Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local history and industrial history.The museum/gallery is run by Birmingham Museums Trust, the largest independent museums trust in the United Kingdom, which also runs eight other museums around the city. Entrance to the Museum and Art Gallery is free, but some major exhibitions in the Gas Hall incur an entrance fee.
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts is an art gallery and concert hall in Birmingham, England. It is situated in purpose-built premises on the campus of the University of Birmingham.
The Grade II listed Art Deco building was designed by Robert Atkinson in the 1930s and opened in 1939 by Queen Mary. The first building to be purpose-built for the study of art history in the United Kingdom, it was described by architectural historian Sir John Summerson as representing "better than almost any other building the spirit of English architecture in the 1930s." The layout of the museum is centred on a central concert hall which is surrounded by lecture halls, offices and libraries on the ground floor and art galleries on the first floor.
In the 2005 Penguin Books publication Britain's Best Museums and Galleries, the Barber Institute was one of only five galleries outside London to receive five stars for having "Outstanding collections of international significance" .
The University of Birmingham is a public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham and Mason Science College , making it the first English civic or 'red brick' university to receive its own royal charter. It is a founding member of both the Russell Group of British research universities and the international network of research universities, Universitas 21.
The student population includes 22,940 undergraduate and 12,505 postgraduate students, which is the fourth largest in the UK . The annual income of the institution for 2017–18 was £673.8 million of which £134.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £663.2 million.The university is home to the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, housing works by Van Gogh, Picasso and Monet; the Shakespeare Institute; the Cadbury Research Library, home to the Mingana Collection of Middle Eastern manuscripts; the Lapworth Museum of Geology; and the 100-metre Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower, which is a prominent landmark visible from many parts of the city. Academics and alumni of the university include former British Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Stanley Baldwin, the British composer Sir Edward Elgar and eleven Nobel laureates.
The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists or RBSA is an art society, based in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, England, where it owns and operates an art gallery, the RBSA Gallery, on Brook Street, just off St Paul's Square. It is both a registered charity, and a registered company .
West Midlands Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England.
Covering an area with nearly 2.9 million inhabitants, which includes the cities of Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and also the Black Country; the force is made up of 6,495 Police Officers . In 2014 there were 7,162 officers, 611 are from a BAME background, supported by 3,131 Police Staff, 188 Special Constables and 506 Police Community Support Officers – with these 10,884 employees, this makes it the third largest force in England and Wales behind the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police; and the fifth-largest force in the United Kingdom after Police Scotland and Police Service Northern Ireland .
The force is currently led by Chief Constable Dave Thompson. The force area is divided into ten Local Policing Units , each being served by four core policing teams – Response, Neighbourhood, Investigation and Community Action & Priority – with the support of a number of specialist crime teams. These specialist teams include CID, traffic and a firearms unit who provide a twenty-four-hour availability to attend reported incidents involving the use of firearms and knives.
From comparative data published by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary for the twelve months up to September 2013, West Midlands Police recorded 62.93 crimes per 1000 population against an average for England and Wales of 61.39. Total recorded crime was down 3% on the same period the previous year against an average of a 3% fall nationally. Detection rates for the same period were 23% against a national average of 29% and victim surveys indicated 84.76% of victims were satisfied with overall service provided by West Midlands Police compared against a national average of around 85%.
West Midlands Police is a partner, alongside Staffordshire Police, in the Central Motorway Police Group. The force is party to a number of other resource sharing agreements including the National Police Air Service.
Aston University is a public research university situated in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Aston began as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, evolving into the UK's first College of Advanced Technology in 1956. Aston University received its royal charter from Queen Elizabeth II on 22 April 1966.
Aston pioneered the integrated placement year concept over 50 years ago, and more than 73% of Aston students take a placement year, the highest percentage in the UK.
The Library of Birmingham is a public library in Birmingham, England. It is situated on the west side of the city centre at Centenary Square, beside the Birmingham Rep and Baskerville House. Upon opening on 3 September 2013, it replaced Birmingham Central Library. The library, which is estimated to have cost £188.8 million, is viewed by the Birmingham City Council as a flagship project for the city's redevelopment. It has been described as the largest public library in the United Kingdom, the largest public cultural space in Europe, and the largest regional library in Europe. 2,414,860 million visitors came to the library in 2014 making it the 10th most popular visitor attraction in the UK.
