and the decline in the amount of privately-owned accommodation available for students, due in part to the student popularion in Birmingham increasing faster than the provision of accommodation. The Lodgings Warden's report included with minutes of the meeting held on 8 March 1979 mentions the lease of Birmingham City Council-owned flats to the University for single and married students, and later editions of 'Living in Birmingham' are included with minutes of the meetings held on 2 March 1978 and 8 March 1979. These refer to the proposed development of the 'Triangle' site, possibly off Pritchatts Road, and the growing student preference for self-catering accommodation.
Minutes of the meeting held on 6 March 1980 include a photocopy of extracts from 'Strangers in Birmingham' published by Birmingham International Council for Overseas Student Affairs, setting out the difficulties faced by international students in finding accommodation, and the different experiences of students depending on gender and ethnicity, with some comment on incidence of racial discrimination. These minutes also include a copy of a University of Birmingham information leaflet for overseas postgraduate students 1980-1981. Minutes of the meeting held on 17 February 1981 refer to the development of the Tennis Courts site, and include a copy of a paper for the Lodgings committee and Senate on the accommodation of first year students and arrangements resulting from University policy to guarantee a place in university accommodation for all first year students. It was stated that this policy prompted the need to restructure the student accommodation committees to ensure that the commitment could be met, and the minute also contain a copy of a paper transmitted by the Halls of Residence committee on the possible formation of an Accommodation committee with oversight and representation of all University-owned accommodation
There are no minutes for the meeting held on 3 March 1982, but the meeting papers include a copy of the joint report of the Halls of Residence committee and Lodgings committee to the Senate on the proposed committee structure for student accommodation, with the aim of creating a more coherent structure which would include university-owned self-catering accommodation, with the finance and business side of halls management remaining the responsibility of Council and the Finance and General Purposes committee, and a newly re-organised Financial sub-committee for Student Residences.
The terms of reference of the proposed new Student Accommodation committee were to be the academic and social aspects of student accommodation, and the committee would have general oversight of all university-owned residential accommodation for students and would exercise same kind of watch over students in lodgings and flats as the Lodgings committee did. It would be a forum for the discussion of policy matters which affected, or were affected by, the accommodation of students, and would report to Senate. The report states that membership would consist of the Vice-Chancellor, four members of Seante to be appointed by the Academic Executive, the Adviser to Overseas Students, the Registrar, two Senior Common Room Presidents, two Junior Common Room Presidents, one of the non-resident Wardens of the self-catering units, and three students nominated by the Guild of Students, one of whom must be resident in a self-catering unit. It was expected that the Guild of Students would nominate the chairman of the Guild Accommodation sub-committee, and the University Medical Officer, Lodgings Warden, and Halls Administrator would also attend. It was suggested that there should be an assembly of all the Presidents of the Senior Common Rooms and Junior Common Rooms, to meet regularly to discuss matters of common concern and to brief their representatives on the Student Accommodation committee, and this assembly would have official status as a sub-committee of the new Student Accommodation committee, which would have authority to create sub-committees and delegate to them as appropriate.
No discrete records of the Student Accommodation committee survive, though copies of the committee's annual reports to Senate, including the annual report of the Student Accommodation and Welfare Officer, are included with Senate minutes from 1983 to 1999. It is possible that Housing Services then took over the responsibilities of the Student Acommodation committee, as copies of the Housing Services annual report are included with Senate minutes from 2000 onwards. See UB/SEN/1 for Senate minutes, though closure periods have been imposed on more recent sets of minutes |