Cropwood Open-Air School was one of several open-air schools operated by Birmingham Council for "the sick children of Birmingham" from 1911 for the next seventy years - children with respiratory and other illnesses who would benefit from the, then, revolutionary new ideas of treatment for conditions of that type. The schools appeared in the Birmingham area through the initiative, far-sightedness and astonishing generosity of the Cadbury family. Uffculme (1911) was the first, purpose-built by the Cadburys on land donated by the family and it was followed by Cropwood, Hunter's Hill, Marsh Hill, Haseley Hall and Skilts.

Cropwood, a girls-only school,  was located at Blackwell.  It had previously been a holiday home for the Cadbury family.  Many children enjoyed its benefits from the early 1920s onwards. Among them was a girl named Marlene Milroy. She was a pupil between 1951 and 1953, at the age of 11 to 13, and was cured of childhood asthma during her time there. In that period Miss Eveline Boothroyd was Headmistress; she served from 1938 to 1952 and was succeeded by Miss Marjorie Urquhart who remained there for the next 17 years.  Marlene retained many images of her time there, a few of them official photographs but the majority personal snapshots.

This website page contains all the surviving photographs.

THE HOUSE

Open-air classrooms and, above, dormitories

PEOPLE

Miss Boothroyd and her companion/carer, Miss Davis, holding Leater, one of Miss Boothroyd's two dogs

Miss Boothroyd, with bouquet and Miss Davis's caring arm, at an open day at Cropwood

Cropwood  nurses

Marlene (right) and her friend, Margaret Hall, both from Woodgate.                                       Miss Soar

Unidentified young member of the teaching staff, shortly to leave in order to marry

Marlene in the garden, wearing the standard summer frock made on the premises by the seamstress

Mr. and Mrs. Jack Milroy, Marlene's Mum and Dad, who live and farm at Woodgate, are on a visit to see their daughter and are standing by Cropwood's open-air swimming pool

GROUPS

Marlene in jokey glasses, in the centre of the middle row

Cropwood girls at an open day; Marlene on the right, next to Rex, the visiting Milroy family farm dog.

Miss Taylor; Marlene in the centre of the front row

In the rhododendron-lined driveway, in Cropwood School uniform; Marlene - extreme left

Class I stirs the Christmas pudding, December 1952; Marlene stands left-centre, at the back

And the two smallest girls in the School have a go..... DISPLAYS AND PAGEANTS

Class I; Marlene - third from right; a girl named Pat - extreme right

Miss Taylor, left, conducts the dancing of the younger children in Class II

Participants in an identified biblical pageant.

AND......

Leater and Ivory, Miss Boothroyd's two dogs